One thing there is, however, that they strongly object to, and that is to be moved much beyond the range of their own climate.

The men of the plains are as susceptible as Europeans to the ill effects of the climate of the tierra caliente; and the men of the hot lands cannot bear the cold of the high plateaus.
Travellers in the United States make great fun of the profusion of colonels and generals, and tell ludicrous stories on the subject.

There is also talk of the absurd number of officers in the Spanish-American armies, but we should not, by any means, confound the two things.

In the United States it is merely a harmless exhibition of vanity, and an amusing comment on their own high-minded abnegation of mere titles.

In Spanish America it indicates a very real and serious evil indeed.
Don Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, in his statistical chart for 1856, quoted above, estimates the soldiers in the Republic at 12,000, and the officers at 2,000, not counting those on half-pay.