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278 the sacrifices they had made. In fifty days La Serna was ready to assume the offensive. At Callao there was great provision of arms much needed in the Highlands; the garrison, if left alone, must soon succumb to hunger. A carefully selected division of 2,500 infantry and 900 horse, with seven guns, was put under command of Canterac, with Valdés as chief of the staff, and sent to the relief of the beleaguered stronghold, while La Serna remained with the rest of the army at Jauja.

Canterac marched on the 25th August, crossed the Cordillera, and descended by the pass of San Mateo towards Lima without meeting a single foe. At Santiago de Tuna, fifty miles from the capital, he divided his force into two columns, with orders to concentrate at Cienaguilla, eighteen miles to the south of Lima. Loriga, with the left column and nearly all the cavalry, went by the defile of Espiritu Santo, cutting to pieces a small Patriot force on his way.

The main column, under Canterac himself, kept straight on for the valley of Rimac, to give the Patriots the idea that he was marching straight on the capital; but during the following night he turned off to the left, seeking the other road by Espiritu Santo. The way was across the slopes of the mountains, over an unknown country where there was no water, and which was so cut up by abrupt descents that horsemen and infantry alike lost their footing and fell over precipices. The unpopularity of the Spaniards was so great that they could not find one guide in all the transit. On the 4th September they reached a barren stretch of sand over which, dying of thirst under a tropical sun, they plodded wearily along; two companies could have destroyed them all. The soldiers threw themselves on the ground utterly prostrate; immediate promotion was offered to the first who should find water; not a man stirred. Yet they were little more than a mile from the river Lurin. At last Canterac himself found water; and those who were strong enough to move filled flasks