overnment
of Buenos Ayres, and invited to take part in a Congress of Generals at
that city. At the same time, however, he received a military errand. The
Province of Tucuman having been seized by a young Buenos Ayrean officer,
Colonel Madrid, Quiroga was requested to march against the successful
upstart, and to restore the cause of law and order,--an undertaking
scarcely congruous with his own antecedents. The chief of La Rioja,
however, eagerly accepted the mission, marched with a small force into
Tucuman, routed Madrid, (and this literally, for his army ran away,
leaving the Colonel to charge Quiroga's force alone, which he did,
escaping by a miracle with his life,) and returned to La Rioja and San
Juan. Into the latter town he made a triumphal entry, through streets
lined on both sides with the principal inhabitants, whom he passed by in
disdainful silence, and who humbly followed the Gaucho tyrant to his
quarters in a clover-field, where he allowed them to stand in anxious
humiliation while he conversed at length with an old negress whom he
seated by his side. Not ten years had elapsed since these very men might
have beheld him pounding _tapias_ on this spot!

We do not propose following the blood-stained career of Juan Facundo
through all its windings and episodes of cruelty and blood. Suffice it to
say, that, with the title of _Comandante de Campana_, he retained in La
Rioja every fraction of actual power,--nominating, nevertheless, a shadowy
governor, who, if he attempted any independent action, was instantly
deposed. His influence gradually extended over the neighboring provinces;
thrice he encountered and defeated Madrid; while at home he gambled,
levied contributions, bastinadoed, and added largely to his army. He
excelled his contemporary, Francia, in the art of inspiring terror; he
only fell short of Rosas in the results. A wry look might at any time call
down upon a luckless child a hundred lashes. He once split the skull of
his own illegitimate son for some trifling act of disobedience. A lady,
who once said to him, while he was in a bad humor, _Adios, mi General_,
was publicly flogged. A young girl, who would not yield to his wishes, he
threw down upon the floor, and kicked her with his heavy boots until she
lay in a pool of blood. Truly, a ruler after the Russian sort!

Dorrego, meanwhile, was at the head of affairs at Buenos Ayres. Opposed to
the "Unitarianism" of Lavalle and Paz, who would have made of