"There is a revolution going on in Rosario. It began on Saturday, when the Revolutionists surprised the Government party, and by one on Sunday most of the Government buildings were in their hands. It is now eight in the morning and the firing is terrible. Volunteers are coming into the town from all parts, so the rebels are bound to win the stronghold shortly. News has just come that the Government troops have surrendered. Four p.m.--I have been out to see the dead and wounded gathered up by the ambulance wagons. I should think the dead are less than a hundred, and the wounded about four times that number. The surprise was so sudden that the victory has been easy and with little loss of life. The Revolutionists are behaving well and not destroying property as they might have done. The whole town is rejoicing; flags of all nations are flying everywhere. The saddest thing about the affair is that some fifty murderers have escaped from the prison. I saw many of them running away when I got upon the spot. The order has been given to recapture them. I trust they may be caught, for we have too many of that class at liberty already. * * * * It is estimated that over 100,000 rounds of ammunition were fired in the two days. * * * The insurgents fed on horse-meat and beef, the former being obtained by killing the horses belonging to the police, the latter from the various dairies, from which the cows were seized."

In 1911 the two largest Dreadnoughts of the world, the _Rivadavia_ and the _Moreno_, were launched for the Argentine Government. These two battleships are _half as powerful again_ as the largest British Dreadnought.

CHAPTER III.

_THE CRIOLLO VILLAGE_.

The different centres of trade and commerce in the Argentine can easily be reached by train or river steamer. Rosario, with its 140,000 inhabitants, in the north; Bahia Blanca, where there is the largest wheat elevator in the world, in the south, and Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes, several times destroyed by earthquake, five hundred miles west--all these are more or less like the capital.

To arrive at an isolated village of the interior the traveller must be content to ride, as I did, on horseback, or be willing to jolt along for weeks in a wagon without springs. These carts are drawn by eight, ten, or more bullocks, as the weight warrants, and are provided with two very strong wheels, without tires, and often standing eight and ten feet high. The patient animals, by means of a yoke fastened to their horns with raw-hide, draw these carts through long prairie grass or sinking morass, through swollen rivers or oozing mud, over which malaria hangs in visible forms.

The _voyager_ must be prepared to suffer a little hunger and thirst on the way. He must sleep amongst the baggage in the cart, or on the broader bed of the ground, where snakes and tarantulas creep and the heavy dew saturates one through and through.

As is well known, the bullock is a slow animal, and these never travel more than two or three miles an hour.