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36 mountain! He is the most thorough topographer, the only map which a general consults in directing the movements of his campaign. The Baqueano is always at his side. Modest and mute as a garden-wall, he is in possession of every secret of the campaign; the fate of the army, the issue of a battle, the conquest of a province, all depend upon him. The Baqueano almost always discharges his duty with fidelity, but the general does not place full confidence in him.

Conceive the situation of a commander condemned to be attended by a traitor, from whom he has to obtain the information without which he cannot succeed. A Baqueano finds a little path crossing the road which he is following; he knows to what distant watering-place it leads. If he finds a thousand such paths, some of them even a hundred leagues apart, he is acquainted with each, and knows whence it comes and whither it goes. He knows the hidden fords of a hundred rivers and streams, above or below the ordinary places of crossing. He can point out a convenient path through a hundred distinct and extensive swamps. In the deepest darkness of the night, surrounded by boundless plains or by forests, while his companions rare astray and at a loss, he rides round them inspecting the trees; if there are none, he dismounts and stoops to examine the shrubs, and satisfies himself of his points of compass. He then mounts, and reassures his party by saying, "We are in a straight line from such a place, so many leagues from the houses; we must travel southwards." And he sets out in the direction he has indicated, without uneasiness, without hurrying to confirm his judgment by arriving at the