Though just recovering from a dangerous illness, Bolivar lost no time in taking advantage of Olaneta's revolt. His army numbered nine thousand men; it was well supplied with cavalry, and the troops received their liberal pay punctually. The patriots advanced rapidly and unopposed over the Maritime Cordillera, covered by a cloud of Peruvian guerillas, under whose protection Sucre marked out the daily route and brought in provisions. The city of Pasco, just south of that transverse range which forms the northern limit of the great Peruvian plateau, was reached and Bolivar's army hastened south along the western shore of the lake of Reyes to the marshy plain of Junin at its southern end, where he met Canterac hurrying up from Jauja with a slightly inferior force. When Bolivar caught sight of the royalist army he held his infantry back in a defensible position, and sent his cavalry toward the enemy. Canterac rashly charged in person at the head of all his cavalry, but instead of the easy victory he expected, his squadrons were thrown into some disorder when they encountered the patriot lancers. The latter, however, were compelled to retreat, and fled into a defile, followed by the royalists. The royalists did not notice that a Peruvian squadron had been drawn aside, and scarcely were they in the defile than they were charged from the rear. The fugitive patriots in front rallied, and the disordered and huddled royalists, caught between two fires, could make no effective resistance. They were quickly cut to pieces and driven from the field. The whole affair had not lasted three-quarters of an hour; the numbers engaged did not much exceed two thousand; the royalist loss was only two hundred and fifty, yet this battle of Junin produced almost decisive results. As the fugitive cavalry rode up to the protection of the muskets of the infantry, the latter retreated. Though Canterac was not pursued, he did not stop in his precipitate flight until he had nearly reached Cuzco, five hundred miles away, losing two thousand men by desertion on the road.