As Mrs. Jesus sent her boy to my school, so Mrs. Flower sent her girl. The latter was perhaps the most deluded woman I have met. Her every act was bad in itself or characterized by superstitious devotion. She was one of the Church's favorite worshippers, and while I was in the neighborhood she sold her cows and horses and presented the priest at the nearest town with a large and expensive silver cross—the emblem of suffering purity. Near her lived a person for whom she had an especial aversion, but that enemy she got rid of in surely the strangest of ways, which she described to me. Catching a snake, and holding it so that its poison might not reach her, she passed a threaded needle through both its eyes. When this was done she let it go again, alive, and, carefully guarding the needle, approached the person from behind and made a cross with the thread. The undesired one disappeared, having probably heard of the enchantment, and being equally superstitious, or—the charm worked!
Mrs. Flower was a most repulsive-looking creature. Her skin was exactly the color of an old copper coin. She did not resemble any flower I have seen in either hemisphere. Far was she from being a rose, but she certainly possessed the thorn. Her love for the saints was most marked, and I have known her promise St. Roque that she would walk six miles carrying his image if he would only grant her a certain prayer. This petition he granted, and off she trudged with her divine (?) load. Those acquainted with dwellers on the prairie know that this was indeed a great task, horses being so cheap and riding so universal. Mrs. Flower was unaccustomed to walk even the shortest distance. I myself can bear witness to the fact that even strong men find it hard to walk a mile after spending years in equestrian travel. The native tells you that God formed your legs so that you might be able to sit on a horse rather than to walk with them. A favorite expression with them is, "I was born on horseback."
Stone not being found on the pampas, these people generally build their houses of square sods, with a roof of plaited grasses—sometimes I have observed these beautifully woven together. Two or more holes, according to the size of the house, are left to serve for door and window. Wood cannot be obtained, glass has not been introduced, so the holes are left as open spaces, across which, when the pampa wind blows, a hide is stretched. No hole is left in the roof for the smoke of the fire to escape, for this to the native is no inconvenience whatever. When I have been compelled to fly with racking cough and splitting head, he has calmly asked the reason. Never could I bear the blinding smoke that issues from his fire of sheep or cow dung burning on the earthen floor, though he heeds it not as, sitting on a bullock's skull, he ravenously eats his evening meal.
If entertaining a stranger, he will press uncut joint after joint of his asado upon him. This asado is meat roasted over the fire on a spit; if beef, with the skin and hair still attached. Meat cooked in this way is a real delicacy. A favorite dish with them (I held a different opinion) is a half-formed calf, taken before its proper time of birth. The meat is often dipped in the ashes in lieu of salt. I have said the Gaucho has no chair. I might add that neither has he a table, for with his fingers and knife he eats the meat off the fire. Forks he is without, and a horn or shell spoon conveys the soup to his mouth direct from the copper pan. So universal is the use of the shell for this service that the native does not speak of it as caracol, the real word for shell, but calls it cuchara del agua, or water spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy, long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep, cuts off the head of a serpent—seemingly, however, not doing it much harm, for it still wriggles—sticks his horse when in anger, and, alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The forward march of the outer world concerns him not; indeed he imagines that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He will gaze with wonder on your watch, for his only mode of ascertaining the time is by the shadow the sun casts. As that luminary rises and sets, so he sleeps and wakes. His only bed is the sheepskin, which when riding he fastens over his saddle, and the latter article forms his pillow. His coverlet is the firmament of heaven, the Southern Cross and other constellations, unseen by dwellers in the Northern Hemisphere, seeming to keep watch over him; or in the colder season his poncho, which I have already described. Around his couch flit the fireflies, resembling so many stars of earth with their strangely radiant lights. The brightness of one, when held near the face of my watch, made light enough to enable me to ascertain the hour, even on the darkest night.
The Gaucho with his horse is at home anywhere. When on a journey he will stop for the evening meal beside the dry bones of some dead animal. With these and grass he will make a fire and cook the meat he carries hanging behind him on the saddle. I have known an animal killed and the meat cooked with its own bones, but this is not usual. Dry bones burn better, and thistle-stalks better still. He will then lie down on mother earth with the horse-cloth under him and the saddle for a pillow. When travelling with these men I have known them, without any comment, stretch themselves on the ground, even though the rain was falling, and soon be in dreamland. After having passed a wretched night myself, I have asked them, "How did you sleep?" "Muy Bien, Senor" (Very good, sir), has been the invariable answer. They would often growl much, however, over the wet saddle-cloths, for these soon cause a horse's back to become sore.
Here and there, but sometimes at long distances apart, there is a pulperia on the road. This is always designated by having a white flag flying on the end of a long bamboo. At these places cheap spirits of wine and very bad rum can be bought, along with tobacco, hard ship-biscuits (very often full of maggots, as I know only too well), and a few other more necessary things. I have observed in some of these wayside inns counters made of turf, built in blocks as bricks would be. Here the natives stop to drink long and deep, and stew their meagre brains in bad spirits. These draughts result in quarrels and sometimes in murder.
The Gaucho, like the Indian, cannot drink liquor without becoming maddened by it. He will then do things which in his sober moments he would not dream of. I was acquainted with a man who owned a horse of which he was very fond This animal bore him one evening to a pulperia some miles distant, and was left tied outside while he imbibed his fill inside. Coming out at length beastly intoxicated, he mounted his horse and proceeded homeward. Arriving at a fork in the path, the faithful horse took the one leading home, but the rider, thinking in his stupor that the other way was the right one, turned the horse's head. As the poor creature wanted to get home and have the saddle taken off, it turned again. This affront was too much for the Gaucho, who is a man of volcanic passions, so drawing his knife, he stabbed it in the neck, and they dropped to the ground together. When he realized that he had killed his favorite horse he cried like a child. I passed this dead animal several times afterwards and saw the vultures clean its bones. It served me as a witness to the results of ungoverned passion.
The Gaucho does not, and would not under any consideration, ride a mare; consequently, for work she is practically valueless. Strain, who rode across the pampas, says: "In a single year ten million hides were exported." For one or two dollars each the buyer may purchase any number; indeed, of such little worth are the mares that they are very often killed for their hide, or to serve as food for swine. At one estancia I visited I was informed that one was killed each day for pig feed. The mare can be driven long distances, even a hundred miles a day, for several successive days, The Argentine army must surely be the most mobile of any in the world, for its soldiers, when on the march, get nothing but mare's flesh and the custom gives them great facility of movement. The horse has, more or less, its standard value, and costs four or five times the price of the mare.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN GAUCHO DRESS.]
Sometimes it happens that the native finds a colt which is positively untamable. On the cheek of such an animal the Gaucho will burn a cross and then allow it to go free, like the scape-goat mentioned in the book of Leviticus.