Indeed, the break-up of all Spanish authority had been doubly fatal to the natives, by removing all protection, and leaving them to the self-interested violence of the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier consideration.
In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of General Rosas, the lot of these poor creatures was specially cruel.

A war of extermination was carried on against them, and eighty had at one time been shot together in the market-place of the capital.

Nothing could be done towards reclaiming them while so savage a warfare lasted; but Gardiner hoped to push on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of Chili, and he took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many strange hardships and adventures; but he found always the same story,--the Indians regarded as wild beasts, and, acting only too much as such, falling by night on solitary ranchos, or on lonely travellers, and murdering them, and, on the other hand, being shot down wherever they were found.
With great difficulty and perseverance he made his way to the Biobio river, leaving his family at Concepcion, the nearest comparatively civilized place.

Here he meant to make his way to a village of independent Indians, with whose chief, Corbalan, he had hopes of entering into relations.
To cross the rapid stream of the Biobio, he had to use a primitive raft, formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen feet long, lashed together by hide-thongs to two poles, one at each end.

A horse was fastened to it, by knotting his tail to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy, holding on by the single lock of the mane that is allowed to remain on Chilian horses, who guided him across with much entreating, urging, and coaxing.