the first, Fort Ingles, could be approached being by a
precipitous path, along which the men could only pass in single file;
the fort itself being inaccessible except by a ladder, which the enemy,
after being routed by Major Miller, had drawn up.

As soon as it was dark, a picked party, under the guidance of one of
the Spanish prisoners, silently advanced to the attack, expecting to
fall in with a body of the enemy outside the fort, but all having
re-entered, our men were unopposed.

This party having taken up its position, the main body moved forward,
cheering and firing in the air, to intimate to the Spaniards that their
chief reliance was on the bayonet. The enemy, meanwhile, kept up an
incessant fire of artillery and musketry in the direction of the shouts,
but without effect, as no aim could be taken in the dark. Whilst the
patriots were thus noisily advancing, a gallant young officer, Ensign
Vidal--who had previously distinguished himself at Santa--got under the
inland flank of the fort, and with a few men, contrived unperceived to
tear up some pallisades, by which a bridge was made across the ditch,
whereby he and his small party entered, and formed noiselessly under
cover of some branches of trees which overhung it, the garrison
directing their whole attention to the shouting patriots in an opposite
direction.

A volley from Vidal's party convinced the Spaniards that they had been
taken in flank. Without waiting to ascertain the number of those who had
outflanked them, they instantly took to flight, filling with a like
panic a column of three hundred men, drawn up behind the fort. The
Chilians, who were now well up, bayoneted them by dozens, in their
efforts to gain the other forts, which were opened to receive them; the
patriots thus entering at the same time, and driving them from fort to
fort into the Castle of Corral, together with two hundred more, who had
abandoned some guns advantageously placed on a height at Fort
Chorocomayo. The Corral was stormed with equal rapidity, a number of the
enemy escaping in boats to Valdivia, others plunging into the forest;
whilst upwards of a hundred, besides officers, fell into our hands, the
like number being found bayoneted on the following morning. Our loss was
seven men killed, and nineteen wounded.

The Spaniards had, no doubt, regarded their position as impregnable,
which, considering its difficulty of access and almost natural
impenetrability, it ought to have