In the northern and central districts society was cast in the Peruvian mold, a reproduction of Spanish civilization, aristocrats adopting primogeniture and, in modified form, the feudal régime of the _encomenderos_. In the river and mountain region, the urban was a reflection of the rural population, independent, haughty, brave, accustomed to making forays upon horseback over the endless pampas, trusting to its own decision and in the end to the knife, which was a symbol of the worship of personal courage, inherited from Spanish ancestors who had developed it during the centuries of the struggle against the Moors. In the river district the commerce, which in the main was carried on illegally by doggedly persevering merchants who plied their trade fearlessly with pirates and foreign smugglers, caused a certain spirit of self-confidence to grow. This spirit made itself felt in the popular movement of the reconquest of 1806, and in the impulse of the revolution of May, 1810. From Buenos Ayres started the movement for independence, and the Cabildos of the interior cities fell in with the movement with more or less alacrity. Hence the further inland these cities were, the less enthusiastic. The Paraguayan region isolated itself and followed the conservative policy of the Cabildo of Asuncion. The province of High Peru, in spite of its efforts, was the last to revolt and never followed with any ardor the movement initiated by the metropolis. Indeed, the revolution of May, which had spread to the banks of the Paraguay river and over the plateau of Bolivia, might not, perhaps, have succeeded in so closely cementing, in spite of the righteousness of its cause, the independence proclaimed in Tucuman in 1816, had not the inspiration of San Martin added that powerful impulse which flung armies across the Andes, liberated Chile from Spanish dominion and brought independence to Peru. He might have pursued this glorious course toward the independence of the whole continent, if the colossal egotism of Bolivar in that tragic conference of Guayaquil had not placed our national hero in the dilemma of either eliminating himself and leaving his selfish rival to wear the laurels planted and nurtured by Argentine blood or of sacrificing the fruits of the campaign for independence, by not being able to obtain from him the military assistance he was in need of. He placed his country before his own glory and yielded the field to one to whom personal renown was preferable to all else.