The early morning was Pansy's favourite time; the world was a place of dew and brightness with the sun glinting gold on sandy hills and air that sparkled like champagne.
She trotted along on her big horse towards the white city, its flat roofs, low houses and palms giving it an oriental aspect. Biding through the town, she crossed a wide bridge and went upwards through a grove of palms, past banana gardens, into a deserted world, with a blue sky overhead and an endless stretch of sea behind.
As she mounted higher, the hill grew vine-clad, and great ragged eucalyptus trees stood in tatters by the roadside. Here and there was a stunted pine, the deep green of a walnut tree, a clump of bamboo, a palm and occasionally, a great patch of prickly cacti, whose flaming flowers stood out red against a dazzling day.
She rode without spurs or whip, when necessary urging her horse with hand and voice only.
A village was reached, where black-browed men in slouch hats and blanket cloaks lounged in groups, smoking and gossiping, and swarthy women with bright handkerchiefs around their heads stared at the girl astride the big horse.
In the dust of the road a little group of half-clad, bare-footed children dragged a trio of unfortunate lizards along by strings around their necks, and screamed with delight at the writhings of the tortured reptiles.
The sight brought a look of distress to Pansy's face.
Reining in her horse, she slipped of and went towards the group.
In indifferent Spanish she gave a brief lecture on cruelty. There was a sprinkling of small coins, and the lizards changed owners.
Pansy stooped. Loosening the strings from their soft throats, she picked them out of the dust. They were pretty, harmless little things, each about eighteen inches long and bright green in colour, that hung limp in her gentle hands, and looked at her with tortured eyes. Holding them carefully, she went back to her horse, and with the reins over her arm, made her way through the village.