AN OUTLAW'S WIFE.

477

Eden of happiness. As she sat in silence and apart, enveloped in her shawl, with her long black tresses hanging loosely down her shoulders, and strongly contrasting with her pallid countenance, I thought I could discern the hapless victim, not the joyous votary of love. Her husband an outlaw, guilty of the heaviest crimes, "a fugitive and vagabond on the earth;" herself rejected by parents, family, and friends, she seemed from her sad heart to sigh-

66

"Woe is my lot, and patience must be mine."

There was, in truth, a gloom of unhappiness in the scene and its associations, the influence of which it was impossible not to feel.

Among the attendants at the collation which was prepared were two of his grenadiers, the last of his corps that remained with him; the greater number had been killed or wounded in the various battles and skirmishes in which they had been engaged after leaving Cochabamba, and the few survivors had latterly dispersed, each pursuing the road that seemed best adapted to his views. When about to take leave, Matute requested me to send him by the first opportunity, any popular works on jurisprudence and political economy, in Spanish or in French. I asked him if he would

478

MATUTE'S LAST ATTEMPT.

not also wish to have some on war, and military tactics, as applying more particularly to his own profession. "No," said he; "I

know too much of war practically to have the least wish to trouble myself with its theory; besides, I am thoroughly convinced that, in war, determined bravery succeeds in nine cases out of ten, and, therefore, in my opinion, books can teach us nothing on the subject.'

We took leave,--but here I have to make a stride forward of three weeks or a month, in order to conclude the career of this gallant, restless, and intriguing spirit.

Soon tired of his rustic life among his peaceable country cousins, Matute returned to the city of Salta, and there endeavoured to raise a party to enable him to depose the governor, and restore himself to the office of commandant-general. He had no difficulty in enlisting in his cause a few of those desperate characters, who are generally to be found in large towns, and are always at the beck that invites to booty and disorder. With these, and several soldiers whom he gained over, he was on the eve of executing his design, and of again convulsing the city with civil war, when his plot was discovered, he himself taken prisoner, tried, condemned, and sentenced to be shot.

HIS EXECUTION.

479

When on his way to the place of execution, he made a desperate struggle to escape from his guards, and nearly succeeded in mounting a horse, which an accomplice had in readiness to carry him off in the confusion that was expected to occur; but the officer of the guard performed his duty, and the soldiers under him, on arriving at the fatal spot, having obeyed the dread command-" Present!-Fire!" in an instant five musket-balls passed through the heart of Matute.

480

ARRIVAL AT TUCUMAN.

CHAPTER XVI.

Treasure that formerly passed through Tucuman from the mines of Peru.—Extreme heat in Santiago del Estero.— Barbarous Indians.-A Cordovese beauty.-Recent discovery of silver mines in Cordova. -A great man.— Arrival at Buenos Ayres.-Depression of the paper currency.Embark in H. M. Packet Zephyr.-Touch at Rio Janeiro. -Arrival in England.

AFTER travelling four days through a country beautifully picturesque, we arrived on the 18th of August, without accident or incident, in the lately sacked city of Tucuman. Here we took up our quarters at a coffee-house in the great square, and found very good accommodation, and the kindest attention to our few wants. From the plenty of every commodity that was to be seen in the markets, a stranger could never have supposed that an enemy's army had retired from the neighbourhood only a few days before, after having levied contribu

WANT OF GOVERNMENT.

481

tions, driven off thousands of cattle, and committed divers excesses, such as cannot well be conceived by those who have never witnessed the miseries of civil war.

When are the political commotions of this devoted country to cease? Must the present generation pass away before all the animosities of party are forgotten? Are those treasures, which lie here in superabundance on the surface of the earth, so truly said to be infinitely preferable to those which lie beneath it-are they, on account of incessant feuds, to continue unprofitable and utterly disregarded, when, in other climes, thousands are struggling to obtain, by a laborious life, a scanty supply of that which Nature, in her bounty, here plentifully and almost spontaneously bestows? These are questions which cannot be asked but with intense interest by those who have visited this country, and have had an opportunity of judging what might be the advantages to a great portion of mankind, under a good government, the steady friend and supporter of order, industry, and peace.

At Tucuman I became acquainted with Don Francisco, an Englishman, who had been a sailor, and deserted from the Diamond frigate at Buenos Ayres, twenty years before.

He