Page:A history of Chile.djvu/321

THE PERUVIAN WAR 291 that at Tiviliche was abandoned. About seven hun- dred men were sent ashore in boats under cover of a lively cannonading from the fleet. This force was checked at the beech by the brisk firing of the Boli- vian Indians in the rifle-pits and upon the bluff, but there troops landed and the firing became so hot that the beach was soon covered with the dead, the men- of-war all the time pouring in a tremendous rain of shot and shell. For five hours the defenders held out. General Buendia hourly expecting reinforcements. The Chileans had conducted the landing with much pluck and enterprise, leaving their boats behind them, officers and men vying with each other in deeds of valor. The town was carried, and step by step, fighting for every inch of ground, the Chileans pushed up the bluff and dislodged the defenders, who fled up the railroad. The Chileans lost two hundred and thirty-five in killed and wounded; the losses of the defenders do not seem to be accurately known, but were probabl}' equal to that of their opponents. The allies retreated up the railroad to La Noria and Peiia Grande and in a few days formed a junction with troops from Iquique and other points south. The Chileans soon after gained possession of the railroad for a distance of fifty miles to Agua Santa; the main body of the army occupied the heights of San Francisco, which were intrenched, and Jaspampa, where General Escala established his headquarters. Here they awaited reinforcements. On the 6th, an advanced body of one hundred and seventy-five cavalrymen under Colonel Jos6 Franciso Vergara, in making a reconnoissance at Jeramia near Agua Santa, fell in with a small mounted party of Peruvians, commanded by a young man named Jos6 Ventura Sepulveda. Seventy out of the ninety-four Peruvians were sabered and left. dead upon the field.