GENERAL SAN MARTIN 288 Sun, having this motto in Latin : " We bear this aloft dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of the Andes. In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine patriots for the cause of independ- ence. The country was in revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an American, but a Creole ; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was destined to become " the greatest of the Creoles of the New World." Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Dofia Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru. Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine Govern- ment, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes, of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile. Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his military camp here On January 17, 181 7, he began his march up the Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is 12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than the Pass of St Bernard. The 1 7th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted : " Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence I " There arose a great shout of " Viva la Patria I " " Soldiers, swear to sustain it" " We swear," answered the army, as one man. Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his " Life of San Mar tin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose " for the redemption of one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes." The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300 ever reached Chile. " What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at the outset of the expedition, " is not the strength of the enemy, but how to pass those
