This wearing of the red naturally became the custom.  It was the result of no special decree, but the unwritten law was not to be denied.  Indeed, did any rash inhabitant of Buenos Aires refrain from obeying it, the result of his independence was that he betrayed himself an open enemy of the Dictator, and he met with the inevitable punishment for this, which was in any case imprisonment, and possibly death.  The blood-like hue, moreover, was encouraged not only in dress, but in general decorations, and even in the walls of houses, and every other object in which it could be employed.

The executions during the twenty and odd years which Rosas held office amounted to many thousands.  The melancholy total, indeed, would assuredly have been still further increased had not the majority of the more intellectual and of the more important colonial families fled across the frontiers and taken refuge either in Chile or in Uruguay.

The character of Rosas was strangely complex.  It must not be supposed that he was nothing beyond a mere brigand and tyrant, who busied himself with executions and plunder, to the exclusion of all other occupations.  He was, indeed, in many respects a man experienced in the ways of the broader world, and was able, after his particular fashion, to hold his own with European diplomats and others of the kind.

The great naturalist, Darwin, for instance, when on his visit to the Argentine Provinces, was brought into contact with Rosas, and admits that he was very struck with the personality of the leader, who in conversation was “enthusiastic, sensible, and very grave.  His gravity,” he continues, “is carried to a high pitch.”  General Rosas, as a matter of fact, appears to have possessed the happy knack of impressing favourably almost everyone whom he met, and the explanation of his policy, when recorded from his own lips, was wont to ring very differently from that given by his opponents.  It is probable enough that in many respects his views were truly patriotic.  His methods, on the other hand, were callous to an altogether inhuman point.  It is, in any case, quite certain that the value he placed on life was altogether infinitesimal.

As time went on the power of Rosas steadily increased, and the rival chieftains one by one withdrew from the contest or met with their death in one of the wars of the age.  Garibaldi himself had broken a lance in the cause of the Unitarians.  Rivera and other progressive leaders had fought against him in vain.  There were others of the type of Quiroga, who, brought up in the same school as Rosas, although of lesser birth—­for the family of the Dictator was patrician—­joined him for a while in a species of tentative alliance, and then broke away—­usually to their cost.

This Quiroga was one of the most noted chieftains of the interior of the distraught Republic.  He had swept the western provinces with fire and sword, executing, burning, and plundering wherever he went.  Had he not fallen foul of Rosas, he might have continued his grim career unchecked for years.  As it was, he came in contact with a master-mind, and, as was inevitable, perished.