Rosas possesses an incredible power of continuous labor: he sleeps during the greater part of the day, and passes the night in his cabinet. It is not until four o'clock in the afternoon that he quits his bedroom. During the summer, when he is in the country, he may be seen from this hour until six o'clock galloping through the gardens, open to all comers, or playing in front of the house with an enormous tigress, which, though of the greatest ferocity with strangers, trembles and crouches to the earth, at his voice. At six o'clock he takes a light repast; after which he sits down to work, and does not leave off until five or six in the morning. It is at this hour that he dines in company with a couple of jesters, dressed in an eccentric manner, one of whom goes by the name of _the governor_, who seek to amuse him by their witticisms, their grotesque games, and sometimes by fighting. It has been said that Rosas is surrounded by guards. But this is utterly false. His house, which is vast and elegant, stands upon the highway, and the doors, according to the general custom of the country, are always wide open. So far from it being the case that he keeps his person carefully guarded, it is, on the contrary, frequently a very difficult matter on entering the house to meet with even a domestic to announce you; and the visitor could with as much ease reach his private cabinet or his bed-chamber as he could the courts upon which these apartments open. There is not even a sentry or a porter at the principal door.