The fall of Montevideo and the final ejection of the Spaniards from the soil was followed by the retirement of the Buenos Aires armies to their own country. Thus to Artigas's realm was added the necessary complement of a capital and some seagoing ships that served as the nucleus of a national navy. The ex-smuggler was now at the zenith of his power. It is at this point that he affords by far the most interesting picture, since the amazing medley of sentiments for which his character was responsible were now given full play. Caring nothing for pomp and ceremony, he sent Otorgues to rule Montevideo, while his other chiefs assumed control of the various districts throughout the provinces. He himself, true to his Gaucho upbringing, avoided all towns, and finally settled himself in the north-west of Uruguay. On a tableland by the banks of the great river, some score of miles to the south of Salto, he established a camp from which he directed the policy of the five provinces that owned to his rule. In the neighbourhood of this encampment of Hervidero was another, in which were confined those prisoners whose offences were not considered worthy of immediate death. Serving as it did to cleanse doubtful minds of rebellion, it was christened by the euphuistic name of Purificacion. There is no doubt that the methods employed for this exalted purpose often ended fatally for the unfortunates experimented upon. The popular tales of the deeds done at both encampments are extraordinarily revolting. Two phrases of jocular slang then much in use throw a lurid light upon the callousness of the period. "To play the violin" referred to the cutting of a human throat; "to play the viola" signified the severance of a live man's body--both gruesomely accurate similes. Men are said to have been flung wholesale into the river, attached to stones, and a peculiarly agonising form of death was engineered in the sewing up of a living victim in the hide of a freshly killed bullock, which was then exposed to the sun. The result was shrinkage, and suffocation for the miserable wretch within the reeking covering, an ending that was dubbed "the waistcoat" by a touch of similar humour. Numerous evidences of individuality, moreover, were evident in the various forms of punishment. Thus a certain Colonel Perugorria, who lay under a charge of treason, was, until his execution, chained to a post, as though he were a dog, by means of an iron collar round his neck, to which the steel links were attached.