Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/316



286 A WEEK AT CORRIENTES.

are perpetual troubles between the two great parties. The Blancos or Gauchos of Monte Video here become the Cocidos or Federals who^ in the days of Rosas^ were known as Degolladores (cut - throats) and Mashorqueros, from mas horca, " more gibbet/^ expressing the animus of the party ; or mazorca, the corn-cob with which they abominably tor- tured their victims. They would make the Republic a con- federation or union of the old provinces, forming inde- pendent states — a system of Government which may have succeeded amongst the Anglo-Americans^ but which has ever failed in Iberia. Chile owes the greater part of her success to having steered clear of this rock. Opposed to them are the Crudos,"^ Liberals or Unitarios, the Colo- rados of Uruguay _, who wish a consolidated central govern- ment, with a district Columbia — not Buenos Aires, if pos- sible — for headquarters. This sterile dualism surprises us by its power to make men cut throats and torture one another; till we remember that reasoning beings can wor- ship the snake and the iguana. Meanwhile all interests and dearest desires are wrapped up in creeds, political and religious : the cosmopolitan, with his " sublime indifference,^' has not yet appeared. Hence, distance from the centres of civilization, chronic misrule and stupid superstitions, are effectual obstacles to all immigration, except that a main armee. This is evidently the sole way to protect the frontier, and if duly carried out it might succeed in re- pressing revolutions.

old and growing obsolete. The principal divisions known are the Nationals, who look to consolidation and a capital at Buenos Aires ; the Provincials, or pure localists, who desire conciliation and a district Columbia ; and the Federals, or Rosas men, malcontents opposed to the two others, and agreeing with the Blancos of Monte Video. The old feud between pastoral province and city is well nigh extinct. President Sarmiento has well de- scribed it in his " Civilization and Barbarism," and has illustrated it by an admirable sketch of the " gaucho malo," General D. Juan Eacundo Quiroga.
 * Crudos and cocidos (raw and cooked, or mature) are words now six years