So full of conversation was he, and seemingly so anxious to please, that our stay was prolonged beyond all expectation; and we were disappointed in the pleasure of an evening with Mr. and Mrs. C——, whose country-seat lies between Palermo and the city.
CHAPTER XVI.
Buenos Ayres.
February 25th.—The Argentine confederation, composed originally of thirteen states, joined together in compact, but not by constitution, under the style of the United Provinces of La Plata, has become practically consolidated and merged in the State of Buenos Ayres. Being the only province possessed of a sea-port, and enjoying an extended commerce, she was encharged by the others with the management of the foreign relations of the confederacy. This naturally made her the controlling power; she increased while the rest decreased. The result was a division of the people of the provinces into two parties, and speedy conflict and anarchy. At this juncture Rosas raised his standard, and subdued the whole to his sway; and though nominally only governor of the city and province of Buenos Ayres, encharged with the sole ministration of the foreign affairs of the confederacy, he is, in fact, the despotic ruler of the whole.
He is the most remarkable chieftain in South America; possessing all the elements of character essential to the successful despot: firmness, energy, shrewdness, subtlety, unscrupulous purpose, and unfaltering cruelty. Sprung from a Spanish family of respectability in Buenos Ayres, the recklessness of his early youth led to his removal by them to what is here termed the “Camp”—the open country of the pampas, over which are scattered the estancias, or estates of landed proprietors, for the raising of cattle, sheep, and horses. Here, among the gauchos, or demi-savage peasants of the interior, he was made an overseer by a wealthy relative in Buenos Ayres. Adopting the usages and habits of savage life of the people, he became, in the course of years, thoroughly a gaucho; and distinguished himself by the control he acquired over his associates, and over the scarcely more untamed Indians of the southern territory. He excelled in all the personal qualities and feats of skill most prized by them, and gained their unlimited favor. The reputation thus established, first called the attention of partisan leaders in the confederacy to him; and secured for him, as early as 1820, from the party in power the appointment of colonel of the militia of the southern frontier. In this position he gained additional reputation and new popularity; till, fired with ambition, he began in 1829 to lay the foundations for the despotism which he has since exercised. Having secured the favor of the good among the people, by the evidences he had given of a power to win the confidence and to control the will of the wild men around him, he is charged with the determination of gaining that of the evil, by making his camp the sanctuary of every class of criminals; and thus surrounding himself—with the deliberate purpose of making the use of them he afterwards did—by an organized band of assassins. Whether this be true or not, it is an undoubted fact that, after being placed at the head of the government, he soon put an end to all hazard of rivalry in power, by processes of bloodshed and assassination through such minions of his favor, almost beyond belief. Volumes might be written, as volumes already have been, upon the tragedies with which, from time to time in his early rule, he startled and terrified the community, till every one was brought to the subjection of abject fear: all this, too, under the pretence and plausible plea of sustaining the law and securing public quietude and order.
The justification which he himself pleads, for acts of cruelty which are admitted, is that “the Argentines can only be governed with the knife at their throats;” and the highest vindication of his character which I have heard from some foreigners, who do not believe in the extent of the atrocities with which he is charged, and are disposed even to admire him as a man and a ruler, is that his faults are to be attributed to the defects of his education and his habits as a gaucho—that he is but a type of the people. This may be true; but what is the state and character of the people—the gauchos of whom he is the type? The best description I have seen of them, is in a pamphlet by the Chevalier de St. Robert, a French gentleman, who visited the Plata officially. This you may not be able to refer to, and I furnish the extract in point.
He says: “There is nothing to be found in the Pampas—those immense plains which extend over a space of more than seven hundred leagues, from the extreme north to the extreme south of the Argentine Confederation—but estancias, or farms, scattered here and there, which form so many petty republics, isolated from the rest of the world, living by themselves, and separated from each other by the desert. Alone in the midst of those over whom he is a complete master, the estanciero is out of every kind of society whatsoever, with no other law than that of force, with no other rules to guide him but those that are self-imposed, and with no other motive to influence than his own caprice. There is nothing to disturb his repose, nothing to dispute his power, or interfere with his tranquillity, except the tiger that may lurk about his grounds, or the wild Indian that may occasionally make a hostile incursion on his domains. His children and his domestics, gauchos like himself pass the same sort of life; that is to say, without ambition, without desires, and without any species of agricultural labor. All they have to do is to mark and to kill, at certain periods, the herds of oxen and flocks of sheep which constitute the fortune of the estanciero, and that satisfy the wants of all. Purely carnivorous, the gaucho’s only food consists of flesh and water—bread and spirituous liquors are as much unknown to him as the simplest elements of social life.
“In a country in which the only wealth of the inhabitants arises from the incessant destruction of innumerable herds and flocks, it can easily be understood how their sanguinary occupation must tend to obliterate every sentiment of pity, and induce an indifference to the perpetration of acts of cruelty. The readiness to shed blood—a ferocity which is at the same time obdurate and brutal—constitutes the prominent feature in the character of the pure gaucho. The first instrument his infantile hand grasps is the knife—the first things that attract his attention as a child, are the pouring out of blood and the palpitating flesh of animals. From his earliest years, as soon as he is able to walk, he is taught how he may with the greatest skill approach the living beast, hough it, and, if he has strength, kill it. Such are the sports of his childhood: he pursues them ardently, and amid the approving smiles of his family. As soon as he acquires sufficient strength, he takes part in the labors of the estancia; they are the sole arts he has to study, and he concentrates all his intellectual powers in mastering them. From that time forth he arms himself with a large knife, and for a single moment of his life he never parts with it. It is to his hand an additional limb—he makes use of it always, in all cases, in every circumstance, and constantly with wonderful skill and address. The same knife that in the morning has been used to slaughter a bullock, or to kill a tiger, aids him in the daytime to cut his dinner, and at night to carve out a skin tent, or else to repair his saddle, or to mend his mandoline.
“With the gaucho the knife is often used as an argument in support of his opinions. In the midst of a conversation, apparently carried on in amity, the formidable knife glitters on a sudden in the hands of one of the speakers, the ponchos are rolled around the left arm, and a conflict commences. Soon deep gashes are seen on the face, the blood gushes forth, and, not unfrequently, one of the combatants falls lifeless to the earth; but no one thinks of interfering with the combat, and when it is over, the conversation is resumed as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. No person is disturbed by it—not even the women, who remain as cold, unmoved spectators of the affray! It may easily be surmised what sort of persons they must be, of which such a scene is but a specimen of their domestic manners.