It was believed that there were already six or seven hundred Indians together, and that in summer their numbers would be doubled.
Ambassadors were to have been sent to the Indians at the small Salinas, near Bahia Blanca, whom I have mentioned that this same cacique had betrayed.

The communication, therefore, between the Indians, extends from the Cordillera to the coast of the Atlantic.
General Rosas's plan is to kill all stragglers, and having driven the remainder to a common point, to attack them in a body, in the summer, with the assistance of the Chilenos.

This operation is to be repeated for three successive years.

I imagine the summer is chosen as the time for the main attack, because the plains are then without water, and the Indians can only travel in particular directions.

The escape of the Indians to the south of the Rio Negro, where in such a vast unknown country they would be safe, is prevented by a treaty with the Tehuelches to this effect;--that Rosas pays them so much to slaughter every Indian who passes to the south of the river, but if they fail in so doing, they themselves are to be exterminated.