him to see the characteristic marks of Arab life, he was struck with amazement to find himself in the midst of surroundings so precisely like those of his native wild plains, that the conviction was brought forcibly home to him, that the gauchos of South America and the Arabs of Africa were one and the same people. It was a disheartening thought to him that he saw in these people one explanation of the difficulty of civilizing the engrafted population of those Spanish colonies, of which they were evidently the fountain-head, distilled through the Catholicism of Spain, and where, though they had perhaps lost the tradition of their origin, they had not lost the elements of vis-inertiæ, and repulsion to civilizing influences.
The Albarracines had the name of remarkable abilities, which had been transmitted from generation to generation, and in South America several distinguished writers were known among the Dominican friars that abounded in the family. Prelates and bishops, historians and logical writers were of the number, and they intermarried with a family of Oros, also of remarkable intellectual ability. The Oros, cousins of his mother, who were curates and friars of education, always had open house and hearts for the young Sarmiento, and their society helped to cultivate the faculties of the brilliant boy, in whom culminated the power of literary expression that had always marked the family. One of these able men, Don José de Oro, a clergyman, had much influence in the formation of his character. He had been chaplain of a regiment in San Martin's army.
After some patriotic efforts for his country in the
