struck camp, and stretched their beef-hides in every direction. What did they want more?

These were the first Pampas Indians I had seen. A stout-built, strong race of people they were, with prominent cheek-bones, low foreheads and dark restless eyes. Their hair was black and long, like that of their northern brethren, whom they resembled also in colour, and in their whole appearance, except that they were not quite so tall. They were as dirty a set as one could wish to

see.

Turning back to town, I passed Governor Rosas's quinta, or summer residence, situated close to the bank of the river, and surrounded by a growth of tolerably high willows, which gave the whole place a pleasant and shady appearance. The quinta itself looks like a large colonnade, in a square, or block. It is a low and homely-looking building, surrounded on the inner as outer side by columns, which support verandahs, as retreats from the heat of the sun.

Not far from the quinta there stands one of the nost singular garden-houses imaginable. This is nothing else than a real American brig, standing high and dry, like Moses in the bulrushes, among the willows of the bank. It leans against high props, and is provided, for the accommodation of crew and passengers, with a wide and commodious staircase. This brig was blown once, by a south

eastern gale, on this place, high up on the bank, without the least possibility of getting her down. again. Governor Rosas bought the hull and made a pavilion of it. The lower masts, crossed by a couple of spars, remain standing; and the interior, steerage and cabin, has been formed into one large and lofty saloon. Formerly, music might be had on board, through the agency of a of a barrel organ; but the Argentine gentlemen, who were the performers, thought the machinery would work as well backwards as forwards, and spoiled the organ by grinding the

wrong way.

Rosas kept at the quinta half-a-dozen tamed avestruses, or South American ostriches, three guanakas, a species of lama, an Argentine lion or puma, and a tiger from Paraguay, secured only by a very thin chain round the neck, which he could have broken, I am sure, with one bound, had he but tried. But they had cut his claws and filed his teeth, and it was a consolation to reflect that, if he should break loose, he could only squeeze one to death.

Between the quinta and the town are the barracks of the regulars, and I stopped here awhile to see a parcel of blood-red artillery manœuvre with tolerable dexterity.

Strangers are allowed to look at the regulars at exercise, but when the militia are ordered out, every

one else is ordered in, and nobody dares to show his face, either in the streets, or even on the top of his own house, or behind the windows. The militia and the irregular soldiers are really the most desperate-looking characters I have ever seen. Here, would be observed a pair of trowsers and one shoe; there, two shoes and no trowsers, but merely the cheripaw. A handkerchief would be tied round the head, or it would be buried in a red cap; while the eye fell on uniforms of all colours, or no uniforms at all, guns of all sizes, and many without guns, and ranged on every side.

It formed, some time ago, one of the greatest amusements of Europeans to watch this array, and every manœuvre provoked new laughter. But Rosas did not like this; and as he could do with his republicans whatever he pleased, he passed a bill to have every store shut while the militia were out, the pretext being that the foreigners drove their trade with advantage while the citizens of the republic were on duty in the service of their country. So far, this law would only have been just, but Rosas went farther, shutting up everybody in their houses; and whoever was found abroad, was liable to be taken up and punished by fine or imprisonment. Even travellers had to turn in, as soon as they came to a place where the militia were training; the herdsman had to leave his cattle, and the farmer his plough, and only those

boys who took care of the sheep, were allowed to remain in the fields.

Rosas was a severe dictator, and did not allow much joking with his laws, but it may be urged in his favour that he had a wild and rough set of subjects, and it required a strong hand to keep them in order. A stronger or more pitiless one than his it would have been hard to find, even in that wild country.

Rosas took very good care that they should never forget whose government they were under, and as it had grown a perfect law for the citizens of the republic to wear the red waistcoast, so they were obliged to assume also a red ribbon at the button-hole, inscribed with this device :

"Viva la confederacion Argentina mueran los salcajes, asquerosos, inmundos, Unitarios" (The Argentine republic shall prosper, but perish the savage, dirty, and undergrown Unitarios). A fine sentiment, at any rate.

This motto meets the eye of the stranger everywhere. There is no proclamation issued without this being at the head of it; no paper is printed, no public or private advertisement appears, without the threatening words. They are stamped on the theatre bills, and present themselves five or six times in every almanac. They must be the first words in every written document; and even on every letter a citizen of the Argentine republie

sends by the post, he has to write on the address his "viva" for the republic, and his " mueran for her enemies-it may be for himself.

The life in the streets of the city possesses much interest for the stranger. The wild forms of the guachos (as the inhabitants of the country are called) with their flowing kerchiefs over their heads, and picturesque ponchos, lend a peculiar aspect to the scene. Large clumsy waggons, drawn by oxen, roll slowly along, with their gigantic wheels often ten feet high. Every morning, guacho boys come early to town on horseback, with two tin cans full of milk, but having one naked leg hanging down from the sheep-skin saddle, and the other foot drawn up under their seat. There are also ragged black soldiers, sometimes real specimens, who might be kept amongst the curiosities of a cabinet in alcohol; for Rosas liked his negro military. At the same time, the predilection of every one for a glaring red colour-the low houses with their grated windows, and those slender beautiful forms which glide, tightly wrapped in their mantillas, with light and elastic steps through the very centre of dangerous-looking groups of dark-visaged men, with their long knives sticking in their beltsall this often seemed to me as if it were not real, but only a gaily-coloured picture created by the imagination. Recovering from such a trance, I would feel my blood thrill quicker and more briskly