A hasty breakfast is prepared; but, as the mutton bone is now quite bare, they have to fall back on another kind of flesh-meat, which the provident Caspar has brought along. This is charqui, or as it is called by English-speaking people “jerked beef;” in all likelihood a sailor’s pseudonym, due to some slight resemblance, between the English word “jerked,” and the Guarani Indian one charqui, as pronounced by South American people.
Charqui is simply beef cut into long, thin strips, then hung over a rope or rail, and exposed to a hot sun—in the absence of this, to a fire—till the juices are thoroughly dried out of it. Thus prepared, it will keep for weeks, indeed months.
The reason for so preserving it, is the scarcity of salt, which in the districts where charqui prevails, is difficult to be got at, and, in consequence, dear. Most of the beef imported from the La Plata, under the name of “jerked beef,” is not charqui, but simply meat cured with salt. Beef is preserved by a similar process throughout most parts of Spanish America, as in Mexico, and California, and for the same reason; but in these countries it is termed tasajo, and sometimes cecina.
Charqui is by no means a dainty viand; not nice either to the nose or palate. Those portions of it which have not had sufficient sun in the drying process, become tainted, and the odour is anything but agreeable. For all, it serves a purpose in those countries where salt is a scarce commodity; and cooked—as all Spanish Americans cook it—with a plentiful seasoning of onions, garlic, and chili, the “gamey” flavour ceases to be perceptible. Above all, it is a boon to the traveller who has a long journey to make through the uninhabited wilderness, with no inns nor post-houses at which he may replenish his spent stock of provisions. Being dry, firm, and light, it can be conveniently carried in haversack, or saddle-bags.
By Caspar’s foresight, there is a packet of it in Ludwig’s alparejas, where all the other provisions are stowed; and a piece cut from one of the strips, about the length of a Bologna sausage, makes breakfast for all three. Of the Paraguay tea they have a good store, the yerba being a commodity which packs in small space.
Their morning meal is dismissed with slight ceremony; and soon as eaten, they recaparison their horses; then leading them out of the cavern, mount, and are off. As the arroyo has long since shrunk to its ordinary level, and the path along the base of the bluff is dry as when trodden by them in their rush for shelter from the storm, they have no difficulty in getting out. So on they ride up the steep acclivity to the cliff’s crest; which last is on a level with the pampa itself.
But on reaching it, a sight meets their eyes—it is now daylight—causing a surprise to Ludwig and Cypriano; but to Gaspar something more—something akin to dismay. For the sage gaucho mentally sees further than either of his less experienced companions; and that now observed by him gives token of a new trouble in store for them. The plain is no longer a green grassy savanna, as when they galloped across it on the afternoon preceding, but a smooth expanse, dark brown in colour, its surface glittering under the red rays of the rising sun, whose disc is as yet but half visible above the horizon!
“Santos Dios!” exclaims the gaucho, as he sits in his saddle, contemplating the transformation, to him no mystery. “I thought it would be so.”
“How very strange!” remarks Ludwig.
“Not at all strange, señorito; but just as it should be, and as we might have expected.”