Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/233



VISIT TO GENERAL URQUIZA. 203

Mesopotamia, he would have aided him with 15_,000 men against the Macacos, or Monkeys. The latter is here the popular term for the Brazilians, even as their own Tupys knew the Negros as '^ Macacos da terra/^ ground (not tree) monkeys. This was the truth, but not the whole truth. General Urquiza, who was Captain- General of the Argen- tine army, had been named to an inferior command, " Superior Officer of the Entre Rios cavalry,^' by President Mitre, who proposed to be himself Commander-in-Chief of the Allies. Moreover, General Lopez had disappointed him by promising men, ships, and money, to aid him in besieg- ing Buenos Aires ; furthermore, as an arbitrator after the battle of Pavon, the former had not been a friend to Urquiza. The latter must have known that any rival as- sisting to forward the ambitious views of the Marshal-Pre- sident of Paraguay would have been used and shot. I hardly liked to ask why in dispersing his long-promised contingent that was marching upon Uruguayana, he had trodden so perilously near the brink of high treason â€” a position which he had generally avoided since his overthrow in 1853. He was at that time probably undecided as to his part. The sole reason why the Brazil instead of wasting gold on the Platine Provinces, did not make Bio Grande do Sul their base of operations, was the reasonable fear, that in case of a check by Paraguay, the latter would command the assistance of one that never wished her well. D. Justo spoke sensibly and in a soldier-like way about the cam- paign. He declared the Conde de Porto- Alegre (Joaquim Marques de Souza), ex- Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army, to be its best general ; unfortunately he is a Liberal, and a Conservative Government must have its own Giulai. He gave the Brazilians 24,000 men in the field, and the Paraguayans 20,000, or nearly double the vulgar estimate ; finally, he predicted that if the empire failed in this