CHAPTER XLIV. COROLLARY TO THE EVENTS DETAILED IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER. No one will deny that my Abipones performed wonders, beyond all expectation, and even belief, when it is considered that twelve of them not only held out for some hours against six hundred savages, but even repulsed them. Amid such a cloud of arrows no Abipon received any injury but the man I mentioned, and a boy of twelve years old, who, being awakened from sleep by the neighing of the horses, and the shouts of the combatants, was slightly wounded in the leg by an arrow, as he chanced to look out of his tent. We concluded that many of the enemy had been wounded from seeing two here and there seated on the same horse, and because breastplates of hard antas' skins were found next day in the plain covered with blood, and pierced with weapons. An Abiponian youth, who had been stationed in a secure place, bravely defended a flock of our sheep, which the enemy made frequent attempts to carry off, by continually shooting arrows, and succeeded in preserving it untouched. Fain would I bestow some commendation on those four noble Spanish guards; but, alas! no sign of bravery or dexterity could I discover in either of them: one discharged his musket at the moon, and another did not even know how to load his, for he put the ball in first, and then the gunpowder, so that the one prevented the other from catching fire. Other instances of stupidity, which I observed in their comrades' method of handling their arms, I have neither time nor inclination to commemorate. Blockheads of this kind were sent us by the captains for the defence of the colonies, whilst the more skilful, the more active, those in short that alone deserved the name of Spaniards, were left at home to increase their property.