It was into a badly-lighted tavern, with two or three rooms leading out of one another, that his friend then conducted him.

Men of the most various social positions, many with a military look, and in half-threadbare uniforms, filled the inner rooms; and in the outer one he had seen upon entering a number of seafaring men, who looked like Americans, and who nodded to him on the strength of his sailor's dress.
There were several women, more or less well dressed, moving about among them, and others standing with eager faces over the gambling-table in the inner room.

All were drinking acachacas, and the whole place was pervaded with a cloud of tobacco-smoke, out of which there came a deafening clamour of talk.
Salve had a seat found for him by his friend at a long table, amongst a number of bronzed, bearded men, with large hats, leather breeches, and spurs, whose company he by no means cared about.

They looked like mounted bullock-drivers, such as he had seen at Monte Video, or still more, perhaps, like brigands, or banditti.
"They belong to Mendez's volunteer corps," whispered Federigo, as he presented him then to the chief of the party, who sat at the top of the table--a powerful fellow, with a weather-beaten complexion, heavy black mustachios, and a pair of small active eyes, which, more than once afterwards, when Salve was not looking, were turned critically upon him.
Every now and then they clinked their glasses together to some party toast; but otherwise they were quiet enough at first.

People of the same calibre sat round other tables in the immediate neighbourhood; and at another were intermingled well-dressed persons from the town, who were carrying on a whispered conversation, and who appeared anxious.
The shouting, and the noise, and the laughter kept increasing.