Pernales 181 
Should any of these sleek-faces read our book, they may be 
gratified to learn that no other civilised country produces parasites 
such as they. 
Not a foreign student of the problems of social life in Spain 
with its conditions but has been brought to a full stop in the 
effort to diagnose or describe the secret sinister influence of 
Caciquismo. Our Spanish friends—detesting and despising the 
thing equally with ourselves—tell us that no foreigner has yet 
realised either its nature or its scope. Certainly we make no 
such pretension, nor attempt to describe the thing itself-—a thing 
scarce intelligible to Saxon lines of thought, a baneful influence 
devised to retard the advance of modern ideas of freedom and 
justice, to benumb all moral yearnings for truth and honesty in 
public affairs and civil government. Caciquismo may roughly be 
defined as the negation and antithesis of patriotism ; it sets the 
personal influence of one before the interest of all, sacrificing 
whole districts to the caprice of some soul-warped tyrant with 
no eyes to see. 
A word in conclusion on Vivillo. Neither ignorance nor 
necessity impelled Joaquin Camargo, nicknamed El Vivillo (the 
Lively Oue), to embark, at the age of twenty-five, on a career of 
crime. Rather it was that spirit of knight-errantry, of reckless 
adventure, that centuries before had swept the Spanish Main, and 
that nowadays, in baser sort, thrives and is fostered by a false 
romance—as Diego Corrientes, the bandit, was reputed to be 
“yun” by a duchess, as the “Seven Lads of Ecija” terrorised 
under the egis of exalted patronage, and José Maria, the 
murderer of the Sierra Moréna, was extolled as a melodramatic 
hero by novelists all over Spain. On such lines young Camargo 
thought to gather fresh glories for himself. He early gained 
notoriety by a smart exploit in holding-up the diligence from Las 
Cabezas for Villa Martin just when the September Fair was 
proceeding at the latter place. The passengers, mostly cattle- 
dealers, were relieved of bursting purses—no cheques pass current 
at Villa Martin—to the tune of £8000. After that, for several 
years, Vivillo ruled rural Andalucia, and his desperate deeds 
supplied the papers with startling head-lines. When pursuit 
became troublesome he embarked for Argentina, and soon his 
name was forgotten. His retreat, however, was discovered, 
