At other times, however, the results have been far more serious, as
many a maimed soldier and bereaved family can testify. The graves of
victims of the revolutions are scattered all over the Republic. How
many have fallen in the disturbances of the past fifteen years it is
impossible to determine; I have heard estimates ranging from 1000 up
to 15,000. Nor is revolutionizing a pleasant business when continued
for any length of time. When the men entered a town contributions
could be levied on the merchants, but when they were harassed and
forced to retreat to the mountains they roamed for weeks half nude,
bare-headed, barefooted, exposed to the weather, living on what
bananas and wild fruits they could find or occasional wild hogs they
were able to kill, undermining their constitutions and brutalizing
their natures. The landlady whose son sought political distinction
with a gun told me amid sobs that her boys were dutiful, industrious
lads before being caught in the revolutionary torrent, but that in the
woods they lost all inclination for work and returned home completely
demoralized.
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