SAN MIGUEL DE TUCUMÁN. San Miguel de Tucumán, the studious and calm town, whose broad streets were ordinarily almost deserted, and whose squares resembled the cloisters of an immense convent, had suddenly changed its aspect. It might have been called a vast barrack, so many soldiers of all kinds encumbered it. The quiet life of its inhabitants had been changed into feverish existence, full of noise and excitement. Men, women, children, and soldiers, mingled pell-mell at the corner of each street, and in every square, were calling out and talking in emulation of each other, gesticulating with that vivacity and animation peculiar to southern races; brandishing banners with the colours of the nation, and dragging about in all the busy streets, and close to the houses, boxes and cohetes, that supreme manifestation of joy in Spanish America. A fête without cohetes or crackers, without fireworks, making noise and smoke, is a failure in these countries. The quantity of powder which is consumed in this way attains fabulous proportions. We are pleased to render this justice to the Hispano-Americans--that they have no pretentiousness in their fireworks, and that they let them off artlessly, to their great contentment, as well by day under the most brilliant sun, as by night in the midst of darkness. We have even remarked that they prefer, by a refinement, no doubt, of extravagant selfish enjoyment, to let them off by daylight under the noses of the gaping crowd, that escapes half-burnt, howling and cursing at the mischievous wags, who laugh convulsively at the good turn which they have done for their admirers. On this day, as the travellers learned on their passage, the inhabitants of San Miguel were celebrating a great victory gained by a chief of the Buenos Airean Montoneros over the Spaniards. In the old Spanish colonies, and in general throughout America--that of the south as well as that of the north--it is not well to take too literally these bulletins of victory, which for the most part are only skirmishes of no importance, when there are neither killed nor wounded; and which even frequently conceal defeats or shameful retreats. For some years Europeans have been informed as to the character of these dwellers beyond the sea; their boasting and throwing the hatchet have passed into a proverb. Everyone knows that the puff is of American origin; that the most magnificent flocks of canards reach us at a single flight from the other side of the Atlantic; and that, although many come from the Spanish republics, the most numerous start in countless troops from all the ports of the United States of America, which have justly acquired such a superiority for the rearing of these interesting birds, that henceforth no one will venture to dispute with them the palm of the puff, the public announcement, and the official lie.