motto proclaim that his country stands in the van of Liberty and
Progress, and what more could any one want? Some of the coats-of-arms
of Spanish-American republics and states would give an official of the
College of Arms an apoplectic fit, for "colour" is unblushingly
displayed on "colour" and "metal" upon "metal" in defiance of every
recognised rule of heraldry.

The first time that I was in Buenos Ayres a very pleasant young
English civil engineer begged me to visit the family with whom he was
boarding, assuring me that I should find the most amusing nest of
cranks there. These people had come originally from the Pacific Coast,
I cannot recall whether from Bolivia or Ecuador. As their
revolutionary tendencies and their constant efforts to overthrow the
Government had rendered their native country too hot to hold them,
they had drifted through Peru to Chili, and had wandered across the
continent to Buenos Ayres, where the details connected with the
running of a boarding-house had left them with but little time for
putting their subversive tendencies into practice. Amongst their
paying guests was an elderly man from the country of their origin, who
twenty-five years earlier had so disapproved of the particular
President elected to rule his native land, that he had shown his
resentment by attempting to assassinate him. Being, however, but an
indifferent shot with a revolver, he had merely wounded the President
in the arm. He had somehow managed to escape from Bolivia, or Ecuador,
and ultimately made his way to Buenos Ayres, where he was warmly
welcomed in revolutionary circles; and his defective marksmanship
being overlooked, the will was taken for the deed, and he was always
alluded to as "El Libertador," or "The Liberator." I accompanied the
young engineer to his boarding-house one evening, where I met the most
extraordinary collection of people. Every one was talking at once, and