Our course had lain eastward all day, and the sun was fast sinking to the western horizon, whence we had come, when an exclamation from one of the rancheros, who had risen to see to the perfect security of the horses, drew our attention to a point whither he directed our view, by a motion of the arm. Long and intense was the gaze, but our European eyes could discover nothing, till a telescope was obtained from the traveling case of one of my friends, which soon satisfied us that a large body of horsemen were advancing rapidly along the very track we had come. It was a moment of deep anxiety—what was to be done? Were we to wait and take the chance of its being a friendly tribe of Indians or travelers? We could not have a chance of escape on the jaded horses we had so hardly tasked during the day, so, from inevitable necessity, we determined, friend or, foe, to await them where we were. Rapid were the preparations made to fight, in case they proved to be enemies. The horses were saddled, some spare arms furnished to the guides, and rifles and pistols being looked to, each man beside his horse, and drawn up in line, we awaited the result. Nearer and nearer they approached; the lower edge of the sun had dipped beneath the horizon, and anxiously we prayed for darkness, when the guides pronounced the advancing party to be strange Indians. Still clear light remained, and onward yet they came. Their very number was appalling; sixty at least were in view, and as they bent forward over their horses, and urged them on, the wild gestures of their arms seemed to announce our doom, and to forewarn us that our bones would bleach on the wild Pampas of Central America. It was no time, however, for reflection. Their yells sounded in our ears, and they advanced in a dense body within two hundred paces of the position we had taken. Then came a halt, and out from the main body rode a single Indian. The savage strode his horse without saddle or any other appurtenance than a raw hide strap, formed into a bridle, with which he managed his steed. His arms consisted of a bow and arrows, slung across his back, with a long hunting-knife and heavy tomahawk suspended from his belt; his followers were mounted and armed like their chief, none possessing fire-arms. Slowly he rode forward some hundred yards nearer than his people, till he paused in a position where the rifle of any of the party could have ended his days. But we were in no position to commence hostilities, so we wisely refrained from such a useless sacrifice of life. We still had a hope that the tribe in whose presence we were, formed no part of that whose chief fell in the morning; and, in order to ascertain the fact, one of the guides addressed the chief in a _patois_ of the Indian tongue, but—although the attempt was renewed by the two others, it called forth no response. He still continued calmly gazing at us.