In a quarter of an hour she brought a passport, signed by Rosas, enjoining his mercenaries to oppose no hinderance to the bearer’s departure.
Thus gained over by petty favors from the all-powerful dictator, the negroes formed a corps of zealous spies and adherents of Rosas, whose secret observations were carried on in the very midst of the families whom he suspected. They also formed a brigade of excellent troops, on whose fidelity he was able to rely at all times.
Don Domingo F. Sarmiento, from one of whose works the above anecdote is derived, is one of the most enlightened patriots and philosophers of South America. He is a native of San Juan, a town in the interior of the Confederation, but has travelled extensively in Europe and the United States, and was for many years a resident of Chili, whither he was banished by Rosas in 1840. He has done much by his writings to advance a practical knowledge both of the principles of agriculture and of education in his native country, and is earnestly endeavoring to secure the cooperation of the government and legislature of Buenos Ayres in the advancement of those sciences. He desires to see some portion of the European emigration diverted from the United States to Buenos Ayres, the government of which province, indeed, offers land freely to all who will settle in the interior; and he has recently published, among other valuable works, a treatise on agriculture and education, entitled “Plan combinado de Educacion comun, Silvicultura e Industria Pastoril,” especially designed for the province of Buenos Ayres. He is also translating into Spanish the writings of Adams, Jefferson, and others of our early statesmen, which we may hope will enlighten the Spanish republics of South America on a subject that they seem at best to very imperfectly understand.
A word concerning the currency of this province, and I will dismiss it from the reader’s attention. Rosas, before he was driven from power, established a paper currency, which, being of small nominal value, was intended to supply the place of coin. These bills were struck off with the value of from one to several hundred pesos stamped upon them. But their value fluctuated to such an extent, that while at one time one Spanish dollar could purchase twenty pesos, a few weeks later not eight could be obtained with the same sum. At the present time a peso is valued at four or five cents of our money.
It is said that the president, having put this currency into circulation, realized thousands of dollars from it by monopolizing the money market, and causing the paper to rise or depreciate at his pleasure. I have seen a four-real piece coined by him, or by order of his government (which amounted to the same thing), with these words stamped upon it: “Eterno Rosas” (Eternal Rosas). This man was, in every sense of the word, a tyrant—cool, calculating, and selfish; possessed of a degree of cunning and penetration, that aided him in discovering his most secret enemies. Ruthless in the execution of his designs, he spared neither age nor sex; even the venerable mayor, his earliest friend, his more than father, was murdered in cold blood by a party of masorgueros (men of the Masorca, or club, a band of butchers and assassins, on whom Rosas relied for the perpetuation of his reign of terror), at the bidding of their atrocious chief.
In a work published at Montevideo, in 1845, by Don José Rivera Indarte, a native of Buenos Ayres, he gives the following estimate of the numbers who died through the hatred or caprice of Rosas: Poisoned, 4; executed with the sword, 3765; shot, 1393; assassinated, 722,—total, 5884. Add this to the numbers slain in battle, and those executed by military orders, at a moderate computation 16,520, we have 22,404 victims. If we deduct from this—allowing some latitude for the prejudices of Señor Indarte—one third for exaggeration, we still have 14,936,—a fearful aggregate of victims to the ambition of a Gaucho chief.
But his career has ended; the exiled patriots have returned from Brazil and Chili, and in place of his there exists another, and, it is to be hoped, a better, government. He was at one time the absolute ruler of his country; and his long and cruel reign has left an effect upon its inhabitants which many years of wise legislation alone can eradicate.
CHAPTER IV.
VISIT TO THE TIGRE AND BANDA ORIENTAL.
The steamer in which I expected to embark for Rosario, on the Paraná River, would not sail from Buenos Ayres for ten days or a fortnight, and I began to look around me for some occupation, by means of which I might become more acquainted with the localities about the city. I was eager to visit the gaucho in his home upon the pampas; and when a young man, who had just arrived from New York, invited me to accompany him across the Plata to the Republic of Uruguay, I did not wait for a second invitation, but accepted his offer upon the spot.
I knew nothing more of this young man than that he had come to Buenos Ayres recommended to the first merchant of the place; but that his purpose for the visit was a secret one, I did not at the time suspect. He prepared himself for the journey by simply providing himself with a large blanket, a revolver pistol, and a sounding-rod. The first two articles seemed rational enough; but the rod, which he carried as a cane, required an explanation.