Appearing to have received the traditions of their progenitors of the old World, the Montoneros commenced to ravage the country, to pillage the haciendas, to put to ransom the towns too weak to oppose an energetic resistance to them; and serving any cause for pay, they adopted all parties in turn, remorselessly betraying one after the other, and only seeing in civil war one end—pillage.
At the epoch in which our history transpires, although the Montoneros had already degenerated from their original loyalty, and a number of people without any occupation had succeeded in getting into their ranks, they nevertheless preserved, at least in appearance, the principles of chivalrous patriotism which had governed their formation, and their name did not inspire, as it afterwards did, terror to the honest folk and peaceable citizens whom it was the mission of the Montoneros to protect and defend.
In a fertile valley, at the foot of a wooded hill of moderate height, on the bank of the Río Tucumán, at about fifteen leagues from the town of San Miguel, a troop of horsemen, whose number might be about three hundred, had camped in a delicious position.
The soldiers, all clothed in the costume of the gauchos of the pampa—their features expressive of energy, and their faces bronzed in the sun, but with a fierce look—were for the most part armed, not only with sabres and guns, but also with a long and strong lance, the blade of which was garnished with a bright red streamer.
Lying or sitting at the foot of the fig and orange trees, they had planted their lances in the ground, and were playing, talking, or sleeping, while their horses were freely wandering about, feeding on the green grass of the plain.
Some sentinels, scattered on the somewhat distant heights—motionless as statues of Florentine bronze, of which they had the warm and coppery tint—were watching over the common safety.
These men, whose reputation for bravery was celebrated in all the Banda Oriental, composed the Montonera of the celebrated Zeno Cabral—the same who had had, they said, some days before, a quarrel with the royal troops, and whose victory the town of San Miguel was celebrating with shouts and fireworks.
This wild and primitive encampment, which more resembled a halt of bandits than anything else, had a most picturesque appearance, and would have been the admiration of a painter of the Salvator Rosa school.
Nearly in the centre of the encampment, at the summit of a little hill of a scarcely perceptible slope, several men, whose arms and clothing were in a better position, and their appearance less fierce than those of their companions, were seated on the grass smoking their cigarettes.
These men were the officers. In the midst of them was their chief, or the general, as they called him.