E’en to thy latest and thy meanest child.
O, pitied, jeered, adored! Time’s latest offspring
Shall turn with reverent heed those pages o’er,
Great with thy deathless thoughts—thy peerless glory
Shall brighten aye, till time shall be no more.
THE PAMPAS FIRED BY THE INDIANS.[[3]]
The sun had yet scarce tinged the horizon with the first dawn of light, when, with a body hot and unrefreshed, I issued from the door of the hacienda of San Jacinto, to enjoy the cool air of morning, and soothe my limbs with the clear, pure water of a rivulet that coursed past the rear of my last night’s resting-place.
All was yet still around—none seemed to be stirring—and as I glanced over the extensive plains that extended on one side as far as the eye could reach, I could only discern by the misty light a herd of wild horses, as they swept along through the tall, wiry grass that arose above their shoulders. Buckling my pistol-belt around me, I threw my short rifle carelessly across my back, where it hung by its own strap, and rapidly proceeded to descend the steep gully, at the bottom of which the stream, one of the many that descend from the Andes, ran bubbling and boiling, as it glanced over its rocky bed. Uneven and stony, with the footing concealed beneath thick matted grass and small stunted brushwood, I found my task any thing but an easy one, and almost regretted that I had not gone round by the path used by the people of the hacienda. Yet, as I swung from rock to rock by aid of the rank herbage, I felt that the course I had chosen was most in consonance with that wild, reckless spirit that had conducted me over so many lands.
As I reached the bed of the gully, the sun showed itself above the horizon, and the misty haze that filled the deep valley was riven and dispersed in eddying vapor before the warm breath of day. The curtain risen, there lay before me a wide level space of the finest alluvial soil, over which, it would appear, the stream at times extended, when swollen with the melting snows of the Andes; but it was now confined to narrow limits in the centre, now and then extending into large water-holes, where the softer soil had been washed away, or a diverging bend of the stream had given more power to its waters.