Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/231



VISIT TO GENERAL URQUTZA. 201

salt meat, hair and hides, raise this to 225,000/., and the value of the property is supposed to double every five years. Public report makes him worth 1,000,000/. to 1,200,000/., but it knows about him, I presume, more than he knows himself. He is not a good paymaster, his peons are often six months in arrears, and his agents, like the publishers of M. de Balzac, court ruination. The greater part of his wealth was made by supplying cattle and horses to the Allies, a profit of which his Eutre Riano subjects were allowed to partake. It is no wonder that he withdrew his contin- gent from the war.

It is curious to hear this " despot,^' who can stiU raise his 10,000 men, talking quietly like a respectable country squire of his land improvements, of the wine made upon his estate, and of his model dairy. Encouraged by the Gualeguay Railway, the cheapest in South America, and laid down by Mr. J. Coghlan, C.E., under 3000/. per mile, he proposes to connect his palace with the port of Con- cepcion. Depending upon opinion from without, he wishes to stand well with all foreigners, and he proposes to establish twin colonies on two and a half square leagues to the north and south, in sight of San Jose. Can this be the man who once ordered the English in Entre Rios to shave their beards lest the hair should form the offensive letter U ?* Can we be chatting with the " Gaucho" who staked down an enemy for some nine years, who sat his horse sucking mate whilst hundreds of human throats were being cut before his eyes, who ranked at one time highest of the four great " Caudillos" viz., Lopez of Santa Fe (1820-33,


 * The motto of General Rosas was —

" Murien los selvajes Unitarios." That of General Urquiza â€”

" Defendemos la ley Federal jurada, Son traidores los que la combaten."