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Updated: May 15, 2025
What the Cerra de los Atambores might be, we could not tell, but when we had followed the valley for an hour or so, it came into view. On the other side of the stream rose a precipitous cliff, several hundred feet high, and near the top a perpendicular wall of rock was carved with rude designs. People have supposed, it seems, that these carvings represented drums, and hence the name.
What is the monocotyledonous plant* that furnishes these admirable reeds? We saw on the slope of the Cerra Duida shirt-trees fifty feet high. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces two feet in diameter, from which they peel the red and fibrous bark, without making any longitudinal incision.
Ney rashly remained on the east side of the river Cerra, in front of the village of Foz d'Aronce and, being attacked suddenly, was driven across the river with a loss of 500 men; many being drowned by missing the fords, and others crushed to death in the passage. However, Ney held the line of the river, blew up the bridge, and his division withdrew in good order.
For a little while our path lay through a sort of suburb of Chalma, houses lying near one another, each surrounded by a pleasant garden, and both houses and people looking prosperous and cheerful. Our directions for finding the way were simple enough. We were to go up the valley past the Cerra de los Atambores, "the hill of drums," and the great ahuehuete.
The advance was retarded by the necessity of making bridges across the Cerra, which was now in flood, and the delay enabled Massena to fall back unmolested to Guarda; where he intended to halt, and then to move to Coria, whence he could have marched to the Tagus, effected a junction with Soult, and be in a position to advance again upon Lisbon, with a larger force than ever.
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