was ably backed-up by his seconds-in-command, Oribe and Urquiza, two
most consummate scoundrels. Whether Rosas "saw red," as others since
his day have done, or whether it was the play on his own name which
pleased him, I cannot say, but he had a perfect mania for the colour
red. He dressed all his troops in scarlet ponchos, and ordered every
male inhabitant of Buenos Ayres who wore a coat at all, to wear a
scarlet waistcoat, whilst all ladies were bidden to wear a knot of
scarlet ribbon and to carry a red fan. In the Dictator's own house at
Palermo all the carpets and stuffs were scarlet. An elderly lady in
Buenos Ayres, who remembered Rosas' dictatorship perfectly, showed me
some of the scarlet fans, specially made in Spain for the Argentine
market after Rosas had promulgated his edict. My friend described to
me how Rosas placed several of his rough police at the doors of every
church, and any lady who did not exhibit the obligatory red bow on her
black dress (in Spanish-speaking countries the women always go to Mass
in black), received a dab of pitch on her cheek, on to which the
policeman clapped a rosette of red paper. She told it all so
graphically that I could almost see the stream of frightened,
black-clad women issuing from the church, whilst their husbands and
lovers stood expectantly below (South American men rarely enter a
church), every man-jack of them with a scarlet waistcoat, like a flock
of swarthy robin redbreasts. I have seen some of these waistcoats; the
young bloods wore scarlet silk, the older men red cloth. Rosas, like a
mediaeval monarch, had his court fool or jester, a dwarf known as Don
Eusebio. Rosas dressed him in scarlet and gave him the rank of a
general, with a scarlet-clad bodyguard, and woe betide any one who
treated the Dictator's fool with scant respect. Rosas was undoubtedly
as mad as Bedlam, but he was an abominably bloodthirsty madman who
successfully exterminated all his opponents. The Dictator was
accessible to every one at his house at Palermo, and the marvel is