Publisher's Synopsis
The story here presented (El Capitan Veneno) and El Sombrero de Tres Picos are now the most read of all of Alarcon's works. El Diario de un Testigo de la Guerra de Africa brought the most fame and money, for at that time the excitement of the country over the war, and the patriotism of the nation, combined for Alarcon's good fortune. Several of the scenes and characters had their prototypes in the Diario. General O'Donnell, Duke of Tetuan, was the original of the brusk, impulsive, but genuine captain. For Alarcon says of General O'Donnell: "The man, prosaic and cold, distrustful of lively imaginations, insensible to every art except the art of war, hostile to beautiful phrases... today spoke with the certain emphasis of the best taste; in the style of the old-time general, like Napoleon at the pyramids." Talking to the Moors through an interpreter, his words were "animated by his attitude, his gestures, his looks.... He questioned them with energy; orated and declaimed with eloquence; now he would rail at them, now flatter them. The Moors read in his face the sentiments that animated him, and the degree of truth, of shrewdness, of calculation, or of passion, that each phrase held.""
