sent the first regiment of the Andes to San Juan with orders to raise a company of dragoons, and then to join the army which was to invade Peru. But José and Francisco Aldao with other rebels, executed a military maneuver which deprived the army of this expected aid. Most of the officers were assassinated, and the two regiments, not having succeeded in occupying Mendoza, where Colonel Alvarado and other forces of the army were stationed, attempted a disastrous retreat to Tucuman, and dispersed with the shame of having deserted their banners.
The stragglers of the disbanded regiments, in passing through Rioja, met with a man already conspicuous in the provincial rebellions, and whose name was destined to become terrible in Argentine history. This gaucho with keen black eyes, and a pale face, almost covered with a thick, curly black beard, obtained from the deserters their arms. The dream of years was realized; Facundo Quiroga was in possession of arms, and provincial barbarism, the brutal passions of the multitude, plebeian ambitions and prejudices, the thirst for blood and pillage, had at last their partisan, their gaucho hero, their spirit personified. Facundo Quiroga had arms, and men would not be wanting; one cry from him resounding from forest to plain, would bring about him a thousand mounted gauchos.
Ah! when will an impartial history of the Argentine Republic be written? And when will its people be able, without fear of a tyrant, to read the terrible drama of the revolution,—the well-intentioned and brilliant, but chimerical government of Rivadavia; the power and brutal deeds of Facundo Quiroga; and the admin-
