, and how a new
revolution made it a republic and Yturbide was shot as a traitor--belong to
that later history of the Spanish American republics in which revolution
and counter-revolution continued almost annual events.
PAEZ, THE LLANERO CHIEF, AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM.
On the 3d of June, 1819, General Morillo, the commander of the Spanish
forces in Venezuela, found himself threatened in his camp by a party of
one hundred and fifty daring horsemen, who had swum the Orinoco and
galloped like centaurs upon his line. Eight hundred of the Spanish
cavalry, with two small field-pieces, sallied out to meet their
assailants, who slowly retired before their superior numbers. In this way
the royalists were drawn on to a place called Las Queseras del Medio,
where a battalion of infantry had been placed in ambush near the river.
Here, suddenly ceasing their retreat, and dividing up into groups of
twenty, the patriot horsemen turned on the Spaniards and assailed them on
all sides, driving them back under the fire of the infantry, by whom they
were fearfully cut down.
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