I verily believe that Britons, whether English, Irish, or Scotch, are all born to wander, and born colonists. There really seems to be something in the very air of a new land, be it Australia, America, or the Silver West, that brings all their very best and noblest qualities to the surface, and oftentimes makes men—bold, hardy, persevering men—of individuals who, had they stayed in this old cut-and-dry country, would never have been anything better than louts or Johnnie Raws. I assure the reader that I speak from long experience when I make these remarks, and on any Saturday evening when I happen to be in London, and see poor young fellows coming home to garrets, perhaps with their pittance in their pockets, I feel for them from the very depths of my soul. And sometimes I sigh and murmur to myself——
'Oh dear me!' I say, 'if my purse were only half as big as my heart, wouldn't I quickly gather together a thousand of these white slaves and sail merrily off with them to the Land of the Silver West! And men would learn to laugh there who hardly ever smiled before, and tendons would wax wiry, and muscles hard, and pale faces grow brown with the tints of health. And health would mean work, and work would mean wealth, and—but, heigho! what is the good of dreaming? Only some 147 day—yes, some day—and what a glorious sunrise it will be for this empire—Government will see its way to grant free passages to far-off lands, in which there is peace and plenty, work and food for all, and where the bread one eats is never damped by falling tears. God send that happy day! And send it soon!
It is the memory of our first months and years of a downright pleasant life that makes me write like this. We poor lads—my brothers and I—poor, but determined, found everything so enjoyable at our new home in the Silver West that oftentimes we could not help wishing that thousands of toiling mortals from Glasgow and other great overcrowded cities would only come out somehow and share our posy. For really, to put it in plain and simple language, next to the delight of enjoying anything oneself, should it only be an apple, is the pleasure of seeing one's neighbour have a bite.
Now here is a funny thing, but it is a fact. The air of Mendoza is so wonderfully dry and strong and bracing that it makes men of boys in a very short time, and makes old people young again. It might not smooth away wrinkles from the face, or turn grey hair brown, or even make two hairs grow where only one grew before; but it does most assuredly rejuvenate the heart, and shakes all the wrinkles out of that. Out here it is no uncommon thing for the once rheumatic to learn to dance, while stiff-jointed individuals who immigrated with crutches under their arms, pitch these crutches into the irrigation canals, and take to spades and guns instead.
It is something in the air, I think, that works these wondrous changes, though I am sure I could not say what. It may be oxygen in double doses, or it may be ozone, or even laughing gas; but there it is, and whosoever reads these lines and doubts what I say, has only to take flight for the beautiful province of Mendoza, and he shall remain a sceptic no longer.
Well, as soon as we got over the fatigues of our long 148 journey, and began to realize the fact that we were no longer children of the desert, no longer nomads and gipsies, my brothers and I set to work with a hearty good-will that astonished even ourselves. In preparing our new homes we, and all the other settlers of this infant colony as well, enjoyed the same kind of pleasure that Robinson Crusoe must have done when he and his man Friday set up house for themselves in the island of Juan Fernandez.
Even the labourers or 'hands' whom Moncrieff had imported had their own dwellings to erect, but instead of looking upon this as a hardship, they said that this was the fun of the thing, and that it was precisely here where the laugh came in.
Moreover they worked for themselves out of hours, and I dare say that is more than any of them would have done in the old country.
Never once was the labour of the estancia neglected, nor the state of the aqueducts, nor Moncrieff's flocks and herds, nor his fences.
Some of these men had been ploughmen, others shepherds, but every one of them was an artisan more or less, and it is just such men that do well—men who know a good deal about country life, and can deftly use the spade, the hoe, the rake, the fork, as well as the hammer, the axe, the saw, and the plane. Thanks to the way dear father had brought us up, my brothers and I were handy with all sorts of tools, and we were rather proud than otherwise of our handicraft.