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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Brought Forward, by R. B. Cunninghame Graham
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Brought Forward
+
+
+Author: R. B. Cunninghame Graham
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2015  [eBook #47930]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROUGHT FORWARD***
+
+
+This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
+
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+  FAITH.
+
+  HOPE.
+
+  CHARITY.
+
+  SUCCESS.
+
+  PROGRESS.
+
+  HIS PEOPLE.
+
+  A HATCHMENT.
+
+  THIRTEEN STORIES.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+MOGREB EL ACKSA: A Journey in Morocco.
+
+  (_New Edition in Preparation_.)
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+                             BROUGHT FORWARD
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+                         R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  LONDON
+                             DUCKWORTH & CO.
+                   3 HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                         _First Published_ 1916.
+                        _Second Impression_ 1917.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                          _All rights reserved_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    TO
+                                COMMANDER
+                     CHARLES E. F. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
+                                   R.N.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+LUCKILY the war has made eggs too expensive for me to fear the public
+will pelt me off the stage with them.
+
+Still after years of writing one naturally dreads the cold potato and the
+orange-peel.
+
+I once in talking said to a celebrated dancer who was about to bid
+farewell to her admirers and retire to private life, “Perhaps you will
+take a benefit when you come back from finishing your last tour.”  She
+answered, “Yes . . .”; and then added, “or perhaps two.”
+
+That is not my way, for all my life I have loved bread, bread, and wine,
+wine, not caring for half-measures, like your true Scot, of whom it has
+been said, “If he believes in Christianity he has no doubts, and if he is
+a disbeliever he has none either.”
+
+Once in the Sierra Madre, either near the Santa Rosa Mountains or in the
+Bolson de Mápimi, I disremember which, out after horses that had strayed,
+we came upon a little shelter made of withies, and covered with one of
+those striped blankets woven by the Navajos.
+
+A Texan who was with the party pointed to it, and said, “That is a
+wickey-up, I guess.”
+
+The little wigwam, shaped like a gipsy tent, stood close to a thicket of
+huisaché trees in flower.  Their round and ball-like blossoms filled the
+air with a sweet scent.  A stream ran gently tinkling over its pebbly
+bed, and the tall prairie grasses flowed up to the lost little hut as if
+they would engulf it like a sea.
+
+On every side of the deep valley—for I forgot to say the hut stood in a
+valley—towered hills with great, flat, rocky sides.  On some of them the
+Indian tribes had scratched rude pictures, records of their race.
+
+In one of them—I remember it just as if now it was before my eyes—an
+Indian chief, surrounded by his friends, was setting free his favourite
+horse upon the prairies, either before his death or in reward of faithful
+services.  The little group of men cut in the stone, most probably with
+an obsidian arrow-head, was life-like, though drawn without perspective,
+which gave those figures of a vanished race an air of standing in the
+clouds.
+
+The chief stood with his bridle in his hand, his feather war-bonnet upon
+his head, naked except the breech-clout.  His bow was slung across his
+shoulders and his quiver hung below his arm, and with the other hand he
+kept the sun off from his face as he gazed upon his horse.  All kinds of
+hunting scenes were there displayed, and others, such as the burial of a
+chief, a dance, and other ceremonials, no doubt as dear to those who drew
+them as are the rites in a cathedral to other faithful.  The flat rock
+bore one more inscription, stating that Eusebio Leal passed by bearing
+despatches, and the date, June the fifteenth, of the year 1687.  But to
+return again to the lone wickey-up.
+
+We all sat looking at it: Eustaquio Gomez, Polibio Medina, Exaltacion
+Garcia, the Texan, two Pueblo Indians, and I who write these lines.
+
+Somehow it had an eerie look about it, standing so desolate, out in those
+flowery wilds.
+
+Inside it lay the body of a man, with the skin dry as parchment, and his
+arms beside him, a Winchester, a bow and arrows, and a lance.  Eustaquio,
+taking up an arrow, after looking at it, said that the dead man was an
+Apache of the Mescalero band, and then, looking upon the ground and
+pointing out some marks, said, “He had let loose his horse before he
+died, just as the chief did in the picture-writing.”
+
+That was his epitaph, for how death overtook him none of us could
+conjecture; but I liked the manner of his going off the stage.
+
+’Tis meet and fitting to set free the horse or pen before death overtakes
+you, or before the gentle public turns its thumbs down and yells, “Away
+with him.”
+
+Charles Lamb, when some one asked him something of his works, answered
+that they were to be found in the South Sea House, and that they numbered
+forty volumes, for he had laboured many years there, making his bricks
+with the least possible modicum of straw,—just like the rest of us.
+
+Mine, if you ask me, are to be found but in the trails I left in all the
+years I galloped both on the prairies and the pampas of America.
+
+Hold it not up to me for egotism, O gentle reader, for I would have you
+know that hardly any of the horses that I rode had shoes on them, and
+thus the tracks are faint.
+
+      _Vale_.
+
+                        R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                PAGE
+       I.  BROUGHT FORWARD                         1
+      II.  LOS PINGOS                             11
+     III.  FIDELITY                               30
+      IV.  “UNO DEI MILLE”                        40
+       V.  WITH THE NORTH-EAST WIND               51
+      VI.  ELYSIUM                                60
+     VII.  HEREDITY                               66
+    VIII.  EL TANGO ARGENTINO                     81
+      IX.  IN A BACKWATER                         97
+       X.  HIPPOMORPHOUS                         106
+      XI.  MUDEJAR                               120
+     XII.  A MINOR PROPHET                       130
+    XIII.  EL MASGAD                             146
+     XIV.  FEAST DAY IN SANTA MARIA MAYOR        164
+      XV.  BOPICUÁ                               185
+
+
+
+
+I
+BROUGHT FORWARD
+
+
+THE workshop in Parkhead was not inspiriting.  From one week’s end to
+another, all throughout the year, life was the same, almost without an
+incident.  In the long days of the Scotch summer the men walked cheerily
+to work, carrying their dinner in a little tin.  In the dark winter
+mornings they tramped in the black fog, coughing and spitting, through
+the black mud of Glasgow streets, each with a woollen comforter, looking
+like a stocking, round his neck.
+
+Outside the dreary quarter of the town, its rows of dingy, smoke-grimed
+streets and the mean houses, the one outstanding feature was Parkhead
+Forge, with its tall chimneys belching smoke into the air all day, and
+flames by night.  Its glowing furnaces, its giant hammers, its little
+railway trucks in which men ran the blocks of white-hot iron which poured
+in streams out of the furnaces, flamed like the mouth of hell.
+
+Inside the workshop the dusty atmosphere made a stranger cough on
+entering the door.  The benches with the rows of aproned men all bending
+at their work, not standing upright, with their bare, hairy chests
+exposed, after the fashion of the Vulcans at the neighbouring forge, gave
+a half-air of domesticity to the close, stuffy room.
+
+A semi-sedentary life quickened their intellect; for where men work
+together they are bound to talk about the topics of the day, especially
+in Scotland, where every man is a born politician and a controversialist.
+At meal-times, when they ate their “piece” and drank their tea that they
+had carried with them in tin flasks, each one was certain to draw out a
+newspaper from the pocket of his coat, and, after studying it from the
+Births, Deaths, and Marriages, down to the editor’s address on the last
+page, fall a-disputing upon politics.  “Man, a gran’ speech by Bonar Law
+aboot Home Rule.  They Irish, set them up, what do they make siccan a din
+aboot?  Ca’ ye it Home Rule?  I juist ca’ it Rome Rule.  A miserable,
+priest-ridden crew, the hale rick-ma-tick o’ them.”
+
+The reader then would pause and, looking round the shop, wait for the
+answer that he was sure would not be long in coming from amongst such a
+thrawn lot of commentators.  Usually one or other of his mates would fold
+his paper up, or perhaps point with an oil-stained finger to an article,
+and with the head-break in the voice, characteristic of the Scot about to
+plunge into an argument, ejaculate: “Bonar Law, ou aye, I kent him when
+he was leader of the South Side Parliament.  He always was a dreary body,
+sort o’ dreich like; no that I’m saying the man is pairfectly illiterate,
+as some are on his side o’ the Hoose there in Westminister.  I read his
+speech—the body is na blate, sort o’ quick at figures, but does na take
+the pains to verify.  Verification is the soul of mathematics.  Bonar
+Law, eh!  Did ye see how Maister Asquith trippit him handily in his
+tabulated figures on the jute business under Free Trade, showing that all
+he had advanced about protective tariffs and the drawback system was fair
+redeeklous . . . as well as several errors in the total sum?”
+
+Then others would cut in and words be bandied to and fro, impugning the
+good faith and honour of every section of the House of Commons, who, by
+the showing of their own speeches, were held to be dishonourable rogues
+aiming at power and place, without a thought for anything but their own
+ends.
+
+This charitable view of men and of affairs did not prevent any of the
+disputants from firing up if his own party was impugned; for in their
+heart of hearts the general denunciation was but a covert from which to
+attack the other side.
+
+In such an ambient the war was sure to be discussed; some held the German
+Emperor was mad—“a daft-like thing to challenge the whole world, ye see;
+maist inconsiderate, and shows that the man’s intellect is no weel
+balanced . . . philosophy is whiles sort of unsettlin’ . . . the felly’s
+mad, ye ken.”
+
+Others saw method in his madness, and alleged that it was envy, “naething
+but sheer envy that had brought on this tramplin’ upon natural rights,
+but for all that he may be thought to get his own again, with they
+indemnities.”
+
+Those who had studied economics “were of opinion that his reasoning was
+wrong, built on false premises, for there can never be a royal road to
+wealth.  Labour, ye see, is the sole creative element of riches.”  At
+once a Tory would rejoin, “And brains.  Man, what an awfu’ thing to leave
+out brains.  Think of the marvellous creations of the human genius.”  The
+first would answer with, “I saw ye coming, man.  I’ll no deny that brains
+have their due place in the economic state; but build me one of your
+Zeppelins and stick it in the middle of George Square without a crew to
+manage it, and how far will it fly?  I do not say that brains did not
+devise it; but, after all, labour had to carry out the first design.”
+This was a subject that opened up enormous vistas for discussion, and for
+a time kept them from talking of the war.
+
+Jimmy and Geordie, hammering away in one end of the room, took little
+part in the debate.  Good workmen both of them, and friends, perhaps
+because of the difference of their temperaments, for Jimmy was the type
+of red-haired, blue-eyed, tall, lithe Scot, he of the _perfervidum
+ingenium_, and Geordie was a thick-set, black-haired, dour and silent
+man.
+
+Both of them read the war news, and Jimmy, when he read, commented
+loudly, bringing down his fist upon the paper, exclaiming, “Weel done,
+Gordons!” or “That was a richt gude charge upon the trenches by the
+Sutherlands.”  Geordie would answer shortly, “Aye, no sae bad,” and go on
+hammering.
+
+One morning, after a reverse, Jimmy did not appear, and Geordie sat alone
+working away as usual, but if possible more dourly and more silently.
+Towards midday it began to be whispered in the shop that Jimmy had
+enlisted, and men turned to Geordie to ask if he knew anything about it,
+and the silent workman, brushing the sweat off his brow with his
+coat-sleeve, rejoined: “Aye, ou aye, I went wi’ him yestreen to the
+headquarters o’ the Camerons; he’s joined the kilties richt eneugh.  Ye
+mind he was a sergeant in South Africa.”  Then he bent over to his work
+and did not join in the general conversation that ensued.
+
+Days passed, and weeks, and his fellow-workmen, in the way men will,
+occasionally bantered Geordie, asking him if he was going to enlist, and
+whether he did not think shame to let his friend go off alone to fight.
+Geordie was silent under abuse and banter, as he had always been under
+the injustices of life, and by degrees withdrew into himself, and when he
+read his newspaper during the dinner-hour made no remark, but folded it
+and put it quietly into the pocket of his coat.
+
+Weeks passed, weeks of suspense, of flaring headlines in the Press, of
+noise of regiments passing down the streets, of newsboys yelling
+hypothetic victories, and of the tension of the nerves of men who know
+their country’s destiny is hanging in the scales.  Rumours of losses, of
+defeats, of victories, of checks and of advances, of naval battles, with
+hints of dreadful slaughter filled the air.  Women in black were seen
+about, pale and with eyelids swollen with weeping, and people scanned the
+reports of killed and wounded with dry throats and hearts constricted as
+if they had been wrapped in whipcord, only relaxing when after a second
+look they had assured themselves the name they feared to see was absent
+from the list.
+
+Long strings of Clydesdale horses ridden by men in ragged clothes, who
+sat them uneasily, as if they felt their situation keenly, perched up in
+the public view, passed through the streets.  The massive caulkers on
+their shoes struck fire occasionally upon the stones, and the great
+beasts, taught to rely on man as on a god from the time they gambolled in
+the fields, went to their doom unconsciously, the only mitigation of
+their fate.  Regiments of young recruits, some in plain clothes and some
+in hastily-made uniforms, marched with as martial an air as three weeks’
+training gave them, to the stations to entrain.  Pale clerks, the elbows
+of their jackets shiny with the slavery of the desk, strode beside men
+whose hands were bent and scarred with gripping on the handles of the
+plough in February gales or wielding sledges at the forge.
+
+All of them were young and resolute, and each was confident that he at
+least would come back safe to tell the tale.  Men stopped and waved their
+hats, cheering their passage, and girls and women stood with flushed
+cheeks and straining eyes as they passed on for the first stage that took
+them towards the front.  Boys ran beside them, hatless and barefooted,
+shouting out words that they had caught up on the drill-ground to the
+men, who whistled as they marched a slow and grinding tune that sounded
+like a hymn.
+
+Traffic was drawn up close to the kerbstone, and from the top of
+tram-cars and from carts men cheered, bringing a flush of pride to many a
+pale cheek in the ranks.  They passed on; men resumed the business of
+their lives, few understanding that the half-trained, pale-faced regiment
+that had vanished through the great station gates had gone to make that
+business possible and safe.
+
+Then came a time of waiting for the news, of contradictory paragraphs in
+newspapers, and then a telegram, the “enemy is giving ground on the left
+wing”; and instantly a feeling of relief that lightened every heart, as
+if its owner had been fighting and had stopped to wipe his brow before he
+started to pursue the flying enemy.
+
+The workmen in the brassfitters’ shop came to their work as usual on the
+day of the good news, and at the dinner-hour read out the accounts of the
+great battle, clustering upon each other’s shoulders in their eagerness.
+At last one turned to scan the list of casualties.  Cameron, Campbell,
+M’Alister, Jardine, they read, as they ran down the list, checking the
+names off with a match.  The reader stopped, and looked towards the
+corner where Geordie still sat working silently.
+
+All eyes were turned towards him, for the rest seemed to divine even
+before they heard the name.  “Geordie man, Jimmy’s killed,” the reader
+said, and as he spoke Geordie laid down his hammer, and, reaching for his
+coat, said, “Jimmy’s killed, is he?  Well, some one’s got to account for
+it.”
+
+Then, opening the door, he walked out dourly, as if already he felt the
+knapsack on his back and the avenging rifle in his hand.
+
+
+
+
+II
+LOS PINGOS
+
+
+THE amphitheatre of wood enclosed a bay that ran so far into the land it
+seemed a lake.  The Uruguay flowed past, but the bay was so land-locked
+and so well defended by an island lying at its mouth that the illusion
+was complete, and the bay appeared to be cut off from all the world.
+
+Upon the river twice a day passed steamboats, which at night-time gave an
+air as of a section of a town that floated past the wilderness.  Streams
+of electric light from every cabin lit up the yellow, turgid river, and
+the notes of a band occasionally floated across the water as the vessel
+passed.  Sometimes a searchlight falling on a herd of cattle, standing as
+is their custom after nightfall upon a little hill, made them stampede
+into the darkness, dashing through brushwood or floundering through a
+marsh, till they had placed themselves in safety from this new terror of
+the night.
+
+Above the bay the ruins of a great building stood.  Built scarcely fifty
+years ago, and now deserted, the ruins had taken on an air as of a
+castle, and from the walls sprang plants, whilst in the deserted
+courtyard a tree had grown, amongst whose branches oven-birds had built
+their hanging nests of mud.  Cypresses towered above the primeval
+hard-wood, which grew all gnarled and horny-looking, and nearly all had
+kept their Indian names, as ñandubay, chañar, tala and sarandi, molle,
+and many another name as crabbed as the trunks which, twisted and
+distorted, looked like the limbs of giants growing from the ground.
+
+Orange trees had run wild and shot up all unpruned, and apple trees had
+reverted back to crabs.  The trunks of all the fruit-trees in the
+deserted garden round the ruined factory were rubbed shiny by the cattle,
+for all the fences had long been destroyed or fallen into decay.
+
+A group of roofless workmen’s cottages gave an air of desolation to the
+valley in which the factory and its dependencies had stood.  They too had
+been invaded by the powerful sub-tropical plant life, and creepers
+covered with bunches of bright flowers climbed up their walls.  A
+sluggish stream ran through the valley and joined the Uruguay, making a
+little natural harbour.  In it basked cat-fish, and now and then from off
+the banks a tortoise dropped into the water like a stone.  Right in the
+middle of what once had been the square grew a ceiba tree, covered with
+lilac flowers, hanging in clusters like gigantic grapes.  Here and there
+stood some old ombús, their dark metallic leaves affording an
+impenetrable shade.  Their gnarled and twisted roots, left half-exposed
+by the fierce rains, gave an unearthly, prehistoric look to them that
+chimed in well with the deserted air of the whole place.  It seemed that
+man for once had been subdued, and that victorious nature had resumed her
+sway over a region wherein he had endeavoured to intrude, and had been
+worsted in the fight.
+
+Nature had so resumed her sway that buildings, planted trees, and paths
+long overgrown with grass, seemed to have been decayed for centuries,
+although scarce twenty years had passed since they had been deserted and
+had fallen into decay.
+
+They seemed to show the power of the recuperative force of the primeval
+forest, and to call attention to the fact that man had suffered a defeat.
+Only the grass in the deserted square was still triumphant, and grew
+short and green, like an oasis in the rough natural grasses that flowed
+nearly up to it, in the clearings of the woods.
+
+The triumph of the older forces of the world had been so final and
+complete that on the ruins there had grown no moss, but plants and bushes
+with great tufts of grass had sprung from them, leaving the stones still
+fresh as when the houses were first built.  Nature in that part of the
+New World enters into no compact with mankind, as she does over here in
+Europe to touch his work kindly and almost with a reverent hand, and
+blend it into something half compounded of herself.  There bread is bread
+and wine is wine, with no half-tints to make one body of the whole.  The
+one remaining evidence of the aggression of mankind, which still refused
+to bow the knee to the overwhelming genius of the place, was a round
+bunch of eucalyptus trees that stood up stark and unblushing, the colour
+of the trunks and leaves so harshly different from all around them that
+they looked almost vulgar, if such an epithet can be properly applied to
+anything but man.  Under their exiguous shade were spread saddles and
+bridles, and on the ground sat men smoking and talking, whilst their
+staked-out horses fed, fastened to picket-pins by raw-hide ropes.  So far
+away from everything the place appeared that the group of men looked like
+a band of pioneers upon some frontier, to which the ruins only gave an
+air of melancholy, but did nothing to dispel the loneliness.
+
+As they sat idly talking, trying to pass, or, as they would have said,
+trying to make time, suddenly in the distance the whistle of an
+approaching steamer brought the outside world into the little, lonely
+paradise.  Oddly enough it sounded, in the hot, early morning air,
+already heavy with the scent of the mimosas in full bloom.  Butterflies
+flitted to and fro or soared above the scrub, and now and then a wild
+mare whinnied from the thickets, breaking the silence of the lone valley
+through which the yellow, little stream ran to the Uruguay.
+
+Catching their horses and rolling up the ropes, the men, who had been
+sitting underneath the trees, mounted, and following a little cattle
+trail, rode to a high bluff looking down the stream.
+
+Panting and puffing, as she belched out a column of black smoke, some
+half a mile away, a tug towing two lighters strove with the yellow flood.
+The horsemen stood like statues with their horses’ heads stretched out
+above the water thirty feet below.
+
+Although the feet of several of the horses were but an inch or two from
+the sheer limit, the men sat, some of them with one leg on their horses’
+necks; others lit cigarettes, and one, with his horse sideways to the
+cliff, leaned sideways, so that one of his feet was in the air.  He
+pointed to the advancing tug with a brown finger, and exclaimed, “These
+are the lighters with the horses that must have started yesterday from
+Gualeguaychú, and ought to have been here last night.”  We had indeed
+been waiting all the night for them, sleeping round a fire under the
+eucalyptus grove, and rising often in the night to smoke and talk, to see
+our horses did not get entangled in their stake ropes, and to listen for
+the whistle of the tug.
+
+The tug came on but slowly, fighting her way against the rapid current,
+with the lighters towing behind her at some distance, looking like
+portions of a pier that had somehow or another got adrift.
+
+From where we sat upon our horses we could see the surface of the Uruguay
+for miles, with its innumerable flat islands buried in vegetation,
+cutting the river into channels; for the islands, having been formed
+originally by masses of water-weeds and drift-wood, were but a foot or
+two above the water, and all were elongated, forming great ribbons in the
+stream.
+
+Upon the right bank stretched the green prairies of the State of
+Entre-Rios, bounded on either side by the Uruguay and Paraná.  Much
+flatter than the land upon the Uruguayan bank, it still was not a sea of
+level grass as is the State of Buenos Aires, but undulating, and dotted
+here and there with white estancia houses, all buried in great groves of
+peach trees and of figs.  On the left bank on which we stood, and three
+leagues off, we could just see Fray Bentos, its houses dazzlingly white,
+buried in vegetation, and in the distance like a thousand little towns in
+Southern Italy and Spain, or even in Morocco, for the tower of the church
+might in the distance just as well have been a minaret.
+
+The tug-boat slowed a little, and a canoe was slowly paddled out to pilot
+her into the little haven made by the brook that flowed down through the
+valley to the Uruguay.
+
+Sticking out like a fishing-rod, over the stem of the canoe was a long
+cane, to sound with if it was required.
+
+The group of horsemen on the bluff rode slowly down towards the river’s
+edge to watch the evolutions of the tug, and to hold back the horses when
+they should be disembarked.  By this time she had got so near that we
+could see the horses’ heads looking out wildly from the sparred sides of
+the great decked lighters, and hear the thunderous noise their feet made
+tramping on the decks.  Passing the bay, into which ran the stream, by
+about three hundred yards, the tug cast off one of the lighters she was
+towing, in a backwater.  There it remained, the current slowly bearing it
+backwards, turning round upon itself.  In the wild landscape, with
+ourselves upon our horses forming the only human element, the gigantic
+lighter with its freight of horses looked like the ark, as set forth in
+some old-fashioned book on Palestine.  Slowly the tug crept in, the
+Indian-looking pilot squatted in his canoe sounding assiduously with his
+long cane.  As the tug drew about six feet of water and the lighter not
+much more than three, the problem was to get the lighter near enough to
+the bank, so that when the hawser was cast off she would come in by her
+own way.  Twice did the tug ground, and with furious shoutings and with
+all the crew staving on poles, was she got off again.  At last the pilot
+found a little deeper channel, and coming to about some fifty feet away,
+lying a length or two above the spot where the stream entered the great
+river, she paid her hawser out, and as the lighter drifted shorewards,
+cast it off, and the great ark, with all its freight, grounded quite
+gently on the little sandy beach.  The Italian captain of the tug, a
+Genoese, with his grey hair as curly as the wool on a sheep’s back,
+wearing a pale pink shirt, neatly set off with yellow horseshoes, and a
+blue gauze necktie tied in a flowing bow, pushed off his dirty little
+boat, rowed by a negro sailor and a Neapolitan, who dipped their oars
+into the water without regard to one another, either as to time or
+stroke.
+
+The captain stepped ashore, mopping his face with a yellow
+pocket-handkerchief, and in the jargon between Spanish and Italian that
+men of his sort all affect out in the River Plate, saluted us, and cursed
+the river for its sandbanks and its turns, and then having left it as
+accursed as the Styx or Periphlegethon, he doubly cursed the Custom
+House, which, as he said, was all composed of thieves, the sons of
+thieves, who would be certainly begetters of the same.  Then he calmed
+down a little, and drawing out a long Virginia cigar, took out the straw
+with seriousness and great dexterity, and then allowed about a quarter of
+an inch of it to smoulder in a match, lighted it, and sending out a cloud
+of smoke, sat down upon the grass, and fell a-cursing, with all the
+ingenuity of his profession and his race, the country, the hot weather,
+and the saints.
+
+This done, and having seen the current was slowly bearing down the other
+lighter past the sandy beach, with a last hearty curse upon God’s mother
+and her Son, whose birth he hinted not obscurely was of the nature of a
+mystery, in which he placed no credence, got back into his boat, and went
+back to his tug, leaving us all amazed, both at his fluency and faith.
+
+When he had gone and grappled with the other lighter which was slowly
+drifting down the stream, two or three men came forward in the lighter
+that was already in the little river’s mouth, about a yard or so distant
+from the edge, and calling to us to be ready, for the horses had not
+eaten for sixteen hours at least, slowly let down the wooden
+landing-flap.  At first the horses craned their necks and looked out on
+the grass, but did not venture to go down the wooden landing-stage; then
+a big roan, stepping out gingerly and snorting as he went, adventured,
+and when he stood upon the grass, neighed shrilly and then rolled.  In a
+long string the others followed, the clattering of their unshod feet upon
+the wood sounding like distant thunder.
+
+Byrne, the Porteño, stout and high-coloured, dressed in great thigh boots
+and baggy breeches, a black silk handkerchief tied loosely round his
+neck, a black felt hat upon his head, and a great silver watch-chain,
+with a snaffle-bridle in the middle of it, contrasting oddly with his
+broad pistol belt, with its old silver dollars for a fastening, came
+ashore, carrying his saddle on his back.  Then followed Doherty, whose
+name, quite unpronounceable to men of Latin race, was softened in their
+speech to Duarte, making a good Castilian patronymic of it.  He too was a
+Porteño, {22} although of Irish stock.  Tall, dark, and dressed in
+semi-native clothes, he yet, like Byrne, always spoke Spanish when no
+foreigners were present, and in his English that softening of the
+consonants and broadening of the vowels was discernible that makes the
+speech of men such as himself have in it something, as it were,
+caressing, strangely at variance with their character.  Two or three
+peons of the usual Gaucho type came after them, all carrying saddles, and
+walking much as an alligator waddles on the sand, or as the Medes whom
+Xenophon describes, mincing upon their toes, in order not to blunt the
+rowels of their spurs.
+
+Our men, Garcia the innkeeper of Fray Bentos, with Pablo Suarez, whose
+negro blood and crispy hair gave him a look as of a Roman emperor of the
+degenerate times, with Pancho Arrellano and Miguel Paralelo, the Gaucho
+dandy, swaying upon his horse with his toes just touching his heavy
+silver stirrups with a crown underneath them, Velez and El Pampita, an
+Indian who had been captured young on the south Pampa, were mounted ready
+to round the horses up.
+
+They did not want much care, for they were eating ravenously, and all we
+had to do was to drive them a few hundred yards away to let the others
+land.
+
+By this time the Italian captain in his tug had gently brought the other
+lighter to the beach, and from its side another string of horses came out
+on to the grass.  They too all rolled, and, seeing the other band, by
+degrees mixed with it, so that four hundred horses soon were feeding
+ravenously on the sweet grass just at the little river’s mouth that lay
+between its banks and the thick belt of wood.
+
+Though it was early, still the sun was hot, and for an hour we held the
+horses back, keeping them from the water till they had eaten well.
+
+The Italian tugmaster, having produced a bottle of trade gin (the Anchor
+brand), and having drank our health, solemnly wiped the neck of the
+bottle with his grimy hand and passed it round to us.  We also drank to
+his good health and voyage to the port, that he pronounced as if it were
+written “Bono Airi,” adding, as it was war-time, “Avanti Savoia” to the
+toast.  He grinned, and with a gesture of his thick dirty hand, adorned
+with two or three coppery-looking rings, as it were, embedded in the
+flesh, pronounced an all-embracing curse on the Tedeschi, and went aboard
+the tug.
+
+When he had made the lighters fast, he turned down stream, saluting us
+with three shrill blasts upon the whistle, and left us and our horses
+thousands of miles away from steam and smoke, blaspheming skippers, and
+the noise and push of modern life.
+
+Humming-birds poised themselves before the purple bunches of the ceiba
+{25} flowers, their tongues thrust into the calyx and their iridescent
+wings whirring so rapidly, you could see the motion, but not mark the
+movement, and from the yellow balls of the mimosas came a scent, heady
+and comforting.
+
+Flocks of green parroquets flew shrieking over the clearing in which the
+horses fed, to their great nests, in which ten or a dozen seemed to
+harbour, and hung suspended from them by their claws, or crawled into the
+holes.  Now and then a few locusts, wafted by the breeze, passed by upon
+their way to spread destruction in the plantations of young poplars and
+of orange trees in the green islands in the stream.
+
+An air of peace gave a strange interest to this little corner of a world
+plunged into strife and woe.  The herders nodded on their horses, who for
+their part hung down their heads, and now and then shifted their quarters
+so as to bring their heads into the shade.  The innkeeper, Garcia, in his
+town clothes, and perched upon a tall grey horse, to use his own words,
+“sweated blood and water like our Lord” in the fierce glare of the
+ascending sun.  Suarez and Paralelo pushed the ends of the red silk
+handkerchiefs they wore tied loosely round their necks, with two points
+like the wings of a great butterfly hanging upon their shoulders, under
+their hats, and smoked innumerable cigarettes, the frontiersman’s
+specific against heat or cold.  Of all the little company only the Pampa
+Indian showed no sign of being incommoded by the heat.  When horses
+strayed he galloped up to turn them, now striking at the passing
+butterflies with his heavy-handled whip, or, letting himself fall down
+from the saddle almost to the ground, drew his brown finger on the dust
+for a few yards, and with a wriggle like a snake got back into his saddle
+with a yell.
+
+The hours passed slowly, till at last the horses, having filled
+themselves with grass, stopped eating and looked towards the river, so we
+allowed them slowly to stream along towards a shallow inlet on the beach.
+There they stood drinking greedily, up to their knees, until at last
+three or four of the outermost began to swim.
+
+Only their heads appeared above the water, and occasionally their backs
+emerging just as a porpoise comes to the surface in a tideway, gave them
+an amphibious air, that linked them somehow or another with the classics
+in that unclassic land.
+
+Long did they swim and play, and then, coming out into the shallow water,
+drink again, stamping their feet and swishing their long tails, rise up
+and strike at one another with their feet.
+
+As I sat on my horse upon a little knoll, coiling my lazo, which had got
+uncoiled by catching in a bush, I heard a voice in the soft, drawling
+accents of the inhabitants of Corrientes, say, “Pucha, Pingos.” {27}
+
+Turning, I saw the speaker, a Gaucho of about thirty years of age,
+dressed all in black in the old style of thirty years ago.  His silver
+knife, two feet or more in length, stuck in his sash, stuck out on both
+sides of his body like a lateen.
+
+Where he had come from I had no idea, for he appeared to have risen from
+the scrub behind me.  “Yes,” he said, “Puta, Pingos,” giving the phrase
+in the more classic, if more unregenerate style, “how well they look,
+just like the garden in the plaza at Fray Bentos in the sun.”
+
+All shades were there, with every variegation and variety of colour,
+white, and fern noses, chestnuts with a stocking on one leg up to the
+stifle joint, horses with a ring of white right round their throats, or
+with a star as clear as if it had been painted on the hip, and
+“tuvianos,” that is, brown, black, and white, a colour justly prized in
+Uruguay.
+
+Turning half round and offering me a cigarette, the Correntino spoke
+again.  “It is a paradise for all those pingos here in this rincón: {28}
+grass, water, everything that they can want, shade, and shelter from the
+wind and sun.”
+
+So it appeared to me—the swiftly flowing river with its green islands;
+the Pampas grass along the stream; the ruined buildings, half-buried in
+the orange trees run wild; grass, shade, and water: “Pucha, no . . .
+Puta, Pingos, where are they now?”
+
+
+
+
+III
+FIDELITY
+
+
+MY tall host knocked the ashes from his pipe, and crossing one leg over
+the other looked into the fire.
+
+Outside, the wind howled in the trees, and the rain beat upon the
+window-panes.  The firelight flickered on the grate, falling upon the
+polished furniture of the low-roofed, old-fashioned library, with its
+high Georgian overmantel, where in a deep recess there stood a clock,
+shaped like a cross, with eighteenth-century cupids carved in ivory
+fluttering round the base, and Time with a long scythe standing upon one
+side.
+
+In the room hung the scent of an old country-house, compounded of so many
+samples that it is difficult to enumerate them all.  Beeswax and
+potpourri of roses, damp, and the scent of foreign woods in the old
+cabinets, tobacco and wood smoke, with the all-pervading smell of age,
+were some of them.  The result was not unpleasant, and seemed the
+complement of the well-bound Georgian books standing demure upon their
+shelves, the blackening family portraits, and the skins of red deer and
+of roe scattered about the room.
+
+The conversation languished, and we both sat listening to the storm that
+seemed to fill the world with noises strange and unearthly, for the house
+was far from railways, and the avenues that lead to it were long and
+dark.  The solitude and the wild night seemed to have recreated the old
+world, long lost, and changed, but still remembered in that district just
+where the Highlands and the Lowlands meet.
+
+At such times and in such houses the country really seems country once
+again, and not the gardened, game-keepered mixture of shooting ground and
+of fat fields tilled by machinery to which men now and then resort for
+sport, or to gather in their rents, with which the whole world is
+familiar to-day.
+
+My host seemed to be struggling with himself to tell me something, and as
+I looked at him, tall, strong, and upright, his face all mottled by the
+weather, his homespun coat, patched on the shoulders with buckskin that
+once had been white, but now was fawn-coloured with wet and from the
+chafing of his gun, I felt the parturition of his speech would probably
+cost him a shrewd throe.  So I said nothing, and he, after having filled
+his pipe, ramming the tobacco down with an old silver Indian seal, made
+as he told me in Kurachi, and brought home by a great-uncle fifty years
+ago, slowly began to speak, not looking at me, but as it were delivering
+his thoughts aloud, almost unconsciously, looking now and then at me as
+if he felt, rather than knew, that I was there.  As he spoke, the tall,
+stuffed hen-harrier; the little Neapolitan shrine in tortoiseshell and
+coral, set thick with saints; the flying dragons from Ceylon, spread out
+like butterflies in a glazed case; the “poor’s-box” on the shelf above
+the books with its four silver sides adorned with texts; the rows of blue
+books, and of Scott’s Novels (the Roxburgh edition), together with the
+scent exuding from the Kingwood cabinet; the sprays of white Scotch rose,
+outlined against the window blinds; and the sporting prints and family
+tree, all neatly framed in oak, created the impression of being in a
+world remote, besquired and cut off from the century in which we live by
+more than fifty years.  Upon the rug before the fire the sleeping spaniel
+whined uneasily, as if, though sleeping, it still scented game, and all
+the time the storm roared in the trees and whistled down the passages of
+the lone country house.  One saw in fancy, deep in the recesses of the
+woods, the roe stand sheltering, and the capercailzie sitting on the
+branches of the firs, wet and dejected, like chickens on a roost, and
+little birds sent fluttering along, battling for life against the storm.
+Upon such nights, in districts such as that in which the gaunt old house
+was situated, there is a feeling of compassion for the wild things in the
+woods that, stealing over one, bridges the gulf between them and
+ourselves in a mysterious way.  Their lot and sufferings, joys, loves,
+and the epitome of their brief lives, come home to us with something
+irresistible, making us feel that our superiority is an unreal thing, and
+that in essentials we are one.
+
+My host went on: “Some time ago I walked up to the little moor that
+overlooks the Clyde, from which you see ships far off lying at the Tail
+of the Bank, the smoke of Greenock and Port Glasgow, the estuary itself,
+though miles away, looking like a sheet of frosted silver or dark-grey
+steel, according to the season, and in the distance the range of hills
+called Argyle’s Bowling Green, with the deep gap that marks the entrance
+to the Holy Loch.  Autumn had just begun to tinge the trees, birches were
+golden, and rowans red, the bents were brown and dry.  A few bog
+asphodels still showed amongst the heather, and bilberries, dark as black
+currants, grew here and there amongst the carpet of green sphagnum and
+the stag’s-head moss.  The heather was all rusty brown, but still there
+was, as it were, a recollection of the summer in the air.  Just the kind
+of day you feel inclined to sit down on the lee side of a dry-stone dyke,
+and smoke and look at some familiar self-sown birch that marks the flight
+of time, as you remember that it was but a year or two ago that it had
+first shot up above the grass.
+
+“I remember two or three plants of tall hemp-agrimony still had their
+flower heads withered on the stalk, giving them a look of wearing wigs,
+and clumps of ragwort still had a few bees buzzing about them, rather
+faintly, with a belated air.  I saw all this—not that I am a botanist,
+for you know I can hardly tell the difference between the Cruciferæ and
+the Umbelliferæ, but because when you live in the country some of the
+common plants seem to obtrude themselves upon you, and you have got to
+notice them in spite of you.  So I walked on till I came to a wrecked
+plantation of spruce and of Scotch fir.  A hurricane had struck it,
+turning it over almost in rows, as it was planted.  The trees had
+withered in most cases, and in the open spaces round their upturned roots
+hundreds of rabbits burrowed, and had marked the adjoining field with
+little paths, just like the lines outside a railway-station.
+
+“I saw all this, not because I looked at it, for if you look with the
+idea of seeing everything, commonly everything escapes you, but because
+the lovely afternoon induced a feeling of well-being and contentment, and
+everything seemed to fall into its right proportion, so that you saw
+first the harmonious whole, and then the salient points most worth the
+looking at.
+
+“I walked along feeling exhilarated with the autumn air and the fresh
+breeze that blew up from the Clyde.  I remember thinking I had hardly
+ever felt greater content, and as I walked it seemed impossible the world
+could be so full of rank injustice, or that the lot of three-fourths of
+its population could really be so hard.  A pack of grouse flew past,
+skimming above the heather, as a shoal of flying-fish skims just above
+the waves.  I heard their quacking cries as they alighted on some stooks
+of oats, and noticed that the last bird to settle was an old hen, and
+that, even when all were down, I still could see her head, looking out
+warily above the yellow grain.  Beyond the ruined wood there came the
+barking of a shepherd’s dog, faint and subdued, and almost musical.
+
+“I sat so long, smoking and looking at the view, that when I turned to go
+the sun was sinking and our long, northern twilight almost setting in.
+
+“You know it,” said my host, and I, who often had read by its light in
+summer and the early autumn, nodded assent, wondering to myself what he
+was going to tell me, and he went on.
+
+“It has the property of making all things look a little ghostly,
+deepening the shadows and altering their values, so that all that you see
+seems to acquire an extra significance, not so much to the eye as to the
+mind.  Slowly I retraced my steps, walking under the high wall of rough
+piled stones till it ends, at the copse of willows, on the north side of
+the little moor to which I had seen the pack of grouse fly after it had
+left the stooks.  I crossed into it, and began to walk towards home,
+knee-deep in bent grass and dwarf willows, with here and there a patch of
+heather and a patch of bilberries.  The softness of the ground so dulled
+my footsteps that I appeared to walk as lightly as a roe upon the spongy
+surface of the moor.  As I passed through a slight depression in which
+the grass grew rankly, I heard a wild cry coming, as it seemed, from just
+beneath my feet.  Then came a rustling in the grass, and a large,
+dark-grey bird sprang out, repeating the wild cry, and ran off swiftly,
+trailing a broken wing.
+
+“It paused upon a little hillock fifty yards away, repeating its strange
+note, and looking round as if it sought for something that it was certain
+was at hand.  High in the air the cry, wilder and shriller, was repeated,
+and a great grey bird that I saw was a whaup slowly descended in
+decreasing circles, and settled down beside its mate.
+
+“They seemed to talk, and then the wounded bird set off at a swift run,
+its fellow circling above its head and uttering its cry as if it guided
+it.  I watched them disappear, feeling as if an iron belt was drawn tight
+round my heart, their cries growing fainter as the deepening shadows
+slowly closed upon the moor.”
+
+My host stopped, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and turning to me,
+said:—
+
+“I watched them go to what of course must have been certain death for one
+of them, furious, with the feelings of a murderer towards the man whose
+thoughtless folly had been the cause of so much misery.  Curse him!  I
+watched them, impotent to help, for as you know the curlew is perhaps the
+wildest of our native birds; and even had I caught the wounded one to set
+its wing, it would have pined and died.  One thing I could have done, had
+I but had a gun and had the light been better, I might have shot them
+both, and had I done so I would have buried them beside each other.
+
+“That’s what I had upon my mind to tell you.  I think the storm and the
+wild noises of the struggling trees outside have brought it back to me,
+although it happened years ago.  Sometimes, when people talk about
+fidelity, saying it is not to be found upon the earth, I smile, for I
+have seen it with my own eyes, and manifest, out on that little moor.”
+
+He filled his pipe, and sitting down in an old leather chair, much worn
+and rather greasy, silently gazed into the fire.
+
+I, too, was silent, thinking upon the tragedy; then feeling that
+something was expected of me, looked up and murmured, “Yes.”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+“UNO DEI MILLE”
+
+
+A VEIL of mist, the colour of a spider’s web, rose from the oily river.
+It met the mist that wrapped the palm-trees and the unsubstantial-looking
+houses painted in light blue and yellow ochre, as it descended from the
+hills.  Now and then, through the pall of damp, as a light air was wafted
+up the river from the sea, the bright red earth upon the hills showed
+like a stain of blood; canoes, paddled by men who stood up, balancing
+themselves with a slight movement of the hips, slipped in and out of
+sight, now crossing just before the steamer’s bows and then appearing
+underneath her stern in a mysterious way.  From the long line of
+tin-roofed sheds a ceaseless stream of snuff-and-butter-coloured men
+trotted continuously, carrying bags of coffee to an elevator, which shot
+them headlong down the steamer’s hold.  Their naked feet pattered upon
+the warm, wet concrete of the dock side, as it were stealthily, with a
+sound almost alarming, so like their footfall seemed to that of a wild
+animal.
+
+The flat-roofed city, buried in sheets of rain, that spouted from the
+eaves of the low houses on the unwary passers-by, was stirred unwontedly.
+Men, who as a general rule lounged at the corners of the streets,
+pressing their shoulders up against the houses as if they thought that
+only by their own self-sacrifice the walls were kept from falling, now
+walked up and down, regardless of the rain.
+
+In the great oblong square, planted with cocoa-palms, in which the statue
+of Cabrál stands up in cheap Carrara marble, looking as if he felt
+ashamed of his discovery, a sea of wet umbrellas surged to and fro,
+forging towards the Italian Consulate.  Squat Genoese and swarthy
+Neapolitans, with sinewy Piedmontese, and men from every province of the
+peninsula, all had left their work.  They all discoursed in the same tone
+of voice in which no doubt their ancestors talked in the Forum, even when
+Cicero was speaking, until the lictors forced them to keep silence, for
+their own eloquence is that which in all ages has had most charm for
+them.  The reedy voices of the Brazilian coloured men sounded a mere
+twittering compared to their full-bodied tones.  “Viva l’Italia” pealed
+out from thousands of strong throats as the crowd streamed from the
+square and filled the narrow streets; fireworks that fizzled miserably
+were shot off in the mist, the sticks falling upon the umbrellas of the
+crowd.  A shift of wind cleared the mist off the river for a moment,
+leaving an Italian liner full in view.  From all her spars floated the
+red and white and green, and on her decks and in the rigging, on bridges
+and on the rail, men, all with bundles in their hands, clustered like
+ants, and cheered incessantly.  An answering cheer rose from the crowd
+ashore of “Long live the Reservists!  Viva l’Italia,” as the vessel
+slowly swung into the stream.  From every house excited men rushed out
+and flung themselves and their belongings into boats, and scrambled up
+the vessel’s sides as she began to move.  Brown hands were stretched down
+to them as they climbed on board.  From every doorstep in the town women
+with handkerchiefs about their heads came out, and with the tears falling
+from their great, black eyes and running down their olive cheeks, waved
+and called out, “Addio Giuseppe; addio Gian Battista, abbasso gli
+Tedeschi,” and then turned back into their homes to weep.  On every side
+Italians stood and shouted, and still, from railway station and from the
+river-side, hundreds poured out and gazed at the departing steamer with
+its teeming freight of men.
+
+Italians from the coffee plantations of São Paulo, from the mines of Ouro
+Preto, from Goyaz, and from the far interior, all young and sun-burnt,
+the flower of those Italian workmen who have built the railways of
+Brazil, and by whose work the strong foundations of the prosperity of the
+Republic have been laid, were out, to turn their backs upon the land in
+which, for the first time, most of them had eaten a full meal.  Factories
+stood idle, the coasting schooners all were left unmanned, and had the
+coffee harvest not been gathered in, it would have rotted on the hills.
+The Consulate was unapproachable, and round it throngs of men struggled
+to enter, all demanding to get home.  No rain could damp their spirits,
+and those who, after waiting hours, came out with tickets, had a look in
+their eyes as if they just had won the chief prize in the lottery.
+
+Their friends surrounded them, and strained them to their hearts, the
+water from the umbrellas of the crowd trickling in rivulets upon the
+embracer and the embraced.
+
+Mulatto policemen cleared the path for carriages to pass, and, as they
+came, the gap filled up again as if by magic, till the next carriage
+passed.  Suddenly a tremor ran through the crowd, moving it with a shiver
+like the body of a snake.  All the umbrellas which had seemed to move by
+their own will, covering the crowd and hiding it from view, were shut
+down suddenly.  A mist-dimmed sun shone out, watery, but potent, and in
+an instant gaining strength, it dried the streets and made a hot steam
+rise up from the crowd.  Slouched hats were raised up on one side, and
+pocket handkerchiefs wrapped up in paper were unfolded and knotted
+loosely round men’s necks, giving them a look as of domestic bandits as
+they broke out into a patriotic song, which ceased with a long drawn-out
+“Viva,” as the strains of an approaching band were heard and the
+footsteps of men marching through the streets in military array.
+
+The coloured policemen rode their horses through the throng, and the
+streets, which till then had seemed impassable, were suddenly left clear.
+Jangling and crashing out the Garibaldian hymn, the band debouched into
+the square, dressed in a uniform half-German, half-Brazilian, with
+truncated pickel-hauben on their heads, in which were stuck a plume of
+gaudy feathers, apparently at the discretion of the wearer, making them
+look like something in a comic opera; a tall mulatto, playing on a drum
+with all the seriousness that only one of his colour and his race is able
+to impart to futile actions, swaggered along beside a jet-black negro
+playing on the flute.  All the executants wore brass-handled swords of a
+kind never seen in Europe for a hundred years.  Those who played the
+trombone and the ophicleide blew till their thick lips swelled, and
+seemed to cover up the mouthpieces.  Still they blew on, the perspiration
+rolling down their cheeks, and a black boy or two brought up the rear,
+clashing the cymbals when it seemed good to them, quite irrespective of
+the rest.  The noise was terrifying, and had it not been for the
+enthusiasm of the crowd, the motley band of coloured men, arrayed like
+popinjays, would have been ridiculous; but the dense ranks of hot,
+perspiring men, all in the flower of youth, and every one of whom had
+given up his work to cross the ocean at his country’s call, had something
+in them that turned laughter into tears.  The sons of peasants, who had
+left their homes, driven out from Apulean plains or Lombard rice-fields
+by the pinch of poverty, they now were going back to shed their blood for
+the land that had denied them bread in their own homes.  Twice did the
+band march round the town whilst the procession was getting ready for a
+start, and each time that it passed before the Consulate, the Consul came
+out on the steps, bare-headed, and saluted with the flag.
+
+Dressed in white drill, tall, grey-haired, and with the washed-out look
+of one who has spent many years in a hot country, the Consul evidently
+had been a soldier in his youth.  He stood and watched the people
+critically, with the appraising look of the old officer, so like to that
+a grazier puts on at a cattle market as he surveys the beasts.  “Good
+stuff,” he muttered to himself, and then drawing his hand across his
+eyes, as if he felt where most of the “good stuff” would lie in a few
+months, he went back to the house.
+
+A cheer at the far corner of the square showed that the ranks were
+formed.  A policeman on a scraggy horse, with a great rusty sabre banging
+at its side, rode slowly down the streets to clear the way, and once
+again the parti-coloured band passed by, playing the Garibaldian hymn.
+Rank upon rank of men tramped after it, their friends running beside them
+for a last embrace, and women rushing up with children for a farewell
+kiss.  Their merry faces set with determination, and their shoulders well
+thrown back, three or four hundred men briskly stepped along, trying to
+imitate the way the Bersaglieri march in Italy.  A shout went up of “Long
+live the Reservists,” as a contingent, drawn from every class of the
+Italian colony, passed along the street.  Dock-labourers and pale-faced
+clerks in well-cut clothes and unsubstantial boots walked side by side.
+Men burnt the colour of a brick by working at the harvest rubbed
+shoulders with Sicilian emigrants landed a month or two ago, but who now
+were going off to fight, as poor as when they left their native land, and
+dressed in the same clothes.  Neapolitans, gesticulating as they marched,
+and putting out their tongues at the Brazilian negroes, chattered and
+joked.  To them life was a farce, no matter that the setting of the stage
+on which they moved was narrow, the fare hard, and the remuneration
+small.  If things were adverse they still laughed on, and if the world
+was kind they jeered at it and at themselves, disarming both the slings
+of fortune and her more dangerous smiles with a grimace.
+
+As they marched on, they now and then sketched out in pantomime the fate
+of any German who might fall into their hands, so vividly that shouts of
+laughter greeted them, which they acknowledged by putting out their
+tongues.  Square-shouldered Liguresi succeeded them, with Lombards,
+Sicilians, and men of the strange negroid-looking race from the
+Basilicata, almost as dark-skinned as the Brazilian loungers at the
+corners of the streets.
+
+They all passed on, laughing, and quite oblivious of what was in store
+for most of them—laughing and smoking, and, for the first time in their
+lives, the centre of a show.  After them came another band; but this time
+of Italians, well-dressed, and playing on well-cared-for instruments.
+Behind them walked a little group of men, on whose appearance a hush fell
+on the crowd.  Two of them wore uniforms, and between them, supported by
+silk handkerchiefs wrapped round his arms, there walked a man who was
+welcomed with a scream of joy.  Frail, and with trembling footsteps,
+dressed in a faded old red shirt and knotted handkerchief, his parchment
+cheeks lit up with a faint flush as the Veteran of Marsala passed like a
+phantom of a glorious past.  With him appeared to march the rest of his
+companions who set sail from Genoa to call into existence that Italy for
+which the young men all around him were prepared to sacrifice their
+lives.
+
+To the excited crowd he typified all that their fathers had endured to
+drive the stranger from their land.  The two Cairoli, Nino Bixio, and the
+heroic figure, wrapped in his poncho, who rides in glory on the
+Janiculum, visible from every point of Rome, seemed to march by the old
+man’s side in the imagination of the crowd.  Women rushed forward,
+carrying flowers, and strewed them on the scant grey locks of the old
+soldier; and children danced in front of him, like little Bacchanals.
+All hats were off as the old man was borne along, a phantom of himself, a
+symbol of a heroic past, and still a beacon, flickering but alight, to
+show the way towards the goal which in his youth had seemed impossible to
+reach.
+
+Slowly the procession rolled along, surging against the houses as an
+incoming tide swirls up a river, till it reached the Consulate.  It
+halted, and the old Garibaldian, drawing himself up, saluted the Italian
+colours.  The Consul, bare-headed and with tears running down his cheeks,
+stood for a moment, the centre of all eyes, and then, advancing, tore the
+flag from off its staff, and, after kissing it, wrapped it round the
+frail shoulders of the veteran.
+
+
+
+
+V
+WITH THE NORTH-EAST WIND
+
+
+A NORTH-EAST haar had hung the city with a pall of grey.  It gave an air
+of hardness to the stone-built houses, blending them with the stone-paved
+streets, till you could scarce see where the houses ended and the street
+began.  A thin grey dust hung in the air.  It coloured everything, and
+people’s faces all looked pinched with the first touch of autumn cold.
+The wind, boisterous and gusty, whisked the soot-grimed city leaves about
+in the high suburb at the foot of a long range of hills, making one think
+it would be easy to have done with life on such an uncongenial day.
+Tramways were packed with people of the working class, all of them of the
+alert, quick-witted type only to be seen in the great city on the Clyde,
+in all our Empire, and comparable alone to the dwellers in Chicago for
+dry vivacity.
+
+By the air they wore of chastened pleasure, all those who knew them saw
+that they were intent upon a funeral.  To serious-minded men such as are
+they, for all their quickness, nothing is so soul-filling, for it is of
+the nature of a fact that no one can deny.  A wedding has its
+possibilities, for it may lead to children, or divorce, but funerals are
+in another category.  At them the Scottish people is at its best, for
+never more than then does the deep underlying tenderness peep through the
+hardness of the rind.  On foot and in the tramways, but most especially
+on foot, converged long lines of men and women, though fewer women, for
+the national prejudice that in years gone by thought it not decent for a
+wife to follow to the grave her husband’s coffin, still holds a little in
+the north.  Yet there was something in the crowd that showed it was to
+attend no common funeral, that they were “stepping west.”  No one wore
+black, except a minister or two, who looked a little like the belated
+rook you sometimes see amongst a flock of seagulls, in that vast ocean of
+grey tweed.
+
+They tramped along, the whistling north-east wind pinching their
+features, making their eyes run, and as they went, almost unconsciously
+they fell into procession, for beyond the tramway line, a country lane
+that had not quite put on the graces of a street, though straggling
+houses were dotted here and there along it, received the crowd and
+marshalled it, as it were mechanically, without volition of its own.
+Kept in between the walls, and blocked in front by the hearse and long
+procession of the mourning-coaches, the people slowly surged along.  The
+greater portion of the crowd were townsmen, but there were miners washed
+and in their Sunday best.  Their faces showed the blue marks of healed-up
+scars into which coal dust or gunpowder had become tattooed, scars gained
+in the battle of their lives down in the pits, remembrances of falls of
+rock or of occasions when the mine had “fired upon them.”
+
+Many had known Keir Hardie in his youth, had “wrocht wi’ him out-by,” at
+Blantyre, at Hamilton, in Ayrshire, and all of them had heard him speak a
+hundred times.  Even to those who had not heard him, his name was as a
+household word.  Miners predominated, but men of every trade were there.
+Many were members of that black-coated proletariat, whose narrow
+circumstances and daily struggle for appearances make their life harder
+to them than is the life of any working man before he has had to dye his
+hair.  Women tramped, too, for the dead leader had been a champion of
+their sex.  They all respected him, loving him with that
+half-contemptuous gratitude that women often show to men who make the
+“woman question” the object of their lives.
+
+After the Scottish fashion at a funeral, greetings were freely passed,
+and Reid, who hadna’ seen his friend Mackinder since the time of the
+Mid-Lanark fight, greeted him with “Ye mind when first Keir Hardie was
+puttin’ up for Parliament,” and wrung his hand, hardened in the mine,
+with one as hardened, and instantly began to recall elections of the
+past.
+
+“Ye mind yon Wishaw meeting?”
+
+“Aye, ou aye; ye mean when a’ they Irish wouldna’ hear John Ferguson.
+Man, he almost grat after the meeting aboot it.”
+
+“Aye, but they gied Hardie himself a maist respectful hearing . . . aye,
+ou aye.”
+
+Others remembered him a boy, and others in his home at Cumnock, but all
+spoke of him with affection, holding him as something of their own, apart
+from other politicians, almost apart from men.
+
+Old comrades who had been with him either at this election or that
+meeting, had helped or had intended to have helped at the crises of his
+life, fought their old battles over, as they tramped along, all shivering
+in the wind.
+
+The procession reached a long dip in the road, and the head of it, full
+half a mile away, could be seen gathered round the hearse, outside the
+chapel of the crematorium, whose ominous tall chimney, through which the
+ashes, and perchance the souls of thousands have escaped towards some
+empyrean or another, towered up starkly.  At last all had arrived, and
+the small open space was crowded, the hearse and carriages appearing
+stuck amongst the people, like raisins in a cake, so thick they pressed
+upon them.  The chapel, differing from the ordinary chapel of the faiths
+as much as does a motor driver from a cabman, had an air as of modernity
+about it, which contrasted strangely with the ordinary looking crowd, the
+adjacent hills, the decent mourning coaches and the black-coated
+undertakers who bore the coffin up the steps.  Outside, the wind whistled
+and swayed the soot-stained trees about; but inside the chapel the heat
+was stifling.
+
+When all was duly done, and long exordiums passed upon the man who in his
+life had been the target for the abuse of press and pulpit, the coffin
+slid away to its appointed place.  One thought one heard the roaring of
+the flames, and somehow missed the familiar lowering of the body . . .
+earth to earth . . . to which the centuries of use and wont have made us
+all familiar, though dust to dust in this case was the more appropriate.
+
+In either case, the book is closed for ever, and the familiar face is
+seen no more.
+
+So, standing just outside the chapel in the cold, waiting till all the
+usual greetings had been exchanged, I fell a-musing on the man whom I had
+known so well.  I saw him as he was thirty years ago, outlined against a
+bing or standing in a quarry in some mining village, and heard his once
+familiar address of “Men.”  He used no other in those days, to the
+immense disgust of legislators and other worthy but unimaginative men
+whom he might chance to meet.  About him seemed to stand a shadowy band,
+most of whom now are dead or lost to view, or have gone under in the
+fight.
+
+John Ferguson was there, the old-time Irish leader, the friend of Davitt
+and of Butt.  Tall and erect he stood, dressed in his long frock-coat,
+his roll of papers in one hand, and with the other stuck into his breast,
+with all the air of being the last Roman left alive.  Tom Mann, with his
+black hair, his flashing eyes, and his tumultuous speech peppered with
+expletives.  Beside him, Sandy Haddow, of Parkhead, massive and Doric in
+his speech, with a grey woollen comforter rolled round his neck, and
+hands like panels of a door.  Champion, pale, slight, and interesting,
+still the artillery officer, in spite of Socialism.  John Burns; and
+Small, the miners’ agent, with his close brown beard and taste for
+literature.  Smillie stood near, he of the seven elections, and then
+check-weigher at a pit, either at Cadzow or Larkhall.  There, too, was
+silver-tongued Shaw Maxwell and Chisholm Robertson, looking out darkly on
+the world through tinted spectacles; with him Bruce Glasier, girt with a
+red sash and with an aureole of fair curly hair around his head, half
+poet and half revolutionary.
+
+They were all young and ardent, and as I mused upon them and their fate,
+and upon those of them who have gone down into the oblivion that waits
+for those who live before their time, I shivered in the wind.
+
+Had he, too, lived in vain, he whose scant ashes were no doubt by this
+time all collected in an urn, and did they really represent all that
+remained of him?
+
+Standing amongst the band of shadowy comrades I had known, I saw him,
+simple and yet with something of the prophet in his air, and something of
+the seer.  Effective and yet ineffectual, something there was about him
+that attracted little children to him, and I should think lost dogs.  He
+made mistakes, but then those who make no mistakes seldom make anything.
+His life was one long battle, so it seemed to me that it was fitting that
+at his funeral the north-east wind should howl amongst the trees, tossing
+and twisting them as he himself was twisted and storm-tossed in his
+tempestuous passage through the world.
+
+As the crowd moved away, and in the hearse and mourning-coaches the
+spavined horses limped slowly down the road, a gleam of sunshine, such as
+had shone too little in his life, lighted up everything.
+
+The swaying trees and dark, grey houses of the ugly suburb of the town
+were all transfigured for a moment.  The chapel door was closed, and from
+the chimney of the crematorium a faint blue smoke was issuing, which, by
+degrees, faded into the atmosphere, just as the soul, for all I know, may
+melt into the air.
+
+When the last stragglers had gone, and bits of paper scurried uneasily
+along before the wind, the world seemed empty, with nothing friendly in
+it, but the shoulder of Ben Lomond peeping out shyly over the Kilpatrick
+Hills.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+ELYSIUM
+
+
+THE Triad came into my life as I walked underneath the arch by which the
+sentinels sit in Olympian state upon their rather long-legged chargers,
+receiving, as is their due, the silent homage of the passing
+nurserymaids. The soldier in the middle was straight back from the front.
+The mud of Flanders clung to his boots and clothes.  It was “deeched”
+into his skin, and round his eyes had left a stain so dark, it looked as
+if he had been painted for a theatrical make-up.  Upon his puttees it had
+dried so thickly that you could scarcely see the folds.  He bore upon his
+back his knapsack, carried his rifle in his hand all done up in a case,
+which gave it, as it seemed to me, a look of hidden power, making it more
+terrible to think of than if it had shone brightly in the sun.  His
+water-bottle and a pack of some kind hung at his sides, and as he walked
+kept time to every step.  Under his elbow protruded the shaft of
+something, perhaps an entrenching tool of some sort, or perhaps some
+weapon strange to civilians accustomed to the use of stick or umbrella as
+their only arm.  In himself he seemed a walking arsenal, carrying his
+weapons and his baggage on his back, after the fashion of a Roman
+legionary.  The man himself, before the hand of discipline had fashioned
+him to number something or another, must have looked fresh and youthful,
+not very different from a thousand others that in time of peace one sees
+in early morning going to fulfil one of those avocations without which no
+State can possibly endure, and yet are practically unknown to those who
+live in the vast stucco hives either of Belgravia or Mayfair.
+
+He may have been some five-and-twenty, and was a Londoner or a man from
+the home counties lying round about.  His sunburnt face was yet not
+sunburnt as is the face of one accustomed to the weather all his life.
+Recent exposure had made his skin all feverish, and his blue eyes were
+fixed, as often are the eyes of sailors or frontiersmen after a long
+watch.
+
+The girls on either side of him clung to his arm with pride, and with an
+air of evident affection, that left them quite unconscious of everything
+but having got the beloved object of their care safe home again.  Upon
+the right side, holding fast to the warrior’s arm, and now and then
+nestling close to his side, walked his sweetheart, a dark-haired girl,
+dressed in the miserable cheap finery our poorer countrywomen wear,
+instead of well-made plainer clothes that certainly would cost them less
+and set them off a hundredfold the more.  Now and again she pointed out
+some feature of the town with pride, as when they climbed the steps under
+the column on which stands the statue of the Duke of York.  The soldier,
+without looking, answered, “I know, Ethel, Dook of York,” and hitched his
+pack a little higher on his back.
+
+His sister, hanging on his left arm, never said anything, but walked
+along as in a dream; and he, knowing that she was there and understood,
+spoke little to her, except to murmur “Good old Gladys” now and then, and
+press her to his side.  As they passed by the stunted monument, on which
+the crowd of little figures standing round a sledge commemorates the
+Franklin Expedition, in a chill Arctic way, the girl upon the right
+jerked her head towards it and said, “That’s Sir John Franklin, George,
+he as laid down his life to find the North-West Passage, one of our
+’eroes, you remember ’im.”  To which he answered, “Oh yes, Frenklin”;
+then looking over at the statue of Commander Scott, added, “’ee done his
+bit too,” with an appreciative air.  They gazed upon the Athenæum and the
+other clubs with that air of detachment that all Englishmen affect when
+they behold a building or a monument—taking it, as it seems to me, as
+something they have no concern with, just as if it stood in Petrograd or
+in Johannesburg.
+
+The homing triad passed into Pall Mall, oblivious of the world, so lost
+in happiness that they appeared the only living people in the street.
+The sister, who had said so little, when she saw her brother shift his
+knapsack, asked him to let her carry it.  He smiled, and knowing what she
+felt, handed his rifle to her, remarking, “’Old it the right side up, old
+girl, or else it will go off.”
+
+And so they took their way through the enchanted streets, not feeling
+either the penetrating wind or the fine rain, for these are but material
+things, and they were wrapped apart from the whole world.  Officers of
+all ranks passed by them, some young and smart, and others paunchy and
+middle-aged; but they were non-existent to the soldier, who saw nothing
+but the girls.  Most of the officers looked straight before them, with an
+indulgent air; but two young men with red bands round their caps were
+scandalised, and muttering something as to the discipline of the New
+Army, drew themselves up stiffly and strutted off, like angry game-cocks
+when they eye each other in the ring.
+
+The triad passed the Rag, and on the steps stood two old colonels, their
+faces burnt the colour of a brick, and their moustaches stiff as the
+bristles of a brush.  They eyed the passing little show, and looking at
+each other broke into a smile.  They knew that they would never walk
+oblivious of mankind, linked to a woman’s arm; but perhaps memories of
+what they had done stirred in their hearts, for both of them at the same
+moment ejaculated a modulated “Ha!” of sympathy.  All this time I had
+walked behind the three young people, unconsciously, as I was going the
+same road, catching half phrases now and then, which I was half ashamed
+to hear.
+
+They reached the corner of St. James’s Square, and our paths separated.
+Mine took me to the London Library to change a book, and theirs led
+straight to Elysium, for five long days.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+HEREDITY
+
+
+RIGHT along the frontier between Uruguay and Rio Grande, the southern
+province of Brazil, the Spanish and the Portuguese sit face to face, as
+they have sat for ages, looking at, but never understanding, one another,
+both in the Old and the New World.
+
+In Tuy and Valenza, Monzon and Salvatierra, at Poncho Verde and Don
+Pedrito, Rivera and Santa Ana do Libramento, and far away above Cruz
+Alta, where the two clumps of wood that mark old camps of the two people
+are called O Matto Castelhano and O Matto Portuguez, the rivalry of
+centuries is either actual or at least commemorated on the map.
+
+The border-line that once made different peoples of the dwellers at
+Floriston and Gretna, still prevails in the little castellated towns,
+which snarl at one another across the Minho, just as they did of old.
+
+“Those people in Valenza would steal the sacrament,” says the street
+urchin playing on the steps of the half fortalice, half church that is
+the cathedral of Tuy on the Spanish side.
+
+His fellow in Valenza spits towards Tuy and remarks, “From Spain come
+neither good marriages nor the wholesome winds.”
+
+So on to Salvatierra and Monzon, or any other of the villages or towns
+upon the river, and in the current of the native speech there still
+remains some saying of the kind, with its sharp edges still unworn after
+six centuries of use.  Great is the power of artificial barriers to
+restrain mankind.  No proverb ever penned is more profound than that
+which sets out, “Fear guards the vineyard, not the fence around it.”
+
+So Portuguese and Spaniards in their peninsula have fought and hated and
+fought and ridiculed each other after the fashion of children that have
+quarrelled over a broken toy.  Blood and an almost common speech, for
+both speak one Romance when all is said, have both been impotent against
+the custom-house, the flag, the foolish dynasty, for few countries in the
+world have had more foolish kings than Spain and Portugal.
+
+That this should be so in the Old World is natural enough, for the dead
+hand still rules, and custom and tradition have more strength than race
+and creed; but that the hatred should have been transplanted to America,
+and still continue, is a proof that folly never dies.
+
+In the old towns on either side of the Minho the exterior life of the two
+peoples is the same.
+
+In the stone-built, arcaded plazas women still gather round the fountain
+and fill their iron-hooped water-barrels through long tin pipes, shaped
+like the tin valences used in wine-stores.  Donkeys stand at the doors,
+carrying charcoal in esparto baskets, whether in Portugal or Spain, and
+goats parade the streets driven by goatherds, wearing shapeless,
+thickly-napped felt hats and leather overalls.
+
+The water-carrier in both countries calls out “agua-a-a,” making it sound
+like Arabic, and long trains of mules bring brushwood for the baker’s
+furnace (even as in Morocco), or great nets of close-chopped straw for
+horses’ fodder.
+
+At eventide the girls walk on the plaza, their mothers, aunts, or
+servants following them as closely as their shadows on a sunny afternoon.
+In quiet streets lovers on both sides of the river talk from a
+first-floor balcony to the street, or whisper through the window-bars on
+the ground floor.  The little shops under the low arches of the arcaded
+streets have yellow flannel drawers for men and petticoats of many
+colours hanging close outside their doors, on whose steps sleep yellow
+dogs.
+
+The jangling bells in the decaying lichen-grown old towers of the
+churches jangle and clang in the same key, and as appears without a touch
+of _odium theologicum_.  The full bass voices boom from the choirs, in
+which the self-same organs in their walnut cases have the same rows of
+golden trumpets sticking out into the aisle.
+
+One faith, one speech, one mode of daily life, the same sharp “green”
+wine, the same bread made of maize and rye, and the same heaps of red
+tomatoes and green peppers glistening in the sun in the same
+market-places, and yet a rivalry and a difference as far apart as east
+from west still separates them.
+
+In both their countries the axles of the bullock-carts, with solid wheels
+and wattled hurdle sides, like those upon a Roman coin, still creak and
+whine to keep away the wolves.
+
+In the soft landscape the maize fields wave in the rich hollows on both
+sides of the Minho.
+
+The pine woods mantle the rocky hills that overhang the deep-sea lochs
+that burrow in both countries deep into the entrails of the land.
+
+The women, with their many-coloured petticoats and handkerchiefs, chaffer
+at the same fairs to which their husbands ride their ponies in their
+straw cloaks.
+
+At “romerias” the peasantry dance to the bagpipe and the drum the
+self-same dances, and both climb the self-same steep grey steps through
+the dark lanes, all overhung with gorse and broom, up to the Calvaries,
+where the three crosses take on the self-same growth of lichen and of
+moss.  Yet the “boyero” who walks before the placid oxen, with their
+cream-coloured flanks and liquid eyes of onyx, feels he is different,
+right down to the last molecule of his being, from the man upon the other
+side.
+
+So was it once, and perhaps is to-day, with those who dwell in Liddes or
+Bewcastle dales.  Spaniard and Portuguese, as Scot and Englishman in
+older times, can never see one matter from the same point of view.  The
+Portuguese will say that the Castilian is a rogue, and the Castilian
+returns the compliment.  Neither have any reason to support their view,
+for who wants reason to support that which he feels is true.
+
+It may be that the Spaniard is a little rougher and the Portuguese more
+cunning; but if it is the case or not, the antipathy remains, and has
+been taken to America.
+
+From the Laguna de Merin to the Cuareim, that is to say, along a frontier
+of two hundred leagues, the self-same feeling rules upon both sides of
+the line.  There, as in Portugal and Spain, although the country, whether
+in Uruguay or in Brazil, is little different, yet it has suffered
+something indefinable by being occupied by members of the two races so
+near and yet so different from one another.
+
+Great rolling seas of waving grass, broken by a few stony hills, are the
+chief features of the landscape of the frontiers in both republics.
+Estancia houses, dazzlingly white, buried in peach and fig groves, dot
+the plains, looking like islands in the sea of grass.  Great herds of
+cattle roam about, and men on horseback, galloping like clockwork, sail
+across the plains like ships upon a sea.  Along the river-banks grow
+strips of thorny trees, and as the frontier line trends northward
+palm-trees appear, and monkeys chatter in the woods.  Herds of wild
+asses, shyer than antelopes, gaze at the passing horsemen, scour off when
+he approaches, and are lost into the haze.  Stretches of purple borage,
+known as La Flor Morada, carpet the ground in spring and early summer,
+giving place later on to red verbena; and on the edges of the streams the
+tufts of the tall Pampa grass recall the feathers on a Pampa Indian’s
+spear.
+
+Bands of grave ostriches feed quietly upon the tops of hills, and stride
+away when frightened, down the wind, with wings stretched out to catch
+the breeze.
+
+Clothes are identical, or almost so; the poncho and the loose trousers
+stuffed into high patent-leather boots, the hat kept in its place by a
+black ribbon with two tassels, are to be seen on both sides of the
+frontier.  Only in Brazil a sword stuck through the girth replaces the
+long knife of Uruguay.  Perhaps in that one item all the differences
+between the races manifests itself, for the sword is, as it were, a
+symbol, for no one ever saw one drawn or used in any way but as an
+ornament.  It is, in fact, but a survival of old customs, which are
+cherished both by the Portuguese and the Brazilians as the apple of the
+eye.
+
+The vast extent of the territory of Brazil, its inaccessibility, and the
+enormous distances to be travelled from the interior to the coast, and
+the sense of remoteness from the outer world, have kept alive a type of
+man not to be found in any other country where the Christian faith
+prevails.  Risings of fanatics still are frequent; one is going on to-day
+in Paraná, and that of the celebrated Antonio Concelheiro, twenty years
+ago, shook the whole country to its core.  Slavery existed in the memory
+of people still alive.  Women in the remoter towns are still secluded
+almost as with the Moors.  The men still retain something of the Middle
+Ages in their love of show.  All in the province of Rio Grande are great
+horsemen, and all use silver trappings on a black horse, and all have
+horses bitted so as to turn round in the air, just as a hawk turns on the
+wing.
+
+The sons of men who have been slaves abound in all the little frontier
+towns, and old grey-headed negroes, who have been slaves themselves,
+still hang about the great estates.  Upon the other side, in Uruguay, the
+negro question was solved once and for all in the Independence Wars, for
+then the negroes were all formed into battalions by themselves and set in
+the forefront of the battle, to die for liberty in a country where they
+all were slaves the month before.  War turned them into heroes, and sent
+them out to die.
+
+When once their independence was assured, the Uruguayans fell into line
+like magic with the modern trend of thought.  Liberty to them meant
+absolute equality, for throughout the land no snob is found to leave a
+slug’s trail on the face of man by his subserviency.
+
+Women were held free, that is, as free as it is possible for them to be
+in any Latin-peopled land.  Across the line, even to-day, a man may stay
+a week in a Brazilian country house and never see a woman but a mulata
+girl or an old negro crone.  Still he feels he is watched by eyes he
+never sees, listens to voices singing or laughing, and a sense of mystery
+prevails.
+
+Spaniards and Portuguese in the New World have blended just as little as
+they have done at home.  Upon the frontier all the wilder spirits of
+Brazil and Uruguay have congregated.  There they pursue the life, but
+little altered, that their fathers led full fifty years ago.  All carry
+arms, and use them on small provocation, for if an accident takes place
+the frontier shields the slayer, for to pursue him usually entails a
+national quarrel, and so the game goes on.
+
+So Jango Chaves, feeling inclined for sport, or, as he might have said,
+to “brincar un bocadinho,” saddled up his horse.  He mounted, and, as his
+friends were looking on, ran it across the plaza of the town, and,
+turning like a seagull in its flight, came back to where his friends were
+standing, and stopped it with a jerk.
+
+His silver harness jingled, and his heavy spurs, hanging loosely on his
+high-heeled boots, clanked like fetters, as his active little horse
+bounded into the air and threw the sand up in a shower.
+
+The rider, sitting him like a statue, with the far-off look horsemen of
+every land assume when riding a good horse and when they know they are
+observed, slackened his hand and let him fall into a little measured
+trot, arching his neck and playing with the bit, under which hung a
+silver eagle on a hinge.  Waving his hand towards his friends, Jango rode
+slowly through the town.  He passed through sandy streets of flat-roofed,
+whitewashed houses, before whose doors stood hobbled horses nodding in
+the sun.
+
+He rode past orange gardens, surrounded by brown walls of sun-baked
+bricks with the straw sticking in them, just as it had dried.  In the
+waste the castor-oil bushes formed little jungles, out of which peered
+cats, exactly as a tiger peers out of a real jungle in the woods.
+
+The sun poured down, and was reverberated back from the white houses, and
+on the great gaunt building, where the captain-general lived, floated the
+green-and-yellow flag of the republic, looking like a bandana
+handkerchief.  He passed the negro rancheria, without which no such town
+as Santa Anna do Libramento is complete, and might have marked, had he
+not been too much used to see them, the naked negro children playing in
+the sand.  Possibly, if he marked them, he referred to them as
+“cachorrinhos pretos,” for the old leaven of the days of slavery is
+strongly rooted in Brazil.  So he rode on, a slight and graceful figure,
+bending to each movement of his horse, his mobile, olive-coloured
+features looking like a bronze masque in the fierce downpour of the sun.
+
+As he rode on, his whip, held by a thong and dangling from his fingers,
+swung against his horse’s flanks, keeping time rhythmically to its pace.
+He crossed the rivulet that flows between the towns and came out on the
+little open plain that separates them.  From habit, or because he felt
+himself amongst unfriendly or uncomprehended people, he touched his knife
+and his revolvers, hidden beneath his summer poncho, with his right hand,
+and with his bridle arm held high, ready for all eventualities, passed
+into just such another sandy street as he had left behind.
+
+Save that all looked a little newer, and that the stores were better
+supplied with goods, and that there were no negro huts, the difference
+was slight between the towns.  True that the green-and-yellow flag had
+given place to the barred blue-and-white of Uruguay.  An armed policeman
+stood at the corners of the main thoroughfares, and water-carts went up
+and down at intervals.  The garden in the plaza had a well-tended
+flower-garden.
+
+A band was playing in the middle of it, and Jango could not fail to
+notice that Rivera was more prosperous than was his native town.
+
+Whether that influenced him, or whether it was the glass of caña which he
+had at the first pulperia, is a moot point, or whether the old antipathy
+between the races brought by his ancestors from the peninsula; anyhow, he
+left his horse untied, and with the reins thrown down before it as he got
+off to have his drink.  When he came out, a policeman called to him to
+hobble it or tie it up.
+
+Without a word he gathered up his reins, sprang at a bound upon his
+horse, and, drawing his mother-of-pearl-handled pistol, fired at the
+policeman almost as he sprang.  The shot threw up a shower of sand just
+in the policeman’s face, and probably saved Jango’s life.  Drawing his
+pistol, the man fired back, but Jango, with a shout and pressure of his
+heels, was off like lightning, firing as he rode, and zig-zagging across
+the street.  The policeman’s shot went wide, and Jango, turning in the
+saddle, fired again and missed.
+
+By this time men with pistols in their hands stood at the doors of all
+the houses; but the Brazilian passed so rapidly, throwing himself
+alternately now on the near side, now on the off side of his horse,
+hanging by one foot across the croup and holding with the other to the
+mane, that he presented no mark for them to hit.
+
+As he passed by the “jefatura” where the alcalde and his friends were
+sitting smoking just before the door, he fired with such good aim that a
+large piece of plaster just above their heads fell, covering them with
+dust.
+
+Drawing his second pistol and still firing as he went, he dashed out of
+the town, in spite of shots from every side, his horse bounding like
+lightning as his great silver spurs ploughed deep into its sides.  When
+he had crossed the little bit of neutral ground, and just as a patrol of
+cavalry appeared, ready to gallop after him, a band of men from his own
+town came out to meet him.
+
+He stopped, and shouting out defiance to the Uruguayans, drew up his
+horse, and lit a cigarette.  Then, safe beyond the frontier, trotted on
+gently to meet his friends, his horse shaking white foam from off its
+bit, and little rivulets of blood dripping down from its sides into the
+sand.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+EL TANGO ARGENTINO
+
+
+MOTOR-CARS swept up to the covered passage of the front door of the
+hotel, one of those international caravansaries that pass their clients
+through a sort of vulgarising process that blots out every type.  It
+makes the Argentine, the French, the Englishman, and the American all
+alike before the power of wealth.
+
+The cars surged up as silently as snow falls from a fir-tree in a thaw,
+and with the same soft swishing noise.  Tall, liveried porters opened the
+doors (although, of course, each car was duly furnished with a footman)
+so nobly that any one of them would have graced any situation in the
+State.
+
+The ladies stepped down delicately, showing a fleeting vision of a leg in
+a transparent stocking, just for an instant, through the slashing of
+their skirts.  They knew that every man, their footman, driver, the giant
+watchers at the gate, and all who at the time were going into the hotel,
+saw and were moved by what they saw just for a moment; but the fact did
+not trouble them at all.  It rather pleased them, for the most virtuous
+feel a pleasurable emotion when they know that they excite.  So it will
+be for ever, for thus and not by votes alone they show that they are to
+the full men’s equals, let the law do its worst.
+
+Inside the hotel, heated by steam, and with an atmosphere of scent and
+flesh that went straight to the head just as the fumes of whisky set a
+drinker’s nerves agog, were seated all the finest flowers of the
+cosmopolitan society of the French capital.
+
+Lesbos had sent its legions, and women looked at one another
+appreciatively, scanning each item of their neighbours’ clothes, and with
+their colour heightening when by chance their eyes met those of another
+priestess of their sect.
+
+Rich rastaquaoures, their hats too shiny, and their boots too tight,
+their coats fitting too closely, their sticks mounted with great gold
+knobs, walked about or sat at little tables, all talking strange
+varieties of French.
+
+Americans, the men apparently all run out of the same mould, the women
+apt as monkeys to imitate all that they saw in dress, in fashion and in
+style, and more adaptable than any other women in the world from lack of
+all traditions, conversed in their high nasal tones.  Spanish-Americans
+from every one of the Republics were well represented, all talking about
+money: of how Doña Fulana Perez had given fifteen hundred francs for her
+new hat, or Don Fulano had just scored a million on the Bourse.
+
+Jews and more Jews, and Jewesses and still more Jewesses, were there,
+some of them married to Christians and turned Catholic, but betrayed by
+their Semitic type, although they talked of Lourdes and of the Holy
+Father with the best.
+
+After the “five-o’clock,” turned to a heavy meal of toast and buns, of
+Hugel loaf, of sandwiches, and of hot cake, the scented throng, restored
+by the refection after the day’s hard work of shopping, of driving here
+and there like souls in purgatory to call on people that they detested,
+and other labours of a like nature, slowly adjourned to a great hall in
+which a band was playing.  As they walked through the passages, men
+pressed close up to women and murmured in their ears, telling them
+anecdotes that made them flush and giggle as they protested in an
+unprotesting style.  Those were the days of the first advent of the Tango
+Argentino, the dance that since has circled the whole world, as it were,
+in a movement of the hips.  Ladies pronounced it charming as they half
+closed their eyes and let a little shiver run across their lips.  Men
+said it was the only dance that was worth dancing.  It was so Spanish, so
+unconventional, and combined all the æsthetic movements of the figures on
+an Etruscan vase with the strange grace of the Hungarian gipsies . . . it
+was so, as one may say, so . . . as you may say . . . you know.
+
+When all were seated, the band, Hungarians, of course,—oh, those dear
+gipsies!—struck out into a rhythm, half rag-time, half habañera,
+canaille, but sensuous, and hands involuntarily, even the most
+aristocratic hands—of ladies whose immediate progenitors had been
+pork-packers in Chicago, or gambusinos who had struck it rich in
+Zacatecas,—tapped delicately, but usually a little out of time, upon the
+backs of chairs.
+
+A tall young man, looking as if he had got a holiday from a tailor’s
+fashion plate, his hair sleek, black, and stuck down to his head with a
+cosmetic, his trousers so immaculately creased they seemed cut out of
+cardboard, led out a girl dressed in a skirt so tight that she could not
+have moved in it had it not been cut open to the knee.
+
+Standing so close that one well-creased trouser leg disappeared in the
+tight skirt, he clasped her round the waist, holding her hand almost
+before her face.  They twirled about, now bending low, now throwing out a
+leg, and then again revolving, all with a movement of the hips that
+seemed to blend the well-creased trouser and the half-open skirt into one
+inharmonious whole.  The music grew more furious and the steps
+multiplied, till with a bound the girl threw herself for an instant into
+the male dancer’s arms, who put her back again upon the ground with as
+much care as if she had been a new-laid egg, and the pair bowed and
+disappeared.
+
+Discreet applause broke forth, and exclamations such as “wonderful,”
+“what grace,” “Vivent les Espagnoles,” for the discriminating audience
+took no heed of independence days, of mere political changes and the
+like, and seemed to think that Buenos Aires was a part of Spain, never
+having heard of San Martin, Bolivar, Paez, and their fellow-liberators.
+
+Paris, London, and New York were to that fashionable crowd the world, and
+anything outside—except, of course, the Hungarian gipsies and the Tango
+dancers—barbarous and beyond the pale.
+
+After the Tango came “La Maxixe Brésilienne,” rather more languorous and
+more befitting to the dwellers in the tropics than was its cousin from
+the plains.  Again the discreet applause broke out, the audience
+murmuring “charming,” that universal adjective that gives an air of being
+in a perpetual pastrycook’s when ladies signify delight.  Smiles and sly
+glances at their friends showed that the dancers’ efforts at indecency
+had been appreciated.
+
+Slowly the hall and tea-rooms of the great hotel emptied themselves, and
+in the corridors and passages the smell of scent still lingered, just as
+stale incense lingers in a church.
+
+Motor-cars took away the ladies and their friends, and drivers, who had
+shivered in the cold whilst the crowd inside sweated in the central
+heating, exchanged the time of day with the liveried doorkeepers, one of
+them asking anxiously, “Dis, Anatole, as-tu vu mes vaches?”
+
+With the soft closing of a well-hung door the last car took its perfumed
+freight away, leaving upon the steps a group of men, who remained talking
+over, or, as they would say, undressing, all the ladies who had gone.
+
+“Argentine Tango, eh?” I thought, after my friends had left me all alone.
+Well, well, it has changed devilishly upon its passage overseas, even
+discounting the difference of the setting of the place where first I saw
+it danced so many years ago.  So, sauntering down, I took a chair far
+back upon the terrace of the Café de la Paix, so that the sellers of _La
+Patrie_, and the men who have some strange new toy, or views of Paris in
+a long album like a broken concertina, should not tread upon my toes.
+
+Over a Porto Blanc and a Brazilian cigarette, lulled by the noise of
+Paris and the raucous cries of the street-vendors, I fell into a doze.
+
+Gradually the smell of petrol and of horse-dung, the two most potent
+perfumes in our modern life, seemed to be blown away.  Dyed heads and
+faces scraped till they looked blue as a baboon’s; young men who looked
+like girls, with painted faces and with mincing airs; the raddled women,
+ragged men, and hags huddled in knitted shawls, lame horses, and taxi-cab
+drivers sitting nodding on their boxes—all faded into space, and from the
+nothing that is the past arose another scene.
+
+I saw myself with Witham and his brother, whose name I have forgotten,
+Eduardo Peña, Congreve, and Eustaquio Medina, on a small rancho in an
+elbow of the great River Yi.  The rancho stood upon a little hill.  A
+quarter of a mile or so away the dense and thorny monté of hard-wood
+trees that fringed the river seemed to roll up towards it like a sea.
+The house was built of yellow pine sent from the United States.  The roof
+was shingled, and the rancho stood planked down upon the plain, looking
+exactly like a box.  Some fifty yards away stood a thatched hut that
+served as kitchen, and on its floor the cattle herders used to sleep upon
+their horse-gear with their feet towards the fire.
+
+The corrals for horses and for sheep were just a little farther off, and
+underneath a shed a horse stood saddled day in, day out, and perhaps does
+so yet, if the old rancho still resists the winds.
+
+Four or five horses, saddled and bridled, stood tied to a great post, for
+we were just about to mount to ride a league or two to a Baile, at the
+house of Frutos Barragán.  Just after sunset we set out, as the sweet
+scent that the grasses of the plains send forth after a long day of heat
+perfumed the evening air.
+
+The night was clear and starry, and above our heads was hung the Southern
+Cross.  So bright the stars shone out that one could see almost a mile
+away; but yet all the perspective of the plains and woods was altered.
+Hillocks were sometimes undistinguishable, at other times loomed up like
+houses.  Woods seemed to sway and heave, and by the sides of streams
+bunches of Pampa grass stood stark as sentinels, their feathery tufts
+looking like plumes upon an Indian’s lance.
+
+The horses shook their bridles with a clear, ringing sound as they
+stepped double, and their riders, swaying lightly in their seats, seemed
+to form part and parcel of the animals they rode.
+
+Now and then little owls flew noiselessly beside us, circling above our
+heads, and then dropped noiselessly upon a bush.  Eustaquio Medina, who
+knew the district as a sailor knows the seas where he was born, rode in
+the front of us.  As his horse shied at a shadow on the grass or at the
+bones of some dead animal, he swung his whip round ceaselessly, until the
+moonlight playing on the silver-mounted stock seemed to transform it to
+an aureole that flickered about his head.  Now and then somebody
+dismounted to tighten up his girth, his horse twisting and turning round
+uneasily the while, and, when he raised his foot towards the stirrup,
+starting off with a bound.
+
+Time seemed to disappear and space be swallowed in the intoxicating
+gallop, so that when Eustaquio Medina paused for an instant to strike the
+crossing of a stream, we felt annoyed with him, although no hound that
+follows a hot scent could have gone truer on his line.
+
+Dogs barking close at hand warned us our ride was almost over, and as we
+galloped up a rise Eustaquio Medina pulled up and turned to us.
+
+“There is the house,” he said, “just at the bottom of the hollow, only
+five squares away,” and as we saw the flicker of the lights, he struck
+his palm upon his mouth after the Indian fashion, and raised a piercing
+cry.  Easing his hand, he drove his spurs into his horse, who started
+with a bound into full speed, and as he galloped down the hill we
+followed him, all yelling furiously.
+
+Just at the hitching-post we drew up with a jerk, our horses snorting as
+they edged off sideways from the black shadow that it cast upon the
+ground.  Horses stood about everywhere, some tied and others hobbled, and
+from the house there came the strains of an accordion and the tinkling of
+guitars.
+
+Asking permission to dismount, we hailed the owner of the house, a tall,
+old Gaucho, Frutos Barragán, as he stood waiting by the door, holding a
+maté in his hand.  He bade us welcome, telling us to tie our horses up,
+not too far out of sight, for, as he said, “It is not good to give
+facilities to rogues, if they should chance to be about.”
+
+In the low, straw-thatched rancho, with its eaves blackened by the smoke,
+three or four iron bowls, filled with mare’s fat, and with a cotton wick
+that needed constant trimming, stuck upon iron cattle-brands, were
+burning fitfully.
+
+They cast deep shadows in the corners of the room, and when they
+flickered up occasionally the light fell on the dark and sun-tanned faces
+of the tall, wiry Gauchos and the light cotton dresses of the women as
+they sat with their chairs tilted up against the wall.  Some thick-set
+Basques, an Englishman or two in riding breeches, and one or two Italians
+made up the company.  The floor was earth, stamped hard till it shone
+like cement, and as the Gauchos walked upon it, their heavy spurs clinked
+with a noise like fetters as they trailed them on the ground.
+
+An old, blind Paraguayan played on the guitar, and a huge negro
+accompanied him on an accordion.  Their united efforts produced a music
+which certainly was vigorous enough, and now and then, one or the other
+of them broke into a song, high-pitched and melancholy, which, if you
+listened to it long enough, forced you to try to imitate its wailing
+melody and its strange intervals.
+
+Fumes of tobacco and rum hung in the air, and of a strong and heady wine
+from Catalonia, much favoured by the ladies, which they drank from a
+tumbler, passing it to one another, after the fashion of a grace-cup at a
+City dinner, with great gravity.  At last the singing ceased, and the
+orchestra struck up a Tango, slow, marked, and rhythmical.
+
+Men rose, and, taking off their spurs, walked gravely to the corner of
+the room where sat the women huddled together as if they sought
+protection from each other, and with a compliment led them out upon the
+floor.  The flowing poncho and the loose chiripá, which served as
+trousers, swung about just as the tartans of a Highlander swing as he
+dances, giving an air of ease to all the movements of the Gauchos as they
+revolved, their partners’ heads peeping above their shoulders, and their
+hips moving to and fro.
+
+At times they parted, and set to one another gravely, and then the man,
+advancing, clasped his partner round the waist and seemed to push her
+backwards, with her eyes half-closed and an expression of beatitude.
+Gravity was the keynote of the scene, and though the movements of the
+dance were as significant as it was possible for the dancers to achieve,
+the effect was graceful, and the soft, gliding motion and the waving of
+the parti-coloured clothes, wild and original, in the dim, flickering
+light.
+
+Rum flowed during the intervals.  The dancers wiped the perspiration from
+their brows, the men with the silk handkerchiefs they wore about their
+necks, the women with their sleeves.  Tangos, cielitos, and pericones
+succeeded one another, and still the atmosphere grew thicker, and the
+lights seemed to flicker through a haze, as the dust rose from the mud
+floor.  Still the old Paraguayan and the negro kept on playing with the
+sweat running down their faces, smoking and drinking rum in their brief
+intervals of rest, and when the music ceased for a moment, the wild
+neighing of a horse tied in the moonlight to a post, sounded as if he
+called his master to come out and gallop home again.
+
+The night wore on, and still the negro and the Paraguayan stuck at their
+instruments.  Skirts swung and ponchos waved, whilst maté circulated
+amongst the older men as they stood grouped about the door.
+
+Then came a lull, and as men whispered in their partners’ ears, telling
+them, after the fashion of the Gauchos, that they were lovely, their hair
+like jet, their eyes bright as “las tres Marias,” and all the compliments
+which in their case were stereotyped and handed down for generations,
+loud voices rose, and in an instant two Gauchos bounded out upon the
+floor.
+
+Long silver-handled knives were in their hands, their ponchos wrapped
+round their left arms served them as bucklers, and as they crouched, like
+cats about to spring, they poured out blasphemies.
+
+“Stop this!” cried Frutos Barragán; but even as he spoke, a knife-thrust
+planted in the stomach stretched one upon the floor.  Blood gushed out
+from his mouth, his belly fell like a pricked bladder, and a dark stream
+of blood trickled upon the ground as he lay writhing in his death agony.
+
+The iron bowls were overturned, and in the dark girls screamed and the
+men crowded to the door.  When they emerged into the moonlight, leaving
+the dying man upon the floor, the murderer was gone; and as they looked
+at one another there came a voice shouting out, “Adios, Barragán.  Thus
+does Vicente Castro pay his debts when a man tries to steal his girl,”
+and the faint footfalls of an unshod horse galloping far out upon the
+plain.
+
+I started, and the waiter standing by my side said, “Eighty centimes”;
+and down the boulevard echoed the harsh cry, “_La Patrie_, achetez _La
+Patrie_,” and the rolling of the cabs.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+IN A BACKWATER
+
+
+“THIS ’ere war, now,” said the farmer, in the slow voice that tells of
+life passed amongst comfortable surroundings into which haste has never
+once intruded, “is a ’orrid business.”
+
+He leaned upon a half-opened gate, keeping it swaying to and fro a little
+with his foot.  His waistcoat was unbuttoned, showing his greasy braces
+and his checked blue shirt.  His box-cloth gaiters, falling low down upon
+his high-lows, left a gap between them and his baggy riding-breeches,
+just below the knee.  His flat-topped bowler hat was pushed back over the
+fringe of straggling grey hair upon his neck.  His face was burned a
+brick-dust colour with the August sun, and now and then he mopped his
+forehead with a red handkerchief.
+
+His little holding, an oasis in the waste of modern scientific farming,
+was run in the old-fashioned way, often to be seen in the home counties,
+as if old methods linger longest where they are least expected, just as a
+hunted fox sometimes takes refuge in a rectory.
+
+His ideas seemed to have become unsettled with constant reading of
+newspapers filled with accounts of horrors, and his speech, not fluent at
+the best of times, was slower and more halting than his wont.
+
+He told how he had just lost his wife, and felt more than a little put
+about to get his dairy work done properly without her help.
+
+“When a man’s lost his wife it leaves him, somehow, as if he were like a
+’orse hitched on one side of the wagon-pole, a-pullin’ by hisself.  Now
+this ’ere war, comin’ as it does right on the top of my ’ome loss, sets
+me a-thinkin’, especially when I’m alone in the ’ouse of night.”
+
+The park-like English landscape, with its hedgerow trees and its lush
+fields, that does not look like as if it really were the country, but
+seems a series of pleasure-grounds cut off into convenient squares, was
+at its time of greatest beauty and its greatest artificiality.  Cows
+swollen with grass till they looked like balloons lay in the fields and
+chewed the cud.  Geese cackled as they strayed upon the common, just as
+they appear to cackle in a thousand water-colours.  The hum of bees was
+in the limes.  Dragon-flies hawked swiftly over the oily waters of the
+two slow-flowing rivers that made the farm almost an island in a suburban
+Mesopotamia, scarce twenty miles away from Charing Cross.  An air of
+peace and of contentment, of long well-being and security, was evident in
+everything.  Trees flourished, though stag-headed, under which the
+Roundhead troopers may have camped, or at the least, veterans from
+Marlborough’s wars might have sat underneath their shade, and smoked as
+they retold their fights.
+
+A one-armed signboard, weathered, and with the lettering almost
+illegible, pointed out the bridle-path to Ditchley, now little used,
+except by lovers on a Sunday afternoon, but where the feet of horses for
+generations in the past had trampled it, still showing clearly as it
+wound through the fields.
+
+In the standing corn the horses yoked to the reaping machine stood
+resting, now and again shaking the tassels on their little netted
+ear-covers.  They, too, came of a breed long used to peace and plenty,
+good food and treatment, and short hours of work.  The kindly landscape
+and the settled life of centuries had formed the kind of man of which the
+farmer was a prototype,—slow-footed and slow-tongued, and with his mind
+as bowed as were his shoulders with hard work, by the continual pressure
+of the hierarchy of wealth and station, that had left him as much
+adscript to them as any of his ancestors had been bound to their glebes.
+He held the _Daily Mail_, his gospel and his _vade mecum_, crumpled in
+his hand as if he feared to open it again to read more details of the
+war.  A simple soul, most likely just as oppressive to his labourers as
+his superiors had always showed themselves to him, he could not bear to
+read of violence, as all the tyranny that he had bent under had been
+imposed so subtly that he could never see more than the shadow of the
+hand that had oppressed him.
+
+It pained him, above all things, to read about the wounded and dead
+horses lying in the corn, especially as he had “’eard the ’arvest over
+there in Belgium was going to be good.”  The whirr of the machines
+reaping the wheatfield sounded like the hum of some gigantic insect, and
+as the binder ranged the sheaves in rows it seemed as if the golden age
+had come upon the earth again, bringing with it peace and plenty, with
+perhaps slightly stouter nymphs than those who once followed the
+sickle-men in Arcady.
+
+A man sat fishing in a punt just where the river broadened into a
+backwater edged with willow trees.  At times he threw out ground-bait,
+and at times raised a stone bottle to his lips, keeping one eye the while
+watchfully turned upon his float.  School children strayed along the
+road, as rosy and as flaxen-haired as those that Gregory the Great
+thought fitting to be angels, though they had never been baptized.
+
+Now and again the farmer stepped into his field to watch the harvesting,
+and cast an eye of pride and of affection on his horses, and then, coming
+back to the gate, he drew the paper from his pocket and read its columns,
+much in the way an Arab reads a letter, murmuring the words aloud until
+their meaning penetrated to his brain.
+
+Chewing a straw, and slowly rubbing off the grains of an ear of wheat
+into his hand, he gazed over his fields as if he feared to see in them
+some of the horrors that he read.  Again he muttered, with a puzzled air,
+“’Orrible! ’undreds of men and ’orses lying in the corn.  It seems a sad
+thing to believe, doesn’t it now?” he said; and as he spoke soldiers on
+motorcycles hurtled down the road, leaving a trail of dust that perhaps
+looked like smoke to him after his reading in the _Daily Mail_.
+
+“They tell me,” he remarked, after a vigorous application of his blue
+handkerchief to his streaming face, “that these ’ere motorcycles ’ave a
+gun fastened to them, over there in Belgium, where they are a-goin’ on at
+it in such a way.  The paper says, ‘Ranks upon ranks of ’em is just mowed
+down like wheat.’ . . .  ’Orrid, I call it, if it’s true, for now and
+then I think those chaps only puts that kind of thing into their papers
+to ’ave a sale for them.”  He looked about him as if, like Pilate, he was
+looking for an elusive truth not to be found on earth, and then walked
+down the road till he came to the backwater where the man was fishing in
+his punt.  They looked at one another over a yard or two of muddy water,
+and asked for news about the war, in the way that people do from others
+who they must know are quite as ignorant as they are themselves.  The
+fisherman “’ad given up readin’ the war noos; it’s all a pack of lies,”
+and pointing to the water, said in a cautious voice, “Some people says
+they ’ears.  I ain’t so sure about it; but, anyhow, it’s always best to
+be on the safe side.”  Then he addressed himself once more to the
+business of the day, and in the contemplation of his float no doubt
+became as much absorbed into the universal principle of nature as is an
+Indian sitting continually with his eyes turned on his diaphragm.
+
+Men passing down the road, each with a paper in his hand, looked up and
+threw the farmer scraps of news, uncensored and spiced high with details
+which had never happened, so that in after years their children will most
+likely treasure as facts, which they have received from long-lost
+parents, the wildest fairy tales.
+
+The slanting sun and lengthening shadows brought the farmer no relief of
+mind; and still men, coming home from work on shaky bicycles, plied him
+with horrors as they passed by the gate, their knee-joints stiff with the
+labours of the day, seeming in want of oil.  A thin, white mist began to
+creep along the backwater.  Unmooring his punt, the fisherman came
+unwillingly to shore, and as he threw the fragments of his lunch into the
+water and gathered up his tackle, looked back upon the scene of his
+unfruitful labours with an air as of a man who has been overthrown by
+circumstances, but has preserved his honour and his faith inviolate.
+
+Slinging his basket on his back, he trudged off homewards, and instantly
+the fish began to rise.  A line of cows was driven towards the farm,
+their udders all so full of milk that they swayed to and fro, just as a
+man sways wrapped in a Spanish cloak, and as majestically.  The
+dragon-flies had gone, and in their place ghost-moths flew here and there
+across the meadows, and from the fields sounded the corncrake’s harsh,
+metallic note.
+
+The whirring of the reaper ceased, and when the horses were unyoked the
+driver led them slowly from the field.  As they passed by the farmer he
+looked lovingly towards them, and muttered to himself, “Dead ’orses and
+dead soldiers lying by ’undreds in the standing corn. . . .  I wonder ’ow
+the folks out there in Belgium will ’ave a relish for their bread next
+year.  This ’ere war’s a ’orrid business, coming as it does, too, on the
+top of my own loss . . . dead ’orses in the corn. . . .”
+
+He took the straw out of his mouth, and walking up to one of his own
+sleek-sided carthorses, patted it lovingly, as if he wanted to make sure
+that it was still alive.
+
+
+
+
+X
+HIPPOMORPHOUS
+
+
+ON the 12th of October 1524, Cortes left Mexico on his celebrated
+expedition to Honduras.  The start from Mexico was made to the sound of
+music, and all the population of the newly conquered city turned out to
+escort him for a few miles upon his way.
+
+The cavalcade must have been a curious spectacle enough.  Cortes himself
+and his chief officers rode partly dressed in armour, after the fashion
+of the time.  Then came the Spanish soldiers, mostly on foot and armed
+with lances, swords, and bucklers, though there was a troop of
+crossbowmen and harquebusiers to whom “after God” we owed the Conquest,
+as an old chronicler has said when speaking of the Conquest of Peru.  In
+Mexico they did good service also, although it was the horsemen that in
+that conquest played the greater part.  Then came a force of three
+thousand friendly Indians from Tlascala, and last of all a herd of swine
+was driven slowly in the rear, for at that time neither sheep nor cattle
+were known in the New World.
+
+Guatimozin, the captive King of Mexico, graced his conquerors’ triumphal
+march; and with the army went two falconers, Garci Caro and Alvaro
+Montañes, together with a band of music, some acrobats, a juggler, and a
+man “who vaulted well and played the Moorish pipe.”
+
+Cortes rode the black horse which he had ridden at the siege of Mexico.
+Fortune appeared to smile upon him.  He had just added an enormous empire
+to the Spanish crown, and proved himself one of the most consummate
+generals of his age.  Yet he was on the verge of the great misfortune of
+his life, which at the same time was to prove him still a finer leader
+than he had been, even in Mexico.
+
+His black horse also was about to play the most extraordinary _rôle_ that
+ever horse has played in the whole history of the world.
+
+With varying fortunes, now climbing mountains, now floundering in swamps,
+and again passing rivers over which they had to throw bridges, the
+expedition came to an open country, well watered, and the home of
+countless herds of deer.  Villagutierre, in his _History of the Conquest
+of the Province of Itza_ (Madrid, 1701), calls it the country of the
+Maçotecas, which name Bernal Diaz del Castillo says means “deer” in the
+language of those infidels.  Fresh meat was scarce, and all the Spanish
+horsemen of those days were experts with the lance.  Instantly Cortes and
+all his mounted officers set out to chase the deer.  The weather was
+extraordinarily hot, hotter, so Diaz says, than they had had it since
+they left Mexico.  The deer were all so tame that the horsemen speared
+them as they chose (_los alancearon muy á su placer_), and soon the plain
+was strewed with dying animals just as it used to be when the Indians
+hunted buffalo thirty or forty years ago.
+
+Diaz says that the reason for the tameness of the deer was that the
+Maçotecas (here he applies the word to the Indians themselves) worshipped
+them as gods.  It appears that their Chief God had once appeared in the
+image of a stag, and told the Indians not to hunt his fellow-gods, or
+even frighten them.  Little enough the Spaniards cared for any gods not
+strong enough to defend themselves, for the deity that they adored was
+the same God of Battles whom we adore to-day.
+
+So they continued spearing the god-like beasts, regardless of the heat
+and that their horses were in poor condition owing to their long march.
+The horse of one Palacios Rubio, a relation of Cortes, fell dead,
+overcome with the great heat; the grease inside him melted, Villagutierre
+says.  The black horse that was ridden by Cortes also was very ill,
+although he did not die—though it perhaps had been better that he should
+have died, for Villagutierre thinks “far less harm would have been done
+than happened afterwards, as will be seen by those who read the tale.”
+After the hunting all was over, the line of march led over stony hills,
+and through a pass that Villagutierre calls “el Paso del Alabastro,” and
+Diaz “La Sierra de los Pedernales” (flints).  Here the horse that had
+been ill, staked itself in a forefoot, and this, as Villagutierre says,
+was the real reason that Cortes left him behind.  He adds, “It does not
+matter either way, whether he was left because his grease was melted with
+the sun, or that his foot was staked.”  This, of course, is true, and
+anyhow the horse was reserved for a greater destiny than ever fell to any
+of his race.
+
+Cortes, in his fifth letter to the Emperor Charles V., says simply, “I
+was obliged to leave my black horse (_mi caballo morzillo_) with a
+splinter in his foot.”  He takes no notice of the melting of the grease.
+“The Chief promised to take care of him, but I do not know that he will
+succeed or what he will do with him.”
+
+He told the Chief that he would send to fetch the horse, for he was very
+fond of him, and prized him very much.  The Chief, no doubt, received the
+strange and terrible animal with due respect, and Cortes went on upon his
+way.  That is all that Cortes says about the matter, and the mist of
+history closed upon him and on his horse.  Cortes died, worn-out and
+broken-hearted, at the white little town of Castilleja de la Cuesta, not
+far from Seville; but El Morzillo had a greater destiny in store.  This
+happened in the year 1525, and nothing more was heard of either the
+Maçotecas or the horse, after that passage in the fifth letter of Cortes,
+till 1697.  In that year the Franciscans set out upon the gospel trail to
+convert the Indians of Itza, attached to the expedition that Ursua led,
+for the interior of Yucatan had never been subdued.  They reached Itza,
+having come down the River Tipu in canoes.
+
+This river, Villagutierre informs us, is as large as any river in all
+Spain.  Moreover, it is endowed with certain properties, its water being
+good and clear, so that in some respects it is superior to the water even
+of the Tagus.  It is separated into one hundred and ninety channels
+(neither more nor less), and every one of these has its right Indian
+name, that every Indian knows.  Upon its banks grows much sarsaparilla,
+and in its sand is gold.
+
+Beyond all this it has a hidden virtue, which is that taken (fasting) it
+cures the dropsy, and makes both sick and sound people eat heartily.
+Besides this, after eating, when you have drunk its water you are
+inclined to eat again.
+
+At midday it is cold, and warm at night, so warm that a steam rises from
+it, just as it does when a kettle boils on the fire.  Other
+particularities it has, which though they are not so remarkable, yet are
+noteworthy.
+
+Down this amazing river Ursua’s expedition navigated for twelve days in
+their canoes till they came to a lake called Peten-Itza, in which there
+was an island known as Tayasal.  All unknown to themselves, they had
+arrived close to the place where long ago Cortes had left his horse.  Of
+this they were in ignorance; the circumstance had been long forgotten,
+and Cortes himself had become almost a hero of a bygone age even in
+Mexico.
+
+Fathers Orbieta and Fuensalida, monks of the Franciscan order, chosen
+both for their zeal and for their knowledge of the Maya language, were
+all agog to mark new sheep.  The Indians amongst whom they found
+themselves were “ignorant even of the knowledge of the true faith.”
+Moreover, since the conquest they had had no dealings with Europeans, and
+were as primitive as they were at the time when Cortes had passed, more
+than a hundred years ago.
+
+One of the Chiefs, a man known as Isquin, when he first saw a horse,
+“almost ran mad with joy and with astonishment.  Especially the
+evolutions and the leaps it made into the air moved him to admiration,
+and going down upon all fours he leaped about and neighed.”  Then, tired
+with this practical manifestation of his joy and his astonishment, he
+asked the Spanish name of the mysterious animal.  When he learned that it
+was caballo, he forthwith renounced his name, and from that day this
+silly infidel was known as Caballito.  Then when the soul-cleansing water
+had been poured upon his head, he took the name of Pedro, and to his
+dying day all the world called him “Don Pedro Caballito, for he was born
+a Chief.”
+
+This curious and pathetic little circumstance, by means of which a brand
+was snatched red-hot from the eternal flames, lighted for those who have
+deserved hell-fire by never having heard of it, might, one would think,
+have shown the missionaries that the poor Indians were but children,
+easier to lead than drive.
+
+It only fired their zeal, and yet all their solicitude to save the
+Indians’ souls was unavailing, and the hard-hearted savages, dead to the
+advantages that baptism has ever brought with it, clave to their images.
+
+The good Franciscans made several more attempts to move the people’s
+hearts by preaching ceaselessly.  All failed, and then they went to
+several islands in the lake, in one of which Father Orbieta hardly had
+begun to preach, when, as Lopez Cogulludo {114a} tells us, an Indian
+seized him by the throat and nearly strangled him, leaving him senseless
+on the ground.
+
+At times, seated in church listening to what the Elizabethans called “a
+painful preacher,” even the elect have felt an impulse to seize him by
+the throat.  Still, it is usually restrained; but these poor savages,
+undisciplined in body and in mind, were perhaps to be excused, for the
+full flavour of a sermon had never reached them in their Eden by the
+lake.  Moreover, after he was thus rudely cast from the pulpit to the
+ground, Father Fuensalida, nothing daunted by his fate, stepped forward
+and took up his parable.  He preached to them this time in their own
+language, in which he was expert, with fervid eloquence and great
+knowledge of the Scriptures, {114b} explaining to them the holy mystery
+of the incarnation of the eternal Word. {115}  The subject was well
+chosen for a first attempt upon their hearts; but it, too, proved
+unfruitful, and the two friars were forced to re-embark.
+
+As the canoe in which they sat moved from the island and launched out
+into the lake, the infidels who stood and watched them paddling were
+moved to fury, and, rushing to the edge, stoned them whole-heartedly till
+they were out of reach.
+
+It is a wise precaution, and one that the “conquistadores” usually
+observed, to have the spiritual well supported by the secular arm when
+missionaries, instinct with zeal and not weighed down with too much
+common sense, preach for the first time to the infidel.
+
+This first reverse was but an incident, and by degrees the friars, this
+time accompanied by soldiers, explored more of the islands in the lake.
+At last they came to one called Tayasal, which was so full of idols that
+they took twelve hours to burn and to destroy them all.
+
+One island still remained to be explored, and in it was a temple with an
+idol much reverenced by the Indians.  At last they entered it, and on a
+platform about the height of a tall man they saw the figure of a horse
+rudely carved out of stone.
+
+The horse was seated on the ground resting upon his quarters, his hind
+legs bent and his front feet stretched out.  The barbarous infidels
+{116a} adored the abominable and monstrous beast under the name of
+Tziunchan, God of the Thunder and the Lightning, and paid it reverence.
+Even the Spaniards, who, as a rule, were not much given to inquiring into
+the history of idols, but broke them instantly, _ad majorem Dei gloriam_,
+were interested and amazed.  Little by little they learned the history of
+the hippomorphous god, which had been carefully preserved.  It appeared
+that when Cortes had left his horse, so many years ago, the Indians,
+seeing he was ill, took him into a temple to take care of him.  Thinking
+he was a reasoning animal, {116b} they placed before him fruit and
+chickens, with the result that the poor beast—who, of course, was
+reasonable enough in his own way—eventually died.
+
+The Indians, terrified and fearful that Cortes would take revenge upon
+them for the death of the horse that he had left for them to care for and
+to minister to all his wants, before they buried him, carved a rude
+statue in his likeness and placed it in a temple in the lake.
+
+The devil, who, as Villagutierre observes, is never slack to take
+advantage when he can, seeing the blindness and the superstition (which
+was great) of those abominable idolaters, induced them by degrees to make
+a God of the graven image they had made.  Their veneration grew with
+time, just as bad weeds grow up in corn, as Holy Writ sets forth for our
+example, and that abominable statue became the chiefest of their gods,
+though they had many others equally horrible.
+
+As the first horses that they saw were ridden by the Spaniards in the
+chase of the tame deer, and many shots were fired, the Indians not
+unnaturally connected the explosions and the flames less with the rider
+than the horse.  Thus in the course of years the evolution of the great
+god Tziunchan took place, and, as the missionaries said, these heathen
+steeped in ignorance adored the work of their own hands.
+
+Father Orbieta, not stopping to reflect that all of us adore what we have
+made, but “filled with the spirit of the Lord and carried off with
+furious zeal for the honour of our God,” {118} seized a great stone and
+in an instant cast the idol down, then with a hammer he broke it into
+bits.
+
+When Father Orbieta had finished his work and thus destroyed one of the
+most curious monuments of the New World, which ought to have been
+preserved as carefully as if it had been carved by Praxiteles, “with the
+ineffable and holy joy that filled him, his face shone with a light so
+spiritual that it was something to praise God for and to view with
+delight.”  Most foolish actions usually inspire their perpetrators with
+delight, although their faces do not shine with spiritual joy when they
+have done them; so when one reads the folly of this muddle-headed friar,
+it sets one hoping that several of the stones went home upon his back as
+he sat paddling the canoe.
+
+The Indians broke into lamentations, exclaiming, “Death to him, he has
+killed our God”; but were prevented from avenging his demise by the
+Spanish soldiers who prudently had accompanied the friar.
+
+Thus was the mystery of the eternal Word made manifest amongst the
+Maçotecas, and a deity destroyed who for a hundred years and more had
+done no harm to any one on earth . . . a thing unusual amongst Gods.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+MUDEJAR
+
+
+BROWN, severe, and wall-girt, the stubborn city still held out.
+
+Its proud traditions made it impossible for Zaragoza to capitulate
+without a siege.  As in the days of Soult, when the heroic maid, the
+_artillera_, as her countrymen call her with pride, when Palafox held up
+the blood and orange banner in which float the lions and the castles of
+Castille, the city answered shot for shot.
+
+Fire spurted from the Moorish walls, built by the Beni Hud, who reigned
+in Zaragoza, when still Sohail poured its protecting rays upon the land.
+The bluish wreaths of smoke curled on the Ebro, running along the water
+and enveloping the Coso as if in a mist.
+
+A dropping rifle-fire crackled out from the ramparts, and above the
+castle the red flag of the Intransigent-Republic shivered and fluttered
+in the breeze.
+
+The Torre-Nueva sprang from the middle of the town, just as a palm tree
+rises from the desert sands.  It was built at the time when Moorish
+artisans, infidel dogs who yet preserved the secrets of the East amongst
+the Christians (may dogs defile their graves), had spent their science
+and their love upon it.
+
+Octagonal, and looking as if blown into the air by the magician’s art, it
+leaned a little to one side, and, as the admiring inhabitants averred,
+drawing their right hands open over their left arms, laughed at its rival
+of Bologna and at every other tower on earth.
+
+No finer specimen of the art known as Mudejar existed in all Spain.
+Galleries cut it here and there; and ajimeces, the little horseshoe
+windows divided by a marble pillar, loved of the Moors, which tradition
+says they took from the rude openings in their tents of camel’s hair,
+gave light to the inside.  Stages of inclined planes led to the top, so
+gradual in their ascent that once a Queen of Spain had ridden up them to
+admire the view over the Sierras upon her palfrey, or her donkey, for all
+is one when treating of a queen, who of a certainty ennobles the animal
+she deigns to ride upon.  Bold ajaracas, the patterns proper to the style
+of architecture, stood up in high relief upon its sides, and near the
+balustrade upon the top a band of bluish tiles relieved the brownness of
+the brickwork and sparkled in the sun.  Sieges and time and storms, rain,
+wind, and snow had spared it; even the neglect of centuries had left it
+unimpaired—erect and elegant as a young Arab maiden carrying water from
+the well.  Architects said that it inclined a little more each year, and
+talked about subsidences; but they were foreigners, unused to the things
+of Spain, and no one marked them; and the tower continued to be loved and
+prized and to fall into disrepair.  On this occasion riflemen lined the
+galleries, pouring a hot fire upon the attacking forces of the
+Government.
+
+Encamped upon the heights above Torero, the Governmental army held the
+banks of the canal that gives an air of Holland to that part of the adust
+and calcined landscape of Aragon.
+
+The General’s quarters overlooked the town, and from them he could see
+Santa Engracia, in whose crypt repose the bodies of the martyrs in an
+atmosphere of ice, standing alone upon its little plaza, fringed by a
+belt of stunted and ill-grown acacia trees.  The great cathedral, with
+its domes, in which the shrine of the tutelary Virgin of the Pilar, the
+Pilarica of the country folk, glittering with jewels and with silver
+plate, is venerated as befits the abiding place on earth of the
+miraculous figure sent direct from heaven, towered into the sky.
+
+Churches and towers and convents, old castellated houses with their
+overhanging eaves and coats-of-arms upon the doors, jewels of
+architecture, memorials of the past, formed as it were a jungle wrought
+in a warm brown stone.  Beyond the city towered the mountains that hang
+over Huesca of the Bell.  Through them the Aragon has cut its roaring
+passages towards Sobrarbe to the south.  Northwards they circle Jaca, the
+virgin little city that beat off the Moors a thousand years ago, and
+still once every year commemorates her prowess outside the walls, where
+Moors and Christians fight again the unequal contest, into which St.
+James, mounted upon his milk-white charger, had plunged and thrown the
+weight of his right arm.  The light was so intense and African that on
+the mountain sides each rock was visible, outlined as in a camera-lucida,
+and as the artillery played upon the tower the effects of every salvo
+showed up distinctly on the crumbling walls.  All round the Government’s
+encampment stood groups of peasantry who had been impressed together with
+their animals to bring provisions.  Wrapped in their brown and white
+checked blankets, dressed in tight knee-breeches, short jackets, and grey
+stockings, and shod with alpargatas—the canvas, hemp-soled sandals that
+are fastened round the ankles with blue cords—they stood and smoked,
+stolid as Moors, and as unfathomable as the deep mysterious corries of
+their hills.
+
+When the artillery thundered and the breaches in the walls grew daily
+more apparent and more ominous, the country people merely smiled, for
+they were sure the Pilarica would preserve the city; and even if she did
+not, all Governments, republican or clerical, were the same to them.
+
+All their ambition was to live quietly, each in his village, which to him
+was the hub round which the world revolved.
+
+So one would say, as they stood watching the progress of the siege:
+“Chiquio, the sciences advance a bestiality, the Government in the
+Madrids can hear each cannon-shot.  The sound goes on those wires that
+stretch upon the posts we tie our donkeys to when we come into town. . . .”
+
+Little by little the forces of the Government advanced, crossing the Ebro
+at the bridge which spans it in the middle of the great double promenade
+called the Coso, and by degrees drew near the walls.
+
+The stubborn guerrilleros in the town contested every point of vantage,
+fighting like wolves, throwing themselves with knives and scythes stuck
+upright on long poles upon the troops.
+
+So fought their grandfathers against the French, and so Strabo describes
+their ancestors, adding, “The Spaniard is a taciturn, dark man, usually
+dressed in black; he fights with a short sword, and always tries to come
+to close grips with our legionaries.”
+
+As happens in all civil wars, when brother finds himself opposed to
+brother, the strife was mortal, and he who fell received no mercy from
+the conqueror.
+
+The riflemen upon the Torre Nueva poured in their fire, especially upon
+the Regiment of Pavia, whose Colonel, Don Luis Montoro, on several
+occasions gave orders to the artillerymen at any cost to spare the tower.
+
+Officer after officer fell by his side, and soldiers in the ranks cursed
+audibly, covering the saints with filth, as runs the phrase in Spanish,
+and wondering why their Colonel did not dislodge the riflemen who made
+such havoc in their files.  Discipline told at last, and all the
+Intransigents were forced inside the walls, leaving the moat with but a
+single plank to cross it by which to reach the town.  Upon the plank the
+fire was concentrated from the walls, and the besiegers stood for a space
+appalled, sheltering themselves as best they could behind the trees and
+inequalities of the ground.
+
+Montoro called for volunteers, and one by one three grizzled soldiers,
+who had grown grey in wars against the Moors, stepped forward and fell
+pierced with a dozen wounds.
+
+After a pause there was a movement in the ranks, and with a sword in his
+right hand, and in his left the colours of Castille, his brown stuff gown
+tucked up showing his hairy knees knotted and muscular, out stepped a
+friar, and strode towards the plank.  Taking the sword between his teeth
+he crossed himself, and beckoning on the men, rushed forward in the
+thickest of the fire.
+
+He crossed in safety, and then the regiment, with a hoarse shout of “Long
+live God,” dashed on behind him, some carrying planks and others crossing
+upon bales of straw, which they had thrown into the moat.  Under the
+walls they formed and rushed into the town, only to find each house a
+fortress and each street blocked by a barricade.  From every window dark
+faces peered, and a continual fusillade was poured upon them, whilst from
+the house-tops the women showered down tiles.
+
+Smoke filled the narrow streets, and from dark archways groups of
+desperate men came rushing, armed with knives, only to fall in heaps
+before the troops who, with fixed bayonets, steadily pushed on.
+
+A shift of wind cleared off the smoke and showed the crimson flag still
+floating from the citadel, ragged and torn by shots.  Beyond the town
+appeared the mountains peeping out shyly through the smoke, as if they
+looked down on the follies of mankind with a contemptuous air.
+
+Dead bodies strewed the streets, in attitudes half tragical, half
+ludicrous, some looking like mere bundles of old clothes, and some
+distorted with a stiff arm still pointing to the sky.
+
+Right in the middle of a little square the friar lay shot through the
+forehead, his sword beside him, and with the flag clasped tightly to his
+breast.
+
+His great brown eyes stared upwards, and as the soldiers passed him some
+of them crossed themselves, and an old sergeant spoke his epitaph: “This
+friar,” he said, “was not of those fit only for the Lord; he would have
+made a soldier, and a good one; may God have pardoned him.”
+
+Driven into the middle plaza of the town, the Intransigents fought till
+the last, selling their lives for more than they were worth, and dying
+silently.
+
+The citadel was taken with a rush, and the red flag hauled down.
+
+Bugles rang out from the other angle of the plaza; the General and his
+staff rode slowly forward to meet the Regiment of Pavia as it debouched
+into the square.
+
+Colonel Montoro halted, and then, saluting, advanced towards his chief.
+His General, turning to him, angrily exclaimed, “Tell me, why did you let
+those fellows in the tower do so much damage, when a few shots from the
+field guns would have soon finished them?”
+
+Montoro hesitated, and recovering his sword once more saluted as his
+horse fretted on the curb, snorting and sidling from the dead bodies that
+were strewed upon the ground.
+
+“My General,” he said, “not for all Spain and half the Indies would I
+have trained the cannon on the tower; it is Mudejar of the purest
+architecture.”
+
+His General smiled at him a little grimly, and saying, “Well, after all,
+this is no time to ask accounts from any man,” touched his horse with the
+spur and, followed by his staff, he disappeared into the town.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+A MINOR PROPHET
+
+
+THE city sweltered in the August heat.  No breath of air lifted the pall
+of haze that wrapped the streets, the houses, and the dark group of
+Græco-Roman buildings that stands up like a rock in the dull tide-way of
+the brick-built tenements that compose the town.
+
+Bells pealed at intervals, summoning the fractioned faithful to their
+various centres of belief.
+
+When they had ceased and all the congregations were assembled listening
+to the exhortations of their spiritual advisers, and were employed
+fumbling inside their purses, as they listened, for the destined
+“threepenny,” that obolus which gives respectability to alms, the silence
+was complete.  Whitey-brown paper bags, dropped overnight, just stirred
+occasionally as the air swelled their bellies, making them seem alive, or
+as alive as is a jelly-fish left stranded by the tide.
+
+Just as the faithful were assembled in their conventicles adoring the
+same Deity, all filled with rancour against one another because their
+methods of interpretation of the Creator’s will were different, so did
+the politicians and the cranks of every sort and sect turn out to push
+their methods of salvation for mankind.  In groups they gathered round
+the various speakers who discoursed from chairs and carts and points of
+vantage on the streets.
+
+Above the speakers’ heads, banners, held up between two poles, called on
+the audiences to vote for Liberal or for Tory, for Poor Law Reform, for
+Social Purity, and for Temperance.  Orators, varying from well-dressed
+and glibly-educated hacks from party centres, to red-faced working-men,
+held forth perspiring, and occasionally bedewing those who listened to
+them with saliva, after an emphatic burst.
+
+It seemed so easy after listening to them to redress all wrongs, smooth
+out all wrinkles, and instate each citizen in his own shop where he could
+sell his sweated goods, with the best advantage to himself and with the
+greatest modicum of disadvantage to his neighbour, that one was left
+amazed at the dense apathy of those who did not fall in with the nostrums
+they had heard.  Again, at other platforms, sleek men in broadcloth, who
+had never seen a plough except at Agricultural Exhibitions, nor had got
+on closer terms of friendship with a horse than to be bitten by him as
+they passed along a street, discoursed upon the land.
+
+“My friends, I say, the land is a fixed quantity, you can’t increase it,
+and without it, it’s impossible to live.  ’Ow is it, then, that all the
+land of England is in so few hands?”  He paused and mopped his face, and
+looking round, began again: “Friends—you’ll allow me to style you
+Friends, I know, Friends in the sycred cause of Liberty—the landed
+aristocracy is our enemy.
+
+“I am not out for confiscation, why should I?  I ’ave my ’ome purchased
+with the fruits of my own hhonest toil . . .”
+
+Before he could conclude his sentence, a dock labourer, dressed in his
+Sunday suit of shoddy serge, check shirt, and black silk handkerchief
+knotted loosely round his neck, looked up, and interjected: “’Ard work,
+too, mate, that ’ere talkin’ in the sun is, that built your ’ome.  Beats
+coal whippin’.”
+
+Just for an instant the orator was disconcerted as a laugh ran through
+the audience; but habit, joined to a natural gift of public speaking,
+came to his aid, and he rejoined: “Brother working-men, I say ditto to
+what has fallen from our friend ’ere upon my right.  We all are
+working-men.  Some of us, like our friend, work with their ’ands, and
+others with their ’eds.  In either case, the Land is what we ’ave to get
+at as an article of prime necessity.”
+
+Rapidly he sketched a state of things in which a happy population, drawn
+from the slums, but all instinct with agricultural knowledge, would be
+settled on the land, each on his little farm, and all devoted to
+intensive culture in the most modern form.  Trees would be all cut down,
+because they only “’arbour” birds that eat the corn.  Hedges would all be
+extirpated, for it is known to every one that mice and rats and animals
+of every kind live under them, and that they only serve to shelter game.
+Each man would own a gun and be at liberty to kill a “rabbut” or a
+“’are”—“animals, as we say at college, _feery naturrey_, and placed by
+Providence upon the land.”
+
+These noble sentiments evoked applause, which was a little mitigated by
+an interjection from a man in gaiters, with a sunburnt face, of: “Mister,
+if every one is to have a gun and shoot, ’ow long will these ’ere ’ares
+and rabbuts last?”
+
+A little farther on, as thinly covered by his indecently transparent veil
+of reciprocity as a bare-footed dancer in her Grecian clothes, or a tall
+ostrich under an inch of sand, and yet as confident as either of them
+that the essential is concealed, a staunch Protectionist discoursed.
+With copious notes, to which he turned at intervals, when he appealed to
+those statistics which can be made in any question to fit every side, he
+talked of loss of trade.  “Friends, we must tax the foreigner.  It is
+this way, you see, our working classes have to compete with other
+nations, all of which enjoy protective duties.  I ask you, is it
+reasonable that we should let a foreign article come into England?”
+
+Here a dour-looking Scotsman almost spat out the words: “Man, can ye no
+juist say Great Britain?” and received a bow and “Certainly, my friend, I
+am not here to wound the sentiments of any man . . . as I was saying, is
+it reasonable that goods should come to England . . . I mean Great
+Britain, duty free, and yet articles we manufacture have to pay heavy
+duties in any foreign port?”
+
+“’Ow about bread?” came from a voice upon the outskirts of the crowd.
+
+The speaker reddened, and resumed: “My friend, man doth not live by bread
+alone; still, I understand the point.  A little dooty upon corn, say five
+shillings in the quarter, would not hurt any one.  We’ve got to do it.
+The foreigner is the enemy.  I am a Christian; but yet, readin’ as I
+often do the Sermon on the Mount, I never saw we had to lie down in the
+dust and let ourselves be trampled on.
+
+“Who are to be the inheritors of the earth?  Our Lord says, ‘Blessed are
+the meek; they shall inherit it.’”
+
+He paused, and was about to clinch his argument, when a tall Irishman,
+after expectorating judiciously upon a vacant space between two
+listeners, shot in: “Shure, then, the English are the meekest of the lot,
+for they have got the greater part of it.”
+
+At other gatherings Socialists held forth under the red flag.  “That
+banner, comrades, which ’as braved a ’undred fights, and the mere sight
+of which makes the Capitalistic bloodsucker tremble as he feels the time
+approach when Lybor shall come into its inheritance and the Proletariat
+shyke off its chaine and join ’ands all the world over, despizin’ ryce
+and creed and all the artificial obstructions that a designin’
+Priest-’ood and a blood-stained Plutocracy ’ave placed between them to
+distract their attention from the great cause of Socialism, the great
+cause that mykes us comrades . . . ’ere, keep off my ’oof, you blighter,
+with your ammunition wagons. . . .”
+
+Religionists of various sects, all with long hair and dressed in shabby
+black, the Book either before them on a campaigning lectern or tucked
+beneath one arm, called upon Christian men to dip their hands into the
+precious blood and drink from the eternal fountain of pure water that is
+to be found in the Apocalypse.  “Come to ’Im, come to ’Im, I say, my
+friends, come straight; oh, it is joyful to belong to Jesus.  Don’t stop
+for anything, come to ’Im now like little children. . . .  Let us sing a
+’ymn.  You know it, most of you; but brother ’ere,” and as he spoke he
+turned towards a pale-faced youth who held a bag to take the offertory,
+that sacrament that makes the whole world kin, “will lead it for you.”
+
+The acolyte cleared his throat raucously, and to a popular air struck up
+the refrain of “Let us jump joyful on the road.”  Flat-breasted girls and
+pale-faced boys took up the strain, and as it floated through the heavy
+air, reverberating from the pile of public buildings, gradually all the
+crowd joined in; shyly at first and then whole-heartedly, and by degrees
+the vulgar tune and doggerel verses took on an air of power and dignity,
+and when the hymn was finished, the tears stood in the eyes of
+grimy-looking women and of red-faced men.  Then, with his bag, the
+pale-faced hymn-leader went through the crowd, reaping a plenteous
+harvest, all in copper, from those whose hearts had felt, but for a
+moment, the full force of sympathy.
+
+Suffragist ladies discussed upon “the Question,” shocking their hearers
+as they touched on prostitution and divorce, and making even stolid
+policemen, who stood sweating in their thick blue uniforms, turn their
+eyes upon the ground.
+
+After them, Suffragette girls bounded upon the cart, consigning fathers,
+brothers, and the whole male section of mankind straight to perdition as
+they held forth upon the Vote, that all-heal of the female politician,
+who thinks by means of it to wipe out all those disabilities imposed upon
+her by an unreasonable Nature and a male Deity, who must have worked
+alone up in the Empyrean without the humanising influence of a wife.
+
+Little by little the various groups dissolved, the speakers and their
+friends forcing their “literatoor” upon the passers-by, who generally
+appeared to look into the air a foot or two above their heads, as they
+went homewards through the streets.
+
+The Anarchists were the last to leave, a faithful few still congregating
+around a youth in a red necktie who denounced the other speakers with
+impartiality, averring that they were “humbugs every one of them,” and,
+for his part, he believed only in dynamite, by means of which he hoped
+some day to be able to devote “all the blood-suckers to destruction, and
+thus to bring about the reign of brotherhood.”
+
+The little knot of the elect applauded loudly, and the youth, catching
+the policeman’s eye fixed on him, descended hurriedly from off the chair
+on which he had been perorating, remarking that “it was time to be going
+home to have a bit of dinner, as he was due to speak at Salford in the
+evening.”
+
+Slowly the square was emptied, the last group or two of people
+disappearing into the mouths of the incoming streets just as a Roman
+crowd must have been swallowed up in the vomitoria of an amphitheatre,
+after a show of gladiators.
+
+Torn newspapers and ends of cigarettes were the sole result of all the
+rhetoric that had been poured out so liberally upon the assembled
+thousands in the square.
+
+Two or three street boys in their shirt-sleeves, bare-footed and
+bare-headed, their trousers held up by a piece of string, played about
+listlessly, after the fashion of their kind on Sunday in a manufacturing
+town, when the life of the streets is dead, and when men’s minds are
+fixed either upon the mysteries of the faith or upon beer, things in
+which children have but little share.
+
+The usual Sabbath gloom was creeping on the town and dinner-time
+approaching, when from a corner of the square appeared a man advancing
+rapidly.  He glanced about inquiringly, and for a moment a look of
+disappointment crossed his face.  Mounting the steps that lead up to the
+smoke-coated Areopagus, he stopped just for an instant, as if to draw his
+breath and gather his ideas.  Decently dressed in shabby black, his
+trousers frayed a little above the heels of his elastic-sided boots, his
+soft felt hat that covered long but scanty hair just touched with grey,
+he had an air as of a plaster figure set in the middle of a pond, as he
+stood silhouetted against the background of the buildings, forlorn yet
+resolute.
+
+The urchins, who had gathered round him, had a look upon their faces as
+of experienced critics at a play; that look of expectation and
+subconscious irony which characterises all their kind at public
+spectacles.
+
+Their appearance, although calculated to appal a speaker broken to the
+platform business, did not influence the man who stood upon the steps.
+Taking off his battered hat, he placed it and his umbrella carefully upon
+the ground.  A light, as of the interior fire that burned in the frail
+tenement of flesh so fiercely that it illuminated his whole being, shone
+in his mild blue eyes.  Clearing his throat, and after running his
+nervous hands through his thin hair, he pitched his voice well forward,
+as if the deserted square had been packed full of people prepared to hang
+upon his words.  His voice, a little hoarse and broken during his first
+sentences, gradually grew clearer, developing a strength quite
+incommensurate with the source from which it came.
+
+“My friends,” he said, causing the boys to grin and waking up the dozing
+policeman, “I have a doctrine to proclaim.  Love only rules the world.
+The Greek word _caritas_ in the New Testament should have been rendered
+love.  Love suffereth long.  Love is not puffed up; love beareth all
+things.  That is what the Apostle really meant to say.  Often within this
+very square I have stood listening to the speeches, and have weighed them
+in my mind.  It is not for me to criticise, only to advocate my own
+belief.  Friends . . .”
+
+As his voice had gathered strength, two or three working-men, attracted
+by the sight of a man speaking to the air, surrounded but by the street
+boys and the nodding policeman on his beat, had gathered round about.
+Dressed in their Sunday clothes; well washed, and with the look as of
+restraint that freedom from their accustomed toil often imparts to them
+on Sunday, they listened stolidly, with that toleration that accepts all
+doctrines, from that of highest Toryism down to Anarchy, and acts on none
+of them.  The speaker, spurred on by the unwonted sight of listeners, for
+several draggled women had drawn near, and an ice-cream seller had
+brought his donkey-cart up to the nearest curb-stone, once more launched
+into his discourse.
+
+“Friends, when I hear the acerbity of the address of some; when I hear
+doctrines setting forth the rights but leaving out the duties of the
+working class; when I hear men defend the sweater and run down the
+sweated, calling them thriftless, idle, and intemperate, when often they
+are but unfortunate, I ask myself, what has become of Love?  Who sees
+more clearly than I do myself what the poor have to suffer?  Do I not
+live amongst them and share their difficulties?  Who can divine better
+than one who has imagination—and in that respect I thank my stars I have
+not been left quite unendowed—what are the difficulties of those high
+placed by fortune, who yet have got to strive to keep their place?
+
+“Sweaters and sweated, the poor, the rich, men, women, children, all
+mankind, suffer from want of Love.  I am not here to say that natural
+laws will ever cease to operate, or that there will not be great
+inequalities, if not of fortune, yet of endowments, to the end of Time.
+What the Great Power who sent us here intended, only He can tell.  One
+thing He placed within the grasp of every one, capacity to love.  Think,
+friends, what England might become under the reign of universal love.
+The murky fumes that now defile the landscape, the manufactories in which
+our thousands toil for others, the rivers vile with refuse, the knotted
+bodies and the faces scarcely human in their abject struggle for their
+daily bread, would disappear.  Bradford and Halifax and Leeds would once
+again be fair and clean.  The ferns would grow once more in Shipley Glen,
+and in the valleys about Sheffield the scissor-grinders would ply their
+trade upon streams bright and sparkling, as they were of yore.  In
+Halifax, the Roman road, now black with coal-dust and with mud, would
+shine as well-defined as it does where now and then it crops out from the
+ling upon the moors, just as the Romans left it polished by their
+caligulæ.  Why, do you ask me?  Because all sordid motives would be gone,
+and of their superfluity the rich would give to those less blessed by
+Providence.  The poor would grudge no one the gifts of fortune, and thus
+the need for grinding toil would disappear, as the struggle and the
+strain for daily bread would fade into the past.
+
+“Picture to yourselves, my friends, an England once more green and merry,
+with the air fresh and not polluted by the smoke of foetid towns.
+
+“’Tis pleasant, friends, on a spring morning to hear the village bells
+calling to church, even although they do not call you to attend.  It
+heals the soul to see the honeysuckle and the eglantine and smell the
+new-mown hay. . . .
+
+“Then comes a chill when on your vision rises the England of the
+manufacturing town, dark, dreary, and befouled with smoke.  How different
+it might be in the perpetual May morning I have sketched for you.
+
+“Love suffereth all things, endureth all things, createth all things. . . .”
+
+He paused, and, looking round, saw he was all alone.  The boys had stolen
+away, and the last workman’s sturdy back could be just seen as it was
+vanishing towards the public-house.
+
+The speaker sighed, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a
+soiled handkerchief.
+
+Then, picking up his hat and his umbrella, a far-off look came into his
+blue eyes as he walked homewards almost jauntily, conscious that the
+inner fire had got the better of the fleshly tenement, and that his work
+was done.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+EL MASGAD
+
+
+THE camp was pitched upon the north bank of the Wad Nefis, not far from
+Tamoshlacht.  Above it towered the Atlas, looking like a wall, with
+scarce a peak to break its grim monotony.  A fringe of garden lands
+enclosed the sanctuary, in which the great Sherif lived in patriarchal
+style; half saint, half warrior, but wholly a merchant at the bottom, as
+are so many Arabs; all his surroundings enjoyed peculiar sanctity.
+
+In the long avenue of cypresses the birds lived safely, for no one dared
+to frighten them, much less to fire a shot.  His baraka, that is the
+grace abounding, that distils from out the clothes, the person and each
+action of men such as the Sherif, who claim descent in apostolic
+continuity from the Blessed One, Mohammed, Allah’s own messenger,
+protected everything.  Of a mean presence, like the man who stood upon
+the Areopagus and beckoned with his hand, before he cast the spell of his
+keen, humoristic speech upon the Greeks, the holy one was of a middle
+stature.  His face was marked with smallpox.  His clothes were dirty, and
+his haik he sometimes mended with a thorn, doubling it, and thrusting one
+end through a slit to form a safety-pin.  His shoes were never new, his
+turban like an old bath towel; yet in his belt he wore a dagger with a
+gold hilt, for he was placed so far above the law, by virtue of his
+blood, that though the Koran especially enjoins the faithful not to wear
+gold, all that he did was good.
+
+Though he drank nothing but pure water, or, for that matter, lapped it
+like a camel, clearing the scum off with his fingers if on a journey, he
+might have drank champagne or brandy, or mixed the two of them, for the
+Arabs are the most logical of men, and to them such a man as the Sherif
+is holy, not from anything he does, but because Allah has ordained it.
+An attitude of mind as good as any other, and one that, after all, makes
+a man tolerant of human frailties.
+
+Allah gives courage, virtue, eloquence, or skill in horsemanship.  He
+gives or he withholds them for his good pleasure; what he has written he
+has written, and therefore he who is without these gifts is not held
+blamable.  If he should chance to be a saint, that is a true descendant,
+in the male line, from him who answered nobly when his foolish followers
+asked him if his young wife, Ayesha, should sit at his right hand in
+paradise, “By Allah, not she; but old Kadijah, she who when all men
+mocked me, cherished and loved, she shall sit at my right hand,” that is
+enough for them.
+
+So the Sherif was honoured, partly because he had great jars stuffed with
+gold coin, the produce of his olive yards, and also of the tribute that
+the faithful brought him; partly because of his descent; and perhaps,
+more than all, on account of his great store of Arab lore on every
+subject upon earth.  His fame was great, extending right through the Sus,
+the Draa, and down to Tazaûelt, where it met the opposing current of the
+grace of Bashir-el-Biruk, Sherif of the Wad-Nun.  He liked to talk to
+Europeans, partly to show his learning, and partly to hear about the
+devilries they had invented to complicate their lives.
+
+So when the evening prayer was called, and all was silent in his house,
+the faithful duly prostrate on their faces before Allah, who seems to
+take as little heed of them as he does of the other warring sects, each
+with its doctrine of damnation for their brethren outside the pale, the
+Sherif, who seldom prayed, knowing that even if he did so he could
+neither make nor yet unmake himself in Allah’s sight, called for his
+mule, and with two Arabs running by his side set out towards the
+unbeliever’s camp.
+
+Though the Sherif paid no attention to it, the scene he rode through was
+like fairyland.  The moonbeams falling on the domes of house and mosque
+and sanctuary lit up the green and yellow tiles, making them sparkle like
+enamels.  Long shadows of the cypresses cast great bands of darkness upon
+the red sand of the avenue.  The croaking of the frogs sounded metallic,
+and by degrees resolved itself into a continuous tinkle, soothing and
+musical, in the Atlas night.  Camels lay ruminating, their monstrous
+packs upon their backs.  As the Sherif passed by them on his mule they
+snarled and bubbled, and a faint odour as of a menagerie, mingled with
+that of tar, with which the Arabs cure their girth and saddle galls,
+floated towards him, although no doubt custom had made it so familiar
+that he never heeded it.
+
+From the Arab huts that gather around every sanctuary, their owners
+living on the baraka, a high-pitched voice to the accompaniment of a
+two-stringed guitar played with a piece of stiff palmetto leaf, and the
+monotonous Arab drum, that if you listen to it long enough invades the
+soul, blots from the mind the memory of towns, and makes the hearer long
+to cast his hat into the sea and join the dwellers in the tents, blended
+so inextricably with the shrill cricket’s note and the vast orchestra of
+the insects that were praising Allah on that night, each after his own
+fashion, that it was difficult to say where the voice ended and the
+insects’ hum began.
+
+Still, in despite of all, the singing Arab, croaking of the frogs, and
+the shrill pæans of the insects, the night seemed calm and silent, for
+all the voices were attuned so well to the surroundings that the serenity
+of the whole scene was unimpaired.
+
+The tents lay in the moonlight like gigantic mushrooms; the rows of
+bottles cut in blue cloth with which the Arabs ornament them stood out
+upon the canvas as if in high relief.  The first light dew was falling,
+frosting the canvas as a piece of ice condenses air upon a glass.  In a
+long line before the tents stood the pack animals munching their corn
+placed on a cloth upon the ground.
+
+A dark-grey horse, still with his saddle on for fear of the night air,
+was tied near to the door of the chief tent, well in his owner’s eye.
+Now and again he pawed the ground, looked up, and neighed, straining upon
+the hobbles that confined his feet fast to the picket line.
+
+On a camp chair his owner sat and smoked, and now and then half got up
+from his seat when the horse plunged or any of the mules stepped on their
+shackles and nearly fell upon the ground.
+
+As the Sherif approached he rose to welcome him, listening to all the
+reiterated compliments and inquiries that no self-respecting Arab ever
+omits when he may chance to meet a friend.
+
+A good address, like mercy, is twice blest, both in the giver and in the
+recipient of it; but chiefly it is beneficial to the giver, for in
+addition to the pleasure that he gives, he earns his own respect.  Well
+did both understand this aspect of the question, and so the compliments
+stretched out into perspectives quite unknown in Europe, until the host,
+taking his visitor by the hand, led him inside the tent.  “Ambassador,”
+said the Sherif, although he knew his friend was but a Consul, “my heart
+yearned towards thee, so I have come to talk with thee of many things,
+because I know that thou art wise, not only in the learning of thy
+people, but in that of our own.”
+
+The Consul, not knowing what the real import of the visit might portend,
+so to speak felt his adversary’s blade, telling him he was welcome, and
+that at all times his tent and house were at the disposition of his
+friend.  Clapping his hands he called for tea, and when it came, the
+little flowered and gold-rimmed glasses, set neatly in a row, the red tin
+box with two compartments, one for the tea and one for the blocks of
+sugar, the whole surrounding the small dome-shaped pewter teapot, all
+placed in order on the heavy copper tray, he waved the equipage towards
+the Sherif, tacitly recognising his superiority in the art of tea-making.
+Seated beside each other on a mattress they drank the sacramental three
+cups of tea, and then, after the Consul had lit his cigarette, the Sherif
+having refused one with a gesture of his hand and a half-murmured
+“Haram”—that is, “It is prohibited”—they then began to talk.
+
+Much had they got to say about the price of barley and the drought; of
+tribal fights; of where our Lord the Sultan was, and if he had reduced
+the rebels in the hills,—matters that constitute the small talk of the
+tents, just as the weather and the fashionable divorce figure in
+drawing-rooms.  Knowing what was expected of him, the Consul touched on
+European politics, upon inventions, the progress that the French had made
+upon the southern frontier of Algeria; and as he thus unpacked his news
+with due prolixity, the Sherif now and again interjected one or another
+of those pious phrases, such as “Allah is merciful,” or “God’s ways are
+wonderful,” which at the same time show the interjector’s piety, and give
+the man who is discoursing time to collect himself, and to prepare
+another phrase.
+
+After a little conversation languished, and the two men who knew each
+other well sat listlessly, the Consul smoking and the Sherif passing the
+beads of a cheap wooden rosary between the fingers of his right hand,
+whilst with his left he waved a cotton pocket handkerchief to keep away
+the flies.
+
+Looking up at his companion, “Consul,” he said, for he had now dropped
+the Ambassador with which he first had greeted him, “you know us well,
+you speak our tongue; even you know Shillah, the language of the accursed
+Berbers, and have translated Sidi Hammo into the speech of Nazarenes-I
+beg your pardon—of the Rumi,” for he had seen a flush rise on the
+Consul’s cheek.
+
+“You like our country, and have lived in it for more than twenty years.
+I do not speak to you about our law, for every man cleaves to his own,
+but of our daily life.  Tell me now, which of the two makes a man
+happier, the law of Sidna Aissa, or that of our Prophet, God’s own
+Messenger?”
+
+He stopped and waited courteously, playing with his naked toes, just as a
+European plays with his fingers in the intervals of speech.
+
+The Consul sent a veritable solfatara of tobacco smoke out of his mouth
+and nostrils, and laying down his cigarette returned no answer for a
+little while.
+
+Perchance his thoughts were wandering towards the cities brilliant with
+light—the homes of science and of art.  Cities of vain endeavour in which
+men pass their lives thinking of the condition of their poorer brethren,
+but never making any move to get down off their backs.  He thought of
+London and of Paris and New York, the dwelling-places both of law and
+order, and the abodes of noise.  He pondered on their material
+advancement: their tubes that burrow underneath the ground, in which run
+railways carrying their thousands all the day and far into the night;
+upon their hospitals, their charitable institutions, their legislative
+assemblies, and their museums, with their picture-galleries, their
+theatres—on the vast sums bestowed to forward arts and sciences, and on
+the poor who shiver in their streets and cower under railway arches in
+the dark winter nights.
+
+As he sat with his cigarette smouldering beside him in a little brazen
+pan, the night breeze brought the heavy scent of orange blossoms, for it
+was spring, and all the gardens of the sanctuary each had its orange
+grove.  Never had they smelt sweeter, and never had the croaking of the
+frogs seemed more melodious, or the cricket’s chirp more soothing to the
+soul.
+
+A death’s-head moth whirred through the tent, poising itself, just as a
+humming-bird hangs stationary probing the petals of a flower.  The gentle
+murmur of its wings brought back the Consul’s mind from its excursus in
+the regions of reality, or unreality, for all is one according to the
+point of view.
+
+“Sherif,” he said, “what you have asked me I will answer to the best of
+my ability.
+
+“Man’s destiny is so precarious that neither your law nor our own appear
+to me to influence it, or at the best but slightly.
+
+“One of your learned Talebs, or our men of science, as they call
+themselves, with the due modesty of conscious worth, is passing down a
+street, and from a house-top slips a tile and falls upon his head.  There
+he lies huddled up, an ugly bundle of old clothes, inert and shapeless,
+whilst his immortal soul leaves his poor mortal body, without which all
+its divinity is incomplete; then perhaps after an hour comes back again,
+and the man staggering to his feet begins to talk about God’s attributes,
+or about carrying a line of railroad along a precipice.”
+
+The Sherif, who had been listening with the respect that every well-bred
+Arab gives to the man who has possession of the word, said, “It was so
+written.  The man could not have died or never could have come to life
+again had it not been Allah’s will.”
+
+His friend smiled grimly and rejoined, “That is so; but as Allah never
+manifests his will, except in action, just as we act towards a swarm of
+ants, annihilating some and sparing others as we pass, it does not matter
+very much what Allah thinks about, as it regards ourselves.”
+
+“When I was young,” slowly said the Sherif, “whilst in the slave trade
+far away beyond the desert, I met the pagan tribes.
+
+“They had no God . . . like Christians. . .  Pardon me, I know you know
+our phrase: nothing but images of wood.
+
+“Those infidels, who, by the way, were just as apt at a good bargain as
+if their fathers all had bowed themselves in Christian temple or in
+mosque, when they received no answer to their prayers, would pull their
+accursed images down from their shrines, paint them jet black, and hang
+them from a nail.
+
+“Heathens they were, ignorant even of the name of God, finding their
+heaven and their hell here upon earth, just like the animals, but . . .
+sometimes I have thought not quite bereft of reason, for they had not the
+difficulties you have about the will of Allah and the way in which he
+works.
+
+“They made their gods themselves, just as we do,” and as he spoke he
+lowered his voice and peered out of the tent door; “but wiser than
+ourselves they kept a tight hand on them, and made their will, as far as
+possible, coincide with their own.
+
+“It is the hour of prayer. . . .
+
+“How pleasantly the time passes away conversing with one’s friends”; and
+as he spoke he stood erect, turning towards Mecca, as mechanically as the
+needle turns towards the pole.
+
+His whole appearance altered and his mean presence suffered a subtle
+change.  With eyes fixed upon space, and hands uplifted, he testified to
+the existence of the one God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the
+Bounteous, the Generous One, who alone giveth victory.
+
+Then, sinking down, he laid his forehead on the ground, bringing his
+palms together.  Three times he bowed himself, and then rising again upon
+his feet recited the confession of his faith.
+
+The instant he had done he sat him down again; but gravely and with the
+air of one who has performed an action, half courteous, half obligatory,
+but refreshing to the soul.
+
+The Consul, who well knew his ways, and knew that probably he seldom
+prayed at home, and that the prayers he had just seen most likely were a
+sort of affirmation of his neutral attitude before a stranger, yet was
+interested.
+
+Then, when the conversation was renewed, he said to him, “Prayer seems to
+me, Sherif, to be the one great difference between the animals and man.
+
+“As to the rest, we live and die, drink, eat, and propagate our species,
+just as they do; but no one ever heard of any animal who had addressed
+himself to God.”
+
+A smile flitted across the pock-marked features of the descendant of the
+Prophet, and looking gravely at his friend,—
+
+“Consul,” he said, “Allah to you has given many things.  He has endowed
+you with your fertile brains, that have searched into forces which had
+remained unknown in nature since the sons of Adam first trod the surface
+of the earth.  All that you touch you turn to gold, and as our saying
+goes, ‘Gold builds a bridge across the sea.’
+
+“Ships, aeroplanes, cannons of monstrous size, and little instruments by
+which you see minutest specks as if they were great rocks; all these you
+have and yet you doubt His power.
+
+“To us, the Arabs, we who came from the lands of fire in the Hejaz and
+Hadramut.  We who for centuries have remained unchanged, driving our
+camels as our fathers drove them, eating and drinking as our fathers ate
+and drank, and living face to face with God. . . .  Consu’, you should
+not smile, for do we not live closer to Him than you do, under the stars
+at night, out in the sun by day, our lives almost as simple as the lives
+of animals?  To us He has vouchsafed gifts that He either has withheld
+from you, or that you have neglected in your pride.
+
+“Thus we still keep our faith. . . .  Faith in the God who set the
+planets in their courses, bridled the tides, and caused the palm to grow
+beside the river so that the traveller may rest beneath its shade, and
+resting, praise His name.
+
+“You ask me, who ever heard of any animal that addressed himself to God.
+He in His infinite power . . . be sure of it . . . is He not merciful and
+compassionate, wonderful in His ways, harder to follow than the track
+that a gazelle leaves in the desert sands; it cannot be that He could
+have denied them access to His ear?
+
+“Did not the lizard, Consul . . ., Hamed el Angri, the runner, the man
+who never can rest long in any place, but must be ever tightening his
+belt and pulling up his slippers at the heel to make ready for the road
+. . ., did he not tell you of El Hokaitsallah, the little lizard who, being
+late upon the day when Allah took away speech from all the animals, ran
+on the beam in the great mosque at Mecca, and dumbly scratched his
+prayer?”
+
+The Consul nodded.  “Hamed el Angri,” he said, “no doubt is still upon
+the road, by whose side he will die one day of hunger or of thirst. . . .
+Yes; he told me of it, and I wrote it in a book. . . .”
+
+“Write this, then,” the Sherif went on, “Allah in his compassion, and in
+case the animals, bereft of speech, that is in Arabic, for each has his
+own tongue, should not be certain of the direction of the Kiblah, has
+given the power to a poor insect which we call El Masgad to pray for all
+of them.  With its head turned to Mecca, as certainly as if he had the
+needle of the mariners, he prays at El Magreb.
+
+“All day he sits erect and watches for his prey.  At eventide, just at
+the hour of El Magreb, when from the ‘alminares’ of the Mosques the
+muezzin calls upon the faithful for their prayers, he adds his testimony.
+
+“Consu’, Allah rejects no prayer, however humble, and that the little
+creature knows.  He knows that Allah does not answer every prayer; but
+yet the prayer remains; it is not blotted out, and perhaps some day it
+may fructify, for it is written in the book.
+
+“Therefore El Masgad prays each night for all the animals, yet being but
+a little thing and simple, it has not strength to testify at all the
+hours laid down in Mecca by our Lord Mohammed, he of the even teeth, the
+curling hair, and the grave smile, that never left his face after he had
+communed with Allah in the cave.”
+
+The Consul dropped his smoked-out cigarette, and, stretching over to his
+friend, held out his hand to him.
+
+“Sherif,” he said, “maybe El Masgad prays for you and me, as well as for
+its kind?”
+
+The answer came: “Consu’, doubt not; it is a little animal of God, . . .
+we too are in His hand. . . .”
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+FEAST DAY IN SANTA MARIA MAYOR
+
+
+THE great Capilla, the largest in the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay, was
+built round a huge square, almost a quarter of a mile across.
+
+Upon three sides ran the low, continuous line of houses, like a “row” in
+a Scotch mining village or a phalanstery designed by Prudhon or St. Simon
+in their treatises; but by the grace of a kind providence never carried
+out, either in bricks or stone.
+
+Each dwelling-place was of the same design and size as all the rest.
+Rough tiles made in the Jesuit times, but now weathered and broken,
+showing the rafters tied with raw hide in many places, formed the long
+roof, that looked a little like the pent-house of a tennis court.
+
+A deep verandah ran in front, stretching from one end to the other of the
+square, supported on great balks of wood, which, after more than two
+hundred years and the assaults of weather and the all-devouring ants,
+still showed the adze marks where they had been dressed.  The timber was
+so hard that you could scarcely drive a nail into it, despite the flight
+of time since it was first set up.  Rings fixed about six feet from the
+ground were screwed into the pillars of the verandah, before every door,
+to fasten horses to, exactly as they are in an old Spanish town.
+
+Against the wall of almost every house, just by the door, was set a chair
+or two of heavy wood, with the seat formed by strips of hide, on which
+the hair had formerly been left, but long ago rubbed off by use, or eaten
+by the ants.
+
+The owner of the house sat with the back of the strong chair tilted
+against the wall, dressed in a loose and pleated shirt, with a high
+turned-down collar open at the throat, and spotless white duck trousers,
+that looked the whiter by their contrast with his brown, naked feet.
+
+His home-made palm-tree hat was placed upon the ground beside him, and
+his cloak of coarse red baize was thrown back from his shoulders, as he
+sat smoking a cigarette rolled in a maize leaf, for in the Jesuit
+capillas only women smoked cigars.
+
+At every angle of the square a sandy trail led out, either to the river
+or the woods, the little patches planted with mandioca, or to the maze of
+paths that, like the points outside a junction, eventually joined in one
+main trail, that ran from Itapua on the Paraná, up to Asuncion.
+
+The church, built of wood cut in the neighbouring forest, had two tall
+towers, and followed in its plan the pattern of all the churches in the
+New World built by the Jesuits, from California down to the smallest
+mission in the south.  It filled the fourth side of the square, and on
+each side of it there rose two feathery palms, known as the tallest in
+the Missions, which served as landmarks for travellers coming to the
+place, if they had missed their road.  So large and well-proportioned was
+the church, it seemed impossible that it had been constructed solely by
+the Indians themselves, under the direction of the missionaries.
+
+The overhanging porch and flight of steps that ran down to the grassy
+sward in the middle of the town gave it an air as of a cathedral reared
+to nature in the wilds, for the thick jungle flowed up behind it and
+almost touched its walls.
+
+Bells of great size, either cast upon the spot or brought at vast expense
+from Spain, hung in the towers.  On this, the feast day of the Blessed
+Virgin, the special patron of the settlement, they jangled ceaselessly,
+the Indians taking turns to haul upon the dried lianas that served
+instead of ropes.  Though they pulled vigorously, the bells sounded a
+little muffled, as if they strove in vain against the vigorous nature
+that rendered any work of man puny and insignificant in the Paraguayan
+wilds.
+
+Inside, the fane was dark, the images of saints were dusty, their paint
+was cracked, their gilding tarnished, making them look a little like the
+figures in a New Zealand pah, as they loomed through the darkness of the
+aisle.  On the neglected altar, for at that time priests were a rarity in
+the Reductions, the Indians had placed great bunches of red flowers, and
+now and then a humming-bird flitted in through the glassless windows and
+hung poised above them; then darted out again, with a soft, whirring
+sound.  Over the whole capilla, in which at one time several thousand
+Indians had lived, but now reduced to seventy or eighty at the most,
+there hung an air of desolation.  It seemed as if man, in his long
+protracted struggle with the forces of the woods, had been defeated, and
+had accepted his defeat, content to vegetate, forgotten by the world, in
+the vast sea of green.
+
+On this particular day, the annual festival of the Blessed Virgin, there
+was an air of animation, for from far and near, from Jesuit capilla, from
+straw-thatched huts lost in the clearings of the primeval forest, from
+the few cattle ranches that then existed, and from the little town of
+Itapua, fifty miles away, the scanty population had turned out to attend
+the festival.
+
+Upon the forest tracks, from earliest dawn, long lines of white-clad
+women, barefooted, with their black hair cut square across the forehead
+and hanging down their backs, had marched as silently as ghosts.  All of
+them smoked great, green cigars, and as they marched along, their leader
+carrying a torch, till the sun rose and jaguars went back to their lairs,
+they never talked; but if a woman in the rear of the long line wished to
+converse with any comrade in the front she trotted forward till she
+reached her friend and whispered in her ear.  When they arrived at the
+crossing of the little river they bathed, or, at the least, washed
+carefully, and gathering a bunch of flowers, stuck them into their hair.
+They crossed the stream, and on arriving at the plaza they set the
+baskets, which they had carried on their heads, upon the ground, and
+sitting down beside them on the grass, spread out their merchandise.
+Oranges and bread, called “chipa,” made from mandioca flour and cheese,
+with vegetables and various homely sweetmeats, ground nuts, rolls of
+sugar done up in plaintain leaves, and known as “rapadura,” were the
+chief staples of their trade.  Those who had asses let them loose to
+feed; and if upon the forest trails the women had been silent, once in
+the safety of the town no flight of parrots in a maize field could have
+chattered louder than they did as they sat waiting by their wares.  Soon
+the square filled, and men arriving tied their horses in the shade,
+slackening their broad hide girths, and piling up before them heaps of
+the leaves of the palm called “Pindó” in Guarani, till they were cool
+enough to eat their corn.  Bands of boys, for in those days most of the
+men had been killed off in the past war, came trooping in, accompanied by
+crowds of women and of girls, who carried all their belongings, for there
+were thirteen women to a man, and the youngest boy was at a premium
+amongst the Indian women, who in the villages, where hardly any men were
+left, fought for male stragglers like unchained tigresses.  A few old men
+came riding in on some of the few native horses left, for almost all the
+active, little, undersized breed of Paraguay had been exhausted in the
+war.  They, too, had bands of women trotting by their sides, all of them
+anxious to unsaddle, to take the horses down to bathe, or to perform any
+small office that the men required of them.  All of them smoked
+continuously, and each of them was ready with a fresh cigarette as soon
+as the old man or boy whom they accompanied finished the stump he held
+between his lips.  The women all were dressed in the long Indian shirt
+called a “tupoi,” cut rather low upon the breast, and edged with coarse
+black cotton lace, which every Paraguayan woman wore.  Their hair was as
+black as a crow’s back, and quite as shiny, and their white teeth so
+strong that they could tear the ears of corn out of a maize cob like a
+horse munching at his corn.
+
+Then a few Correntino gauchos next appeared, dressed in their national
+costume of loose black merino trousers, stuffed into long boots, whose
+fronts were all embroidered in red silk.  Their silver spurs, whose
+rowels were as large as saucers, just dangled off their heels, only
+retained in place by a flat chain, that met upon the instep, clasped with
+a lion’s head.  Long hair and brown vicuna ponchos, soft black felt hats,
+and red silk handkerchiefs tied loosely round their necks marked them as
+strangers, though they spoke Guarani.
+
+They sat upon their silver-mounted saddles, with their toes resting in
+their bell-shaped stirrups, swaying so easily with every movement that
+the word riding somehow or other seemed inapplicable to men who, like the
+centaurs, formed one body with the horse.
+
+As they drew near the plaza they raised their hands and touched their
+horses with the spur, and, rushing like a whirlwind right to the middle
+of the square, drew up so suddenly that their horses seemed to have
+turned to statues for a moment, and then at a slow trot, that made their
+silver trappings jingle as they went, slowly rode off into the shade.
+
+The plaza filled up imperceptibly, and the short grass was covered by a
+white-clad throng of Indians.  The heat increased, and all the time the
+bells rang out, pulled vigorously by relays of Indians, and at a given
+signal the people turned and trooped towards the church, all carrying
+flowers in their hands.
+
+As there was no one to sing Mass, and as the organ long had been
+neglected, the congregation listened to some prayers, read from a book of
+Hours by an old Indian, who pronounced the Latin, of which most likely he
+did not understand a word, as if it had been Guarani.  They sang “Las
+Flores á Maria” all in unison, but keeping such good time that at a
+little distance from the church it sounded like waves breaking on a beach
+after a summer storm.
+
+In the neglected church, where no priest ministered or clergy prayed,
+where all the stoops of holy water had for years been dry, and where the
+Mass had been well-nigh forgotten as a whole, the spirit lingered, and if
+it quickeneth upon that feast day in the Paraguayan missions, that simple
+congregation were as uplifted by it as if the sacrifice had duly been
+fulfilled with candles, incense, and the pomp and ceremony of Holy Mother
+Church upon the Seven Hills.
+
+As every one except the Correntinos went barefooted, the exit of the
+congregation made no noise except the sound of naked feet, slapping a
+little on the wooden steps, and so the people silently once again filled
+the plaza, where a high wooden arch had been erected in the middle, for
+the sport of running at the ring.
+
+The vegetable sellers had now removed from the middle of the square,
+taking all their wares under the long verandah, and several pedlars had
+set up their booths and retailed cheap European trifles such as no one in
+the world but a Paraguayan Indian could possibly require.  Razors that
+would not cut, and little looking-glasses in pewter frames made in
+Thuringia, cheap clocks that human ingenuity was powerless to repair when
+they had run their course of six months’ intermittent ticking, and gaudy
+pictures representing saints who had ascended to the empyrean, as it
+appeared, with the clothes that they had worn in life, and all
+bald-headed, as befits a saint, were set out side by side with
+handkerchiefs of the best China silk.  Sales were concluded after
+long-continued chaffering—that higgling of the market dear to old-time
+economists, for no one would have bought the smallest article, even below
+cost price, had it been offered to him at the price the seller originally
+asked.
+
+Enrique Clerici, from Itapua, had transported all his pulperia bodily for
+the occasion of the feast.  It had not wanted more than a small wagon to
+contain his stock-in-trade.  Two or three dozen bottles of square-faced
+gin of the Anchor brand, a dozen of heady red wine from Catalonia, a pile
+of sardine boxes, sweet biscuits, raisins from Malaga, esparto baskets
+full of figs, and sundry pecks of apricots dried in the sun and cut into
+the shape of ears, and hence called “orejones,” completed all his store.
+He himself, tall and sunburnt, stood dressed in riding-boots and a broad
+hat, with his revolver in his belt, beside a pile of empty bottles, which
+he had always ready, to hurl at customers if there should be any attempt
+either at cheating or to rush his wares.  He spoke the curious lingo,
+half-Spanish, half-Italian, that so many of his countrymen use in the
+River Plate; and all his conversation ran upon Garibaldi, with whom he
+had campaigned in youth, upon Italia Irredenta, and on the time when
+anarchy should sanctify mankind by blood, as he said, and bring about the
+reign of universal brotherhood.
+
+He did a roaring trade, despite the competition of a native Paraguayan,
+who had brought three demi-johns of Caña, for men prefer the imported
+article the whole world over, though it is vile, to native manufactures,
+even when cheap and good.
+
+Just about twelve o’clock, when the sun almost burned a hole into one’s
+head, the band got ready in the church porch, playing upon old
+instruments, some of which may have survived from Jesuit times, or, at
+the least, been copied in the place, as the originals decayed.
+
+Sackbuts and psalteries and shawms were there, with serpents, gigantic
+clarionets, and curiously twisted oboes, and drums, whose canvas all hung
+slack and gave a muffled sound when they were beaten, and little fifes,
+ear-piercing and devilish, were represented in that band.  It banged and
+crashed “La Palomita,” that tune of evil-sounding omen, for to its
+strains prisoners were always ushered out to execution in the times of
+Lopez, and as it played the players slowly walked down the steps.
+
+Behind them followed the alcalde, an aged Indian, dressed in long cotton
+drawers, that at the knees were split into a fringe that hung down to his
+ankles, a spotless shirt much pleated, and a red cloak of fine merino
+cloth.  In his right hand he carried a long cane with a silver head—his
+badge of office.  Walking up to the door of his own house, by which was
+set a table covered with glasses and with homemade cakes, he gave the
+signal for the running at the ring.
+
+The Correntino gauchos, two or three Paraguayans, and a German married to
+a Paraguayan wife, were all who entered for the sport.  The band struck
+up, and a young Paraguayan started the first course.  Gripping his
+stirrups tightly between his naked toes, and seated on an old “recao,”
+surmounted by a sheepskin, he spurred his horse, a wall-eyed skewbald,
+with his great iron spurs, tied to his bare insteps with thin strips of
+hide.  The skewbald, only half-tamed, reared once or twice and bounded
+off, switching its ragged tail, which had been half-eaten off by cows.
+The people yelled, a “mosqueador!”—that is, a “fly-flapper,” a grave
+fault in a horse in the eyes of Spanish Americans—as the Paraguayan
+steered the skewbald with the reins held high in his left hand, carrying
+the other just above the level of his eyes, armed with a piece of cane
+about a foot in length.
+
+As he approached the arch, in which the ring dangled from a string, his
+horse, either frightened by the shouting of the crowd or by the arch
+itself, swerved and plunged violently, carrying its rider through the
+thickest of the people, who separated like a flock of sheep when a dog
+runs through it, cursing him volubly.  The German came the next, dressed
+in his Sunday clothes, a slop-made suit of shoddy cloth, riding a horse
+that all his spurring could not get into full speed.  The rider’s round,
+fair face was burned a brick-dust colour, and as he spurred and plied his
+whip, made out of solid tapir hide, the sweat ran down in streams upon
+his coat.  So intent was he on flogging, that as he neared the ring he
+dropped his piece of cane, and his horse, stopping suddenly just
+underneath the arch, would have unseated him had he not clasped it round
+the neck.  Shouts of delight greeted this feat of horsemanship, and one
+tall Correntino, taking his cigarette out of his mouth, said to his
+fellow sitting next to him upon his horse, “The very animals themselves
+despise the gringos.  See how that little white-nosed brute that he was
+riding knew that he was a ‘maturango,’ and nearly had him off.”
+
+Next came Hijinio Rojas, a Paraguayan of the better classes, sallow and
+Indian looking, dressed in clothes bought in Asuncion, his trousers
+tucked into his riding-boots.  His small black hat, with the brim
+flattened up against his head by the wind caused by the fury of the
+gallop of his active little roan with four white feet, was kept upon his
+head by a black ribbon knotted underneath his chin.  As he neared the
+arch his horse stepped double several times and fly jumped; but that did
+not disturb him in the least, and, aiming well he touched the ring,
+making it fly into the air.  A shout went up, partly in Spanish, partly
+in Guarani, from the assembled people, and Rojas, reining in his horse,
+stopped him in a few bounds, so sharply, that his unshod feet cut up the
+turf of the green plaza as a skate cuts the ice.  He turned and trotted
+gently to the arch, and then, putting his horse to its top speed, stopped
+it again beside the other riders, amid the “Vivas” of the crowd.  Then
+came the turn of the four Correntinos, who rode good horses from their
+native province, had silver horse-gear and huge silver spurs, that
+dangled from their heels.  They were all gauchos, born, as the saying
+goes, “amongst the animals.”  A dun with fiery eyes and a black stripe
+right down his back, and with black markings on both hocks, a chestnut
+skewbald, a “doradillo,” and a horse of that strange mealy bay with a
+fern-coloured muzzle, that the gauchos call a “Pangaré,” carried them
+just as if their will and that of those who rode them were identical.
+Without a signal, visible at least to any but themselves, their horses
+started at full speed, reaching occasionally at the bit, then dropping it
+again and bridling so easy that one could ride them with a thread drawn
+from a spider’s web.  Their riders sat up easily, not riding as a
+European rides, with his eyes fixed upon each movement of his horse, but,
+as it were, divining them as soon as they were made.  Each of them took
+the ring, and all of them checked their horses, as it were, by their
+volition, rather than the bit, making the silver horse-gear rattle and
+their great silver spurs jingle upon their feet.  Each waited for the
+other at the far side of the arch, and then turning in a line they
+started with a shout, and as they passed right through the middle of the
+square at a wild gallop, they swung down sideways from their saddles and
+dragged their hands upon the ground.  Swinging up, apparently without an
+effort, back into their seats, when they arrived at the point from where
+they had first started, they reined up suddenly, making their horses
+plunge and rear, and then by a light signal on the reins stand quietly in
+line, tossing the foam into the air.  Hijinio Rojas and the four centaurs
+all received a prize, and the alcalde, pouring out wineglasses full of
+gin, handed them to the riders, who, with a compliment or two as to the
+order of their drinking, emptied them solemnly.
+
+No other runners having come forward to compete, for in those days horses
+were scarce throughout the Paraguayan Missions, the sports were over, and
+the perspiring crowd went off to breakfast at tables spread under the
+long verandahs, and silence fell upon the square.
+
+The long, hot hours during the middle of the day were passed in sleeping.
+Some lay face downwards in the shade.  Others swung in white cotton
+hammocks, keeping them in perpetual motion, till they fell asleep, by
+pushing with a naked toe upon the ground.  At last the sun, the enemy, as
+the Arabs call him, slowly declined, and white-robed women, with their
+“tupois” slipping half off their necks, began to come out into the
+verandahs, slack and perspiring after the midday struggle with the heat.
+
+Then bands of girls sauntered down to the river, from whence soon came
+the sound of merry laughter as they splashed about and bathed.
+
+The Correntinos rode down to a pool and washed their horses, throwing the
+water on them with their two hands, as the animals stood nervously
+shrinking from each splash, until they were quite wet through and running
+down, when they stood quietly, with their tails tucked in between their
+legs.
+
+Night came on, as it does in those latitudes, no twilight intervening,
+and from the rows of houses came the faint lights of wicks burning in
+bowls of grease, whilst from beneath the orange trees was heard the
+tinkling of guitars.
+
+Enormous bats soared about noiselessly, and white-dressed couples
+lingered about the corners of the streets, and men stood talking, pressed
+closely up against the wooden gratings of the windows, to women hidden
+inside the room.  The air was heavy with the languorous murmur of the
+tropic night, and gradually the lights one by one were extinguished, and
+the tinkling of the guitars was stilled.  The moon came out, serene and
+glorious, showing each stone upon the sandy trails as clearly as at
+midday.  Saddling their horses, the four Correntinos silently struck the
+trail to Itapua, and bands of women moved off along the forest tracks
+towards their homes, walking in Indian file.  Hijinio Rojas, who had
+saddled up to put the Correntinos on the right road, emerged into the
+moonlit plaza, his shadow outlined so sharply on the grass it seemed it
+had been drawn, and then, entering a side street, disappeared into the
+night.  The shrill neighing of his horse appeared as if it bade farewell
+to its companions, now far away upon the Itapua trail.  Noises that rise
+at night from forests in the tropics sound mysteriously, deep in the
+woods.  It seemed as if a population silent by day was active and on
+foot, and from the underwood a thick white mist arose, shrouding the
+sleeping town.
+
+Little by little, just as a rising tide covers a reef of rocks, it
+submerged everything in its white, clinging folds.  The houses
+disappeared, leaving the plaza seething like a lake, and then the church
+was swallowed up, the towers struggling, as it were, a little, just as a
+wreath of seaweed on a rock appears to fight against the tide.  Then they
+too disappeared, and the conquering mist enveloped everything.  All that
+was left above the sea of billowing white were the two topmost tufts of
+the tall, feathery palms.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+BOPICUÁ
+
+
+THE great corral at Bopicuá was full of horses.  Greys, browns, bays,
+blacks, duns, chestnuts, roans (both blue and red), skewbalds and
+piebalds, with claybanks, calicos, buckskins, and a hundred shades and
+markings, unknown in Europe, but each with its proper name in Uruguay and
+Argentina, jostled each other, forming a kaleidoscopic mass.
+
+A thick dust rose from the corral and hung above their heads.  Sometimes
+the horses stood all huddled up, gazing with wide distended eyes and
+nostrils towards a group of men that lounged about the gate.  At other
+times that panic fear that seizes upon horses when they are crushed
+together in large numbers, set them a-galloping.  Through the dust-cloud
+their footfalls sounded muffled, and they themselves appeared like
+phantoms in a mist.  When they had circled round a little they stopped,
+and those outside the throng, craning their heads down nearly to the
+ground, snorted, and then ran back, arching their necks and carrying
+their tails like flags.  Outside the great corral was set Parodi’s camp,
+below some China trees, and formed of corrugated iron and hides, stuck on
+short uprights, so that the hides and iron almost came down upon the
+ground, in gipsy fashion.  Upon the branches of the trees were hung
+saddles, bridles, halters, hobbles, lazos, and boleadoras, and underneath
+were spread out saddle-cloths to dry.  Pieces of meat swung from the low
+gables of the hut, and under the low eaves was placed a “catre,” the
+canvas scissor-bedstead of Spain and of her colonies in the New World.
+Upon the catre was a heap of ponchos, airing in the sun, their bright and
+startling colours looking almost dingy in the fierce light of a March
+afternoon in Uruguay.  Close to the camp stood several bullock-carts,
+their poles supported on a crutch, and their reed-covered tilts giving
+them an air of huts on wheels.  Men sat about on bullocks’ skulls, around
+a smouldering fire, whilst the “maté” circulated round from man to man,
+after the fashion of a loving-cup.  Parodi, the stiff-jointed son of
+Italian parents, a gaucho as to clothes and speech, but still
+half-European in his lack of comprehension of the ways of a wild horse.
+Arena, the capataz from Entre-Rios, thin, slight, and nervous, a man who
+had, as he said, in his youth known how to read and even guide the pen;
+but now “things of this world had turned him quite unlettered, and made
+him more familiar with the lazo and the spurs.”  The mulatto Pablo
+Suarez, active and cat-like, a great race-rider and horse-tamer, short
+and deep-chested, with eyes like those of a black cat, and toes,
+prehensile as a monkey’s, that clutched the stirrup when a wild colt
+began to buck, so that it could not touch its flanks.  They and Miguel
+Paralelo, tall, dark, and handsome, the owner of some property, but drawn
+by the excitement of a cowboy’s life to work for wages, so that he could
+enjoy the risk of venturing his neck each day on a “baguál,” {187} with
+other peons as El Correntino and Venancio Baez, were grouped around the
+fire.  With them were seated Martin el Madrileño, a Spanish horse-coper,
+who had experienced the charm of gaucho life, together with Silvestre
+Ayres, a Brazilian, slight and olive-coloured, well-educated, but better
+known as a dead pistol-shot than as man of books.  They waited for their
+turn at maté, or ate great chunks of meat from a roast cooked upon a
+spit, over a fire of bones.  Most of the men were tall and sinewy, with
+that air of taciturnity and self-equilibrium that their isolated lives
+and Indian blood so often stamp upon the faces of those centaurs of the
+plains.  The camp, set on a little hill, dominated the country for miles
+on every side.  Just underneath it, horses and more horses grazed.
+Towards the west it stretched out to the woods that fringe the Uruguay,
+which, with its countless islands, flowed between great tracks of forest,
+and formed the frontier with the Argentine.
+
+Between the camp and the corrals smouldered a fire of bones and ñandubay,
+and by it, leaning up against a rail, were set the branding-irons that
+had turned the horses in the corral into the property of the British
+Government.  All round the herd enclosed, ran horses neighing, seeking
+their companions, who were to graze no more at Bopicuá, but be sent off
+by train and ship to the battlefields of Europe to die and suffer, for
+they knew not what, leaving their pastures and their innocent comradeship
+with one another till the judgment day.  Then, I am sure, for God must
+have some human feeling after all, things will be explained to them,
+light come into their semi-darkness, and they will feed in prairies where
+the grass fades not, and springs are never dry, freed from the saddle,
+and with no cruel spur to urge them on they know not where or why.
+
+For weeks we had been choosing out the doomed five hundred.  Riding,
+inspecting, and examining from dawn till evening, till it appeared that
+not a single equine imperfection could have escaped our eyes.  The
+gauchos, who all think that they alone know anything about a horse, were
+all struck dumb with sheer amazement.  It seemed to them astonishing to
+take such pains to select horses that for the most part would be killed
+in a few months.  “These men,” they said, “certainly all are doctors at
+the job.  They know even the least defect, can tell what a horse thinks
+about and why.  Still, none of them can ride a horse if he but shakes his
+ears.  In their bag surely there is a cat shut up of some kind or
+another.  If not, why do they bother so much in the matter, when all that
+is required is something that can carry one into the thickest of the
+fight?”
+
+The sun began to slant a little, and we had still three leagues to drive
+the horses to the pasture where they had to pass the night for the last
+time in freedom, before they were entrained.  Our horses stood outside of
+the corral, tied to the posts, some saddled with the “recado,” {190} its
+heads adorned with silver, some with the English saddle, that out of
+England has such a strange, unserviceable look, much like a saucepan on a
+horse’s back.  Just as we were about to mount, a man appeared, driving a
+point of horses, which, he said, “to leave would be a crime against the
+sacrament.”  “These are all pingos,” he exclaimed, “fit for the saddle of
+the Lord on High, all of them are bitted in the Brazilian style, can turn
+upon a spread-out saddle-cloth, and all of them can gallop round a
+bullock’s head upon the ground, so that the rider can keep his hand upon
+it all the time.”  The speaker by his accent was a Brazilian.  His face
+was olive-coloured, his hair had the suspicion of a kink.  His horse, a
+cream-colour, with black tail and mane, was evidently only half-tamed,
+and snorted loudly as it bounded here and there, making its silver
+harness jingle and the rider’s poncho flutter in the air.  Although time
+pressed, the man’s address was so persuasive, his appearance so much in
+character with his great silver spurs just hanging from his heel, his
+jacket turned up underneath his elbow by the handle of his knife, and, to
+speak truth, the horses looked so good and in such high condition that we
+determined to examine them, and told their owner to drive them into a
+corral.
+
+Once again we commenced the work that we had done so many times of
+mounting and examining.  Once more we fought, trying to explain the
+mysteries of red tape to unsophisticated minds, and once again our
+“domadores” sprang lightly, barebacked, upon the horses they had never
+seen before, with varying results.  Some of the Brazilian’s horses bucked
+like antelopes, El Correntino and the others of our men sitting them
+barebacked as easily as an ordinary man rides over a small fence.  To all
+our queries why they did not saddle up we got one answer, “To ride with
+the recado is but a pastime only fit for boys.”  So they went on, pulling
+the horses up in three short bounds, nostrils aflame and tails and manes
+tossed wildly in the air, only a yard or two from the corral.  Then,
+slipping off, gave their opinion that the particular “bayo,” “zaino,” or
+“gateao” was just the thing to mount a lancer on, and that the speaker
+thought he could account for a good tale of Boches if he were over there
+in the Great War.  This same great war, which they called “barbarous,”
+taking a secret pleasure in the fact that it showed Europeans not a whit
+more civilised than they themselves, appeared to them something in the
+way of a great pastime from which they were debarred.
+
+Most of them, when they sold a horse, looked at him and remarked,
+“Pobrecito, you will go to the Great War,” just as a man looks at his son
+who is about to go, with feelings of mixed admiration and regret.
+
+After we had examined all the Brazilian’s “Tropilla” so carefully that he
+said, “By Satan’s death, your graces know far more about my horses than I
+myself, and all I wonder is that you do not ask me if all of them have
+not complied with all the duties of the Church,” we found that about
+twenty of them were fit for the Great War.  Calling upon Parodi and the
+capataz of Bopicuá, who all the time had remained seated round the
+smouldering fire and drinking maté, to prepare the branding-irons, the
+peons led them off, our head man calling out “Artilleria” or
+“Caballeria,” according to their size.  After the branding, either on the
+hip for cavalry and on the neck for the artillery, a peon cut their manes
+off, making them as ugly as a mule, as their late owner said, and we were
+once more ready for the road, after the payment had been made.  This took
+a little time, either because the Brazilian could not count, or perhaps
+because of his great caution, for he would not take payment except horse
+by horse.  So, driving out the horses one by one, we placed a roll of
+dollars in his hand as each one passed the gate.  Even then each roll of
+dollars had to be counted separately, for time is what men have the most
+at their disposal in places such as Bopicuá.
+
+Two hours of sunset still remained, with three long leagues to cover, for
+in those latitudes there is no twilight, night succeeding day, just as
+films follow one another in a cinematograph.  At last it all was over,
+and we were free to mount.  Such sort of drives are of the nature of a
+sport in South America, and so the Brazilian drove off the horses that we
+had rejected, half a mile away, leaving them with a negro boy to herd,
+remarking that the rejected were as good or better than those that we had
+bought, and after cinching up his horse, prepared to ride with us.
+Before we started, a young man rode up, dressed like an exaggerated
+gaucho, in loose black trousers, poncho, and a “golilla” {194a} round his
+neck, a lazo hanging from the saddle, a pair of boleadoras peeping
+beneath his “cojinillo,” {194b} and a long silver knife stuck in his
+belt.  It seemed he was the son of an estanciero who was studying law in
+Buenos Aires, but had returned for his vacation, and hearing of our drive
+had come to ride with us and help us in our task.  No one on such
+occasions is to be despised, so, thanking him for his good intentions, to
+which he answered that he was a “partizan of the Allies, lover of liberty
+and truth, and was well on in all his studies, especially in
+International Law,” we mounted, the gauchos floating almost
+imperceptibly, without an effort, to their seats, the European with that
+air of escalading a ship’s side that differentiates us from man less
+civilised.
+
+During the operations with the Brazilian, the horses had been let out of
+the corral to feed, and now were being held back _en pastoreo_, as it is
+called in Uruguay, that is to say, watched at a little distance by
+mounted men.  Nothing remained but to drive out of the corral the horses
+bought from the Brazilian, and let them join the larger herd.  Out they
+came like a string of wild geese, neighing and looking round, and then
+instinctively made towards the others that were feeding, and were
+swallowed up amongst them.  Slowly we rode towards the herd, sending on
+several well-mounted men upon its flanks, and with precaution—for of all
+living animals tame horses most easily take fright upon the march and
+separate—we got them into motion, on a well-marked trail that led towards
+the gate of Bopicuá.
+
+At first they moved a little sullenly, and as if surprised.  Then the
+contagion of emotion that spreads so rapidly amongst animals upon the
+march seemed to inspire them, and the whole herd broke into a light trot.
+That is the moment that a stampede may happen, and accordingly we pulled
+our horses to a walk, whilst the men riding on the flanks forged slowly
+to the front, ready for anything that might occur.  Gradually the trot
+slowed down, and we saw as it were a sea of manes and tails in front of
+us, emerging from a cloud of dust, from which shrill neighings and loud
+snortings rose.  They reached a hollow, in which were several pools, and
+stopped to drink, all crowding into the shallow water, where they stood
+pawing up the mud and drinking greedily.  Time pressed, and as we knew
+that there was water in the pasture where they were to sleep, we drove
+them back upon the trail, the water dripping from their muzzles and their
+tails, and the black mud clinging to the hair upon their fetlocks, and in
+drops upon their backs.  Again they broke into a trot, but this time, as
+they had got into control, we did not check them, for there was still a
+mile to reach the gate.
+
+Passing some smaller mud-holes, the body of a horse lay near to one of
+them, horribly swollen, and with its stiff legs hoisted a little in the
+air by the distension of its flanks.  The passing horses edged away from
+it in terror, and a young roan snorted and darted like an arrow from the
+herd.  Quick as was the dart he made, quicker still El Correntino wheeled
+his horse on its hind legs and rushed to turn him back.  With his whip
+whirling round his head he rode to head the truant, who, with tail
+floating in the air, had got a start of him of about fifty yards.  We
+pressed instinctively upon the horses; but not so closely as to frighten
+them, though still enough to be able to stop another of them from cutting
+out.  The Correntino on a half-tamed grey, which he rode with a raw-hide
+thong bound round its lower jaw, for it was still unbitted, swaying with
+every movement in his saddle, which he hardly seemed to grip, so perfect
+was his balance, rode at a slight angle to the runaway and gained at
+every stride.  His hat blew back and kept in place by a black ribbon
+underneath his chin, framed his head like an aureole.  The red silk
+handkerchief tied loosely round his neck fluttered beneath it, and as he
+dashed along, his lazo coiled upon his horse’s croup, rising and falling
+with each bound, his eyes fixed on the flying roan, he might have served
+a sculptor as the model for a centaur, so much did he and the wild colt
+he rode seem indivisible.
+
+In a few seconds, which to us seemed minutes, for we feared the infection
+might have spread to the whole “caballada,” the Correntino headed and
+turned the roan, who came back at three-quarter speed, craning his neck
+out first to one side, then to the other, as if he still thought that a
+way lay open for escape.
+
+By this time we had reached the gates of Bopicuá, and still seven miles
+lay between us and our camping-ground, with a fast-declining sun.  As the
+horses passed the gate we counted them, an operation of some difficulty
+when time presses and the count is large.  Nothing is easier than to miss
+animals, that is to say, for Europeans, however practised, but the
+lynx-eyed gauchos never are at fault.  “Where is the little brown horse
+with a white face, and a bit broken out of his near forefoot?” they will
+say, and ten to one that horse is missing, for what they do not know
+about the appearance of a horse would not fill many books.  Only a drove
+road lay between Bopicuá and the great pasture, at whose faraway
+extremity the horses were to sleep.  When the last animal had passed and
+the great gates swung to, the young law student rode up to my side, and,
+looking at the “great tropilla,” as he called it, said, “_Morituri te
+salutant_.  This is the last time they will feed in Bopicuá.”  We turned
+a moment, and the falling sun lit up the undulating plain, gilding the
+cottony tufts of the long grasses, falling upon the dark-green leaves of
+the low trees around Parodi’s camp, glinting across the belt of wood that
+fringed the Uruguay, and striking full upon a white estancia house in
+Entre-Rios, making it appear quite close at hand, although four leagues
+away.
+
+Two or three hundred yards from the great gateway stood a little native
+hut, as unsophisticated, but for a telephone, as were the gaucho’s huts
+in Uruguay, as I remember them full thirty years ago.  A wooden barrel on
+a sledge for bringing water had been left close to the door, at which the
+occupant sat drinking maté, tapping with a long knife upon his boot.
+Under a straw-thatched shelter stood a saddled horse, and a small boy
+upon a pony slowly drove up a flock of sheep.  A blue, fine smoke that
+rose from a few smouldering logs and bones, blended so completely with
+the air that one was not quite sure if it was really smoke or the
+reflection of the distant Uruguay against the atmosphere.
+
+Not far off lay the bones of a dead horse, with bits of hide adhering to
+them, shrivelled into mere parchment by the sun.  All this I saw as in a
+camera-lucida, seated a little sideways on my horse, and thinking sadly
+that I, too, had looked my last on Bopicuá.  It is not given to all men
+after a break of years to come back to the scenes of youth, and still
+find in them the same zest as of old.  To return again to all the cares
+of life called civilised, with all its littlenesses, its newspapers all
+full of nothing, its sordid aims disguised under high-sounding nicknames,
+its hideous riches and its sordid poverty, its want of human sympathy,
+and, above all, its barbarous war brought on it by the folly of its
+rulers, was not just at that moment an alluring thought, as I felt the
+little “malacara” {201} that I rode twitching his bridle, striving to be
+off.  When I had touched him with the spur he bounded forward and soon
+overtook the caballada, and the place which for so many months’ had been
+part of my life sank out of sight, just as an island in the Tropics fades
+from view as the ship leaves it, as it were, hull down.
+
+When we had passed into the great enclosure of La Pileta, and still four
+or five miles remained to go, we pressed the caballada into a long trot,
+certain that the danger of a stampede was past.  Wonderful and sad it was
+to ride behind so many horses, trampling knee-high through the wild
+grasses of the Camp, snorting and biting at each other, and all
+unconscious that they would never more career across the plains.  Strange
+and affecting, too, to see how those who had known each other all kept
+together in the midst of the great herd, resenting all attempts of their
+companions to separate them.
+
+A “tropilla” {202} that we had bought from a Frenchman called Leon,
+composed of five brown horses, had ranged itself around its bell mare, a
+fine chestnut, like a bodyguard.  They fought off any of the other horses
+who came near her, and seemed to look at her both with affection and with
+pride.
+
+Two little bright bay horses, with white legs and noses, that were
+brothers, and what in Uruguay are known as “seguidores,” that is, one
+followed the other wherever it might go, ran on the outskirts of the
+herd.  When either of them stopped to eat, its companion turned its head
+and neighed to it, when it came galloping up.  Arena, our head man,
+riding beside me on a skewbald, looked at them, and, after dashing
+forward to turn a runaway, wheeled round his horse almost in the air and
+stopped it in a bound, so suddenly that for an instant they stood poised
+like an equestrian statue, looked at the “seguidores,” and remarked,
+“Patron, I hope one shell will kill them both in the Great War if they
+have got to die.”  I did not answer, except to curse the Boches with all
+the intensity the Spanish tongue commands.  The young law-student added
+his testimony, and we rode on in silence.
+
+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.
+
+{114a}  Lopez Cogulludo, _Historia de Yucatan_.
+
+{114b}  Era gran Escriturario.
+
+{115}  El sagrado misterio de la encarnacion de el eterno Verbo.
+
+{116a}  Los barbaros infideles.
+
+{116b}  Entendiendo que era animal de razon.
+
+{118}  Arrebatado de un furioso selo de la honra de Dios.
+
+{187}  Wild horse.
+
+{190}  Argentine saddle.
+
+{194a}  _Golilla_, which originally meant a ruff, is now used for a
+handkerchief round the neck.
+
+{194b}  _Cojinillo_, part of the recado.
+
+{201}  _Malacara_, literally Badface, is the name used for a white-faced
+horse.  In old days in England such a horse was called Baldfaced.
+
+{202}  Little troop.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROUGHT FORWARD***
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+     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Brought Forward, by R. B. Cunninghame Graham</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Brought Forward, by R. B. Cunninghame Graham
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Brought Forward
+
+
+Author: R. B. Cunninghame Graham
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2015  [eBook #47930]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROUGHT FORWARD***
+</pre>
+<p>This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.</p>
+<h2><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h2>
+<p class="gutindent">FAITH.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">HOPE.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">CHARITY.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">SUCCESS.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">PROGRESS.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">HIS PEOPLE.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">A HATCHMENT.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">THIRTEEN STORIES.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>MOGREB EL ACKSA: A Journey in Morocco.</p>
+<p class="gutindent">(<i>New Edition in Preparation</i>.)</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h1>BROUGHT FORWARD</h1>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br
+/>
+R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br />
+DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">3 HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GARDEN,
+W.C.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. iv</span><i>First Published</i> 1916.<br />
+<i>Second Impression</i> 1917.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. v</span><span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">COMMANDER</span><br />
+CHARLES E. F. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM<br />
+R.N.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+vii</span>PREFACE</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Luckily</span> the war has made eggs too
+expensive for me to fear the public will pelt me off the stage
+with them.</p>
+<p>Still after years of writing one naturally dreads the cold
+potato and the orange-peel.</p>
+<p>I once in talking said to a celebrated dancer who was about to
+bid farewell to her admirers and retire to private life,
+&ldquo;Perhaps you will take a benefit when you come back from
+finishing your last tour.&rdquo;&nbsp; She answered, &ldquo;Yes .
+. .&rdquo;; and then added, &ldquo;or perhaps two.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>That is not my way, for all my life I have loved bread, bread,
+and wine, wine, not caring for half-measures, like your true
+Scot, of whom it has been said, &ldquo;If he believes in
+Christianity he has no doubts, and if he is a disbeliever he has
+none either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+viii</span>Once in the Sierra Madre, either near the Santa Rosa
+Mountains or in the Bolson de M&aacute;pimi, I disremember which,
+out after horses that had strayed, we came upon a little shelter
+made of withies, and covered with one of those striped blankets
+woven by the Navajos.</p>
+<p>A Texan who was with the party pointed to it, and said,
+&ldquo;That is a wickey-up, I guess.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little wigwam, shaped like a gipsy tent, stood close to a
+thicket of huisach&eacute; trees in flower.&nbsp; Their round and
+ball-like blossoms filled the air with a sweet scent.&nbsp; A
+stream ran gently tinkling over its pebbly bed, and the tall
+prairie grasses flowed up to the lost little hut as if they would
+engulf it like a sea.</p>
+<p>On every side of the deep valley&mdash;for I forgot to say the
+hut stood in a valley&mdash;towered hills with great, flat, rocky
+sides.&nbsp; On some of them the Indian tribes had scratched rude
+pictures, records of their race.</p>
+<p>In one of them&mdash;I remember it just as if now it was
+before my eyes&mdash;an Indian chief, surrounded by his friends,
+was setting free his <a name="pageix"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. ix</span>favourite horse upon the prairies,
+either before his death or in reward of faithful services.&nbsp;
+The little group of men cut in the stone, most probably with an
+obsidian arrow-head, was life-like, though drawn without
+perspective, which gave those figures of a vanished race an air
+of standing in the clouds.</p>
+<p>The chief stood with his bridle in his hand, his feather
+war-bonnet upon his head, naked except the breech-clout.&nbsp;
+His bow was slung across his shoulders and his quiver hung below
+his arm, and with the other hand he kept the sun off from his
+face as he gazed upon his horse.&nbsp; All kinds of hunting
+scenes were there displayed, and others, such as the burial of a
+chief, a dance, and other ceremonials, no doubt as dear to those
+who drew them as are the rites in a cathedral to other
+faithful.&nbsp; The flat rock bore one more inscription, stating
+that Eusebio Leal passed by bearing despatches, and the date,
+June the fifteenth, of the year 1687.&nbsp; But to return again
+to the lone wickey-up.</p>
+<p>We all sat looking at it: Eustaquio Gomez, <a
+name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span>Polibio Medina,
+Exaltacion Garcia, the Texan, two Pueblo Indians, and I who write
+these lines.</p>
+<p>Somehow it had an eerie look about it, standing so desolate,
+out in those flowery wilds.</p>
+<p>Inside it lay the body of a man, with the skin dry as
+parchment, and his arms beside him, a Winchester, a bow and
+arrows, and a lance.&nbsp; Eustaquio, taking up an arrow, after
+looking at it, said that the dead man was an Apache of the
+Mescalero band, and then, looking upon the ground and pointing
+out some marks, said, &ldquo;He had let loose his horse before he
+died, just as the chief did in the picture-writing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>That was his epitaph, for how death overtook him none of us
+could conjecture; but I liked the manner of his going off the
+stage.</p>
+<p>&rsquo;Tis meet and fitting to set free the horse or pen
+before death overtakes you, or before the gentle public turns its
+thumbs down and yells, &ldquo;Away with him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Charles Lamb, when some one asked him <a
+name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xi</span>something of
+his works, answered that they were to be found in the South Sea
+House, and that they numbered forty volumes, for he had laboured
+many years there, making his bricks with the least possible
+modicum of straw,&mdash;just like the rest of us.</p>
+<p>Mine, if you ask me, are to be found but in the trails I left
+in all the years I galloped both on the prairies and the pampas
+of America.</p>
+<p>Hold it not up to me for egotism, O gentle reader, for I would
+have you know that hardly any of the horses that I rode had shoes
+on them, and thus the tracks are faint.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Vale</i>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.</p>
+<h2><a name="pagexiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+xiii</span>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Brought Forward</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page1">1</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Los Pingos</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page11">11</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Fidelity</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page30">30</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Uno dei Mille</span>&rdquo;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page40">40</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">With the North-East Wind</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page51">51</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Elysium</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page60">60</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Heredity</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page66">66</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">El Tango Argentino</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page81">81</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">In a Backwater</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page97">97</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Hippomorphous</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page106">106</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Mudejar</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page120">120</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">A Minor Prophet</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page130">130</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XIII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">El Masgad</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page146">146</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XIV.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Feast Day in Santa Maria
+Mayor</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page164">164</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XV.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Bopicu&aacute;</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page185">185</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>I<br />
+BROUGHT FORWARD</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> workshop in Parkhead was not
+inspiriting.&nbsp; From one week&rsquo;s end to another, all
+throughout the year, life was the same, almost without an
+incident.&nbsp; In the long days of the Scotch summer the men
+walked cheerily to work, carrying their dinner in a little
+tin.&nbsp; In the dark winter mornings they tramped in the black
+fog, coughing and spitting, through the black mud of Glasgow
+streets, each with a woollen comforter, looking like a stocking,
+round his neck.</p>
+<p>Outside the dreary quarter of the town, its rows of dingy,
+smoke-grimed streets and the mean houses, the one outstanding
+feature was Parkhead Forge, with its tall chimneys belching smoke
+into the air all day, and flames by night.&nbsp; Its glowing
+furnaces, its giant hammers, its <a name="page2"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 2</span>little railway trucks in which men ran
+the blocks of white-hot iron which poured in streams out of the
+furnaces, flamed like the mouth of hell.</p>
+<p>Inside the workshop the dusty atmosphere made a stranger cough
+on entering the door.&nbsp; The benches with the rows of aproned
+men all bending at their work, not standing upright, with their
+bare, hairy chests exposed, after the fashion of the Vulcans at
+the neighbouring forge, gave a half-air of domesticity to the
+close, stuffy room.</p>
+<p>A semi-sedentary life quickened their intellect; for where men
+work together they are bound to talk about the topics of the day,
+especially in Scotland, where every man is a born politician and
+a controversialist.&nbsp; At meal-times, when they ate their
+&ldquo;piece&rdquo; and drank their tea that they had carried
+with them in tin flasks, each one was certain to draw out a
+newspaper from the pocket of his coat, and, after studying it
+from the Births, Deaths, and Marriages, down to the
+editor&rsquo;s address on the last page, fall a-disputing upon
+politics.&nbsp; &ldquo;Man, a gran&rsquo; speech by Bonar Law
+aboot Home Rule.&nbsp; They Irish, set them up, what <a
+name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>do they make
+siccan a din aboot?&nbsp; Ca&rsquo; ye it Home Rule?&nbsp; I
+juist ca&rsquo; it Rome Rule.&nbsp; A miserable, priest-ridden
+crew, the hale rick-ma-tick o&rsquo; them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The reader then would pause and, looking round the shop, wait
+for the answer that he was sure would not be long in coming from
+amongst such a thrawn lot of commentators.&nbsp; Usually one or
+other of his mates would fold his paper up, or perhaps point with
+an oil-stained finger to an article, and with the head-break in
+the voice, characteristic of the Scot about to plunge into an
+argument, ejaculate: &ldquo;Bonar Law, ou aye, I kent him when he
+was leader of the South Side Parliament.&nbsp; He always was a
+dreary body, sort o&rsquo; dreich like; no that I&rsquo;m saying
+the man is pairfectly illiterate, as some are on his side
+o&rsquo; the Hoose there in Westminister.&nbsp; I read his
+speech&mdash;the body is na blate, sort o&rsquo; quick at
+figures, but does na take the pains to verify.&nbsp; Verification
+is the soul of mathematics.&nbsp; Bonar Law, eh!&nbsp; Did ye see
+how Maister Asquith trippit him handily in his tabulated figures
+on the jute business under Free Trade, showing that all he had
+advanced about protective tariffs and <a name="page4"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 4</span>the drawback system was fair
+redeeklous . . . as well as several errors in the total
+sum?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then others would cut in and words be bandied to and fro,
+impugning the good faith and honour of every section of the House
+of Commons, who, by the showing of their own speeches, were held
+to be dishonourable rogues aiming at power and place, without a
+thought for anything but their own ends.</p>
+<p>This charitable view of men and of affairs did not prevent any
+of the disputants from firing up if his own party was impugned;
+for in their heart of hearts the general denunciation was but a
+covert from which to attack the other side.</p>
+<p>In such an ambient the war was sure to be discussed; some held
+the German Emperor was mad&mdash;&ldquo;a daft-like thing to
+challenge the whole world, ye see; maist inconsiderate, and shows
+that the man&rsquo;s intellect is no weel balanced . . .
+philosophy is whiles sort of unsettlin&rsquo; . . . the
+felly&rsquo;s mad, ye ken.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Others saw method in his madness, and alleged that it was
+envy, &ldquo;naething but sheer envy that had brought on this
+tramplin&rsquo; upon natural rights, but for all that he may be
+<a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>thought to
+get his own again, with they indemnities.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Those who had studied economics &ldquo;were of opinion that
+his reasoning was wrong, built on false premises, for there can
+never be a royal road to wealth.&nbsp; Labour, ye see, is the
+sole creative element of riches.&rdquo;&nbsp; At once a Tory
+would rejoin, &ldquo;And brains.&nbsp; Man, what an awfu&rsquo;
+thing to leave out brains.&nbsp; Think of the marvellous
+creations of the human genius.&rdquo;&nbsp; The first would
+answer with, &ldquo;I saw ye coming, man.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll no
+deny that brains have their due place in the economic state; but
+build me one of your Zeppelins and stick it in the middle of
+George Square without a crew to manage it, and how far will it
+fly?&nbsp; I do not say that brains did not devise it; but, after
+all, labour had to carry out the first design.&rdquo;&nbsp; This
+was a subject that opened up enormous vistas for discussion, and
+for a time kept them from talking of the war.</p>
+<p>Jimmy and Geordie, hammering away in one end of the room, took
+little part in the debate.&nbsp; Good workmen both of them, and
+friends, perhaps because of the difference of their temperaments,
+for Jimmy was the type <a name="page6"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 6</span>of red-haired, blue-eyed, tall, lithe
+Scot, he of the <i>perfervidum ingenium</i>, and Geordie was a
+thick-set, black-haired, dour and silent man.</p>
+<p>Both of them read the war news, and Jimmy, when he read,
+commented loudly, bringing down his fist upon the paper,
+exclaiming, &ldquo;Weel done, Gordons!&rdquo; or &ldquo;That was
+a richt gude charge upon the trenches by the
+Sutherlands.&rdquo;&nbsp; Geordie would answer shortly,
+&ldquo;Aye, no sae bad,&rdquo; and go on hammering.</p>
+<p>One morning, after a reverse, Jimmy did not appear, and
+Geordie sat alone working away as usual, but if possible more
+dourly and more silently.&nbsp; Towards midday it began to be
+whispered in the shop that Jimmy had enlisted, and men turned to
+Geordie to ask if he knew anything about it, and the silent
+workman, brushing the sweat off his brow with his coat-sleeve,
+rejoined: &ldquo;Aye, ou aye, I went wi&rsquo; him yestreen to
+the headquarters o&rsquo; the Camerons; he&rsquo;s joined the
+kilties richt eneugh.&nbsp; Ye mind he was a sergeant in South
+Africa.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then he bent over to his work and did not
+join in the general conversation that ensued.</p>
+<p>Days passed, and weeks, and his fellow-workmen, in the way men
+will, occasionally <a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+7</span>bantered Geordie, asking him if he was going to enlist,
+and whether he did not think shame to let his friend go off alone
+to fight.&nbsp; Geordie was silent under abuse and banter, as he
+had always been under the injustices of life, and by degrees
+withdrew into himself, and when he read his newspaper during the
+dinner-hour made no remark, but folded it and put it quietly into
+the pocket of his coat.</p>
+<p>Weeks passed, weeks of suspense, of flaring headlines in the
+Press, of noise of regiments passing down the streets, of
+newsboys yelling hypothetic victories, and of the tension of the
+nerves of men who know their country&rsquo;s destiny is hanging
+in the scales.&nbsp; Rumours of losses, of defeats, of victories,
+of checks and of advances, of naval battles, with hints of
+dreadful slaughter filled the air.&nbsp; Women in black were seen
+about, pale and with eyelids swollen with weeping, and people
+scanned the reports of killed and wounded with dry throats and
+hearts constricted as if they had been wrapped in whipcord, only
+relaxing when after a second look they had assured themselves the
+name they feared to see was absent from the list.</p>
+<p>Long strings of Clydesdale horses ridden by <a
+name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>men in ragged
+clothes, who sat them uneasily, as if they felt their situation
+keenly, perched up in the public view, passed through the
+streets.&nbsp; The massive caulkers on their shoes struck fire
+occasionally upon the stones, and the great beasts, taught to
+rely on man as on a god from the time they gambolled in the
+fields, went to their doom unconsciously, the only mitigation of
+their fate.&nbsp; Regiments of young recruits, some in plain
+clothes and some in hastily-made uniforms, marched with as
+martial an air as three weeks&rsquo; training gave them, to the
+stations to entrain.&nbsp; Pale clerks, the elbows of their
+jackets shiny with the slavery of the desk, strode beside men
+whose hands were bent and scarred with gripping on the handles of
+the plough in February gales or wielding sledges at the
+forge.</p>
+<p>All of them were young and resolute, and each was confident
+that he at least would come back safe to tell the tale.&nbsp; Men
+stopped and waved their hats, cheering their passage, and girls
+and women stood with flushed cheeks and straining eyes as they
+passed on for the first stage that took them towards the
+front.&nbsp; Boys ran beside them, hatless and barefooted, <a
+name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>shouting out
+words that they had caught up on the drill-ground to the men, who
+whistled as they marched a slow and grinding tune that sounded
+like a hymn.</p>
+<p>Traffic was drawn up close to the kerbstone, and from the top
+of tram-cars and from carts men cheered, bringing a flush of
+pride to many a pale cheek in the ranks.&nbsp; They passed on;
+men resumed the business of their lives, few understanding that
+the half-trained, pale-faced regiment that had vanished through
+the great station gates had gone to make that business possible
+and safe.</p>
+<p>Then came a time of waiting for the news, of contradictory
+paragraphs in newspapers, and then a telegram, the &ldquo;enemy
+is giving ground on the left wing&rdquo;; and instantly a feeling
+of relief that lightened every heart, as if its owner had been
+fighting and had stopped to wipe his brow before he started to
+pursue the flying enemy.</p>
+<p>The workmen in the brassfitters&rsquo; shop came to their work
+as usual on the day of the good news, and at the dinner-hour read
+out the accounts of the great battle, clustering upon each
+other&rsquo;s shoulders in their eagerness.&nbsp; At <a
+name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>last one
+turned to scan the list of casualties.&nbsp; Cameron, Campbell,
+M&rsquo;Alister, Jardine, they read, as they ran down the list,
+checking the names off with a match.&nbsp; The reader stopped,
+and looked towards the corner where Geordie still sat working
+silently.</p>
+<p>All eyes were turned towards him, for the rest seemed to
+divine even before they heard the name.&nbsp; &ldquo;Geordie man,
+Jimmy&rsquo;s killed,&rdquo; the reader said, and as he spoke
+Geordie laid down his hammer, and, reaching for his coat, said,
+&ldquo;Jimmy&rsquo;s killed, is he?&nbsp; Well, some one&rsquo;s
+got to account for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then, opening the door, he walked out dourly, as if already he
+felt the knapsack on his back and the avenging rifle in his
+hand.</p>
+<h2><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>II<br
+/>
+LOS PINGOS</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> amphitheatre of wood enclosed a
+bay that ran so far into the land it seemed a lake.&nbsp; The
+Uruguay flowed past, but the bay was so land-locked and so well
+defended by an island lying at its mouth that the illusion was
+complete, and the bay appeared to be cut off from all the
+world.</p>
+<p>Upon the river twice a day passed steamboats, which at
+night-time gave an air as of a section of a town that floated
+past the wilderness.&nbsp; Streams of electric light from every
+cabin lit up the yellow, turgid river, and the notes of a band
+occasionally floated across the water as the vessel passed.&nbsp;
+Sometimes a searchlight falling on a herd of cattle, standing as
+is their custom after nightfall upon a little hill, made them
+stampede into the darkness, <a name="page12"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 12</span>dashing through brushwood or
+floundering through a marsh, till they had placed themselves in
+safety from this new terror of the night.</p>
+<p>Above the bay the ruins of a great building stood.&nbsp; Built
+scarcely fifty years ago, and now deserted, the ruins had taken
+on an air as of a castle, and from the walls sprang plants,
+whilst in the deserted courtyard a tree had grown, amongst whose
+branches oven-birds had built their hanging nests of mud.&nbsp;
+Cypresses towered above the primeval hard-wood, which grew all
+gnarled and horny-looking, and nearly all had kept their Indian
+names, as &ntilde;andubay, cha&ntilde;ar, tala and sarandi,
+molle, and many another name as crabbed as the trunks which,
+twisted and distorted, looked like the limbs of giants growing
+from the ground.</p>
+<p>Orange trees had run wild and shot up all unpruned, and apple
+trees had reverted back to crabs.&nbsp; The trunks of all the
+fruit-trees in the deserted garden round the ruined factory were
+rubbed shiny by the cattle, for all the fences had long been
+destroyed or fallen into decay.</p>
+<p>A group of roofless workmen&rsquo;s cottages <a
+name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>gave an air
+of desolation to the valley in which the factory and its
+dependencies had stood.&nbsp; They too had been invaded by the
+powerful sub-tropical plant life, and creepers covered with
+bunches of bright flowers climbed up their walls.&nbsp; A
+sluggish stream ran through the valley and joined the Uruguay,
+making a little natural harbour.&nbsp; In it basked cat-fish, and
+now and then from off the banks a tortoise dropped into the water
+like a stone.&nbsp; Right in the middle of what once had been the
+square grew a ceiba tree, covered with lilac flowers, hanging in
+clusters like gigantic grapes.&nbsp; Here and there stood some
+old omb&uacute;s, their dark metallic leaves affording an
+impenetrable shade.&nbsp; Their gnarled and twisted roots, left
+half-exposed by the fierce rains, gave an unearthly, prehistoric
+look to them that chimed in well with the deserted air of the
+whole place.&nbsp; It seemed that man for once had been subdued,
+and that victorious nature had resumed her sway over a region
+wherein he had endeavoured to intrude, and had been worsted in
+the fight.</p>
+<p>Nature had so resumed her sway that <a name="page14"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 14</span>buildings, planted trees, and paths
+long overgrown with grass, seemed to have been decayed for
+centuries, although scarce twenty years had passed since they had
+been deserted and had fallen into decay.</p>
+<p>They seemed to show the power of the recuperative force of the
+primeval forest, and to call attention to the fact that man had
+suffered a defeat.&nbsp; Only the grass in the deserted square
+was still triumphant, and grew short and green, like an oasis in
+the rough natural grasses that flowed nearly up to it, in the
+clearings of the woods.</p>
+<p>The triumph of the older forces of the world had been so final
+and complete that on the ruins there had grown no moss, but
+plants and bushes with great tufts of grass had sprung from them,
+leaving the stones still fresh as when the houses were first
+built.&nbsp; Nature in that part of the New World enters into no
+compact with mankind, as she does over here in Europe to touch
+his work kindly and almost with a reverent hand, and blend it
+into something half compounded of herself.&nbsp; There bread is
+bread and wine is wine, with no half-tints to make one body of
+the whole.&nbsp; The one <a name="page15"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 15</span>remaining evidence of the aggression
+of mankind, which still refused to bow the knee to the
+overwhelming genius of the place, was a round bunch of eucalyptus
+trees that stood up stark and unblushing, the colour of the
+trunks and leaves so harshly different from all around them that
+they looked almost vulgar, if such an epithet can be properly
+applied to anything but man.&nbsp; Under their exiguous shade
+were spread saddles and bridles, and on the ground sat men
+smoking and talking, whilst their staked-out horses fed, fastened
+to picket-pins by raw-hide ropes.&nbsp; So far away from
+everything the place appeared that the group of men looked like a
+band of pioneers upon some frontier, to which the ruins only gave
+an air of melancholy, but did nothing to dispel the
+loneliness.</p>
+<p>As they sat idly talking, trying to pass, or, as they would
+have said, trying to make time, suddenly in the distance the
+whistle of an approaching steamer brought the outside world into
+the little, lonely paradise.&nbsp; Oddly enough it sounded, in
+the hot, early morning air, already heavy with the scent of the
+mimosas in full bloom.&nbsp; Butterflies flitted to and fro <a
+name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>or soared
+above the scrub, and now and then a wild mare whinnied from the
+thickets, breaking the silence of the lone valley through which
+the yellow, little stream ran to the Uruguay.</p>
+<p>Catching their horses and rolling up the ropes, the men, who
+had been sitting underneath the trees, mounted, and following a
+little cattle trail, rode to a high bluff looking down the
+stream.</p>
+<p>Panting and puffing, as she belched out a column of black
+smoke, some half a mile away, a tug towing two lighters strove
+with the yellow flood.&nbsp; The horsemen stood like statues with
+their horses&rsquo; heads stretched out above the water thirty
+feet below.</p>
+<p>Although the feet of several of the horses were but an inch or
+two from the sheer limit, the men sat, some of them with one leg
+on their horses&rsquo; necks; others lit cigarettes, and one,
+with his horse sideways to the cliff, leaned sideways, so that
+one of his feet was in the air.&nbsp; He pointed to the advancing
+tug with a brown finger, and exclaimed, &ldquo;These are the
+lighters with the horses that must have started yesterday from
+Gualeguaych&uacute;, and ought to have been <a
+name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>here last
+night.&rdquo;&nbsp; We had indeed been waiting all the night for
+them, sleeping round a fire under the eucalyptus grove, and
+rising often in the night to smoke and talk, to see our horses
+did not get entangled in their stake ropes, and to listen for the
+whistle of the tug.</p>
+<p>The tug came on but slowly, fighting her way against the rapid
+current, with the lighters towing behind her at some distance,
+looking like portions of a pier that had somehow or another got
+adrift.</p>
+<p>From where we sat upon our horses we could see the surface of
+the Uruguay for miles, with its innumerable flat islands buried
+in vegetation, cutting the river into channels; for the islands,
+having been formed originally by masses of water-weeds and
+drift-wood, were but a foot or two above the water, and all were
+elongated, forming great ribbons in the stream.</p>
+<p>Upon the right bank stretched the green prairies of the State
+of Entre-Rios, bounded on either side by the Uruguay and
+Paran&aacute;.&nbsp; Much flatter than the land upon the
+Uruguayan bank, it still was not a sea of level grass as is <a
+name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>the State of
+Buenos Aires, but undulating, and dotted here and there with
+white estancia houses, all buried in great groves of peach trees
+and of figs.&nbsp; On the left bank on which we stood, and three
+leagues off, we could just see Fray Bentos, its houses dazzlingly
+white, buried in vegetation, and in the distance like a thousand
+little towns in Southern Italy and Spain, or even in Morocco, for
+the tower of the church might in the distance just as well have
+been a minaret.</p>
+<p>The tug-boat slowed a little, and a canoe was slowly paddled
+out to pilot her into the little haven made by the brook that
+flowed down through the valley to the Uruguay.</p>
+<p>Sticking out like a fishing-rod, over the stem of the canoe
+was a long cane, to sound with if it was required.</p>
+<p>The group of horsemen on the bluff rode slowly down towards
+the river&rsquo;s edge to watch the evolutions of the tug, and to
+hold back the horses when they should be disembarked.&nbsp; By
+this time she had got so near that we could see the horses&rsquo;
+heads looking out wildly from the sparred sides of the great
+decked lighters, and hear the thunderous noise their <a
+name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>feet made
+tramping on the decks.&nbsp; Passing the bay, into which ran the
+stream, by about three hundred yards, the tug cast off one of the
+lighters she was towing, in a backwater.&nbsp; There it remained,
+the current slowly bearing it backwards, turning round upon
+itself.&nbsp; In the wild landscape, with ourselves upon our
+horses forming the only human element, the gigantic lighter with
+its freight of horses looked like the ark, as set forth in some
+old-fashioned book on Palestine.&nbsp; Slowly the tug crept in,
+the Indian-looking pilot squatted in his canoe sounding
+assiduously with his long cane.&nbsp; As the tug drew about six
+feet of water and the lighter not much more than three, the
+problem was to get the lighter near enough to the bank, so that
+when the hawser was cast off she would come in by her own
+way.&nbsp; Twice did the tug ground, and with furious shoutings
+and with all the crew staving on poles, was she got off
+again.&nbsp; At last the pilot found a little deeper channel, and
+coming to about some fifty feet away, lying a length or two above
+the spot where the stream entered the great river, she paid her
+hawser out, and as the lighter drifted shorewards, cast it off,
+and the great <a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+20</span>ark, with all its freight, grounded quite gently on the
+little sandy beach.&nbsp; The Italian captain of the tug, a
+Genoese, with his grey hair as curly as the wool on a
+sheep&rsquo;s back, wearing a pale pink shirt, neatly set off
+with yellow horseshoes, and a blue gauze necktie tied in a
+flowing bow, pushed off his dirty little boat, rowed by a negro
+sailor and a Neapolitan, who dipped their oars into the water
+without regard to one another, either as to time or stroke.</p>
+<p>The captain stepped ashore, mopping his face with a yellow
+pocket-handkerchief, and in the jargon between Spanish and
+Italian that men of his sort all affect out in the River Plate,
+saluted us, and cursed the river for its sandbanks and its turns,
+and then having left it as accursed as the Styx or
+Periphlegethon, he doubly cursed the Custom House, which, as he
+said, was all composed of thieves, the sons of thieves, who would
+be certainly begetters of the same.&nbsp; Then he calmed down a
+little, and drawing out a long Virginia cigar, took out the straw
+with seriousness and great dexterity, and then allowed about a
+quarter of an inch of it to smoulder in a match, lighted it, and
+<a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>sending
+out a cloud of smoke, sat down upon the grass, and fell
+a-cursing, with all the ingenuity of his profession and his race,
+the country, the hot weather, and the saints.</p>
+<p>This done, and having seen the current was slowly bearing down
+the other lighter past the sandy beach, with a last hearty curse
+upon God&rsquo;s mother and her Son, whose birth he hinted not
+obscurely was of the nature of a mystery, in which he placed no
+credence, got back into his boat, and went back to his tug,
+leaving us all amazed, both at his fluency and faith.</p>
+<p>When he had gone and grappled with the other lighter which was
+slowly drifting down the stream, two or three men came forward in
+the lighter that was already in the little river&rsquo;s mouth,
+about a yard or so distant from the edge, and calling to us to be
+ready, for the horses had not eaten for sixteen hours at least,
+slowly let down the wooden landing-flap.&nbsp; At first the
+horses craned their necks and looked out on the grass, but did
+not venture to go down the wooden landing-stage; then a big roan,
+stepping out gingerly and snorting as he <a
+name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>went,
+adventured, and when he stood upon the grass, neighed shrilly and
+then rolled.&nbsp; In a long string the others followed, the
+clattering of their unshod feet upon the wood sounding like
+distant thunder.</p>
+<p>Byrne, the Porte&ntilde;o, stout and high-coloured, dressed in
+great thigh boots and baggy breeches, a black silk handkerchief
+tied loosely round his neck, a black felt hat upon his head, and
+a great silver watch-chain, with a snaffle-bridle in the middle
+of it, contrasting oddly with his broad pistol belt, with its old
+silver dollars for a fastening, came ashore, carrying his saddle
+on his back.&nbsp; Then followed Doherty, whose name, quite
+unpronounceable to men of Latin race, was softened in their
+speech to Duarte, making a good Castilian patronymic of it.&nbsp;
+He too was a Porte&ntilde;o, <a name="citation22"></a><a
+href="#footnote22" class="citation">[22]</a> although of Irish
+stock.&nbsp; Tall, dark, and dressed in semi-native clothes, he
+yet, like Byrne, always spoke Spanish when no foreigners were
+present, and in his English that softening of the consonants and
+broadening of the vowels was discernible that makes the speech of
+men such as himself have <a name="page23"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 23</span>in it something, as it were,
+caressing, strangely at variance with their character.&nbsp; Two
+or three peons of the usual Gaucho type came after them, all
+carrying saddles, and walking much as an alligator waddles on the
+sand, or as the Medes whom Xenophon describes, mincing upon their
+toes, in order not to blunt the rowels of their spurs.</p>
+<p>Our men, Garcia the innkeeper of Fray Bentos, with Pablo
+Suarez, whose negro blood and crispy hair gave him a look as of a
+Roman emperor of the degenerate times, with Pancho Arrellano and
+Miguel Paralelo, the Gaucho dandy, swaying upon his horse with
+his toes just touching his heavy silver stirrups with a crown
+underneath them, Velez and El Pampita, an Indian who had been
+captured young on the south Pampa, were mounted ready to round
+the horses up.</p>
+<p>They did not want much care, for they were eating ravenously,
+and all we had to do was to drive them a few hundred yards away
+to let the others land.</p>
+<p>By this time the Italian captain in his tug had gently brought
+the other lighter to the beach, and from its side another string
+of horses <a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+24</span>came out on to the grass.&nbsp; They too all rolled,
+and, seeing the other band, by degrees mixed with it, so that
+four hundred horses soon were feeding ravenously on the sweet
+grass just at the little river&rsquo;s mouth that lay between its
+banks and the thick belt of wood.</p>
+<p>Though it was early, still the sun was hot, and for an hour we
+held the horses back, keeping them from the water till they had
+eaten well.</p>
+<p>The Italian tugmaster, having produced a bottle of trade gin
+(the Anchor brand), and having drank our health, solemnly wiped
+the neck of the bottle with his grimy hand and passed it round to
+us.&nbsp; We also drank to his good health and voyage to the
+port, that he pronounced as if it were written &ldquo;Bono
+Airi,&rdquo; adding, as it was war-time, &ldquo;Avanti
+Savoia&rdquo; to the toast.&nbsp; He grinned, and with a gesture
+of his thick dirty hand, adorned with two or three
+coppery-looking rings, as it were, embedded in the flesh,
+pronounced an all-embracing curse on the Tedeschi, and went
+aboard the tug.</p>
+<p>When he had made the lighters fast, he turned down stream,
+saluting us with three <a name="page25"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 25</span>shrill blasts upon the whistle, and
+left us and our horses thousands of miles away from steam and
+smoke, blaspheming skippers, and the noise and push of modern
+life.</p>
+<p>Humming-birds poised themselves before the purple bunches of
+the ceiba <a name="citation25"></a><a href="#footnote25"
+class="citation">[25]</a> flowers, their tongues thrust into the
+calyx and their iridescent wings whirring so rapidly, you could
+see the motion, but not mark the movement, and from the yellow
+balls of the mimosas came a scent, heady and comforting.</p>
+<p>Flocks of green parroquets flew shrieking over the clearing in
+which the horses fed, to their great nests, in which ten or a
+dozen seemed to harbour, and hung suspended from them by their
+claws, or crawled into the holes.&nbsp; Now and then a few
+locusts, wafted by the breeze, passed by upon their way to spread
+destruction in the plantations of young poplars and of orange
+trees in the green islands in the stream.</p>
+<p>An air of peace gave a strange interest to this little corner
+of a world plunged into strife and woe.&nbsp; The herders nodded
+on their <a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+26</span>horses, who for their part hung down their heads, and
+now and then shifted their quarters so as to bring their heads
+into the shade.&nbsp; The innkeeper, Garcia, in his town clothes,
+and perched upon a tall grey horse, to use his own words,
+&ldquo;sweated blood and water like our Lord&rdquo; in the fierce
+glare of the ascending sun.&nbsp; Suarez and Paralelo pushed the
+ends of the red silk handkerchiefs they wore tied loosely round
+their necks, with two points like the wings of a great butterfly
+hanging upon their shoulders, under their hats, and smoked
+innumerable cigarettes, the frontiersman&rsquo;s specific against
+heat or cold.&nbsp; Of all the little company only the Pampa
+Indian showed no sign of being incommoded by the heat.&nbsp; When
+horses strayed he galloped up to turn them, now striking at the
+passing butterflies with his heavy-handled whip, or, letting
+himself fall down from the saddle almost to the ground, drew his
+brown finger on the dust for a few yards, and with a wriggle like
+a snake got back into his saddle with a yell.</p>
+<p>The hours passed slowly, till at last the horses, having
+filled themselves with grass, stopped eating and looked towards
+the river, <a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+27</span>so we allowed them slowly to stream along towards a
+shallow inlet on the beach.&nbsp; There they stood drinking
+greedily, up to their knees, until at last three or four of the
+outermost began to swim.</p>
+<p>Only their heads appeared above the water, and occasionally
+their backs emerging just as a porpoise comes to the surface in a
+tideway, gave them an amphibious air, that linked them somehow or
+another with the classics in that unclassic land.</p>
+<p>Long did they swim and play, and then, coming out into the
+shallow water, drink again, stamping their feet and swishing
+their long tails, rise up and strike at one another with their
+feet.</p>
+<p>As I sat on my horse upon a little knoll, coiling my lazo,
+which had got uncoiled by catching in a bush, I heard a voice in
+the soft, drawling accents of the inhabitants of Corrientes, say,
+&ldquo;Pucha, Pingos.&rdquo; <a name="citation27"></a><a
+href="#footnote27" class="citation">[27]</a></p>
+<p>Turning, I saw the speaker, a Gaucho of about thirty years of
+age, dressed all in black in the old style of thirty years
+ago.&nbsp; His silver <a name="page28"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 28</span>knife, two feet or more in length,
+stuck in his sash, stuck out on both sides of his body like a
+lateen.</p>
+<p>Where he had come from I had no idea, for he appeared to have
+risen from the scrub behind me.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;Puta, Pingos,&rdquo; giving the phrase in the more
+classic, if more unregenerate style, &ldquo;how well they look,
+just like the garden in the plaza at Fray Bentos in the
+sun.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>All shades were there, with every variegation and variety of
+colour, white, and fern noses, chestnuts with a stocking on one
+leg up to the stifle joint, horses with a ring of white right
+round their throats, or with a star as clear as if it had been
+painted on the hip, and &ldquo;tuvianos,&rdquo; that is, brown,
+black, and white, a colour justly prized in Uruguay.</p>
+<p>Turning half round and offering me a cigarette, the Correntino
+spoke again.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is a paradise for all those pingos
+here in this rinc&oacute;n: <a name="citation28"></a><a
+href="#footnote28" class="citation">[28]</a> grass, water,
+everything that they can want, shade, and shelter from the wind
+and sun.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So it appeared to me&mdash;the swiftly flowing <a
+name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>river with
+its green islands; the Pampas grass along the stream; the ruined
+buildings, half-buried in the orange trees run wild; grass,
+shade, and water: &ldquo;Pucha, no . . .&nbsp; Puta, Pingos,
+where are they now?&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>III<br
+/>
+FIDELITY</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> tall host knocked the ashes from
+his pipe, and crossing one leg over the other looked into the
+fire.</p>
+<p>Outside, the wind howled in the trees, and the rain beat upon
+the window-panes.&nbsp; The firelight flickered on the grate,
+falling upon the polished furniture of the low-roofed,
+old-fashioned library, with its high Georgian overmantel, where
+in a deep recess there stood a clock, shaped like a cross, with
+eighteenth-century cupids carved in ivory fluttering round the
+base, and Time with a long scythe standing upon one side.</p>
+<p>In the room hung the scent of an old country-house, compounded
+of so many samples that it is difficult to enumerate them
+all.&nbsp; Beeswax and potpourri of roses, damp, and <a
+name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>the scent of
+foreign woods in the old cabinets, tobacco and wood smoke, with
+the all-pervading smell of age, were some of them.&nbsp; The
+result was not unpleasant, and seemed the complement of the
+well-bound Georgian books standing demure upon their shelves, the
+blackening family portraits, and the skins of red deer and of roe
+scattered about the room.</p>
+<p>The conversation languished, and we both sat listening to the
+storm that seemed to fill the world with noises strange and
+unearthly, for the house was far from railways, and the avenues
+that lead to it were long and dark.&nbsp; The solitude and the
+wild night seemed to have recreated the old world, long lost, and
+changed, but still remembered in that district just where the
+Highlands and the Lowlands meet.</p>
+<p>At such times and in such houses the country really seems
+country once again, and not the gardened, game-keepered mixture
+of shooting ground and of fat fields tilled by machinery to which
+men now and then resort for sport, or to gather in their rents,
+with which the whole world is familiar to-day.</p>
+<p>My host seemed to be struggling with himself to tell me
+something, and as I looked <a name="page32"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 32</span>at him, tall, strong, and upright,
+his face all mottled by the weather, his homespun coat, patched
+on the shoulders with buckskin that once had been white, but now
+was fawn-coloured with wet and from the chafing of his gun, I
+felt the parturition of his speech would probably cost him a
+shrewd throe.&nbsp; So I said nothing, and he, after having
+filled his pipe, ramming the tobacco down with an old silver
+Indian seal, made as he told me in Kurachi, and brought home by a
+great-uncle fifty years ago, slowly began to speak, not looking
+at me, but as it were delivering his thoughts aloud, almost
+unconsciously, looking now and then at me as if he felt, rather
+than knew, that I was there.&nbsp; As he spoke, the tall, stuffed
+hen-harrier; the little Neapolitan shrine in tortoiseshell and
+coral, set thick with saints; the flying dragons from Ceylon,
+spread out like butterflies in a glazed case; the
+&ldquo;poor&rsquo;s-box&rdquo; on the shelf above the books with
+its four silver sides adorned with texts; the rows of blue books,
+and of Scott&rsquo;s Novels (the Roxburgh edition), together with
+the scent exuding from the Kingwood cabinet; the sprays of white
+Scotch rose, outlined against the window blinds; and <a
+name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>the sporting
+prints and family tree, all neatly framed in oak, created the
+impression of being in a world remote, besquired and cut off from
+the century in which we live by more than fifty years.&nbsp; Upon
+the rug before the fire the sleeping spaniel whined uneasily, as
+if, though sleeping, it still scented game, and all the time the
+storm roared in the trees and whistled down the passages of the
+lone country house.&nbsp; One saw in fancy, deep in the recesses
+of the woods, the roe stand sheltering, and the capercailzie
+sitting on the branches of the firs, wet and dejected, like
+chickens on a roost, and little birds sent fluttering along,
+battling for life against the storm.&nbsp; Upon such nights, in
+districts such as that in which the gaunt old house was situated,
+there is a feeling of compassion for the wild things in the woods
+that, stealing over one, bridges the gulf between them and
+ourselves in a mysterious way.&nbsp; Their lot and sufferings,
+joys, loves, and the epitome of their brief lives, come home to
+us with something irresistible, making us feel that our
+superiority is an unreal thing, and that in essentials we are
+one.</p>
+<p>My host went on: &ldquo;Some time ago I <a
+name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>walked up to
+the little moor that overlooks the Clyde, from which you see
+ships far off lying at the Tail of the Bank, the smoke of
+Greenock and Port Glasgow, the estuary itself, though miles away,
+looking like a sheet of frosted silver or dark-grey steel,
+according to the season, and in the distance the range of hills
+called Argyle&rsquo;s Bowling Green, with the deep gap that marks
+the entrance to the Holy Loch.&nbsp; Autumn had just begun to
+tinge the trees, birches were golden, and rowans red, the bents
+were brown and dry.&nbsp; A few bog asphodels still showed
+amongst the heather, and bilberries, dark as black currants, grew
+here and there amongst the carpet of green sphagnum and the
+stag&rsquo;s-head moss.&nbsp; The heather was all rusty brown,
+but still there was, as it were, a recollection of the summer in
+the air.&nbsp; Just the kind of day you feel inclined to sit down
+on the lee side of a dry-stone dyke, and smoke and look at some
+familiar self-sown birch that marks the flight of time, as you
+remember that it was but a year or two ago that it had first shot
+up above the grass.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remember two or three plants of tall hemp-agrimony
+still had their flower heads <a name="page35"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 35</span>withered on the stalk, giving them a
+look of wearing wigs, and clumps of ragwort still had a few bees
+buzzing about them, rather faintly, with a belated air.&nbsp; I
+saw all this&mdash;not that I am a botanist, for you know I can
+hardly tell the difference between the Crucifer&aelig; and the
+Umbellifer&aelig;, but because when you live in the country some
+of the common plants seem to obtrude themselves upon you, and you
+have got to notice them in spite of you.&nbsp; So I walked on
+till I came to a wrecked plantation of spruce and of Scotch
+fir.&nbsp; A hurricane had struck it, turning it over almost in
+rows, as it was planted.&nbsp; The trees had withered in most
+cases, and in the open spaces round their upturned roots hundreds
+of rabbits burrowed, and had marked the adjoining field with
+little paths, just like the lines outside a railway-station.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I saw all this, not because I looked at it, for if you
+look with the idea of seeing everything, commonly everything
+escapes you, but because the lovely afternoon induced a feeling
+of well-being and contentment, and everything seemed to fall into
+its right proportion, so that you saw first the harmonious whole,
+and <a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>then
+the salient points most worth the looking at.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I walked along feeling exhilarated with the autumn air
+and the fresh breeze that blew up from the Clyde.&nbsp; I
+remember thinking I had hardly ever felt greater content, and as
+I walked it seemed impossible the world could be so full of rank
+injustice, or that the lot of three-fourths of its population
+could really be so hard.&nbsp; A pack of grouse flew past,
+skimming above the heather, as a shoal of flying-fish skims just
+above the waves.&nbsp; I heard their quacking cries as they
+alighted on some stooks of oats, and noticed that the last bird
+to settle was an old hen, and that, even when all were down, I
+still could see her head, looking out warily above the yellow
+grain.&nbsp; Beyond the ruined wood there came the barking of a
+shepherd&rsquo;s dog, faint and subdued, and almost musical.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sat so long, smoking and looking at the view, that
+when I turned to go the sun was sinking and our long, northern
+twilight almost setting in.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know it,&rdquo; said my host, and I, who often had
+read by its light in summer and the <a name="page37"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 37</span>early autumn, nodded assent,
+wondering to myself what he was going to tell me, and he went
+on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has the property of making all things look a little
+ghostly, deepening the shadows and altering their values, so that
+all that you see seems to acquire an extra significance, not so
+much to the eye as to the mind.&nbsp; Slowly I retraced my steps,
+walking under the high wall of rough piled stones till it ends,
+at the copse of willows, on the north side of the little moor to
+which I had seen the pack of grouse fly after it had left the
+stooks.&nbsp; I crossed into it, and began to walk towards home,
+knee-deep in bent grass and dwarf willows, with here and there a
+patch of heather and a patch of bilberries.&nbsp; The softness of
+the ground so dulled my footsteps that I appeared to walk as
+lightly as a roe upon the spongy surface of the moor.&nbsp; As I
+passed through a slight depression in which the grass grew
+rankly, I heard a wild cry coming, as it seemed, from just
+beneath my feet.&nbsp; Then came a rustling in the grass, and a
+large, dark-grey bird sprang out, repeating the wild cry, and ran
+off swiftly, trailing a broken wing.</p>
+<p><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+38</span>&ldquo;It paused upon a little hillock fifty yards away,
+repeating its strange note, and looking round as if it sought for
+something that it was certain was at hand.&nbsp; High in the air
+the cry, wilder and shriller, was repeated, and a great grey bird
+that I saw was a whaup slowly descended in decreasing circles,
+and settled down beside its mate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They seemed to talk, and then the wounded bird set off
+at a swift run, its fellow circling above its head and uttering
+its cry as if it guided it.&nbsp; I watched them disappear,
+feeling as if an iron belt was drawn tight round my heart, their
+cries growing fainter as the deepening shadows slowly closed upon
+the moor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My host stopped, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and turning
+to me, said:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I watched them go to what of course must have been
+certain death for one of them, furious, with the feelings of a
+murderer towards the man whose thoughtless folly had been the
+cause of so much misery.&nbsp; Curse him!&nbsp; I watched them,
+impotent to help, for as you know the curlew is perhaps the
+wildest of our native birds; and even had I caught the <a
+name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>wounded one
+to set its wing, it would have pined and died.&nbsp; One thing I
+could have done, had I but had a gun and had the light been
+better, I might have shot them both, and had I done so I would
+have buried them beside each other.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I had upon my mind to tell you.&nbsp;
+I think the storm and the wild noises of the struggling trees
+outside have brought it back to me, although it happened years
+ago.&nbsp; Sometimes, when people talk about fidelity, saying it
+is not to be found upon the earth, I smile, for I have seen it
+with my own eyes, and manifest, out on that little
+moor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He filled his pipe, and sitting down in an old leather chair,
+much worn and rather greasy, silently gazed into the fire.</p>
+<p>I, too, was silent, thinking upon the tragedy; then feeling
+that something was expected of me, looked up and murmured,
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>IV<br
+/>
+&ldquo;UNO DEI MILLE&rdquo;</h2>
+<p>A <span class="smcap">veil</span> of mist, the colour of a
+spider&rsquo;s web, rose from the oily river.&nbsp; It met the
+mist that wrapped the palm-trees and the unsubstantial-looking
+houses painted in light blue and yellow ochre, as it descended
+from the hills.&nbsp; Now and then, through the pall of damp, as
+a light air was wafted up the river from the sea, the bright red
+earth upon the hills showed like a stain of blood; canoes,
+paddled by men who stood up, balancing themselves with a slight
+movement of the hips, slipped in and out of sight, now crossing
+just before the steamer&rsquo;s bows and then appearing
+underneath her stern in a mysterious way.&nbsp; From the long
+line of tin-roofed sheds a ceaseless stream of
+snuff-and-butter-coloured men trotted continuously, carrying bags
+of coffee to an elevator, which <a name="page41"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 41</span>shot them headlong down the
+steamer&rsquo;s hold.&nbsp; Their naked feet pattered upon the
+warm, wet concrete of the dock side, as it were stealthily, with
+a sound almost alarming, so like their footfall seemed to that of
+a wild animal.</p>
+<p>The flat-roofed city, buried in sheets of rain, that spouted
+from the eaves of the low houses on the unwary passers-by, was
+stirred unwontedly.&nbsp; Men, who as a general rule lounged at
+the corners of the streets, pressing their shoulders up against
+the houses as if they thought that only by their own
+self-sacrifice the walls were kept from falling, now walked up
+and down, regardless of the rain.</p>
+<p>In the great oblong square, planted with cocoa-palms, in which
+the statue of Cabr&aacute;l stands up in cheap Carrara marble,
+looking as if he felt ashamed of his discovery, a sea of wet
+umbrellas surged to and fro, forging towards the Italian
+Consulate.&nbsp; Squat Genoese and swarthy Neapolitans, with
+sinewy Piedmontese, and men from every province of the peninsula,
+all had left their work.&nbsp; They all discoursed in the same
+tone of voice in which no doubt their ancestors talked in the
+Forum, even when Cicero was speaking, until the <a
+name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>lictors
+forced them to keep silence, for their own eloquence is that
+which in all ages has had most charm for them.&nbsp; The reedy
+voices of the Brazilian coloured men sounded a mere twittering
+compared to their full-bodied tones.&nbsp; &ldquo;Viva
+l&rsquo;Italia&rdquo; pealed out from thousands of strong throats
+as the crowd streamed from the square and filled the narrow
+streets; fireworks that fizzled miserably were shot off in the
+mist, the sticks falling upon the umbrellas of the crowd.&nbsp; A
+shift of wind cleared the mist off the river for a moment,
+leaving an Italian liner full in view.&nbsp; From all her spars
+floated the red and white and green, and on her decks and in the
+rigging, on bridges and on the rail, men, all with bundles in
+their hands, clustered like ants, and cheered incessantly.&nbsp;
+An answering cheer rose from the crowd ashore of &ldquo;Long live
+the Reservists!&nbsp; Viva l&rsquo;Italia,&rdquo; as the vessel
+slowly swung into the stream.&nbsp; From every house excited men
+rushed out and flung themselves and their belongings into boats,
+and scrambled up the vessel&rsquo;s sides as she began to
+move.&nbsp; Brown hands were stretched down to them as they
+climbed on board.&nbsp; From every doorstep in the town women
+with <a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+43</span>handkerchiefs about their heads came out, and with the
+tears falling from their great, black eyes and running down their
+olive cheeks, waved and called out, &ldquo;Addio Giuseppe; addio
+Gian Battista, abbasso gli Tedeschi,&rdquo; and then turned back
+into their homes to weep.&nbsp; On every side Italians stood and
+shouted, and still, from railway station and from the river-side,
+hundreds poured out and gazed at the departing steamer with its
+teeming freight of men.</p>
+<p>Italians from the coffee plantations of S&atilde;o Paulo, from
+the mines of Ouro Preto, from Goyaz, and from the far interior,
+all young and sun-burnt, the flower of those Italian workmen who
+have built the railways of Brazil, and by whose work the strong
+foundations of the prosperity of the Republic have been laid,
+were out, to turn their backs upon the land in which, for the
+first time, most of them had eaten a full meal.&nbsp; Factories
+stood idle, the coasting schooners all were left unmanned, and
+had the coffee harvest not been gathered in, it would have rotted
+on the hills.&nbsp; The Consulate was unapproachable, and round
+it throngs of men struggled to enter, all demanding to get
+home.&nbsp; No rain could damp their <a name="page44"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 44</span>spirits, and those who, after waiting
+hours, came out with tickets, had a look in their eyes as if they
+just had won the chief prize in the lottery.</p>
+<p>Their friends surrounded them, and strained them to their
+hearts, the water from the umbrellas of the crowd trickling in
+rivulets upon the embracer and the embraced.</p>
+<p>Mulatto policemen cleared the path for carriages to pass, and,
+as they came, the gap filled up again as if by magic, till the
+next carriage passed.&nbsp; Suddenly a tremor ran through the
+crowd, moving it with a shiver like the body of a snake.&nbsp;
+All the umbrellas which had seemed to move by their own will,
+covering the crowd and hiding it from view, were shut down
+suddenly.&nbsp; A mist-dimmed sun shone out, watery, but potent,
+and in an instant gaining strength, it dried the streets and made
+a hot steam rise up from the crowd.&nbsp; Slouched hats were
+raised up on one side, and pocket handkerchiefs wrapped up in
+paper were unfolded and knotted loosely round men&rsquo;s necks,
+giving them a look as of domestic bandits as they broke out into
+a patriotic song, which ceased with a long drawn-out
+&ldquo;Viva,&rdquo; <a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+45</span>as the strains of an approaching band were heard and the
+footsteps of men marching through the streets in military
+array.</p>
+<p>The coloured policemen rode their horses through the throng,
+and the streets, which till then had seemed impassable, were
+suddenly left clear.&nbsp; Jangling and crashing out the
+Garibaldian hymn, the band debouched into the square, dressed in
+a uniform half-German, half-Brazilian, with truncated
+pickel-hauben on their heads, in which were stuck a plume of
+gaudy feathers, apparently at the discretion of the wearer,
+making them look like something in a comic opera; a tall mulatto,
+playing on a drum with all the seriousness that only one of his
+colour and his race is able to impart to futile actions,
+swaggered along beside a jet-black negro playing on the
+flute.&nbsp; All the executants wore brass-handled swords of a
+kind never seen in Europe for a hundred years.&nbsp; Those who
+played the trombone and the ophicleide blew till their thick lips
+swelled, and seemed to cover up the mouthpieces.&nbsp; Still they
+blew on, the perspiration rolling down their cheeks, and a black
+boy or two brought up the rear, clashing the cymbals when it
+seemed good to <a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+46</span>them, quite irrespective of the rest.&nbsp; The noise
+was terrifying, and had it not been for the enthusiasm of the
+crowd, the motley band of coloured men, arrayed like popinjays,
+would have been ridiculous; but the dense ranks of hot,
+perspiring men, all in the flower of youth, and every one of whom
+had given up his work to cross the ocean at his country&rsquo;s
+call, had something in them that turned laughter into
+tears.&nbsp; The sons of peasants, who had left their homes,
+driven out from Apulean plains or Lombard rice-fields by the
+pinch of poverty, they now were going back to shed their blood
+for the land that had denied them bread in their own homes.&nbsp;
+Twice did the band march round the town whilst the procession was
+getting ready for a start, and each time that it passed before
+the Consulate, the Consul came out on the steps, bare-headed, and
+saluted with the flag.</p>
+<p>Dressed in white drill, tall, grey-haired, and with the
+washed-out look of one who has spent many years in a hot country,
+the Consul evidently had been a soldier in his youth.&nbsp; He
+stood and watched the people critically, with the appraising look
+of the old officer, so like <a name="page47"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 47</span>to that a grazier puts on at a cattle
+market as he surveys the beasts.&nbsp; &ldquo;Good stuff,&rdquo;
+he muttered to himself, and then drawing his hand across his
+eyes, as if he felt where most of the &ldquo;good stuff&rdquo;
+would lie in a few months, he went back to the house.</p>
+<p>A cheer at the far corner of the square showed that the ranks
+were formed.&nbsp; A policeman on a scraggy horse, with a great
+rusty sabre banging at its side, rode slowly down the streets to
+clear the way, and once again the parti-coloured band passed by,
+playing the Garibaldian hymn.&nbsp; Rank upon rank of men tramped
+after it, their friends running beside them for a last embrace,
+and women rushing up with children for a farewell kiss.&nbsp;
+Their merry faces set with determination, and their shoulders
+well thrown back, three or four hundred men briskly stepped
+along, trying to imitate the way the Bersaglieri march in
+Italy.&nbsp; A shout went up of &ldquo;Long live the
+Reservists,&rdquo; as a contingent, drawn from every class of the
+Italian colony, passed along the street.&nbsp; Dock-labourers and
+pale-faced clerks in well-cut clothes and unsubstantial boots
+walked side by side.&nbsp; Men burnt the colour <a
+name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>of a brick by
+working at the harvest rubbed shoulders with Sicilian emigrants
+landed a month or two ago, but who now were going off to fight,
+as poor as when they left their native land, and dressed in the
+same clothes.&nbsp; Neapolitans, gesticulating as they marched,
+and putting out their tongues at the Brazilian negroes, chattered
+and joked.&nbsp; To them life was a farce, no matter that the
+setting of the stage on which they moved was narrow, the fare
+hard, and the remuneration small.&nbsp; If things were adverse
+they still laughed on, and if the world was kind they jeered at
+it and at themselves, disarming both the slings of fortune and
+her more dangerous smiles with a grimace.</p>
+<p>As they marched on, they now and then sketched out in
+pantomime the fate of any German who might fall into their hands,
+so vividly that shouts of laughter greeted them, which they
+acknowledged by putting out their tongues.&nbsp;
+Square-shouldered Liguresi succeeded them, with Lombards,
+Sicilians, and men of the strange negroid-looking race from the
+Basilicata, almost as dark-skinned as the Brazilian loungers at
+the corners of the streets.</p>
+<p><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>They
+all passed on, laughing, and quite oblivious of what was in store
+for most of them&mdash;laughing and smoking, and, for the first
+time in their lives, the centre of a show.&nbsp; After them came
+another band; but this time of Italians, well-dressed, and
+playing on well-cared-for instruments.&nbsp; Behind them walked a
+little group of men, on whose appearance a hush fell on the
+crowd.&nbsp; Two of them wore uniforms, and between them,
+supported by silk handkerchiefs wrapped round his arms, there
+walked a man who was welcomed with a scream of joy.&nbsp; Frail,
+and with trembling footsteps, dressed in a faded old red shirt
+and knotted handkerchief, his parchment cheeks lit up with a
+faint flush as the Veteran of Marsala passed like a phantom of a
+glorious past.&nbsp; With him appeared to march the rest of his
+companions who set sail from Genoa to call into existence that
+Italy for which the young men all around him were prepared to
+sacrifice their lives.</p>
+<p>To the excited crowd he typified all that their fathers had
+endured to drive the stranger from their land.&nbsp; The two
+Cairoli, Nino Bixio, and the heroic figure, wrapped in his
+poncho, <a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+50</span>who rides in glory on the Janiculum, visible from every
+point of Rome, seemed to march by the old man&rsquo;s side in the
+imagination of the crowd.&nbsp; Women rushed forward, carrying
+flowers, and strewed them on the scant grey locks of the old
+soldier; and children danced in front of him, like little
+Bacchanals.&nbsp; All hats were off as the old man was borne
+along, a phantom of himself, a symbol of a heroic past, and still
+a beacon, flickering but alight, to show the way towards the goal
+which in his youth had seemed impossible to reach.</p>
+<p>Slowly the procession rolled along, surging against the houses
+as an incoming tide swirls up a river, till it reached the
+Consulate.&nbsp; It halted, and the old Garibaldian, drawing
+himself up, saluted the Italian colours.&nbsp; The Consul,
+bare-headed and with tears running down his cheeks, stood for a
+moment, the centre of all eyes, and then, advancing, tore the
+flag from off its staff, and, after kissing it, wrapped it round
+the frail shoulders of the veteran.</p>
+<h2><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>V<br
+/>
+WITH THE NORTH-EAST WIND</h2>
+<p>A <span class="smcap">north-east</span> haar had hung the city
+with a pall of grey.&nbsp; It gave an air of hardness to the
+stone-built houses, blending them with the stone-paved streets,
+till you could scarce see where the houses ended and the street
+began.&nbsp; A thin grey dust hung in the air.&nbsp; It coloured
+everything, and people&rsquo;s faces all looked pinched with the
+first touch of autumn cold.&nbsp; The wind, boisterous and gusty,
+whisked the soot-grimed city leaves about in the high suburb at
+the foot of a long range of hills, making one think it would be
+easy to have done with life on such an uncongenial day.&nbsp;
+Tramways were packed with people of the working class, all of
+them of the alert, quick-witted type only to be seen in the great
+city on the Clyde, in all our Empire, and comparable <a
+name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>alone to the
+dwellers in Chicago for dry vivacity.</p>
+<p>By the air they wore of chastened pleasure, all those who knew
+them saw that they were intent upon a funeral.&nbsp; To
+serious-minded men such as are they, for all their quickness,
+nothing is so soul-filling, for it is of the nature of a fact
+that no one can deny.&nbsp; A wedding has its possibilities, for
+it may lead to children, or divorce, but funerals are in another
+category.&nbsp; At them the Scottish people is at its best, for
+never more than then does the deep underlying tenderness peep
+through the hardness of the rind.&nbsp; On foot and in the
+tramways, but most especially on foot, converged long lines of
+men and women, though fewer women, for the national prejudice
+that in years gone by thought it not decent for a wife to follow
+to the grave her husband&rsquo;s coffin, still holds a little in
+the north.&nbsp; Yet there was something in the crowd that showed
+it was to attend no common funeral, that they were
+&ldquo;stepping west.&rdquo;&nbsp; No one wore black, except a
+minister or two, who looked a little like the belated rook you
+sometimes see amongst a flock of seagulls, in that vast ocean of
+grey tweed.</p>
+<p><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>They
+tramped along, the whistling north-east wind pinching their
+features, making their eyes run, and as they went, almost
+unconsciously they fell into procession, for beyond the tramway
+line, a country lane that had not quite put on the graces of a
+street, though straggling houses were dotted here and there along
+it, received the crowd and marshalled it, as it were
+mechanically, without volition of its own.&nbsp; Kept in between
+the walls, and blocked in front by the hearse and long procession
+of the mourning-coaches, the people slowly surged along.&nbsp;
+The greater portion of the crowd were townsmen, but there were
+miners washed and in their Sunday best.&nbsp; Their faces showed
+the blue marks of healed-up scars into which coal dust or
+gunpowder had become tattooed, scars gained in the battle of
+their lives down in the pits, remembrances of falls of rock or of
+occasions when the mine had &ldquo;fired upon them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Many had known Keir Hardie in his youth, had &ldquo;wrocht
+wi&rsquo; him out-by,&rdquo; at Blantyre, at Hamilton, in
+Ayrshire, and all of them had heard him speak a hundred
+times.&nbsp; Even to those who had not heard him, his name was <a
+name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>as a
+household word.&nbsp; Miners predominated, but men of every trade
+were there.&nbsp; Many were members of that black-coated
+proletariat, whose narrow circumstances and daily struggle for
+appearances make their life harder to them than is the life of
+any working man before he has had to dye his hair.&nbsp; Women
+tramped, too, for the dead leader had been a champion of their
+sex.&nbsp; They all respected him, loving him with that
+half-contemptuous gratitude that women often show to men who make
+the &ldquo;woman question&rdquo; the object of their lives.</p>
+<p>After the Scottish fashion at a funeral, greetings were freely
+passed, and Reid, who hadna&rsquo; seen his friend Mackinder
+since the time of the Mid-Lanark fight, greeted him with
+&ldquo;Ye mind when first Keir Hardie was puttin&rsquo; up for
+Parliament,&rdquo; and wrung his hand, hardened in the mine, with
+one as hardened, and instantly began to recall elections of the
+past.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye mind yon Wishaw meeting?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aye, ou aye; ye mean when a&rsquo; they Irish
+wouldna&rsquo; hear John Ferguson.&nbsp; Man, he almost grat
+after the meeting aboot it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+55</span>&ldquo;Aye, but they gied Hardie himself a maist
+respectful hearing . . . aye, ou aye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Others remembered him a boy, and others in his home at
+Cumnock, but all spoke of him with affection, holding him as
+something of their own, apart from other politicians, almost
+apart from men.</p>
+<p>Old comrades who had been with him either at this election or
+that meeting, had helped or had intended to have helped at the
+crises of his life, fought their old battles over, as they
+tramped along, all shivering in the wind.</p>
+<p>The procession reached a long dip in the road, and the head of
+it, full half a mile away, could be seen gathered round the
+hearse, outside the chapel of the crematorium, whose ominous tall
+chimney, through which the ashes, and perchance the souls of
+thousands have escaped towards some empyrean or another, towered
+up starkly.&nbsp; At last all had arrived, and the small open
+space was crowded, the hearse and carriages appearing stuck
+amongst the people, like raisins in a cake, so thick they pressed
+upon them.&nbsp; The chapel, differing from the ordinary chapel
+of the faiths as much as does a motor driver from a cabman, <a
+name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>had an air as
+of modernity about it, which contrasted strangely with the
+ordinary looking crowd, the adjacent hills, the decent mourning
+coaches and the black-coated undertakers who bore the coffin up
+the steps.&nbsp; Outside, the wind whistled and swayed the
+soot-stained trees about; but inside the chapel the heat was
+stifling.</p>
+<p>When all was duly done, and long exordiums passed upon the man
+who in his life had been the target for the abuse of press and
+pulpit, the coffin slid away to its appointed place.&nbsp; One
+thought one heard the roaring of the flames, and somehow missed
+the familiar lowering of the body . . . earth to earth . . . to
+which the centuries of use and wont have made us all familiar,
+though dust to dust in this case was the more appropriate.</p>
+<p>In either case, the book is closed for ever, and the familiar
+face is seen no more.</p>
+<p>So, standing just outside the chapel in the cold, waiting till
+all the usual greetings had been exchanged, I fell a-musing on
+the man whom I had known so well.&nbsp; I saw him as he was
+thirty years ago, outlined against a bing or standing in a quarry
+in some mining village, <a name="page57"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 57</span>and heard his once familiar address
+of &ldquo;Men.&rdquo;&nbsp; He used no other in those days, to
+the immense disgust of legislators and other worthy but
+unimaginative men whom he might chance to meet.&nbsp; About him
+seemed to stand a shadowy band, most of whom now are dead or lost
+to view, or have gone under in the fight.</p>
+<p>John Ferguson was there, the old-time Irish leader, the friend
+of Davitt and of Butt.&nbsp; Tall and erect he stood, dressed in
+his long frock-coat, his roll of papers in one hand, and with the
+other stuck into his breast, with all the air of being the last
+Roman left alive.&nbsp; Tom Mann, with his black hair, his
+flashing eyes, and his tumultuous speech peppered with
+expletives.&nbsp; Beside him, Sandy Haddow, of Parkhead, massive
+and Doric in his speech, with a grey woollen comforter rolled
+round his neck, and hands like panels of a door.&nbsp; Champion,
+pale, slight, and interesting, still the artillery officer, in
+spite of Socialism.&nbsp; John Burns; and Small, the
+miners&rsquo; agent, with his close brown beard and taste for
+literature.&nbsp; Smillie stood near, he of the seven elections,
+and then check-weigher at a pit, either at Cadzow or
+Larkhall.&nbsp; There, too, was <a name="page58"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 58</span>silver-tongued Shaw Maxwell and
+Chisholm Robertson, looking out darkly on the world through
+tinted spectacles; with him Bruce Glasier, girt with a red sash
+and with an aureole of fair curly hair around his head, half poet
+and half revolutionary.</p>
+<p>They were all young and ardent, and as I mused upon them and
+their fate, and upon those of them who have gone down into the
+oblivion that waits for those who live before their time, I
+shivered in the wind.</p>
+<p>Had he, too, lived in vain, he whose scant ashes were no doubt
+by this time all collected in an urn, and did they really
+represent all that remained of him?</p>
+<p>Standing amongst the band of shadowy comrades I had known, I
+saw him, simple and yet with something of the prophet in his air,
+and something of the seer.&nbsp; Effective and yet ineffectual,
+something there was about him that attracted little children to
+him, and I should think lost dogs.&nbsp; He made mistakes, but
+then those who make no mistakes seldom make anything.&nbsp; His
+life was one long battle, so it seemed to me that it was fitting
+that at his funeral the north-east wind should howl <a
+name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>amongst the
+trees, tossing and twisting them as he himself was twisted and
+storm-tossed in his tempestuous passage through the world.</p>
+<p>As the crowd moved away, and in the hearse and
+mourning-coaches the spavined horses limped slowly down the road,
+a gleam of sunshine, such as had shone too little in his life,
+lighted up everything.</p>
+<p>The swaying trees and dark, grey houses of the ugly suburb of
+the town were all transfigured for a moment.&nbsp; The chapel
+door was closed, and from the chimney of the crematorium a faint
+blue smoke was issuing, which, by degrees, faded into the
+atmosphere, just as the soul, for all I know, may melt into the
+air.</p>
+<p>When the last stragglers had gone, and bits of paper scurried
+uneasily along before the wind, the world seemed empty, with
+nothing friendly in it, but the shoulder of Ben Lomond peeping
+out shyly over the Kilpatrick Hills.</p>
+<h2><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>VI<br
+/>
+ELYSIUM</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Triad came into my life as I
+walked underneath the arch by which the sentinels sit in Olympian
+state upon their rather long-legged chargers, receiving, as is
+their due, the silent homage of the passing nurserymaids. The
+soldier in the middle was straight back from the front.&nbsp; The
+mud of Flanders clung to his boots and clothes.&nbsp; It was
+&ldquo;deeched&rdquo; into his skin, and round his eyes had left
+a stain so dark, it looked as if he had been painted for a
+theatrical make-up.&nbsp; Upon his puttees it had dried so
+thickly that you could scarcely see the folds.&nbsp; He bore upon
+his back his knapsack, carried his rifle in his hand all done up
+in a case, which gave it, as it seemed to me, a look of hidden
+power, making it more terrible to think of than if it had shone
+brightly in the <a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+61</span>sun.&nbsp; His water-bottle and a pack of some kind hung
+at his sides, and as he walked kept time to every step.&nbsp;
+Under his elbow protruded the shaft of something, perhaps an
+entrenching tool of some sort, or perhaps some weapon strange to
+civilians accustomed to the use of stick or umbrella as their
+only arm.&nbsp; In himself he seemed a walking arsenal, carrying
+his weapons and his baggage on his back, after the fashion of a
+Roman legionary.&nbsp; The man himself, before the hand of
+discipline had fashioned him to number something or another, must
+have looked fresh and youthful, not very different from a
+thousand others that in time of peace one sees in early morning
+going to fulfil one of those avocations without which no State
+can possibly endure, and yet are practically unknown to those who
+live in the vast stucco hives either of Belgravia or Mayfair.</p>
+<p>He may have been some five-and-twenty, and was a Londoner or a
+man from the home counties lying round about.&nbsp; His sunburnt
+face was yet not sunburnt as is the face of one accustomed to the
+weather all his life.&nbsp; Recent exposure had made his skin all
+feverish, <a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+62</span>and his blue eyes were fixed, as often are the eyes of
+sailors or frontiersmen after a long watch.</p>
+<p>The girls on either side of him clung to his arm with pride,
+and with an air of evident affection, that left them quite
+unconscious of everything but having got the beloved object of
+their care safe home again.&nbsp; Upon the right side, holding
+fast to the warrior&rsquo;s arm, and now and then nestling close
+to his side, walked his sweetheart, a dark-haired girl, dressed
+in the miserable cheap finery our poorer countrywomen wear,
+instead of well-made plainer clothes that certainly would cost
+them less and set them off a hundredfold the more.&nbsp; Now and
+again she pointed out some feature of the town with pride, as
+when they climbed the steps under the column on which stands the
+statue of the Duke of York.&nbsp; The soldier, without looking,
+answered, &ldquo;I know, Ethel, Dook of York,&rdquo; and hitched
+his pack a little higher on his back.</p>
+<p>His sister, hanging on his left arm, never said anything, but
+walked along as in a dream; and he, knowing that she was there
+and understood, spoke little to her, except to murmur &ldquo;Good
+old Gladys&rdquo; now and then, and press <a
+name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>her to his
+side.&nbsp; As they passed by the stunted monument, on which the
+crowd of little figures standing round a sledge commemorates the
+Franklin Expedition, in a chill Arctic way, the girl upon the
+right jerked her head towards it and said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+Sir John Franklin, George, he as laid down his life to find the
+North-West Passage, one of our &rsquo;eroes, you remember
+&rsquo;im.&rdquo;&nbsp; To which he answered, &ldquo;Oh yes,
+Frenklin&rdquo;; then looking over at the statue of Commander
+Scott, added, &ldquo;&rsquo;ee done his bit too,&rdquo; with an
+appreciative air.&nbsp; They gazed upon the Athen&aelig;um and
+the other clubs with that air of detachment that all Englishmen
+affect when they behold a building or a monument&mdash;taking it,
+as it seems to me, as something they have no concern with, just
+as if it stood in Petrograd or in Johannesburg.</p>
+<p>The homing triad passed into Pall Mall, oblivious of the
+world, so lost in happiness that they appeared the only living
+people in the street.&nbsp; The sister, who had said so little,
+when she saw her brother shift his knapsack, asked him to let her
+carry it.&nbsp; He smiled, and knowing what she felt, handed his
+rifle to her, <a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+64</span>remarking, &ldquo;&rsquo;Old it the right side up, old
+girl, or else it will go off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so they took their way through the enchanted streets, not
+feeling either the penetrating wind or the fine rain, for these
+are but material things, and they were wrapped apart from the
+whole world.&nbsp; Officers of all ranks passed by them, some
+young and smart, and others paunchy and middle-aged; but they
+were non-existent to the soldier, who saw nothing but the
+girls.&nbsp; Most of the officers looked straight before them,
+with an indulgent air; but two young men with red bands round
+their caps were scandalised, and muttering something as to the
+discipline of the New Army, drew themselves up stiffly and
+strutted off, like angry game-cocks when they eye each other in
+the ring.</p>
+<p>The triad passed the Rag, and on the steps stood two old
+colonels, their faces burnt the colour of a brick, and their
+moustaches stiff as the bristles of a brush.&nbsp; They eyed the
+passing little show, and looking at each other broke into a
+smile.&nbsp; They knew that they would never walk oblivious of
+mankind, linked to a woman&rsquo;s arm; but perhaps memories of
+<a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>what they
+had done stirred in their hearts, for both of them at the same
+moment ejaculated a modulated &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; of
+sympathy.&nbsp; All this time I had walked behind the three young
+people, unconsciously, as I was going the same road, catching
+half phrases now and then, which I was half ashamed to hear.</p>
+<p>They reached the corner of St. James&rsquo;s Square, and our
+paths separated.&nbsp; Mine took me to the London Library to
+change a book, and theirs led straight to Elysium, for five long
+days.</p>
+<h2><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>VII<br
+/>
+HEREDITY</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Right</span> along the frontier between
+Uruguay and Rio Grande, the southern province of Brazil, the
+Spanish and the Portuguese sit face to face, as they have sat for
+ages, looking at, but never understanding, one another, both in
+the Old and the New World.</p>
+<p>In Tuy and Valenza, Monzon and Salvatierra, at Poncho Verde
+and Don Pedrito, Rivera and Santa Ana do Libramento, and far away
+above Cruz Alta, where the two clumps of wood that mark old camps
+of the two people are called O Matto Castelhano and O Matto
+Portuguez, the rivalry of centuries is either actual or at least
+commemorated on the map.</p>
+<p>The border-line that once made different peoples of the
+dwellers at Floriston and <a name="page67"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 67</span>Gretna, still prevails in the little
+castellated towns, which snarl at one another across the Minho,
+just as they did of old.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Those people in Valenza would steal the
+sacrament,&rdquo; says the street urchin playing on the steps of
+the half fortalice, half church that is the cathedral of Tuy on
+the Spanish side.</p>
+<p>His fellow in Valenza spits towards Tuy and remarks,
+&ldquo;From Spain come neither good marriages nor the wholesome
+winds.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So on to Salvatierra and Monzon, or any other of the villages
+or towns upon the river, and in the current of the native speech
+there still remains some saying of the kind, with its sharp edges
+still unworn after six centuries of use.&nbsp; Great is the power
+of artificial barriers to restrain mankind.&nbsp; No proverb ever
+penned is more profound than that which sets out, &ldquo;Fear
+guards the vineyard, not the fence around it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So Portuguese and Spaniards in their peninsula have fought and
+hated and fought and ridiculed each other after the fashion of
+children that have quarrelled over a broken toy.&nbsp; Blood and
+an almost common speech, <a name="page68"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 68</span>for both speak one Romance when all
+is said, have both been impotent against the custom-house, the
+flag, the foolish dynasty, for few countries in the world have
+had more foolish kings than Spain and Portugal.</p>
+<p>That this should be so in the Old World is natural enough, for
+the dead hand still rules, and custom and tradition have more
+strength than race and creed; but that the hatred should have
+been transplanted to America, and still continue, is a proof that
+folly never dies.</p>
+<p>In the old towns on either side of the Minho the exterior life
+of the two peoples is the same.</p>
+<p>In the stone-built, arcaded plazas women still gather round
+the fountain and fill their iron-hooped water-barrels through
+long tin pipes, shaped like the tin valences used in
+wine-stores.&nbsp; Donkeys stand at the doors, carrying charcoal
+in esparto baskets, whether in Portugal or Spain, and goats
+parade the streets driven by goatherds, wearing shapeless,
+thickly-napped felt hats and leather overalls.</p>
+<p>The water-carrier in both countries calls out
+&ldquo;agua-a-a,&rdquo; making it sound like Arabic, <a
+name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>and long
+trains of mules bring brushwood for the baker&rsquo;s furnace
+(even as in Morocco), or great nets of close-chopped straw for
+horses&rsquo; fodder.</p>
+<p>At eventide the girls walk on the plaza, their mothers, aunts,
+or servants following them as closely as their shadows on a sunny
+afternoon.&nbsp; In quiet streets lovers on both sides of the
+river talk from a first-floor balcony to the street, or whisper
+through the window-bars on the ground floor.&nbsp; The little
+shops under the low arches of the arcaded streets have yellow
+flannel drawers for men and petticoats of many colours hanging
+close outside their doors, on whose steps sleep yellow dogs.</p>
+<p>The jangling bells in the decaying lichen-grown old towers of
+the churches jangle and clang in the same key, and as appears
+without a touch of <i>odium theologicum</i>.&nbsp; The full bass
+voices boom from the choirs, in which the self-same organs in
+their walnut cases have the same rows of golden trumpets sticking
+out into the aisle.</p>
+<p>One faith, one speech, one mode of daily life, the same sharp
+&ldquo;green&rdquo; wine, the same <a name="page70"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 70</span>bread made of maize and rye, and the
+same heaps of red tomatoes and green peppers glistening in the
+sun in the same market-places, and yet a rivalry and a difference
+as far apart as east from west still separates them.</p>
+<p>In both their countries the axles of the bullock-carts, with
+solid wheels and wattled hurdle sides, like those upon a Roman
+coin, still creak and whine to keep away the wolves.</p>
+<p>In the soft landscape the maize fields wave in the rich
+hollows on both sides of the Minho.</p>
+<p>The pine woods mantle the rocky hills that overhang the
+deep-sea lochs that burrow in both countries deep into the
+entrails of the land.</p>
+<p>The women, with their many-coloured petticoats and
+handkerchiefs, chaffer at the same fairs to which their husbands
+ride their ponies in their straw cloaks.</p>
+<p>At &ldquo;romerias&rdquo; the peasantry dance to the bagpipe
+and the drum the self-same dances, and both climb the self-same
+steep grey steps through the dark lanes, all overhung with gorse
+and broom, up to the Calvaries, where the three crosses take on
+the self-same growth <a name="page71"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 71</span>of lichen and of moss.&nbsp; Yet the
+&ldquo;boyero&rdquo; who walks before the placid oxen, with their
+cream-coloured flanks and liquid eyes of onyx, feels he is
+different, right down to the last molecule of his being, from the
+man upon the other side.</p>
+<p>So was it once, and perhaps is to-day, with those who dwell in
+Liddes or Bewcastle dales.&nbsp; Spaniard and Portuguese, as Scot
+and Englishman in older times, can never see one matter from the
+same point of view.&nbsp; The Portuguese will say that the
+Castilian is a rogue, and the Castilian returns the
+compliment.&nbsp; Neither have any reason to support their view,
+for who wants reason to support that which he feels is true.</p>
+<p>It may be that the Spaniard is a little rougher and the
+Portuguese more cunning; but if it is the case or not, the
+antipathy remains, and has been taken to America.</p>
+<p>From the Laguna de Merin to the Cuareim, that is to say, along
+a frontier of two hundred leagues, the self-same feeling rules
+upon both sides of the line.&nbsp; There, as in Portugal and
+Spain, although the country, whether in Uruguay or in Brazil, is
+little different, yet it <a name="page72"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 72</span>has suffered something indefinable by
+being occupied by members of the two races so near and yet so
+different from one another.</p>
+<p>Great rolling seas of waving grass, broken by a few stony
+hills, are the chief features of the landscape of the frontiers
+in both republics.&nbsp; Estancia houses, dazzlingly white,
+buried in peach and fig groves, dot the plains, looking like
+islands in the sea of grass.&nbsp; Great herds of cattle roam
+about, and men on horseback, galloping like clockwork, sail
+across the plains like ships upon a sea.&nbsp; Along the
+river-banks grow strips of thorny trees, and as the frontier line
+trends northward palm-trees appear, and monkeys chatter in the
+woods.&nbsp; Herds of wild asses, shyer than antelopes, gaze at
+the passing horsemen, scour off when he approaches, and are lost
+into the haze.&nbsp; Stretches of purple borage, known as La Flor
+Morada, carpet the ground in spring and early summer, giving
+place later on to red verbena; and on the edges of the streams
+the tufts of the tall Pampa grass recall the feathers on a Pampa
+Indian&rsquo;s spear.</p>
+<p>Bands of grave ostriches feed quietly upon the tops of hills,
+and stride away when <a name="page73"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 73</span>frightened, down the wind, with wings
+stretched out to catch the breeze.</p>
+<p>Clothes are identical, or almost so; the poncho and the loose
+trousers stuffed into high patent-leather boots, the hat kept in
+its place by a black ribbon with two tassels, are to be seen on
+both sides of the frontier.&nbsp; Only in Brazil a sword stuck
+through the girth replaces the long knife of Uruguay.&nbsp;
+Perhaps in that one item all the differences between the races
+manifests itself, for the sword is, as it were, a symbol, for no
+one ever saw one drawn or used in any way but as an
+ornament.&nbsp; It is, in fact, but a survival of old customs,
+which are cherished both by the Portuguese and the Brazilians as
+the apple of the eye.</p>
+<p>The vast extent of the territory of Brazil, its
+inaccessibility, and the enormous distances to be travelled from
+the interior to the coast, and the sense of remoteness from the
+outer world, have kept alive a type of man not to be found in any
+other country where the Christian faith prevails.&nbsp; Risings
+of fanatics still are frequent; one is going on to-day in
+Paran&aacute;, and that of the celebrated Antonio <a
+name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>Concelheiro,
+twenty years ago, shook the whole country to its core.&nbsp;
+Slavery existed in the memory of people still alive.&nbsp; Women
+in the remoter towns are still secluded almost as with the
+Moors.&nbsp; The men still retain something of the Middle Ages in
+their love of show.&nbsp; All in the province of Rio Grande are
+great horsemen, and all use silver trappings on a black horse,
+and all have horses bitted so as to turn round in the air, just
+as a hawk turns on the wing.</p>
+<p>The sons of men who have been slaves abound in all the little
+frontier towns, and old grey-headed negroes, who have been slaves
+themselves, still hang about the great estates.&nbsp; Upon the
+other side, in Uruguay, the negro question was solved once and
+for all in the Independence Wars, for then the negroes were all
+formed into battalions by themselves and set in the forefront of
+the battle, to die for liberty in a country where they all were
+slaves the month before.&nbsp; War turned them into heroes, and
+sent them out to die.</p>
+<p>When once their independence was assured, the Uruguayans fell
+into line like magic with the modern trend of thought.&nbsp;
+Liberty to <a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+75</span>them meant absolute equality, for throughout the land no
+snob is found to leave a slug&rsquo;s trail on the face of man by
+his subserviency.</p>
+<p>Women were held free, that is, as free as it is possible for
+them to be in any Latin-peopled land.&nbsp; Across the line, even
+to-day, a man may stay a week in a Brazilian country house and
+never see a woman but a mulata girl or an old negro crone.&nbsp;
+Still he feels he is watched by eyes he never sees, listens to
+voices singing or laughing, and a sense of mystery prevails.</p>
+<p>Spaniards and Portuguese in the New World have blended just as
+little as they have done at home.&nbsp; Upon the frontier all the
+wilder spirits of Brazil and Uruguay have congregated.&nbsp;
+There they pursue the life, but little altered, that their
+fathers led full fifty years ago.&nbsp; All carry arms, and use
+them on small provocation, for if an accident takes place the
+frontier shields the slayer, for to pursue him usually entails a
+national quarrel, and so the game goes on.</p>
+<p>So Jango Chaves, feeling inclined for sport, or, as he might
+have said, to &ldquo;brincar un bocadinho,&rdquo; saddled up his
+horse.&nbsp; He <a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+76</span>mounted, and, as his friends were looking on, ran it
+across the plaza of the town, and, turning like a seagull in its
+flight, came back to where his friends were standing, and stopped
+it with a jerk.</p>
+<p>His silver harness jingled, and his heavy spurs, hanging
+loosely on his high-heeled boots, clanked like fetters, as his
+active little horse bounded into the air and threw the sand up in
+a shower.</p>
+<p>The rider, sitting him like a statue, with the far-off look
+horsemen of every land assume when riding a good horse and when
+they know they are observed, slackened his hand and let him fall
+into a little measured trot, arching his neck and playing with
+the bit, under which hung a silver eagle on a hinge.&nbsp; Waving
+his hand towards his friends, Jango rode slowly through the
+town.&nbsp; He passed through sandy streets of flat-roofed,
+whitewashed houses, before whose doors stood hobbled horses
+nodding in the sun.</p>
+<p>He rode past orange gardens, surrounded by brown walls of
+sun-baked bricks with the straw sticking in them, just as it had
+dried.&nbsp; In the waste the castor-oil bushes formed little <a
+name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>jungles, out
+of which peered cats, exactly as a tiger peers out of a real
+jungle in the woods.</p>
+<p>The sun poured down, and was reverberated back from the white
+houses, and on the great gaunt building, where the
+captain-general lived, floated the green-and-yellow flag of the
+republic, looking like a bandana handkerchief.&nbsp; He passed
+the negro rancheria, without which no such town as Santa Anna do
+Libramento is complete, and might have marked, had he not been
+too much used to see them, the naked negro children playing in
+the sand.&nbsp; Possibly, if he marked them, he referred to them
+as &ldquo;cachorrinhos pretos,&rdquo; for the old leaven of the
+days of slavery is strongly rooted in Brazil.&nbsp; So he rode
+on, a slight and graceful figure, bending to each movement of his
+horse, his mobile, olive-coloured features looking like a bronze
+masque in the fierce downpour of the sun.</p>
+<p>As he rode on, his whip, held by a thong and dangling from his
+fingers, swung against his horse&rsquo;s flanks, keeping time
+rhythmically to its pace.&nbsp; He crossed the rivulet that flows
+between the towns and came out on the little open plain that
+separates them.&nbsp; From <a name="page78"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 78</span>habit, or because he felt himself
+amongst unfriendly or uncomprehended people, he touched his knife
+and his revolvers, hidden beneath his summer poncho, with his
+right hand, and with his bridle arm held high, ready for all
+eventualities, passed into just such another sandy street as he
+had left behind.</p>
+<p>Save that all looked a little newer, and that the stores were
+better supplied with goods, and that there were no negro huts,
+the difference was slight between the towns.&nbsp; True that the
+green-and-yellow flag had given place to the barred
+blue-and-white of Uruguay.&nbsp; An armed policeman stood at the
+corners of the main thoroughfares, and water-carts went up and
+down at intervals.&nbsp; The garden in the plaza had a
+well-tended flower-garden.</p>
+<p>A band was playing in the middle of it, and Jango could not
+fail to notice that Rivera was more prosperous than was his
+native town.</p>
+<p>Whether that influenced him, or whether it was the glass of
+ca&ntilde;a which he had at the first pulperia, is a moot point,
+or whether the old antipathy between the races brought by his
+ancestors from the peninsula; anyhow, he left his horse untied,
+and with the <a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+79</span>reins thrown down before it as he got off to have his
+drink.&nbsp; When he came out, a policeman called to him to
+hobble it or tie it up.</p>
+<p>Without a word he gathered up his reins, sprang at a bound
+upon his horse, and, drawing his mother-of-pearl-handled pistol,
+fired at the policeman almost as he sprang.&nbsp; The shot threw
+up a shower of sand just in the policeman&rsquo;s face, and
+probably saved Jango&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; Drawing his pistol, the
+man fired back, but Jango, with a shout and pressure of his
+heels, was off like lightning, firing as he rode, and zig-zagging
+across the street.&nbsp; The policeman&rsquo;s shot went wide,
+and Jango, turning in the saddle, fired again and missed.</p>
+<p>By this time men with pistols in their hands stood at the
+doors of all the houses; but the Brazilian passed so rapidly,
+throwing himself alternately now on the near side, now on the off
+side of his horse, hanging by one foot across the croup and
+holding with the other to the mane, that he presented no mark for
+them to hit.</p>
+<p>As he passed by the &ldquo;jefatura&rdquo; where the alcalde
+and his friends were sitting smoking <a name="page80"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 80</span>just before the door, he fired with
+such good aim that a large piece of plaster just above their
+heads fell, covering them with dust.</p>
+<p>Drawing his second pistol and still firing as he went, he
+dashed out of the town, in spite of shots from every side, his
+horse bounding like lightning as his great silver spurs ploughed
+deep into its sides.&nbsp; When he had crossed the little bit of
+neutral ground, and just as a patrol of cavalry appeared, ready
+to gallop after him, a band of men from his own town came out to
+meet him.</p>
+<p>He stopped, and shouting out defiance to the Uruguayans, drew
+up his horse, and lit a cigarette.&nbsp; Then, safe beyond the
+frontier, trotted on gently to meet his friends, his horse
+shaking white foam from off its bit, and little rivulets of blood
+dripping down from its sides into the sand.</p>
+<h2><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+81</span>VIII<br />
+EL TANGO ARGENTINO</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Motor-cars</span> swept up to the covered
+passage of the front door of the hotel, one of those
+international caravansaries that pass their clients through a
+sort of vulgarising process that blots out every type.&nbsp; It
+makes the Argentine, the French, the Englishman, and the American
+all alike before the power of wealth.</p>
+<p>The cars surged up as silently as snow falls from a fir-tree
+in a thaw, and with the same soft swishing noise.&nbsp; Tall,
+liveried porters opened the doors (although, of course, each car
+was duly furnished with a footman) so nobly that any one of them
+would have graced any situation in the State.</p>
+<p>The ladies stepped down delicately, showing a fleeting vision
+of a leg in a transparent stocking, just for an instant, through
+the <a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+82</span>slashing of their skirts.&nbsp; They knew that every
+man, their footman, driver, the giant watchers at the gate, and
+all who at the time were going into the hotel, saw and were moved
+by what they saw just for a moment; but the fact did not trouble
+them at all.&nbsp; It rather pleased them, for the most virtuous
+feel a pleasurable emotion when they know that they excite.&nbsp;
+So it will be for ever, for thus and not by votes alone they show
+that they are to the full men&rsquo;s equals, let the law do its
+worst.</p>
+<p>Inside the hotel, heated by steam, and with an atmosphere of
+scent and flesh that went straight to the head just as the fumes
+of whisky set a drinker&rsquo;s nerves agog, were seated all the
+finest flowers of the cosmopolitan society of the French
+capital.</p>
+<p>Lesbos had sent its legions, and women looked at one another
+appreciatively, scanning each item of their neighbours&rsquo;
+clothes, and with their colour heightening when by chance their
+eyes met those of another priestess of their sect.</p>
+<p>Rich rastaquaoures, their hats too shiny, and their boots too
+tight, their coats fitting too closely, their sticks mounted with
+great <a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>gold
+knobs, walked about or sat at little tables, all talking strange
+varieties of French.</p>
+<p>Americans, the men apparently all run out of the same mould,
+the women apt as monkeys to imitate all that they saw in dress,
+in fashion and in style, and more adaptable than any other women
+in the world from lack of all traditions, conversed in their high
+nasal tones.&nbsp; Spanish-Americans from every one of the
+Republics were well represented, all talking about money: of how
+Do&ntilde;a Fulana Perez had given fifteen hundred francs for her
+new hat, or Don Fulano had just scored a million on the
+Bourse.</p>
+<p>Jews and more Jews, and Jewesses and still more Jewesses, were
+there, some of them married to Christians and turned Catholic,
+but betrayed by their Semitic type, although they talked of
+Lourdes and of the Holy Father with the best.</p>
+<p>After the &ldquo;five-o&rsquo;clock,&rdquo; turned to a heavy
+meal of toast and buns, of Hugel loaf, of sandwiches, and of hot
+cake, the scented throng, restored by the refection after the
+day&rsquo;s hard work of shopping, of driving here and there like
+souls in purgatory to call on people that they detested, and
+other labours of a like <a name="page84"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 84</span>nature, slowly adjourned to a great
+hall in which a band was playing.&nbsp; As they walked through
+the passages, men pressed close up to women and murmured in their
+ears, telling them anecdotes that made them flush and giggle as
+they protested in an unprotesting style.&nbsp; Those were the
+days of the first advent of the Tango Argentino, the dance that
+since has circled the whole world, as it were, in a movement of
+the hips.&nbsp; Ladies pronounced it charming as they half closed
+their eyes and let a little shiver run across their lips.&nbsp;
+Men said it was the only dance that was worth dancing.&nbsp; It
+was so Spanish, so unconventional, and combined all the
+&aelig;sthetic movements of the figures on an Etruscan vase with
+the strange grace of the Hungarian gipsies . . . it was so, as
+one may say, so . . . as you may say . . . you know.</p>
+<p>When all were seated, the band, Hungarians, of
+course,&mdash;oh, those dear gipsies!&mdash;struck out into a
+rhythm, half rag-time, half haba&ntilde;era, canaille, but
+sensuous, and hands involuntarily, even the most aristocratic
+hands&mdash;of ladies whose immediate progenitors had been
+pork-packers in Chicago, or gambusinos <a name="page85"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 85</span>who had struck it rich in
+Zacatecas,&mdash;tapped delicately, but usually a little out of
+time, upon the backs of chairs.</p>
+<p>A tall young man, looking as if he had got a holiday from a
+tailor&rsquo;s fashion plate, his hair sleek, black, and stuck
+down to his head with a cosmetic, his trousers so immaculately
+creased they seemed cut out of cardboard, led out a girl dressed
+in a skirt so tight that she could not have moved in it had it
+not been cut open to the knee.</p>
+<p>Standing so close that one well-creased trouser leg
+disappeared in the tight skirt, he clasped her round the waist,
+holding her hand almost before her face.&nbsp; They twirled
+about, now bending low, now throwing out a leg, and then again
+revolving, all with a movement of the hips that seemed to blend
+the well-creased trouser and the half-open skirt into one
+inharmonious whole.&nbsp; The music grew more furious and the
+steps multiplied, till with a bound the girl threw herself for an
+instant into the male dancer&rsquo;s arms, who put her back again
+upon the ground with as much care as if she had been a new-laid
+egg, and the pair bowed and disappeared.</p>
+<p><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+86</span>Discreet applause broke forth, and exclamations such as
+&ldquo;wonderful,&rdquo; &ldquo;what grace,&rdquo; &ldquo;Vivent
+les Espagnoles,&rdquo; for the discriminating audience took no
+heed of independence days, of mere political changes and the
+like, and seemed to think that Buenos Aires was a part of Spain,
+never having heard of San Martin, Bolivar, Paez, and their
+fellow-liberators.</p>
+<p>Paris, London, and New York were to that fashionable crowd the
+world, and anything outside&mdash;except, of course, the
+Hungarian gipsies and the Tango dancers&mdash;barbarous and
+beyond the pale.</p>
+<p>After the Tango came &ldquo;La Maxixe
+Br&eacute;silienne,&rdquo; rather more languorous and more
+befitting to the dwellers in the tropics than was its cousin from
+the plains.&nbsp; Again the discreet applause broke out, the
+audience murmuring &ldquo;charming,&rdquo; that universal
+adjective that gives an air of being in a perpetual
+pastrycook&rsquo;s when ladies signify delight.&nbsp; Smiles and
+sly glances at their friends showed that the dancers&rsquo;
+efforts at indecency had been appreciated.</p>
+<p>Slowly the hall and tea-rooms of the great <a
+name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>hotel emptied
+themselves, and in the corridors and passages the smell of scent
+still lingered, just as stale incense lingers in a church.</p>
+<p>Motor-cars took away the ladies and their friends, and
+drivers, who had shivered in the cold whilst the crowd inside
+sweated in the central heating, exchanged the time of day with
+the liveried doorkeepers, one of them asking anxiously,
+&ldquo;Dis, Anatole, as-tu vu mes vaches?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>With the soft closing of a well-hung door the last car took
+its perfumed freight away, leaving upon the steps a group of men,
+who remained talking over, or, as they would say, undressing, all
+the ladies who had gone.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Argentine Tango, eh?&rdquo; I thought, after my friends
+had left me all alone.&nbsp; Well, well, it has changed
+devilishly upon its passage overseas, even discounting the
+difference of the setting of the place where first I saw it
+danced so many years ago.&nbsp; So, sauntering down, I took a
+chair far back upon the terrace of the Caf&eacute; de la Paix, so
+that the sellers of <i>La Patrie</i>, and the men who have some
+strange new toy, or views of Paris in a long album <a
+name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>like a broken
+concertina, should not tread upon my toes.</p>
+<p>Over a Porto Blanc and a Brazilian cigarette, lulled by the
+noise of Paris and the raucous cries of the street-vendors, I
+fell into a doze.</p>
+<p>Gradually the smell of petrol and of horse-dung, the two most
+potent perfumes in our modern life, seemed to be blown
+away.&nbsp; Dyed heads and faces scraped till they looked blue as
+a baboon&rsquo;s; young men who looked like girls, with painted
+faces and with mincing airs; the raddled women, ragged men, and
+hags huddled in knitted shawls, lame horses, and taxi-cab drivers
+sitting nodding on their boxes&mdash;all faded into space, and
+from the nothing that is the past arose another scene.</p>
+<p>I saw myself with Witham and his brother, whose name I have
+forgotten, Eduardo Pe&ntilde;a, Congreve, and Eustaquio Medina,
+on a small rancho in an elbow of the great River Yi.&nbsp; The
+rancho stood upon a little hill.&nbsp; A quarter of a mile or so
+away the dense and thorny mont&eacute; of hard-wood trees that
+fringed the river seemed to roll up towards it like a sea.&nbsp;
+The house was built of yellow pine sent from the United
+States.&nbsp; The roof was shingled, <a name="page89"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 89</span>and the rancho stood planked down
+upon the plain, looking exactly like a box.&nbsp; Some fifty
+yards away stood a thatched hut that served as kitchen, and on
+its floor the cattle herders used to sleep upon their horse-gear
+with their feet towards the fire.</p>
+<p>The corrals for horses and for sheep were just a little
+farther off, and underneath a shed a horse stood saddled day in,
+day out, and perhaps does so yet, if the old rancho still resists
+the winds.</p>
+<p>Four or five horses, saddled and bridled, stood tied to a
+great post, for we were just about to mount to ride a league or
+two to a Baile, at the house of Frutos Barrag&aacute;n.&nbsp;
+Just after sunset we set out, as the sweet scent that the grasses
+of the plains send forth after a long day of heat perfumed the
+evening air.</p>
+<p>The night was clear and starry, and above our heads was hung
+the Southern Cross.&nbsp; So bright the stars shone out that one
+could see almost a mile away; but yet all the perspective of the
+plains and woods was altered.&nbsp; Hillocks were sometimes
+undistinguishable, at other times loomed up like houses.&nbsp;
+Woods seemed to sway and heave, and by the sides of streams <a
+name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>bunches of
+Pampa grass stood stark as sentinels, their feathery tufts
+looking like plumes upon an Indian&rsquo;s lance.</p>
+<p>The horses shook their bridles with a clear, ringing sound as
+they stepped double, and their riders, swaying lightly in their
+seats, seemed to form part and parcel of the animals they
+rode.</p>
+<p>Now and then little owls flew noiselessly beside us, circling
+above our heads, and then dropped noiselessly upon a bush.&nbsp;
+Eustaquio Medina, who knew the district as a sailor knows the
+seas where he was born, rode in the front of us.&nbsp; As his
+horse shied at a shadow on the grass or at the bones of some dead
+animal, he swung his whip round ceaselessly, until the moonlight
+playing on the silver-mounted stock seemed to transform it to an
+aureole that flickered about his head.&nbsp; Now and then
+somebody dismounted to tighten up his girth, his horse twisting
+and turning round uneasily the while, and, when he raised his
+foot towards the stirrup, starting off with a bound.</p>
+<p>Time seemed to disappear and space be swallowed in the
+intoxicating gallop, so that <a name="page91"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 91</span>when Eustaquio Medina paused for an
+instant to strike the crossing of a stream, we felt annoyed with
+him, although no hound that follows a hot scent could have gone
+truer on his line.</p>
+<p>Dogs barking close at hand warned us our ride was almost over,
+and as we galloped up a rise Eustaquio Medina pulled up and
+turned to us.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is the house,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;just at the
+bottom of the hollow, only five squares away,&rdquo; and as we
+saw the flicker of the lights, he struck his palm upon his mouth
+after the Indian fashion, and raised a piercing cry.&nbsp; Easing
+his hand, he drove his spurs into his horse, who started with a
+bound into full speed, and as he galloped down the hill we
+followed him, all yelling furiously.</p>
+<p>Just at the hitching-post we drew up with a jerk, our horses
+snorting as they edged off sideways from the black shadow that it
+cast upon the ground.&nbsp; Horses stood about everywhere, some
+tied and others hobbled, and from the house there came the
+strains of an accordion and the tinkling of guitars.</p>
+<p>Asking permission to dismount, we hailed <a
+name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>the owner of
+the house, a tall, old Gaucho, Frutos Barrag&aacute;n, as he
+stood waiting by the door, holding a mat&eacute; in his
+hand.&nbsp; He bade us welcome, telling us to tie our horses up,
+not too far out of sight, for, as he said, &ldquo;It is not good
+to give facilities to rogues, if they should chance to be
+about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the low, straw-thatched rancho, with its eaves blackened by
+the smoke, three or four iron bowls, filled with mare&rsquo;s
+fat, and with a cotton wick that needed constant trimming, stuck
+upon iron cattle-brands, were burning fitfully.</p>
+<p>They cast deep shadows in the corners of the room, and when
+they flickered up occasionally the light fell on the dark and
+sun-tanned faces of the tall, wiry Gauchos and the light cotton
+dresses of the women as they sat with their chairs tilted up
+against the wall.&nbsp; Some thick-set Basques, an Englishman or
+two in riding breeches, and one or two Italians made up the
+company.&nbsp; The floor was earth, stamped hard till it shone
+like cement, and as the Gauchos walked upon it, their heavy spurs
+clinked with a noise like fetters as they trailed them on the
+ground.</p>
+<p><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>An old,
+blind Paraguayan played on the guitar, and a huge negro
+accompanied him on an accordion.&nbsp; Their united efforts
+produced a music which certainly was vigorous enough, and now and
+then, one or the other of them broke into a song, high-pitched
+and melancholy, which, if you listened to it long enough, forced
+you to try to imitate its wailing melody and its strange
+intervals.</p>
+<p>Fumes of tobacco and rum hung in the air, and of a strong and
+heady wine from Catalonia, much favoured by the ladies, which
+they drank from a tumbler, passing it to one another, after the
+fashion of a grace-cup at a City dinner, with great
+gravity.&nbsp; At last the singing ceased, and the orchestra
+struck up a Tango, slow, marked, and rhythmical.</p>
+<p>Men rose, and, taking off their spurs, walked gravely to the
+corner of the room where sat the women huddled together as if
+they sought protection from each other, and with a compliment led
+them out upon the floor.&nbsp; The flowing poncho and the loose
+chirip&aacute;, which served as trousers, swung about just as the
+tartans of a Highlander swing as he dances, giving an air of ease
+to all the movements of <a name="page94"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 94</span>the Gauchos as they revolved, their
+partners&rsquo; heads peeping above their shoulders, and their
+hips moving to and fro.</p>
+<p>At times they parted, and set to one another gravely, and then
+the man, advancing, clasped his partner round the waist and
+seemed to push her backwards, with her eyes half-closed and an
+expression of beatitude.&nbsp; Gravity was the keynote of the
+scene, and though the movements of the dance were as significant
+as it was possible for the dancers to achieve, the effect was
+graceful, and the soft, gliding motion and the waving of the
+parti-coloured clothes, wild and original, in the dim, flickering
+light.</p>
+<p>Rum flowed during the intervals.&nbsp; The dancers wiped the
+perspiration from their brows, the men with the silk
+handkerchiefs they wore about their necks, the women with their
+sleeves.&nbsp; Tangos, cielitos, and pericones succeeded one
+another, and still the atmosphere grew thicker, and the lights
+seemed to flicker through a haze, as the dust rose from the mud
+floor.&nbsp; Still the old Paraguayan and the negro kept on
+playing with the sweat running down their faces, smoking and
+drinking rum in their brief intervals of rest, and when the music
+<a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>ceased for
+a moment, the wild neighing of a horse tied in the moonlight to a
+post, sounded as if he called his master to come out and gallop
+home again.</p>
+<p>The night wore on, and still the negro and the Paraguayan
+stuck at their instruments.&nbsp; Skirts swung and ponchos waved,
+whilst mat&eacute; circulated amongst the older men as they stood
+grouped about the door.</p>
+<p>Then came a lull, and as men whispered in their
+partners&rsquo; ears, telling them, after the fashion of the
+Gauchos, that they were lovely, their hair like jet, their eyes
+bright as &ldquo;las tres Marias,&rdquo; and all the compliments
+which in their case were stereotyped and handed down for
+generations, loud voices rose, and in an instant two Gauchos
+bounded out upon the floor.</p>
+<p>Long silver-handled knives were in their hands, their ponchos
+wrapped round their left arms served them as bucklers, and as
+they crouched, like cats about to spring, they poured out
+blasphemies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stop this!&rdquo; cried Frutos Barrag&aacute;n; but
+even as he spoke, a knife-thrust planted in the stomach stretched
+one upon the floor.&nbsp; Blood gushed out from his mouth, his
+belly fell like <a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+96</span>a pricked bladder, and a dark stream of blood trickled
+upon the ground as he lay writhing in his death agony.</p>
+<p>The iron bowls were overturned, and in the dark girls screamed
+and the men crowded to the door.&nbsp; When they emerged into the
+moonlight, leaving the dying man upon the floor, the murderer was
+gone; and as they looked at one another there came a voice
+shouting out, &ldquo;Adios, Barrag&aacute;n.&nbsp; Thus does
+Vicente Castro pay his debts when a man tries to steal his
+girl,&rdquo; and the faint footfalls of an unshod horse galloping
+far out upon the plain.</p>
+<p>I started, and the waiter standing by my side said,
+&ldquo;Eighty centimes&rdquo;; and down the boulevard echoed the
+harsh cry, &ldquo;<i>La Patrie</i>, achetez <i>La
+Patrie</i>,&rdquo; and the rolling of the cabs.</p>
+<h2><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>IX<br
+/>
+IN A BACKWATER</h2>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">This</span> &rsquo;ere war,
+now,&rdquo; said the farmer, in the slow voice that tells of life
+passed amongst comfortable surroundings into which haste has
+never once intruded, &ldquo;is a &rsquo;orrid
+business.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He leaned upon a half-opened gate, keeping it swaying to and
+fro a little with his foot.&nbsp; His waistcoat was unbuttoned,
+showing his greasy braces and his checked blue shirt.&nbsp; His
+box-cloth gaiters, falling low down upon his high-lows, left a
+gap between them and his baggy riding-breeches, just below the
+knee.&nbsp; His flat-topped bowler hat was pushed back over the
+fringe of straggling grey hair upon his neck.&nbsp; His face was
+burned a brick-dust colour with the August sun, and now and then
+he mopped his forehead with a red handkerchief.</p>
+<p><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>His
+little holding, an oasis in the waste of modern scientific
+farming, was run in the old-fashioned way, often to be seen in
+the home counties, as if old methods linger longest where they
+are least expected, just as a hunted fox sometimes takes refuge
+in a rectory.</p>
+<p>His ideas seemed to have become unsettled with constant
+reading of newspapers filled with accounts of horrors, and his
+speech, not fluent at the best of times, was slower and more
+halting than his wont.</p>
+<p>He told how he had just lost his wife, and felt more than a
+little put about to get his dairy work done properly without her
+help.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When a man&rsquo;s lost his wife it leaves him,
+somehow, as if he were like a &rsquo;orse hitched on one side of
+the wagon-pole, a-pullin&rsquo; by hisself.&nbsp; Now this
+&rsquo;ere war, comin&rsquo; as it does right on the top of my
+&rsquo;ome loss, sets me a-thinkin&rsquo;, especially when
+I&rsquo;m alone in the &rsquo;ouse of night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The park-like English landscape, with its hedgerow trees and
+its lush fields, that does not look like as if it really were the
+country, but seems a series of pleasure-grounds cut off into
+convenient squares, was at its time of greatest <a
+name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>beauty and
+its greatest artificiality.&nbsp; Cows swollen with grass till
+they looked like balloons lay in the fields and chewed the
+cud.&nbsp; Geese cackled as they strayed upon the common, just as
+they appear to cackle in a thousand water-colours.&nbsp; The hum
+of bees was in the limes.&nbsp; Dragon-flies hawked swiftly over
+the oily waters of the two slow-flowing rivers that made the farm
+almost an island in a suburban Mesopotamia, scarce twenty miles
+away from Charing Cross.&nbsp; An air of peace and of
+contentment, of long well-being and security, was evident in
+everything.&nbsp; Trees flourished, though stag-headed, under
+which the Roundhead troopers may have camped, or at the least,
+veterans from Marlborough&rsquo;s wars might have sat underneath
+their shade, and smoked as they retold their fights.</p>
+<p>A one-armed signboard, weathered, and with the lettering
+almost illegible, pointed out the bridle-path to Ditchley, now
+little used, except by lovers on a Sunday afternoon, but where
+the feet of horses for generations in the past had trampled it,
+still showing clearly as it wound through the fields.</p>
+<p>In the standing corn the horses yoked to <a
+name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>the reaping
+machine stood resting, now and again shaking the tassels on their
+little netted ear-covers.&nbsp; They, too, came of a breed long
+used to peace and plenty, good food and treatment, and short
+hours of work.&nbsp; The kindly landscape and the settled life of
+centuries had formed the kind of man of which the farmer was a
+prototype,&mdash;slow-footed and slow-tongued, and with his mind
+as bowed as were his shoulders with hard work, by the continual
+pressure of the hierarchy of wealth and station, that had left
+him as much adscript to them as any of his ancestors had been
+bound to their glebes.&nbsp; He held the <i>Daily Mail</i>, his
+gospel and his <i>vade mecum</i>, crumpled in his hand as if he
+feared to open it again to read more details of the war.&nbsp; A
+simple soul, most likely just as oppressive to his labourers as
+his superiors had always showed themselves to him, he could not
+bear to read of violence, as all the tyranny that he had bent
+under had been imposed so subtly that he could never see more
+than the shadow of the hand that had oppressed him.</p>
+<p>It pained him, above all things, to read about the wounded and
+dead horses lying in <a name="page101"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 101</span>the corn, especially as he had
+&ldquo;&rsquo;eard the &rsquo;arvest over there in Belgium was
+going to be good.&rdquo;&nbsp; The whirr of the machines reaping
+the wheatfield sounded like the hum of some gigantic insect, and
+as the binder ranged the sheaves in rows it seemed as if the
+golden age had come upon the earth again, bringing with it peace
+and plenty, with perhaps slightly stouter nymphs than those who
+once followed the sickle-men in Arcady.</p>
+<p>A man sat fishing in a punt just where the river broadened
+into a backwater edged with willow trees.&nbsp; At times he threw
+out ground-bait, and at times raised a stone bottle to his lips,
+keeping one eye the while watchfully turned upon his float.&nbsp;
+School children strayed along the road, as rosy and as
+flaxen-haired as those that Gregory the Great thought fitting to
+be angels, though they had never been baptized.</p>
+<p>Now and again the farmer stepped into his field to watch the
+harvesting, and cast an eye of pride and of affection on his
+horses, and then, coming back to the gate, he drew the paper from
+his pocket and read its columns, much in the way an Arab reads a
+letter, murmuring <a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+102</span>the words aloud until their meaning penetrated to his
+brain.</p>
+<p>Chewing a straw, and slowly rubbing off the grains of an ear
+of wheat into his hand, he gazed over his fields as if he feared
+to see in them some of the horrors that he read.&nbsp; Again he
+muttered, with a puzzled air, &ldquo;&rsquo;Orrible!
+&rsquo;undreds of men and &rsquo;orses lying in the corn.&nbsp;
+It seems a sad thing to believe, doesn&rsquo;t it now?&rdquo; he
+said; and as he spoke soldiers on motorcycles hurtled down the
+road, leaving a trail of dust that perhaps looked like smoke to
+him after his reading in the <i>Daily Mail</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They tell me,&rdquo; he remarked, after a vigorous
+application of his blue handkerchief to his streaming face,
+&ldquo;that these &rsquo;ere motorcycles &rsquo;ave a gun
+fastened to them, over there in Belgium, where they are
+a-goin&rsquo; on at it in such a way.&nbsp; The paper says,
+&lsquo;Ranks upon ranks of &rsquo;em is just mowed down like
+wheat.&rsquo; . . .&nbsp; &rsquo;Orrid, I call it, if it&rsquo;s
+true, for now and then I think those chaps only puts that kind of
+thing into their papers to &rsquo;ave a sale for
+them.&rdquo;&nbsp; He looked about him as if, like Pilate, he was
+looking for an elusive truth not to be found on earth, and then
+walked down the road till he <a name="page103"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 103</span>came to the backwater where the man
+was fishing in his punt.&nbsp; They looked at one another over a
+yard or two of muddy water, and asked for news about the war, in
+the way that people do from others who they must know are quite
+as ignorant as they are themselves.&nbsp; The fisherman
+&ldquo;&rsquo;ad given up readin&rsquo; the war noos; it&rsquo;s
+all a pack of lies,&rdquo; and pointing to the water, said in a
+cautious voice, &ldquo;Some people says they &rsquo;ears.&nbsp; I
+ain&rsquo;t so sure about it; but, anyhow, it&rsquo;s always best
+to be on the safe side.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then he addressed himself
+once more to the business of the day, and in the contemplation of
+his float no doubt became as much absorbed into the universal
+principle of nature as is an Indian sitting continually with his
+eyes turned on his diaphragm.</p>
+<p>Men passing down the road, each with a paper in his hand,
+looked up and threw the farmer scraps of news, uncensored and
+spiced high with details which had never happened, so that in
+after years their children will most likely treasure as facts,
+which they have received from long-lost parents, the wildest
+fairy tales.</p>
+<p>The slanting sun and lengthening shadows <a
+name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>brought the
+farmer no relief of mind; and still men, coming home from work on
+shaky bicycles, plied him with horrors as they passed by the
+gate, their knee-joints stiff with the labours of the day,
+seeming in want of oil.&nbsp; A thin, white mist began to creep
+along the backwater.&nbsp; Unmooring his punt, the fisherman came
+unwillingly to shore, and as he threw the fragments of his lunch
+into the water and gathered up his tackle, looked back upon the
+scene of his unfruitful labours with an air as of a man who has
+been overthrown by circumstances, but has preserved his honour
+and his faith inviolate.</p>
+<p>Slinging his basket on his back, he trudged off homewards, and
+instantly the fish began to rise.&nbsp; A line of cows was driven
+towards the farm, their udders all so full of milk that they
+swayed to and fro, just as a man sways wrapped in a Spanish
+cloak, and as majestically.&nbsp; The dragon-flies had gone, and
+in their place ghost-moths flew here and there across the
+meadows, and from the fields sounded the corncrake&rsquo;s harsh,
+metallic note.</p>
+<p>The whirring of the reaper ceased, and when the horses were
+unyoked the driver led <a name="page105"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 105</span>them slowly from the field.&nbsp; As
+they passed by the farmer he looked lovingly towards them, and
+muttered to himself, &ldquo;Dead &rsquo;orses and dead soldiers
+lying by &rsquo;undreds in the standing corn. . . .&nbsp; I
+wonder &rsquo;ow the folks out there in Belgium will &rsquo;ave a
+relish for their bread next year.&nbsp; This &rsquo;ere
+war&rsquo;s a &rsquo;orrid business, coming as it does, too, on
+the top of my own loss . . . dead &rsquo;orses in the corn. . .
+.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took the straw out of his mouth, and walking up to one of
+his own sleek-sided carthorses, patted it lovingly, as if he
+wanted to make sure that it was still alive.</p>
+<h2><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>X<br
+/>
+HIPPOMORPHOUS</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the 12th of October 1524, Cortes
+left Mexico on his celebrated expedition to Honduras.&nbsp; The
+start from Mexico was made to the sound of music, and all the
+population of the newly conquered city turned out to escort him
+for a few miles upon his way.</p>
+<p>The cavalcade must have been a curious spectacle enough.&nbsp;
+Cortes himself and his chief officers rode partly dressed in
+armour, after the fashion of the time.&nbsp; Then came the
+Spanish soldiers, mostly on foot and armed with lances, swords,
+and bucklers, though there was a troop of crossbowmen and
+harquebusiers to whom &ldquo;after God&rdquo; we owed the
+Conquest, as an old chronicler has said when speaking of the
+Conquest of Peru.&nbsp; In Mexico they did good service also,
+although it was the horsemen <a name="page107"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 107</span>that in that conquest played the
+greater part.&nbsp; Then came a force of three thousand friendly
+Indians from Tlascala, and last of all a herd of swine was driven
+slowly in the rear, for at that time neither sheep nor cattle
+were known in the New World.</p>
+<p>Guatimozin, the captive King of Mexico, graced his
+conquerors&rsquo; triumphal march; and with the army went two
+falconers, Garci Caro and Alvaro Monta&ntilde;es, together with a
+band of music, some acrobats, a juggler, and a man &ldquo;who
+vaulted well and played the Moorish pipe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Cortes rode the black horse which he had ridden at the siege
+of Mexico.&nbsp; Fortune appeared to smile upon him.&nbsp; He had
+just added an enormous empire to the Spanish crown, and proved
+himself one of the most consummate generals of his age.&nbsp; Yet
+he was on the verge of the great misfortune of his life, which at
+the same time was to prove him still a finer leader than he had
+been, even in Mexico.</p>
+<p>His black horse also was about to play the most extraordinary
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i> that ever horse has played in the whole history
+of the world.</p>
+<p>With varying fortunes, now climbing <a
+name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>mountains,
+now floundering in swamps, and again passing rivers over which
+they had to throw bridges, the expedition came to an open
+country, well watered, and the home of countless herds of
+deer.&nbsp; Villagutierre, in his <i>History of the Conquest of
+the Province of Itza</i> (Madrid, 1701), calls it the country of
+the Ma&ccedil;otecas, which name Bernal Diaz del Castillo says
+means &ldquo;deer&rdquo; in the language of those infidels.&nbsp;
+Fresh meat was scarce, and all the Spanish horsemen of those days
+were experts with the lance.&nbsp; Instantly Cortes and all his
+mounted officers set out to chase the deer.&nbsp; The weather was
+extraordinarily hot, hotter, so Diaz says, than they had had it
+since they left Mexico.&nbsp; The deer were all so tame that the
+horsemen speared them as they chose (<i>los alancearon muy
+&aacute; su placer</i>), and soon the plain was strewed with
+dying animals just as it used to be when the Indians hunted
+buffalo thirty or forty years ago.</p>
+<p>Diaz says that the reason for the tameness of the deer was
+that the Ma&ccedil;otecas (here he applies the word to the
+Indians themselves) worshipped them as gods.&nbsp; It appears
+that their Chief God had once appeared in the <a
+name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>image of a
+stag, and told the Indians not to hunt his fellow-gods, or even
+frighten them.&nbsp; Little enough the Spaniards cared for any
+gods not strong enough to defend themselves, for the deity that
+they adored was the same God of Battles whom we adore to-day.</p>
+<p>So they continued spearing the god-like beasts, regardless of
+the heat and that their horses were in poor condition owing to
+their long march.&nbsp; The horse of one Palacios Rubio, a
+relation of Cortes, fell dead, overcome with the great heat; the
+grease inside him melted, Villagutierre says.&nbsp; The black
+horse that was ridden by Cortes also was very ill, although he
+did not die&mdash;though it perhaps had been better that he
+should have died, for Villagutierre thinks &ldquo;far less harm
+would have been done than happened afterwards, as will be seen by
+those who read the tale.&rdquo;&nbsp; After the hunting all was
+over, the line of march led over stony hills, and through a pass
+that Villagutierre calls &ldquo;el Paso del Alabastro,&rdquo; and
+Diaz &ldquo;La Sierra de los Pedernales&rdquo; (flints).&nbsp;
+Here the horse that had been ill, staked itself in a forefoot,
+and this, as Villagutierre says, was the real reason that Cortes
+left him behind.&nbsp; He <a name="page110"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 110</span>adds, &ldquo;It does not matter
+either way, whether he was left because his grease was melted
+with the sun, or that his foot was staked.&rdquo;&nbsp; This, of
+course, is true, and anyhow the horse was reserved for a greater
+destiny than ever fell to any of his race.</p>
+<p>Cortes, in his fifth letter to the Emperor Charles V., says
+simply, &ldquo;I was obliged to leave my black horse (<i>mi
+caballo morzillo</i>) with a splinter in his foot.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He takes no notice of the melting of the grease.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+Chief promised to take care of him, but I do not know that he
+will succeed or what he will do with him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He told the Chief that he would send to fetch the horse, for
+he was very fond of him, and prized him very much.&nbsp; The
+Chief, no doubt, received the strange and terrible animal with
+due respect, and Cortes went on upon his way.&nbsp; That is all
+that Cortes says about the matter, and the mist of history closed
+upon him and on his horse.&nbsp; Cortes died, worn-out and
+broken-hearted, at the white little town of Castilleja de la
+Cuesta, not far from Seville; but El Morzillo had a greater
+destiny in store.&nbsp; This happened in the year 1525, and
+nothing <a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+111</span>more was heard of either the Ma&ccedil;otecas or the
+horse, after that passage in the fifth letter of Cortes, till
+1697.&nbsp; In that year the Franciscans set out upon the gospel
+trail to convert the Indians of Itza, attached to the expedition
+that Ursua led, for the interior of Yucatan had never been
+subdued.&nbsp; They reached Itza, having come down the River Tipu
+in canoes.</p>
+<p>This river, Villagutierre informs us, is as large as any river
+in all Spain.&nbsp; Moreover, it is endowed with certain
+properties, its water being good and clear, so that in some
+respects it is superior to the water even of the Tagus.&nbsp; It
+is separated into one hundred and ninety channels (neither more
+nor less), and every one of these has its right Indian name, that
+every Indian knows.&nbsp; Upon its banks grows much sarsaparilla,
+and in its sand is gold.</p>
+<p>Beyond all this it has a hidden virtue, which is that taken
+(fasting) it cures the dropsy, and makes both sick and sound
+people eat heartily.&nbsp; Besides this, after eating, when you
+have drunk its water you are inclined to eat again.</p>
+<p>At midday it is cold, and warm at night, so warm that a steam
+rises from it, just as it does when a kettle boils on the
+fire.&nbsp; Other <a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+112</span>particularities it has, which though they are not so
+remarkable, yet are noteworthy.</p>
+<p>Down this amazing river Ursua&rsquo;s expedition navigated for
+twelve days in their canoes till they came to a lake called
+Peten-Itza, in which there was an island known as Tayasal.&nbsp;
+All unknown to themselves, they had arrived close to the place
+where long ago Cortes had left his horse.&nbsp; Of this they were
+in ignorance; the circumstance had been long forgotten, and
+Cortes himself had become almost a hero of a bygone age even in
+Mexico.</p>
+<p>Fathers Orbieta and Fuensalida, monks of the Franciscan order,
+chosen both for their zeal and for their knowledge of the Maya
+language, were all agog to mark new sheep.&nbsp; The Indians
+amongst whom they found themselves were &ldquo;ignorant even of
+the knowledge of the true faith.&rdquo;&nbsp; Moreover, since the
+conquest they had had no dealings with Europeans, and were as
+primitive as they were at the time when Cortes had passed, more
+than a hundred years ago.</p>
+<p>One of the Chiefs, a man known as Isquin, when he first saw a
+horse, &ldquo;almost ran mad with joy and with
+astonishment.&nbsp; Especially <a name="page113"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 113</span>the evolutions and the leaps it made
+into the air moved him to admiration, and going down upon all
+fours he leaped about and neighed.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then, tired with
+this practical manifestation of his joy and his astonishment, he
+asked the Spanish name of the mysterious animal.&nbsp; When he
+learned that it was caballo, he forthwith renounced his name, and
+from that day this silly infidel was known as Caballito.&nbsp;
+Then when the soul-cleansing water had been poured upon his head,
+he took the name of Pedro, and to his dying day all the world
+called him &ldquo;Don Pedro Caballito, for he was born a
+Chief.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This curious and pathetic little circumstance, by means of
+which a brand was snatched red-hot from the eternal flames,
+lighted for those who have deserved hell-fire by never having
+heard of it, might, one would think, have shown the missionaries
+that the poor Indians were but children, easier to lead than
+drive.</p>
+<p>It only fired their zeal, and yet all their solicitude to save
+the Indians&rsquo; souls was unavailing, and the hard-hearted
+savages, dead to the advantages that baptism has ever brought
+with it, clave to their images.</p>
+<p><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>The
+good Franciscans made several more attempts to move the
+people&rsquo;s hearts by preaching ceaselessly.&nbsp; All failed,
+and then they went to several islands in the lake, in one of
+which Father Orbieta hardly had begun to preach, when, as Lopez
+Cogulludo <a name="citation114a"></a><a href="#footnote114a"
+class="citation">[114a]</a> tells us, an Indian seized him by the
+throat and nearly strangled him, leaving him senseless on the
+ground.</p>
+<p>At times, seated in church listening to what the Elizabethans
+called &ldquo;a painful preacher,&rdquo; even the elect have felt
+an impulse to seize him by the throat.&nbsp; Still, it is usually
+restrained; but these poor savages, undisciplined in body and in
+mind, were perhaps to be excused, for the full flavour of a
+sermon had never reached them in their Eden by the lake.&nbsp;
+Moreover, after he was thus rudely cast from the pulpit to the
+ground, Father Fuensalida, nothing daunted by his fate, stepped
+forward and took up his parable.&nbsp; He preached to them this
+time in their own language, in which he was expert, with fervid
+eloquence and great knowledge of the Scriptures, <a
+name="citation114b"></a><a href="#footnote114b"
+class="citation">[114b]</a> explaining to <a
+name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>them the
+holy mystery of the incarnation of the eternal Word. <a
+name="citation115"></a><a href="#footnote115"
+class="citation">[115]</a>&nbsp; The subject was well chosen for
+a first attempt upon their hearts; but it, too, proved
+unfruitful, and the two friars were forced to re-embark.</p>
+<p>As the canoe in which they sat moved from the island and
+launched out into the lake, the infidels who stood and watched
+them paddling were moved to fury, and, rushing to the edge,
+stoned them whole-heartedly till they were out of reach.</p>
+<p>It is a wise precaution, and one that the
+&ldquo;conquistadores&rdquo; usually observed, to have the
+spiritual well supported by the secular arm when missionaries,
+instinct with zeal and not weighed down with too much common
+sense, preach for the first time to the infidel.</p>
+<p>This first reverse was but an incident, and by degrees the
+friars, this time accompanied by soldiers, explored more of the
+islands in the lake.&nbsp; At last they came to one called
+Tayasal, which was so full of idols that they took twelve hours
+to burn and to destroy them all.</p>
+<p>One island still remained to be explored, <a
+name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>and in it
+was a temple with an idol much reverenced by the Indians.&nbsp;
+At last they entered it, and on a platform about the height of a
+tall man they saw the figure of a horse rudely carved out of
+stone.</p>
+<p>The horse was seated on the ground resting upon his quarters,
+his hind legs bent and his front feet stretched out.&nbsp; The
+barbarous infidels <a name="citation116a"></a><a
+href="#footnote116a" class="citation">[116a]</a> adored the
+abominable and monstrous beast under the name of Tziunchan, God
+of the Thunder and the Lightning, and paid it reverence.&nbsp;
+Even the Spaniards, who, as a rule, were not much given to
+inquiring into the history of idols, but broke them instantly,
+<i>ad majorem Dei gloriam</i>, were interested and amazed.&nbsp;
+Little by little they learned the history of the hippomorphous
+god, which had been carefully preserved.&nbsp; It appeared that
+when Cortes had left his horse, so many years ago, the Indians,
+seeing he was ill, took him into a temple to take care of
+him.&nbsp; Thinking he was a reasoning animal, <a
+name="citation116b"></a><a href="#footnote116b"
+class="citation">[116b]</a> they placed before him fruit and
+chickens, with the result that the poor beast&mdash;who, of
+course, was <a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+117</span>reasonable enough in his own way&mdash;eventually
+died.</p>
+<p>The Indians, terrified and fearful that Cortes would take
+revenge upon them for the death of the horse that he had left for
+them to care for and to minister to all his wants, before they
+buried him, carved a rude statue in his likeness and placed it in
+a temple in the lake.</p>
+<p>The devil, who, as Villagutierre observes, is never slack to
+take advantage when he can, seeing the blindness and the
+superstition (which was great) of those abominable idolaters,
+induced them by degrees to make a God of the graven image they
+had made.&nbsp; Their veneration grew with time, just as bad
+weeds grow up in corn, as Holy Writ sets forth for our example,
+and that abominable statue became the chiefest of their gods,
+though they had many others equally horrible.</p>
+<p>As the first horses that they saw were ridden by the Spaniards
+in the chase of the tame deer, and many shots were fired, the
+Indians not unnaturally connected the explosions and the flames
+less with the rider than the horse.&nbsp; Thus in the course of
+years the evolution of the great god Tziunchan took place, and,
+as <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>the
+missionaries said, these heathen steeped in ignorance adored the
+work of their own hands.</p>
+<p>Father Orbieta, not stopping to reflect that all of us adore
+what we have made, but &ldquo;filled with the spirit of the Lord
+and carried off with furious zeal for the honour of our
+God,&rdquo; <a name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118"
+class="citation">[118]</a> seized a great stone and in an instant
+cast the idol down, then with a hammer he broke it into bits.</p>
+<p>When Father Orbieta had finished his work and thus destroyed
+one of the most curious monuments of the New World, which ought
+to have been preserved as carefully as if it had been carved by
+Praxiteles, &ldquo;with the ineffable and holy joy that filled
+him, his face shone with a light so spiritual that it was
+something to praise God for and to view with
+delight.&rdquo;&nbsp; Most foolish actions usually inspire their
+perpetrators with delight, although their faces do not shine with
+spiritual joy when they have done them; so when one reads the
+folly of this muddle-headed friar, it sets one hoping that
+several of the stones went home upon his back as he sat paddling
+the canoe.</p>
+<p>The Indians broke into lamentations, <a
+name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>exclaiming,
+&ldquo;Death to him, he has killed our God&rdquo;; but were
+prevented from avenging his demise by the Spanish soldiers who
+prudently had accompanied the friar.</p>
+<p>Thus was the mystery of the eternal Word made manifest amongst
+the Ma&ccedil;otecas, and a deity destroyed who for a hundred
+years and more had done no harm to any one on earth . . . a thing
+unusual amongst Gods.</p>
+<h2><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+120</span>XI<br />
+MUDEJAR</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Brown</span>, severe, and wall-girt, the
+stubborn city still held out.</p>
+<p>Its proud traditions made it impossible for Zaragoza to
+capitulate without a siege.&nbsp; As in the days of Soult, when
+the heroic maid, the <i>artillera</i>, as her countrymen call her
+with pride, when Palafox held up the blood and orange banner in
+which float the lions and the castles of Castille, the city
+answered shot for shot.</p>
+<p>Fire spurted from the Moorish walls, built by the Beni Hud,
+who reigned in Zaragoza, when still Sohail poured its protecting
+rays upon the land.&nbsp; The bluish wreaths of smoke curled on
+the Ebro, running along the water and enveloping the Coso as if
+in a mist.</p>
+<p>A dropping rifle-fire crackled out from the ramparts, and
+above the castle the red flag <a name="page121"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 121</span>of the Intransigent-Republic
+shivered and fluttered in the breeze.</p>
+<p>The Torre-Nueva sprang from the middle of the town, just as a
+palm tree rises from the desert sands.&nbsp; It was built at the
+time when Moorish artisans, infidel dogs who yet preserved the
+secrets of the East amongst the Christians (may dogs defile their
+graves), had spent their science and their love upon it.</p>
+<p>Octagonal, and looking as if blown into the air by the
+magician&rsquo;s art, it leaned a little to one side, and, as the
+admiring inhabitants averred, drawing their right hands open over
+their left arms, laughed at its rival of Bologna and at every
+other tower on earth.</p>
+<p>No finer specimen of the art known as Mudejar existed in all
+Spain.&nbsp; Galleries cut it here and there; and ajimeces, the
+little horseshoe windows divided by a marble pillar, loved of the
+Moors, which tradition says they took from the rude openings in
+their tents of camel&rsquo;s hair, gave light to the
+inside.&nbsp; Stages of inclined planes led to the top, so
+gradual in their ascent that once a Queen of Spain had ridden up
+them to admire the view over the Sierras upon her palfrey, or her
+donkey, for all is one <a name="page122"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 122</span>when treating of a queen, who of a
+certainty ennobles the animal she deigns to ride upon.&nbsp; Bold
+ajaracas, the patterns proper to the style of architecture, stood
+up in high relief upon its sides, and near the balustrade upon
+the top a band of bluish tiles relieved the brownness of the
+brickwork and sparkled in the sun.&nbsp; Sieges and time and
+storms, rain, wind, and snow had spared it; even the neglect of
+centuries had left it unimpaired&mdash;erect and elegant as a
+young Arab maiden carrying water from the well.&nbsp; Architects
+said that it inclined a little more each year, and talked about
+subsidences; but they were foreigners, unused to the things of
+Spain, and no one marked them; and the tower continued to be
+loved and prized and to fall into disrepair.&nbsp; On this
+occasion riflemen lined the galleries, pouring a hot fire upon
+the attacking forces of the Government.</p>
+<p>Encamped upon the heights above Torero, the Governmental army
+held the banks of the canal that gives an air of Holland to that
+part of the adust and calcined landscape of Aragon.</p>
+<p>The General&rsquo;s quarters overlooked the town, and from
+them he could see Santa <a name="page123"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 123</span>Engracia, in whose crypt repose the
+bodies of the martyrs in an atmosphere of ice, standing alone
+upon its little plaza, fringed by a belt of stunted and ill-grown
+acacia trees.&nbsp; The great cathedral, with its domes, in which
+the shrine of the tutelary Virgin of the Pilar, the Pilarica of
+the country folk, glittering with jewels and with silver plate,
+is venerated as befits the abiding place on earth of the
+miraculous figure sent direct from heaven, towered into the
+sky.</p>
+<p>Churches and towers and convents, old castellated houses with
+their overhanging eaves and coats-of-arms upon the doors, jewels
+of architecture, memorials of the past, formed as it were a
+jungle wrought in a warm brown stone.&nbsp; Beyond the city
+towered the mountains that hang over Huesca of the Bell.&nbsp;
+Through them the Aragon has cut its roaring passages towards
+Sobrarbe to the south.&nbsp; Northwards they circle Jaca, the
+virgin little city that beat off the Moors a thousand years ago,
+and still once every year commemorates her prowess outside the
+walls, where Moors and Christians fight again the unequal
+contest, into which St. James, mounted upon his milk-white <a
+name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>charger,
+had plunged and thrown the weight of his right arm.&nbsp; The
+light was so intense and African that on the mountain sides each
+rock was visible, outlined as in a camera-lucida, and as the
+artillery played upon the tower the effects of every salvo showed
+up distinctly on the crumbling walls.&nbsp; All round the
+Government&rsquo;s encampment stood groups of peasantry who had
+been impressed together with their animals to bring
+provisions.&nbsp; Wrapped in their brown and white checked
+blankets, dressed in tight knee-breeches, short jackets, and grey
+stockings, and shod with alpargatas&mdash;the canvas, hemp-soled
+sandals that are fastened round the ankles with blue
+cords&mdash;they stood and smoked, stolid as Moors, and as
+unfathomable as the deep mysterious corries of their hills.</p>
+<p>When the artillery thundered and the breaches in the walls
+grew daily more apparent and more ominous, the country people
+merely smiled, for they were sure the Pilarica would preserve the
+city; and even if she did not, all Governments, republican or
+clerical, were the same to them.</p>
+<p>All their ambition was to live quietly, each <a
+name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>in his
+village, which to him was the hub round which the world
+revolved.</p>
+<p>So one would say, as they stood watching the progress of the
+siege: &ldquo;Chiquio, the sciences advance a bestiality, the
+Government in the Madrids can hear each cannon-shot.&nbsp; The
+sound goes on those wires that stretch upon the posts we tie our
+donkeys to when we come into town. . . .&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Little by little the forces of the Government advanced,
+crossing the Ebro at the bridge which spans it in the middle of
+the great double promenade called the Coso, and by degrees drew
+near the walls.</p>
+<p>The stubborn guerrilleros in the town contested every point of
+vantage, fighting like wolves, throwing themselves with knives
+and scythes stuck upright on long poles upon the troops.</p>
+<p>So fought their grandfathers against the French, and so Strabo
+describes their ancestors, adding, &ldquo;The Spaniard is a
+taciturn, dark man, usually dressed in black; he fights with a
+short sword, and always tries to come to close grips with our
+legionaries.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As happens in all civil wars, when brother <a
+name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>finds
+himself opposed to brother, the strife was mortal, and he who
+fell received no mercy from the conqueror.</p>
+<p>The riflemen upon the Torre Nueva poured in their fire,
+especially upon the Regiment of Pavia, whose Colonel, Don Luis
+Montoro, on several occasions gave orders to the artillerymen at
+any cost to spare the tower.</p>
+<p>Officer after officer fell by his side, and soldiers in the
+ranks cursed audibly, covering the saints with filth, as runs the
+phrase in Spanish, and wondering why their Colonel did not
+dislodge the riflemen who made such havoc in their files.&nbsp;
+Discipline told at last, and all the Intransigents were forced
+inside the walls, leaving the moat with but a single plank to
+cross it by which to reach the town.&nbsp; Upon the plank the
+fire was concentrated from the walls, and the besiegers stood for
+a space appalled, sheltering themselves as best they could behind
+the trees and inequalities of the ground.</p>
+<p>Montoro called for volunteers, and one by one three grizzled
+soldiers, who had grown grey in wars against the Moors, stepped
+forward and fell pierced with a dozen wounds.</p>
+<p><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>After
+a pause there was a movement in the ranks, and with a sword in
+his right hand, and in his left the colours of Castille, his
+brown stuff gown tucked up showing his hairy knees knotted and
+muscular, out stepped a friar, and strode towards the
+plank.&nbsp; Taking the sword between his teeth he crossed
+himself, and beckoning on the men, rushed forward in the thickest
+of the fire.</p>
+<p>He crossed in safety, and then the regiment, with a hoarse
+shout of &ldquo;Long live God,&rdquo; dashed on behind him, some
+carrying planks and others crossing upon bales of straw, which
+they had thrown into the moat.&nbsp; Under the walls they formed
+and rushed into the town, only to find each house a fortress and
+each street blocked by a barricade.&nbsp; From every window dark
+faces peered, and a continual fusillade was poured upon them,
+whilst from the house-tops the women showered down tiles.</p>
+<p>Smoke filled the narrow streets, and from dark archways groups
+of desperate men came rushing, armed with knives, only to fall in
+heaps before the troops who, with fixed bayonets, steadily pushed
+on.</p>
+<p><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>A
+shift of wind cleared off the smoke and showed the crimson flag
+still floating from the citadel, ragged and torn by shots.&nbsp;
+Beyond the town appeared the mountains peeping out shyly through
+the smoke, as if they looked down on the follies of mankind with
+a contemptuous air.</p>
+<p>Dead bodies strewed the streets, in attitudes half tragical,
+half ludicrous, some looking like mere bundles of old clothes,
+and some distorted with a stiff arm still pointing to the
+sky.</p>
+<p>Right in the middle of a little square the friar lay shot
+through the forehead, his sword beside him, and with the flag
+clasped tightly to his breast.</p>
+<p>His great brown eyes stared upwards, and as the soldiers
+passed him some of them crossed themselves, and an old sergeant
+spoke his epitaph: &ldquo;This friar,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;was
+not of those fit only for the Lord; he would have made a soldier,
+and a good one; may God have pardoned him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Driven into the middle plaza of the town, the Intransigents
+fought till the last, selling their lives for more than they were
+worth, and dying silently.</p>
+<p><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>The
+citadel was taken with a rush, and the red flag hauled down.</p>
+<p>Bugles rang out from the other angle of the plaza; the General
+and his staff rode slowly forward to meet the Regiment of Pavia
+as it debouched into the square.</p>
+<p>Colonel Montoro halted, and then, saluting, advanced towards
+his chief.&nbsp; His General, turning to him, angrily exclaimed,
+&ldquo;Tell me, why did you let those fellows in the tower do so
+much damage, when a few shots from the field guns would have soon
+finished them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Montoro hesitated, and recovering his sword once more saluted
+as his horse fretted on the curb, snorting and sidling from the
+dead bodies that were strewed upon the ground.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My General,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;not for all Spain
+and half the Indies would I have trained the cannon on the tower;
+it is Mudejar of the purest architecture.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His General smiled at him a little grimly, and saying,
+&ldquo;Well, after all, this is no time to ask accounts from any
+man,&rdquo; touched his horse with the spur and, followed by his
+staff, he disappeared into the town.</p>
+<h2><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+130</span>XII<br />
+A MINOR PROPHET</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> city sweltered in the August
+heat.&nbsp; No breath of air lifted the pall of haze that wrapped
+the streets, the houses, and the dark group of Gr&aelig;co-Roman
+buildings that stands up like a rock in the dull tide-way of the
+brick-built tenements that compose the town.</p>
+<p>Bells pealed at intervals, summoning the fractioned faithful
+to their various centres of belief.</p>
+<p>When they had ceased and all the congregations were assembled
+listening to the exhortations of their spiritual advisers, and
+were employed fumbling inside their purses, as they listened, for
+the destined &ldquo;threepenny,&rdquo; that obolus which gives
+respectability to alms, the silence was complete.&nbsp;
+Whitey-brown paper bags, dropped overnight, just stirred <a
+name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+131</span>occasionally as the air swelled their bellies, making
+them seem alive, or as alive as is a jelly-fish left stranded by
+the tide.</p>
+<p>Just as the faithful were assembled in their conventicles
+adoring the same Deity, all filled with rancour against one
+another because their methods of interpretation of the
+Creator&rsquo;s will were different, so did the politicians and
+the cranks of every sort and sect turn out to push their methods
+of salvation for mankind.&nbsp; In groups they gathered round the
+various speakers who discoursed from chairs and carts and points
+of vantage on the streets.</p>
+<p>Above the speakers&rsquo; heads, banners, held up between two
+poles, called on the audiences to vote for Liberal or for Tory,
+for Poor Law Reform, for Social Purity, and for Temperance.&nbsp;
+Orators, varying from well-dressed and glibly-educated hacks from
+party centres, to red-faced working-men, held forth perspiring,
+and occasionally bedewing those who listened to them with saliva,
+after an emphatic burst.</p>
+<p>It seemed so easy after listening to them to redress all
+wrongs, smooth out all wrinkles, and instate each citizen in his
+own shop where he could sell his sweated goods, with the best <a
+name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>advantage
+to himself and with the greatest modicum of disadvantage to his
+neighbour, that one was left amazed at the dense apathy of those
+who did not fall in with the nostrums they had heard.&nbsp;
+Again, at other platforms, sleek men in broadcloth, who had never
+seen a plough except at Agricultural Exhibitions, nor had got on
+closer terms of friendship with a horse than to be bitten by him
+as they passed along a street, discoursed upon the land.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, I say, the land is a fixed quantity, you
+can&rsquo;t increase it, and without it, it&rsquo;s impossible to
+live.&nbsp; &rsquo;Ow is it, then, that all the land of England
+is in so few hands?&rdquo;&nbsp; He paused and mopped his face,
+and looking round, began again: &ldquo;Friends&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+allow me to style you Friends, I know, Friends in the sycred
+cause of Liberty&mdash;the landed aristocracy is our enemy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am not out for confiscation, why should I?&nbsp; I
+&rsquo;ave my &rsquo;ome purchased with the fruits of my own
+hhonest toil . . .&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Before he could conclude his sentence, a dock labourer,
+dressed in his Sunday suit of shoddy serge, check shirt, and
+black silk handkerchief knotted loosely round his neck, <a
+name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>looked up,
+and interjected: &ldquo;&rsquo;Ard work, too, mate, that
+&rsquo;ere talkin&rsquo; in the sun is, that built your
+&rsquo;ome.&nbsp; Beats coal whippin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Just for an instant the orator was disconcerted as a laugh ran
+through the audience; but habit, joined to a natural gift of
+public speaking, came to his aid, and he rejoined: &ldquo;Brother
+working-men, I say ditto to what has fallen from our friend
+&rsquo;ere upon my right.&nbsp; We all are working-men.&nbsp;
+Some of us, like our friend, work with their &rsquo;ands, and
+others with their &rsquo;eds.&nbsp; In either case, the Land is
+what we &rsquo;ave to get at as an article of prime
+necessity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Rapidly he sketched a state of things in which a happy
+population, drawn from the slums, but all instinct with
+agricultural knowledge, would be settled on the land, each on his
+little farm, and all devoted to intensive culture in the most
+modern form.&nbsp; Trees would be all cut down, because they only
+&ldquo;&rsquo;arbour&rdquo; birds that eat the corn.&nbsp; Hedges
+would all be extirpated, for it is known to every one that mice
+and rats and animals of every kind live under them, and that they
+only serve to shelter game.&nbsp; Each man would own <a
+name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>a gun and
+be at liberty to kill a &ldquo;rabbut&rdquo; or a
+&ldquo;&rsquo;are&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;animals, as we say at
+college, <i>feery naturrey</i>, and placed by Providence upon the
+land.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These noble sentiments evoked applause, which was a little
+mitigated by an interjection from a man in gaiters, with a
+sunburnt face, of: &ldquo;Mister, if every one is to have a gun
+and shoot, &rsquo;ow long will these &rsquo;ere &rsquo;ares and
+rabbuts last?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A little farther on, as thinly covered by his indecently
+transparent veil of reciprocity as a bare-footed dancer in her
+Grecian clothes, or a tall ostrich under an inch of sand, and yet
+as confident as either of them that the essential is concealed, a
+staunch Protectionist discoursed.&nbsp; With copious notes, to
+which he turned at intervals, when he appealed to those
+statistics which can be made in any question to fit every side,
+he talked of loss of trade.&nbsp; &ldquo;Friends, we must tax the
+foreigner.&nbsp; It is this way, you see, our working classes
+have to compete with other nations, all of which enjoy protective
+duties.&nbsp; I ask you, is it reasonable that we should let a
+foreign article come into England?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here a dour-looking Scotsman almost spat <a
+name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>out the
+words: &ldquo;Man, can ye no juist say Great Britain?&rdquo; and
+received a bow and &ldquo;Certainly, my friend, I am not here to
+wound the sentiments of any man . . . as I was saying, is it
+reasonable that goods should come to England . . . I mean Great
+Britain, duty free, and yet articles we manufacture have to pay
+heavy duties in any foreign port?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Ow about bread?&rdquo; came from a voice upon
+the outskirts of the crowd.</p>
+<p>The speaker reddened, and resumed: &ldquo;My friend, man doth
+not live by bread alone; still, I understand the point.&nbsp; A
+little dooty upon corn, say five shillings in the quarter, would
+not hurt any one.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve got to do it.&nbsp; The
+foreigner is the enemy.&nbsp; I am a Christian; but yet,
+readin&rsquo; as I often do the Sermon on the Mount, I never saw
+we had to lie down in the dust and let ourselves be trampled
+on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who are to be the inheritors of the earth?&nbsp; Our
+Lord says, &lsquo;Blessed are the meek; they shall inherit
+it.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He paused, and was about to clinch his argument, when a tall
+Irishman, after expectorating judiciously upon a vacant space
+between two listeners, shot in: &ldquo;Shure, then, <a
+name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>the English
+are the meekest of the lot, for they have got the greater part of
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At other gatherings Socialists held forth under the red
+flag.&nbsp; &ldquo;That banner, comrades, which &rsquo;as braved
+a &rsquo;undred fights, and the mere sight of which makes the
+Capitalistic bloodsucker tremble as he feels the time approach
+when Lybor shall come into its inheritance and the Proletariat
+shyke off its chaine and join &rsquo;ands all the world over,
+despizin&rsquo; ryce and creed and all the artificial
+obstructions that a designin&rsquo; Priest-&rsquo;ood and a
+blood-stained Plutocracy &rsquo;ave placed between them to
+distract their attention from the great cause of Socialism, the
+great cause that mykes us comrades . . . &rsquo;ere, keep off my
+&rsquo;oof, you blighter, with your ammunition wagons. . .
+.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Religionists of various sects, all with long hair and dressed
+in shabby black, the Book either before them on a campaigning
+lectern or tucked beneath one arm, called upon Christian men to
+dip their hands into the precious blood and drink from the
+eternal fountain of pure water that is to be found in the
+Apocalypse.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come to &rsquo;Im, come to &rsquo;Im, I
+say, my friends, come straight; oh, it is <a
+name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>joyful to
+belong to Jesus.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t stop for anything, come to
+&rsquo;Im now like little children. . . .&nbsp; Let us sing a
+&rsquo;ymn.&nbsp; You know it, most of you; but brother
+&rsquo;ere,&rdquo; and as he spoke he turned towards a pale-faced
+youth who held a bag to take the offertory, that sacrament that
+makes the whole world kin, &ldquo;will lead it for
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The acolyte cleared his throat raucously, and to a popular air
+struck up the refrain of &ldquo;Let us jump joyful on the
+road.&rdquo;&nbsp; Flat-breasted girls and pale-faced boys took
+up the strain, and as it floated through the heavy air,
+reverberating from the pile of public buildings, gradually all
+the crowd joined in; shyly at first and then whole-heartedly, and
+by degrees the vulgar tune and doggerel verses took on an air of
+power and dignity, and when the hymn was finished, the tears
+stood in the eyes of grimy-looking women and of red-faced
+men.&nbsp; Then, with his bag, the pale-faced hymn-leader went
+through the crowd, reaping a plenteous harvest, all in copper,
+from those whose hearts had felt, but for a moment, the full
+force of sympathy.</p>
+<p>Suffragist ladies discussed upon &ldquo;the <a
+name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+138</span>Question,&rdquo; shocking their hearers as they touched
+on prostitution and divorce, and making even stolid policemen,
+who stood sweating in their thick blue uniforms, turn their eyes
+upon the ground.</p>
+<p>After them, Suffragette girls bounded upon the cart,
+consigning fathers, brothers, and the whole male section of
+mankind straight to perdition as they held forth upon the Vote,
+that all-heal of the female politician, who thinks by means of it
+to wipe out all those disabilities imposed upon her by an
+unreasonable Nature and a male Deity, who must have worked alone
+up in the Empyrean without the humanising influence of a
+wife.</p>
+<p>Little by little the various groups dissolved, the speakers
+and their friends forcing their &ldquo;literatoor&rdquo; upon the
+passers-by, who generally appeared to look into the air a foot or
+two above their heads, as they went homewards through the
+streets.</p>
+<p>The Anarchists were the last to leave, a faithful few still
+congregating around a youth in a red necktie who denounced the
+other speakers with impartiality, averring that they were
+&ldquo;humbugs every one of them,&rdquo; and, for <a
+name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>his part,
+he believed only in dynamite, by means of which he hoped some day
+to be able to devote &ldquo;all the blood-suckers to destruction,
+and thus to bring about the reign of brotherhood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little knot of the elect applauded loudly, and the youth,
+catching the policeman&rsquo;s eye fixed on him, descended
+hurriedly from off the chair on which he had been perorating,
+remarking that &ldquo;it was time to be going home to have a bit
+of dinner, as he was due to speak at Salford in the
+evening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Slowly the square was emptied, the last group or two of people
+disappearing into the mouths of the incoming streets just as a
+Roman crowd must have been swallowed up in the vomitoria of an
+amphitheatre, after a show of gladiators.</p>
+<p>Torn newspapers and ends of cigarettes were the sole result of
+all the rhetoric that had been poured out so liberally upon the
+assembled thousands in the square.</p>
+<p>Two or three street boys in their shirt-sleeves, bare-footed
+and bare-headed, their trousers held up by a piece of string,
+played about listlessly, after the fashion of their kind <a
+name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>on Sunday
+in a manufacturing town, when the life of the streets is dead,
+and when men&rsquo;s minds are fixed either upon the mysteries of
+the faith or upon beer, things in which children have but little
+share.</p>
+<p>The usual Sabbath gloom was creeping on the town and
+dinner-time approaching, when from a corner of the square
+appeared a man advancing rapidly.&nbsp; He glanced about
+inquiringly, and for a moment a look of disappointment crossed
+his face.&nbsp; Mounting the steps that lead up to the
+smoke-coated Areopagus, he stopped just for an instant, as if to
+draw his breath and gather his ideas.&nbsp; Decently dressed in
+shabby black, his trousers frayed a little above the heels of his
+elastic-sided boots, his soft felt hat that covered long but
+scanty hair just touched with grey, he had an air as of a plaster
+figure set in the middle of a pond, as he stood silhouetted
+against the background of the buildings, forlorn yet
+resolute.</p>
+<p>The urchins, who had gathered round him, had a look upon their
+faces as of experienced critics at a play; that look of
+expectation and subconscious irony which characterises all their
+kind at public spectacles.</p>
+<p><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>Their
+appearance, although calculated to appal a speaker broken to the
+platform business, did not influence the man who stood upon the
+steps.&nbsp; Taking off his battered hat, he placed it and his
+umbrella carefully upon the ground.&nbsp; A light, as of the
+interior fire that burned in the frail tenement of flesh so
+fiercely that it illuminated his whole being, shone in his mild
+blue eyes.&nbsp; Clearing his throat, and after running his
+nervous hands through his thin hair, he pitched his voice well
+forward, as if the deserted square had been packed full of people
+prepared to hang upon his words.&nbsp; His voice, a little hoarse
+and broken during his first sentences, gradually grew clearer,
+developing a strength quite incommensurate with the source from
+which it came.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; he said, causing the boys to grin
+and waking up the dozing policeman, &ldquo;I have a doctrine to
+proclaim.&nbsp; Love only rules the world.&nbsp; The Greek word
+<i>caritas</i> in the New Testament should have been rendered
+love.&nbsp; Love suffereth long.&nbsp; Love is not puffed up;
+love beareth all things.&nbsp; That is what the Apostle really
+meant to say.&nbsp; Often within this very square I have stood
+listening to the <a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+142</span>speeches, and have weighed them in my mind.&nbsp; It is
+not for me to criticise, only to advocate my own belief.&nbsp;
+Friends . . .&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As his voice had gathered strength, two or three working-men,
+attracted by the sight of a man speaking to the air, surrounded
+but by the street boys and the nodding policeman on his beat, had
+gathered round about.&nbsp; Dressed in their Sunday clothes; well
+washed, and with the look as of restraint that freedom from their
+accustomed toil often imparts to them on Sunday, they listened
+stolidly, with that toleration that accepts all doctrines, from
+that of highest Toryism down to Anarchy, and acts on none of
+them.&nbsp; The speaker, spurred on by the unwonted sight of
+listeners, for several draggled women had drawn near, and an
+ice-cream seller had brought his donkey-cart up to the nearest
+curb-stone, once more launched into his discourse.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friends, when I hear the acerbity of the address of
+some; when I hear doctrines setting forth the rights but leaving
+out the duties of the working class; when I hear men defend the
+sweater and run down the sweated, calling them thriftless, idle,
+and intemperate, when <a name="page143"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 143</span>often they are but unfortunate, I
+ask myself, what has become of Love?&nbsp; Who sees more clearly
+than I do myself what the poor have to suffer?&nbsp; Do I not
+live amongst them and share their difficulties?&nbsp; Who can
+divine better than one who has imagination&mdash;and in that
+respect I thank my stars I have not been left quite
+unendowed&mdash;what are the difficulties of those high placed by
+fortune, who yet have got to strive to keep their place?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sweaters and sweated, the poor, the rich, men, women,
+children, all mankind, suffer from want of Love.&nbsp; I am not
+here to say that natural laws will ever cease to operate, or that
+there will not be great inequalities, if not of fortune, yet of
+endowments, to the end of Time.&nbsp; What the Great Power who
+sent us here intended, only He can tell.&nbsp; One thing He
+placed within the grasp of every one, capacity to love.&nbsp;
+Think, friends, what England might become under the reign of
+universal love.&nbsp; The murky fumes that now defile the
+landscape, the manufactories in which our thousands toil for
+others, the rivers vile with refuse, the knotted bodies and the
+faces scarcely human in their abject struggle for their daily
+bread, <a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+144</span>would disappear.&nbsp; Bradford and Halifax and Leeds
+would once again be fair and clean.&nbsp; The ferns would grow
+once more in Shipley Glen, and in the valleys about Sheffield the
+scissor-grinders would ply their trade upon streams bright and
+sparkling, as they were of yore.&nbsp; In Halifax, the Roman
+road, now black with coal-dust and with mud, would shine as
+well-defined as it does where now and then it crops out from the
+ling upon the moors, just as the Romans left it polished by their
+caligul&aelig;.&nbsp; Why, do you ask me?&nbsp; Because all
+sordid motives would be gone, and of their superfluity the rich
+would give to those less blessed by Providence.&nbsp; The poor
+would grudge no one the gifts of fortune, and thus the need for
+grinding toil would disappear, as the struggle and the strain for
+daily bread would fade into the past.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Picture to yourselves, my friends, an England once more
+green and merry, with the air fresh and not polluted by the smoke
+of foetid towns.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis pleasant, friends, on a spring morning to
+hear the village bells calling to church, even although they do
+not call you to attend.&nbsp; It <a name="page145"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 145</span>heals the soul to see the
+honeysuckle and the eglantine and smell the new-mown hay. . .
+.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then comes a chill when on your vision rises the
+England of the manufacturing town, dark, dreary, and befouled
+with smoke.&nbsp; How different it might be in the perpetual May
+morning I have sketched for you.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Love suffereth all things, endureth all things,
+createth all things. . . .&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He paused, and, looking round, saw he was all alone.&nbsp; The
+boys had stolen away, and the last workman&rsquo;s sturdy back
+could be just seen as it was vanishing towards the
+public-house.</p>
+<p>The speaker sighed, and wiped the perspiration from his
+forehead with a soiled handkerchief.</p>
+<p>Then, picking up his hat and his umbrella, a far-off look came
+into his blue eyes as he walked homewards almost jauntily,
+conscious that the inner fire had got the better of the fleshly
+tenement, and that his work was done.</p>
+<h2><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+146</span>XIII<br />
+EL MASGAD</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> camp was pitched upon the north
+bank of the Wad Nefis, not far from Tamoshlacht.&nbsp; Above it
+towered the Atlas, looking like a wall, with scarce a peak to
+break its grim monotony.&nbsp; A fringe of garden lands enclosed
+the sanctuary, in which the great Sherif lived in patriarchal
+style; half saint, half warrior, but wholly a merchant at the
+bottom, as are so many Arabs; all his surroundings enjoyed
+peculiar sanctity.</p>
+<p>In the long avenue of cypresses the birds lived safely, for no
+one dared to frighten them, much less to fire a shot.&nbsp; His
+baraka, that is the grace abounding, that distils from out the
+clothes, the person and each action of men such as the Sherif,
+who claim descent in apostolic continuity from the Blessed One,
+<a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+147</span>Mohammed, Allah&rsquo;s own messenger, protected
+everything.&nbsp; Of a mean presence, like the man who stood upon
+the Areopagus and beckoned with his hand, before he cast the
+spell of his keen, humoristic speech upon the Greeks, the holy
+one was of a middle stature.&nbsp; His face was marked with
+smallpox.&nbsp; His clothes were dirty, and his haik he sometimes
+mended with a thorn, doubling it, and thrusting one end through a
+slit to form a safety-pin.&nbsp; His shoes were never new, his
+turban like an old bath towel; yet in his belt he wore a dagger
+with a gold hilt, for he was placed so far above the law, by
+virtue of his blood, that though the Koran especially enjoins the
+faithful not to wear gold, all that he did was good.</p>
+<p>Though he drank nothing but pure water, or, for that matter,
+lapped it like a camel, clearing the scum off with his fingers if
+on a journey, he might have drank champagne or brandy, or mixed
+the two of them, for the Arabs are the most logical of men, and
+to them such a man as the Sherif is holy, not from anything he
+does, but because Allah has ordained it.&nbsp; An attitude of
+mind as good as <a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+148</span>any other, and one that, after all, makes a man
+tolerant of human frailties.</p>
+<p>Allah gives courage, virtue, eloquence, or skill in
+horsemanship.&nbsp; He gives or he withholds them for his good
+pleasure; what he has written he has written, and therefore he
+who is without these gifts is not held blamable.&nbsp; If he
+should chance to be a saint, that is a true descendant, in the
+male line, from him who answered nobly when his foolish followers
+asked him if his young wife, Ayesha, should sit at his right hand
+in paradise, &ldquo;By Allah, not she; but old Kadijah, she who
+when all men mocked me, cherished and loved, she shall sit at my
+right hand,&rdquo; that is enough for them.</p>
+<p>So the Sherif was honoured, partly because he had great jars
+stuffed with gold coin, the produce of his olive yards, and also
+of the tribute that the faithful brought him; partly because of
+his descent; and perhaps, more than all, on account of his great
+store of Arab lore on every subject upon earth.&nbsp; His fame
+was great, extending right through the Sus, the Draa, and down to
+Taza&ucirc;elt, where it met the opposing current of the grace of
+Bashir-el-Biruk, Sherif of the Wad-Nun.&nbsp; He liked to talk to
+<a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+149</span>Europeans, partly to show his learning, and partly to
+hear about the devilries they had invented to complicate their
+lives.</p>
+<p>So when the evening prayer was called, and all was silent in
+his house, the faithful duly prostrate on their faces before
+Allah, who seems to take as little heed of them as he does of the
+other warring sects, each with its doctrine of damnation for
+their brethren outside the pale, the Sherif, who seldom prayed,
+knowing that even if he did so he could neither make nor yet
+unmake himself in Allah&rsquo;s sight, called for his mule, and
+with two Arabs running by his side set out towards the
+unbeliever&rsquo;s camp.</p>
+<p>Though the Sherif paid no attention to it, the scene he rode
+through was like fairyland.&nbsp; The moonbeams falling on the
+domes of house and mosque and sanctuary lit up the green and
+yellow tiles, making them sparkle like enamels.&nbsp; Long
+shadows of the cypresses cast great bands of darkness upon the
+red sand of the avenue.&nbsp; The croaking of the frogs sounded
+metallic, and by degrees resolved itself into a continuous
+tinkle, soothing and musical, in the Atlas night.&nbsp; Camels
+lay ruminating, their <a name="page150"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 150</span>monstrous packs upon their
+backs.&nbsp; As the Sherif passed by them on his mule they
+snarled and bubbled, and a faint odour as of a menagerie, mingled
+with that of tar, with which the Arabs cure their girth and
+saddle galls, floated towards him, although no doubt custom had
+made it so familiar that he never heeded it.</p>
+<p>From the Arab huts that gather around every sanctuary, their
+owners living on the baraka, a high-pitched voice to the
+accompaniment of a two-stringed guitar played with a piece of
+stiff palmetto leaf, and the monotonous Arab drum, that if you
+listen to it long enough invades the soul, blots from the mind
+the memory of towns, and makes the hearer long to cast his hat
+into the sea and join the dwellers in the tents, blended so
+inextricably with the shrill cricket&rsquo;s note and the vast
+orchestra of the insects that were praising Allah on that night,
+each after his own fashion, that it was difficult to say where
+the voice ended and the insects&rsquo; hum began.</p>
+<p>Still, in despite of all, the singing Arab, croaking of the
+frogs, and the shrill p&aelig;ans of the insects, the night
+seemed calm and silent, for all the voices were attuned so well
+to the <a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+151</span>surroundings that the serenity of the whole scene was
+unimpaired.</p>
+<p>The tents lay in the moonlight like gigantic mushrooms; the
+rows of bottles cut in blue cloth with which the Arabs ornament
+them stood out upon the canvas as if in high relief.&nbsp; The
+first light dew was falling, frosting the canvas as a piece of
+ice condenses air upon a glass.&nbsp; In a long line before the
+tents stood the pack animals munching their corn placed on a
+cloth upon the ground.</p>
+<p>A dark-grey horse, still with his saddle on for fear of the
+night air, was tied near to the door of the chief tent, well in
+his owner&rsquo;s eye.&nbsp; Now and again he pawed the ground,
+looked up, and neighed, straining upon the hobbles that confined
+his feet fast to the picket line.</p>
+<p>On a camp chair his owner sat and smoked, and now and then
+half got up from his seat when the horse plunged or any of the
+mules stepped on their shackles and nearly fell upon the
+ground.</p>
+<p>As the Sherif approached he rose to welcome him, listening to
+all the reiterated compliments and inquiries that no
+self-respecting Arab ever omits when he may chance to meet a
+friend.</p>
+<p><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>A
+good address, like mercy, is twice blest, both in the giver and
+in the recipient of it; but chiefly it is beneficial to the
+giver, for in addition to the pleasure that he gives, he earns
+his own respect.&nbsp; Well did both understand this aspect of
+the question, and so the compliments stretched out into
+perspectives quite unknown in Europe, until the host, taking his
+visitor by the hand, led him inside the tent.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Ambassador,&rdquo; said the Sherif, although he knew his
+friend was but a Consul, &ldquo;my heart yearned towards thee, so
+I have come to talk with thee of many things, because I know that
+thou art wise, not only in the learning of thy people, but in
+that of our own.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Consul, not knowing what the real import of the visit
+might portend, so to speak felt his adversary&rsquo;s blade,
+telling him he was welcome, and that at all times his tent and
+house were at the disposition of his friend.&nbsp; Clapping his
+hands he called for tea, and when it came, the little flowered
+and gold-rimmed glasses, set neatly in a row, the red tin box
+with two compartments, one for the tea and one for the blocks of
+sugar, the whole surrounding the small dome-shaped pewter teapot,
+all placed <a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+153</span>in order on the heavy copper tray, he waved the
+equipage towards the Sherif, tacitly recognising his superiority
+in the art of tea-making.&nbsp; Seated beside each other on a
+mattress they drank the sacramental three cups of tea, and then,
+after the Consul had lit his cigarette, the Sherif having refused
+one with a gesture of his hand and a half-murmured
+&ldquo;Haram&rdquo;&mdash;that is, &ldquo;It is
+prohibited&rdquo;&mdash;they then began to talk.</p>
+<p>Much had they got to say about the price of barley and the
+drought; of tribal fights; of where our Lord the Sultan was, and
+if he had reduced the rebels in the hills,&mdash;matters that
+constitute the small talk of the tents, just as the weather and
+the fashionable divorce figure in drawing-rooms.&nbsp; Knowing
+what was expected of him, the Consul touched on European
+politics, upon inventions, the progress that the French had made
+upon the southern frontier of Algeria; and as he thus unpacked
+his news with due prolixity, the Sherif now and again interjected
+one or another of those pious phrases, such as &ldquo;Allah is
+merciful,&rdquo; or &ldquo;God&rsquo;s ways are wonderful,&rdquo;
+which at the same time show the interjector&rsquo;s piety, and
+give the man <a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+154</span>who is discoursing time to collect himself, and to
+prepare another phrase.</p>
+<p>After a little conversation languished, and the two men who
+knew each other well sat listlessly, the Consul smoking and the
+Sherif passing the beads of a cheap wooden rosary between the
+fingers of his right hand, whilst with his left he waved a cotton
+pocket handkerchief to keep away the flies.</p>
+<p>Looking up at his companion, &ldquo;Consul,&rdquo; he said,
+for he had now dropped the Ambassador with which he first had
+greeted him, &ldquo;you know us well, you speak our tongue; even
+you know Shillah, the language of the accursed Berbers, and have
+translated Sidi Hammo into the speech of Nazarenes-I beg your
+pardon&mdash;of the Rumi,&rdquo; for he had seen a flush rise on
+the Consul&rsquo;s cheek.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You like our country, and have lived in it for more
+than twenty years.&nbsp; I do not speak to you about our law, for
+every man cleaves to his own, but of our daily life.&nbsp; Tell
+me now, which of the two makes a man happier, the law of Sidna
+Aissa, or that of our Prophet, God&rsquo;s own
+Messenger?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He stopped and waited courteously, playing <a
+name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>with his
+naked toes, just as a European plays with his fingers in the
+intervals of speech.</p>
+<p>The Consul sent a veritable solfatara of tobacco smoke out of
+his mouth and nostrils, and laying down his cigarette returned no
+answer for a little while.</p>
+<p>Perchance his thoughts were wandering towards the cities
+brilliant with light&mdash;the homes of science and of art.&nbsp;
+Cities of vain endeavour in which men pass their lives thinking
+of the condition of their poorer brethren, but never making any
+move to get down off their backs.&nbsp; He thought of London and
+of Paris and New York, the dwelling-places both of law and order,
+and the abodes of noise.&nbsp; He pondered on their material
+advancement: their tubes that burrow underneath the ground, in
+which run railways carrying their thousands all the day and far
+into the night; upon their hospitals, their charitable
+institutions, their legislative assemblies, and their museums,
+with their picture-galleries, their theatres&mdash;on the vast
+sums bestowed to forward arts and sciences, and on the poor who
+shiver in their streets and cower under railway arches in the
+dark winter nights.</p>
+<p><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>As he
+sat with his cigarette smouldering beside him in a little brazen
+pan, the night breeze brought the heavy scent of orange blossoms,
+for it was spring, and all the gardens of the sanctuary each had
+its orange grove.&nbsp; Never had they smelt sweeter, and never
+had the croaking of the frogs seemed more melodious, or the
+cricket&rsquo;s chirp more soothing to the soul.</p>
+<p>A death&rsquo;s-head moth whirred through the tent, poising
+itself, just as a humming-bird hangs stationary probing the
+petals of a flower.&nbsp; The gentle murmur of its wings brought
+back the Consul&rsquo;s mind from its excursus in the regions of
+reality, or unreality, for all is one according to the point of
+view.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sherif,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what you have asked me I
+will answer to the best of my ability.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Man&rsquo;s destiny is so precarious that neither your
+law nor our own appear to me to influence it, or at the best but
+slightly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One of your learned Talebs, or our men of science, as
+they call themselves, with the due modesty of conscious worth, is
+passing down a street, and from a house-top slips a tile and
+falls upon his head.&nbsp; There he lies huddled up, an ugly
+bundle of old clothes, inert and <a name="page157"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 157</span>shapeless, whilst his immortal soul
+leaves his poor mortal body, without which all its divinity is
+incomplete; then perhaps after an hour comes back again, and the
+man staggering to his feet begins to talk about God&rsquo;s
+attributes, or about carrying a line of railroad along a
+precipice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Sherif, who had been listening with the respect that every
+well-bred Arab gives to the man who has possession of the word,
+said, &ldquo;It was so written.&nbsp; The man could not have died
+or never could have come to life again had it not been
+Allah&rsquo;s will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His friend smiled grimly and rejoined, &ldquo;That is so; but
+as Allah never manifests his will, except in action, just as we
+act towards a swarm of ants, annihilating some and sparing others
+as we pass, it does not matter very much what Allah thinks about,
+as it regards ourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When I was young,&rdquo; slowly said the Sherif,
+&ldquo;whilst in the slave trade far away beyond the desert, I
+met the pagan tribes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They had no God . . . like Christians. . .&nbsp; Pardon
+me, I know you know our phrase: nothing but images of wood.</p>
+<p><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+158</span>&ldquo;Those infidels, who, by the way, were just as
+apt at a good bargain as if their fathers all had bowed
+themselves in Christian temple or in mosque, when they received
+no answer to their prayers, would pull their accursed images down
+from their shrines, paint them jet black, and hang them from a
+nail.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Heathens they were, ignorant even of the name of God,
+finding their heaven and their hell here upon earth, just like
+the animals, but . . . sometimes I have thought not quite bereft
+of reason, for they had not the difficulties you have about the
+will of Allah and the way in which he works.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They made their gods themselves, just as we do,&rdquo;
+and as he spoke he lowered his voice and peered out of the tent
+door; &ldquo;but wiser than ourselves they kept a tight hand on
+them, and made their will, as far as possible, coincide with
+their own.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is the hour of prayer. . . .</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How pleasantly the time passes away conversing with
+one&rsquo;s friends&rdquo;; and as he spoke he stood erect,
+turning towards Mecca, as mechanically as the needle turns
+towards the pole.</p>
+<p><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>His
+whole appearance altered and his mean presence suffered a subtle
+change.&nbsp; With eyes fixed upon space, and hands uplifted, he
+testified to the existence of the one God, the Compassionate, the
+Merciful, the Bounteous, the Generous One, who alone giveth
+victory.</p>
+<p>Then, sinking down, he laid his forehead on the ground,
+bringing his palms together.&nbsp; Three times he bowed himself,
+and then rising again upon his feet recited the confession of his
+faith.</p>
+<p>The instant he had done he sat him down again; but gravely and
+with the air of one who has performed an action, half courteous,
+half obligatory, but refreshing to the soul.</p>
+<p>The Consul, who well knew his ways, and knew that probably he
+seldom prayed at home, and that the prayers he had just seen most
+likely were a sort of affirmation of his neutral attitude before
+a stranger, yet was interested.</p>
+<p>Then, when the conversation was renewed, he said to him,
+&ldquo;Prayer seems to me, Sherif, to be the one great difference
+between the animals and man.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As to the rest, we live and die, drink, eat, and
+propagate our species, just as they do; <a
+name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>but no one
+ever heard of any animal who had addressed himself to
+God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A smile flitted across the pock-marked features of the
+descendant of the Prophet, and looking gravely at his
+friend,&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Consul,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Allah to you has given
+many things.&nbsp; He has endowed you with your fertile brains,
+that have searched into forces which had remained unknown in
+nature since the sons of Adam first trod the surface of the
+earth.&nbsp; All that you touch you turn to gold, and as our
+saying goes, &lsquo;Gold builds a bridge across the
+sea.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ships, aeroplanes, cannons of monstrous size, and
+little instruments by which you see minutest specks as if they
+were great rocks; all these you have and yet you doubt His
+power.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To us, the Arabs, we who came from the lands of fire in
+the Hejaz and Hadramut.&nbsp; We who for centuries have remained
+unchanged, driving our camels as our fathers drove them, eating
+and drinking as our fathers ate and drank, and living face to
+face with God. . . .&nbsp; Consu&rsquo;, you should not smile,
+for do we not live closer to Him than you do, under the stars <a
+name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>at night,
+out in the sun by day, our lives almost as simple as the lives of
+animals?&nbsp; To us He has vouchsafed gifts that He either has
+withheld from you, or that you have neglected in your pride.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thus we still keep our faith. . . .&nbsp; Faith in the
+God who set the planets in their courses, bridled the tides, and
+caused the palm to grow beside the river so that the traveller
+may rest beneath its shade, and resting, praise His name.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ask me, who ever heard of any animal that addressed
+himself to God.&nbsp; He in His infinite power . . . be sure of
+it . . . is He not merciful and compassionate, wonderful in His
+ways, harder to follow than the track that a gazelle leaves in
+the desert sands; it cannot be that He could have denied them
+access to His ear?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did not the lizard, Consul . . ., Hamed el Angri, the
+runner, the man who never can rest long in any place, but must be
+ever tightening his belt and pulling up his slippers at the heel
+to make ready for the road . . ., did he not tell you of El
+Hokaitsallah, the little lizard who, being late upon the day when
+<a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>Allah
+took away speech from all the animals, ran on the beam in the
+great mosque at Mecca, and dumbly scratched his
+prayer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Consul nodded.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hamed el Angri,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;no doubt is still upon the road, by whose side he
+will die one day of hunger or of thirst. . . .&nbsp; Yes; he told
+me of it, and I wrote it in a book. . . .&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Write this, then,&rdquo; the Sherif went on,
+&ldquo;Allah in his compassion, and in case the animals, bereft
+of speech, that is in Arabic, for each has his own tongue, should
+not be certain of the direction of the Kiblah, has given the
+power to a poor insect which we call El Masgad to pray for all of
+them.&nbsp; With its head turned to Mecca, as certainly as if he
+had the needle of the mariners, he prays at El Magreb.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All day he sits erect and watches for his prey.&nbsp;
+At eventide, just at the hour of El Magreb, when from the
+&lsquo;alminares&rsquo; of the Mosques the muezzin calls upon the
+faithful for their prayers, he adds his testimony.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Consu&rsquo;, Allah rejects no prayer, however humble,
+and that the little creature knows.&nbsp; He knows that Allah
+does not answer every prayer; <a name="page163"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 163</span>but yet the prayer remains; it is
+not blotted out, and perhaps some day it may fructify, for it is
+written in the book.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Therefore El Masgad prays each night for all the
+animals, yet being but a little thing and simple, it has not
+strength to testify at all the hours laid down in Mecca by our
+Lord Mohammed, he of the even teeth, the curling hair, and the
+grave smile, that never left his face after he had communed with
+Allah in the cave.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Consul dropped his smoked-out cigarette, and, stretching
+over to his friend, held out his hand to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sherif,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;maybe El Masgad prays
+for you and me, as well as for its kind?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The answer came: &ldquo;Consu&rsquo;, doubt not; it is a
+little animal of God, . . . we too are in His hand. . .
+.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+164</span>XIV<br />
+FEAST DAY IN SANTA MARIA MAYOR</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> great Capilla, the largest in
+the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay, was built round a huge square,
+almost a quarter of a mile across.</p>
+<p>Upon three sides ran the low, continuous line of houses, like
+a &ldquo;row&rdquo; in a Scotch mining village or a phalanstery
+designed by Prudhon or St. Simon in their treatises; but by the
+grace of a kind providence never carried out, either in bricks or
+stone.</p>
+<p>Each dwelling-place was of the same design and size as all the
+rest.&nbsp; Rough tiles made in the Jesuit times, but now
+weathered and broken, showing the rafters tied with raw hide in
+many places, formed the long roof, that looked a little like the
+pent-house of a tennis court.</p>
+<p><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>A
+deep verandah ran in front, stretching from one end to the other
+of the square, supported on great balks of wood, which, after
+more than two hundred years and the assaults of weather and the
+all-devouring ants, still showed the adze marks where they had
+been dressed.&nbsp; The timber was so hard that you could
+scarcely drive a nail into it, despite the flight of time since
+it was first set up.&nbsp; Rings fixed about six feet from the
+ground were screwed into the pillars of the verandah, before
+every door, to fasten horses to, exactly as they are in an old
+Spanish town.</p>
+<p>Against the wall of almost every house, just by the door, was
+set a chair or two of heavy wood, with the seat formed by strips
+of hide, on which the hair had formerly been left, but long ago
+rubbed off by use, or eaten by the ants.</p>
+<p>The owner of the house sat with the back of the strong chair
+tilted against the wall, dressed in a loose and pleated shirt,
+with a high turned-down collar open at the throat, and spotless
+white duck trousers, that looked the whiter by their contrast
+with his brown, naked feet.</p>
+<p>His home-made palm-tree hat was placed <a
+name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>upon the
+ground beside him, and his cloak of coarse red baize was thrown
+back from his shoulders, as he sat smoking a cigarette rolled in
+a maize leaf, for in the Jesuit capillas only women smoked
+cigars.</p>
+<p>At every angle of the square a sandy trail led out, either to
+the river or the woods, the little patches planted with mandioca,
+or to the maze of paths that, like the points outside a junction,
+eventually joined in one main trail, that ran from Itapua on the
+Paran&aacute;, up to Asuncion.</p>
+<p>The church, built of wood cut in the neighbouring forest, had
+two tall towers, and followed in its plan the pattern of all the
+churches in the New World built by the Jesuits, from California
+down to the smallest mission in the south.&nbsp; It filled the
+fourth side of the square, and on each side of it there rose two
+feathery palms, known as the tallest in the Missions, which
+served as landmarks for travellers coming to the place, if they
+had missed their road.&nbsp; So large and well-proportioned was
+the church, it seemed impossible that it had been constructed
+solely by the Indians themselves, under the direction of the
+missionaries.</p>
+<p><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>The
+overhanging porch and flight of steps that ran down to the grassy
+sward in the middle of the town gave it an air as of a cathedral
+reared to nature in the wilds, for the thick jungle flowed up
+behind it and almost touched its walls.</p>
+<p>Bells of great size, either cast upon the spot or brought at
+vast expense from Spain, hung in the towers.&nbsp; On this, the
+feast day of the Blessed Virgin, the special patron of the
+settlement, they jangled ceaselessly, the Indians taking turns to
+haul upon the dried lianas that served instead of ropes.&nbsp;
+Though they pulled vigorously, the bells sounded a little
+muffled, as if they strove in vain against the vigorous nature
+that rendered any work of man puny and insignificant in the
+Paraguayan wilds.</p>
+<p>Inside, the fane was dark, the images of saints were dusty,
+their paint was cracked, their gilding tarnished, making them
+look a little like the figures in a New Zealand pah, as they
+loomed through the darkness of the aisle.&nbsp; On the neglected
+altar, for at that time priests were a rarity in the Reductions,
+the Indians had placed great bunches of red flowers, and now and
+then a humming-bird flitted in through <a
+name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>the
+glassless windows and hung poised above them; then darted out
+again, with a soft, whirring sound.&nbsp; Over the whole capilla,
+in which at one time several thousand Indians had lived, but now
+reduced to seventy or eighty at the most, there hung an air of
+desolation.&nbsp; It seemed as if man, in his long protracted
+struggle with the forces of the woods, had been defeated, and had
+accepted his defeat, content to vegetate, forgotten by the world,
+in the vast sea of green.</p>
+<p>On this particular day, the annual festival of the Blessed
+Virgin, there was an air of animation, for from far and near,
+from Jesuit capilla, from straw-thatched huts lost in the
+clearings of the primeval forest, from the few cattle ranches
+that then existed, and from the little town of Itapua, fifty
+miles away, the scanty population had turned out to attend the
+festival.</p>
+<p>Upon the forest tracks, from earliest dawn, long lines of
+white-clad women, barefooted, with their black hair cut square
+across the forehead and hanging down their backs, had marched as
+silently as ghosts.&nbsp; All of them smoked great, green cigars,
+and as they <a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+169</span>marched along, their leader carrying a torch, till the
+sun rose and jaguars went back to their lairs, they never talked;
+but if a woman in the rear of the long line wished to converse
+with any comrade in the front she trotted forward till she
+reached her friend and whispered in her ear.&nbsp; When they
+arrived at the crossing of the little river they bathed, or, at
+the least, washed carefully, and gathering a bunch of flowers,
+stuck them into their hair.&nbsp; They crossed the stream, and on
+arriving at the plaza they set the baskets, which they had
+carried on their heads, upon the ground, and sitting down beside
+them on the grass, spread out their merchandise.&nbsp; Oranges
+and bread, called &ldquo;chipa,&rdquo; made from mandioca flour
+and cheese, with vegetables and various homely sweetmeats, ground
+nuts, rolls of sugar done up in plaintain leaves, and known as
+&ldquo;rapadura,&rdquo; were the chief staples of their
+trade.&nbsp; Those who had asses let them loose to feed; and if
+upon the forest trails the women had been silent, once in the
+safety of the town no flight of parrots in a maize field could
+have chattered louder than they did as they sat waiting by their
+wares.&nbsp; Soon the square filled, and men <a
+name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>arriving
+tied their horses in the shade, slackening their broad hide
+girths, and piling up before them heaps of the leaves of the palm
+called &ldquo;Pind&oacute;&rdquo; in Guarani, till they were cool
+enough to eat their corn.&nbsp; Bands of boys, for in those days
+most of the men had been killed off in the past war, came
+trooping in, accompanied by crowds of women and of girls, who
+carried all their belongings, for there were thirteen women to a
+man, and the youngest boy was at a premium amongst the Indian
+women, who in the villages, where hardly any men were left,
+fought for male stragglers like unchained tigresses.&nbsp; A few
+old men came riding in on some of the few native horses left, for
+almost all the active, little, undersized breed of Paraguay had
+been exhausted in the war.&nbsp; They, too, had bands of women
+trotting by their sides, all of them anxious to unsaddle, to take
+the horses down to bathe, or to perform any small office that the
+men required of them.&nbsp; All of them smoked continuously, and
+each of them was ready with a fresh cigarette as soon as the old
+man or boy whom they accompanied finished the stump he held
+between his lips.&nbsp; The women <a name="page171"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 171</span>all were dressed in the long Indian
+shirt called a &ldquo;tupoi,&rdquo; cut rather low upon the
+breast, and edged with coarse black cotton lace, which every
+Paraguayan woman wore.&nbsp; Their hair was as black as a
+crow&rsquo;s back, and quite as shiny, and their white teeth so
+strong that they could tear the ears of corn out of a maize cob
+like a horse munching at his corn.</p>
+<p>Then a few Correntino gauchos next appeared, dressed in their
+national costume of loose black merino trousers, stuffed into
+long boots, whose fronts were all embroidered in red silk.&nbsp;
+Their silver spurs, whose rowels were as large as saucers, just
+dangled off their heels, only retained in place by a flat chain,
+that met upon the instep, clasped with a lion&rsquo;s head.&nbsp;
+Long hair and brown vicuna ponchos, soft black felt hats, and red
+silk handkerchiefs tied loosely round their necks marked them as
+strangers, though they spoke Guarani.</p>
+<p>They sat upon their silver-mounted saddles, with their toes
+resting in their bell-shaped stirrups, swaying so easily with
+every movement that the word riding somehow or other seemed
+inapplicable to men who, like the centaurs, formed one body with
+the horse.</p>
+<p><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>As
+they drew near the plaza they raised their hands and touched
+their horses with the spur, and, rushing like a whirlwind right
+to the middle of the square, drew up so suddenly that their
+horses seemed to have turned to statues for a moment, and then at
+a slow trot, that made their silver trappings jingle as they
+went, slowly rode off into the shade.</p>
+<p>The plaza filled up imperceptibly, and the short grass was
+covered by a white-clad throng of Indians.&nbsp; The heat
+increased, and all the time the bells rang out, pulled vigorously
+by relays of Indians, and at a given signal the people turned and
+trooped towards the church, all carrying flowers in their
+hands.</p>
+<p>As there was no one to sing Mass, and as the organ long had
+been neglected, the congregation listened to some prayers, read
+from a book of Hours by an old Indian, who pronounced the Latin,
+of which most likely he did not understand a word, as if it had
+been Guarani.&nbsp; They sang &ldquo;Las Flores &aacute;
+Maria&rdquo; all in unison, but keeping such good time that at a
+little distance from the church it sounded like waves breaking on
+a beach after a summer storm.</p>
+<p><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>In
+the neglected church, where no priest ministered or clergy
+prayed, where all the stoops of holy water had for years been
+dry, and where the Mass had been well-nigh forgotten as a whole,
+the spirit lingered, and if it quickeneth upon that feast day in
+the Paraguayan missions, that simple congregation were as
+uplifted by it as if the sacrifice had duly been fulfilled with
+candles, incense, and the pomp and ceremony of Holy Mother Church
+upon the Seven Hills.</p>
+<p>As every one except the Correntinos went barefooted, the exit
+of the congregation made no noise except the sound of naked feet,
+slapping a little on the wooden steps, and so the people silently
+once again filled the plaza, where a high wooden arch had been
+erected in the middle, for the sport of running at the ring.</p>
+<p>The vegetable sellers had now removed from the middle of the
+square, taking all their wares under the long verandah, and
+several pedlars had set up their booths and retailed cheap
+European trifles such as no one in the world but a Paraguayan
+Indian could possibly require.&nbsp; Razors that would not cut,
+and little looking-glasses in pewter frames made in <a
+name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>Thuringia,
+cheap clocks that human ingenuity was powerless to repair when
+they had run their course of six months&rsquo; intermittent
+ticking, and gaudy pictures representing saints who had ascended
+to the empyrean, as it appeared, with the clothes that they had
+worn in life, and all bald-headed, as befits a saint, were set
+out side by side with handkerchiefs of the best China silk.&nbsp;
+Sales were concluded after long-continued chaffering&mdash;that
+higgling of the market dear to old-time economists, for no one
+would have bought the smallest article, even below cost price,
+had it been offered to him at the price the seller originally
+asked.</p>
+<p>Enrique Clerici, from Itapua, had transported all his pulperia
+bodily for the occasion of the feast.&nbsp; It had not wanted
+more than a small wagon to contain his stock-in-trade.&nbsp; Two
+or three dozen bottles of square-faced gin of the Anchor brand, a
+dozen of heady red wine from Catalonia, a pile of sardine boxes,
+sweet biscuits, raisins from Malaga, esparto baskets full of
+figs, and sundry pecks of apricots dried in the sun and cut into
+the shape of ears, and hence called &ldquo;orejones,&rdquo;
+completed all his store.&nbsp; He himself, tall and <a
+name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>sunburnt,
+stood dressed in riding-boots and a broad hat, with his revolver
+in his belt, beside a pile of empty bottles, which he had always
+ready, to hurl at customers if there should be any attempt either
+at cheating or to rush his wares.&nbsp; He spoke the curious
+lingo, half-Spanish, half-Italian, that so many of his countrymen
+use in the River Plate; and all his conversation ran upon
+Garibaldi, with whom he had campaigned in youth, upon Italia
+Irredenta, and on the time when anarchy should sanctify mankind
+by blood, as he said, and bring about the reign of universal
+brotherhood.</p>
+<p>He did a roaring trade, despite the competition of a native
+Paraguayan, who had brought three demi-johns of Ca&ntilde;a, for
+men prefer the imported article the whole world over, though it
+is vile, to native manufactures, even when cheap and good.</p>
+<p>Just about twelve o&rsquo;clock, when the sun almost burned a
+hole into one&rsquo;s head, the band got ready in the church
+porch, playing upon old instruments, some of which may have
+survived from Jesuit times, or, at the least, been copied in the
+place, as the originals decayed.</p>
+<p><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+176</span>Sackbuts and psalteries and shawms were there, with
+serpents, gigantic clarionets, and curiously twisted oboes, and
+drums, whose canvas all hung slack and gave a muffled sound when
+they were beaten, and little fifes, ear-piercing and devilish,
+were represented in that band.&nbsp; It banged and crashed
+&ldquo;La Palomita,&rdquo; that tune of evil-sounding omen, for
+to its strains prisoners were always ushered out to execution in
+the times of Lopez, and as it played the players slowly walked
+down the steps.</p>
+<p>Behind them followed the alcalde, an aged Indian, dressed in
+long cotton drawers, that at the knees were split into a fringe
+that hung down to his ankles, a spotless shirt much pleated, and
+a red cloak of fine merino cloth.&nbsp; In his right hand he
+carried a long cane with a silver head&mdash;his badge of
+office.&nbsp; Walking up to the door of his own house, by which
+was set a table covered with glasses and with homemade cakes, he
+gave the signal for the running at the ring.</p>
+<p>The Correntino gauchos, two or three Paraguayans, and a German
+married to a Paraguayan wife, were all who entered for the <a
+name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+177</span>sport.&nbsp; The band struck up, and a young Paraguayan
+started the first course.&nbsp; Gripping his stirrups tightly
+between his naked toes, and seated on an old &ldquo;recao,&rdquo;
+surmounted by a sheepskin, he spurred his horse, a wall-eyed
+skewbald, with his great iron spurs, tied to his bare insteps
+with thin strips of hide.&nbsp; The skewbald, only half-tamed,
+reared once or twice and bounded off, switching its ragged tail,
+which had been half-eaten off by cows.&nbsp; The people yelled, a
+&ldquo;mosqueador!&rdquo;&mdash;that is, a
+&ldquo;fly-flapper,&rdquo; a grave fault in a horse in the eyes
+of Spanish Americans&mdash;as the Paraguayan steered the skewbald
+with the reins held high in his left hand, carrying the other
+just above the level of his eyes, armed with a piece of cane
+about a foot in length.</p>
+<p>As he approached the arch, in which the ring dangled from a
+string, his horse, either frightened by the shouting of the crowd
+or by the arch itself, swerved and plunged violently, carrying
+its rider through the thickest of the people, who separated like
+a flock of sheep when a dog runs through it, cursing him
+volubly.&nbsp; The German came the next, dressed in his Sunday
+clothes, a slop-made suit of shoddy <a name="page178"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 178</span>cloth, riding a horse that all his
+spurring could not get into full speed.&nbsp; The rider&rsquo;s
+round, fair face was burned a brick-dust colour, and as he
+spurred and plied his whip, made out of solid tapir hide, the
+sweat ran down in streams upon his coat.&nbsp; So intent was he
+on flogging, that as he neared the ring he dropped his piece of
+cane, and his horse, stopping suddenly just underneath the arch,
+would have unseated him had he not clasped it round the
+neck.&nbsp; Shouts of delight greeted this feat of horsemanship,
+and one tall Correntino, taking his cigarette out of his mouth,
+said to his fellow sitting next to him upon his horse, &ldquo;The
+very animals themselves despise the gringos.&nbsp; See how that
+little white-nosed brute that he was riding knew that he was a
+&lsquo;maturango,&rsquo; and nearly had him off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Next came Hijinio Rojas, a Paraguayan of the better classes,
+sallow and Indian looking, dressed in clothes bought in Asuncion,
+his trousers tucked into his riding-boots.&nbsp; His small black
+hat, with the brim flattened up against his head by the wind
+caused by the fury of the gallop of his active little roan with
+four white feet, was kept upon his head by a <a
+name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>black
+ribbon knotted underneath his chin.&nbsp; As he neared the arch
+his horse stepped double several times and fly jumped; but that
+did not disturb him in the least, and, aiming well he touched the
+ring, making it fly into the air.&nbsp; A shout went up, partly
+in Spanish, partly in Guarani, from the assembled people, and
+Rojas, reining in his horse, stopped him in a few bounds, so
+sharply, that his unshod feet cut up the turf of the green plaza
+as a skate cuts the ice.&nbsp; He turned and trotted gently to
+the arch, and then, putting his horse to its top speed, stopped
+it again beside the other riders, amid the &ldquo;Vivas&rdquo; of
+the crowd.&nbsp; Then came the turn of the four Correntinos, who
+rode good horses from their native province, had silver
+horse-gear and huge silver spurs, that dangled from their
+heels.&nbsp; They were all gauchos, born, as the saying goes,
+&ldquo;amongst the animals.&rdquo;&nbsp; A dun with fiery eyes
+and a black stripe right down his back, and with black markings
+on both hocks, a chestnut skewbald, a &ldquo;doradillo,&rdquo;
+and a horse of that strange mealy bay with a fern-coloured
+muzzle, that the gauchos call a &ldquo;Pangar&eacute;,&rdquo;
+carried them just as if their will and that of those who <a
+name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>rode them
+were identical.&nbsp; Without a signal, visible at least to any
+but themselves, their horses started at full speed, reaching
+occasionally at the bit, then dropping it again and bridling so
+easy that one could ride them with a thread drawn from a
+spider&rsquo;s web.&nbsp; Their riders sat up easily, not riding
+as a European rides, with his eyes fixed upon each movement of
+his horse, but, as it were, divining them as soon as they were
+made.&nbsp; Each of them took the ring, and all of them checked
+their horses, as it were, by their volition, rather than the bit,
+making the silver horse-gear rattle and their great silver spurs
+jingle upon their feet.&nbsp; Each waited for the other at the
+far side of the arch, and then turning in a line they started
+with a shout, and as they passed right through the middle of the
+square at a wild gallop, they swung down sideways from their
+saddles and dragged their hands upon the ground.&nbsp; Swinging
+up, apparently without an effort, back into their seats, when
+they arrived at the point from where they had first started, they
+reined up suddenly, making their horses plunge and rear, and then
+by a light signal on the reins stand quietly in line, tossing the
+foam <a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+181</span>into the air.&nbsp; Hijinio Rojas and the four centaurs
+all received a prize, and the alcalde, pouring out wineglasses
+full of gin, handed them to the riders, who, with a compliment or
+two as to the order of their drinking, emptied them solemnly.</p>
+<p>No other runners having come forward to compete, for in those
+days horses were scarce throughout the Paraguayan Missions, the
+sports were over, and the perspiring crowd went off to breakfast
+at tables spread under the long verandahs, and silence fell upon
+the square.</p>
+<p>The long, hot hours during the middle of the day were passed
+in sleeping.&nbsp; Some lay face downwards in the shade.&nbsp;
+Others swung in white cotton hammocks, keeping them in perpetual
+motion, till they fell asleep, by pushing with a naked toe upon
+the ground.&nbsp; At last the sun, the enemy, as the Arabs call
+him, slowly declined, and white-robed women, with their
+&ldquo;tupois&rdquo; slipping half off their necks, began to come
+out into the verandahs, slack and perspiring after the midday
+struggle with the heat.</p>
+<p>Then bands of girls sauntered down to the <a
+name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>river, from
+whence soon came the sound of merry laughter as they splashed
+about and bathed.</p>
+<p>The Correntinos rode down to a pool and washed their horses,
+throwing the water on them with their two hands, as the animals
+stood nervously shrinking from each splash, until they were quite
+wet through and running down, when they stood quietly, with their
+tails tucked in between their legs.</p>
+<p>Night came on, as it does in those latitudes, no twilight
+intervening, and from the rows of houses came the faint lights of
+wicks burning in bowls of grease, whilst from beneath the orange
+trees was heard the tinkling of guitars.</p>
+<p>Enormous bats soared about noiselessly, and white-dressed
+couples lingered about the corners of the streets, and men stood
+talking, pressed closely up against the wooden gratings of the
+windows, to women hidden inside the room.&nbsp; The air was heavy
+with the languorous murmur of the tropic night, and gradually the
+lights one by one were extinguished, and the tinkling of the
+guitars was stilled.&nbsp; The moon came out, serene and
+glorious, showing <a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+183</span>each stone upon the sandy trails as clearly as at
+midday.&nbsp; Saddling their horses, the four Correntinos
+silently struck the trail to Itapua, and bands of women moved off
+along the forest tracks towards their homes, walking in Indian
+file.&nbsp; Hijinio Rojas, who had saddled up to put the
+Correntinos on the right road, emerged into the moonlit plaza,
+his shadow outlined so sharply on the grass it seemed it had been
+drawn, and then, entering a side street, disappeared into the
+night.&nbsp; The shrill neighing of his horse appeared as if it
+bade farewell to its companions, now far away upon the Itapua
+trail.&nbsp; Noises that rise at night from forests in the
+tropics sound mysteriously, deep in the woods.&nbsp; It seemed as
+if a population silent by day was active and on foot, and from
+the underwood a thick white mist arose, shrouding the sleeping
+town.</p>
+<p>Little by little, just as a rising tide covers a reef of
+rocks, it submerged everything in its white, clinging
+folds.&nbsp; The houses disappeared, leaving the plaza seething
+like a lake, and then the church was swallowed up, the towers
+struggling, as it were, a little, just as a wreath of seaweed on
+a rock appears to fight against <a name="page184"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 184</span>the tide.&nbsp; Then they too
+disappeared, and the conquering mist enveloped everything.&nbsp;
+All that was left above the sea of billowing white were the two
+topmost tufts of the tall, feathery palms.</p>
+<h2><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+185</span>XV<br />
+BOPICU&Aacute;</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> great corral at Bopicu&aacute;
+was full of horses.&nbsp; Greys, browns, bays, blacks, duns,
+chestnuts, roans (both blue and red), skewbalds and piebalds,
+with claybanks, calicos, buckskins, and a hundred shades and
+markings, unknown in Europe, but each with its proper name in
+Uruguay and Argentina, jostled each other, forming a
+kaleidoscopic mass.</p>
+<p>A thick dust rose from the corral and hung above their
+heads.&nbsp; Sometimes the horses stood all huddled up, gazing
+with wide distended eyes and nostrils towards a group of men that
+lounged about the gate.&nbsp; At other times that panic fear that
+seizes upon horses when they are crushed together in large
+numbers, set them a-galloping.&nbsp; Through the dust-cloud their
+footfalls sounded muffled, <a name="page186"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 186</span>and they themselves appeared like
+phantoms in a mist.&nbsp; When they had circled round a little
+they stopped, and those outside the throng, craning their heads
+down nearly to the ground, snorted, and then ran back, arching
+their necks and carrying their tails like flags.&nbsp; Outside
+the great corral was set Parodi&rsquo;s camp, below some China
+trees, and formed of corrugated iron and hides, stuck on short
+uprights, so that the hides and iron almost came down upon the
+ground, in gipsy fashion.&nbsp; Upon the branches of the trees
+were hung saddles, bridles, halters, hobbles, lazos, and
+boleadoras, and underneath were spread out saddle-cloths to
+dry.&nbsp; Pieces of meat swung from the low gables of the hut,
+and under the low eaves was placed a &ldquo;catre,&rdquo; the
+canvas scissor-bedstead of Spain and of her colonies in the New
+World.&nbsp; Upon the catre was a heap of ponchos, airing in the
+sun, their bright and startling colours looking almost dingy in
+the fierce light of a March afternoon in Uruguay.&nbsp; Close to
+the camp stood several bullock-carts, their poles supported on a
+crutch, and their reed-covered tilts giving them an air of huts
+on wheels.&nbsp; <a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+187</span>Men sat about on bullocks&rsquo; skulls, around a
+smouldering fire, whilst the &ldquo;mat&eacute;&rdquo; circulated
+round from man to man, after the fashion of a loving-cup.&nbsp;
+Parodi, the stiff-jointed son of Italian parents, a gaucho as to
+clothes and speech, but still half-European in his lack of
+comprehension of the ways of a wild horse.&nbsp; Arena, the
+capataz from Entre-Rios, thin, slight, and nervous, a man who
+had, as he said, in his youth known how to read and even guide
+the pen; but now &ldquo;things of this world had turned him quite
+unlettered, and made him more familiar with the lazo and the
+spurs.&rdquo;&nbsp; The mulatto Pablo Suarez, active and
+cat-like, a great race-rider and horse-tamer, short and
+deep-chested, with eyes like those of a black cat, and toes,
+prehensile as a monkey&rsquo;s, that clutched the stirrup when a
+wild colt began to buck, so that it could not touch its
+flanks.&nbsp; They and Miguel Paralelo, tall, dark, and handsome,
+the owner of some property, but drawn by the excitement of a
+cowboy&rsquo;s life to work for wages, so that he could enjoy the
+risk of venturing his neck each day on a
+&ldquo;bagu&aacute;l,&rdquo; <a name="citation187"></a><a
+href="#footnote187" class="citation">[187]</a> with other peons
+as <a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>El
+Correntino and Venancio Baez, were grouped around the fire.&nbsp;
+With them were seated Martin el Madrile&ntilde;o, a Spanish
+horse-coper, who had experienced the charm of gaucho life,
+together with Silvestre Ayres, a Brazilian, slight and
+olive-coloured, well-educated, but better known as a dead
+pistol-shot than as man of books.&nbsp; They waited for their
+turn at mat&eacute;, or ate great chunks of meat from a roast
+cooked upon a spit, over a fire of bones.&nbsp; Most of the men
+were tall and sinewy, with that air of taciturnity and
+self-equilibrium that their isolated lives and Indian blood so
+often stamp upon the faces of those centaurs of the plains.&nbsp;
+The camp, set on a little hill, dominated the country for miles
+on every side.&nbsp; Just underneath it, horses and more horses
+grazed.&nbsp; Towards the west it stretched out to the woods that
+fringe the Uruguay, which, with its countless islands, flowed
+between great tracks of forest, and formed the frontier with the
+Argentine.</p>
+<p>Between the camp and the corrals smouldered a fire of bones
+and &ntilde;andubay, and by it, leaning up against a rail, were
+set the branding-irons that had turned the horses in the corral
+<a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>into the
+property of the British Government.&nbsp; All round the herd
+enclosed, ran horses neighing, seeking their companions, who were
+to graze no more at Bopicu&aacute;, but be sent off by train and
+ship to the battlefields of Europe to die and suffer, for they
+knew not what, leaving their pastures and their innocent
+comradeship with one another till the judgment day.&nbsp; Then, I
+am sure, for God must have some human feeling after all, things
+will be explained to them, light come into their semi-darkness,
+and they will feed in prairies where the grass fades not, and
+springs are never dry, freed from the saddle, and with no cruel
+spur to urge them on they know not where or why.</p>
+<p>For weeks we had been choosing out the doomed five
+hundred.&nbsp; Riding, inspecting, and examining from dawn till
+evening, till it appeared that not a single equine imperfection
+could have escaped our eyes.&nbsp; The gauchos, who all think
+that they alone know anything about a horse, were all struck dumb
+with sheer amazement.&nbsp; It seemed to them astonishing to take
+such pains to select horses that for the most part would be
+killed in a few months.&nbsp; <a name="page190"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 190</span>&ldquo;These men,&rdquo; they said,
+&ldquo;certainly all are doctors at the job.&nbsp; They know even
+the least defect, can tell what a horse thinks about and
+why.&nbsp; Still, none of them can ride a horse if he but shakes
+his ears.&nbsp; In their bag surely there is a cat shut up of
+some kind or another.&nbsp; If not, why do they bother so much in
+the matter, when all that is required is something that can carry
+one into the thickest of the fight?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The sun began to slant a little, and we had still three
+leagues to drive the horses to the pasture where they had to pass
+the night for the last time in freedom, before they were
+entrained.&nbsp; Our horses stood outside of the corral, tied to
+the posts, some saddled with the &ldquo;recado,&rdquo; <a
+name="citation190"></a><a href="#footnote190"
+class="citation">[190]</a> its heads adorned with silver, some
+with the English saddle, that out of England has such a strange,
+unserviceable look, much like a saucepan on a horse&rsquo;s
+back.&nbsp; Just as we were about to mount, a man appeared,
+driving a point of horses, which, he said, &ldquo;to leave would
+be a crime against the sacrament.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;These are
+all pingos,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;fit for the saddle of the
+Lord on High, all of them <a name="page191"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 191</span>are bitted in the Brazilian style,
+can turn upon a spread-out saddle-cloth, and all of them can
+gallop round a bullock&rsquo;s head upon the ground, so that the
+rider can keep his hand upon it all the time.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+speaker by his accent was a Brazilian.&nbsp; His face was
+olive-coloured, his hair had the suspicion of a kink.&nbsp; His
+horse, a cream-colour, with black tail and mane, was evidently
+only half-tamed, and snorted loudly as it bounded here and there,
+making its silver harness jingle and the rider&rsquo;s poncho
+flutter in the air.&nbsp; Although time pressed, the man&rsquo;s
+address was so persuasive, his appearance so much in character
+with his great silver spurs just hanging from his heel, his
+jacket turned up underneath his elbow by the handle of his knife,
+and, to speak truth, the horses looked so good and in such high
+condition that we determined to examine them, and told their
+owner to drive them into a corral.</p>
+<p>Once again we commenced the work that we had done so many
+times of mounting and examining.&nbsp; Once more we fought,
+trying to explain the mysteries of red tape to unsophisticated
+minds, and once again our &ldquo;domadores&rdquo; sprang lightly,
+barebacked, upon the horses <a name="page192"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 192</span>they had never seen before, with
+varying results.&nbsp; Some of the Brazilian&rsquo;s horses
+bucked like antelopes, El Correntino and the others of our men
+sitting them barebacked as easily as an ordinary man rides over a
+small fence.&nbsp; To all our queries why they did not saddle up
+we got one answer, &ldquo;To ride with the recado is but a
+pastime only fit for boys.&rdquo;&nbsp; So they went on, pulling
+the horses up in three short bounds, nostrils aflame and tails
+and manes tossed wildly in the air, only a yard or two from the
+corral.&nbsp; Then, slipping off, gave their opinion that the
+particular &ldquo;bayo,&rdquo; &ldquo;zaino,&rdquo; or
+&ldquo;gateao&rdquo; was just the thing to mount a lancer on, and
+that the speaker thought he could account for a good tale of
+Boches if he were over there in the Great War.&nbsp; This same
+great war, which they called &ldquo;barbarous,&rdquo; taking a
+secret pleasure in the fact that it showed Europeans not a whit
+more civilised than they themselves, appeared to them something
+in the way of a great pastime from which they were debarred.</p>
+<p>Most of them, when they sold a horse, looked at him and
+remarked, &ldquo;Pobrecito, you will go to the Great War,&rdquo;
+just as a man looks <a name="page193"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 193</span>at his son who is about to go, with
+feelings of mixed admiration and regret.</p>
+<p>After we had examined all the Brazilian&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Tropilla&rdquo; so carefully that he said, &ldquo;By
+Satan&rsquo;s death, your graces know far more about my horses
+than I myself, and all I wonder is that you do not ask me if all
+of them have not complied with all the duties of the
+Church,&rdquo; we found that about twenty of them were fit for
+the Great War.&nbsp; Calling upon Parodi and the capataz of
+Bopicu&aacute;, who all the time had remained seated round the
+smouldering fire and drinking mat&eacute;, to prepare the
+branding-irons, the peons led them off, our head man calling out
+&ldquo;Artilleria&rdquo; or &ldquo;Caballeria,&rdquo; according
+to their size.&nbsp; After the branding, either on the hip for
+cavalry and on the neck for the artillery, a peon cut their manes
+off, making them as ugly as a mule, as their late owner said, and
+we were once more ready for the road, after the payment had been
+made.&nbsp; This took a little time, either because the Brazilian
+could not count, or perhaps because of his great caution, for he
+would not take payment except horse by horse.&nbsp; So, driving
+out the horses one by one, <a name="page194"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 194</span>we placed a roll of dollars in his
+hand as each one passed the gate.&nbsp; Even then each roll of
+dollars had to be counted separately, for time is what men have
+the most at their disposal in places such as Bopicu&aacute;.</p>
+<p>Two hours of sunset still remained, with three long leagues to
+cover, for in those latitudes there is no twilight, night
+succeeding day, just as films follow one another in a
+cinematograph.&nbsp; At last it all was over, and we were free to
+mount.&nbsp; Such sort of drives are of the nature of a sport in
+South America, and so the Brazilian drove off the horses that we
+had rejected, half a mile away, leaving them with a negro boy to
+herd, remarking that the rejected were as good or better than
+those that we had bought, and after cinching up his horse,
+prepared to ride with us.&nbsp; Before we started, a young man
+rode up, dressed like an exaggerated gaucho, in loose black
+trousers, poncho, and a &ldquo;golilla&rdquo; <a
+name="citation194a"></a><a href="#footnote194a"
+class="citation">[194a]</a> round his neck, a lazo hanging from
+the saddle, a pair of boleadoras peeping beneath his
+&ldquo;cojinillo,&rdquo; <a name="citation194b"></a><a
+href="#footnote194b" class="citation">[194b]</a> and a long
+silver knife stuck in his belt.&nbsp; It seemed <a
+name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>he was the
+son of an estanciero who was studying law in Buenos Aires, but
+had returned for his vacation, and hearing of our drive had come
+to ride with us and help us in our task.&nbsp; No one on such
+occasions is to be despised, so, thanking him for his good
+intentions, to which he answered that he was a &ldquo;partizan of
+the Allies, lover of liberty and truth, and was well on in all
+his studies, especially in International Law,&rdquo; we mounted,
+the gauchos floating almost imperceptibly, without an effort, to
+their seats, the European with that air of escalading a
+ship&rsquo;s side that differentiates us from man less
+civilised.</p>
+<p>During the operations with the Brazilian, the horses had been
+let out of the corral to feed, and now were being held back <i>en
+pastoreo</i>, as it is called in Uruguay, that is to say, watched
+at a little distance by mounted men.&nbsp; Nothing remained but
+to drive out of the corral the horses bought from the Brazilian,
+and let them join the larger herd.&nbsp; Out they came like a
+string of wild geese, neighing and looking round, and then
+instinctively made towards the others that were feeding, and were
+swallowed up amongst them.&nbsp; Slowly we rode <a
+name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>towards the
+herd, sending on several well-mounted men upon its flanks, and
+with precaution&mdash;for of all living animals tame horses most
+easily take fright upon the march and separate&mdash;we got them
+into motion, on a well-marked trail that led towards the gate of
+Bopicu&aacute;.</p>
+<p>At first they moved a little sullenly, and as if
+surprised.&nbsp; Then the contagion of emotion that spreads so
+rapidly amongst animals upon the march seemed to inspire them,
+and the whole herd broke into a light trot.&nbsp; That is the
+moment that a stampede may happen, and accordingly we pulled our
+horses to a walk, whilst the men riding on the flanks forged
+slowly to the front, ready for anything that might occur.&nbsp;
+Gradually the trot slowed down, and we saw as it were a sea of
+manes and tails in front of us, emerging from a cloud of dust,
+from which shrill neighings and loud snortings rose.&nbsp; They
+reached a hollow, in which were several pools, and stopped to
+drink, all crowding into the shallow water, where they stood
+pawing up the mud and drinking greedily.&nbsp; Time pressed, and
+as we knew that there was water in the pasture where they were to
+sleep, we <a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+197</span>drove them back upon the trail, the water dripping from
+their muzzles and their tails, and the black mud clinging to the
+hair upon their fetlocks, and in drops upon their backs.&nbsp;
+Again they broke into a trot, but this time, as they had got into
+control, we did not check them, for there was still a mile to
+reach the gate.</p>
+<p>Passing some smaller mud-holes, the body of a horse lay near
+to one of them, horribly swollen, and with its stiff legs hoisted
+a little in the air by the distension of its flanks.&nbsp; The
+passing horses edged away from it in terror, and a young roan
+snorted and darted like an arrow from the herd.&nbsp; Quick as
+was the dart he made, quicker still El Correntino wheeled his
+horse on its hind legs and rushed to turn him back.&nbsp; With
+his whip whirling round his head he rode to head the truant, who,
+with tail floating in the air, had got a start of him of about
+fifty yards.&nbsp; We pressed instinctively upon the horses; but
+not so closely as to frighten them, though still enough to be
+able to stop another of them from cutting out.&nbsp; The
+Correntino on a half-tamed grey, which he rode with a raw-hide
+thong bound round <a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+198</span>its lower jaw, for it was still unbitted, swaying with
+every movement in his saddle, which he hardly seemed to grip, so
+perfect was his balance, rode at a slight angle to the runaway
+and gained at every stride.&nbsp; His hat blew back and kept in
+place by a black ribbon underneath his chin, framed his head like
+an aureole.&nbsp; The red silk handkerchief tied loosely round
+his neck fluttered beneath it, and as he dashed along, his lazo
+coiled upon his horse&rsquo;s croup, rising and falling with each
+bound, his eyes fixed on the flying roan, he might have served a
+sculptor as the model for a centaur, so much did he and the wild
+colt he rode seem indivisible.</p>
+<p>In a few seconds, which to us seemed minutes, for we feared
+the infection might have spread to the whole
+&ldquo;caballada,&rdquo; the Correntino headed and turned the
+roan, who came back at three-quarter speed, craning his neck out
+first to one side, then to the other, as if he still thought that
+a way lay open for escape.</p>
+<p>By this time we had reached the gates of Bopicu&aacute;, and
+still seven miles lay between us and our camping-ground, with a
+fast-declining <a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+199</span>sun.&nbsp; As the horses passed the gate we counted
+them, an operation of some difficulty when time presses and the
+count is large.&nbsp; Nothing is easier than to miss animals,
+that is to say, for Europeans, however practised, but the
+lynx-eyed gauchos never are at fault.&nbsp; &ldquo;Where is the
+little brown horse with a white face, and a bit broken out of his
+near forefoot?&rdquo; they will say, and ten to one that horse is
+missing, for what they do not know about the appearance of a
+horse would not fill many books.&nbsp; Only a drove road lay
+between Bopicu&aacute; and the great pasture, at whose faraway
+extremity the horses were to sleep.&nbsp; When the last animal
+had passed and the great gates swung to, the young law student
+rode up to my side, and, looking at the &ldquo;great
+tropilla,&rdquo; as he called it, said, &ldquo;<i>Morituri te
+salutant</i>.&nbsp; This is the last time they will feed in
+Bopicu&aacute;.&rdquo;&nbsp; We turned a moment, and the falling
+sun lit up the undulating plain, gilding the cottony tufts of the
+long grasses, falling upon the dark-green leaves of the low trees
+around Parodi&rsquo;s camp, glinting across the belt of wood that
+fringed the Uruguay, and striking full upon a white estancia
+house in <a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+200</span>Entre-Rios, making it appear quite close at hand,
+although four leagues away.</p>
+<p>Two or three hundred yards from the great gateway stood a
+little native hut, as unsophisticated, but for a telephone, as
+were the gaucho&rsquo;s huts in Uruguay, as I remember them full
+thirty years ago.&nbsp; A wooden barrel on a sledge for bringing
+water had been left close to the door, at which the occupant sat
+drinking mat&eacute;, tapping with a long knife upon his
+boot.&nbsp; Under a straw-thatched shelter stood a saddled horse,
+and a small boy upon a pony slowly drove up a flock of
+sheep.&nbsp; A blue, fine smoke that rose from a few smouldering
+logs and bones, blended so completely with the air that one was
+not quite sure if it was really smoke or the reflection of the
+distant Uruguay against the atmosphere.</p>
+<p>Not far off lay the bones of a dead horse, with bits of hide
+adhering to them, shrivelled into mere parchment by the
+sun.&nbsp; All this I saw as in a camera-lucida, seated a little
+sideways on my horse, and thinking sadly that I, too, had looked
+my last on Bopicu&aacute;.&nbsp; It is not given to all men after
+a break of years to come back to the scenes of youth, and still
+<a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>find in
+them the same zest as of old.&nbsp; To return again to all the
+cares of life called civilised, with all its littlenesses, its
+newspapers all full of nothing, its sordid aims disguised under
+high-sounding nicknames, its hideous riches and its sordid
+poverty, its want of human sympathy, and, above all, its
+barbarous war brought on it by the folly of its rulers, was not
+just at that moment an alluring thought, as I felt the little
+&ldquo;malacara&rdquo; <a name="citation201"></a><a
+href="#footnote201" class="citation">[201]</a> that I rode
+twitching his bridle, striving to be off.&nbsp; When I had
+touched him with the spur he bounded forward and soon overtook
+the caballada, and the place which for so many months&rsquo; had
+been part of my life sank out of sight, just as an island in the
+Tropics fades from view as the ship leaves it, as it were, hull
+down.</p>
+<p>When we had passed into the great enclosure of La Pileta, and
+still four or five miles remained to go, we pressed the caballada
+into a long trot, certain that the danger of a stampede was
+past.&nbsp; Wonderful and sad it was to ride behind so many
+horses, trampling knee-high through the wild grasses of the <a
+name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>Camp,
+snorting and biting at each other, and all unconscious that they
+would never more career across the plains.&nbsp; Strange and
+affecting, too, to see how those who had known each other all
+kept together in the midst of the great herd, resenting all
+attempts of their companions to separate them.</p>
+<p>A &ldquo;tropilla&rdquo; <a name="citation202"></a><a
+href="#footnote202" class="citation">[202]</a> that we had bought
+from a Frenchman called Leon, composed of five brown horses, had
+ranged itself around its bell mare, a fine chestnut, like a
+bodyguard.&nbsp; They fought off any of the other horses who came
+near her, and seemed to look at her both with affection and with
+pride.</p>
+<p>Two little bright bay horses, with white legs and noses, that
+were brothers, and what in Uruguay are known as
+&ldquo;seguidores,&rdquo; that is, one followed the other
+wherever it might go, ran on the outskirts of the herd.&nbsp;
+When either of them stopped to eat, its companion turned its head
+and neighed to it, when it came galloping up.&nbsp; Arena, our
+head man, riding beside me on a skewbald, looked at them, and,
+after dashing forward to turn a runaway, wheeled round his horse
+almost in <a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+203</span>the air and stopped it in a bound, so suddenly that for
+an instant they stood poised like an equestrian statue, looked at
+the &ldquo;seguidores,&rdquo; and remarked, &ldquo;Patron, I hope
+one shell will kill them both in the Great War if they have got
+to die.&rdquo;&nbsp; I did not answer, except to curse the Boches
+with all the intensity the Spanish tongue commands.&nbsp; The
+young law-student added his testimony, and we rode on in
+silence.</p>
+<p>A passing sleeve of locusts almost obscured the declining
+sun.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; We
+reached a narrow causeway that formed the passage through a
+marsh.&nbsp; On it the horses <a name="page204"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 204</span>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The
+evening now was closing in, but there was still a good half-hour
+of light.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+We kept away so as to let them drink their fill, and then,
+leading our horses to the margin of the lake, dismounted, <a
+name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>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.</p>
+<p>Slowly Arena, El Correntino, Paralelo, Suarez, and the rest
+drove out the herd to pasture in the deep lush grass.&nbsp; The
+rest of us rode up some rising ground towards the wood.&nbsp;
+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: &ldquo;Eat well,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;there is no grass like that of La Pileta, to where you go
+across the sea.&nbsp; The grass in Europe all must smell of
+blood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE
+END</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by</i> R. &amp; R.
+CLARK, LIMITED, <i>Edinburgh</i>.</p>
+<h2>NOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22"
+class="footnote">[22]</a>&nbsp; <i>Porte&ntilde;o</i>, literally
+a man born in the port of Buenos Aires, but is also applied to
+any one born in the province of Buenos Aires.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote25"></a><a href="#citation25"
+class="footnote">[25]</a>&nbsp; <i>Benbax ceiba</i>, a large tree
+with spongy, light wood, that has immense bunches of purple
+flowers.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27"
+class="footnote">[27]</a>&nbsp; Pingo in Argentina is a good
+horse.&nbsp; Pucha is a euphemism for another word.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote28"></a><a href="#citation28"
+class="footnote">[28]</a>&nbsp; Elbow of a river.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote114a"></a><a href="#citation114a"
+class="footnote">[114a]</a>&nbsp; Lopez Cogulludo, <i>Historia de
+Yucatan</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote114b"></a><a href="#citation114b"
+class="footnote">[114b]</a>&nbsp; Era gran Escriturario.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote115"></a><a href="#citation115"
+class="footnote">[115]</a>&nbsp; El sagrado misterio de la
+encarnacion de el eterno Verbo.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116a"></a><a href="#citation116a"
+class="footnote">[116a]</a>&nbsp; Los barbaros infideles.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116b"></a><a href="#citation116b"
+class="footnote">[116b]</a>&nbsp; Entendiendo que era animal de
+razon.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118"
+class="footnote">[118]</a>&nbsp; Arrebatado de un furioso selo de
+la honra de Dios.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote187"></a><a href="#citation187"
+class="footnote">[187]</a>&nbsp; Wild horse.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote190"></a><a href="#citation190"
+class="footnote">[190]</a>&nbsp; Argentine saddle.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote194a"></a><a href="#citation194a"
+class="footnote">[194a]</a>&nbsp; <i>Golilla</i>, which
+originally meant a ruff, is now used for a handkerchief round the
+neck.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote194b"></a><a href="#citation194b"
+class="footnote">[194b]</a>&nbsp; <i>Cojinillo</i>, part of the
+recado.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote201"></a><a href="#citation201"
+class="footnote">[201]</a>&nbsp; <i>Malacara</i>, literally
+Badface, is the name used for a white-faced horse.&nbsp; In old
+days in England such a horse was called Baldfaced.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote202"></a><a href="#citation202"
+class="footnote">[202]</a>&nbsp; Little troop.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROUGHT FORWARD***</p>
+<pre>
+
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