Bolivar commenced his passage through the defile on the morning of the 24th, and halted in dismay as he reached the outlet.  It was too apparent that such a conflict as lay before him could not be braved.  At this moment Paez learned that a narrow side-path existed, permitting the passage of a single file, which led, by a detour, to the plain.  It was one of those curious accidents on which the fate of battles seems to hang; and after some hesitation, Bolivar permitted Paez to venture the passage.  Heading the famous Battalion of Apure, he at once wheeled to the left, and commenced the toilsome march.  One by one the veterans struggled through the pass, but they were discovered by La Torre before they issued upon the plain.

Although taken entirely by surprise, the Spaniards had time for a partial change of front, and before the veterans of Apure had assembled at the mouth of the pass, a volley of musketry rang out from the Spanish lines, and the gleaming of bayonets told of a wall of steel across the path.  The scanty force of Paez, however, dashed from the ravine, and, forming hastily, rushed upon the enemy.  Four Royalist battalions converged upon them, and they were crushed.  They fell back, flying in disorder, and the Spaniards were on the point of securing the pass, when a shout arose before them that made the stoutest quail.  With one ever-memorable cheer, a long hurrah, which spoke of well-known unconquerable determination, the British legion, less than eight hundred strong, with their Colonel, John Ferrier, at their head, appeared at the mouth of the ravine.  Forming instantaneously and in perfect silence, but with the accuracy of a regiment on parade, they threw forward their bayonets, and knelt down, sedately, calmly, immovably, to confront destruction.  The remaining troops of Bolivar were in their rear, traversing slowly the defile; and until they reached its mouth, that living wall of Anglo-Saxon valor neither stirred nor blenched.  Volley after volley enfiladed their ranks, and, after each discharge, the mass of men was smaller.  Still their cool and ceaseless firing rolled death into the ranks of the enemy, until at length the troops whom they had saved from destruction rallied once more.  Then, what remained of the legion, headed by the two or three officers whose lives had been marvellously preserved, rushed fiercely forward like an avenging flame, and swept before them the affrighted Spaniards, wildly scattering at the onslaught which it was impossible to withstand.  In another moment, eighty or ninety of the lancers of Paez issued from the ravine, and, hurling themselves upon the broken enemy, turned the defeat into an utter rout.  La Torre’s troops, with the exception of one regiment, fled in disgraceful confusion, or perished by hundreds under the lances of the implacable pursuers; and on the evening of the 24th of June, Bolivar, encamped upon the Plain of Carabobo, laid his hand upon the shoulder of Jose Antonio Paez, thenceforward General-in-chief of the Armies of the Republic of Colombia!