[BOOK II.—THE MONTONERO]
[CHAPTER I.]
EL RINCÓN DEL BOSQUECILLO.
It was about the middle of a southern summer; the heat during the whole day had been suffocating; the dust had covered the leaves of the trees with a thick layer of a greyish tint, which gave to the landscape— picturesque and varied as it was in the Llano de Manso, where our narrative recommences—a sad and desolate appearance, which, happily, was soon to disappear, thanks to the abundant shower of the night, which, in washing the trees, would bring back to them their primitive colour.
The llano presented, as far as the eye could reach, in all directions, only an uninterrupted chain of low hills, covered with a yellowish grass, dried up by the burning rays of the sun, and under which myriads of red grasshoppers uttered in emulation of each other their sharp twitterings.
At some distance on the right was a little stream, half dried up, which meandered like a silver ribbon, bordered with a narrow fringe of mastic trees, of guanas, and of thistles. Only on an elevated shore of this stream, called the Rio Bermejo, and which is an affluent of the Parana, there was a thick wood, a kind of oasis, planted by the all-powerful hand of God in this desert, and the fresh and green foliage of which strongly contrasted with the yellow tint which formed the chief feature of the landscape.
Black swans allowed themselves carelessly to drift on the stream; hideous iguanas wallowed in the mire; flights of partridges and turtledoves rapidly flew to the shelter of the trees; here and there vicuñas and viscachas were bounding and playing in the air; and high in the air large bald vultures were wheeling their flight in broad circles.
From the profound calm which reigned in this desert, and from its wild appearance, it would seem to have remained as it had come from the hands of the Creator, and never to have been trodden by a human foot.