About this time continual tumults were created in the neighbouring town of St. Jeronymo by Debayakaikin, who, as I have related, was always either threatening or assaulting. Ychoalay, believing our Alaykin to be amicably inclined towards that Cacique, and privy to his machinations to the hurt of the Riikahés, entertained an implacable hatred towards him on that account, and left nothing unattempted which might cause trouble to his hordesmen. It is best to trace these feuds and disturbances to their very origin. For full fifteen months after their settling in the colony of Concepcion our Abipones refrained from annoying the Spaniards in any way, and faithfully preserved the peace established between them. One horse was the destruction of Troy; it was likewise the cause of mischief to this colony. One of the Spaniards, who brought us the two thousand cows purchased by the Governor of Tucuman from the estates of Sta. Fè, secretly carried off a very excellent horse. This was heavily complained of by the owner, who, to indemnify himself for the loss, stole fourteen choice horses, by night, from some estate belonging to Sta. Fè. The affair being discovered, Ychoalay, who always kept two spies in our town, came with the Spaniard to whom those horses belonged, and brought them home again in spite of the Abipones. This recovery, effected not without mutual threats and injuries, excited our Abipones to renew their former acts of rapine. Troops of the younger Abipones, to show that Ychoalay, though supported by the Spaniards, was no object of fear to them, used to break into the estates of Sta. Fè, for the purpose of carrying off horses, the Abipones, their superiors in age and station, not daring to object, and we Jesuits being kept in ignorance of the fact, or vainly inveighing against it. Ychoalay, provoked at hearing of the horses which our pillagers had taken, flew alone and unarmed to our colony, where he held forth to the inhabitants, from the horse on which he sat, about instantly restoring the horses of the Spaniards. But he was scoffed at by many of the by-standers, and called a rogue and a knave by Alaykin, whose son Pachiekè, the chief of the plunderers, challenged him to single combat by aiming at him with an arrow, to which Ychoalay, scorning so youthful an adversary, bared his breast. Provoked by these insults he betook himself to my house, saying, "Your people will not listen to me; what I cannot obtain by words, I will extort by arms. If they do not restore the horses forthwith, I shall return in three days, and insist upon a battle, and I now hasten home to collect as many soldiers as possible." After passing the night with us, he returned in great anger to his colony. All our endeavours to pacify and divert him from his purpose were vain; our Abipones too withstood our entreaties, choosing to endure the worst rather than restore the horses they had plundered. My companion, presaging all sorts of disasters, whatever were