Читать книгу The Life of Sir Henry Morgan. With an account of the English settlement of the island of Jamaica онлайн

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His advanced guard swam across the river Reventazon, and at the hacienda of Don Alonso de Bonilla, sargento-mayor of the province, they surprised a party of native labourers, whom they tried to capture to prevent them giving an alarm. A Christian Indian, named Estaban Yapiri, escaped by swimming the stream under fire, and ran to his distant home at the village of Teotique, where he informed the curate, Don Juan de Luna, who sent a warning message to Cartago. The governor, Don Juan Lopez de la Flor, had already been warned by the President of the Audiencia of Panama to be on his guard against a probable attack. He was a veteran soldier, long schooled in the wars of Flanders, and had ordered the militia to be in readiness. After receiving this information before daybreak on April 14, he instructed the sargento-mayor, Alonso de Bonilla, who is described as the worthy descendant of a conquestador, to reconnoitre the road leading toward Matina with four trusty scouts. Captain Pedro de Venegas followed in support with thirty-six regular soldiers, having orders to build barricades in the narrow defile of Quebrada Honda, through which the raiders must necessarily pass. Next day larger bodies of horse and foot were sent forward to man these defences, under officers bearing the honoured names of Alvarado, Bolivar, and Guevara. Lastly the governor himself took the field with six hundred men, ill-armed but resolute, for, as the modern historian of the country avers with pride, these Spanish colonists had not, like so many others, lost the soldierly qualities of their ancestors. The bracing climate of the mountains had maintained their physical strength, and constant conflicts with the Indians had trained them for military life.