§ 2
Of all cities, none was better calculated to foster this mood of his than the one to which his business now brought him—Buenos Aires on the Plate. Leaving Liverpool with steel and cotton, there was an immensity of ocean to be traversed, until one came to the river mouth. Then fifty leagues of hard sailing to the abominable anchorage....
Here now was a city growing rich, ungracefully—a city of arrogant Spanish colonists, of poverty-stricken immigrants, of down-trodden lower classes ... a city of riches ... a city of blood.... Here mud, here money....
Into a city half mud hovels, half marble-fronted houses, gauchos drove herd upon herd of cattle, baffled, afraid. Here Irish drove streams of gray bleating sheep. Here ungreased bullock carts screamed. From the blue-grass pampas they drove them, where the birds sang, and water rippled, where was the gentleness of summer rain, where was the majesty of great storms, clouds magnificently black and jagged lightning, where were great white moons and life-giving suns, where was the serpent in the grass, and the unique tree, where were swift horses.... Beeves that had once been red awkward calves, and then sullen, stupid little bullocks, and then proud young bulls, with graceful horns.... Such as earnest Christians believed had lowed at the manger of Christ born in Bethlehem.... And stupid, suspicious sheep, that had once been white gamboling lambs, playful as pups, and so ridiculously innocent looking!—didn't they call their Lord Agnus Dei, Lamb of God?—and gentle ewes and young truculent rams, like red-headed schoolboys, eager for a fray, and shamefaced wethers.... And by their thousands and their tens of thousands they drove them into Buenos Aires, and slew them for their hides....
But this was sentimental, Shane said. Bullocks and sheep must die, and the knife is merciful as any death. But oughtn't these things be done by night, privily, as they should bury the dead? Must they drive down these infinities of creatures, and slaughter them openly and callously, until the air was salt with blood, until the carrion crows hovered over the city in battalions? Had they no feeling, had they no shame? Must the pitiful machinery of life be exposed so airily?
Of course it must, he knew. These things had to be done in bulk. Now weren't the middle ages when one killed a cow because one had to eat: one killed a sheep because the winter was coming when woolens were needed. All Europe needed shoes, saddles, combs, anti-macassars, afghans—what not? And Europe was a big place, so in bulk they must bellow and bleat and die, and have their hides torn from their pitiful bodies, salted, and chucked in the hold of a ship.
Of course it must. That was civilization.