Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

With the exception of the objects mentioned, there was little to interest; and, after strolling around for an hour or two, we returned to the shade of the ombu trees of Santos Lugares, to partake of an ample lunch, provided by the ladies of the party. One result of the excursion, was the opportunity it afforded me of gaining my first sight of what is here termed the ‘camp;’ the flat open country of the pampas, or plains, which extend hundreds of leagues, with a surface more level and less wooded than that of the prairies of the West with us: a vast sea of grass and thistles, without roads or enclosures, and without a habitation, except at long intervals. Nothing breaks the unvarying outline, unless it be now and then an ombu, rising on the distant horizon, like a ship at sea. Travellers upon these plains, whether on horseback or in carriages, like voyagers on the ocean, direct their course over the trackless expanse, by compass.

The 19th was appointed for the public entry of Urquiza into the capital, with the entire allied force, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to the number of twenty thousand. Rain during the preceding night, laid the dust and freshened the air. The morning was pure, cool and pleasant, somewhat obscured by clouds till noon, but after that hour, clear and brilliant. Every street and every house was gay with fluttering flags and the banners of all civilized nations, and the whole city in gala dress. I had invitations to the balconies of several private houses in different streets through which the procession would pass; but preferred a roving commission, with the advantage of being able to change at pleasure my point of view. I chose a stand at an angle of the Plaza Victoria, or place of victory, the principal square in the city, near a triumphal arch thrown over the street through which the procession would débouche upon the Plaza. It was the best point for observation; giving a near view of the chief officers and troops, and commanding in coup d’œil the masses of people in the open square; the decorations of the monument of victory in its centre; and of the public buildings facing it, as well as of the crowded balconies and flat-topped roofs of the surrounding houses, thronged with spectators of all ages and both sexes in holiday attire.

Urquiza as captain-general and commander-in-chief, with his staff, headed the columns. These had formed at Palermo, the cavalry being eight, and the infantry and artillery twelve abreast. The chieftain’s dress and that of his staff was not full uniform. With a military coat, he wore a round beaver hat and scarlet hatband, and held a riding-whip in his hand as if on a hunt. The red hatband, besides its demi-savage look, gave offence, it is said, to the Buenos Ayreans, by reminding them of the thraldom of which it had been made a badge under Rosas; and which, with the waistcoat and every thing of the same color, they had indignantly and with abhorrence thrown off, the moment they found themselves free to do so. It is also said that every demonstration of popular feeling, by shouts and vivas, had been interdicted; and there was little enthusiasm manifested in this way. Bouquets, however, were showered upon the conqueror in great abundance, and his hands and those of his immediate suite were filled with such as had been picked up and handed to them. It struck me, notwithstanding, that there was nothing very gracious in the expression of countenance or manner of the hero: that something had gone amiss, and he was only tolerating with decent civility the courtesies shown him. He declined to dismount in the city, and continued the ride in circuit to Palermo again. The cavalry, constituting the principal body of the troops, in the Gaucho dress of red flannel shirts and cheripas, white cotton pantalets, and red caps worn à la brigand, had all the appearance of so many wild Arabs, clothed in red in place of white. They were barefooted, and unshaven and unshorn; and varied in complexion, from the red and white of the Saxon, here and there, to the jet of Congo. Four hours were occupied by the procession in passing a single point; though the cavalry, towards the close, rode at full charge, when, especially, they bore an aspect as wild as that of the desert itself. General Lopez, the Governor or President of the Province of Corrientes, second to Urquiza in command, appeared in full military costume, as did Baron Caxias, chief of the Brazilian division. Both were magnificently mounted.

The booming of cannon from various points was heard during this triumphal march through the city; and a stationary band in front of the cathedral played at intervals, as the regimental bands, one after another, passed beyond hearing. In the evening, the arcades surrounding the eastern and southern sides of the Plaza, the cabildo or town hall fronting it on one side, the cathedral at one corner, and the monument of victory in the centre, were illuminated; and for an hour and more, there was a good display of fireworks. The remaining days of the week were proclaimed holidays, and the decorations in flags, the illuminations, and music at night were continued.

Two days ago, a grand Te Deum, in commemoration of the overthrow of Rosas, was celebrated in the cathedral, in presence of Urquiza and of the newly appointed provisional government; the officers of the allied armies; and of all the dignitaries of the church. An immense crowd was brought together by the interest of the occasion itself, and by the spectacle presented in so large an assemblage of persons of official rank and power. The ordinary services were accompanied by a rhapsody in the form of a sermon, delivered by a young ecclesiastic, who, from having been chosen for orator on such an occasion, must have some pretension to talent and eloquence. I have seen a copy of his discourse in Spanish, and will give a hasty translation of some of its passages which throw light upon the popular view of the public character and government of Rosas; and give proof also of the adulations showered upon the Conqueror. The address occupied more than an hour in the delivery, and is at least a curiosity as a sermon. The text from the Vulgate, was announced in Latin, and was the opening verse of the song of Moses after the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea:

“Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:

The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”

The introduction, written in Dellacruscan style, and delivered with the action of the stage, consists of all manner of apostrophes—to the Plata, to Liberty, to Peace, to the Argentines, and to the Virgin Mary, for aid in the office of his ministry. Two general points are then presented,—one the duty of thanksgiving for a deliverance from evil; the other of thanksgiving for blessings conferred. Under the first he institutes a parallel between the rejoicings of Rome on the fall of Nero, and of those due from Buenos Ayreans on the overthrow of Rosas: thus—“Tell me, was it right for the Romans, adorning themselves with garlands of flowers and clothed with gladness, to hail with hallelujahs the jubilee of their deliverance; to throw open their temples and offer incense to their gods in testimony of their gratitude, when they saw the dead body of the most barbarous of their sovereigns—that monster, whose cruelty was not satiated with the blood even of his own mother, and whose corruption made him regardless of the most sacred obligations of the marriage tie? Was it not right, I say, that the Roman people should hymn songs of thankfulness before the altars of their gods, in view of the still palpitating remains of Nero, that impersonation of cruelty, who, seated on a mount, instead of weeping like the prophets over the destruction of the capital set on fire by himself, rejoiced in the death-shrieks of its inhabitants? I do not believe, gentlemen, that any of you condemn this conduct of the Romans—do I say condemn? I know that you justify, you praise, you applaud it; and if it was right, if it was laudable, if it was praiseworthy in the Romans gratefully to acknowledge, and joyfully to give thanks to their gods for a deliverance from the tyranny of Nero, is it not equally so in us Argentines to offer to the true God the incense of our praise for liberating us from the despotism of Rosas—that tyrant, that wild beast, that scandal of our nation, that shame upon humanity, that scourge of society and of religion, that minotaur, more thirsty for blood than him of Crete who fed on human victims? Yes! all of you will confess that it is just—and the more just as he was more cruel than even Nero. How more so? Can it be possible that there ever was a man as cruel as he, much less more so? Sirs, the lengthened series of eighteen hundred years did not, indeed, produce such a man: but the epoch of the barbarous Dictator of the Argentine Republic had not yet arrived. The nineteenth century, great in all its aspects in the annals of ages, was to be conspicuous by the production of this monster of cruelty. Yes, gentlemen, he was not only as cruel, but more cruel than the oppressor of the Romans.

“Let us make the comparison. But first, Argentines, rise from the places you occupy—rise, and make haste to close the temple doors that no foreigner come in; and if any such should already have entered, supplicate them to retire, that they hear not of the horrors perpetrated by a son of our soil. Yes! rise, hasten quick, fly! But why? Alas! oh sorrow!—stay! stay! it is too late: the clamorous echo of the cry raised by his cruelty has resounded to the ends of the earth. I retract my call, and beg you, Argentines, to fly—yes, fly to the portals of the temple: but let it be to open them widely from side to side, that entrance may be given to the inhabitants of the whole world—if it were possible, of the entire universe—to be witnesses of our reclamation, and hear the protest we solemnly make in the presence of the heavens and of the earth, before the altars of our God: Neighboring Republics! Foreign nations! all ye people of the earth! know, and transmit to your descendants from age to age that the children of the Plata repudiate this monster; we despoil him of the prerogatives of an Argentine; we banish him from our fatherland; and by the unanimous vote of the entire Republic, sentence him to wander from place to place, and from land to land; and, like Cain the fratricide, to carry the mark of his crime branded on his brow, that his own ignominy may be the expiation of his transgressions.

“Yes! I again say, Rosas was more cruel than Nero. Let us analyze the facts in the case. Why is Nero represented in history as the greatest tyrant among sovereigns? Hear Tacitus: ‘He was,’ says the historian, ‘the assassin of his mother, of his brother, of his tutor, and of an immense number of Christians. He set Rome on fire.’ What horrors! and the tyrant of the Argentines, did he perpetrate such enormities? Some of them he did—others he did not. But the credit of omitting to perpetrate those which he did not commit is to be attributed to a dissimilarity of circumstances, not to a difference in moral principle. Rosas did not sacrifice his mother, but it was because she did not threaten to deprive him of his power. He did not sacrifice his brothers, because none of them attempted to snatch from him the reins of government: or if they did, they fled beyond his reach. He did not sacrifice his tutor, because he never had one; but he had an instructor in political economy and a patron in his early public career, and him he did assassinate. Oh! sad remembrance! Sirs, you all know the horrible death of Maza, President of the House of Representatives,—that noble patriot and good man, who was murdered in the very temple of the laws: not in its vestibule, but in the very sanctum sanctorum!