Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/230



200 UP THE URUGUAY RIVER, AND

a treaty opening np the Rio Parana to all flags â€” then a great desideratum.

General Urquiza is a short, thickset man about sixty, of bilious-nervous complexion, rather dark, with light brown and very vivacious eyes, a closely fitting mouth, and broad strong jaws and chin. He wears his whisker a l^Anglaise, which is in fact the Portuguese, Spanish, and old French style still found in country parts : his side hair, which is dyed, covers the deficiencies of the centre, and his dress is that of the Latin races, black from head to foot. I won- dered at his excitable gesticulations, and glances flashing on every occasion, a something so far from Castilian repose. But presently I called to mind that he was a Basque, whose father had emigrated to South America, and had long kept a small store at Corrientes. His life is simple in the ex- treme. He rises with the light, and holds a " durbar " to settle the causes of his Entre Rianos, who, though excel- lent fighting men, and after the Portenos, the best looking of Argentines, require riding on the tightest of curbs. He dines or rather breaks his fast at noon, and he sups at dark, rarely with his family except to honour a guest. Soup and puchero (bouilli), poultry, and sweetmeats compose the meals, he never smokes, and he drinks water, which is here muddy. At one time he was a vegetarian, and Mr. Mansfield approved of him for the all-sufficient reason that besides not being one of his ^' poor carnivorous creatures,-*' he was a teetotaller.

Of late years General Urquiza has devoted himself to the improvement of an estate which, containing 50 + 10 leagues or 3,600,000 acres, is larger than many an English county. He is said to own 200,000 sheep and 800,000 head of cattle, whose annual increase must be at least 10 per cent. : he slaughters 80,000 head at $8 each, which represents an income of 125,000/. Grease and wool.