A good level road has been carried from the city to Palermo, at considerable expense, the approach being ‘through an avenue of willows,’ made to look as park-like as possible. About the house, or palace, as it might have been called in the days of its glory, are numerous out-buildings and barracks for cavalry, of which Rosas always kept a strong body-guard, as might naturally have been expected from his antecedents, he having principally risen to power in the first instance among his fellow guachos by the superior daring and dexterity of his horsemanship; added, of course, to his extreme adroitness in turning to his own account the dissentions of his rivals in the race for power. Passing the house, down another long avenue towards the river, you are surprised at seeing a large vessel, evidently fitted up for some special purpose. It appears she was driven ashore there in some heavy gale; and Rosas had her converted into a pleasure house, where balls and parties were held—another toy or plaything suited to the character of the man. Nature being found rather stubborn in yielding to the wishes of the owner of Palermo, immense sums were expended in planting orange trees, ever-greens, and exotics, of one kind or another, which were brushed and combed daily, and coaxed into a sickly existence; but it would not do. Nothing but willows flourish, or will continue to flourish, over the dilapidated abode from which issued many a bloody decree of this Borgia of the Pampas.
I have no wish to say anything unnecessarily harsh of Rosas: on the contrary, knowing, as I do, what was the state of parties in this portion of South America, I am quite willing to admit the extreme exigency of his position in the first instance, as one who must put down, with an iron, and even a remorseless, hand, that universal anarchy and violence in the midst of which he attained the eminence of being the most daring and sanguinary member of a community of semi-civilized brigands. But what should silence, or rather should have silenced, for they are all mute enough now, his well-paid eulogists and defenders, is the continuance of mean and miserable cruelties, long after the faintest pretext for their perpetration on political grounds had passed away. I will not shock the reader by a revival of stories at which one’s blood runs cold. He is gone; fled as ignominiously as he had lived detestably; and, notwithstanding his gangs of gorged assassin friends, who would profit by his return, he has left none behind who bless his memory. If any proof were wanted, this would be conclusive, as to the purely selfish career of the man; for even a comity of crime evokes no benison on the head of the expelled despot, who never thought of anything but the aggrandisement of himself and family, at the expense of the national treasury. The revulsion of popular feeling towards him is only what might have been anticipated, though hardly, perhaps, to the extent that has actually taken place, considering the length of time he ruled, and the immense number of personal retainers one would have thought he might have contrived to attach to him. Some of these remained faithful after his fall, to the length of employing a portion of the ample funds left behind him to endeavour to promote his recall.