It was manifest that the impunity with which these outrages were committed arose mainly from the total absence of any protection on the part of the government for those settlers who had advanced their estancias beyond the old forts within the line of the Salado, and the public voice called loudly for some prompt remedies for the evil, the most efficacious of which appeared to be the adoption of some one of the many plans from time to time proposed for a new line of military posts to cover the rural population south of that river; the hilly ranges of the Vuulcan, especially, seemed to present a natural frontier which it appeared only necessary to occupy to secure the object; but the information respecting all that part of the country was still exceedingly imperfect; and it was determined, therefore, in the first instance, to send out an exploratory expedition to examine them. This led to Colonel Garcia being again called upon to proceed to the south, with the double object of endeavouring to induce the Indians to enter into an arrangement with the government of Buenos Ayres for a new boundary as the basis of a general pacification, and of acquiring precise information as to the most eligible positions for the establishment of military posts in the hilly ranges in that direction. The communications he had had twelve years before with the leading Caciques of the tribes inhabiting the country eastward of the Salinas led him vainly to hope that those tribes at least might be brought to acquiesce peaceably in the views of the government, and, provided they were left in possession of the lands they occupied in the vicinity of the Sierra Ventana, that they would not oppose the occupation by the Buenos Ayreans of the more northern line of the Vuulcan and Taudil; but Garcia was not aware of the great change which had taken place in the feelings and policy of the Indians, from a variety of circumstances, since his journey to the Salinas in 1810. The messengers, however, sent forward to announce his mission were well received, and a respectable deputation, headed by Antiguan, one of their principal chiefs, was sent forward to meet and to conduct the ambassador and his suite to their toldos at the foot of the Sierra Ventana, where the Caciques of the Puelches proposed the negociations should be opened, promising to invite thither at the same time representatives from all the tribes of the Pampas, not excepting the Ranqueles, and the Huilliches or People of the South, inhabiting the lands as far as the rivers Colorado and Negro.