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came Emperor of Mexico, most serene Augustin I.;' was deposed, banished to Leghorn, to London; decided on returning ;-landed on the shore of Tampico, and was there met, and shot this, in a vague sort, is what the world knows of the Napoleon of Mexico, most serene Augustin the First, most unfortunate Augustin the Last. He did himself publish memoirs or memorials, but few can read them. Oblivion, and the deserts of Panama, have swallowed this brave Don Augustin vate caruit sacro.

And Bolivar, 'the Washington of Columbia,' Liberato Bolivar, he too is gone without his fame. Melancholy lithographs represent to us a long-faced, square-browed man; of stern, considerate, consciously considerate aspect, mildly aquiline form of nose; with terrible angularity of jaw; and dark deep eyes, somewhat too close together (for which latter circumstance we earnestly hope the lithograph alone is to blame): this is Liberator Bolivar:—a man of much hard fighting, hard riding, of manifold achievements, distresses, heroisms and histrionisms in this world; a many-counselled, much-enduring man; now dead and gone ;—of whom, except that melancholy lithograph, the cultivated European public knows as good as nothing. Yet did he not fly hither and thither, often in the most desperate manner, with wild cavalry clad in blankets, with War of Liberation to the death'? Clad in blankets, ponchos the South Americans call them: it is a square blanket, with a short slit in the centre, which you draw over your head, and so leave hanging: many a liberative cavalier has ridden, in those hot climates, without farther dress at all; and fought handsomely too, wrapping the blanket round his arm, when it came to the charge.

With such cavalry, and artillery and infantry to match, Bolivar has ridden, fighting all the way, through torrid deserts, hot mud-swamps, through ice-chasms beyond the curve of perpetual frost,- -more miles than Ulysses ever sailed: let the coming Homers take note of it. He has marched over the Andes, more than once; a feat analogous to Hannibal's; and seemed to think little of it. Often beaten, banished from the

2 A Statement of some of the principal Events in the Public Life of Augustin de turbide: written by Himself. London, 1843.

firm land, he always returned again, truculently fought again. He gained, in the Cumana regions, the 'immortal victory' of Carababo and several others; under him was gained the finishing 'immortal victory' of Ayacucho in Peru, where Old Spain, for the last time, burnt powder in those latitudes, and then fled without return. He was Dictator, Liberator, almost Emperor, if he had lived. Some three times over did he, in solemn Columbian parliament, lay down his Dictatorship with Washington eloquence; and as often, on pressing request, take it up again, being a man indispensable. Thrice, or at least twice, did he, in different places, painfully construct a Free Constitution; consisting of 'two chambers, and a supreme governor for life with liberty to name his successor,' the reasonablest democratic constitution you could well construct; and twice, or at least once, did the people, on trial, declare it disagreeable. He was, of old, well known in Paris; in the dissolute, the philosophico-political and other circles there. He has shone in many a gay Parisian soirée, this Simon Bolivar; and in his later years, in autumn 1825, he rode triumphant into Potosi and the fabulous Inca Cities, with clouds of feathered Indians somersaulting and war-whooping round him,3-and 'as the famed Cerro, metalliferous MounItain, came in sight, the bells all pealed out, and there was a thunder of artillery,' says General Miller. If this is not a Ulysses, Polytlas and Polymetis, a much-enduring and manycounselled-man, where was there one? Truly a Ulysses whose history were worth its ink,—had the Homer that could do it made his appearance!

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Of General San Martin, too, there will be something to be said. General San Martin, when we last saw him, twenty years ago or more,-through the organs of the authentic steadfast Mr. Miers,-had a handsome house in Mendoza, and 'his own portrait, as I remarked, hung up between those of 'Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.' In Mendoza, cheerful, mudbuilt, whitewashed Town, seated at the eastern base of the Andes, 'with its shady public-walk well paved and swept;' looking out pleasantly, on this hand, over wide horizons of Pampa Wilderness; pleasantly, on that, to the Rockchain, Cordillera they call it, of the sky-piercing Mountains,

8 Memoirs of General Milier.

capt in snow, or with volcanic fumes issuing from them: there dwelt General Ex-Generalissimo San Martin, ruminating past adventures over half the world; and had his portrait hung up between Napoleon's and the Duke of Wellington's.

Did the reader ever hear of San Martin's march over the Andes into Chile? It is a feat worth looking at; comparable, most likely, to Hannibal's march over the Alps, while there was yet no Simplon or Mont-Cénis highway; and it transacted itself in the year 1817. South-American armies think little of picking their way through the gullies of the Andes: so the Buenos-Ayres people, having driven-out their own Spaniards, and established the reign of freedom though in a precarious manner, thought it were now good to drive the Spaniards out of Chile, and establish the reign of freedom there also instead: whereupon San Martin, commander at Mendoza, was appointed to do it. By way of preparation, for he began from afar, San Martin, while an army is getting ready at Mendoza, assembles 'at the Fort of San Carlos by the Aguanda river,' some days' journey to the south, all attainable tribes of the Pehuenche Indians, to a solemn Palaver, so they name it, and civic entertainment, on the esplanade there. The ceremonies and deliberations, as described by General Miller, are somewhat surprising still more the concluding civic-feast; which lasts for three days; which consists of horses' flesh for the solid part, and horses' blood with ardent spirits ad libitum for the liquid, consumed with such alacrity, with such results, as one may fancy. However, the women had prudently removed all the arms beforehand; nay, 'five or six of these poor women, taking it by turns, were always found in a sober state, watch'ing over the rest;' so that comparatively little mischief was done, and only one or two' deaths by quarrel took place.

The Pehuenches having drunk their ardent-water and horses' blood in this manner, and sworn eternal friendship to San Martin, went home, and-communicated to his enemies, across the Andes, the road he meant to take. This was what San Martin had foreseen and meant, the knowing man! He hastened his preparations, got his artillery slung on poles, his men equipt with knapsacks and haversacks, his mules in readiness; and, in all stillness, set forth from Mendoza by another road. Few things in late war, according to General

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Miller, have been more noteworthy than this march. long straggling line of soldiers, six thousand and odd, with their quadrupeds and baggage, winding through the heart of the Andes, breaking for a brief moment the old abysmal solitudes !—For you fare along, on some narrow roadway, through stony labyrinths; huge rock-mountains hanging over your head, on this hand; and under your feet, on that, the roar of mountain-cataracts, horror of bottomless chasms;-the very winds and echoes howling on you in an almost preternatural manner. Towering rock-barriers rise sky-high before you, and behind you, and around you; intricate the outgate! The roadway is narrow; footing none of the best. Sharp turns there are, where it will behove you to mind your paces; one false step, and you will need no second; in the gloomy jaws of the abyss you vanish, and the spectral winds howl requiem. Somewhat better are the suspension-bridges, made of bamboo and leather, though they swing like seesaws: men are stationed with lassos, to gin you dextrously, and fish you up from the torrent, if you trip there.

Through this kind of country did San Martin march; straight towards San Iago, to fight the Spaniards and deliver Chile. For ammunition-wagons he had sorras, sledges, canoeshaped boxes, made of dried bull's-hide. His cannons were carried on the back of mules, each cannon on two mules judiciously harnessed: on the packsaddle of your foremost mule there rested with firm girths a long strong pole; the other end of which (forked end, we suppose) rested, with like girths, on the packsaddle of the hindmost mule; your cannon was slung with leathern straps on this pole, and so travelled, swaying and dangling, yet moderately secure. In the knapsack of each soldier was eight days' provender, dried beef ground into snuff-powder, with a modicum of pepper, and some slight seasoning of biscuit or maize-meal; store of onions, of garlic,' was not wanting: Paraguay tea could be boiled at eventide, by fire of scrub-bushes, or almost of rock-lichens or dried mule-dung. No farther baggage was permitted: each soldier lay at night wrapt in his poncho, with his knapsack for pillow, under the canopy of heaven; lullabied by hard travail; and sank soon enough into steady nose-melody, into the foolishest rough colt-dance o. unimaginable Dreams. Had he not left

much behind him in the Pampas,-mother, mistress, what not; and was like to find somewhat, if he ever got across to Chile living? What an entity, one of those night-leaguers of San Martin; all steadily snoring there, in the heart of the Andes, under the eternal stars! Wayworn sentries with difficulty keep themselves awake; tired mules chew barley rations, or doze on three legs; the feeble watch fire will hardly kindle a cigar; Canopus and the Southern Cross glitter down; and all snores steadily, begirt by granite déserts, looked-on by the Constellations in that manner! San Martin's improvident soldiers ate-out their week's rations almost in half the time; and for the last three days had to rush on, spurred by hunger: this also the knowing San Martin had foreseen; and knew that they could bear it, these rugged Gauchos of his; nay, that they would march all the faster for it. On the eighth day, hungry as wolves, swift and sudden as a torrent from the mountains, they disembogued; straight towards San Iago, to the astonishment of men ;—struck the doubly-astonished Spaniards into dire misgivings; and then, in pitched fight, after due manœuvres, into total defeat on the 'plains of Maypo,' and again, positively for the last time, on the plains or heights of Chacabuco;' and completed the deliverance of Chile,' as was thought, forever and a day.

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Alas, the deliverance' of Chile was but commenced; very far from completed. Chile, after many more deliverances, up to this hour, is always but 'delivered' from one set of evildoers to another set!-San Martin's manœuvres to liberate Peru, to unite Peru and Chile, and become some WashingtonNapoleon of the same, did not prosper so well. The suspicion of mankind had to rouse itself; Liberator Bolivar had to be called in; and some revolution or two to take place in the interim. San Martin sees himself peremptorily, though with courtesy, complimented over the Andes again; and in due leisure, at Mendoza, hangs his portrait between Napoleon's and Wellington's. Mr. Miers considered him a fairspoken, obliging, if somewhat artful man. Might not the Chilenos as well have taken him for their Napoleon? They have gone farther, and, as yet, fared little better !

The world-famous General O'Higgins, for example, he, after some revolution or two, became Director of Chile; but

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