[Footnote 188:  There is some ambiguity in the text, from which it is difficult to ascertain whether the left and right hand of their general line of march is now to be respectively considered as south and north, or the contrary.  But as coupled with their intended return towards the great river, now to the east, the left means probably the north, and the right the south.—­E.]

[Footnote 189:  Though not mentioned in the text, it is not improbable that Gallego had formerly placed considerable dependence on the use of holy oil, or chrysm.  The whole secret of his surgery seems to have consisted in the application of bland oils, and leaving nature to operate, without the employment of the ancient barbarous methods of cure, by tents, escharotics, cautery, and heating inflammatory applications; which in modern times, abandoned by surgeons, have been adopted by farriers.—­E.]

After leaving the territories of the cow-herds, the Spaniards marched for twenty days through the lands of other tribes.  Being of opinion that they had declined too much from, the direction of Guachacoya, to which place they now proposed returning, the Spaniards now directed their course eastwards, still inclining somewhat towards the north, so that in this way they crossed the direction they had formerly gone in their march from Auche to the country of the cow-herds, yet without perceiving it.  When at length they reached the great river, it was the middle of September, having travelled three months from leaving Guachacoya; and though they had fought no pitched battle during all that time, they were never free from alarm night or day, so that they had lost forty soldiers during this last useless and circuitous march.  The Indians on every opportunity shot all who happened to stray from the main body, and would often crawl on all fours at night into their quarters, shoot their arrows, and make their escape, unseen by the centinels.  To add to their distresses, the winter now began to set in, with much rain, snow and excessive cold weather.  On coming to where they proposed quartering for the night, though wet, cold, weary and hungry, they were obliged to send parties in advance to secure them, generally, by force, and after all were mostly under the necessity of procuring provisions by means of their swords.  Besides all this, they were often forced to construct rafts or floats on which to pass rivers, which sometimes occupied them five or six days.  The horsemen were frequently obliged to pass the night on horseback, and the infantry to stand up to their knees in mire and water, with hardly any clothes to cover them, and such as they had always wet.  Owing to these accumulated hardships, many of the Spaniards and their Indian attendants fell sick, and the distemper proceeded to the horses, so that sometimes four or five men and horses died in a day, and sometimes seven, whom they scarcely had leisure to bury for haste in pursuing their march.