At the same time the Secretary of War sent Walker his commission, he informed him that the Director desired him to organize a force to act against the enemy in the Meridional Department; that Col. Ramirez had been ordered to raise two hundred natives, and to report with his command to Col. Walker as soon as he was ready to march; and that the civil and military officers at Chinandega and Realejo had been ordered to give him any assistance he required in the way of supplies and transportation for the force intrusted to his charge. Chapter Second. RIVAS, JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, 1855. Immediately after receiving the dispatches of the Government placing him in command of an expeditionary force to act against the Legitimists at Rivas, Walker began to prepare the _Falange_, as the Americans were henceforth called, to march to Realejo whence they were to sail on board the Vesta for a point in the Meridional Department. The stores, both commissary and ordnance, were sent by ox-carts to Realejo and thence by bungos to the brig anchored off Point Ycaco. On the 23d, three days after the order reached Chinandega, the force was aboard ready for sailing. Ramirez had been backward in his movements and showed little disposition for the enterprise, deeming it hazardous and ill-advised. He was evidently influenced by the words of Muñoz, whose disapproval of the expedition to Rivas was well known. So much did the opinion of his superior, Muñoz, control his conduct, that he made small effort to enlist the number of men—two hundred—the Director assigned as the strength of the native force. When the Vesta was ready for sea, not many more than one hundred natives mustered on her decks. Among the officers with Ramirez was Mariano Mendez, a pure Indian who had been engaged in revolutions and counter-revolutions from his youth upward. With violent passions and uncontrolled desires he had a courage and experience which made him at times useful to the men who were in the habit of attempting political changes for personal objects; and when active service was required, they would put the old chief on a good horse with a stout lance in his hand, and reasonably expect from him the most hazardous enterprises. Utterly unfit for civil life and incapable of being subjected to the rigid rules of military law, he was a dangerous tool and an unreliable friend. He would not serve under Ramirez, and obeyed no orders except those from Walker himself. Aboard of the Vesta his principal amusement was to spread his blanket on the deck and gather a crowd of soldiers about him for his favorite game of Monte. Once the money of the bettors was on Mariano’s blanket, it mattered little, so far as the fate of the cash was concerned, whether the cards ran for or against him; it was honor enough, so Mendez thought, and so some of the men seemed to think, for a soldier to bet with a Colonel of Lancers, as he claimed to be; and to lose his money was, with the soldier, a pleasant