We have just said that the two individuals alone worthy of attention and study throughout the whole of the Argentine Confederation, are first of all General Rosas, and afterward, his daughter, Manuelita. In fact it is in them, in their will or their caprices, that are concentrated the entire policy and administration of the republic. The men who, below them nominally fill the higher offices of the State, are but mutes, divested alike of either power or will. Like the stage representatives of noble knights and powerful monarchs, the higher functionaries of the republic and especially the secretaries of state hold office without filling any character. They serve occasionally to make known the will of the governor without being permitted in any case to interpret it. Even the general officers in command of the armed forces dispersed over the territory are obliged to keep near their persons certain subaltern agents enjoying the confidence of the governor, whose orders and directions they are obliged implicitly to follow. Although nominally and apparently holding appointments which seem to invest them with a certain degree of authority, the state functionaries are in this respect no better off than their less fortunate countrymen, but are like all the rest of the Argentines, in a state of absolute and slavish dependence. When General Rosas seized the reins of government, his first and principal care was to transform completely the Argentine society. In place of the enlightened men whom Rivadavia had applied himself to seek out, Rosas has raised to the first rank, the crew of unlettered ignorant men, stained with every crime which disgraces human nature, who had seconded his ambitious views. The biographies of the individuals who formed the _mashorca_ are well known to every one, but such is the terror inspired by the Dictator, that each, even the sons, brothers, and widows of those who fell beneath their murderous knives, eagerly hasten to show all the civility and deference in their power for the particular friends of the governor. Never in any country have we had so many examples of abject and shameful servility as in this. The Argentine society possesses neither morality, religion, honor, nor courage. All look forward to the day when the country shall be delivered from the reign of despotism and tyranny which has so long oppressed it; but there is not a man in all Buenos Ayres who has the courage to manifest his feelings of disgust and repugnance for those who aid the governor in retaining power. And let not the reader imagine that it is only a tacit assent which is rendered to the tyrant's iron rule; each after venting curses "not loud but deep" when he is certain of not being heard, against the Dictator and his acolytes, rushes into the streets to take part in the public manifestations commanded by Rosas. The savage device that we read upon the _cinta_[2] is the cry which the watchmen shout