is nevertheless replete with the evidence of genius, and bears the stamp
of a generously-cultivated mind. Its author, indeed, the poet-patriot-
philosopher, Don Domingo F. Sarmiento, may be called the Lamartine of
South America, whose eventful career may some day invite us to an
examination. Suffice it now to say, that he was expelled by Rosas in 1840
from Buenos Ayres, and that he took his way to Chile, with the intention
in that hospitable republic of devoting his pen to the service of his
oppressed country. At the baths of Zonda he wrote with charcoal, under a
delineation of the national arms: _On ne tue point les idées_! which
inscription, having been reported to the Gaucho chieftain, a committee was
appointed to decipher and translate it. When the wording of the
significant hint was conveyed to Rosas, he exclaimed,--"Well, what does it
mean?" The answer was conveyed to him in 1852; and the sentence serves as
epigraph to the present life of his associate and victim, Facundo Quiroga.

[Footnote 1: _Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga_, etc., por Domingo F.
Sarmiento. Santiago, 1845.]

In this extraordinary character we see the quintessence of that desert-
life some types of which we have endeavored to delineate. As one who,
rising from the lowest station to heights of uncontrolled power, as a
representative of a class of rulers unfortunately too common in the
republics that descend from Spain, and as a remarkable instance of brutal
force and barbaric stubbornness triumphing over reason, science,
education, and, in a word, civilization, he is admirably portrayed by Sr.
Sarmiento. Ours be the task to condense into a few pages the story of his
life and death.

The Argentine province of La Rioja embraces vast tracts of sandy desert.
Destitute of rivers, bare of trees, it is only by means of artificial and