Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

It was in the carriage of Madame E——, a sister of the fallen Dictator, that the party made the excursion. This lady herself made one of their number; and, under the favoring auspices of the American minister, sought the presence of the chief, who now occupies the palace, and wields the power, so long and so recently in the undisputed possession of her brother. The avenues and corridors of Palermo were crowded with mothers, sisters, and daughters, pressing for audience, on like errands of mercy. The suits of many of whom, I am happy to add, were not in vain, but most promptly and generously accorded. Such were the scenes amidst which Mr. Turner passed his first day here. Those of the second, in a ride of fifteen miles, to the battle-field, under the guidance of an adjutant and the protection of a guard furnished by Urquiza, were, if possible, more exciting and more revolting to the feelings, and scarcely bearable in the disgust created. The whole way was marked with evidences of the completeness of the overthrow; and the scene of the conflict, strewn for miles with the bodies of the slain lying still unburied. The whole atmosphere was tainted with the effluvia of the dead, both of man and beast, and sad demonstration given on every side of the horrors of war.

It was his representation of the state of affairs that led me—the marriage of my friends Miss H—— and Dr. R—— having been duly celebrated, and the crew of the Congress still in the process of a general liberty—to the determination of making the visit of a few days. I came up in the propeller, still bearing a naval pennant: embarking on the evening of the 10th, and arriving the next morning.

On landing, I found every hotel and lodging-house crowded to overflowing, with officers, naval and military, both natives and foreigners, and with strangers from various quarters, who had hastened to the capital on hearing the result of the conflict. After long search, I was able to secure a small sleeping-room only, in a public house of very inferior order; and suffered so much during the night from the oppressive heat, fleas, and mosquitoes, as to have made up my mind by morning, to return to the Congress the same day. During my former visit, I had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Lore and Mrs. Lore, of the Wesleyan Methodist mission here, and had been so much interested in them by the brief intercourse, as to be unwilling to take my departure now without a call at the parsonage, of a few minutes at least. Here I was most cordially welcomed; and the cause of my intended return becoming known, they at once laid an interdict upon my purpose, and constrained me to accept a room in the parsonage, in their power to offer, and the kind hospitality of their house.

I had brought with me from the Congress, with the purpose of affording him a peep at Buenos Ayres, one of the lads of the ship, who had been commended to my special care by an excellent widowed mother at home, and who had merited this indulgence by long-continued good conduct in his position on board ship. His leave of absence extended to the passing day only; and, knowing that he was especially anxious to visit Palermo, I applied to Mr. Lore, as soon as it had been determined that I should remain, for aid in securing a vehicle to take the drive with him. This he at once gave; but in place of a carriage from a livery stable, as I intended, he soon appeared with the handsome equipage of one of his parishioners, and accompanied us in the excursion.

The morning was excessively hot—the character of the weather for the last fortnight. No rain had fallen in that time, and the road was one continued bed of deep dust, kept in constant motion by the thousand and ten thousands of horses and cattle, which the large force in bivouac in the environs of the city had brought together. It is computed that on the day of the battle, and for some days succeeding it, there were not less than three hundred thousand horses, within the circuit of a few miles, around the city. The number of cattle may be estimated by the allowance granted to the troops for subsistence—one animal a day for every hundred men: the number of men in both armies, the conquering and the conquered; amounts to more than fifty thousand, and the daily consumption, therefore, is at least five hundred. It would require pages to describe the novelty and wild romance of the scenes witnessed in our short drive. The riding at full tilt, to and fro, of unnumbered Indian-like horsemen in the picturesque and fiery costume of the native cavalry; the flying past of carriages in one direction or another, through the thick dust of the road; the lassoing of cattle amidst the herds crowding the open plain; the butchering them when entangled, wherever that might be—even in the middle of the highway; and flaying them while still alive, and scarcely well brought to the ground; the masses of hides, and horns, and offal scattered about every where; some freshly stripped from the carcasses and others in a shocking state of putrefaction; the hundreds of loose horses scampering about amid clouds of dust; and unnumbered savage men, in all attitudes, and in every kind of grouping, presented sights beyond the power of description.

As we approached the Quinta, such objects became, if possible, more varied and more crowded: while dead horses and dead cattle lined the road-side, and in some places dotted the ornamental canals of the domain with their bloated carcasses. The white shell-dust of that, which was once the private drive, covered every thing so thickly, that the iron railings, now bent and broken down, the orange trees and willows, once kept so neatly washed and so green, appeared as if just powdered with meal. Indeed, the aspect of every thing in this respect, was very much that of a landscape at home after a fall of snow, while the trees and their branches are still in leaf. The house itself—though surrounded, as when last seen by me, with guards and soldiery, and in the same dress; and by a long line of carriages and led horses awaiting the visitors within—had a closed and forsaken air. The reception rooms occupied by Urquiza, are not in the front. Those there, in which we had been received, with blinds drawn, and shutters closed, appeared as though death, as well as desertion, was there. It was not our purpose to alight; and, after a general survey of the establishment as we drove by, we returned to the city amidst the same scenes through which we had arrived.

The next evening I joined a large party of American ladies and gentlemen, residents of Buenos Ayres, in a visit of ceremony to Urquiza at Palermo. Notwithstanding the pressure of military and state affairs in the disposition of his troops, and the appointment of a provisional government for the city and province, he has been constrained to hold an almost uninterrupted levee, for the reception of the crowds whose interest it is to pay court to him. Many of the most servile of the partisans of Rosas have done this in the most sycophantic manner; and many of them, I have rejoiced to hear, only to meet his ill-concealed contempt and pointed rebuke, by a refusal to recognize their presence in some instances, and by prompt and stern dismissal from the audience-room in others. One incident which occurred interested me much. Col. Maximo Terero, the favorite aide-de-camp of Rosas, and the affianced husband of Doña Manuelita, was made prisoner on the day of the battle. It was believed by many—judging of the course Urquiza would pursue in the case, by the sanguinary precedents of Rosas and other successful aspirants in the past history of the country—that he, and such others of the immediate partisans of the Dictator as had fallen into his hands, would be severely dealt with, if not summarily shot. Contrary to all expectation, Col. Terero was at once set at liberty on parole. Touched by this magnanimity, Gen. Terero the father, a confidential friend of Rosas, and long his partner in extensive financial operations, hastened to Palermo to wait upon the commander-in-chief, and to thank him for the clemency and kindness he had shown to his son. He approached him with the following words, “Gen. Urquiza, I have come to Palermo to tender to you the unfeigned thanks of a father, for sparing the life of a son, whose life and liberty were in your power. You have, sir, my most sincere and heartfelt gratitude. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am known to you as the friend of General Rosas. He long since won my confidence, has long had my warm friendship, and I have never seen cause for withdrawing these from him.” The frankness and independence of this address met an appreciating spirit in Urquiza; and seizing him cordially by the hand, he exclaimed, “Gen. Terero, I am most happy to see you. I am glad to hear you express yourself as you have. I believe what you say—yours is the first honest speech I have heard in Palermo; and I honor you for it.”

At the time of our presentation by Mr. Pendleton the saloons and corridors were crowded; and the audience was brief, and, on the part of the General, unavoidably constrained. He wore a dress-coat of black, with white waistcoat; and, though polite and gentlemanly, appeared to much less advantage and less at home in the drawing-room, than on the tented field of Pantanoso. He appeared, too, to be jaded and exhausted; which he indeed must be, after the fatigue and excitement without intermission of the last fortnight. At the end of fifteen minutes we took leave; and after a turn along the parterres of the flower-garden, drove rapidly to the city, to escape a gust of wind and rain which was seen to be gathering with great blackness, in a threatening quarter.

On Friday, I made a visit to the hospital, in which most of the wounded of both parties are now collected, to the number of five or six hundred. The accommodations, in ordinary times, are limited and indifferent, and are now altogether inadequate. The surgeons and physicians are too few for the duty, and the services of Dr. Foltz, of the U. S. sloop Jamestown, have been gratefully accepted. The wounds of many of the poor creatures are frightful; especially those caused by grape and round shot. From the heat of the weather, and the length of time that elapsed after the battle before they could be properly attended to, such are now in a dreadful condition. Those made by lances are chiefly from behind, and show frightful thrusts on the part of the pursuers. Many of the wounded have died daily; and the state of many more is hopeless. The edifice appropriated as a hospital is itself spacious and massive, and is of special interest, from having been the residencia or palace of the viceroys of Buenos Ayres. Mr. Lore took me a ride also, the same morning, through the suburbs, in a semicircular sweep from one end of the city to the other—the base-line of the circuit being the river. There is little to interest one in the scenery, the whole is so flat; and the road was but a succession of dry and dirty lanes, lined by mean and shabby huts. We called in the eastern suburbs upon an English family, parishioners of Mr. Lore, who occupy and cultivate as a fruit and vegetable garden, the grounds of what appears once to have been a tasteful and luxurious country-seat. We were most kindly received, and refreshed with some very fine peaches and grapes, the former the last gatherings of the season. The situation is an exposed one in times of public commotion and disorder; and we were shown a cavern, screened and hidden almost beyond discovery, where the females of the household were to have been concealed, had the city, in the overthrow of Rosas, been given over to pillage and rapine. In one part of the enclosure, a natural terrace attains a height of about twenty feet above the general level. To this I was led as one of the finest points of view in the neighborhood. The extent of the landscape commanded from it was less than a mile, across a flat meadow, bounded at that distance by a range of tree-tops, above which rose the masts of some small craft at anchor in a stream, whose banks the trees line. I could scarcely avoid a smile in hearing this called a “fine view,” while in imagination my eye swept, in comparison, over that spread before you in such wide expanse at Riverside. In the course of our ride, we visited the English Protestant burial-ground; a rural cemetery on the south-side of the city. It embraces several acres, surrounded by a substantial wall, entered by a handsome gateway of iron; and has a lodge for the keeper, and a small, well-built chapel for the funeral service. Besides a variety of prettily-arranged shrubberies, it is ornamented with two or three avenues of the Pride of China, which grows here in great perfection: the whole forming an attractive and rural resting-place for the dead.

The observations of the day were completed by the inspection, under the guidance of Mr. Graham, of the new city residence of Rosas. It is already in possession of the provisional government appointed by Urquiza, and its elegant saloons are converted into offices for the various public bureaus. It is an extensive and finely-constructed edifice, one story in height, enclosing several quadrangles, and covering half a square; the front extends the length of a “block” on a principal street near the centre of the city. The middle section of this contains the suite of private rooms of the late owner. From these the furniture had been removed, preparatory to the sale of all his effects. The structure, though of one story only on the streets, rises to two in some of the inner sections. The whole is well built, and, for this part of the world, beautifully finished. One of the inner courts is filled with orange trees, and another contains a garden of choice flowers. A lofty tower or mirador rises from the centre. This is ascended by a spiral staircase of mahogany. The view from it comprises, as on a map, the city, river, roadstead and shipping; and the country in every direction as far as its flatness allows the vision to reach. It conveys a strong impression of the size, good order, and architecture of the city. Every prominent building is in conspicuous view: all the old Spanish churches—the Cathedral, the Merced, the collegiate, or former Jesuit College, that of San Francisco, San Domingo and San Miguel; and the Residencia or vice-regal palace, now the general hospital. All these are of dark stone, and are time-stained and moss-covered: massive and enduring piles, with many attractive features in the varied taste and symmetry of their architecture, and in the well-defined proportions of dome and tower, pediment and belfry. The lantern top of this look-out is furnished with a fine telescope, by which every object is subjected to near inspection; and it was a favorite resort of the Dictator, during his hours of seclusion in town. One story of the tower leading to this observatory, is a handsomely proportioned apartment, paved with tessellated marble of red and white. It is said to have been the favorite sleeping-room of Rosas, when he remained in the city over night, being secure from approach except by the spiral stairs, which could be easily defended. A fixture in one of the galleries of an open court into which the chief suites of rooms open, particularly struck me as a novelty: it is a fireplace with a grate and handsomely finished marble mantle, so that, if one choose, he may sit by a fireside in the open air, when the temperature makes it desirable.