cowboys of the Orinoco, if we may give them this title, were, like
their leader, of Indian blood. Neither they nor their general knew
anything about military art, and felt lost when taken from their native
plains, a fact which was shown when they were called upon to follow
Bolivar in his mountain expedition against New Granada. Neither persuasion
nor force could induce them to leave the plains for the mountains. Bolivar
and Paez entreated them in vain, and they declared that rather than go to
the hill-country they would desert and return to their native plains,
where alone they were willing to fight. This was their only act of
insubordination under their favorite leader, who usually had complete
control over them. He made himself one with his men, would divide his last
cent with them, and was called by them uncle and father. His
staff-officers were all llaneros and formed his regular society, they
being alike destitute of education and ignorant of tactics, but bold and
dashing and ready to follow their leader to the cannon's mouth.

The British Legion, about six hundred strong, was in the last year of the
war attached to the llaneros corps, its members being highly esteemed by
Paez, who called them "my friends, the English." The soldiers of the
legion, however, were bitterly opposed to their commander, Colonel
Bossuet, whom they held responsible for the miserable state of their
rations and clothes and their want of pay. At the end of one day, which
was so scorchingly hot that the soldiers were excused from their usual
five o'clock parade, the legion rushed from their quarters at this hour
and placed themselves in order of battle, crying that they would rather
have a creole to lead them than their colonel.

Their officers attempted to pacify them, but in vain, and the
lieutenant-colonel, against whom they had taken offence, was attacked and
mortally wounded with bayonet thrusts. When Colonel Bossuet appeared and
sought to speak to them they rushed upon him with their bayonets, and it
needed the active efforts of the other officers to save him from their
revengeful hands. Tidings of the mutiny were brought to General Paez in
his quarters and threw him into a paroxysm of rage. Seizing his sword, he
rushed upon the mutineers, killed three of them instantly, and would have
continued this bloody work but that his sword broke on the body of a
fourth. Flinging down the useless weapon, he seized some of the most
rebellious, drag