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Rh by San Martin. At the same time San Martin advised the Government and his friend Guido that he had arranged with the Indians for supplies of cattle and horses, and for help in his expedition, without in any case giving a hint of his real intentions.

Marcó, harassed by the alarming news sent him by his supposed spies in Mendoza, and annoyed by the guerillas under Martin Rodriguez, who infested the country between the Maule and the Maipó, and sacked villages even in the vicinity of the capital itself, adopted most ill-conceived and contradictory measures. He fortified the ports and organised a flotilla to act against an imaginary naval force, which his spies in Cuyo informed him had already left Buenos Ayres. He cut trenches in the pass of Uspallata; made a map of the southern provinces, and a survey of the mouths of the passes in that district; strengthened the guards at all the passes; after concentrating his troops, scattered them again all over the country; and followed the example of San Martin by holding a great conference with the Indians of Arauco.

The policy of San Martin was successful; the Captain-General of Chile attempted to defend the whole of his frontier and had no idea where the real attack was to come from. One only of his many councillors advised him to concentrate the army on the capital, and there make ready for whatever might happen. Instead of that, he increased the general discontent by arbitrary exactions, till all classes of the people longed for the appearance of San Martin and made ready to help him as best they could. Small parties of troops were on several occasions attacked and routed by armed bands of the peasantry, and the bandit Neyra made himself famous by similar exploits.

In the encampment at Mendoza matters were far different; there methodical activity and automatic obedience blended with intelligent enthusiasm; there one far-seeing will reigned supreme. There everything was known that Marcó either thought or did, each man worked diligently