t some of them appeared in, on their five mile flight
to the watering beach. Boats were armed, and companies detailed for
service; but another violent extraordinary arrived, and for the time we
remained passive. The next evening, a detachment of five-and-twenty
marines left the ship for shore. We were a long time disembarking, as
the surf was breaking ten feet high upon the open beach. Skirting along
thickets around the town, we marched up a valley, through a deep sandy
road, for more than two leagues, before reaching our destination. It was
a little hamlet, called _cerrillos_, of miserable ranchos, lying upon
the side of a hill, where we had hopes of meeting a party of
_guerrillas_. Our arrangements were quickly made--men posted--pieces
cocked--the houses summoned successively--but, alas! for our
anticipations of a skrimmage, the birds had flown some hours before,
leaving but a few old people and children in the place. I was sadly
disappointed, for I had an extremely perilous path to explore in getting
to my station--no more nor less than charging, full leap, through a
large corral of sheep and cattle--with half a dozen fixed bayonets close
at my heels--the bullocks jumping right and left, in great affright,
and I expecting every instant some rampant bull ahead to toss me into
the air, or a sharp bayonet to stick me in the rear; nor did I feel
relieved, until the muzzle of my carbine struck the door of the rancho,
and I found breath to cry, halt! to the party. After a deal of praying
and screeching, from the shrill throats of women and children, the door
fell, and, by the glare of a flickering torch, an old lady tremblingly
approached, with a baby in each arm, crying, _Somas pobres, senor, ave
purissima! no hay mas que esos! tome ad un nino, por el amor de
Dios?_--we are poor, but take a baby, for the love of God. We generously
declined the good woman's kindness, and succeeded in allaying her alarm,
by the assurance that we were in search of men, and not infants. Truly,
it has a tendency to jar one's nerves, this storming a person's house
with armed men in the dead of the night.

We had a dreadfully fatiguing march back, and had there not been many
rivulets to quench thirst, some of us would have been thoroughly
exhausted. Entering the town at eight o'clock, we learned with surprise,
that the friends whom we went in search of had been making night hideous
in the village itself, and only decamped towards daylight on our