A passing sleeve of locusts almost obscured the declining sun. Some flew against our faces, reminding me of the fight Cortes had with the Indians not far from Vera Cruz, which, Bernal Diaz says, was obstructed for a moment by a flight of locusts that came so thickly that many lost their lives by the neglect to raise their bucklers against what they thought were locusts, and in reality were arrows that the Indians shot. The effect was curious as the insects flew against the horses, some clinging to their manes, and others making them bob up and down their heads, just as a man does in a driving shower of hail. We reached a narrow causeway that formed the passage through a marsh. On it the horses crowded, making us hold our breath for fear that they would push each other off into the mud, which had no bottom, upon either side. When we emerged and cantered up a little hill, a lake lay at the bottom of it, and beyond it was a wood, close to a railway siding. The evening now was closing in, but there was still a good half-hour of light. As often happens in South America just before sundown, the wind dropped to a dead calm, and passing little clouds of locusts, feeling the night approach, dropped into the long grass just as a flying-fish drops into the waves, with a harsh whirring of their gauzy wings.
The horses smelt the water at the bottom of the hill, and the whole five hundred broke into a gallop, manes flying, tails raised high, and we, feeling somehow the gallop was the last, raced madly by their side until within a hundred yards or so of the great lake. They rushed into the water and all drank greedily, the setting sun falling upon their many-coloured backs, and giving the whole herd the look of a vast tulip field. We kept away so as to let them drink their fill, and then, leading our horses to the margin of the lake, dismounted, and, taking out their bits, let them drink, with the air of one accomplishing a rite, no matter if they raised their heads a dozen times and then began again.
Slowly Arena, El Correntino, Paralelo, Suarez, and the rest drove out the herd to pasture in the deep lush grass. The rest of us rode up some rising ground towards the wood. There we drew up, and looking back towards the plain on which the horses seemed to have dwindled to the size of sheep in the half-light, some one, I think it was Arena, or perhaps Pablo Suarez, spoke their elegy: “Eat well,” he said; “there is no grass like that of La Pileta, to where you go across the sea. The grass in Europe all must smell of blood.”
THE END
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
NOTES.
[22] Porteño, literally a man born in the port of Buenos Aires, but is also applied to any one born in the province of Buenos Aires.
[25] Benbax ceiba, a large tree with spongy, light wood, that has immense bunches of purple flowers.
[27] Pingo in Argentina is a good horse. Pucha is a euphemism for another word.
[28] Elbow of a river.