Note 15 — Chapter IV · IN MID-ORINOQUIA
Reading edition
It was the Llaneros who during the war with Spain contributed so much towards achieving the independence of both Venezuela and New Granada. Under their leader, Páez, they allowed the Spanish army no peace day or night. Armed with their long lances, they seemed to be ubiquitous and pursued their enemies with unrelenting fury. And the novelty of their methods of warfare—an anticipation of those so successfully employed by the Boers in their recent war with England—were such as quite to disconcert those who rigidly adhered to the tactics in vogue in Europe. On one occasion Páez dislodged a large detachment of Spaniards by driving wild cattle against them, and then, burning the grass by which they were surrounded, utterly destroyed all of them. How like De Wett’s methods in the Transvaal!15