314 VILLARINO— CONSTITUCION. May
houses were ransacked and burned, and all their animals driven
away. Since that time the frequent predatory excursions of
minor parties of Indians have prevented the settlers from again
attempting to coUect animals in large numbers, seeing that they
would assuredly tempt the aborigines to repeat their attacks on
a greater scale than ever. The old man, who was one of Villarino’s
party,* gave Mr. Darwin some information about that
expedition, which entirely corroborates the interesting account
of Basilio Villarino himself, who made his way, by excellent
management, and extreme perseverance, to the foot of the
CordiUera, though surrounded by Indians suspicious of his
intentions. He managed so dexterously as to make one tribe
become his firm friends and assistants; and behaved so well
himself, in his own enterprises, as well as in his conduct to
those under him, as to have obtained their hearty co-operation
during eight long months. But he was soon afterwards savagely
murdered hy the natives during another exploring expedition.-f
The old man said that ViUarino was much guided by the
account of an Englishman,] whose description of the river and
Indian country was found to be very accurate. Mr. Darwin
heard several anecdotes of the Indians, and their attacks upon
the Christians (so they term all white men) which interested me
very much; hut as I suppose they wiU be found in his volume,
it is unnecessary here to do more than allude to them.
On the 12th May Mr. Usborne, in the Constitución, anchored
in the river, and next day put himself under Mr. Stokes’s orders;
to whom Lieut. Wickham gave up the charge of this branch of
the survey, and then went on board the Constitución to hasten
towards Maldonado. On the 17th all three little vessels sailed,
Lieut. Wickham steering for the Plata, and Mr. Stokes for
San Bias.
From this time tiU the Paz and Liebre were discharged, in
* Bowman of his boat (lancha).
t Sir Woodbine Parish has given an abridged translation of Villarino’s
Diary in the Journal of the R. Geogr. Society for 1836, vol. vi, part ii,
pp. 136—167. i Falkner evidently.
1833. MR. STOKEs’s PARTY. 315
August,* Mr. Stokes and his party were most zealously occupied
between the Negro and Blanco Bay; but time was too
fully occupied in the uninteresting, though useful works, of
sounding, measuring, observing, and chart-making, to admit
of many notices of the country being obtained in addition to
those already mentioned; indeed the nature of the coast, almost
flat, uninhabited, without trees, and fronted hy extensive sandbanks,
precluded the possibility of acquiring much information
not of a technical nature.
r
Already mentioned, p. 288.