Explore "The Freebooters" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As the opportunity offers itself, let us say a few words about the military organization of the United States of Mexico, an organization as singular as all the rest of the machinery by means of which the strange government of this eccentric Republic does its work.
A military uniform generally pleases the masses; a soldier's life has something in it so independent of ordinary life, that all nations more or less allow themselves to be carried away and seduced by the glitter of embroidery and epaulettes, the rolling of drums, and the shrill notes of the bugles. Young nations, especially, like to play at soldiering, to make standards flutter, horses curvet, and mighty sabres flash.