The day was excessively warm, and we did not reach our destination till about three o'clock in the afternoon. Just before entering the town we rode through a little army of gauchos encamped on the adjacent plain. Some of them were engaged cooking meat, others were saddling horses, while others, in bodies of twenty or thirty, were going through cavalry exercises, the whole making a scene of wonderful animation. Very nearly all the men wore the ordinary gaucho costume, and those who were exercising carried lances, to which were attached little white, fluttering bannerets. Passing through the encampment, we clattered into the town, composed of about seventy or eighty houses of stone or mud, some thatched, others with tiled roofs, and every house with a large garden attached to it. At the official building facing the plaza a guard of ten men, armed with carbines, was stationed. We dismounted and went into the building, only to hear that the General had just left the town, and was not expected back till the following day. Alday spoke to an officer sitting at a table in the room we were shown into, addressing him as Major. He was a thin, elderly man, with calm grey eyes and a colourless face, and looked like a gentleman. After hearing a few words from Alday, he turned to me and said courteously that he was sorry to tell me I should have to remain in El Molino till the General's return, when I could give an account of myself to him. “We do not,” he said in conclusion, “wish to compel any foreigner, or any Oriental even, to join our forces; but we are naturally suspicious of strangers, having already caught two or three spies in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately you are not provided with a passport, and it is best that the General should see you.” “Sir officer,” I replied, “by ill-treating and detaining an Englishman you are doing your cause no good.” He answered that he was grieved that his people had found it necessary to treat me roughly, for he put it in that mild way. Everything, he said, short of liberating me, would be done to make my sojourn in El Molino pleasant. “If it is necessary that the General should see me himself before I can have my liberty, pray let these men take me to him at once,” I said. “He has not yet left El Molino,” said an orderly, standing in the room. “He is at the end of the town at the Casa Blanca, and does not leave till half-past three.” “It is nearly that now,” said the officer, consulting his watch. “Take him to the General at once, Lieutenant Alday.”