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diff --git a/48510-0.txt b/48510-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..618fc75 --- /dev/null +++ b/48510-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5266 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Thirteen Stories, 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: Thirteen Stories + + +Author: R. B. Cunninghame Graham + + + +Release Date: March 17, 2015 [eBook #48510] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIRTEEN STORIES*** + + +This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler + + + + + + Thirteen Stories + + + * * * * * + + By + R. B. Cunninghame Graham + + Author of + “Mogreb-El-Acksa,” etc. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + London + William Heinemann + 1900 + + * * * * * + +_All rights_, _including translation_, _reserved_ + + * * * * * + + _To_ + + _George Morton Mansel_ + +_I Dedicate these sketches_, _stories_, _studies_, _or what do you call +them_. _We have galloped together over many leagues of Pampa_, _by day +and night_, _and therefore I hope he will find the tales_ (_or what do +you call them_) _as near square by the lifts and braces_, _as is to be +expected from a mere landsman_. + + * * * * * + +_Acknowledgments are due to_: + +_The_ “_Saturday Review_,” _the_ “_Westminster Gazette_,” _and_ +“_Justice_,” _in which papers several of the Sketches included in this +volume have appeared_. + + + + +PREFACE + + +TO-DAY in warfare all the niceties of old-world tactics are fallen into +contempt. No word of outworks, ravelins, of mamelons, of counter-scarps, +of glacis, fascines; none of the terms by means of which Vauban obscured +his art, are even mentioned. Armies fall to and blow such brains as they +may have out of each other’s heads without so much as a salute. And so +of literature, your “few first words,” your “avant-propos,” your nice +approaches to the reader, giving him beforehand some taste of what is to +follow, have also fallen into disuse. The man of genius (and in no age +has self-dubbed genius called out so loud in every street, and been +accepted at its own appraisement) stuffs you his epoch-making book full +of the technicalities of some obscure or half-forgotten trade, and +rattles on at once, sans introduction, twenty knots an hour, like a +torpedo boat. No preface, dedication, not even an apology _pro +existentiâ ejus_ intervening betwixt the bewildered public and the full +power of his wit. A graceless way of doing things, and not comparable to +the slow approach by “prefatory words,” “censura,” “dedication,” by means +of which the writers of the past had half disarmed the critic ere he had +read a line. I like to fancy to myself the progress of a fight in days +gone by, with marching, countermarching, manoeuvring, so to speak, for +the weather-gauge, and then the general engagement all by the book of +arithmetic, and squadrons going down like men upon a chessboard after +nice calculation, and like gentlemen. + +Who, hidden in a wood, watching a nymph about to bathe, would care to see +her strip off her “duds” like an umbrella-case, and bounce into the river +like a water-rat?—a lawn upon the grass, a scarf hung on a bush, a +petticoat rocked by the wind upon the sward, then the shy trying of the +water with the naked feet, and lastly something flashing in the sun which +you could hardly swear you had seen, so rapidly it passed into the +stream, would most enchant the gaze of the rapt watcher hidden behind his +tree. And so of literature, wheedle me by degrees, your reader to your +book, as did the giants of the past in graceful preface, dedication, or +what do you call it, that got the readers, so to speak, into the book +before they were aware. It seems to me, a world all void of grace must +needs be cruel, for cruelty and grace go not together, and perhaps the +hearts of the pig-tailed, pipe-clayed generals of the past were not more +hard than are the hearts of their tweed-clad descendants who now-a-days +blow you a thousand savages to paradise, and then sit down to lunch. + +Let there be no mistake; the writer and the reader are sworn foes. The +writer labouring for bread, or hopes of fame, from idleness, from too +much energy, or from that uncontrollable dance of St. Vitus in the +muscles of the wrist which prompts so many men to write (the Lord knows +why), works, blots, corrects, rewrites, revises, and improves; then +publishes, and for the most part is incontinently damned. Then comes the +reader cavalierly, as the train shunts at Didcot, or puffs and snorts +into Carlisle, and gingerly examining the book says it is rubbish, and +that he wonders how people who should have something else to do, find +time to spend their lives in writing trash. + +I take it that there is a modesty of mind as deep implanted in the soul +of man as is the supergrafted post-Edenian modesty of the body; which +latter, by the way, so soon is lost, restraints of custom or convention +laid aside. + +Who that would strip his clothes off, and walk down Piccadilly, even if +the day were warm (the police all drunk or absent), without some +hesitation, and an announcement of his purpose, say, in the columns of +the _Morning Post_? + +Therefore, why strip the soul stark naked to the public gaze without some +hesitation and due interval, by means of which to make folk understand +that which you write is what you think you feel; part of yourself, a +part, moreover, which once given out can never be recalled? + +So of the sketches in this book, most of them treat of scenes seen in +that magic period, youth, when things impress themselves on the +imagination more sharply than in after years; and the scenes too have +vanished; that is, the countries where they passed have all been changed, +and now-a-days are full of barbed-wire fences, advertisements, and +desolation, the desolation born of imperfect progress. The people, too, +I treat of, for the most part have disappeared; being born unfit for +progress, it has passed over them, and their place is occupied by worthy +men who cheat to better purpose, and more scientifically. Therefore, I, +writing as a man who has not only seen but lived with ghosts, may perhaps +find pardon for this preface, for who would run in heavily and dance a +hornpipe on the turf below which sleep the dead? And if I am not +pardoned for my hesitation, dislike, or call it what you will, to give +these little sketches to the world without preamble, after my fashion, I +care not overmuch. + +In the phantasmagoria we call the world, most things and men are ghosts, +or at the best but ghosts of ghosts, so vaporous and unsubstantial that +they scarcely cast a shadow on the grass. That which is most abiding +with us is the recollection of the past, and . . . hence this preface. + + R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM. + + + + +_CONTENTS_ + + _Page_ +_Cruz Alta_ 1 +_In a German Tramp_ 85 +_The Gold Fish_ 103 +_A Hegira_ 119 +_Sidi Bu Zibbalà_ 145 +_La Pulperia_ 163 +_Higginson’s Dream_ 177 +_Calvary_ 189 +_A Pakeha_ 201 +_Victory_ 209 +_Rothenberger’s Wedding_ 219 +_La Clemenza De Tito_ 227 +_Sohail_ 235 + + + + +CRUZ ALTA + + +Pasted into an old scrap-book, chiefly filled with newspaper cuttings +from Texan and Mexican newspapers containing accounts of Indian fights, +the prowess of different horses (notably of a celebrated “claybank,” +which carried the mail-rider from El Paso to Oakville, Arizona), and +interspersed with advertisements of strayed animals, pictures of Gauchos, +Indians, Chilians, Brazilians, and Gambusinos, is an old coffee-coloured +business card. On it is set forth, that Francisco Cardozo de Carvallo is +the possessor of a “Grande Armazem de Fazendas, ferragems, drojas, +chapeos, miudezas, e objectos de fantasia e de modas.” + +All the above, “Com grande reduccao nos preços.” Then occurs the +significant advertença, “Mas A Dinheiro,” and the address Rua do +Commercio, No. 77.—CRUZ ALTA. + + * * * * * + +OFTEN on winter nights when all the air is filled with whirling leaves +dashing against the panes, when through the house sweep gusts of wind +making the passages unbearable with cold, the rooms disconsolate, and the +whole place feel eerie and ghostlike as the trees creak, groan and +labour, like a ship at sea, I take the scrap-book down. + +In it are many things more interesting by far to me at certain times than +books or papers, or than the conversation of my valued friends; almost as +great a consolation as is tobacco to a bruised mind; and then I turn the +pages over with delight tinged with that melancholy which is the best +part of remembrance. + +So amongst tags of poetry as Joaquim Miller’s lines “For those who fail,” +the advertisement for my fox-terrier Jack, the “condemndest little +buffler” the Texans called him, couched in the choicest of Castilian, and +setting forth his attributes, colour and name, and offering five dollars +to any one who would apprehend and take him to the Callejon del Espiritu +Santo, Mexico, curious and striking outsides of match-boxes, one entire +series illustrating the “Promessi Sposi”; of scraps, detailing news of +Indian caciques long since dead, a lottery-ticket of the State of +Louisiana, passes on “busted” railways, and the like, is this same +coffee-coloured card. + +I cannot remember that I was a great dealer at the emporium, the glories +of which the card sets forth, except for cigarettes and “Rapadura”; that +is, raw sugar in a little cake done up in maize-leaves, matches, and an +occasional glass of white Brazilian rum. + +Still during two long months the place stood to me in lieu of club, and +in it I used to meet occasional German “Fazenderos,” merchants from +Surucaba, and officers on the march from San Paulo to Rio Grande; and +there I used to lounge, waiting for customers to buy a “Caballada” of +some hundred horses, which a friend and I had brought with infinite +labour from the plains of Uruguay. Thinking upon the strange and curious +types I used to meet, clad for the most part in loose black Turkish +trousers, broad-brimmed felt hats kept in their place by a tasselled +string beneath the chin, in real or sham vicuña ponchos, high +patent-leather boots, sewn in patterns with red thread; upon the horses +with silver saddles and reins, securely tied to posts outside the door, +and on the ceaseless rattle of spurs upon the bare brick floors which +made a sort of obligato accompaniment to the monotonous music of the +guitar, full twenty years fall back. + +Yet still the flat-roofed town, capital of the district in Rio Grande +known as Encima de la Sierra, the stopping-place for the great droves of +mules which from the Banda Oriental and Entre Rios are driven to the +annual fair at Surucaba; the stodgy Brazilian countrymen so different +from the Gauchos of the River Plate; the negroes at that time slaves; the +curious vegetation, and the feeling of being cut off from all the world, +are fresh as yesterday. + +Had but the venture turned out well, no doubt I had forgotten it, but to +have worked for four long months driving the horses all the day through +country quite unknown to me, sitting the most part of each night upon my +horse on guard, or riding slowly round and round the herd, eating jerked +beef, and sleeping, often wet, upon the ground, to lose my money, has +fixed the whole adventure on my memory for life. + +Failure alone is interesting. + +Successful generals with their hands scarce dry from the blood of +half-armed foes; financiers, politicians; those who rise, authors whose +works run to a dozen editions in a year: the men who go to colonies with +or without the indispensable half-crown and come back rich, to these we +give our greetings in the market-place; we make them knights, marking +their children with the father’s bourgeois brand: we marvel at their +fortune for a brief space, and make them doctors of civil law, exposing +them during the process to be insulted by our undergraduates, then they +drop out of recollection and become uninteresting, as nature formed their +race. + +But those who fail after a glorious fashion, Raleigh, Cervantes, +Chatterton, Camoens, Blake, Claverhouse, Lovelace, Alcibiades, Parnell, +and the last unknown deck-hand who, diving overboard after a comrade, +sinks without saving him: these interest us, at least they interest those +who, cursed with imagination, are thereby doomed themselves to the same +failure as their heroes were. The world is to the unimaginative, for +them are honours, titles, rank and ample waistbands; foolish phylacteries +broad as trade union banners; their own esteem and death to sound of +Bible leaves fluttered by sorrowing friends, with the sure hope of waking +up immortal in a new world on the same pattern as the world that they +have left. + +After a wretched passage down the coast, we touched at Rio, and in the +Rua Direita, no doubt now called Rio Primero de Mayo or some other +revolutionary date, we saw a Rio Grandense soldier on a fine black horse. +As we were going to the River Plate to make our fortunes, my companion +asked me what such a horse was worth, and where the Brazilian Government +got their remounts. I knew no horses of the kind were bred nearer than +Rio Grande, or in Uruguay, and that a horse such as the trooper rode, +might in the latter country be worth an ounce. We learned in Rio that +his price was eighty dollars, and immediately a golden future rose before +our eyes. What could be easier than in Uruguay, which I knew well and +where I had many friends (now almost to a man dead in the revolutions or +killed by rum), to buy the horses and drive them overland to the +Brazilian capital? + +We were so confident of the soundness of our scheme that I believe we +counted every hour till the boat put to sea. + +Not all the glories of the Tijuca with its view across the bay straight +into fairyland, the red-roofed town, the myriad islets, the tall +palm-tree avenue of Botafogo, the tropic trees and butterflies, and the +whole wondrous panorama spread at our feet, contented us. + +During the voyage to the River Plate we planned the thing well out, and +talked it over with our friends. They, being mostly of our age, found it +well reasoned, and envied us, they being due at banks and +counting-houses, and other places where no chance like ours of making +money, could be found. Arrived in Buenos Ayres, a cursed chance called +us to Bahia Blanca upon business, but though we had a journey of about a +thousand miles to make through territory just wasted by the Indians and +in which at almost every house a man or two lay dead, we counted it as +nothing, for we well knew on our return our fortunes were assured. + +And so the autumn days upon the Arroyo de los Huesos seemed more glorious +than autumn days in general, even in that climate perhaps the most +exhilarating of the world. Horses went better, “maté” was hotter in the +mouth, the pulperia caña seemed more tolerable, and the “China” girls +looked more desirable than usual, even to philosophers who had their +fortunes almost as good as made. + +Our business in the province of Buenos Ayres done, and by this time I +have forgotten what it was, we sold our horses, some of the best I ever +saw in South America, for whatever they would fetch, and in a week found +ourselves in Durazno, a little town in Uruguay, where in the camps +surrounding, horses and mules were cheap. + +About a league outside the town, and in a wooded elbow of the river Yi, +lived our friend Don Guillermo. I myself years before had helped to +build his house; and in and out of season, no matter if I arrived upon a +“pingo” shining with silver gear, or on a “mancaron” with an old saddle +topped by a ragged sheepskin, I was a welcome guest. + +Ah! Don Guillermo, you and your brother Don Tomas rise also through the +mist of twenty years. + +Catholics, Scotchmen, and gentlemen, kindly and hospitable, bold riders +and yet so religious that, though it must have been a purgatory to them +as horsemen, they used to trudge on foot to mass on Sunday, swimming the +Yi when it was flooded, with their clothes and missals on their heads, +may God have pardoned you. + +Not that the sins of either of them could have been great, or of the kind +but that the briefest sojourn in purgatory should not have wiped them +out. + +To those rare Catholic families in Scotland an old-world flavour clings. +When Knox and that “lewid monk,” the Regent Murray, all agog for progress +and so-called purer worship, pestered and bothered Scotland into a change +of faith, those few who clung to Catholicism seemed to become +repositories of the traditions of an older world. + +Heaven and hell, no resting-place for the weaker souls between, have +rendered Scotland a hard place for the ordinary man who wants his +purgatory, even if by another name. Surely our Scottish theologians had +done well, although they heated up our hell like a glass furnace, to +leave us purgatory; that is if “Glesca” be not purgatory enough even for +those who, like North Britons, have no doubt on any subject either in +heaven above, or in the earth below. So to the house of Don +Guillermo—even the name has now escaped me, though I see it, mud-built +and thatched with “paja,” standing on a little sandy hill, surrounded on +two sides by wood, on the others looking straight out upon the open +“camp”—hot foot we came. Riding upon two strayed horses known as +“ajenos,” bought for a dollar each in Durazno, we arrived, carrying our +scanty property in saddle-bags, rode to the door, called out “Hail, +Mary!” after the fashion of the country and in deference to the religion +of our hosts, which was itself of so sincere a caste that every one +attempted to conform to it, as far as possible, whilst in their house; +received the answer “Without sin conceived”; got off, and straightway +launched into a discussion of our plan. + +Assembled in the house were Wycherley, Harrington and Trevelyan, and +other commentators, whose names have slipped my mind. Some were +“estancieros,” that is cattle or sheep farmers; others again were +loafers, all mostly men of education, with the exception of Newfoundland +Jack, a sailor, who had left the navy in a hurry, after some peccadillo, +but who, once in the camp, took a high place amongst men, by his +knowledge of splicing, making turks’ heads, and generally applying all +his acquired sea-lore to saddlery, and from a trick he had of forcing +home his arguments with a short knife, the handle fixed on with a raw +cow’s tail, and which in using he threw from hand to hand, and generally +succeeded in burying deeply in his opponent’s chest. Our friends all +liked the scheme, pronounced it practical and businesslike, and, to show +goodwill, despatched a boy to town to bring a demijohn of caña back at +full speed, instructing him to put it down to our account, not to delay +upon the way, and to be careful no one stole it at the crossing of the +Yi. + +Long we sat talking, waiting for the advent of the boy, till at last, +seeing he would not come that night, and a thick mist rising up from the +river having warned us that the night was wearing on, we spread our +saddles on the floor, and went to sleep. At daybreak, cold and +miserable, the boy appeared, bringing the caña in a demijohn, and to our +questions said he had passed the river, hit the “rincon,” and heard the +dogs bark in the mist; but after trying for an hour could never find the +house. Then, thinking that his horse might know the way, laid down the +reins, and the horse took him straight to the other horses, who, being +startled at the sudden apparition of their friend saddled and mounted in +the dead of night, vanished like spectres into the thickest of the fog. +Then tired of riding, after an hour or two, took off his saddle, and had +passed the night, as it appeared at daybreak, not a quarter of a mile +away. + +Between the town and Don Guillermo’s house there ran a river called the +Yi; just at the pass a “balsa” plied, drawn over by stout ropes. On +either side the “pass” stood pulperias, that is camp-stores, where gin +and sardines, Vino Carlon, Yerba, and all the necessaries of frontier +life could be procured. Horses and cattle, mules and troops of sheep +passed all the day, and gamblers plied their trade, whilst in some huts +girls, known as “Chinas,” watched the passers-by, loitering in deshabille +before their mare’s hide doors, singing “cielitos,” or the “gato,” to the +accompaniment of a guitar, or merely shouting to the stranger, “Che, si +quieres cosa buena vente por acá.” A half-Arcadian, half-Corinthian +place the crossing was; fights there were frequent, and a “Guapeton,” +that is, a pretty handler of his knife, once kept things lively for a +month or two, challenging all the passers-by to fight, till luckily a +Brazilian, going to the town, put things in order with an iron-handled +whip. + +The owner of the “balsa,” one Eduardo Peña, cherished a half-romantic, +half-antagonistic friendship for Don Guillermo, speaking of him as “muy +Catolico,” admiring his fine seat upon a horse, and yet not understanding +in the least the qualities which made him a man of mark in all the +“pagos” from the Porongos to the Arazati. “Catolico,” with Peña, was but +a matter of pure faith, and going to mass a work of supererogation; and +conduct such as the eschewal of the China ladies at the pass, with +abstinence from all excess in square-faced gin, dislike to monté, even +with “Sota en la puerta,” and the adversary with all his money staked +upon another card, seemed to him bigotry; for bigotry is after all not so +much mere excess of faith or want of tolerance, but a neglect to fall +into the vices of our friends. So, mounted on our two “agenos,” one a +jibber, the other a kicker at the stirrup, and extremely hard to mount, +we scoured the land. Gauchos, Brazilians, negroes, troperos, +cattle-farmers, each man in the whole “pago” had at least a horse to +sell. Singly, driven, led, pulled unwillingly along in raw-hide ropes, +and sitting back like lapdogs walking in the park, the horses came. We +bought them all after much bargaining, and then began to hunt about at +farms, estancias, and potreros, and to inquire on every side where horses +could be got. All the “dead beats,” “sancochos,” buck-jumpers, wall-eyed +and broken-backed, we passed in a review. An English sailor rode up to +the place, dressed as a Gaucho, speaking but little English, with a +west-country twang. He, too, had horses, which we bought, and the deal +over, launched into the story of his life. + +It seemed that he had left a man-of-war some fifteen years ago, married a +native girl and settled down, and for ten years had never met an +Englishman. In English, still a sailor, but in Spanish, a gentleman, +courteous and civil, and fit to take his place with any one; full of fine +compliments, and yet a horse-coper; selling us three good horses, and +one, that the first time I mounted him kicked like a zebra, although our +friend had warranted him quite free from vice, well bitted, and the one +horse he had which he reserved in general for the saddle of his wife. + +In a few days we had collected sixty or seventy, and to make all +complete, a man arrived, saying that specially on our account, thirteen +wild horses, or horses that had run wild, had been enclosed. He offered +them on special terms, and we, saddling at once, rode twelve or thirteen +leagues to see them; and after crossing a river, wading through a swamp, +and winding in and out through a thick wood for several miles, we reached +his house. There, in a strong corral, the horses were, wild-eyed and +furious, tails sweeping to the ground, manes to their knees, sweating +with fear, and trembling if any one came near. One was a piebald dun, +about eight years of age, curly all over like a poodle; one Pampa, that +is, black with a head as if it had been painted white to the ears; behind +them, coal-black down to his feet, which, curiously enough, were all four +white. A third, Overo Azulejo, slate-coloured and white; he was of +special interest, for he had twisted in his mane a large iron spur, and +underneath a lump as large as an apple, where the spur had bumped upon +his neck for years during his gallop through the woods and plains. Each +horse had some peculiarity, most had been tame at one time, and were +therefore more to be dreaded than if they had been never mounted in their +lives. + +As it was late when we arrived we tied our horses up and found a ball in +progress at the house. Braulio Islas was the owner’s name, a man of some +position in the land, young and unmarried, and having passed some years +of his life in Monte Video, where, as is usual, he had become a doctor +either of law or medicine; but the life had not allured him, and he had +drifted back to the country, where he lived, half as a Gaucho, half as a +“Dotorcito,” riding a wild horse as he were part of him, and yet having a +few old books, quoting dog Latin, and in the interim studying +international law, after the fashion of the semi-educated in the River +Plate. Fastening our horses to long twisted green-hide ropes, we passed +into the house. “Carne con cuero” (meat cooked with the hide) was +roasting near the front-door on a great fire of bones. Around it men sat +drinking maté, smoking and talking, whilst tame ostriches peered into the +fire and snapped up anything within their reach; dogs without hair, +looking like pigs, ran to and fro, horses were tied to every post, +fire-flies darted about the trees; and, above all, the notes, sung in a +high falsetto voice of a most lamentable Paraguayan “triste,” quavered in +the night air and set the dogs a-barking, when all the company at stated +intervals took up the refrain, and chanted hoarsely or shrilly of the +hardships passed by Lopez in his great camp at Pirayú. + +Under the straw-thatched sheds whole cows and sheep were hung up; and +every one, when he felt hungry, cut a collop off and cooked it in the +embers, for in those days meat had no price, and if you came up hungry to +a house a man would say: “There is a lazo, and the cattle are feeding in +a hollow half a league away.” + +A harp, two cracked guitars, the strings repaired with strips of hide, +and an accordion, comprised the band. The girls sat in a row, upon +rush-seated chairs, and on the walls were ranged either great bowls of +grease in which wicks floated, or homemade candles fixed on to nails, +which left them free to gutter on the dancers’ heads. The men lounged at +the door, booted and spurred, and now and then one walked up to the +girls, selected one, and silently began to dance a Spanish valse, slowly +and scarcely moving from the place, the hands stretched out in front, and +the girl with her head upon his shoulder, eyes fast closed and looking +like a person in a trance. And as they danced the musicians broke into a +harsh, wild song, the dancers’ spurs rattled and jingled on the floor, +and through the unglazed and open windows a shrill fierce neigh floated +into the room from the wild horses shut in the corral. “Dulces,” that +is, those sweetmeats made from the yolk of eggs, from almonds, and from +nuts, and flavoured with cinnamon and caraways brought by the Moors to +Spain, and taken by the Spaniards to the Indies, with sticky cakes, and +vino seco circulated amongst the female guests. The men drank gin, ate +bread (a delicacy in the far-off “camp”), or sipped their maté, which, in +its little gourds and silver tube, gave them the appearance of smoking +some strange kind of pipe. + +“Que bailen los Ingleses,” and we had to acquit ourselves as best we +could, dancing a “pericon,” as we imagined it, waving our handkerchiefs +about to the delight of all the lookers-on. Fashion decreed that, the +dance over, the “cavalier” presented his handkerchief to the girl with +whom he danced. I having a bad cold saw with regret my new silk +handkerchief pass to the hand of a mulatto girl, and having asked her for +her own as a remembrance of her beauty and herself, received a home-made +cotton cloth, stiff as a piece of leather, and with meshes like a sack. + +Leaving the dance, as Braulio Islas said, as more “conformable” to +Gauchos than to serious men we started bargaining. After much talking we +agreed to take the horses for three dollars each, upon condition that in +the morning Islas and all his men should help us drive a league or two +upon the road. This settled, and the money duly paid, we went to bed, +that is, lay down upon our saddles under the “galpon.” To early morning +the guitars went on, and rising just about day-break we found the +revellers saddling their horses to depart in peace. We learned with +pleasure there had been no fight, and then after a maté walked down to +the corral. Knowing it was impossible to drive the horses singly, after +much labour we coupled them in twos. I mounted one of them, and to my +surprise, he did not buck, but after three or four plunges went quietly, +and we let the others out. The bars were scarcely down when they all +scattered, and made off into the woods. Luckily all the drivers were at +hand, and after three or four hours’ hard galloping we got them back, all +except one who never reappeared; and late in the evening reached Don +Guillermo’s house and let our horses into a paddock fenced with strong +posts of ñandubay or Tala and bound together with pieces of raw hide. + +So for a week or two we passed our lives, collecting horses of every +shade and hue, wild, tame and bagualon, that is, neither quite wild nor +tame, and then, before starting, had to go to “La Justicia” to get a +passport with their attributes and marks. + +I found the Alcalde, one Quintin Perez, sitting at his door, softening a +piece of hide by beating on it with a heavy mallet of ñandubay. He could +not read, but was so far advanced towards culture as to be able to sign +his name and rubricate. His rubric was most elaborate, and he informed +me that a signature was good, but that he thought a rubric more +authentic. Though he could not decipher the document I brought for +signature, he scrutinized the horses’ marks, all neatly painted in the +margin, discussed each one of them, and found out instantly some were +from distant “pagos,” and on this account, before the signature or rubric +was appended, in addition to the usual fee, I was obliged to “speak a +little English to him,” which in the River Plate is used to signify the +taking and receiving of that conscience money which causes the affairs of +justice to move pleasantly for all concerned. Meanwhile my partner had +gone to town (Durazno) to arrange about the revision of the passport with +the chief authorities. Nothing moved quickly at that time in Uruguay; so +after waiting one or two days in town, without a word, he quietly let +loose his horse in a by-street at night to save his keep, and casting +about where he should leave his saddle, thought that the cloak-room of +the railway-station might be safe, because the station-master was an +Englishman. The saddle, having silver stirrups and good saddle-cloths +and silver-mounted reins and bit, was worth more than the horse, which, +being a stray, he had bought for a couple of dollars, and was not anxious +to retain. + +After a day or two of talk, and “speaking English,” he wanted his saddle, +and going to the station found it gone. Not being up at that time in the +ways of the Republic, he informed the police, waited a day, then two +days, and found nothing done. Luckily, just at that time, I came to town +and asked him if he had offered a reward. Hearing he had not, we went +down to see the Commissary of Police, and found him sitting in his office +training two cocks to fight. A rustle and the slamming of a door just +marked the hurried exit of a lady, who must have been assisting at the +main. Compliments duly passed, cigarettes lighted and maté circulating, +“served” by a negro soldier in a ragged uniform with iron spurs upon his +naked feet who stood attention every time he passed the gourd in which +the maté is contained to either of us, we plunged into our talk. + +“Ten dollars, Comissario.” + +“No, señor, fifteen, and a slight gratification to the man who brings the +saddle back.” + +We settled at thirteen, and then the Commissary winked slowly, and +saying, “This is not Europe,” asked for a little something for himself, +received it, and calling to the negro, said— + +“Tio Gancho, get at once to horse, take with you one or two men, and +scour the ‘pago’ till you bring this saddle back. See that you find it, +or I will have your thumbs both broken as your toes are, by San Edovige +and by the Mother of our Lord.” + +A look at Tio Gancho showed both his big toes had been broken when a +slave in Brazil, either to stop him walking, or, as the Commissary +thought, to help him to catch the stirrup, for he was a noted rider of a +redomon. {20} + +Duly next day the saddle was brought (so said the Commissary) into the +light of justice, and it then appeared one of the silver stirrups had +been lost. The Commissary was much annoyed, reproached his men, being, +as he said he was: “Un hombre muy honrado.” After thinking the case well +out, he returned me two and a half dollars out of the thirteen I had +agreed to pay. Honour no doubt was satisfied upon both sides, and a new +silver stirrup cost ten dollars at the least; but as the saddle was well +worth sixty, we parted friends. That is, we should have parted so had +not the “Hombre muy honrado” had another card to play. + +“How long do you want the thief detained?” he asked. And we, thinking to +be magnanimous and to impress him with our liberal ideas, said loftily— + +“A month will do.” + +“All right,” he answered, “then I must trouble you for thirty dollars +more for the man’s maintenance, and for the gaoler’s fee.” This was a +stopper over all, and I said instantly— + +“Being ignorant of your laws, perhaps we have looked at the man’s offence +too hardly, a week will do.” So after paying five dollars down, we +invited the Commissary to drink, and left him well knowing that we should +not be out of sight before the man would be released, and the five +dollars be applied strictly towards the up-keep of “justice” in the +Partido of the Yi. Months afterwards I heard the culprit worked two days +cutting down weeds with a machete in the public square; then, tired of +it, being “un hombre de á caballo,” had volunteered to join the army, was +received into the ranks, and in a few weeks’ time rose to be sergeant, +for he could sign his name. + +All being ready, and some men (one a young Frenchman born in the place) +being found with difficulty, the usual revolution having drained off the +able-bodied men, we made all ready for the start. We bid good-bye to Don +Guillermo, and to Don Tomas, giving them as an addition to their library +(which consisted of some lives of saints and an odd volume of “el culto +al Falo,” which was in much request), our only book the “Feathered +Arrow,” either by Aimard or by Gerstaeker, and mounting early in the +morning after some trouble with the wilder of our beasts, we took the +road. + +For the first few leagues Don Guillermo rode with us, and then, after a +smoke, bade us goodbye and rode away; his tall, lithe figure dressed in +loose black merino trousers tucked into his boots, hat tied beneath his +chin, and Pampa poncho, fading out of sight, and by degrees the motion of +his right arm touching his horse up, Gaucho fashion, at every step, grew +slower, then stood still, and lastly vanished with the swaying figure of +the rider, out of sight. Upon what Pampa he now gallops is to me +unknown, or whether, where he is, horses accompany him; but I would fain +believe it, for a heaven on foot would not be heaven to him; but I still +see him as he disappeared that day swaying to every motion of his horse +as they had been one flesh. “Adios, Don Guillermo,” or perhaps “hasta +luego,” you and your brother Don Tomas, your hospitable shanty, and your +three large cats, “Yanish” and “Yanquetruz,” with one whose name I cannot +now recall, are with me often as I think on times gone by; and still +to-day (if it yet stands), upon the darkest night I could take horse +outside Durazno, cross the Yi, not by the “balsa,” but at the ford below, +and ride without a word to any one straight to your house. + +Days followed one another, and nights still caught us upon horseback, +driving or rounding up our horses, and nothing interested us but that “el +Pangare” was lame; “el Gargantillo” looked a little thin, or that “el +Zaino de la hacinda” was missing in the morning from the troop. Rivers +we passed, the Paso de los Toros, where the horses grouped together on a +little beach of stones refused to face the stream. Then sending out a +yoke of oxen to swim first, we pressed on them, and made them plunge, and +kept dead silence, whilst a naked man upon the other bank called to them +and whistled in a minor key; for horses swimming, so the Gauchos say, see +nothing, and head straight for a voice if it calls soothingly. And +whilst they swam, men in canoes lay down the stream to stop them +drifting, and others swimming by their side splashed water in their faces +if they tried to turn. The sun beat on the waste calling out the scent +of flowers; kingfishers fluttered on the water’s edge, herons stood +motionless, great vultures circled overhead, and all went well till, at +the middle of the stream, a favourite grey roan mare put up her head and +snorted, beat the water with her feet, and then sank slowly, standing +quite upright as she disappeared. + +Mountains and plains we passed, and rivers fringed with thick, hard +thorny woods; we sweltered in the sun, sat shivering on our horses during +the watches of the night, slept fitfully by turns at the camp fire, ate +“charqui” and drank maté, and by degrees passing the Paso de los +Novillos, San Fructuoso, and the foot-hills of Haedo and the Cuchilla de +Peralta with its twin pulperias, we emerged on to the plain, which, +broken here and there by rivers, slopes toward the southern frontier of +Brazil. But as we had been short-handed from the first, our “caballada” +had got into bad ways. A nothing startled them, and the malign example +of the group of wildlings brought from Braulio Islas, led them astray, +and once or twice they separated and gave us hours of work to bring them +back. Now as a “caballada” which has once bolted is in the future easily +disposed to run, we gave strict orders no one was to get off, though for +a moment, without hobbling his horse. + +Camped one cold morning on a river, not far from Brazil, and huddled +round a fire, cooking some sausages, flavoured with Chile pepper, over a +fire of leaves, one of our men who had been on horseback watching all the +night, drew near the fire, and getting off, fastened his reins to a +heavy-handled whip, and squatted on them, as he tried to warm his hands. +My horse, unsaddled, was fastened by a lasso to a heavy stone, and +luckily my partner and the rest all had their horses well secured, for a +“coati” dived with a splash after a fish into the river. In a moment the +horses all took fright, and separating, dashed to the open country with +heads and tails erect, snorting and kicking, and left us looking in +despair, whilst the horse with the whip fastened to the reins joined +them, and mine, tied to the stone, plunged furiously, but gave me time to +catch him, and mounting barebacked, for full five hours we rode, and +about nightfall brought the “caballada” back to the camp, and driving +them into an elbow of the river, lighted great fires across the mouth of +it, and went to sleep, taking it conscientiously in turns to curse the +man who let his horse escape. + +Five leagues or so upon the road the frontier lay, and here the Brazilian +Government had guards, but we being business men smuggled our horses over +in the night, led by a noted smuggler, who took us by devious paths, +through a thick wood, to a ford known to him, only just practicable, and +this we passed swimming and wading, and struggling through the mud. The +river wound about through beds of reeds, trees known as “sarandis” grew +thickly on the banks, and as we passed “carpinchos” {26} snorted; great +fish leaped into the air and fell with a resounding crash into the +stream, and in the trees was heard the scream of vultures, as frightened +by our passage they rose and weltered heavily through the thick wood. By +morning we were safe into Brazil, passing a league or more through a +thick cane-brake, where we left several of our best horses, as to pursue +them when they straggled was impossible without running the risk of +losing all the rest. The crossing of the river had brought us to another +world. As at Carlisle and Gretna in the old days, or as at Tuy and +Valenza even to-day, the river had set a barrier between the peoples as +it had been ten miles instead of a few hundred yards in width. +Certainly, on the Banda Oriental, especially in the department of +Tacuarembò, many Brazilians had emigrated and settled there, but living +amongst the Gaucho population, in a measure they had been forced to +conform to the customs of the land. That is, they practised hospitality +after the Gaucho fashion, taking no money from the wayfaring man for a +piece of beef; they lent a horse, usually the worst they had, if one came +to their house with one’s horse tired; their women showed themselves + +occasionally; and not being able to hold slaves, they were obliged to +adopt a different tone to men in general than that they practised in the +Empire of Brazil. But in the time of which I write, in their own country +they still carried swords, slaves trotted after the rich “fazendero’s” +horse, the women of the family never sat down to table with the men, and +if a stranger chanced to call on business at their house, they were as +jealously kept from his eyes as they had all been Turks. + +The “Fazenda” houses had great iron-studded doors, often a moat, and not +infrequently a rusty cannon, though generally dismounted, and a relic of +bygone time. The traveller fared, as a general rule, much worse than in +the Banda Oriental, for save at the large cattle-farms it was impossible +to buy a piece of meat. Admitted to the house, one rarely passed beyond +the guest-chamber, a room with four bare white-washed walls; having for +furniture a narrow hard-wood table with wrought-iron supports between its +legs; chairs cut apparently out of the solid block, and a tin bucket or a +large gourd in the corner, with drinking-water; so that one’s sojourn at +the place was generally brief, and one’s departure a relief to all +concerned. Still on the frontier the Gaucho influence made itself a +little felt, and people were not so inhospitable as they were further in +the interior of the land. Two or three leagues beyond the pass there was +a little town called “Don Pedrito,” towards which we made; but a +“Pampero,” whistling from the south, forced us to camp upon a stream +known as the “Poncho Verde,” where, in the forties, Garibaldi was +reported to have fought. + +Wet to the skin and without food, we saw a fazenda not a mile away, rode +up to it, and for a wonder were asked inside, had dinner in the +guest-chamber, the owner sitting but not eating with us; the black +Brazilian beans and bacon carried in pompously by three or four stalwart +slaves, who puffed and sweated, trod on each other’s naked toes, and +generally behaved as they had been carrying sacks of corn aboard a ship, +only that in this instance no one stood in the gangway with a whip. Much +did the conversation run on politics; upon “A Guerra dos Farapos,” which +it appeared had riven the country in twain what time our host was young. +Farapo means a rag, and the Republicans of fifty years ago in Rio Grande +had adopted the device after the fashion of “Les gueux.” Long did they +fight, and our host said: “Praise to God, infructuously,” for how could +men who wore moustaches and full beards be compared to those who, like +our host himself, wore whiskers carefully trimmed in the style of those +which at the same epoch in our country were the trade-mark of the Iron +Duke? Elective kings, for so the old “conservador” termed presidents, +did not find favour in his eyes; and in religion too the “farapos” were +seriously astray. They held the doctrine that all creeds should be +allowed; which I once held myself, but now incline to the belief that a +religion and a name should be bestowed at baptism, and that it should be +constituted heresy of the worst kind, and punishable by a fine, to change +or palter with either the name or the religion which our fathers have +bestowed. + +Politics over, we fell a-talking upon other lands; on Europe and England, +Portugal, and as to whether “Rondon” was larger than Pelotas, or matters +of that sort. Then our host inquired if in “Rondon” we did not use “la +bosa,” and I not taking the thing up, he rose and stretching out his +hands, set them revolving like a saw, and I then saw our supposed +national pastime was what he meant; and told him that it was practised, +held in repute, and marked us out as a people set apart; and that our +greatness was largely founded on the exercise he had endeavoured to +depict. We bade farewell, not having seen a woman, even a negress, about +the place; but as we left, a rustling at the door showed that the +snuff-and-butter-coloured sex had been observing us after the fashion +practised in Morocco and in houses in the East. The hospitable +“conservador” sent down a slave with a great basket full of oranges; and +seated at the camp we ate at least three dozen, whilst the man waited +patiently to take the basket back. + +Night caught us in the open “camp,” a south wind blowing, and the drops +congealing as they fell. Three of us muffled in ponchos rode round the +horses, whilst the others crouched at the fire, and midnight come, the +riders rode to the fire, and stretched on the wet mud slept fitfully, +whilst the others took their place. Day came at last; and miserable we +looked, wet, cold, and hungry, the fire black out, matches all damp, and +nothing else to do but march till the sun rose and made life tolerable. +Arrived at a small rancho we got off, and found the owner was a Spaniard +from Navarre, married to a Brazilian woman. In mongrel Portuguese he +bade us welcome; said he was no Brazilian, and that his house was ours, +and hearing Spanish brightened up, and said in broken Spanish, mixed with +Portuguese, that he could never learn that language, though he had passed +a lifetime in the place. The country pleased him, and though he had an +orange garden of some three acres in extent, though palms, mameyes and +bananas grew around his door, he mourned for chestnuts, which he +remembered in his youth, and said he recollected eating them whilst in +Navarre, and that they were better than all the fruit of all Brazil; +thinking, like Naaman, that Abana and Pharpar were better than all the +waters of Israel, or rivers of Damascus; or perhaps moved in some +mysterious way by the remembrance of the chestnut forests, the old grey +stone-roofed houses, and the wind whistling through the pine woods of +some wild valley of Navarre. At the old Spaniard’s house a difficulty +cropped up with our men. I having told a man to catch a horse which +looked a little wild, he answered he was not a horse-breaker, and I might +ride the beast myself. I promptly did so, and asked him if he knew what +a wild horse was, and if it was not true that horses which could be +saddled without tying their hind legs were tame, and the rest laughing at +him, he drew his knife, and running at me, found himself looking down the +barrel of a pistol which my partner with some forethought had produced. +This brought things to a crisis, and they all left us, with a hundred +horses on our hands. Several Brazilians having volunteered, we took +them, bought a tame horse accustomed to carry packs, procured a bullock, +had it killed, and the meat “jerked”; and making bags out of the hide, +filled them with food, for, as the Spaniard said, “in the country you +intend to cross you might as well be amongst Moors, for even money will +not serve to get a piece of beef.” A kindly soul the Spaniard, his name +has long escaped me, still he was interesting as but the truly ignorant +can ever be. The world to him was a great mystery, as it is even to +those who know much more than he; but all the little landmarks of the +narrow boundaries of his life he had by heart; and they sufficed him, as +the great world itself cannot suffice those who, by living in its +current, see its muddiness. + +So one day told another, and each night found us on horseback riding +round the drove. Through forest, over baking plain, up mountain paths, +through marshes, splashing to the saddle-flaps, by lone “fazendas,” and +again through herds of cattle dotting the plain for miles, we took our +way. Little straw huts, each with a horse tied day and night before +them, were our fairway marks. Day followed night without adventure but +when a horse suddenly threw its rider and a Brazilian peon uncoiled his +lasso, and with a jangling of spurs against the stirrups, sprang into +life, and in a moment the long snaky rope flew through the air and +settled round the runaway just underneath his ears. Once in a clearing, +as we plodded on, climbing the last barrier of the mountain range, to +emerge upon the district called “Encima de la Sierra,” a deer appeared +jumping into the air, and coming down again on the same spot repeatedly, +the Brazilians said that it was fighting with a snake, for “God has given +such instinct to those beasts that they attack and kill all snakes, +knowing that they are enemies of man.” {32} A scheme of the creation +which, if held in its entirety, shows curious lacunæ in the Creator’s +mind, only to be bridged over by that faith which in itself makes all men +equal, that is, of course, when they experience it and recognize its +charm. So on a day we crossed the hills, rode through a wood, and came +out on a plain at the far end of which a little town appeared. + +For about ten leagues in circumference the plain stretched out, walled in +with woods, which here and there jutted out into it, forming islands and +peninsulas. The flat-roofed town straggled along three flat and sandy +streets; the little plaza, planted with mameyes and paraiso trees, served +as a lounging-place by day, by night a caravanserai for negroes; in time +of rain the streets were turned to streams, and poured their water into +the plaza, which became a lake. At the west corner of the square was +situated Cardozo’s store, the chief emporium, mart, and meeting-place +(after the barber’s and the chemist’s) of the whole town. Two languid +and yellow, hermaphroditic young Brazilians dressed in alpaca coats, +white trousers, and patent leather boots dispensed the wares, whilst +negroes ran about rolling in casks of flour, hogsheads of sugar, and +bales of black tobacco from Bahia, or from Maranhão. Such exterior +graces did the little town of the High Cross exhibit to us, wearied with +the baking days and freezing nights of the last month’s campaign. +Whether some Jesuit in the days gone by, when missionaries stood up +before their catechumens unsustained by Gatling guns, sheltered but by a +rude cross in their hands and their meek lives, had named the place, in +commemoration of some saving act of grace done by Jehovah in the +conversion of the heathen, none can tell. It may be that the Rood set up +on high was but a landmark, or again to mark a frontier line against the +heathen to the north, or yet it may have been the grave of some Paulista, +who in his foray against the Jesuits in Paraguay died here on his return, +whilst driving on before him a herd of converts to become slaves in far +San Paulo, to the greater glory of the Lord. All these things may have +been, or none of them; but the quiet sleepy place, the forests with their +parrots and macaws, their herds of peccaries, their bands of screaming +monkeys, the bright-striped tiger-cats, the armadillos, coatis, +capibarás, and gorgeous flaming “seibos,” all intertwined by ropes of +living cordage of lianas, and the supreme content of all the dwellers in +the district, with God, themselves, their country, and their lives, still +after twenty years is fresh, and stirs me, as the memory of the Pacific +stirs a reclaimed “beach-comber” over his grog, and makes him say, “I +never should have left them islands, for a man was happy in ’em, living +on the beach.” + +To this commercial centre (centro do commercio) we were advised to go, +and there I rode, leaving my partner with the peons riding round the +caballada upon the plains. Dressed as I was in the clothes worn by the +Gauchos of the Banda Oriental, a hat tied underneath the chin with a +black cord, a vicuña poncho, and armed with large resounding silver +spurs, I made a blot of colour in Cardozo’s shop amongst the quietly +dressed Brazilians, who, though they were some of the smartest men in +South America upon a horse, were always clad in sober-coloured raiment, +wore ordinary store-cut trousers, and had their feet endued with all the +graces of a five-dollar elastic-sided boot. + +Half-an-hour’s talk with the chief partner shattered all our plans. It +then appeared that to take horses on to Rio was impossible, the country, +after San Paulo, being one dense forest, and even if the horses stood the +change of climate, the trip would take a year, thus running off with any +profit which we might expect. Moreover, it appeared that mules were in +demand throughout Brazil, but horses, till past San Paulo, five hundred +miles ahead, but little valued, and almost as cheap, though much inferior +in breed to those bred on the plains of Uruguay. He further told us to +lose not a day in teaching all the horses to eat salt, for without that +they would not live a month, as once the range of mountains passed +between Cruz Alta and the plains, no horse or mule could live without its +three months’ ration of rock-salt; there being in the pasture some malign +quality which salt alone could cure. Naturally he had the cheapest salt +in the whole town, and as our horses were by this time so thin that it +was quite impossible to take them further without rest, they having been +a month upon the road, we set about to find an enclosed pasture where we +could let them feed. + +Xavier Fernandez, a retired slave- and mule-dealer, was the man on whom +by accident we fell. Riding about the plain disconsolately, like Arabs +changing their pastures, and with our horses feeding near a little pond, +we met him. An old straw hat, bed-ticking trousers, and with his naked +feet shoved into slippers of carpindo leather, and an iron spur attached +to one of them and hanging down at least an inch below his heel, mounted +upon a mule saddled with the iron-framed Brazilian saddle, with the +addition of a crupper, a thing strange to our eyes, accustomed to the +wild horses of the plains, he did not look the type of “landed +gentleman,” but such he was, owner of flocks and herds, and, in +particular, of a well-fenced pasture, enclosing about two leagues of +land. + +After much talk of things in general, of politics, and of the revolution +in progress in the republic we had left, upon our folly in bringing +horses, which could go no further into the interior, and of the money we +should have made had we brought “bestas,” that is, mules, we agreed to +pay him so much a month for the use of his fenced pasture, and for our +maintenance during the time we stayed. Leaving the horses feeding, +watched by the men, we rode to see the place. Upon the way Xavier +imparted much of history, a good deal of his lore, and curious local +information about Cruz Alta, duly distorted, as befits a reputable man, +through the perspective of his predilections, politics, faith, opinions, +and general view of life. + +We learned that once Cruz Alta was a most important place, that +six-and-thirty thousand mules used to be wintered there, and then in +spring moved on to the great fair at Surucuba in the Sertão, that is the +forest district of San Paulo, and then sold to the merchants from the +upper districts of Brazil. But of late years the number had been much +reduced, and then stood at about twelve thousand. This he set down to +the accursed steamboats which took them up the coast, to the continual +fighting in the state of Uruguay, and generally to the degeneration which +he thought he saw in man. In the heyday of the prosperity of the place +“gold flowed from every hand,” so much so, that even “as mulheres da +vida” kept their accounts in ounces; but now money was scarce, and +business done in general by barter, coin being hardly even seen except +for mules, for which it was imperative, as no one parted with “bestas” +except for money down. Passing a little wood we saw a row of stakes +driven into the ground, and he informed us that they were evidently left +by some Birivas, that is people from San Paulo, after having used them to +secure their mules whilst saddling. The Paulistas, we then learned, used +the “sirigote,” that is, the old-fashioned high-peaked saddle brought +from Portugal in times gone by, and not the “recado,” the saddle of the +Gauchos, which is flat, and suited better for galloping upon a plain than +for long marches over mountain passes and through woods. All the points, +qualities, with the shortcomings and the failings of a mule, he did +rehearse. It then appeared a mule should be mouse-coloured, for the +red-coloured mule is of no use, the grey soft-footed, and the black +bad-tempered, the piebald fit “for a German,” which kind of folk he held +in abhorrence mixed with contempt, saying they whined in speaking as it +had been the whining of an armadillo or a sloth. The perfect mule should +be large-headed, not with a little-hammer head like to a horse, but long +and thin, with ears erect, round feet, and upon no account when spurred +ought it to whisk its tail, for that was most unseemly, fit but for +Germans, Negroes, Indians, and generally for all those he counted +senseless people—“gente sem razão”; saying “of course all men are of one +flesh, but some are dog’s flesh, and let them ride mules who whisk about +their tails like cattle in a marsh.” Beguiled by these, and other +stories, we soon reached the gate of the enclosure, and he, dismounting, +drew a key from one of the pockets of his belt and let us in. A short +half-hour brought us up to his house, passing through ground all +overgrown with miamia and other shrubs which did not promise to afford +much pasturage; but he informed us that we must not expect the grasses of +the plains up at Cruz Alta, and thus conversing we arrived before his +house. + +Surrounded by a fence enclosing about an acre, the house stood just on +the edge of a thick wood. On one side were the corrals for horses and +for cattle, and on the other the quarters of the slaves. In shape the +houses resembled a flattish haystack thatched with reeds, and with a +verandah rising round it, supported on strong posts. At either end a +kind of baldachino, one used as a stable and the other as a kitchen, and +in the latter a fire continually alight, and squatted by it night and day +a negress, either baking flat, thin girdle-cakes made of maize, shaking +the flour out of her hand upon an iron plate, or else filling a gourd of +maté with hot water, and running to and fro into the house to give it to +her mistress, never apparently thinking it worth while to take the kettle +with her into the house. + +The family, not quite so white as Xavier himself, consisted of a mother +always in slippers, dressed in a skirt and shift, which latter garment +always seemed about to fall down to her waist, and two thin, large-eyed, +yellowish girls arrayed in vestments like a pillow-case, with a string +fastening them at the narrowest place. Slave girls of several hues did +nothing and chattered volubly, and their mistress had to stand over them, +a slipper in her hand, when maize was pounded in a rough mortar hewn from +a solid log, in which the slaves hammered with pestles, one down, the +other up, after the fashion of blacksmiths making a horsehoe, but with +groans, and making believe to be extenuated after three minutes’ work, +and stopping instantly the moment that their mistress went into the house +to light her cigarette. + +An official in Cruz Alta, known as the Capitão do Matto, holding a status +between a gamekeeper and a parish clerk, kept by the virtue of his office +a whipping-house, to which recalcitrant or idle slaves were theoretically +sent; but in the house of Xavier at least no one took interest enough in +anything, except Xavier himself, to take the trouble; and the slaves +ruled the female part of the establishment, if not exactly with a rod of +iron, still to their perfect satisfaction, cooking and sewing now and +then; sweeping, but fitfully; and washing when they wanted to look smart +and figure at a dance. The Capitão do Matto was supposed to bring back +runaways and keep a leash of bloodhounds, but in the memory of man no one +had seen him sally forth, and for the blood-hounds, they were long dead, +although he drew regular rations for their maintenance. In the interior +of Brazil his office was no sinecure, but in Cruz Alta horses were +plentiful, the country relatively easy, and slaves who ran away, which +happened seldom, timed their escape so as to put a good day’s journey +between them and any possible pursuit, and on the evening of the fifth +day, if all went well, they got across the frontier into Uruguay. + +Terms once arranged, we let our horses loose, laid out rock-salt in +lumps, first catching several of the tamest horses, and forcing pieces +into their mouths; they taught the others, and we had nothing more to do. +We paid our peons off, got our clothes washed, rested, and then found +time at first hang heavy on our hands. Hearing an Englishman lived about +ten leagues off, we saddled up and rode to visit him. After losing +ourselves in a thick forest of some kind of pine, we reached his house, +but the _soi-disant_ Briton was from Amsterdam, could speak no English, +was a little drunk, but asked us to get off and dine with him. During +the dinner, which we had all alone, his wife and daughter standing +looking at us (he too drunk to eat), pigs ran into the room, a half-grown +tapir lay in a corner, and two new-caught macaws screamed horribly, so +that, the banquet over, we did not stay, but thanked him in Portuguese, +which he spoke badly, and rode off home, determining to sleep at the +first wood, rather than face a night in such a place. + +The evening caught us near to a forest, the trail, sandy and white, +running close to a sort of cove formed in the trees, and here we camped, +taking our saddles off, lighting a fire, and lying down to sleep just in +the opening of the cove, our horses tied inside. All through the night +people appeared to pass along the road. I lay awake half-dozing now and +then, and watched the bats, looked at the fire-flies flitting about the +trees, heard the harsh howling of the monkeys, the tapirs stamp, the +splash made by the lobos and carpinchos as they dashed into the stream, +and then slept soundly, and awoke to find one of the horses gone. The +moon shone brightly, and, waking up my friend, I told him of our loss. +We knew the horse must have a rope attached to him, and that he probably +would try to get back to Cruz Alta, along the road we came. My horse was +difficult to bit, but by the aid of tying up one foot, and covering his +eyes up with a handkerchief, we bitted him, then mounted both of us upon +his back, hiding the other saddle behind some grass, and started on the +road. The sandy trail was full of horses’ tracks, so that we could do +nothing but ride on, hoping to catch him feeding by the way. About a +league we rode, and then, not seeing him, turned slowly back to get the +other saddle, make some coffee, and start home when it was light. To our +astonishment, upon arriving at the cove, the other horse was there, and +neighing wildly, straining on his rope, and it appeared that he had never +gone, but being tied close to the wood had wandered in, and we, thinking +he must have gone, being half-dazed with sleep, had never thought of +looking at his rope. + +Defrauded, so to speak, out of our Englishman, and finding that the +horses, after the long journey and the change of water and of grass, +daily grew thinner, making it quite impossible to move them, forwards or +back, and after having vainly tried to sell them, change them for mules, +or sugar, quite without success, no one except some “fazendero” here and +there caring for horses in a land where every one rode mules, we settled +down to loaf. Once certain we had lost our money and our pains, nothing +remained but to wait patiently until the horses got into sufficient state +to sell, for all assured us that every day we went further into the +interior, they would lose flesh, that we should have them bitten by +snakes in the forests, and arrive at Rio, if we ever got there, either on +foot, or with but the horses which we rode. + +For a short time we had almost determined to push on, even if we arrived +at Rio with but a horse apiece. Then came reflection, that reflection +which has dressed the world in drab, made cowards of so many heroes, lost +so many generous impulses, spoiled so many poems, and which mankind has +therefore made a god of, and we decided to remain. Then did Cruz Alta +put on a new look. We saw the wondrous vegetation of the woods, felt the +full charm of the old-world quiet life, watched the strange +multi-coloured insects, lay by the streams to mark the birds, listened +for the howlings of the monkeys when night fell; picked the strange +flowers, admired the butterflies floating like little blue and yellow +albatrosses, their wings opened and poised in the still air, or wondered +when a topaz-coloured humming-bird, a red macaw, an orange-and-black +toucan, or a red-crested cardinal flitted across our path. Inside the +wood behind the house were clearings, made partly by the axe and partly +by fire, amongst the tall morosimos, coronillos, and palo santos, and in +the clearings known as “roças” grew beans and maize, with mandioca and +occasionally barley, and round them ran a prickly hedge either of +cactuses or thorny bush, cut down to keep out tapirs and deer, and +usually in a straw hut a negro lay, armed with a flint-lock gun to fire +at parrots, scare off monkeys, and generally to act as guardian of the +place. Orange and lemon trees, with citrons and sweet limes, grew +plentifully, and had run wild amongst the woods; bananas were planted in +the roça; but what we liked the best was a wild fruit called Guavirami, +which grew in patches on the open camp, yellow and round, about the size +of a small plum, low-growing, having three or four small stones, cold as +an icicle to taste upon the hottest day. A little river ran through the +middle of the wood, and in a stream a curious machine was placed for +pounding maize, driven by water-power, and unlike any contrivance of a +similar nature I had ever seen before. An upright block of wood, burned +from the centre of a tree, stood in the stream, hollowed out in the +centre to contain the maize; water ran up a little channel, and released +a pestle, which fell with a heavy thud upon the corn, with the result +that if one left a basket full in the great mortar over-night, by morning +it was pounded, saving that labour which God Himself seems to have +thought not so ennobling after all, as He first instituted it to carry +out a curse. + +So one day told, and may, for all I know, have certified another, but we +recked little of them, riding into Cruz Alta now and then and eating +cakes at the confectioner’s, drinking innumerable glasses of sweet +Malaga, laying in stores of cigarettes, frequenting all the dances far +and near, joining in cattle-markings, races, and anything in short which +happened in the place. + +Perhaps our greatest friend was one Luis, a slave, born in Angola, +brought over quite “Bozal” (or muzzled, as the Brazilians say of negroes +who can speak no Portuguese), then by degrees became “ladino,” was +baptized, bought by our host Xavier, and had remained with him all the +remainder of his life. Black, and not comely in the least, bowlegged +from constant riding, nose flat, and ears like flappers, a row of teeth +almost as strong as a young shark’s, flat feet, and crisp Angola wool +which grew so thickly on his head that had you thrown a pin on it, it +could not have reached the skin, he yet was honest and faithful to the +verge of folly; but then, if heaven there be, it can be but inhabited by +fools, for wise men, prudent folk, and those who thrive, have their +reward like singers, quickly, and can look for nothing more. He spoke +about himself half-pityingly under the style of “Luis o Captivo,” was +pious, fervent in sacred song, instant in prayer (especially if work was +to be done), not idle either, superstitious and affectionate with all the +virtues of the most excellent Saint Bernard or Newfoundland dog, and with +but little of the imperfections of a man except the power of speech. +Often he had been with his master into Uruguay to purchase cattle, or to +buy mules for the Brazilian market, and when I asked him if he did not +know that he was free the instant that he stepped in Uruguay, said: “Yes, +but here I was brought up when I first came from Africa; they have been +kind to me, it is to me as the querencia {46} is to a horse, and were it +not for that, small fear I should return, to remain here ‘feito captivo’; +but then I love the place, and, as you know, ‘the mangy calf lived all +the winter, and then died in the spring.’” He held the Christian faith +in its entirety, doubting no dogma, being pleased with every saint, but +yet still hankered after fetish, which he remembered as a child, and +seemed to think not incompatible with Christianity, as rendering it more +animistic and familiar, smoothing away its angularities, blotting +whatever share of reason it may have away, and, above all, giving more +scope, if possible, to faith, and thereby opening a larger field of +possibilities to the believer’s mind. + +So Luis with others of his kind, as Jango, Jico, and Manduco, became our +friends, looking upon us with that respect mixed with contempt which is +the attitude of those who see that you possess the mysterious arts of +reading and of writing, but cannot see a horse’s footprint on hard +ground; or if you lose yourself, have to avail yourself of what Luis +referred to as “the one-handed watch the sailors use, which points the +way to go.” + +Much did Xavier talk of the Indians of the woods, the “Bugres,” as the +Brazilians call them; about the “Botocudos,” who wear a plug stuck in +their lower lip, and shape their ears with heavy weights in youth, so +that they hang upon their shoulders; and much about those “Infidel” who +through a blowpipe direct a little arrow at the travelling “Christians” +in the woods, whose smallest touch is death. It then appeared his father +(fica agora na gloria) was a patriot, that is, ’twas he who extirpated +the last of all the “Infidel” from the forests where they lived. Most +graphically did he tell how the last Indians were hunted down with dogs, +and in a pantomime he showed how they jumped up and fell when they +received the shot, and putting out his tongue and writhing hideously, he +imitated how they wriggled on the ground, explaining that they were worse +to kill than is a tapir, and put his father and the other patriots to +much unnecessary pain. And as he talked, the woods, the fields, the +river and the plain bathed in the sun, which unlike that of Africa does +not seem weary of its task, but shines unwearied, looking as it does on a +new world and life, shimmered and blazed, great lizards drank its rays +flattening themselves upon the stones in ecstasy, humming-birds quivered +at the heart of every flower; above the stream the dragon-flies hung +poised; only some “Infidel” whom the patriots had destroyed seemed +wanting, and the landscape looked incomplete without a knot of them in +their high feather crowns stealthily stealing round a corner of the +woods. + +In the uncomprehended future, incomprehensible and strange, and harder +far to guess at than the remotest semi-comprehended past, surely the +Spanish travellers and their writings will have a value quite apart from +that of any other books. For then the world will hold no “Bugres”; not a +“Botocudo” will be left, and those few Indian and Negro tribes who yet +persist will be but mere travesties of the whites: their customs lost, +their lore, such as it was, despised; and we have proved ourselves wiser +than the Creator, who wasted so much time creating beings whom we judged +unfit to live, and then, in mercy to ourselves and Him, destroyed, so +that no evidence of His miscalculated plan should last to shame Him when +He thought of His mistake. So to this end (unknowingly) the missionary +works, and all the Jesuits, those who from Paraguay through the +Chiquitos, and across the Uruguay, in the dark Moxos, and in the forests +of the Andes, gave their lives to bring as they thought life everlasting +to the Indians—all were fools. Better by far instead of Bibles, lives of +saints, water of baptism, crucifixes, and all the tackle of their trade, +that they had brought swords, lances, and a good cross-bow each, and gone +to work in the true scientific way, and recognized that the right way +with savages is to preach heaven to them and then despatch them to it, +for it is barbarous to keep them standing waiting as it were, just at the +portals of eternal bliss. + +And as we lingered at Cruz Alta, Christmas drew near, and all the people +began to make “pesebres,” with ox and ass, the three wise men, the star +of Bethlehem, the Redeemer (not of the Botocudos and the Bugres) swaddled +and laid in straw. Herdsmen and negroes dismounted at the door, fastened +their half-wild mules or horses carefully to posts, removed their hats, +drawing them down over their faces furtively, and then walked in on +tiptoe, their heavy iron spurs clanking upon the ground, to see the +Wondrous Child. They lounged about the room, speaking in whispers as he +might awake, and then departed silently, murmuring that it was +“fermosisimo,” and getting on their horses noiselessly were gone, and in +a minute disappeared upon the plain. Then came the Novena with prayer +and carols, the prayers read by Xavier himself out of a tattered book, +all the assembled family joining with unction in the responses, and +beating on their breasts. Luis and all the slaves joined in the carols +lustily, especially in one sung in a minor key long-drawn-out as a +sailor’s shanty, or a forebitter sung in a calm whilst waiting for a +breeze. After each verse there was a kind of chorus calling upon the +sinner to repent, bidding him have no fear but still hold on, and thus +exhorting him— + + “Chegai, Chegai, pecador, áo pe da cruz + Fica nosso Senhor.” + +Christmas Day found us all at mass in the little church, horses and mules +being tied outside the door to the trees in the plaza, and some left +hobbled, and all waiting as if St. Hubert was about to issue forth and +bless them. + +Painfully and long, the preacher dwelt upon the glorious day, the country +people listening as it were new to them, and as if all the events had +happened on the plain hard by. In the evening rockets announced the +joyful news, and the stars shone out over the woods and plains as on the +evening when the bright particular star guided the three sheikhs to some +such place as was the rancho of our host. + +Christmas rejoicings over, a month sped past and found us still, so to +speak, wind-bound in the little town. No one would buy our horses, some +of which died bitten by snakes. It was impossible to think of going on, +and to return equally difficult, so that there seemed a probability of +being obliged to pass a lifetime in the place. People began to look at +us half in a kindly, half contemptuous way, as people look in general +upon those who fail, especially when they themselves have never tried to +do anything at all but live, and having done it with considerable success +look upon failure as a sort of minor crime, to be atoned for by humility, +and to be reprobated after the fashion of adultery, with a +half-deprecating laugh. Sometimes we borrowed ancient flint-lock guns +and lay in wait for tapirs, but never saw them, as in the thick woods +they move as silently as moles in sand, and leave as little trace. Luis +told of how, mounted on a half-wild horse, he had long ago lassoed a +tapir, and found himself and horse dragged slowly and invincibly towards +a stream, the horse resisting terrified, the “gran besta” {51} apparently +quite cool, so that at last he had to cut his lasso and escape from what +he called the greatest peril of his life; he thought he was preserved +partly by the interposition of the saints and partly by a “fetiço” which, +in defiance of religion, he luckily had hanging round his neck. + +Just when all hope was gone, and we thought seriously of leaving the +horses to their fate, and pushing on with some of the best of them +towards Rio, a man appeared upon the scene, and offered to buy them, half +for money and half “a troco,” that is barter, for it appeared he was a +pawnbroker and had a house full of silver horse-gear, which had never +been redeemed. After much bargaining we closed for three hundred dollars +and a lot of silver bridles, spurs, whips, and other stuff, after +reserving four of the best horses for ourselves to make our journey back. +At the head of so much capital our spirits rose, and we determined to +push on to Paraguay, crossing the Uruguay and Parana, ride through the +Misiones, and at Asuncion, where I had friends, take ship; _aguas abajo_, +for the River Plate. We paid our debts and bid good-bye to Xavier, his +wife and sallow daughters, and to all the slaves; gave Luis a +silver-mounted whip, bought some provisions, put on our silver spurs, +bridles, and as much as possible of the silver gear we had become +possessed of, and at daybreak, mounted upon a cream-and-white piebald, +the “Bayo Overo,” and a red bay known as the “Pateador,” leading a horse +apiece, we passed out of Xavier’s “potrero,” {52} and started on the +road. + +During the last few days at Xavier’s we had taught the horses we intended +to take to Paraguay to eat Indian corn, fastening them up without any +other food all day, and putting salt into their mouths. The art once +learnt, we had to stand beside them whilst they ate, to keep off chickens +and pigs who drove them from their food, the horses being too stupid to +help themselves. If I remember rightly, their ration was eight cobs, +which we husked for them in our hands, blistering our fingers in the +process as they had been burned. But now the trouble of the process was +repaid, the horses going strongly all day long. We passed out of the +little plain, skirted a pine-wood, rode up a little hill, and saw the +country stretching towards the Uruguay, a park-like prairie interspersed +with trees. Cruz Alta, a white patch shining against the green-grey +plain encircled with its woods, was just in sight, the church-tower +standing like a needle in the clear air against the sky. Half a league +more and it dropped out of view, closing the door upon a sort of half +Bœotian Arcady, but remaining still a memory after twenty years, with all +the little incidents of the three months’ sojourn in the place fresh, and +yet seeming as they had happened not to myself, but to a person I had +met, and who had told the tale. + +By easy stages we journeyed on, descending gradually towards the Uruguay, +passing through country almost unpopulated, so large were the “fazendas,” +and so little stocked. In the last century the Jesuits had here +collected many tribes of Indians, and their history, is it not told in +the pages of Montoya Lozano, Padre Guevara, and the other chroniclers of +the doings of the “Company,” and to be read in the Archivo de Simancas, +in that of Seville, and the uncatalogued “legajos” of the national +library at Madrid? Throughout the country that we passed through, the +fierce Paulistas had raided in times gone by, carrying off the Christian +Indians to be slaves. The Portuguese and Spaniards had often +fought—witness the names “O matto {54a} Portogues, O matto Castelhano,” +and the like, showing where armies had manoeuvred, whilst the poor +Indians waited like sheep, rejoicing when the butchers turned the knife +at one another’s throats. To-day all trace of Jesuits and Missions have +long disappeared, save for a ruined church or two, and here and there a +grassy mound called in the language of the country a “tapera,” {54b} +showing where a settlement had stood. + +We camped at lonely ranchos inhabited, in general, by free negroes, or by +the side of woods, choosing, if possible, some little cove in the wood, +in which we tied the horses, building a fire in the mouth, laid down and +slept, after concocting a vile beverage bought in Cruz Alta under the +name of tea, but made I think of birch-leaves, and moistening pieces of +the hard jerked beef in orange-juice to make it palatable. + +So after five or six days of steady travelling, meeting, if I remember +rightly, not a living soul upon the way, except a Gaucho from the Banda +Oriental, who one night came to our fire, and seeing the horrible brew of +tea in a tin-pot asked for a little of the “black water,” not knowing +what it was, we reached the Uruguay. The river, nearly half-a-mile in +breadth, flowed sluggishly between primeval woods, great alligators +basked with their backs awash, flamingoes fished among the shallow pools, +herons and cranes sat on dead stumps, vultures innumerable perched on +trees, and in the purple bunches of the “seibos” humming-birds seemed to +nestle, so rapid was their flight, and over all a darkish vapour hung, +blending the trees and water into one, and making the “balsa,” as it +laboured over after repeated calls, look like the barque of Styx. Upon +the other side lay Corrientes, once a vast mission territory, but to-day, +in the narrow upper portion that we traversed, almost a desert, that is a +desert of tall grass with islands of timber dotted here and there, and an +occasional band of ostriches scudding across the plain. + +Camped by a wood about a quarter of a league from a lonely rancho, we +were astonished, just at even-fall, by the arrival of the owner of the +house mounted upon a half-wild horse, a spear in his hand, escorted by +his two ragged sons mounted on half-wild ponies, and holding in their +hands long canes to which a broken sheep-shear had been fixed. The +object of his visit, as he said, was to inquire if we had seen a tiger +which had killed some sheep, but his suspicious glance made me think he +thought we had designs upon his cattle, and he had come to reconnoitre +us; but our offer of some of the Cruz Alta tea soon made us friends, and +after drinking almost a quart of it, he said “Muy rico,” and rode back to +his house. + +The third day’s riding brought us to the little town of Candelaria, built +on a high bank over the Parana. Founded on Candlemas Day in 1665, it was +the chief town of the Jesuit missions. Here, usually, the “Provincial” +{56a} resided, and here the political business of their enormous +territory was done. Stretching almost from Cruz Alta to within fifty +leagues of Asuncion del Paraguay, and from Yapeyú upon the Uruguay almost +to the “Salto de Guayra” upon the Parana, the territory embraced an area +larger than many a kingdom, and was administered without an army, solely +by about two hundred priests. The best proof of the success of their +administration is that in these days the Indians, now to be numbered by a +few thousand, were estimated at about two hundred thousand, and peopled +all the country now left desolate, or which at least was desolate at the +time of which I write. Even Azara, {56b} a bitter opponent of their +system, writes of the Jesuit rule—“Although the Fathers had supreme +command, they used their power with a gentleness and moderation which one +cannot but admire.” {56c} + +I leave to the economists, with all the reverend rabble rout of +politicians, statistic-mongers and philanthropists, whether or not two +hundred thousand living Indians were an asset in the world’s property; +and to the pious I put this question, If, as I suppose, these men had +souls just as immortal as our own, might it not have been better to +preserve their bodies, those earthly envelopes without which no soul can +live, rather than by exposing them to all those influences which the +Jesuits dreaded, to kill them off, and leave their country without +population for a hundred years? + +But at the time of which I write neither my partner nor I cared much for +speculations of that kind, but were more occupied with the condition of +our horses, for, by that time, the “Bayo Overo” and the “Pateador” were +become part and parcel of ourselves, and we thought more about their +welfare than that of all the Indians upon earth. + +La Candelaria, at the time when we passed through, was fallen from its +proud estate, and had become a little Gaucho country town with sandy +streets and horses tied at every door—a barren sun-burnt plaza, with a +few Japanese ash-trees and Paraisos; the “Commandancia” with the +Argentine blue-and-white barred flag, and trade-mark rising sun, hanging +down listlessly against the post, and for all remnants of the Jesuit +sway, the college turned into a town-hall, and the fine church, which +seemed to mourn over the godless, careless, semi-Gaucho population in the +streets. Here we disposed of our spare horses, bidding them good-bye, as +they had been old friends, and got the “Bayo Overo” and the “Pateador” +shod for the first time in their lives, an operation which took the +united strength of half-a-dozen men to achieve, but was imperative, as +their feet, accustomed to the stone-less plains of Paraguay, had suffered +greatly in the mountain paths. In Candelaria, for the first time for +many months, we sat down to a regular meal, in a building called “El +Hotel Internacional”; drank wine of a suspicious kind, and seemed to have +arrived in Paris, so great the change to the wild camps beside the +forests, or the nights passed in the lone ranchos of the hilly district +of Brazil. + +A balsa drawn by a tug-boat took us across the Parana, here more than a +mile broad, to Ytapua, and upon landing we found ourselves in quite +another world. The little Paraguayan town of Ytapua, called by the +Jesuits Encarnacion, lay, with its little port below it (where my friend +Enrico Clerici had his store), upon a plateau hanging above the stream. +The houses, built of canes and thatched with straw, differed extremely +from the white “azotea” houses of the Candelaria on the other side. The +people, dress, the vegetation, and the mode of life, differed still more +in every aspect. The Paraguayan, with his shirt hanging outside his +white duck trousers, bare feet, and cloak made of red cloth or baize, his +broad straw hat and quiet manner, was the complete antithesis of the +high-booted, loose-trousered, poncho-wearing Correntino, with his long +knife and swaggering Gaucho air. The one a horseman of the plains, the +other a footman of the forests; the Correntino brave even to rashness +when taken man for man, but so incapable of discipline as to be +practically useless as a soldier. The other as quiet as a sheep, and +individually patient even to suffering blows, but once gathered together +and instructed in the use of arms, as good a soldier, when well led, as +it is possible to find; active and temperate, brave, and, if rather +unintelligent, eager to risk his life at any time at the command of any +of his chiefs. Such was the material from which Lopez, coward and +grossly incompetent as he was, formed the battalions which for four years +kept both Buenos Ayres and Brazil at bay, and only yielded when he +himself was killed, mounted, as tradition has it, on the last horse of +native breed left in the land. + +But if the people and their dwellings were dissimilar, the countries in +themselves were to the full at least as different. All through the upper +part of Corrientes the soil is black, and the country open, park-like +prairie dotted with trees; in Ytapua and the surrounding district, the +earth bright red, and the primeval forest stretches close to the water’s +edge. In Corrientes still the trees of the Pampas are occasionally seen, +Talas and ñandubay with Coronillo and Lapacho; whereas in Paraguay, as by +a bound, you pass to Curupay, {60a} Tatané, {60b} the Tarumá, {60c} the +Ñandipá, {60d} the Jacaranda, and the Paratodo with its bright yellow +flowers; whilst upon every tree lianas cling with orchidaceæ, known to +the natives as “flowers of the air,” and through them all flit great +butterflies, humming-birds dart, and underneath the damp vegetation of +the sub-tropics, emphorbiaceæ, solanaceæ, myrtaceæ, and flowers and +plants to drive a thousand botanists to madness, blossom and die unnamed. +Here, too, the language changed, and Guarani became the dominant tongue, +which, though spoken in Corrientes, is there used but occasionally, but +among Paraguayans is their native speech, only the Alcaldes, officers, +and upper classes as a general rule (at that time) speaking Spanish, and +even then with a strange accent and much mixed with Guarani. + +Two days we passed in Ytapua resting our horses, and I renewed my +friendship with Enrico Clerici, an Italian, who had served with +Garibaldi, and who, three years ago, I had met in the same place and +given him a silver ring which he reported galvanized, and was accustomed +to lend as a great favour for a specific against rheumatism. He kept a +pulperia, and being a born fighter, his delight was, when a row occurred +(which he styled “una barulla de Jesu Cristo”), to clear the place by +flinging empty bottles from the bar. A handsome, gentlemanlike man, and +terrible with a bottle in his hand, whether as weapon of offence or for +the purposes of drink; withal well educated, and no doubt by this time +long dead, slain by his favourite weapon, and his place filled by some +fat, double-entry Basque or grasping Catalan, or by some portly emigrant +from Germany. + +Not wishing to be confined within a house, a prey to the mosquitoes, we +camped in the chief square, and strolling round about the town, I came on +an old friend. + +Not far outside the village a Correntino butcher had his shop, a little +straw-thatched hut, with strings of fresh jerked beef festooning all the +place; the owner stood outside dressed in the costume of a Gaucho of the +southern plains. I did not know him, and we began to talk, when I +perceived, tied underneath a shed, a fine, dark chestnut horse, saddled +and bitted in the most approved of Gaucho style. He somehow seemed +familiar, and the Correntino, seeing me looking at his horse, asked if I +knew the brand, but looking at it I failed to recognize it, when on a +sudden my memory was lighted up. Three years ago, in an “estero” {62} +outside Caapucú, at night, journeying in company with a friend, one +Hermann, whose only means of communication with me was a jargon of +Spanish mixed with “Plaat Deutsch,” we met a Correntino, and as our +horses mutually drowned our approach by splashing with their feet, our +meeting terrified us both. Frightened, he drew his knife, and I a +pistol, and Hermann lugged out a rusty sword, which he wore stuck through +his horse’s girths. But explanations followed, and no blood was shed, +and then we drew aside into a little hillock, called in the language of +the place an “albardon,” sat down and talked, and asking whence he came +was told from Ytapua. Now Ytapua was three days’ journey distant on an +ordinary horse, and I looked carefully at the horse, and wondered why his +owner had ridden him so hard. He, I now saw, was the horse I had seen +that night, and the Correntino recognized me, and laughing said he had +killed a man near Ytapua, and was (as he said) “retreating” when he met +me in the marsh. The horse, no doubt, was one of the best for a long +journey I have ever seen, and after quoting to his owner that “a dark +chestnut horse may die, but cannot tire,” {63a} we separated, and, no +doubt, for years afterwards our meeting was the subject of his talk. + +No doubt the citizens of Ytapua were scandalized at our not coming to the +town, and the Alcalde came to interview us, but we assured him that in +virtue of a vow we slept outside, and in a moment all his fears were +gone. + +Striking right through the then desolated Misiones, passing the river +Aguapey, our horses almost swimming, skirting by forests where red macaws +hovered like hawks and parrots chattered; passing through open plains +grown over here and there with Yatais, {63b} splashing for hours through +wet esteros, missing the road occasionally, as I had travelled it but +once, and then three years ago, and at the time I write of huts were few +and far between, and population scanty, we came, upon the evening of the +second day, near to a place called Ñacuti. This was the point for which +I had been making, for near it was an estancia {63c} called the “Potrero +San Antonio,” the property of Dr. Stewart, a well-known man in Paraguay. +Nature had seemed to work to make the place impregnable. On three sides +of the land, which measured eight or ten miles in length on every side, +forks of a river ran, and at the fourth they came so close together that +a short fence, not half-a-mile in length, closed up the circle, and +cattle once inside were safe but for the tigers, which at that time +abounded, and had grown so fierce by reason of the want of population +that they sometimes killed horses or cows close to the door of the house. +A short “picada,” of about a quarter of a mile in length, cut through the +wood, led to the gate. Through it in times gone by I often rode at night +in terror, with a pistol in my hand, the heavy foliage of the trees +brushing my hat, and thinking every instant that a tiger would jump out. +One night when close up to the bamboo bars I heard a grunt, thought my +last hour had come, fired, and brought something down; approached, and +found it was a peccary; and then, tearing the bars down in a hurry, got +to horse, and galloped nine miles to the house, thinking each moment that +the herd of peccaries was close behind and panting for my blood. + +On this occasion all was still; the passage through the orange trees was +dark, their scent oppressive, as the leaves just stirred in the hot north +wind, and fire-flies glistened to and fro amongst the flowers; great bats +flew heavily, and the quarter of a mile seemed mortal, and as if it led +to hell. + +Nothing occurred, and coming to the bars we found them on the ground; +putting them up we conscientiously cursed the fool who left them out of +place, and riding out into the moonlight, after a little trouble found +the sandy, deep-banked trail which led up to the house. All the nine +miles we passed by islands of great woods, peninsulas and archipelagos +jutting out into the still plain, and all their bases swathed in white +mists like water: the Yatais looked ghostly standing starkly in the +grass; from the lagoons came the shrill croak of frogs, great moths came +fluttering across our path, and the whole woods seemed filled with noise, +as if the dwellers in them, silent through the day, were keeping holiday +at night. As for the past two days we had eaten nothing but a few +oranges and pieces of jerked beef, moistening them in the muddy water of +the streams, our talk was of the welcome we should get, the supper, and +of the comfortable time we then should pass for a few days to give our +horses rest. + +We passed the tiger-trap, a structure built after the fashion of an +enormous mouse-trap, of strong bamboos; skirted along a wood in which an +ominous growling and rustling made our horses start, and then it struck +me as curious that there were no cattle feeding in the plain, no horses, +and that the whole potrero seemed strangely desolate; but the house just +showing at the edge of a small grove of peach-trees drove all these +speculations out of my head: thinking upon the welcome, and the dinner, +for we had eaten nothing since daybreak, and were fasting, as the natives +say, from everything but sin, we reached the door. The house was dark, +no troop of dogs rushed out to bark and seize our horses’ tails; we +shouted, hammered with our whips, fired our revolvers, and nothing +answered us. + +Dismounting, we found everything bolted and barred, and going to the +back, on the kitchen-hearth a few red embers, and thus knew that some one +had been lately in the place. Nothing to eat, the woods evidently full +of tigers, and our horses far too tired to start again, we were just +about to unsaddle and lie down and sleep, when a white figure stole out +from the peach-trees, and tried to gain the shelter of the corral some +sixty yards away. Jumping on horseback we gave chase, and coming up with +the fugitive found it to be a Paraguayan woman, who with her little +daughter were the sole inhabitants, her husband having gone to the +nearest village to buy provisions, and left her all alone, warning her +earnestly before he left to keep the doors shut during the night on +account of the tigers, and not to venture near the woods even in daylight +till he should have come back. Finding herself confronted by two armed, +mounted men, dressed in the clothes of Correntinos, who had an evil +reputation in Paraguay, her terror was extreme. Her daughter, a little +girl of eight or nine, crept out from behind a tree, and in a moment we +were friends. Unluckily for us, she had no food of any kind, and but a +little maté, which she prepared for us. She then remembered that the +trees were covered with peaches, and went out and gathered some, but they +were hard as stones; nevertheless we ate a quantity of them, and having +tied our horses close to the house, not twenty paces from the door, in +long lush grass, we lay down in the verandah, and did not wake till it +was almost noon. When we awoke we found the woman had been up betimes +and gone on foot five or six miles away to look for food. She brought +some mandioca, and two or three dozen oranges, and a piece of almost +putrefied jerked beef, all which we ate as heartily as if it had been the +most delicious food on earth. + +To my annoyance I found my horse weak and dejected, and several large +clots of dried-up blood under the hair of his mane, and saw at once a +vampire bat had fixed upon him, and no doubt sucked almost a quart of +blood. We washed him in a pond close to the house, and he got better, +and after eating some of the hard and unripe peaches we again lay down to +sleep. By evening the woman’s husband had returned, and proved to be a +little lame and withered-looking man, mounted upon a lean and skinny +horse. He undertook to guide us to Asuncion, remarking that it was +twenty years since he had seen the capital, but that he knew the road as +if he was accustomed to go there every day. With a slight lapsus this +turned out to be the case, and just at daybreak we left the Potrero San +Antonio, where once before I had passed a month roaming about the woods, +waiting for tigers in a tree at night, and never thinking that, in three +years’ time, I should return and find it desolate. It seemed that Dr. +Stewart, not finding the speculation pay, had sold his cattle, and his +manager, one Oliver, a Californian “Forty-niner,” and his Paraguayan +wife, had removed to a place some twenty leagues away, upon the road +towards Asuncion. + +There we determined to go and rest our horses, and left the place, our +guide Florencio’s wife impressing on him to be sure and bring her back a +little missal from the capital, and he, just like an Arab or an Indian +leaving home, unmoved, merely observing that the folk in Asuncion were +“muy ladino” (very cunning), and it behoved a Christian to take care. + +A day’s long march brought us near Santa Rosa, and our guide here fell +into his first and only error on the road. Pursuing an interminable +palm-wood, we came out upon a little plain, all broken here and there +with stunted Yatais, then to our great disgust the road bifurcated, and +our guide insisted on striking to the left, though I was almost certain +it was wrong. After an hour of heavy ploughing through the sand, I +suddenly saw two immense palm-trees about a league away upon the right, +and luckily remembered that they stood one on each side of the old Jesuit +church at Santa Rosa, and after an hour of scrambling through a stony +wood arrived at the crossing of the little river just outside the place. +Girls carrying water-jars upon their heads, and dressed in long white +shifts, embroidered round the neck with coarse black lace, were going and +coming in a long procession to the stream. A few old men and about +thirty boys composed almost the entire male population of the town. +Women entirely ruled the roost, and managed everything, and, as far as I +can now recall, did it not much more inefficiently than men. The curious +wooden church, dark, and with overhanging eaves, and all the images of +saints still left from Jesuit times in choir and nave, with columns hewn +from the trunks of massive trees, stood in the centre of the village, +which was built after the fashion of a miner’s “row,” or of a St. +Simonian phalanstery, each dwelling at least a hundred feet in length, +and all partitioned off in the inside for ten or fifteen families. The +plaza was overgrown with grass, and on it donkeys played, chasing each +other up and down, and sometimes running up the wooden steps of the great +church, and stumbling down again. Those who had horses led them down to +bathe, cut “pindo” {69} for them, rode them at evening time, and passed +their time in dressing and in combing them to get them into condition for +the Sunday’s running at the ring, which sport introduced by the Jesuits +has continued popular in all the villages of the Misiones up to the +present time. The women flirted with the men, who by their rarity were +at a premium, gave themselves airs, and went about surrounded by a +perpetual and admiring band. The single little shop, which contained +needles, gunpowder, and gin, was kept by an Italian, who, as he told me, +liked the place, lent money, was a professing and quite unabashed +polygamist, and I have no doubt long ere this time has made a fortune, +and retired to live at Genoa in the self-same green velvet suit in which +he left his home. + +In this Arcadia we remained some days, and hired several girls to bathe +the horses, which they performed most conscientiously, splashing and +shouting in the stream for hours at a time, and bringing back the horses +clean, and garnished with flowers in their manes. I rode one day to see +a village two or three leagues away, where report said some of the Jesuit +books had been preserved; got lost, and passed the night in a small +clearing, where a fat and well-cared-for-looking handsome roan horse was +tied. On seeing me he broke his picket-rope, ran furiously four or five +times round me in circles, and then advancing put his nostrils close to +the nostrils of my horse, and seemed to talk to him. His owner, an old +Paraguayan, lame from a wound received in jumping from a canoe onto the +deck of a Brazilian ironclad, told me his horse had been with him far +into the interior, and for a year had never seen another horse. But, he +said, “Tata Dios has given every animal its speech after its kind, and he +is glad to see your horse, and is no doubt asking him the news.” + +During the night, I cannot say exactly what the two horses talked about, +but the old Paraguayan talked for hours of his adventures in the lately +terminated war. It appeared that he, with seven companions, thinking to +take a Brazilian ironclad anchored in the Paraguay, concealed themselves +in a small canoe, behind some drift-wood, and floating plants called +“camalotes,” drifted down with the stream, and coming to the ship jumped +with a yell aboard. The Brazilians, taken by surprise, all ran below, +and the poor Paraguayans thinking the ship was theirs, sat quietly down +upon the deck to plan what they should do. Seeing them off their guard, +some of the crew turned a gun upon them, and at the first fire killed +six, and wounded my host, who sprang into the stream, and gained the +bank, but most unluckily not on the Paraguayan side. As at that time the +Chaco Indians, who had profited by the war to make invasions upon every +side, killed every Christian, as my host said “sin perdon,” so he +remained half starving for a night and day. On the third morning, +wounded as he was, and seeing he must starve or else be killed if seen by +Indians, he got a fallen tree, and with great difficulty, and +marvellously escaping the fierce fish who come like wolves to the scent +of blood, and unmolested by the alligators, he reached the other side. +There he was found by some women, lying unconscious on the river-bank, +was cured, and though scarred in a dozen places, and lame for life, +escaped, as he informed me, by his devotion to San José, whom he +described under the title of the “husband of the mother of our Lord.” + +In the morning he rode a league with me upon the way, and as we parted +his horse neighed shrilly, reared once or twice, and plunged, and when we +separated I looked back and saw the devotee of St. Joseph sitting as +firmly as a centaur, as his horse loped along the sandy +palm-tree-bordered trail. During our stay at Santa Rosa, which was an +offshoot from the more important mission of Santa Maria de Fé, although +they had no priest the people gathered in the church, the Angelus was +rung at evening for the “oracion,” and every one on hearing it took off +his hat and murmured something that he thought apposite. Thus did +ceremony, always much more important than mere faith, continue, and no +doubt blessed the poor people to the full as much as if it had been duly +sanctified by a tonsured priest, and consecrated by a rightly constituted +offertory. We left the place with real regret, and to this day, when in +our hurried life I dream of peace, my thoughts go back to the old +Paraguayan Jesuit “capilla” lost in the woods of Morosimo, Curupay, and +Yba-hai, and with its two tall feathery palm-trees rustling above the +desecrated church; to the long strings of white-robed women carrying +water-jars, and to the old-world life, perhaps by this time altered and +swept away, or yet again not altered, and passing still in the same quiet +fashion as when we were there. + +Little by little we left the relatively open country of the Misiones +behind, and passing Ibyra-pucú, San Roque, and Ximenes, came to the river +Tebicuary. We passed it in canoes, the horses swimming, with their backs +awash and heads emerging like water-monsters, whilst an impassive Indian +paddled in the stern, and a young girl stood in the bows wielding a +paddle like a water-sprite. The river passed, we got at once into the +forests, and followed winding and narrow paths, worn by the footsteps of +the mules of ages so deeply that our heavy Gaucho spurs almost trailed on +the ground, whilst overhead lianas now and then quite formed a roof, and +in the heavy air winged animals of every kind made life a burden. At +last, leaving the little town of Quiquyó upon the right, we emerged on to +a high and barren plain near Caapucú. On the evening of the second day +from where we crossed the river, we came to Caballero Punta, just +underneath a range of flattish hills, and riding to the door at a sharp +gallop, pulled up short, and found ourselves greeted by the ex-manager of +the Potrero San Antonio, my friend the “Forty-niner,” and for the first +time for four months saw a familiar face. Gentle and kindly, though +quick on the trigger, as befitted one who had crossed the plains in ’48 +on foot, and with his whole possessions packed on a bullock, passing the +Rocky Mountains alone, and through the hostile tribes at that time +powerful and savage, John Oliver was one of those strange men who, having +passed their lives in perils and privations, somehow draw from them that +very kindliness which those living in what appear more favourable +surroundings so often lack. Born somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales (these +he remembered well), and as he thought “back somewhere in the twenties,” +he had suffered all his life from the strange fever which impels some men +to search for gold. Not on the Stock Exchange, or any of those places +where it might reasonably be expected to be found, but in Australia, +California, Mexico, in short wherever life was hard, death easy, and +experience to be gathered, he sought with pick and shovel, rocker and pan +and cradle, the “yellow iron,” as the Apaches used to call it, which +sought and found after the fashion of his kind, enriches some one else. +From California he had drifted to Peru, from thence to Chile, but finding +silver-mining too laborious or too lucrative for his conversing, and +hearing of a fertile diggings opened in the Republic of Uruguay, had +migrated there, and arrived somehow in Paraguay to find that the +enchantment of his life was done, and settled down to live. Tall, and +with long grey hair hanging in Western fashion down his back, a careful +horseman after the style of the trappers of the West, his pale blue eyes +looked out upon the world as with an air of doubt; yet he had served in +San Francisco as a “vigilante,” sojourned with Brigham Young in Salt Lake +City, leaving as he confessed two or three wives among the saints, sat in +Judge Lynch’s court a dozen times, most probably had killed a man or two; +still, to my fancy, if the meek are to inherit any portion of the earth, +his share should not be small. + +He made us welcome, and his wife waited upon us, never presuming to sit +down and eat, but standing ready with a napkin fringed with lace, to wipe +our hands, pressing the food upon us, and behaving generally as if she +found herself in the presence of some strange beings of an unfamiliar +race. He said he had no children and was glad of it, for he explained +that “Juaneeter was a good woman, but ‘uneddicated,’ and he had never +taken thoroughly to half-caste pups, though he remembered some born of a +Pi-Ute woman, way back somewhere about the fifties, who he supposed by +now were warriors, and had taken many scalps.” His wife stood by, not +understanding any English and but little Spanish, which he himself spoke +badly, and their talk was held in a strange jargon mixed with Guarani, +without a verb, without a particle, and yet sufficient for the two simple +creatures whom a strange fate, or a discerning, ever-watchful Providence, +had thus ordained to meet. No books were in the place, except a Bible, +which he read little of late years, partly from failing sight, and +partly, as he said, because he had detected what seemed to him +“exaggerations,” chiefly in figures and as to the number of the +unbelievers whom the Chosen People slew. Two days or more, for time was +taken no account of in his house, we waited with him, talking late every +night of Salt Lake, Brigham Young, the Mountain-meadows Massacre, Kit +Carson, Cochise and Mangas Coloradas, and matters of that kind which +interested him, and which, when all is said, are just as interesting to +those attuned to them, as is polemical theology, theories of art, systems +of jurisprudence, the origin of the Atoll Islands, or any of the wise +futilities with which men stock their minds. We parted on the third or +fourth, or perhaps the fifth or sixth day, knowing that we should never +meet again, and taking off my silver spurs I gave them to him, and he +presented me with a light summer poncho woven by his wife. Much did he +thank me for my visit, and made me swear never to pass the district +without stopping at his house. This I agreed to do, and if I pass again +either by Caballero Punta or by Caapucú, I will keep faith; but he, I +fear, will have deceived me, and in the churchyard of the “capilla,” +under a palm-tree, with a rough cross above him, I shall find my simple +friend. + +Three or four days of jogging steadily, passing by Quindy, and through +the short “estero” of Acaai, which we passed splashing for several hours +up to the girths, brought us to Paraguari, which, with its saddle-shaped +mountain overhanging it, stood out a mark for leagues upon the level +plain. Seldom in any country have I seen a railway so fall into the +landscape as did the line at the little terminus of this the only railway +in all Paraguay. The war had left the country almost in ruins, business +was at a standstill, food was scarce, and but for a bale or two of +tobacco, and a hide-sack or two of yerba, the train went empty to and +fro. But as the people always wanted to go to the capital in search of +work, six or eight empty trucks were always sent with every train. On +them the people (mostly women) swarmed, seated like flies, upon the top +and sides, dangling their legs outside like people sitting on a wharf, +talking incessantly, all dressed in white, and every one, down to the +smallest children, smoking large cigars. Six hours the passage took, if +all went well, the distance being under fifty miles. If aught went +wrong, it took a day or more, and at the bridges the trucks were all +unhooked and taken over separately, so rotten was the state of the whole +line, and in addition every here and there bridges had been blown away +during the war, and roughly rendered serviceable by shoring up with wood. +To meet a train labouring and puffing through the woods, the people +clustering like bees upon the trucks, the engineer seated in +shirt-sleeves, whilst some women stoked the fire, was much the same as it +is to meet a caravan meandering across the sands. If you desired to talk +with any one the train incontinently stopped, the passengers got out, +relit their cigarettes, the women begged, the time of day was passed, and +curiosity thus satisfied you passed on upon the road, and the +“Maquina-guazu,” {78} as it was called, pursued contentedly the jolting +and uneven tenor of its way. We naturally despised it, though the +conductor, scenting business, offered to take us and our horses at almost +any price we chose. + +By the Laguna Ypocarai we took our way; skirting along its eastern +shores, then desolate, and the whole district almost depopulated, we +passed by palm-groves and deserted mandioca patches, reed cottages in +ruins, watched the flamingoes fishing in the lake, the alligators lying +motionless, and saw an Indian all alone in a dug-out canoe, casting his +line as placidly as he had lived before the coming of the Spaniards to +the land. A red-blue haze hung on the waters of the lake, reflected from +the bright red earth, peeping between the trees, and on the islands +drifts of mist gave an effect as if the palms were parachutes dropped +from balloons, or perhaps despatched from earth to find out whether in +the skies there could be anything more lovely than this quiet inland sea. +Close to the top end of the lake stands Aregua, once under the Mercenary +friars of Asuncion, who, as Azara says, having made the people of the +place work for them for near two hundred years, began to think they were +indeed their slaves, till an official sent from Spain in 1783 gave them +their liberty, and the Mercenaries (as he says) at once retreated in +disgust. Here we fell in with a compatriot, who at our time of meeting +him was drunk. He told us that he passed his time after the fashion of +the patriarchs in the Old Testament, and on arriving at his house it +seemed he was provided with several wives, but of the flocks and herds, +and other trade-marks of his supposed estate, we saw no trace. Still he +was hospitable, setting the women to cut down pindo for the horses, take +them to water, bathe them, and finally to cook some dinner for ourselves. +His chief complaint was that his wives were Catholics, and now and then +trudged off to mass, and left him without any one to cook his food. I +doubted personally if a change of creed would better things, but held my +peace, seeing the man set store by the faith which he had learnt in youth +and still said he practised, but, as far as I could see, only by cursing +the religion of the people of the place. We left his house without +regret, though he was hospitable and half drunk for nearly all the time +that we were there, and started on our last day’s march considerably +refreshed by meeting one who in a foreign land, far from home ties and +moral influences, yet still pursued the simple practice of the faith +which he had learned at home. + +Luque, upon its little hill, the Campo Grande, like a dry lake, +surrounded by thick woods on every side, and then the Recoleta, we +passed, and entering the red sandy road made at the conquest to move +troops upon, we saw the churches of Asuncion only a league away. And yet +we lingered, walking our horses slowly in the deep red sand, passing the +strings of countrywomen with baskets on their heads, driving their +donkeys packed with sugar-cane, and smoking as they went; we lingered, +feeling that the trip was done; not that we minded that our fortunes were +not made, but vaguely felt that for the last five months we had lived a +time which in our lives we should not see again, and fearing rather than +looking forward to all the approaching change. The horses too were fat, +in good condition, had become old friends, knew us so well we never tied +them, but all night in camp left them to feed, being certain that they +would not stray; and thus to leave them at the end of a long trip seemed +as unreasonable as to part from an old friend simply because death calls. + +The road grew wider, passed through some scattered houses, buried in +orange and guayaba trees, ran through some open patches where grew wild +indigo and castor-oil plants, with a low palm-scrub, entered a rancheria +just outside the town, and then turned to a sandy street which merged in +a great market, where, as it seemed, innumerable myriads were assembled, +all chattering at once, or so it struck us coming from the open solitary +plains and the dark silent woods. The lowness of the river having +stopped the Brazilian mail-boat from coming down from Corumba, we put up +at the “Casa Horrocks,” the resort of all the waifs and strays +storm-bound in Paraguay. The town buried in vegetation, the sandy +streets, all of them watercourses after a night’s rain, the listless +life, the donkeys straying to and fro, the white-robed women, with their +hair hanging down their backs, and cut square on the forehead after the +style so usual amongst Iceland ponies, the great unfinished palaces, the +squares with grass five or six inches high, and over all the reddish haze +blending the palm-trees, houses, sandy streets, the river and the distant +Chaco into a copper-coloured whole at sunset, rise to my memory like the +reflection of a dream. A dream seen in a convex mirror, opening away +from me as years have passed, the actual things, men, actions, and +occurrences of daily life seem swollen in it at the far end of some +perspective, but the impression of the whole fresh and clear-cut in +memory, standing out as boldly as the last day when on the “Pateador” I +had a farewell gallop on the beach. Adios, “Pateador,” or “till so +long”—horses will be born as good, better, ten thousand times more +valuable, and dogs will eat them, but for myself, and for the owner of +the “Bayo Overo,” not all the coursers of the sun could stir the +reminiscences of youth, of lonely camping-grounds, long nights in +drenching rain, struggles with wind, wild gallops in the dark; the hopes +and fears of the five months when we went fortune-seeking, and by God’s +mercy failed in our search, as the mere mention of those names forgotten +to all the world except ourselves. + +Eight or ten days had passed away, and we grew quite familiar with the +chief features of the place, having made acquaintance with the Brazilian +officers of the army and the fleet, the German apothecary, with Dr. +Stewart, the chief European of the place, when news came that the +Brazilian mail-boat had at last arrived. We bade our friends good-bye, +entrusted both our horses to the care of Horrocks, fed them ourselves for +the last time, and went on board the ship; a coppery haze hung over +everything, the heat raising a faint quivering in the air, the thick +yellowish water of the stream lapping against the vessel’s sides like +oil, the boat shoved off, our friends perspiring in the sun raising a +washed-out cheer. The vessel swung into the stream, her paddles turned, +the great green flag with the orange crown imperial flapped at the +jackstaff, and the town dropped rapidly astern. + +A quarter of a league and the church towers, tall palm-trees, the +unfinished palaces, and the great theatre began to fade into the haze. +Then sheering a little to the Left bank, the vessel passed a narrow +tongue of land covered with grass, whereon two horses fed. As we drew +nearer I saw they were our own, and jumping on the taffrail shouted +“Adios,” at which they raised their heads, or perhaps raised them but at +the snorting steamer, and as they looked we passed racing down stream, +and by degrees they became dimmer, smaller, less distinct, and at the +last melted and vanished into the reddish haze. + + + + +IN A GERMAN TRAMP + + +THE tall, flaxen-haired stewardess Matilda had finished cutting +Schwartzbrod and had gone to bed. The Danish boarhound slept heavily +under the lee of the chicken-coops, the six or seven cats were upon the +cabin sofa, and with the wind from the south-west, raising a terrific +sea, and sending showers of spray flying over the tops of the black rocks +which fringed the town, the S.S. _Oldenburg_ got under way and staggered +out into the gut. + +The old white city girt on the seaward side by its breakwater of tall +black rocks, the houses dazzlingly white, the crenelated walls, the long +stretch of sand, extending to the belt of grey-green scrub and backed in +the distance by the sombre forest, lay in the moonlight as distinct and +clear as it had been mid-day. Clearer perhaps, for the sun in a sandy +landscape seems to blur the outlines which the moon reveals; so that +throughout North Africa night is the time to see a town in all its beauty +of effect. The wind lifting the sand, drifted it whistling through the +standing rigging of the tramp, coating the scarce dried paint, and making +paint, rigging, and everything on board feel like a piece of shark-skin +to the touch. The vessel groaned and laboured in the surface sea, and on +the port quarter rose the rocks of the low island which forms the +harbour, leaving an entrance of about half-a-mile between its shores and +the rocks which guard the town. + +West-south-west a little westerly, the wind ever increased; the sea +lashed on the vessel’s quarter, and in spite of the dense volumes of +black smoke and showers of sparks flying out from the salt-coated +smoke-stack, the tramp seemed to stand still. Upon the bridge the +skipper screamed hoarsely in Platt-Deutsch down his connection-tube to +the chief engineer; men came and went in dirty blue check cotton clothes +and wooden shoes; occasionally a perspiring fireman poked his head above +the hatch, and looking seaward for a moment, scooped off the sweat from +his forefinger, muttered, “Gott freduma,” and went below; even the Arab +deck-hands, roused into activity, essayed to set a staysail, and the +whole ship, shaken between the storm and the exertions of the crew, +trembled and shivered in the yeasty sea. Nearer the rocks appeared, and +the white town grew clearer, more intensely white, the sea frothed round +the vessel, and the skipper advancing to a missionary seated silently +gazing across the water with a pallid sea-green face, slapped him upon +the back, and with an oath said, “Mister, will you have one glass of +beer?” The Levite in partibus, clad in his black alpaca Norfolk jacket, +grey greasy flannel shirt and paper collar, with the whole man surmounted +by the inevitable pith soup-tureen-shaped hat, the trade-mark of his +confraternity, merely pressed both his hands harder upon his diaphragm +and groaned. “One leetel glass beer, I have it from Olten, fifty dozen +of it. Perhaps all to be wasted; have a glass beer, it will do your +shtomag good.” The persecuted United Presbyterian ambulant broke silence +with one of those pious ejaculations which do duty (in the congregations) +for an oath, and taking up his parable, fixing the pith tureen upon his +head with due precaution, said, “Captain, ye see I am a total abstainer, +joined in the Whifflet, and in addeetion I feel my stomach sort o’ +discomposed.” And to him again, good Captain Rindelhaus rejoined, “Well, +Mister Missionary, do you see dat rocks?” The Reverend Mr. McKerrochar, +squinting to leeward with an agonizing stare, admitted that he did, but +qualified by saying, “there was sic a halgh, he was na sure that they +were rocks at all.” “Not rocks! Kreuz-Sacrament, dose rocks you see are +sharp as razors, and the back-wash off them give you no jance; I dell +you, sheep’s-head preacher, dat point de way like signboard and not +follow it oop himself, you better take glass beer in time, for if the +schip not gather headway in about five minutes you perhaps not get +another jance.” After this dictum, he stood looking into the night, his +glass gripped in his left hand, and in his right a half-smoked-out cigar, +which he put to his mouth mechanically now and then, but drew no smoke +from it. The missionary too looked at the rocks with increased interest, +and the Arab pilot staggering up the ladder to the bridge stolidly +pointed to the surf, and gave us his opinion, that “he, the captain and +the faqui would soon be past the help of prayer,” piously adding, “that +it seemed Allah’s will; although he thought the Kaffirs, sons of burnt +Kaffirs, in the stoke-hole were not firing up.” + +With groans and heavings, with long shivers which came over her as the +sea struck her on the beam, the vessel fought for her life, belching +great clouds of smoke out into the clear night air. Captain and +missionary, pilot and crew, stood gazing at the sea; the captain now and +then yelling some unintelligible Platt-Deutsch order down the tube; the +missionary fumbling with a Bible lettered “Polyglot,” covered in black +oil-cloth; and the pilot passing his beads between the fingers of his +right hand, his eyes apparently not seeing anything; and it seemed as if +another twenty minutes must have seen them all upon the rocks. + +But Allah perhaps was on the watch; and the wind falling for an instant, +or the burnt Kaffirs in the stoke-hole having struck a better vein of +coal, the rusty iron sea-coffin slowly gathered headway, staggered as the +engines driven to the highest pressure seemed to tear out her ribs, and +forged ahead. Then lurching in the sea, the screw occasionally racing +with a roar, and the black decks dripping and under water, the scuppers +being choked with the filth of years, she sidled out to sea, and rose and +fell in the long rollers outside the harbour, which came in from the +west. Rindelhaus set her on her course, telling the Arab helmsman in the +pigeon-English which served them as a means of interchanging their few +ideas, “to keep her head north and by west a little northerly, and let +him know when they were abreast of Jibel Hadid;” adding a condemnation of +the Arab race in general and the particular sailor, whom he characterized +as a “tamned heaven dog, not worth his kraut.” The sailor, dressed in +loose Arab trousers and a blue jersey, the whole surmounted by a greasy +fez, replied: “Yes, him know Jibel Hadid, captain, him keep her head +north and by west all right,” and probably also consigned the captain and +the whole Germanic race to the hottest corner of Jehannum, and so both +men were pleased. The boarhound gambolled on the deck, Matilda peeped up +the companion, her dripping wooden shoes looking like waterlogged canoes, +and the Scotch missionary began to walk about, holding his monstrous hat +on with one hand and hugging the oilskin-covered “Polyglot” under his +left arm. Crossing the skipper in his walk, in a more cheerful humour he +ventured to remark: “Eh! captain, maybe I could mak’ a shape at yon glass +of beer the now.” But things had changed, and Rindelhaus looked at him +with the usual uncondescending bearing of the seaman to the mere +passenger, and said: “Nein, you loose your obbordunity for dat glass +beer, my friend, and now I have to navigate my ship.” + +The _Oldenburg_ pursued the devious tenor of her way, touching at ports +which all were either open roadsteads or had bars on which the surf +boiled with a noise like thunder; receiving cargo in driblets, a sack or +two of marjoram, a bale of goatskins or of hides, two or three bags of +wool, and sometimes waiting for a day or two unable to communicate until +the surf went down. The captain spent his time in harbour fishing +uninterestedly, catching great bearded spiky-finned sea-monsters which he +left to die upon the deck. Not that he was hard-hearted, but merely +unimaginative, after the way of those who, loving sport for the pleasure +it affords themselves, hotly deny that it is cruel, or that it can +occasion inconvenience to any participator in a business which they +themselves enjoy. So the poor innocent sea-monsters floundered in slimy +agony upon the deck; the boarhound and the cats taking a share in +martyring them, tearing and biting at them as they gasped their lives +away; condemned to agony for some strange reason, or perhaps because, as +every living thing is born to suffer, they were enduring but their fair +proportion, as they happened to be fish. Pathetic but unwept, the +tragedy of all the animals, and we but links in the same chain with them, +look at it all as unconcerned as gods. But as the bearded spiky fish +gasped on the deck the missionary tried to abridge their agony with a +belaying-pin; covering himself with blood and slime, and setting up the +back of Captain Rindelhaus, who vowed his deck should not be hammered +“like a skidel alley, all for the sake of half-a-dozen fish, which would +be dead in half-an-hour and eaten by the cats.” + +The marvels of our commerce, in the shape of Waterbury watches, scissors +and looking-glasses, beads, Swiss clocks, and musical-boxes, all duly +dumped, and the off-scouring of the trade left by the larger ships duly +received on board, the _Oldenburg_ stumbled out to sea if the wind was +not too strong, and squirmed along the coast. Occasionally upon arrival +at a port the sound of psalmody was heard, and a missionary boat put off +to pass the time of God with their brother on the ship. Then came the +greetings, as the whole party sat on the fiddlee gratings jammed up +against the funnel; the latest news from the Cowcaddens and the gossip +from along the coast was duly interchanged. Gaunt-featured girls, +removed by physical conditions from all temptation, sat and talked with +scraggy, freckled, and pith-hatted men. It was all conscience, and +relatively tender heart, and as the moon lit up the dirty decks, they +paraded up and down, happy once more to be secure even for a brief space +from insult, and to feel themselves at home. Dressed in white blouses, +innocent of stays, with skirts which no belt known to milliners could +ever join to the body or the blouse; with smaller-sized pith hats, +sand-shoes and spectacles; their hands in Berlin gloves, and freckles +reaching far down upon their necks, they formed a crushing argument in +their own persons against polygamy. Still, in the main, all kindly +souls, and some with a twinkle in their white-eyelashed steel-grey eyes, +as of a Congregationalist bull-terrier, which showed you that they would +gladly suffer martyrdom without due cause, or push themselves into great +danger, out of sheer ignorance and want of knowledge of mankind. Life’s +misfits, most of them; their hands early inured to typewriting machines, +their souls, as they would say, “sair hodden doon in prayer;” carefully +educated to be ashamed of any scrap of womanhood they might possess. +Still they were sympathetic, for sympathy is near akin to tears, and +looking at them one divined they must have shed tears plentifully, enough +to wash away any small sins they had committed in their lives. + +The men, sunburnt yet sallow, seemed nourished on tinned meats and +mineral table-waters; their necks scraggy and red protruded from their +collars like those of vultures; they carried umbrellas in their hands +from early habit of a wet climate, and seemed as if they had been chosen +after much cogitation by some unskilled commission, for their unfitness +for their task. + +They too, dogged and narrow-minded as they were, were yet pathetic, when +one thought upon their lives. No hope of converts, or of advancement in +the least degree, stuck down upon the coast, far off from Dorcas +meetings, school-feasts, or anything which in more favoured countries +whiles away the Scripture-reader’s time; they hammered at their +self-appointed business day by day and preached unceasingly, apparently +indifferent to anything that passed, so that they got off their due +quantity of words a day. In course of time, and after tea and +bread-and-butter had been consumed, they got into their boat, struck up +the tune of “Sidna Aissa Hobcum,” and from the taffrail McKerrochar saw +them depart, joining in the chorus lustily and waving a dirty +handkerchief until they faded out of sight. Mr. McKerrochar, one of +those Scottish professional religionists, whom early training or their +own “damnable iteration” has convinced of all the doctrine that they +preach, formed a last relic of a disappearing type. The antiquated +out-and-out doctrine of Hellfire and of Paradise, the jealous Scottish +God, and the Mosaic Dispensation which he accepted whole, tinged slightly +with the current theology of Airdrie or Coatbridge, made him a formidable +adversary to the trembling infidel, in religious strife. In person he +was tall and loosely built, his trousers bagging at the knees as if a +horse’s hock had been inside the cloth. Wrong-headed as befits his +calling, he yet saw clearly enough in business matters, and might have +marked a flock of heathen sheep had he applied his business aptitude to +his religious work, or on the other hand he might have made a fortune had +he chanced to be a rogue. He led a joyless stirring life, striving +towards ideals which have made the world a quagmire; yet worked towards +them with that simple faith which makes a man ten thousand times more +dangerous, in his muddle-headed course. Abstractions which he called +duty, morality, and self-sacrifice, ruled all his life; forcing him ever +onward to occupy himself with things which really he had no concern with; +and making him neglect himself and the more human qualities of courtesy +and love. And so he stood, waving his pocket-handkerchief long after the +strains of “Sidna Aissa Hobcum” had melted into the night air; his arms +still waving as the sails of windmills move round once or twice, but +haltingly, after the wind has dropped. Perhaps that class of man seldom +or never chews the cud either of sweet or bitter recollection; and if, as +in McKerrochar’s case, he is deprived of whisky in which to drown his +cares, the last impression gone, his mind hammers away, like the keys of +a loose typewriter under a weary operator’s hands, half aimlessly, till +circumstances place new copy under its roller, and it starts off again to +work. + +He might have gone on waving right through the dog-watch had not the +captain with a rough ejaculation stopped his arm. “Himmel, what for a +semaphore, Herr missionary, is dat; and you gry too, when you look at dat +going-way boat . . . Well, have a glass of beer. I tell you it is not +good to look at boats and gry for noddings, for men that have an ugly +yellow beard like yours and mine.” + +“I was na greetin’, captain,” said the missionary, furtively wiping his +face; “it was just ane of thae clinkers, I think thae ca’ the things, has +got into my eye.” + +“Glinkers, mein friend, do not get into people’s eyes when der ship is +anchored,” Rindelhaus replied; “still I know as you feel, but not for +missionary boats. You not know Oldenburg eh? Pretta place; not far from +Bremerhaven. Oldenburg is one of the prettaest places in the world. I +live dere. Hour and half by drain, oot from de port. I just can see the +vessels’ masts and the funnel smoke as they pass oop and down the stream. +I think I should not care too much to live where man can see no ships. +Yes, yes, ah, here come Matilda mit de beer. Mein herz, you put him down +here on dis bale of marjoram, and you goes off to bed. I speak here mit +de Herr missionary, who gry for noddings when he look at missionary boat +go off into de night. + +“Ah, Oldenburg, ja, yes, I live there. Meine wife she live there, and +meine littel Gretchen, she about den or twelve, I don’t remember which. +Prosit, Herr missionary, you have no wife; no littel Gretchen, eh? So, +so, dat is perhaps better for a missionary.” + +The two sat looking at nothing, thinking in the painful ruminant way of +semi-educated men, the captain’s burly North-German figure stretched on a +cane deck-chair. About a captain’s age he was, that is, his beard had +just begun to grizzle, and his nose was growing red, the bunions on his +feet knotted his boots into protuberances, after the style of those who +pass their lives about a deck. In height above six feet, +broad-shouldered and red-faced, his voice of the kind with which a +huntsman rates a dog, his clothes bought at a Bremerhaven slop-shop, his +boots apparently made by a portmanteau-maker, and in his pocket was a +huge silver keyless watch which he said was a “gronometer,” and keep de +Bremen time. Instant in prayer and cursing; pious yet blasphemous; +kindly but brutal in the Teutonic way; he kicked his crew about as they +had all been dogs, and yet looked after the tall stewardess Matilda as +she had been his child; guarding her virtue from the assaults of +passengers, and though alone with her in the small compass of a ship, +respecting it himself. + +After an interval he broke into his subject, just as a phonograph takes +up its interrupted tale, as if against its will. + +“So ja, yes, Oldenburg, pretta place; I not see it often though. In all +eight years I never stay more to my house than from de morning Saturday +to Monday noon, and dat after a four months’ trip. + +“Meine wife, she getting little sdout, and not mind much, for she is +immer washing; washing de linen, de house, de steps; she wash de whole +ship oop only I never let her come to see. The Gretchen she immer say, +‘Father, why you not stop to home?’ You got no littel Gretchen, eh? . . . +Well, perhaps better so. Last Christmas I was at Oldenburg. +Christmas eve I buy one tree, and then I remember I have to go to sea +next morning about eleven o’clock. So I say nodings all the day, and +about four o’clock the agent come and tell me that the company not wish +me leave Oldenburg upon de Christmas day. Then I was so much glad I +think I wait to eat meine Christmas dinner with meine wife, and talk with +Gretchen in the evening while I smoke my pipe. The stove was burning, +and the table stand ready mit sausage and mit bread and cheese, beer of +course, and lax, dat lax they bring from Norway, and I think I have good +time. Then I think on de company, what they say if I take favour from +them and go not out to sea; they throw it in my teeth for ever, and tell +me, ‘Rindelhaus, you remember we was so good to you upon that Christmas +day.’ I tell the agent thank you, but say I go to sea. Meine wife: she +gry and I say nodings, nodings to Gretchen, and sit down to take my tea. +Morning, I tell my littel girl, then she gry bitterly and say, ‘What for +you go to sea?’ I kiss meine wife and walk down to the quay; it just +begin to snow; I curse the schelm sailors, de pilot come aboard, and we +begin to warp into the stream. Just then I hear a running on the quay, +like as a Friesland pony come clattering on the stones. I look up and +see Gretchen mit her little wooden shoes. She run down to the ship, and +say, ‘Why you go sea, father, upon Christmas day?’ and I not able to say +nodings but just to wave my hand. We warp out into the stream, and she +stand grying till she faded out of sight. Sometimes I feel a liddel +sorry about dat Christmas day . . . But have another glass beer, Herr +missionary, it always do me good.” Wiping the froth from his moustache +with his rough hand he went below, leaving the missionary alone upon the +deck. + +The night descended, and the ship shrouded in mist grew ghostly and +unnatural, whilst great drops of moisture hung on the backstays and the +shrouds. + +The Arab crew lay sleeping, huddled round the windlass, looking mere +masses of white dirty rags; the seaman keeping the anchor-watch loomed +like a giant, and from the shore occasionally the voices of the guards at +the town prison came through the mist, making the boarhound turn in his +sleep and growl. The missionary paced to and fro a little, settling his +pith tureen-shaped hat upon his head, and fastening a woollen comforter +about his neck. + +Then going to the rail, he looked into the night where the boat bearing +off his brethren had disappeared; his soul perhaps wandering towards some +Limbo as he gazed, and his elastic-sided boots fast glued to the dirty +decks by the half-dried-up blood of the discarded fish. + + + + +THE GOLD FISH + + +OUTSIDE the little straw-thatched _café_ in a small courtyard trellised +with vines, before a miniature table painted in red and blue, and upon +which stood a dome-shaped pewter teapot and a painted glass half filled +with mint, sat Amarabat, resting and smoking hemp. He was of those whom +Allah in his mercy (or because man in the Blad-Allah has made no +railways) has ordained to run. Set upon the road, his shoes pulled up, +his waistband tightened, in his hand a staff, a palm-leaf wallet at his +back, and in it bread, some hemp, a match or two (known to him as el +spiritus), and a letter to take anywhere, crossing the plains, fording +the streams, struggling along the mountain-paths, sleeping but fitfully, +a burning rope steeped in saltpetre fastened to his foot, he trotted day +and night—untiring as a camel, faithful as a dog. In Rabat as he sat +dozing, watching the greenish smoke curl upwards from his hemp pipe, word +came to him from the Khalifa of the town. So Amarabat rose, paid for his +tea with half a handful of defaced and greasy copper coins, and took his +way towards the white palace with the crenelated walls, which on the +cliff, hanging above the roaring tide-rip, just inside the bar of the +great river, looks at Salee. Around the horseshoe archway of the gate +stood soldiers, wild, fierce-eyed, armed to the teeth, descendants, most +of them, of the famed warriors whom Sultan Muley Ismail (may God have +pardoned him!) bred for his service, after the fashion of the Carlylean +hero Frederic; and Amarabat walked through them, not aggressively, but +with the staring eyes of a confirmed hemp-smoker, with the long stride of +one who knows that he is born to run, and the assurance of a man who +waits upon his lord. Some time he waited whilst the Khalifa dispensed +what he thought justice, chaffered with Jewish pedlars for cheap European +goods, gossiped with friends, looked at the antics of a dwarf, or priced +a Georgian or Circassian girl brought with more care than glass by some +rich merchant from the East. At last Amarabat stood in the presence, and +the Khalifa, sitting upon a pile of cushions playing with a Waterbury +watch, a pistol and a Koran by his side, addressed him thus:— + +“Amarabat, son of Bjorma, my purpose is to send thee to Tafilet, where +our liege lord the Sultan lies with his camp. Look upon this glass bowl +made by the Kaffir, but clear as is the crystal of the rock; see how the +light falls on the water, and the shifting colours that it makes, as when +the Bride of the Rain stands in the heavens, after a shower in spring. +Inside are seven gold fish, each scale as bright as letters in an Indian +book. The Christian from whom I bought them said originally they came +from the Far East where the Djin-descended Jawi live, the little yellow +people of the faith. That may be, but such as they are, they are a gift +for kings. Therefore, take thou the bowl. Take it with care, and bear +it as it were thy life. Stay not, but in an hour start from the town. +Delay not on the road, be careful of the fish, change not their water at +the muddy pool where tortoises bask in the sunshine, but at running +brooks; talk not to friends, look not upon the face of woman by the way, +although she were as a gazelle, or as the maiden who when she walked +through the fields the sheep stopped feeding to admire. Stop not, but +run through day and night, pass through the Atlas at the Glaui; beware of +frost, cover the bowl with thine own haik; upon the other side shield me +the bowl from the Saharan sun, and drink not of the water if thou pass a +day athirst when toiling through the sand. Break not the bowl, and see +the fish arrive in Tafilet, and then present them, with this letter, to +our lord. Allah be with you, and his Prophet; go, and above all things +see thou breakest not the bowl.” And Amarabat, after the manner of his +kind, taking the bowl of gold fish, placed one hand upon his heart and +said: “Inshallah, it shall be as thou hast said. God gives the feet and +lungs. He also gives the luck upon the road.” + +So he passed out under the horseshoe arch, holding the bowl almost at +arm’s length so as not to touch his legs, and with the palmetto string by +which he carried it, bound round with rags. The soldiers looked at him, +but spoke not, and their eyes seemed to see far away, and to pass over +all in the middle distance, though no doubt they marked the smallest +detail of his gait and dress. He passed between the horses of the guard +all standing nodding under the fierce sun, the reins tied to the cantles +of their high red saddles, a boy in charge of every two or three: he +passed beside the camels resting by the well, the donkeys standing +dejected by the firewood they had brought: passed women, veiled white +figures going to the baths; and passing underneath the lofty gateway of +the town, exchanged a greeting with the half-mad, half-religious beggar +just outside the walls, and then emerged upon the sandy road, between the +aloe hedges, which skirts along the sea. So as he walked, little by +little he fell into his stride; then got his second wind, and smoking now +and then a pipe of hemp, began, as Arabs say, to cat the miles, his eyes +fixed on the horizon, his stick stuck down between his shirt and back, +the knob protruding over the left shoulder like the hilt of a two-handed +sword. And still he held the precious bowl from Franquestan in which the +golden fish swam to and fro, diving and circling in the sunlight, or +flapped their tails to steady themselves as the water danced with the +motion of his steps. Never before in his experience had he been charged +with such a mission, never before been sent to stand before Allah’s +vicegerent upon earth. But still the strangeness of his business was +what preoccupied him most. The fish like molten gold, the water to be +changed only at running streams, the fish to be preserved from frost and +sun; and then the bowl: had not the Khalifa said at the last, “Beware, +break not the bowl”? So it appeared to him that most undoubtedly a charm +was in the fish and in the bowl, for who sends common fish on such a +journey through the land? Then he resolved at any hazard to bring them +safe and keep the bowl intact, and trotting onward, smoked his hemp, and +wondered why he of all men should have had the luck to bear the precious +gift. He knew he kept his law, at least as far as a poor man can keep +it, prayed when he thought of prayer, or was assailed by terror in the +night alone upon the plains; fasted in Ramadan, although most of his life +was one continual fast; drank of the shameful but seldom, and on the sly, +so as to give offence to no believer, and seldom looked upon the face of +the strange women, Daughters of the Illegitimate, whom Sidna Mohammed +himself has said, avoid. But all these things he knew were done by many +of the faithful, and so he did not set himself up as of exceeding virtue, +but rather left the praise to God, who helped his slave with strength to +keep his law. Then left off thinking, judging the matter was ordained, +and trotted, trotted over the burning plains, the gold fish dancing in +the water as the miles melted and passed away. + +Duar and Kasbah, castles of the Caids, Arabs’ black tents, suddra +zaribas, camels grazing—antediluvian in appearance—on the little hills, +the muddy streams edged all along the banks with oleanders, the solitary +horsemen holding their long and brass-hooped guns like spears, the +white-robed noiseless-footed travellers on the roads, the chattering +storks upon the village mosques, the cow-birds sitting on the cattle in +the fields—he saw, but marked not, as he trotted on. Day faded into +night, no twilight intervening, and the stars shone out, Soheil and Rigel +with Betelgeuse and Aldebaran, and the three bright lamps which the +cursed Christians know as the Three Maries—called, he supposed, after the +mother of their Prophet; and still he trotted on. Then by the side of a +lone palm-tree springing up from a cleft in a tall rock, an island on the +plain, he stopped to pray; and sleeping, slept but fitfully, the +strangeness of the business making him wonder; and he who cavils over +matters in the night can never rest, for thus the jackal and the hyena +pass their nights talking and reasoning about the thoughts which fill +their minds when men lie with their faces covered in their haiks, and +after prayer sleep. Rising after an hour or two and going to the nearest +stream, he changed the water of his fish, leaving a little in the bottom +of the bowl, and dipping with his brass drinking-cup into the stream for +fear of accidents. He passed the Kasbah of el Daudi, passed the land of +the Rahamna, accursed folk always in “siba,” saw the great snowy wall of +Atlas rise, skirted Marakesh, the Kutubieh, rising first from the plain +and sinking last from sight as he approached the mountains and left the +great white city sleeping in the plain. + +Little by little the country altered as he ran: cool streams for muddy +rivers, groves of almond-trees, ashes and elms, with grape-vines binding +them together as the liana binds the canela and the urunday in the dark +forests of Brazil and Paraguay. At mid-day, when the sun was at its +height, when locusts, whirring through the air, sank in the dust as +flying-fish sink in the waves, when palm-trees seem to nod their heads, +and lizards are abroad drinking the heat and basking in the rays, when +the dry air shimmers, and sparks appear to dance before the traveller’s +eye, and a thin, reddish dust lies on the leaves, on clothes of men, and +upon every hair of horses’ coats, he reached a spring. A river springing +from a rock, or issuing after running underground, had formed a little +pond. Around the edge grew bulrushes, great catmace, water-soldiers, +tall arums and metallic-looking sedge-grass, which gave an air as of an +outpost of the tropics lost in the desert sand. Fish played beneath the +rock where the stream issued, flitting to and fro, or hanging suspended +for an instant in the clear stream, darted into the dark recesses of the +sides; and in the middle of the pond enormous tortoises, horrid and +antediluvian-looking, basked with their backs awash or raised their heads +to snap at flies, and all about them hung a dark and fetid slime. + +A troop of thin brown Arab girls filled their tall amphora whilst washing +in the pond. Placing his bowl of fish upon a jutting rock, the messenger +drew near. “Gazelles,” he said, “will one of you give me fresh water for +the Sultan’s golden fish?” Laughing and giggling, the girls drew near, +looked at the bowl, had never seen such fish. “Allah is great; why do +you not let them go in the pond and play a little with their brothers?” +And Amarabat with a shiver answered, “Play, let them play! and if they +come not back my life will answer for it.” Fear fell upon the girls, and +one advancing, holding the skirt of her long shift between her teeth to +veil her face, poured water from her amphora upon the fish. + +Then Amarabat, setting down his precious bowl, drew from his wallet a +pomegranate and began to eat, and for a farthing buying a piece of bread +from the women, was satisfied, and after smoking, slept, and dreamed he +was approaching Tafilet; he saw the palm-trees rising from the sand; the +gardens; all the oasis stretching beyond his sight; at the edge the +Sultan’s camp, a town of canvas, with the horses, camels, and the mules +picketed, all in rows, and in the midst of the great “duar” the Sultan’s +tent, like a great palace all of canvas, shining in the sun. All this he +saw, and saw himself entering the camp, delivering up his fish, perhaps +admitted to the sacred tent, or at least paid by a vizier, as one who has +performed his duty well. The slow match blistering his foot, he woke to +find himself alone, the “gazelles” departed, and the sun shining on the +bowl, making the fish appear more magical, more wondrous, brighter, and +more golden than before. + +And so he took his way along the winding Atlas paths, and slept at +Demnats, then, entering the mountains, met long trains of travellers +going to the south. Passing through groves of chestnuts, walnut-trees, +and hedges thick with blackberries and travellers’ joy, he climbed +through vineyards rich with black Atlas grapes, and passed the flat +mud-built Berber villages nestling against the rocks. Eagles flew by and +moufflons gazed at him from the peaks, and from the thickets of lentiscus +and dwarf arbutus wild boars appeared, grunted, and slowly walked across +the path, and still he climbed, the icy wind from off the snow chilling +him in his cotton shirt, for his warm Tadla haik was long ago wrapped +round the bowl to shield the precious fish. Crossing the Wad Ghadat, the +current to his chin, his bowl of fish held in one hand, he struggled on. +The Berber tribesmen at Tetsula and Zarkten, hard-featured, shaved but +for a chin-tuft, and robed in their “achnifs” with the curious eye woven +in the skirt, saw he was a “rekass,” or thought the fish not worth their +notice, so gave him a free road. Night caught him at the stone-built, +antediluvian-looking Kasbah of the Glaui, perched in the eye of the pass, +with the small plain of Teluet two thousand feet below. Off the high +snow-peaks came a whistling wind, water froze solid in all the pots and +pans, earthenware jars and bottles throughout the castle, save in the +bowl which Amarabat, shivering and miserable, wrapped in his haik and +held close to the embers, hearing the muezzin at each call to prayers; +praying himself to keep awake so that his fish might live. Dawn saw him +on the trail, the bowl wrapped in a woollen rag, and the fish fed with +bread-crumbs, but himself hungry and his head swimming with want of +sleep, with smoking “kief,” and with the bitter wind which from El Tisi +N’Glaui flagellates the road. Right through the valley of Teluet he +still kept on, and day and night still trotting, trotting on, changing +his bowl almost instinctively from hand to hand, a broad leaf floating on +the top to keep the water still, he left Agurzga, with its twin castles, +Ghresat and Dads, behind. Then rapidly descending, in a day reached an +oasis between Todghra and Ferkla, and rested at a village for the night. +Sheltered by palm-trees and hedged round with cactuses and aloes, either +to keep out thieves or as a symbol of the thorniness of life, the village +lay, looking back on the white Atlas gaunt and mysterious, and on the +other side towards the brown Sahara, land of the palm-tree +(Belad-el-Jerid), the refuge of the true Ishmaelite; for in the desert, +learning, good faith, and hospitality can still be found—at least, so +Arabs say. + +Orange and azofaifa trees, with almonds, sweet limes and walnuts, stood +up against the waning light, outlined in the clear atmosphere almost so +sharply as to wound the eye. Around the well goats and sheep lay, whilst +a girl led a camel round the Noria track; women sat here and there and +gossiped, with their tall earthenware jars stuck by the point into the +ground, and waited for their turn, just as they did in the old times, so +far removed from us, but which in Arab life is but as yesterday, when +Jacob cheated Esau, and the whole scheme of Arab life was photographed +for us by the writers of the Pentateuch. In fact, the self-same scene +which has been acted every evening for two thousand years throughout +North Africa, since the adventurous ancestors of the tribesmen of to-day +left Hadrumut or Yemen, and upon which Allah looks down approvingly, as +recognizing that the traditions of his first recorded life have been well +kept. Next day he trotted through the barren plain of Seddat, the Jibel +Saghra making a black line on the horizon to the south. Here Berber +tribes sweep in their razzias like hawks; but who would plunder a rekass +carrying a bowl of fish? Crossing the dreary plain and dreaming of his +entry into Tafilet, which now was almost in his reach not two days +distant, the sun beating on his head, the water almost boiling in the +bowl, hungry and footsore, and in the state betwixt waking and sleep into +which those who smoke hemp on journeys often get, he branched away upon a +trail leading towards the south. Between the oases of Todghra and +Ferkla, nothing but stone and sand, black stones on yellow sand; sand, +and yet more sand, and then again stretches of blackish rocks with a +suddra bush or two, and here and there a colocynth, bitter and beautiful +as love or life, smiling up at the traveller from amongst the stones. +Towards midday the path led towards a sandy tract all overgrown with +sandrac bushes and crossed by trails of jackals and hyenas, then it quite +disappeared, and Amarabat waking from his dream saw he was lost. Like a +good shepherd, his first thought was for his fish; for he imagined the +last few hours of sun had made them faint, and one of them looked heavy +and swam sideways, and the rest kept rising to the surface in an uneasy +way. Not for a moment was Amarabat frightened, but looked about for some +known landmark, and finding none started to go back on his trail. But to +his horror the wind which always sweeps across the Sahara had covered up +his tracks, and on the stony paths which he had passed his feet had left +no prints. Then Amarabat, the first moments of despair passed by, took a +long look at the horizon, tightened his belt, pulled up his slipper +heels, covered his precious bowl with a corner of his robe, and started +doggedly back upon the road he thought he traversed on the deceitful +path. How long he trotted, what he endured, whether the fish died first, +or if he drank, or, faithful to the last, thirsting met death, no one can +say. Most likely wandering in the waste of sandhills and of suddra +bushes he stumbled on, smoking his hashish while it lasted, turning to +Mecca at the time of prayer, and trotting on more feebly (for he was born +to run), till he sat down beneath the sun-dried bushes where the +Shinghiti on his Mehari found him dead beside the trail. Under a stunted +sandarac tree, the head turned to the east, his body lay, swollen and +distorted by the pangs of thirst, the tongue protruding rough as a +parrot’s, and beside him lay the seven golden fish, once bright and +shining as the pure gold when the goldsmith pours it molten from his pot, +but now turned black and bloated, stiff, dry, and dead. Life the +mysterious, the mocking, the inscrutable, unseizable, the uncomprehended +essence of nothing and of everything, had fled, both from the faithful +messenger and from his fish. But the Khalifa’s parting caution had been +well obeyed, for by the tree, unbroken, the crystal bowl still glistened +beautiful as gold, in the fierce rays of the Saharan sun. + + + + +A HEGIRA + + +THE giant cypresses, tall even in the time of Montezuma, the castle of +Chapultepec upon its rock (an island in the plain of Mexico), the +panorama of the great city backed by the mountain range; the two +volcanoes, the Popocatepetl and the Istacihuatl, and the lakes; the +tigers in their cages, did not interest me so much as a small courtyard, +in which, ironed and guarded, a band of Indians of the Apache tribe were +kept confined. Six warriors, a woman and a boy, captured close to +Chihuahua, and sent to Mexico, the Lord knows why; for generally an +Apache captured was shot at once, following the frontier rule, which +without difference of race was held on both sides of the Rio Grande, that +a good Indian must needs be dead. + +Silent and stoical the warriors sat, not speaking once in a whole day, +communicating but by signs; naked except the breech-clout; their eyes +apparently opaque, and looking at you without sight, but seeing +everything; and their demeanour less reassuring than that of the tigers +in the cage hard by. All could speak Spanish if they liked, some a word +or two of English, but no one heard them say a word in either tongue. I +asked the nearest if he was a Mescalero, and received the answer: +“Mescalero-hay,” and for a moment a gleam shone through their eyes, but +vanished instantly, as when the light dies out of the wire in an electric +lamp. The soldier at the gate said they were “brutes”; all sons of dogs, +infidels, and that for his part he could not see why the “Gobierno” went +to the expense of keeping them alive. He thought they had no sense; but +in that showed his own folly, and acted after the manner of the +half-educated man the whole world over, who knowing he can read and write +thinks that the savage who cannot do so is but a fool; being unaware +that, in the great book known as the world, the savage often is the +better scholar of the two. + +But five-and-twenty years ago the Apache nation, split into its chief +divisions of Mescaleros, Jicarillas, Coyoteros, and Lipanes, kept a great +belt of territory almost five hundred miles in length, and of about +thirty miles in breadth, extending from the bend of the Rio Gila to El +Paso, in a perpetual war. On both sides of the Rio Grande no man was +safe; farms were deserted, cattle carried off, villages built by the +Spaniards, and with substantial brick-built churches, mouldered into +decay; mines were unworkable, and horses left untended for a moment were +driven off in open day; so bold the thieves, that at one time they had a +settled month for plundering, which they called openly the Moon of the +Mexicans, though they did not on that account suspend their operations at +other seasons of the year. Cochise and Mangas-Coloradas, Naked Horse, +Cuchillo Negro, and others of their chiefs, were once far better known +upon the frontiers than the chief senators of the congresses of either of +the two republics; and in some instances these chiefs showed an +intelligence, knowledge of men and things, which in another sphere would +certainly have raised them high in the estimation of mankind. + +The Shis-Inday (the people of the woods), their guttural language, with +its curious monosyllable “hay” which they tacked on to everything, as +“Oro-hay” and “plata-hay”; their strange democracy, each man being chief +of himself, and owning no allegiance to any one upon the earth; all now +have almost passed away, destroyed and swallowed up by the “Inday pindah +lichoyi” (the men of the white eyes), as they used to call the Americans +and all those northerners who ventured into their territory to look for +“yellow iron.” I saw no more of the Apaches, and except once, never +again met any one of them; but as I left the place the thought came to my +mind, if any of them succeed in getting out, I am certain that the six or +seven hundred miles between them and their country will be as nothing to +them, and that their journey thither will be marked with blood. + +At Huehuetoca I joined the mule-train, doing the twenty miles which in +those days was all the extent of railway in the country to the north, and +lost my pistol in a crowd just as I stepped into the train, some “lepero” +having abstracted it out of my belt when I was occupied in helping five +strong men to get my horse into a cattle-truck. From Huehuetoca we +marched to Tula, and there camped for the night, sleeping in a “meson” +built like an Eastern fondak round a court, and with a well for watering +the beasts in the centre of the yard. I strolled about the curious town, +in times gone by the Aztec capital, looked at the churches, built like +fortresses, and coming back to the “meson” before I entered the cell-like +room without a window, and with a plaster bench on which to spread one’s +saddle and one’s rugs, I stopped to talk with a knot of travellers +feeding their animals on barley and chopped straw, grouped round a fire, +and the whole scene lit up and rendered Rembrandtesque by the fierce glow +of an “ocote” torch. So talking of the Alps and Apennines, or, more +correctly, speaking of the Sierra Madre, and the mysterious region known +as the Bolson de Mapimi, a district in those days as little known as is +the Sus to-day, a traveller drew near. Checking his horse close by the +fire, and getting off it gingerly, for it was almost wild, holding the +hair “mecate” in his hand, he squatted down, the horse snorting and +hanging back, and setting rifle and “machete” jingling upon the saddle, +he began to talk. + +“Ave Maria purisima, had we heard the news?” What! a new revolution? +Had Lerdo de Tejada reappeared again? or had Cortinas made another raid +on Brownsville? the Indios Bravos harried Chihuahua? or had the silver +“conduct” coming from the mines been robbed? “Nothing of this, but a +voice ran (corria una voz) that the Apache infidels confined in the +courtyard of the castle of Chapultepec had broken loose. Eight of them, +six warriors, a woman and a boy, had slipped their fetters, murdered two +of the guard, and were supposed to be somewhere not far from Tula, and, +as he thought, making for the Bolson de Mapimi, the deserts of the Rio +Gila, or the recesses of the mountains of the Santa Rosa range.” + +Needless to say this put all in the meson almost beside themselves; for +the terror that the Indians inspired was at that time so real, that had +the eight forlorn and helpless infidels appeared I verily believe they +would have killed us all. Not that we were not brave, well armed—in +fact, all loaded down with arms, carrying rifles and pistols, swords +stuck between our saddle-girths, and generally so fortified as to +resemble walking arsenals. But valour is a thing of pure convention, and +these men who would have fought like lions against marauders of their own +race, scarce slept that night for thinking on the dangers which they ran +by the reported presence of those six naked men. The night passed by +without alarm, as was to be expected, seeing that the courtyard wall of +the meson was at least ten feet high, and the gate solid “ahuehuete” +clamped with iron, and padlocked like a jail. At the first dawn, or +rather at the first false dawn, when the fallacious streaks of pink flash +in the sky and fade again to night, all were afoot. Horsemen rode out, +sitting erect in their peaked saddles, toes stuck out and thrust into +their curiously stamped toe-leathers; their “chaparreras” giving to their +legs a look of being cased in armour, their “poblano” hats, with bands of +silver or of tinsel, balanced like halos on their heads. + +Long trains of donkeys, driven by Indians dressed in leather, and +bareheaded, after the fashion of their ancestors, crawled through the +gate laden with “pulque,” and now and then a single Indian followed by +his wife set off on foot, carrying a crate of earthenware by a broad +strap depending from his head. Our caravan, consisting of six +two-wheeled mule-carts, drawn by a team of six or sometimes eight +gaily-harnessed mules, and covered with a tilt made from the “istle,” +creaked through the gate. The great meson remained deserted, and by +degrees, as a ship leaves the coast, we struck into the wild and stony +desert country, which, covered with a whitish dust of alkali, makes Tula +an oasis; then the great church sank low, and the tall palm-trees seemed +to grow shorter; lastly church, palms and towers, and the green fields +planted with aloes, blended together and sank out of sight, a faint white +misty spot marking their whereabouts, till at last it too faded and +melted into the level plain. + +Travellers in a perpetual stream we met journeying to Mexico, and every +now and then passed a straw-thatched “jacal,” where women sat selling +“atole,” that is a kind of stirabout of pine-nut meal and milk, and +dishes seasoned hot with red pepper, with “tortillas” made on the +“metate” of the Aztecs, to serve as bread and spoons. The infidels, it +seemed, had got ahead of us, and when we slept had been descried making +towards the north; two of them armed with bows which they had roughly +made with sticks, the string twisted out of “istle,” and the rest with +clubs, and what astonished me most was that behind them trotted a white +dog. Outside San Juan del Rio, which we reached upon the second day, it +seemed that in the night the homing Mescaleros had stolen a horse, and +two of them mounting upon him had ridden off, leaving the rest of the +forlorn and miserable band behind. How they had lived so far in the +scorched alkali-covered plains, how they managed to conceal themselves by +day, or how they steered by night, no one could tell; for the interior +Mexican knows nothing of the desert craft, and has no idea that there is +always food of some kind for an Apache, either by digging roots, snaring +small animals, or at the last resort by catching locusts or any other +insect he can find. Nothing so easy as to conceal themselves; for +amongst grass eight or nine inches high, they drop, and in an instant, +even as you look, are lost to sight, and if hard pressed sometimes escape +attention by standing in a cactus grove, and stretching out their arms, +look so exactly like the plant that you may pass close to them and be +unaware, till their bow twangs, and an obsidian-headed arrow whistles +through the air. + +Our caravan rested a day outside San Juan del Rio to shoe the mules, +repair the harness, and for the muleteers to go to mass or visit the +“poblana” girls, who with flowers in their hair leaned out of every +balcony of the half-Spanish, half-Oriental-looking town, according to +their taste. Not that the halt lost time, for travellers all know that +“to hear mass and to give barley to your beasts loses no tittle of the +day.” + +San Juan, the river almost dry, and trickling thirstily under its red +stone bridges; the fields of aloes, the poplars, and the stunted palms; +its winding street in which the houses, overhanging, almost touch; its +population, which seemed to pass their time lounging wrapped in striped +blankets up against the walls, was left behind. The pulque-aloes and the +sugar-canes grew scarcer, the road more desolate as we emerged into the +“terra fria” of the central plain, and all the time the Sierra Madre, +jagged and menacing, towered in the west. In my mind’s eye I saw the +Mescaleros trotting like wolves all through the night along its base, +sleeping by day in holes, killing a sheep or goat when chance occurred, +and following one another silent and stoical in their tramp towards the +north. + +Days followed days as in a ship at sea; the waggons rolling on across the +plains; and I jogging upon my horse, half sleeping in the sun, or +stretched at night half dozing on a tilt, almost lost count of time. +Somewhere between San Juan del Rio and San Luis Potosi we learned two of +the Indians had been killed, but that the four remaining were still +pushing onward, and in a little while we met a body of armed men carrying +two ghastly heads tied by their scalp-locks to the saddle-bow. Much did +the slayers vaunt their prowess; telling how in a wood at break of day +they had fallen in with all the Indians seated round a fire, and that +whilst the rest fled, two had sprung on them, as they said, “after the +fashion of wild beasts, armed one with a stick, and the other with a +stone, and by God’s grace,” and here the leader crossed himself, “their +aim had been successful, and the two sons of dogs had fallen, but most +unfortunately the rest during the fight had managed to escape.” + +San Luis Potosi, the rainless city, once world-renowned for wealth, and +even now full of fine buildings, churches and palaces, and with a +swarming population of white-clothed Indians squatting to sell their +trumpery in the great market-square, loomed up amongst its fringe of +gardens, irrigated lands, its groves of pepper-trees, its palms, its +wealth of flowering shrubs; its great white domes, giving an air of +Bagdad or of Fez, shone in the distance, then grew nearer, and at last +swallowed us up, as wearily we passed through the outskirts of the town, +and halted underneath the walls. + +The city, then an oasis in the vast plateau of Anáhuac (now but a station +on a railway-line), a city of enormous distances, of gurgling water led +in stucco channels by the side of every street, of long expanses of +“adobe” walls, of immense plazas, of churches and of bells, of countless +convents; hedged in by mountains to the west, mouth of the “tierra +caliente” to the east, and to the north the stopping-place for the long +trains of waggons carrying cotton from the States; wrapped in a mist as +of the Middle Ages, lay sleeping in the sun. On every side the plain +lapped like an ocean, and the green vegetation round the town stopped so +abruptly that you could step almost at once from fertile meadows into a +waste of whitish alkali. + +Above the town, in a foothill of the Sierra Madre about three leagues +away, is situated the “Enchanted City,” never yet fouled by the foot of +man, but yet existent, and believed in by all those who follow that best +part of history, the traditions which have come down to us from the times +when men were wise, and when imagination governed judgment, as it should +do to-day, being the noblest faculty of the human mind. Either want of +time, or that belittling education from which few can escape, prevented +me from visiting the place. Yet I still think if rightly sought the city +will be found, and I feel sure the Mescaleros passed the night not far +from it, and perhaps looking down upon San Luis Potosi cursed it, after +the fashion that the animals may curse mankind for its injustice to them. + +Tired of its squares, its long dark streets, its hum of people; and +possessed perhaps with that nostalgia of the desert which comes so soon +to all who once have felt its charm when cooped in bricks, we set our +faces northward about an hour before the day, passed through the gates +and rolled into the plains. The mules well rested shook their bells, the +leagues soon dropped behind, the muleteers singing “La Pasadita,” or an +interminable song about a “Gachupin” {131} who loved a nun. + +The Mescaleros had escaped our thoughts—that is, the muleteers thought +nothing of them; but I followed their every step, saw them crouched round +their little fire, roasting the roots of wild “mescal”; marked them upon +the march in single file, their eyes fixed on the plain, watchful and +silent as they were phantoms gliding to the north. + +Crossing a sandy tract, the Capataz, who had long lived in the “Pimeria +Alta,” and amongst the Maricopas on the Gila, drew up his horse and +pointing to the ground said, “Viva Mexico!—look at these footmarks in the +sand. They are the infidels; see where the men have trod; here is the +woman’s print and this the boy’s. Look how their toes are all turned in, +unlike the tracks of Christians. This trail is a day old, and yet how +fresh! See where the boy has stumbled—thanks to the Blessed Virgin they +must all be tired, and praise to God will die upon the road, either by +hunger or some Christian hand.” All that he spoke of was no doubt +visible to him, but through my want of faith, or perhaps lack of +experience, I saw but a faint trace of naked footsteps in the sand. Such +as they were, they seemed the shadow of a ghost, unstable and unreal, and +struck me after the fashion that it strikes one when a man holds up a +cane and tells you gravely, without a glimmering of the strangeness of +the fact, that it came from Japan, actually grew there, and had leaves +and roots, and was as little thought of as a mere ash-plant growing in a +copse. + +At an “hacienda” upon the road, just where the trail leads off upon one +hand to Matehuala, and on the other to Rio Verde, and the hot countries +of the coast, we stopped to pass the hottest hours in sleep. All was +excitement; men came in, their horses flecked with foam; others were +mounting, and all armed to the teeth, as if the Yankees had crossed the +Rio Grande, and were marching on the place. “Los Indios! si, señor,” +they had been seen, only last night, but such the valour of the people of +the place, they had passed on doing no further damage than to kill a +lamb. No chance of sleep in such a turmoil of alarm; each man had his +own plan, all talked at once, most of them were half drunk, and when our +Capataz asked dryly if they had thought of following the trail, a silence +fell on all. By this time, owing to the horsemen galloping about, the +trail was cut on every side, and to have followed it would have tried the +skill of an Apache tracker; but just then upon the plain a cloud of dust +was seen. Nearer it came, and then out of the midst of it horses +appeared, arms flashed, and when nearing the place five or six men +galloped up to the walls, and stopped their horses with a jerk. “What +news? have you seen anything of the Apaches?” and the chief rider of the +gallant band, getting off slowly, and fastening up his horse, said, with +an air of dignity, “At the ‘encrucijada,’ four leagues along the road, +you will find one of them. We came upon him sitting on a stone, too +tired to move, called on him to surrender, but Indians have no sense, so +he came at us tired as he was, and we, being valiant, fired, and he fell +dead. Then, that the law should be made manifest to all, we hung his +body by the feet to a huisaché tree.” Then compliments broke out and +“Viva los valientes!” “Viva Mexico!” “Mueran los Indios salvajes!” and +much of the same sort, whilst the five valiant men modestly took a drink, +saying but little, for true courage does not show itself in talk. + +Leaving the noisy crew drinking confusion to their enemies, we rolled +into the plain. Four dusty leagues, and the huisaché tree growing by +four cross trails came into sight. We neared it, and to a branch, naked +except his breech-clout, covered with bullet-wounds, we saw the Indian +hang. Half-starved he looked, and so reduced that from the bullet-holes +but little blood had run; his feet were bloody, and his face hanging an +inch or two above the ground distorted; flies buzzed about him, and in +the sky a faint black line on the horizon showed that the vultures had +already scented food. + +We left the nameless warrior hanging on his tree, and took our way across +the plain, well pleased both with the “valour” of his slayers and the +position of affairs in general in the world at large. Right up and down +the Rio Grande on both sides for almost a thousand miles the lonely cross +upon some river-side, near to some thicket, or out in the wide plain, +most generally is lettered “Killed by the Apaches,” and in the game they +played so long, and still held trumps in at the time I write of, they, +too, paid for all errors, in their play, by death. But still it seemed a +pity, savage as they were, that so much cunning, such stoical +indifference to both death and life, should always finish as the warrior +whom I saw hang by the feet from the huisaché, just where the road to +Matehuala bifurcates, and the trail breaks off to El Jarral. And so we +took our road, passed La Parida, Matehuala, El Catorce, and still the +sterile plateau spread out like a vast sea, the sparse and stunted bushes +in the constant mirage looming at times like trees, at others seeming +just to float above the sand; and as we rolled along, the mules +struggling and straining in the whitish dust, we seemed to lose all trace +of the Apaches; and at the lone hacienda or rare villages no one had +heard of them, and the mysterious hegira of the party, now reduced to +three, left no more traces of its passing than water which has closed +upon the passage of a fish. + +Gomez Farias, Parras, El Llano de la Guerra, we passed alternately, and +at length Saltillo came in sight, its towers standing up upon the plain +after the fashion of a lighthouse in the sea; the bull-ring built under +the Viceroys looking like a fort; and then the plateau of Anáhuac +finished abruptly, and from the ramparts of the willow-shaded town the +great green plains stretched out towards Texas in a vast panorama; whilst +upon the west in the dim distance frowned the serrated mountains of Santa +Rosa, and further still the impenetrable fastnesses of the Bolson de +Mapimi. + +Next day we took the road for Monterey, descending in a day by the rough +path known as “la cuesta de los fierros,” from the cold plateau to a land +of palms, of cultivation, orange-groves, of fruit-trees, olive-gardens, a +balmy air filled with the noise of running waters; and passing underneath +the Cerro de la Silla which dominates the town, slept peacefully far from +all thoughts of Indians and of perils of the road, in the great +caravansary which at that time was the chief glory of the town of +Monterey. The city with its shady streets, its alameda planted with +palm-trees, and its plaza all decorated with stuccoed plaster seats +painted pale pink, and upon which during both day and night half of the +population seemed to lounge, lay baking in the sun. + +Great teams of waggons driven by Texans creaked through the streets, the +drivers dressed in a “défroque” of old town clothes, often a worn +frock-coat and rusty trousers stuffed into cowboy boots, the whole +crowned with an ignominious battered hat, and looking, as the Mexicans +observed, like “pantomimas, que salen en las fiestas.” Mexicans from +down the coast, from Tamaulipas, Tuxpan, Vera Cruz and Guatzecoalcos +ambled along on horses all ablaze with silver; and to complete the +picture, a tribe of Indians, the Kickopoos, who had migrated from the +north, and who occasionally rode through the town in single file, their +rifles in their hands, and looking at the shops half longingly, half +frightened, passed along without a word. + +But all the varied peoples, the curious half-wild, half-patriarchal life, +the fruits and flowers, the strangeness of the place, could not divert my +thoughts from the three lone pathetic figures, followed by their dog, +which in my mind’s eye I saw making northward, as a wild goose finds its +path in spring, leaving no traces of its passage by the way. I wondered +what they thought of, how they looked upon the world, if they respected +all they saw of civilized communities upon their way, or whether they +pursued their journey like a horse let loose returning to his birthplace, +anxious alone about arriving at the goal. So Monterey became a memory; +the Cerro de la Silla last vanishing, when full five leagues upon the +road. The dusty plains all white with alkali, the grey-green +sage-bushes, the salt and crystal-looking rivers, the Indians bending +under burdens, and the women sitting at the cross roads selling +tortillas—all now had changed. Through oceans of tall grass, by muddy +rivers in which alligators basked, by “bayous,” “resacas,” and by +“bottoms” of alluvial soil, in which grew cotton-woods, black-jack, and +post-oak, with gigantic willows; through countless herds of half-wild +horses, lighting the landscape with their colours, and through a rolling +prairie with vast horizons bounded by faint blue mountain chains, we took +our way. Out of the thickets of “mezquite” wild boars peered upon the +path; rattlesnakes sounded their note of warning or lay basking in the +sun; at times an antelope bounded across our track, and the rare villages +were fortified with high mud walls, had gates, and sometimes drawbridges, +for all the country we were passing through was subject to invasions of +“los Indios Bravos,” and no one rode a mile without the chance of an +attack. When travellers met they zigzagged to and fro like battleships +in the old days striving to get the “weather gauge,” holding their horses +tightly by the head, and interchanging salutations fifty yards away, +though if they happened to be Texans and Mexicans they only glared, or +perhaps yelled an obscenity at one another in their different tongues. +Advertisements upon the trees informed the traveller that the place to +stop at was the “Old Buffalo Camp” in San Antonio, setting forth its +whisky, its perfect safety both for man and beast, and adding curtly it +was only a short four hundred miles away. Here for the first time in our +journey we sent out a rider about half-a-mile ahead to scan the route, +ascend the little hills, keep a sharp eye on “Indian sign,” and give us +warning by a timely shot, all to dismount, “corral” the waggons, and be +prepared for an attack of Indians, or of the roaming bands of rascals who +like pirates wandered on the plains. Dust made us anxious, and smoke +ascending in the distance set us all wondering if it was Indians, or a +shepherd’s fire; at halting time no one strayed far from camp, and we sat +eating with our rifles by our sides, whilst men on horseback rode round +the mules, keeping them well in sight, as shepherds watch their sheep. +About two leagues from Juarez a traveller bloody with spurring passed us +carrying something in his hand; he stopped and held out a long arrow with +an obsidian head, painted in various colours, and feathered in a peculiar +way. A consultation found it to be “Apache,” and the man galloped on to +take it to the governor of the place to tell him Indians were about, or, +as he shouted (following the old Spanish catchword), “there were Moors +upon the coast.” + +Juarez we slept at, quite secure within the walls; started at daybreak, +crossing the swiftly-running river just outside the town, at the first +streak of light; journeyed all day, still hearing nothing of the +retreating Mescaleros, and before evening reached Las Navas, which we +found astir, all lighted up, and knots of people talking excitedly, +whilst in the plaza the whole population seemed to be afoot. At the long +wooden tables set about with lights, where in a Mexican town at sundown +an al fresco meal of kid stewed in red pepper, “tamales” and “tortillas,” +is always laid, the talk was furious, and each man gave his opinion at +the same time, after the fashion of the Russian Mir, or as it may be that +we shall yet see done during debates in Parliament, so that all men may +have a chance to speak, and yet escape the ignominy of their words being +caught, set down, and used against them, after the present plan. The +Mescaleros had been seen passing about a league outside the town. A +shepherd lying hidden, watching his sheep, armed with a rifle, had spied +them, and reported that they had passed close to him; the woman coming +last and carrying in her arms a little dog; and he “thanked God and all +His holy saints who had miraculously preserved his life.” After the +shepherd’s story, in the afternoon firing had been distinctly heard +towards the small rancho of Las Crucecitas, which lay about three leagues +further on upon the road. All night the din of talk went on, and in the +morning when we started on our way, full half the population went with us +to the gate, all giving good advice; to keep a good look-out, if we saw +dust to be certain it was Indians driving the horses stolen from Las +Crucecitas, then to get off at once, corral the waggons, and above all to +put our trust in God. This we agreed to do, but wondered why out of so +many valiant men not one of them proffered assistance, or volunteered to +mount his horse and ride with us along the dangerous way. + +The road led upwards towards some foothills, set about with scrubby +palms; not fifteen miles away rose the dark mountains of the Santa Rosa +chain, and on a little hill the rancho stood, flat-roofed and white, and +seemingly not more than a short league away, so clear the light, and so +immense the scale of everything upon the rolling plain. I knew that in +the mountains the three Indians were safe, as the whole range was Indian +territory; and as I saw them struggling up the slopes, the little dog +following them footsore, hanging down its head, or carried as the +shepherd said in the “she-devil’s” arms, I wished them luck after their +hegira, planned with such courage, carried out so well, had ended, and +they were back again amongst the tribe. + +Just outside Crucecitas we met a Texan who, as he told us, owned the +place, and lived in “kornkewbinage with a native gal,” called, as he +said, “Pastory,” who it appeared of all the females he had ever met was +the best hand to bake “tortillers,” and whom, had she not been a +Catholic, he would have made his wife. All this without a question on +our part, and sitting sideways on his horse, scanning the country from +the corner of his eye. He told us that he had “had right smart of an +Indian trouble here yesterday just about afternoon. Me and my ‘vaquerys’ +were around looking for an estray horse, just six of us, when close to +the ranch we popped kermash right upon three red devils, and opened fire +at once. I hed a Winchester, and at the first fire tumbled the buck; he +fell right in his tracks, and jest as I was taking off his scalp, I’m +doggoned if the squaw and the young devil didn’t come at us jest like +grizzly bars. Wal, yes, killed ’em, o’ course, and anyhow the young ’un +would have growed up; but the squaw I’me sort of sorry about. I never +could bear to kill a squaw, though I’ve often seen it done. Naow here’s +the all-firedest thing yer ever heard; jes’ as I was turning the bodies +over with my foot a little Indian dog flies at us like a ‘painter,’ the +varmint, the condemndest little buffler I ever struck. I was for +shootin’ him, but ‘Pastory’—that’s my ‘kornkewbyne’—she up and says it +was a shame. Wal, we had to bury them, for dead Injun stinks worst than +turkey-buzzard, and the dodgasted little dog is sitting on the grave, +’pears like he’s froze, leastwise he hastn’t moved since sun-up, when we +planted the whole crew.” + +Under a palm-tree not far from the house the Indians’ grave was dug, upon +it, wretched and draggled, sat the little dog. “Pastory” tried to catch +it all day long, being kind-hearted though a “kornkewbyne”; but, failing, +said “God was not willing,” and retired into the house. The hours seemed +days in the accursed place till the sun rose, gilding the unreached Santa +Rosa mountains, and bringing joy into the world. We harnessed up the +mules, and started silently out on the lonely road; turning, I checked my +horse, and began moralizing on all kinds of things; upon tenacity of +purpose, the futility of life, and the inexorable fate which mocks +mankind, making all effort useless, whilst still urging us to strive. +Then the grass rustled, and across an open space a small white object +trotted, looking furtively around, threw up its head and howled, ran to +and fro as if it sought for something, howled dismally again, and after +scratching in the ground, squatted dejectedly on the fresh-turned-up +earth which marked the Indians’ grave. + + + + +SIDI BU ZIBBALA + + +RELIGIOUS persecution with isolation from the world, complete as if the +Lebanon were an atoll island in the Paumotus group; a thousand years of +slavery, and centuries innumerable of traditions of a proud past, the +whole well filtered through the curriculum of an American missionary +college, had made Maron Mohanna the strange compound that he was. Summer +and winter dressed in a greasy black frock-coat, hat tilted on his head, +as if it had been a fez; dilapidated white-topped mother-of-pearl +bebuttoned boots, a shirt which seemed to come as dirty from the wash as +it went there; his shoulders sloping and his back bent in a perpetual +squirm, Mohanna shuffled through the world with the exterior of a pimp, +but yet with certain aspirations towards a wild life which seldom are +entirely absent from any member of the Arab race. So in his village of +the Lebanon he grew to man’s estate, and drifted after the fashion of his +countrymen into a precarious business in the East. Half proxenete, half +dragoman, servile to all above him and civil for prudence’ sake to all +below, he passed through the various degrees of hotel tout, seller of +cigarettes, and guide to the antiquities of whatever town he happened to +reside in, to the full glory of a shop in which he sold embroideries, +attar of roses, embroidered slippers and all the varied trash which +tourists buy in the bazaars of the Levant. But all the time, and whilst +he studied French and English with a view to self-advancement, the +ancient glories of the Arab race were always in his mind. Himself a +Christian of the Christians, reared in that hotbed of theology the +Lebanon, where all the creeds mutually show their hatred of each other, +and display themselves in their most odious aspects; and whilst hating +the Mohammedans as a first principle of his belief, he found himself +mysteriously attracted to their creed. Not that his reason was seduced +by the teachings of the Koran, but that somehow the stately folly of the +whole scheme of life evolved by the ex-camel-driver appealed to him, as +it has oftentimes appealed to stronger minds than his. The call to +prayers, the half-contemplative, half-militant existence led by +Mohammedans; the immense simplicity of their hegemony; the idea of a not +impossible one God, beyond men’s ken, looking down frostily through the +stars upon the plains, a Being to be evoked without much hope of being +influenced, took hold of him and set him thinking whether all members of +the Arab race ought not to hold one faith. And in addition to his +speculations upon faith and race, vaguely at times it crossed his mind, +as I believe it often crosses the minds of almost every Arab (and Syrians +not a few), “If all else fail, I can retire into the desert, join the +tribes and pass a pleasant life, sure of a wife or two, a horse, a lance, +a long flint gun, a bowl of camel’s milk, and a black tent in which to +rest at night.” + +Little indeed are the chances of a young educated Syrian to make his +living in the Lebanon. A certain modicum of the young men is always +absorbed into the ranks of the various true faiths which send out +missionaries to convert Arab-speaking races, and those so absorbed +generally pass their lives preaching shamefacedly that which they +partially believe, to those whose faith is fixed. Others again gravitate +naturally to Cairo to seek for Government employment, or to write in the +Arabic press, taking sides for England or for France, as the editors of +the opposing papers make it worth their while. But the great bulk of the +intellectual Syrian proletariat emigrates to New York and there lives in +a quarter by itself, engaging in all kinds of little industries, dealing +in Oriental curiosities, or publishing newspapers in the Arab tongue. +There they pass much of their time lounging at their shop-doors with +slippers down at heel, in smoking cigarettes, in drinking arrack, and in +speculating when their native country shall be free. + +To none of these well-recognized careers did Maron Mohanna feel himself +impelled. Soon tiring of his shop he went to Egypt, worked on a +newspaper, and then became a teacher of Arabic to Europeans; was taken by +one of them to London, where he passed some years earning a threadbare +livelihood by translating Arabic documents and writing for the press. +When out of work he tramped about the streets to cheat his hunger, and if +in funds frequented music-halls, and lavished his hard-earned money on +the houris who frequent such places, describing them as “fine and tall, +too fond of drink, and perhaps colder in the blood than are the women of +the East.” Not often did his fortunes permit him such extravagances, and +he began to pass his life hanging about the City in the wake of the +impossible gang of small company-promoters, who in the purlieus of the +financial world weave shoddy Utopias, and are the cause of much vain +labour to postmen and some annoyance to the public, but who as far as I +can see live chiefly upon hope deferred, for their prospectuses seem to +be generally cast into the basket, from which no share list ever has +returned. But in the darkest of poor Maron Mohanna’s blackest days, his +dreams about the Arab race never forsook him, and he studied much to +master all the subtleties of his native tongue, talking with Arabs, +Easterns, Persians, and the like in the lunch-room of the British Museum, +where scholars of all nations, blear-eyed and bent, eat sawdust +sandwiches and drink lemonade, whilst wearing out their eyes and lives +for pittances which a dock labourer would turn from in disgust. Much did +the shivering Easterns confabulate, much did they talk of grammar, of +niceties of diction, much did they dispute, often they talked of women, +sometimes of horses, for on both all Easterns, no matter how they pass +their lives, have much to say, and what they say is often worth +attention, for in both matters their ancestors were learned when ours +rode shaggy ponies, and their one miserable wife wrestled with fifteen +fair-haired children in the damp forests where the Briton was evolved. +How long Maron Mohanna dwelt in London is matter of uncertainty, to what +abyss of poverty he fell, or if in the worst times he tramped the +Embankment, sleeping on a bench and dreaming ever of the future of the +Arab race, is not set down. The next act of his life finds him the +trusted manager of the West African Company at Cape Juby. There he +enjoyed a salary duly paid every quarter, and was treated with much +deference by the employees as being the only man the company employed who +could speak Arabic. Report avers he had embraced either the Wesleyan or +the Baptist faith, as the chief shareholders of the affair were +Nonconformists, whose ancestors having (as they alleged) enjoyed much +persecution for their faith, were well resolved that every one who came +within their power should outwardly, at least, conform to their own +tenets in dogma and church government. + +Established at Cape Juby, Maron Mohanna for the first time enjoyed +consideration, and for a while the world went well with him. He duly +wrote reports, inspected goods, watched the arrival of the _Sahara_, the +schooner which came once a month from Lanzarote, and generally +endeavoured to discharge the duties of a manager, with some success. The +chiefs Mohammed-wold-el-Biruc and Bu-Dabous, with others from the +far-distant districts of El Juf, El Hodh, and from Tishit, all flattered +him, offering him women from their various tribes and telling him that he +too was of their blood. So by degrees either the affinity of race, the +community of language or the provoking commonness of his European +comrades, drew him to seek his most congenial friends amongst the natives +of the place. Then came the woman: the woman who always creeps into the +life of man as the snake crept into the garden by the Euphrates; and +Mohanna knowing that by so doing he forfeited all chance of his career, +gave up his post, married an Arab girl, and became a desert Arab, living +on dates and camel’s milk in the black Bedouin tents. Children he had, +to whom, though desert-born, he gave the names of Christians, feeling +perhaps the nostalgia of civilization in the wilds, as he had felt before +the nostalgia of the desert, in his blood. And living in the desert with +his hair grown long, dressed in the blue “baft” clothes, a spear in his +hand and shod with sandals, he yet looked like a European clerk in +masquerade. + +The bushy plains stretched like an ocean towards the mysterious regions +of El Juf and Timbuctoo, Wadan, Tijigja, Atar and Shingiet, and the wild +steppes where the Tuaregs veiled to the eyes roam as they roamed before +they hastened to the call of Jusuf-ibn Tachfin to invade El Andalos and +lose the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa: the battle where San Isidro in a +shepherd’s guise guided the Christian host. Men came and went, on +camels, horses, donkeys and on foot; all armed, all beggars, from the +rich chief to the poorest horseman of the tribe; and yet all dignified, +draped in their fluttering rags, and looking more like men than those +whom eighteen centuries of civilization and of trade have turned to apes. +Men fought, careering on their horses on the sand, firing their guns and +circling round like gulls, shouting their battle-cries; men prayed, +turning to Mecca at the appointed hours; men sat for hours half in a +dream thinking of much or nothing, who can say; whilst women in the tents +milked camels, wove the curious geometric-patterned carpets which they +use, and children grew up straight, active and as fleet of foot as roe. + +Inside the factory the European clerks smoked, drank, and played at +cards: they learned no Arabic, for why should those who speak bad English +struggle with other tongues? Meanwhile the time slipped past, leaving as +little trace as does a jackal when on a windy day he sneaks across the +sand. Only Maron Mohanna seemed to have no place in the desert world +which he had dreamed of as a boy; and in the world of Europe typified by +the factory on the beach his place was lost. On marrying he had, of +course, abjured the faith implanted in him in the Lebanon, and yet though +now one of the “faithful” he found no resting-place. Neither of the two +contending faiths had sunk much into his soul, but still at times he saw +that the best part of any faith is but the life it brings. For him, +though he had dreamed of it, the wild desert life held little charm; +horses he loathed, suffering acutely when on their backs, and roaming +after chance gazelles or ostriches with the horsemen of the tribe did not +amuse him; but though too proud to change his faith again, at times he +caught himself longing for his once-loathed shop in the Levant. So that +clandestinely he grew to haunt the factory and the fort, as before, in +secret, he had hung round the straw-thatched mosque, and loitered in the +tents. His one amusement was to practise with a pistol at a mark, and by +degrees he taught his wife to shoot, till she became a marksman able to +throw an orange in the air and hit it with a pistol bullet three times +out of five. But even pistol-shooting palled on his soul at last, and he +grew desperate, not being allowed to leave the tribe or go into the fort +except in company with others, and keenly watched as those who change +their faith and turn Mohammedans are ever watched amongst the Arab race. +But in his darkest hour fate smiled upon him, and the head chief wanting +an agent in the islands sent him to Lanzarote, and in the little town of +Arrecife it seemed to him that he had found a resting-place at last. +Once more he dressed himself in European clothes, he handled goods, saw +now and then a Spanish newspaper a fortnight old; talked much of +politics, lounged in the Alameda, and was the subject of much curiosity +amongst the simple dwellers in the little town. Some said he had denied +his God amongst the heathen; others again that he suffered much for +conscience’ sake; whilst he attended mass occasionally, going with a +sense of doing something wrong, and feeling more enjoyment in the service +than in the days of his belief. His wife dressed in the Spanish fashion, +wore a mantilla, sometimes indeed a hat, and looked not much unlike an +island woman, and was believed by all to have thrown off the errors of +her faith and come into the fold. + +But notwithstanding all the amenities of the island life, the unlimited +opportunities for endless talk (so dear to Syrians), the half-malignant +pleasure he experienced in dressing up his wife in Christian guise, +sending for monstrous hats bedecked with paroquets from Cadiz, and gowns +of the impossible shades of apple-green and yellow which in those days +were sent from Paris to Spain and to her colonies, he yet was dull. And +curiously enough, now that he was a double renegade his youthful dreams +haunted him once again. He saw himself (in his mind’s eye) mounted upon +his horse, flying across the sands, and stealthily and half ashamed he +used to dress himself in the Arab clothes and sit for hours studying the +Koran, not that he believed its teachings, but that the phraseology +enchanted him, as it has always, both in the present and the past, +bewitched all Arabs, and perhaps in his case it spoke to him of the +illusory content which in the desert life he sought, but had not found. + +He read the “Tarik-es-Sudan,” and learned that Allah marks even the lives +of locusts, and that a single pearl does not remain on earth by him +unweighed. The Djana of Essoyuti, El Ibtihaj, and the scarce “Choice of +Marvels” written in far Mossul by the learned Abu Abdallah ibn Abderrahim +(he of Granada in the Andalos), he read; and as he read his love renewed +itself for the old race whose blood ran in his veins. He read and +dreamed, and twice a renegade in practice, yet remained a true believer +in the aspirations of his youth. He sailed in schooners, running from +island port to island port down the trade winds; landed at little towns, +and hardly marked the people in the rocky streets, Spanish in language, +and in type quite Guanche, and but a step more civilized than the wild +tribesmen from the coast that he had left. Then thinking maybe of his +sojourn in London, and its music-halls, frequented uninterestedly the +house of Rita, Rita la Jerezana; sat in the courtyard under the fig-tree +with its trunk coated with white-wash, and listened to the “Cante Hondo,” +saw the girls dance Sevillanas; and drinking zarzaparilla syrup, learned +that of all the countries in the world Spain is the richest, for there +even the “women of the life” cast their accounts in ounces. + +Then growing weary of their chatter and their tales of woe, each one of +them being, according to herself, fallen from some high estate, he +wandered to the convent of the Franciscan friars. They saw a convert in +him, and put out all their theologic powers; displayed, as they know how, +the human aspect of their faith, keeping the dogma out of sight; for well +they knew, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any man, if the +fires of hell are to be clearly seen. Long hours Mohanna talked with +them, enjoying argument for its own sake after the Scottish and the +Eastern way; the friars were mystified at the small progress that they +made, but said the renegade spoke “as he had a nest of nightingales all +singing in his mouth.” And all the time his wife, an Arab of the Arabs, +sighed for the desert, in her Spanish clothes. The “Velo de toalla” and +the high-heeled shoes, the pomps and miseries of stays, and all the +circumstance and starch of European dress, did not console her for the +loss of the black tents, the familiar camels kneeling in the sand, the +goats skipping about the “sudra” bushes; and the church bells made her +but long more keenly for the call to prayers, rising at evening from the +straw-thatched mosque. Her children, left with the tribe, called to her +from the desert, and she too found neither resting-place nor rest in the +quiet island life. + +At last Maron Mohanna turned again to trade, and entered into partnership +with one Benito Florez; bought a schooner, and came and went between the +islands and the coast. All things went well with him, and in the little +island town “el renegado” rose to be quite a prosperous citizen, till on +a day he and his partner quarrelled and went to law. The law in every +country favours a man born in the land against a foreigner; and the +partnership broke up, leaving Mohanna almost penniless. Whether one of +those sudden furies which possess the Arabs, turning them in a moment and +without warning from sedate well-mannered men to raving maniacs frothing +at the mouth, came over him, he never told; but what is certain is that, +having failed to slay his partner, he with his wife went off by night to +where his schooner lay, and instantly induced his men to put to sea, and +sailed towards the coast. Mohanna drew a perhaps judicious veil of +mystery over what happened on his arrival at the inlet where his wife’s +tribe happened to be encamped. One of the islanders either objecting to +the looting of the schooner upon principle, or perhaps because his share +of loot was insufficient, got himself killed; but what is a “Charuta” +more or less, except perhaps to his wife and family in Arrecife or in +some little dusty town in Pico or Gomera? Those who assented or were too +frightened to protest found themselves unmolested, and at liberty to take +the schooner back. Maron Mohanna and his wife, taking the boat rowed by +some Arabs, made for the shore, and what ensued he subsequently related +to a friend. + +“When we get near the shore my wife she throw her hat.” One sees the +hideous Cadiz hat floating upon the surf, draggled and miserable, and its +bunch of artificial fruit, of flowers or feathers, bobbing about upon the +backwash of the waves. “She throw her boots, and then she take off all +her clothes I got from Seville, cost me more than a hundred ‘real’; she +throw her parasol, and it float in the water like a buoy, and make me +mad. I pay more than ten real for it. After all things was gone she +wrap herself in Arab sheet and step ashore just like an Arab girl, and +all the clothes I brought from Cadiz, cost more than a hundred real, all +was lost.” What happened after their landing is matter of uncertainty. +Whether Mohanna found his children growing up semi-savages, whether his +wife having thus sacrificed to the Graces, and made a holocaust of all +her Cadiz clothes, regretted them, and sitting by the beach fished for +them sadly with a cane, no man can tell. + +Years passed away, and a certain English consul in Morocco travelling to +the Court stopped at a little town. Rivers had risen, tribes had cut the +road, our Lord the Sultan with his camp was on a journey and had eaten up +the food upon the usual road, or some one or another of the incidents of +flood or field which render travel in Morocco interesting had happened. +The town lay off the beaten track close to the territory of a half-wild +tribe. Therefore upon arrival at the place the consul found himself +received with scowling looks; no one proceeded to hostilities, but he +remained within his tent, unvisited but by a soldier sent from the +Governor to ask whether the Kaffir, son of a Kaffir, wished for anything. +People sat staring at him, motionless except their eyes; children holding +each other’s hands stood at a safe distance from his tent, and stared for +hours at him, and he remarked the place where he was asked to camp was +near a mound which from time immemorial seemed to have been the common +dunghill of the town. The night passed miserably, the guards sent by the +Governor shouting aloud at intervals to show their vigilance, banished +all chance of sleep. + +Cursing the place, at break of day the consul struck his camp, mounted +his horse, and started, leaving the sullen little town all wrapped in +sleep. But as he jogged along disconsolately behind his mules, passing +an angle of the “Kasbah” wall, a figure, rising as it seemed out of the +dunghill’s depths, advanced and stood before him in the middle of the +way. Its hair was long and matted and its beard ropy and grizzled, and +for sole covering it had a sack tied round its waist with a string of +camel’s hair; and as the consul feeling in his purse was just about, in +the English fashion, to bestow his alms to rid himself of trouble, it +addressed him in his native tongue. “Good-morning, consul, how goes the +world with you? You’re the first Christian I have seen for years. My +name was once Mohanna, now I am Sidi bu Zibbala, the Father of the +Dunghill. Your poet Shakespeare say that all the world’s a stage, but he +was Englishman. I, Syrian, I say all the world dunghill. I try him, +Syria, England, the Desert, and New York; I find him dung, so I come here +and live here on this dunghill, and find it sweet when compared to places +I have seen; and it is warm and dry.” + +He ceased; and then the consul, feeling his words an outrage upon +progress and on his official status, muttered “Queer kind of fish,” and +jerking at his horse’s bridle, proceeded doggedly upon his way. + + + + +LA PULPERIA + + +IT may have been the Flor de Mayo, Rosa del Sur, or Tres de Junio, or +again but have been known as the Pulperia upon the Huesos, or the Esquina +on the Napostá. But let its name have been what chance or the +imagination of some Neapolitan or Basque had given it, I see it, and +seeing it, dismounting, fastening my “redomon” to the palenque, enter, +loosen my facon, feel if my pistol is in its place, and calling out +“Carlon,” receive my measure of strong, heady red Spanish wine in a tin +cup. Passing it round to the company, who touch it with their lips to +show their breeding, I seem to feel the ceaseless little wind which +always blows upon the southern plains, stirring the dust upon the pile of +fleeces in the court, and whistling through the wooden “reja” where the +pulpero stands behind his counter with his pile of bottles close beside +him, ready for what may chance. For outward visible signs, a low, squat, +mud-built house, surrounded by a shallow ditch on which grew stunted +cactuses, and with paja brava sticking out of the abode of the +overhanging eaves. Brown, sun-baked, dusty-looking, it stands up, an +island in the sea of waving hard-stemmed grasses which the improving +settler passes all his life in a vain fight to improve away; and make his +own particular estancia an Anglo-Saxon Eden of trim sheep-cropped turf, +set here and there with “agricultural implements,” broken and thrown +aside, and though imported at great trouble and expense, destined to be +replaced by ponderous native ploughs hewn from the solid ñandubay, and +which, of course, inevitably prove the superiority of the so-called +unfit. For inward graces, the “reja” before which runs a wooden counter +at which the flower of the Gauchage of the district lounge, or sit with +their toes sticking through their potro boots, swinging their legs and +keeping time to the “cielito” of the “payador” upon his cracked guitar, +the strings eked out with fine-cut thongs of mare’s hide, by jingling +their spurs. + +Behind the wooden grating, sign in the Pampa of the eternal hatred +betwixt those who buy and those who sell, some shelves of yellow pine, on +which are piled ponchos from Leeds, ready-made calzoncillos, alpargatas, +figs, sardines, raisins, bread—for bread upon the Pampa used to be eaten +only at Pulperias—saddle-cloths, and in a corner the “botilleria,” where +vermuth, absinthe, square-faced gin, Carlon, and Vino Seco stand in a +row, with the barrel of Brazilian caña, on the top of which the pulpero +ostentatiously parades his pistol and his knife. Outside, the tracks led +through the biscacheras, all converging after the fashion of the rails at +a junction; at the palenque before the door stood horses tied by strong +raw-hide cabrestos, hanging their heads in the fierce sun, shifting from +leg to leg, whilst their companions, hobbled, plunged about, rearing +themselves on their hind-legs to jump like kangaroos. + +Now and then Gauchos rode up occasionally, their iron spurs hanging off +their naked feet, held by a raw-hide thong; some dressed in black +bombachas and vicuña ponchos, their horses weighted down with silver, and +prancing sideways as their riders sat immovable, but swaying from the +waist upwards like willows in a wind. Others, again, on lean young +colts, riding upon a saddle covered with sheepskin, gripping the small +hide stirrup with their toes and forcing them up to the posts with shouts +of “Ah bagual!” “Ah Pehuelche!” “Ahijuna!” and with resounding blows of +their short, flat-lashed whips, which they held by a thong between their +fingers or slipped upon their wrists, then grasping their frightened +horses by the ears, got off as gingerly as a cat jumps from a wall. From +the rush-thatched, mud-walled rancheria at the back the women, who always +haunt the outskirts of a pulperia in the districts known as tierra +adentro (the inside country), Indians and semi-whites, mulatresses, and +now and then a stray Basque or Italian girl turned out, to share the +quantity they considered love with all mankind. + +But gin and politics, with horses’ marks, accounts of fights, and +recollections of the last revolution, kept men for the present occupied +with serious things, so that the women were constrained to sit and smoke, +drink maté, plait each other’s hair (searching it diligently the while), +and wait until Carlon with Vino Seco, square-faced rum, cachaza, and the +medicated log-wood broth, which on the Pampa passes for “Vino Francés,” +had made men sensible to their softer charms. That which in Europe we +call love, and think by inventing it that we have cheated God, who +clearly planted nothing but an instinct of self-continuation in mankind, +as in the other animals, seems either to be in embryo, waiting for +economic advancement to develop it; or is perhaps not even dormant in +countries such as those in whose vast plains the pulperia stands for +club, exchange, for meeting-place, and represents all that in other lands +men think they find in Paris or in London, and choose to dignify under +the style of intellectual life. Be it far from me to think that we have +bettered the Creator’s scheme; or by the substitution of our polyandry +for polygamy, bettered the position of women, or in fact done anything +but changed and made more complex that which at first was clear to +understand. + +But, be that as it may and without dogmatism, our love, our vices, our +rendering wicked things natural in themselves, our secrecy, our +pruriency, adultery, and all the myriad ramifications of things sexual, +without which no novelist could earn his bread, fall into nothing, except +there is a press-directed public opinion, laws, bye-laws, leaded type and +headlines, so to speak, to keep them up. True, nothing of all this +entered our heads as we sat drinking, listening to a contest of +minstrelsy “por contrapunto” betwixt a Gaucho payador and a “matrero +negro” of great fame, who each in turn taking the cracked “changango” in +their lazo-hardened hands, plucked at its strings in such a style as to +well illustrate the saying that to play on the guitar is not a thing of +science, but requires but perseverance, hard finger-tips, and an unusual +development of strength in the right wrist. Negro and payador each sang +alternately; firstly old Spanish love songs handed down from before the +independence, quavering and high; in which Frasquita rhymed to chiquita, +and one Cupido, whom I never saw in Pampa, loma, rincon, bolson, or +medano, in the Chañares, amongst the woods of ñandubay, the pajonales, +sierras, cuchillas, or in all the land, figured and did nothing very +special; flourished, and then departed in a high falsetto shake, a rough +sweep of the hard brown fingers over the jarring strings forming his +fitting epitaph. + +The story of “El Fausto,” and how the Gaucho, Aniceto, went to Buenos +Ayres, saw the opera of “Faust,” lost his puñal in the crush to take his +seat, sat through the fearsome play, saw face to face the enemy of man, +described {170a} as being dressed in long stockings to the stifle-joint, +eyebrows like arches for tilting at the wing, and eyes like water-holes +in a dry river bed, succeeded, and the negro took up the challenge and +rejoined. He told how, after leaving town, that Aniceto mounted on his +Overo rosao, {170b} fell in with his “compadre,” told all his wondrous +tale, and how they finished off their bottle and left it floating in the +river like a buoy. + +The payador, not to be left behind, and after having tuned his guitar and +put the “cejilla” on the strings, launched into the strange life of +Martin Fierro, type of the Gauchos on the frontier, related his +multifarious fights, his escapades, and love affairs, and how at last he, +his friend, Don Cruz, saw on an evening the last houses as, with a stolen +tropilla of good horses, they passed the frontier to seek the Indians’ +tents. The death of Cruz, the combat of Martin with the Indian chief—he +with his knife, the Indian with the bolas—and how Martin slew him and +rescued the captive woman, who prayed to heaven to aid the Christian, +with the body of her dead child, its hands secured in a string made out +of one of its own entrails, lying before her as she watched the varying +fortunes of the fight, he duly told. La Vuelta de Martin and the strange +maxims of Tio Viscacha, that Pampa cynic whose maxim was never to ride up +to a house where dogs were thin, and who set forth that arms are +necessary, but no man can tell when, were duly recorded by the +combatants, listened to and received as new and authentic by the +audience, till at last the singing and the frequent glasses of Carlon +made payador and negro feel that the time had come to leave off +contrapunto and decide which was most talented in music, with their +facons. A personal allusion to the colour of the negro’s skin, a retort +calling in question the nice conduct of the sister of the payador, and +then two savages foaming at the mouth, their ponchos wrapped round their +arms, their bodies bent so as to protect their vitals, and their knives +quivering like snakes, stood in the middle of the room. The company +withdrew themselves into the smallest space, stood on the tops of casks, +and at the door the faces of the women looked in delight, whilst the +pulpero, with a pistol and a bottle in his hands, closed down his grating +and was ready for whatever might befall. “Negro,” “Ahijuna,” “Miente,” +“carajo,” and the knives flash and send out sparks as the returns de tic +au tac jar the fighters’ arms up to the shoulder-joints. In a moment all +is over, and from the payador’s right arm the blood drops in a stream on +the mud floor, and all the company step out and say the negro is a +“valiente,” “muy guapeton,” and the two adversaries swear friendship over +a tin mug of gin. But all the time during the fight, and whilst outside +the younger men had ridden races barebacked, making false starts to tire +each other’s horses out, practising all the tricks they knew, as kicking +their adversary’s horse in the chest, riding beside their opponent and +trying to lift him from his seat by placing their foot underneath his and +pushing upwards, an aged Gaucho had gradually become the centre figure of +the scene. + +Seated alone he muttered to himself, occasionally broke into a falsetto +song, and now and then half drawing out his knife, glared like a +tiger-cat, and shouted “Viva Rosas,” though he knew that chieftain had +been dead for twenty years. + +Tall and with straggling iron-grey locks hanging down his back, a +broad-brimmed plush hat kept in its place by a black ribbon with two +tassels under his chin, a red silk Chinese handkerchief tied loosely +round his neck and hanging with a point over each shoulder-blade, he +stood dressed in his chiripa and poncho, like a mad prophet amongst the +motley crew. Upon his feet were potro boots, that is the skin taken off +the hind-leg of a horse, the hock-joint forming the heel and the hide +softened by pounding with a mallet, the whole tied with a garter of a +strange pattern woven by the Indians, leaving the toes protruding to +catch the stirrups, which as a domador he used, made of a knot of hide. +Bound round his waist he had a set of ostrich balls covered in lizard +skin, and his broad belt made of carpincho leather was kept in place by +five Brazilian dollars, and through it stuck a long facon with silver +handle shaped like a half-moon, and silver sheath fitted with a catch to +grasp his sash. Whilst others talked of women or of horses, alluding to +their physical perfections, tricks or predilections, their hair, hocks, +eyes, brands or peculiarities, discussing them alternately with the +appreciation of men whose tastes are simple but yet know all the chief +points of interest in both subjects, he sat and drank. Tio Cabrera (said +the others) is in the past, he thinks of times gone by; of the Italian +girl whom he forced and left with her throat cut and her tongue +protruding, at the pass of the Puán; of how he stole the Indian’s horses, +and of the days when Rosas ruled the land. Pucha, compadre, those were +times, eh? Before the “nations,” English, Italian and Neapolitan, with +French and all the rest, came here to learn the taste of meat, and ride, +the “maturangos,” in their own countries having never seen a horse. But +though they talked at, yet they refrained from speaking to him, for he +was old, and even the devil knows more because of years than because he +is the devil, and they knew also that to kill a man was to Tio Cabrera as +pleasant an exercise as for them to kill a sheep. But at last I, with +the accumulated wisdom of my twenty years, holding a glass of caña in my +hand, approached him, and inviting him to drink, said, not exactly +knowing why, “Viva Urquiza,” and then the storm broke out. His eyes +flashed fire, and drawing his facon he shouted “Muera! . . . Viva +Rosas,” and drove his knife into the mud walls, struck on the counter +with the flat of the blade, foamed at the mouth, broke into snatches of +obscene and long-forgotten songs, as “Viva Rosas! Muera Urquiza dale +guasca en la petiza,” whilst the rest, not heeding that I had a pistol in +my belt, tried to restrain him by all means in their power. But he was +maddened, yelled, “Yes, I, Tio Cabrera, known also as el Cordero, tell +you I know how to play the violin (a euphemism on the south pampa for +cutting throats). In Rosas’ time, Viva el General, I was his right-hand +man, and have dispatched many a Unitario dog either to Trapalanda or to +hell. Caña, blood, Viva Rosas, Muera!” then tottering and shaking, his +knife slipped from his hands and he fell on a pile of sheepskins with +white foam exuding from his lips. Even the Gauchos, who took a life as +other men take a cigar, and from their earliest childhood are brought up +to kill, were dominated by his brute fury, and shrank to their horses in +dismay. The pulpero murmured “salvage” from behind his bars, the women +trembled and ran to their “tolderia,” holding each other by the hands, +and the guitar-players sat dumb, fearing their instruments might come to +harm. I, on the contrary, either impelled by the strange savagery +inherent in men’s blood or by some reason I cannot explain, caught the +infection, and getting on my horse, a half-wild “redomon,” spurred him +and set him plunging, and at each bound struck him with the flat edge of +my facon, then shouting “Viva Rosas,” galloped out furiously upon the +plain. + + + + +HIGGINSON’S DREAM + + +THE world went very well with Higginson; and about that time—say fifteen +years ago—he found himself, his fortune made, settled down in Noumea. +The group of islands which he had, as he said, rescued from barbarism, +and in which he had opened the mines, made all the harbours, and laid out +all the roads, looked to him as their Providence; and to crown the work, +he had had them placed under the French flag. Rich, _décoré,_ respected, +and with no worlds to conquer in particular, he still kept adding wealth +to wealth; trading and doing what he considered useful work for all +mankind in general, as if he had been poor. + +Strange that a kindly man, a cosmopolitan, half French, half English, +brought up in Australia, capable, active, pushing, and even not devoid of +that interior grace a speculative intellect, which usually militates +against a man in the battle of his life, should think that roads, mines, +harbours, havens, ships, bills of lading, telegraphs, tramways, a +European flag, even the French flag itself, could compensate his +islanders for loss of liberty. Stranger in his case than in the case of +those who go grown up with all the prejudices, limitations, +circumscriptions and formalities of civilization become chronic in them, +and see in savage countries and wild peoples but dumping ground for +European trash, and capabilities for the extension of the Roubaix or the +Sheffield trade; for he had passed his youth amongst the islands, loved +their women, gone spearing fish with their young men, had planted taro +with them, drunk kava, learned their language, and become as expert as +themselves in all their futile arts and exercises; knew their customs and +was as one of them, living their life and thinking it the best. + +’Tis said (Viera, I think, relates it) that in the last years of fighting +for the possession of Teneriffe, and when Alonso de Lugo was hard pressed +to hold his own against the last Mencey, Bencomo, a strange sickness +known as the “modorra” seized the Guanches and killed more of them than +were slain in all the fights. The whole land was covered with the dead, +and once Alonso de Lugo met a woman sitting on the hill-side, who called +out, “Where are you going, Christian? Why do you hesitate to take the +land? the Guanches are all dead.” The Spanish chroniclers say that the +sickness came about by reason of a wet season, and that, coming as it did +upon men weakened by privation, they fell into apathy and welcomed death +as a deliverer. That may be so, and it is true that in hill-caves even +to-day in the lone valleys by Icod el Alto their bodies still are found +seated and with the head bowed on the arms, as if having sat down to +mourn the afflictions of their race, God had been merciful for once and +let them sleep. The chroniclers may have been right, and the wet season, +with despair, starvation and the hardships they endured, may have brought +on the mysterious “modorra,” the drowsy sickness, under which they fell. +But it needs nothing but the presence of the conquering white man, decked +in his shoddy clothes, armed with his gas-pipe gun, his Bible in his +hand, schemes of benevolence deep rooted in his heart, his merchandise +(that is, his whisky, gin and cotton cloths) securely stored in his +corrugated iron-roofed sheds, and he himself active and persevering as a +beaver or red ant, to bring about a sickness which, like the “modorra,” +exterminates the people whom he came to benefit, to bless, to rescue from +their savagery, and to make them wise, just, beautiful, and as apt to +differentiate evil from good as even he himself. So it would seem, act +as we like, our presence is a curse to all those people who have +preserved the primeval instincts of our race. Curious, and yet +apparently inevitable, that our customs seem designed to carry death to +all the so-called inferior races, whom at a bound we force to bridge a +period which it has taken us a thousand years to pass. + +In his prosperity, and even we may suppose during the Elysium of dining +with sous-préfets in Noumea, and on the occasions when in Melbourne or in +Sydney he once again consorted with Europeans, he always dreamed of a +certain bay upon the coast far from Noumea, where in his youth he had +spent six happy months with a small tribe, fishing and swimming, hunting, +spearing fish, living on taro and bananas, and having for a friend one +Tean, son of a chief, a youth of his own age. The vision of the happy +life came back to him; the dazzling beach, the heavy foliage of the palao +and bread-fruit trees; the grove of cocoa-nuts, and the zigzag and +intricate paths leading from hut to hut, which when a boy he traversed +daily, knowing them all by instinct in the same way that horses in wild +countries know how to return towards the place where they were born. And +still the vision haunted him; not making him unhappy, for he was one of +those who find relief from thought in work, but always there in the same +way that the remembrance of a mean action is ever present, even when one +has made atonement, or induced oneself to think it was not really mean, +but rendered necessary by circumstances; or, in fact, when we imagine we +have put to sleep that inward grasshopper which in our bosoms, blood, +brain, stomach, or wheresoever it is situated, is louder or more faint +according to our state of health, digestion, weakness, or what it is that +makes us hear its chirp. + +And so it was that cheap champagne seemed flat to him; the company of the +yellow-haired and faded _demi-mondaines_ whom Paris dumps upon New +Caledonia insipid; the villas on the cliff outside Noumea vulgar; and the +prosperity and progress of the place to which he had so much contributed, +profitless and stale. Not that for a single instant he stopped working, +planning and improving his estates, or missed a chance to acquire “town +lots,” or if a profitable 10,000 acres of good land with river frontage +came into the market, hesitated for a moment to step in and buy. Now, +though by this time he had long got past the need of actually trading +with the natives at first hand, and kept, as rich men do, captains and +secretaries and lawyers to do his lying for him, and only now and then +would condescend to exercise himself in that respect when the stake was +large enough to make the matter reputable, yet sometimes he would take a +cruise in one of his own schooners and play at being poor. Nothing so +tickles a man’s vanity as to look back upon his semi-incredible past, and +talk of the times when he had to live on sixpence a day, and to recount +his breakfast on a penny roll and glass of milk, and then to put his +hands upon his turtle-bloated stomach, smile a fat smile and say, “Ah, +those were the days, then I was happy!” although he knows that at that +halcyon period he was miserable, not perhaps so much from poverty, as +from that envy which is as great a curse to poor men as is indigestion to +the rich. + +So running down the coast of New Caledonia in a schooner, trading in +pearls and copra, he came one evening to a well-remembered bay. All +seemed familiar to him, the low white beach, tall palm-trees, coral reef +with breakers thundering over it, and the still blue lagoon inside the +clump of breadfruit trees, the single tall grey stone just by the beach +all graven over with strange characters, all struck a chord long dormant +in his mind. So telling his skipper to let go his anchor, he rowed +himself ashore. On landing he was certain of the place; the tribe, about +five hundred strong, ruled over by the father of his friend Tean, lived +right along the bay, and scattered in palm-thatched huts throughout the +district. Then he remembered a certain cocoa-nut palm he used to climb, +a spring of water in a thicket of hibiscus, a little stream which he used +to dam, and then divert the course to take the fish, and sitting down, +all his past life came back to him. As he himself would say, “C’etait le +bon temps; pauvre Tean il doit être Areki (chef) maintenant; sa soeur +peut-être est morte ou mariée . . . elle m’aimait bien . . . ” + +But this day-dream dispelled, it struck him that the place looked +changed. Where were the long low huts in front of which he used to pass +his idle hours stretched in a hammock, the little taro patches? The +zigzag paths which used to run from house to house across the fields to +the spring and to the turtle-pond were all grown up. Couch-grass and +rank mimosa scrub, with here and there ropes of lianas, blocked them so +that he rubbed his eyes and asked himself, Where is the tribe? Vainly he +shouted, cooeed loudly; all was silent, and his own voice came back to +him muffled and startling as it does when a man feels he is alone. At +last, following one of the paths less grown up and obliterated than the +rest, he entered a thick scrub, walked for a mile or two cutting lianas +now and then with his jack-knife, stumbling through swamps, wading +through mud, until in a little clearing he came upon a hut, in front of +which a man was digging yams. As many of the natives in New Caledonia +speak English and few French, he called to him in English, “Where black +man?” Resting upon his hoe, the man replied, “All dead.” “Where Chief?” +And the same answer, “Chief, he dead.” “Tean, he dead?” “No, Tean +Chief; he ill, die soon; Tean inside that house.” And Higginson, not +understanding, but feeling vaguely that his dream was shattered in some +way he could not understand, called out, “Tean, oh, Tean, your friend +Johnny here!” Then from the hut emerged a feeble man leaning upon a long +curved stick, who gazed at him as he had seen a ghost. At last he said, +“That you, John? I glad to see you once before I die.” Whether they +embraced, shook hands, rubbed noses, or what their greeting was is not +recorded, for Higginson, in alluding to it, always used to say, “C’est +bête, mais le pauvre homme me faisait de la peine.” + +This was his sickness. “Me sick, John; why you wait so long? you no +remember, so many years ago when we spear fish, you love my sister, she +dead five years ago . . . When me go kaikai (eat) piece sugar-cane, +little bit perhaps fall on the ground, big bird he come eat bit of +sugar-cane and eat my life.” + +Poor Higginson being a civilized man, with the full knowledge of all +things good and evil contingent on his state, still was dismayed, but +said, “No, Tean, I get plenty big gun; you savey when I shoot even a +butterfly he fall. I shoot big bird so that when you go kaikai he no eat +pieces, and you get well again.” Thus Higginson from his altitude argued +with the semi-savage, thinking, as men will think, that even death can be +kept off with words. But Tean smiled and said, “Johnny, you savey heap, +but you no savey all. This time I die. You go shoot bird he turn into a +mouse, and mouse eat all I eat, just the same bird.” This rather +staggered Higginson, and he felt his theories begin to vanish, and he +began to feel a little angry; but really loving his old friend, he once +more addressed himself to what he now saw might be a hopeless task. + +“I go Noumea get big black cat, beautiful cat, all the same tiger—you +savey tiger, Tean?—glossy and fat, long tail and yellow eyes; when he see +mouse he eat him; you go bed sleep, get up, and soon quite well.” Tean, +who by this time had changed position with his friend, and become out of +his knowledge a philosopher, shook his head sadly and replied, “You no +savey nothing, John; when black man know he die there is no hope. +Suppose cat he catch mouse, all no use; mouse go change into a big, black +cloud, all the same rain. Rain fall upon me, and each drop burn right +into my bones. I die, John, glad I see you; black man all die, black +woman no catch baby, tribe only fifty ’stead of five hundred. We all go +out, all the same smoke, we vanish, go up somewhere, into the clouds. +Black men and white men, he no can live. New Caledonia (as you call him) +not big enough for both.” + +What happened after that Higginson never told, for when he reached that +point he used to break out into a torrent of half French, half English +oaths, blaspheme his gods, curse progress, rail at civilization, and +recall the time when all the tribe were happy, and he and Tean in their +youth went spearing fish. And then bewildered, and as if half-conscious +that he himself had been to blame, would say, “I made the roads, opened +the mines, built the first pier, I opened up the island; ah, le pauvre +Tean, il me faisait de la peine . . . et sa soeur morte . . . she was so +pretty with a hibiscus wreath . . . ah, well, pauvre petite . . . je +l’aimais bien.” + + + + +CALVARY + + +JUST where the River Plate, split by a hundred islands, forms a sort of +delta, a tract of marshy land in Entre Rios, known as the Rincones of the +Ibicuy, spreads out flat, cut by a thousand channels, heavily timbered, +shut in upon the landward side by a long range of hills of dazzling sand, +and buried everywhere in waving masses of tall grass. + +Grass, grass, and yet more grass. Grass at all seasons of the year, so +that the half-wild horses never know the scarcity of pasture which in the +winter makes them lean and rough upon the outside plains. A district +shut by its sand-hills and the great river from the outer world. A +paradise for horses, cattle, tigers, myriads of birds, for capibaras, +nutrias, and for the stray Italians who now and then come from the cities +with a rotten boat, and miserable, cheap, Belgian gun, to slaughter +ducks. + +The population, sparse and indolent, a hybrid breed between the Gauchos +and the Chanar Indians, who at the conquest retreated into the thickest +swamps and islands of the River Plate. But still a country where life +flows easily away amongst the cane-brakes, thickets of espinillo, tala +and ñandubay, and where from out the pajonales the half-wild horses bound +like antelopes, shaking their manes, their tails aloft like flags, +snorting and frisking in the pride of strength, and lighting up the +landscape with their variegated colours like a herd of fallow deer. A +land of vegetation so intense as to bedwarf mankind almost as absolutely +as we bedwarf ourselves with our machinery in a manufacturing town. Air +plants upon the trees; oven-birds’ earthen, gourd-like nests hanging from +boughs; great wasp nests in the hollows of the trunks; scarlet and +rose-pink flamingoes fishing in the shallow pools; nutrias floating down +the streams, their round and human-looking heads appearing just awash; +and the dark silent channels of the stagnant backwaters, so thickly grown +with water weeds that by throwing a few branches on the top a man may +cross his horse. + +Commerce, that vivifying force, that bond of union between all the basest +instincts of the basest of mankind, that touch of lower human nature +which makes all the lowest natures of mankind akin, was quite unknown. +Cheating was elementary, and rarely did much harm but to the successful +cheat; at times a neighbour passed a leaden dollar on a friend, was soon +detected, and was branded as a thief; at times a man slaughtered a +neighbour’s cow, and sold the hide, stole a good horse, or perpetrated +some piece of petty villainy, sufficient by its transparent folly to +reassure the world that he was quite uncivilized, and not fit by his +exertions ever to grow rich. + +Adultery and fornication were frequent, and, again, chiefly concerned the +principals, as there were no self-instituted censors, eager to carry +tales, and to revenge themselves upon the world for their own impotency. + +All were apt lazoers, great with the bolas, and all rode as they had +issued from their mothers’ wombs mounted upon a foal, and grown together +with him, half horse, half man—quiet and almost blameless centaurs, and +as happy as it is possible for men to be who come into the world ready +baptized in tears. + +So much for man in the Rincones of the Ibicuy, and let us leave him quiet +and indolent, fighting occasionally at the “Pulperia” for a quart of +wine, for jealousy, for politics, or any of the so-called reasons which +make men shed each other’s blood. + +But commerce, holy commerce, thrice blessed nexus which makes the whole +world kin, reducing all men to the lowest common multiple; commerce that +curses equally both him who buys and him who sells, and not content with +catching all men in its ledgers, envies the animals their happy lives, +was on the watch. Throughout the boundaries of the River Plate, from +Corrientes to the bounds of Tucuman, San Luis de la Punta to San +Nicholas, and to the farthest limits of the stony southern plains, +nowhere were horses cheaper than in the close Rincones of the Ibicuy. +Three, four, or five, or at the most six dollars, bought the best, +especially if but half-tamed, and a convenient curve of the river allowed +a steamboat to discharge or to load goods, tied to a tree and moored +beside the bank. + +Upon a day a steamer duly arrived, whistled, and anchored, and from her, +in a canoe, appeared a group of men who landed, and with the assistance +of a guide went to the chief estancia of the place. The owner, Cruz +Cabrera, called also Cruz el Narigudo, came to his door, welcomed them, +driving off his dogs, wondered, but still said nothing, as it is not +polite to ask a stranger what is the business that brings him to your +house. Maté went round, and gin served in a square-faced bottle, and +drank out of a solitary wine-glass, the stem long snapped in the middle, +and spliced by shrinking a piece of green cow-hide round a thin cane, and +fastening the cane into a disc of roughly-shaped soft wood. “Three +dollars by the cut, and I’ll take fifty.” “No, four and a half; my +horses are the best of the whole district.” And so the ignoble farce of +bargaining, which from the beginning of the world has been the touchstone +of the zero of the human heart, pursued its course. + +At last the “higgling of the market”—God-descended phrase—dear to +economists and those who in their studies apart from life weave webs in +which mankind is caught, decreed that at four dollars the deal was to be +made. But at the moment of arrangement one of the strangers saw a fine +chestnut colt standing saddled at the door, and claimed him as a +“sweetener,” and to save talk his master let him go, and then, the money +counted over, the buyer, prepared to give a hand to catch the horses, and +to lead them singly to the boat. Plunging and snorting, sweating with +terror, and half dead with fear, kicked, cuffed, and pricked with knives, +horse after horse was forced aboard, and stood tied to a ring or +stanchion, the sweat falling in drops like rain from legs and bellies on +the deck. Only the chestnut stood looking uneasily about, and frightened +by the struggles and the sound of blows falling upon the backs of those +his once companions in the wild gallops through the forest glades, who +had been forced aboard. + +Then Cruz Cabrera cursed his folly with an oath, and getting for the last +time on his back made him turn, passage, plunge, and started and checked +him suddenly, then getting off unsaddled him, and gave his halter to a +man to lead him to the ship. The horse resisted, terrified at the +strange unusual sight, and one of the strangers, raising his iron whip, +struck him across the nose, exclaiming with an oath, “I’ll show you what +it is to make a fuss, you damned four dollars’ worth, when once I get you +safe aboard the ship.” And Cruz Cabrera, gripping his long knife, was +grieved, and said much as to the chastity of the stranger’s mother, and +of his wife, but underneath his breath, not that he feared to cut a +“gringo’s” throat, but that the dollars kept him quiet, as they have +rendered dumb, priests, ministers of state, bishops and merchants, +princes and peasants, and have closed the mouths of three parts of +mankind, making them silent complices in all the villainies they see and +hate, and still dare not denounce, fearing the scourge of poverty, and +the smart lash which Don Dinero flourishes over the shoulders of all +those who venture even remotely to express their thoughts. + +Quickly the Ibicuy melted into the mist, as the wheezy steamer grunted +and squattered like a wounded wild duck, down the yellow flood. Inside, +the horses, more dead than alive, panted with thirst, and yet were still +too timid to approach the water troughs. They slipped and struggled on +the deck, fell and plunged up again, and at each fall or plunge, the +blows fell on their backs, partly from folly, partly from the +satisfaction that some men feel in hurting anything which fate or +Providence has placed without the power of resistance in their hands. +Instinct and reason; the hypothetic difference which good weak men use as +an anæsthetic when their conscience pricks them for their sins of +omission and commission to their four-footed brethren. But a distinction +wholly without a difference, and a link in the long chain of fraud and +force with which we bind all living things, men, animals, and most of all +our reasoning selves, in one crass neutral-tinted slavery. Who that has +never put his bistouri upon the soul, and hitherto no vivisectionist (of +men or animals) can claim the feat, shall say who suffers most—the biped +or the four-footed animal? I know the cant of education, the higher +organism, and the dogmatics of the so-called scientists which bid so fair +to worthily replace those of the theologians, but who shall say if +animals, when suddenly removed from all that sanctifies their lives, do +not pass agonies far more intense than such endured by those whose +education or whose reason—what you will—still leaves them hope? + +By the next morning the wheezy, wood-fired steamer was in the roads of +Buenos Ayres, the exiles of the Ibicuy with coats all starring, flanks +tucked up, hanging their heads, no more the lightsome creatures of but +yesterday. + +Steam launches, pitching like porpoises in the shallow stream, +whale-boats manned by Italians girt with red sashes, and with yellow +shirts made beautiful with scarlet horse-shoes, and whose eyes glistened +like diamonds in their roguish, nut-coloured faces, came alongside the +ship. Lighters, after much expenditure of curses and vain reaches with +boat-hooks at the paddle-floats, hooked on, and dropped astern. The +donkey-engine started with a whirr, giving the unwilling passengers +another tremor of alarm, and then the work of lowering them into the +flat-bottomed lighters straight began. Kickings and strugglings, and one +by one, their coats all matted with the sweat of terror, they were +dropped into the boat. One or two slipped from the slings, and landed +with a broken leg, and then a dig with a “facon” ended their troubles, +and their bodies floated on the shallow waves, followed by flocks of +gulls. Puffing and pitching, the tug dragging the lighter reached the +ocean-steamer’s side. Again the donkey-engine rattled and whirred, and +once again the luckless animals were hoisted up, stowed on the lower deck +in rows in semi-darkness, and after a due interval the vessel put to sea. + +“Who would not sell a farm and go to sea?” the sailor says, and turns his +quid remarking, “Go to sea for pleasure, yes, and to hell for fun.” The +smell of steam, confinement, the motion of the ship, monotony of days, +time marked but by the dinner-bell, a hell to passengers who in their +cabins curse the hours, and kill the time with cards, books, drink and +flirtation, and yet find every day a week. But to the exiles of the +Ibicuy, stricken with terror, too ill to eat, parching, and yet afraid to +drink, hopeless and fevered, sick at heart, slipping and falling, bruised +with each motion of the ship, beaten when restless, and perhaps in some +dim way conscious of having left their birthplace, and foreseeing nothing +but misery, who shall say what they endured during the passage, in the +hot days, the stifling nights, and in the final change to the dark skies +and chilling breezes of the north? Happiest those who died without the +knowledge of the London streets, and whose bruised carcasses were flung +into the sea, their coats matted with sweat and filth, legs swelled, and +heads hanging down limply as they trailed the bodies on the decks. + +The docks, the dealer’s yard, the breaking in to harness, and the sale at +Aldridge’s, and one by one they were led out to meet no more; as +theologians who have blessed man with hell, allow no paradise to beasts. +Perhaps because their lives being innocent, they would have filled it up +so that no man could enter, for what saint in any calendar could for an +instant claim to be admitted if his life were compared to that of the +most humble of his four-footed brethren in the Lord? Docked duly, to +show that nature does not know how to make a horse, bitted and broken, +the chestnut colt, once Cruz Cabrera’s pride, started on cab work, and +for a time gave satisfaction to his owner, for, though not fast, he was +untiring, and, as his driver said, “yer couldn’t kill ’im, ’e was a +perfect glutton for ’ard work.” + +Streets, streets, and yet more streets, endless and sewer-like, stony and +wood-paved, suburbs interminable, and joyless squares, gaunt stuccoed +crescents, “vales,” “groves,” “places,” a perfect wilderness of bricks, +he trotted through them all. Derbies and boat-races, football matches, +Hurlingham and the Welsh Harp, Plaistow and Finchley, Harrow-on-the-Hill, +the wait at theatres, the nightly crawl up Piccadilly watching for fares, +where men and women stop to talk; rain, snow, ice, frost, and the fury of +the spring east wind, he knew them all, struggled and shivered, baked, +shook with fatigue, and still resisted. But time, that comes upon us and +our horses, stealthily creeping like Indians creep upon the war trail +without a sign, loosening the sinews of our knees, thickening their wind, +and making both of us useless except for worms, began to tell. The +chronic cough, the groggy feet, the eye covered with a cloud, caused by a +flick inside the blinkers, and the staring coat, soon turned the +chestnut, from a cab with indiarubber tyres, celluloid fittings, and a +looking-glass upon each side (for fools to see how impossible it is that +they can ever have been made after God’s image), to a night hack, and +then the fall to a fish-hawker’s cart was not too long delayed. + +Blows and short commons, sores from the collar, and continued overwork, +slipping upon the greasy streets, struggling with loads impossible to +move, finished the tragedy; and of the joyous colt who but a year or two +ago bounded through thickets scarcely brushing off the dew, nothing was +left but a gaunt, miserable, lame, wretched beast, a very bag of bones, +too thin for dog’s meat, and too valueless even to afford the mercy of +the knacker’s fee. So, struggling on upon his Via Crucis, Providence at +last remembered, and let him fall, and the shaft entering his side, his +blood coloured the pavement; his owner, after beating him till he was +tired, gave him a farewell kick or two; then he lay still, his eyes open +and staring, and white foam exuding from his mouth. + +The scent of horse dung filled the fetid air, cabs rattled, and vans +jolted on the stones, and the dead horse, bloody and mud-stained, formed, +as it were, a sort of island, parting the traffic into separate streams, +as it surged onward roaring in the current of the streets. + + + + +A PAKEHA + + +RAIN, rain, and more rain, dripping off the sodden trees, soaking the +fields, and blotting out the landscape as with a neutral-tinted gauze. +The sort of day that we in the land “dove il doce Dorico risuona” +designate as “saft.” Enter along the road to me a neighbour of some +fifty to sixty years of age, one Mr. Campbell, a little bent, hair faded +rather than grey, frosty-faced as we Scotsmen are apt to turn after some +half a century of weather, but still a glint of red showing in the +cheeks; moustache and whiskers trimmed in the fashion of the later +sixties; “tacketed” boots, and clothes, if not impervious to the rain, as +little affected by it as is the bark of trees. His hat, once black and +of the pattern affected at one time by all Free Church clergymen, now +greenish and coal-scuttled fore and aft and at the sides. In his red, +chapped, dirty, but grey-mittened hands a shepherd’s stick—long, crooked, +and made of hazel-wood. + +“It’ll maybe tak’ up, laird.” + +“Perhaps.” + +“An awfu’ spell o’ it.” + +“Yes, disgusting.” + +“Aye, laird, the climate’s sort o’ seekenin’. I mind when I was in New +Zealand in the sixties, aye, wi’ a surveyor, just at the triangulation, +ye ken. Man, a grand life, same as the tinklers, here to-day and gane +to-morrow, like old Heather Jock. Hoot, never mind your dog, laird, +there’s just McClimant’s sheep, puir silly body, I ken his keel-mark. +Losh me, a bonny country, just a pairfect pairadise, New Zealand. When I +first mind Dunedin it wasna bigger than the clachan there, out by. A +braw place noo, I understan’, and a’ the folk fearfu’ took up wi’ horse, +driving their four-in-hands, blood cattle, every one of them. There’s +men to-day like Jacky Price—he was a Welshmen, I’m thinking—who I mind +doing their day’s darg just like mysel’ aboot Dunedin, and noo they send +their sons hame to be educated up aboot England. + +“When? ’Oo aye, I went oot in the old _London_ wi’ Captin Macpherson. +He’d bin the round trip a matter o’ fifteen times, forbye a wee bit jaunt +whiles after the ‘blackbirds’ (slaves, ye ken, what we called free +endentured labourers) to the New Hebrides. The _London_, aye, ’oo aye, +she foundered in the Bay (Biscay, ye ken) on her return. It’s just a +special providence I wasna a passenger myself. + +“Why did I leave the country? Eh, laird, ye may say. I would hae made +my hame out there, but it was just the old folks threap, threaping on me +to come back, I’m telling ye. A bonny toon, Dunedin, biggit on a wee +hill just for a’ the wurrld like Gartfarran there, and round the point a +wee bit plain just like the Carse o’ Stirling. Four year I wrocht at the +surveyin’, maistly triangulation, syne twa at shepherdin’, nane o’ your +Australlian fashion tailing them a’ day, but on the hame system gaen’ +aboot; man, I mind whiles I didna see anither man in sax weeks’ time.” + +“Then you burned bricks, you say?” + +“Aye, I didna’ think ye had been so gleg at the Old Book. Aye, aye, +laird, plenty of stra’, or maybe it was yon New Zealand flax stalk. The +awfiest plant ye ever clapt your eyes on, is yon flax. I mind when I +first landed aff the old _London_—she foundered in the Bay. It was just +a speecial interposition . . . but I mind I telt ye. Well, I just was +dandering aboot outside the toon, and hettled to pu’ some of yon flax; +man, I wasna fit; each leaf is calculated to bear a pressure of aboot a +ton. The natives, the Maories, use it to thack their cottages. A bonny +place, New Zealand, a pairfect pairadise—six-and-thirty years ago—aye, +aye, ’oo aye, just the finest country in God’s airth. + +“Het? Na, na, nane so het as here in simmer, a fine, dry air, and a +bonny bright blue sky. Dam’t, I mind the diggings opening tae. There +were a wheen captins. Na, na, not sea captins, airmy captins, though +there were plenty of the sea yins doon in the sooth; just airmy captins +who had gone out and ta’en up land; blocked it, ye ken, far as frae here +to Stirlin’. Pay for it, aye, aboot a croon the acre, and a wee bit +conseederation to the Government surveyor just kept things square. Weel, +when the diggins opened, some of them sold out and made a fortune. Awfu’ +place thae diggins, I hae paid four shillin’ a pound for salt mysel’, and +as for speerits, they were just fair contraband. + +“And the weemen. Aye, I mind the time, but ye’ll hae seen the Circassian +weemen aboot Africa. Weel, weel, I’m no saying it’s not the case, but +folk allow that yon Circassians are the finest weemen upon earth. Whiles +I hae seen some tae, at fairs, ye ken, in the bit boothies, but to my +mind there’s naething like the Maories, especially the half-casted yins, +clean-limbed, nigh on six feet high the maist o’ them. Ye’ll no ken +Geordie Telfer, him that was a sojer, he’s got a bit place o’ his ain out +by Milngavie. Geordie’s aye bragging, bostin’ aboot weemen that he’s +seen in foreign pairts. He just is of opeenion that in Cashmere or +thereaboots there is the finest weemen in the warld. Black, na, na, +laird, just a wee toned and awfu’ tall, ye ken. Geordie he says that +Alexander the Great was up aboot Cashmere and that his sojers, Spartans I +think they ca’ed them, just intromitted wi’ the native weemen, took them, +perhaps, for concubines, as the Scriptures say; but ye’ll ken sojers, +laird; Solomon, tae, an awfu’ chiel yon Solomon. The Maori men were na +blate either, a’ ower sax fut high, some nigh on seven fut, sure as +death, I’m tellin’ ye. Bonny wrestlers, tae; man, Donald Dinnie got an +unco tirl wi’ ane o’ them aboot Dunedin, leastwise if it wasna Dinnie, it +was Donald Grant or Donald McKenzie, or ane of they champions frae Easter +Ross. Sweir to sell their land tae they chaps, I mind the Government +sent out old Sir George Grey, a wise-like man, Sir George, ane o’ they +filantrofists. Weel, he just talkit to them, ca’ed them his children, +and said that they shouldna resist legeetimate authority. Man, a wee +wiry fella’, he was the licht-weight champion wrestler at Tiki-Tiki, just +up and said, ‘Aye, aye, Sir George,’ though he wasna gi’en him Sir +George, but just some native name they had for him, ‘we’re a’ your +children, but no sic children as to gie our land for naething.’ Sir +George turnit the colour of a neep, ane o’ yon swedes, ye ken, and said +nae mair.” + +“How did they manage it?” + +“The Government just arranged matters wi’ the chiefs. Bribery, weel a’ +weel, I’ll no gae sae far as to impute ony corruption on them, but a +Government, a Government, ye ken, is very apt to hae its way. + +“Dam’t, ’twas a fine country, a pairfect pairadise. I mind aince going +oot with Captin Brigstock, Hell-fire Jock they ca’ed him, after they +bushrangers. There was ane Morgan frae Australlia bail’t up a wheen +folks, and dam’t, says Captin Brigstock, ye’ll hae to come, Campbell. +Shot him, yes, authority must be respected, and the majesty o’ law +properly vendeecated, or else things dinna thrive. It was in a wood of +gora-gora we came on him about the mouth of day. Morgan, ye ken, was +boiling a billy in a sort o’ wee clearin’, his horse tied to a tree close +by, when Brigstock and the others came upon him. Brigstock just shouted +in the name o’ the law and then let fly. Morgan, he fell across the +fire, and when we all came up says he, ‘Hell-fire, ye didna gie me ony +chance,’ and the blood spouted from his mouth into the boiling pan. + +“Deid, ’oo aye, deid as Rob Roy. I dinna care to mind it. But a fine +life, laird, nae slavin’ at the plough, but every ane goin’ aboot on +horseback; and the bonny wee bit wooden huts, the folk no fashed wi’ +furniture, but sittin’ doon to tak’ their tea upon the floor wi’ their +backs against the wall. That’s why they ca’ed them squatters. They talk +aboot Australlia and America, but if it hadna been for the old folks I +would hae made my hame aboot a place ca’ed Paratanga, and hae taken up +with ane o’ they Maori girls, or maybe a half-caste. Married, weel, I +widna say I hae gane to such a length. Dam’t, a braw country, laird, a +pairfect pairadise, I’m telling ye;” and then the rain grew thicker, and +seemed to come between us as he plodded on towards the “toon.” + + + + +VICTORY + + +RANKS upon ranks of rastaquoères, Brazilians, Roumanians, Russians, +Bulgarians, with battalions of Americans, all seated round the “piazza” +of the Grand Hotel. Ladies from Boston, Chicago, and New York, their +heels too high, their petticoats too much belaced, their Empire combs +bediamonded so as to look almost like cut-glass chandeliers, as in their +chairs they sat and read the latest news from Tampa, Santiago, and how +Cervera’s Squadron met the fate which they (the ladies) reckoned God +prepares for those who dare to fight against superior odds. + +Outside upon the boulevards, cocottes, guides, cabmen, and androgynous +young men, touts, and all those who hang about that caravansary where the +dulcet Suffolk whine, made sharper by the air of Massachusetts, sounds, +passed and repassed. + +Smug-faced, black-coated citizens from Buffalo and Albany, and from +places like Detroit and Council Bluffs, to which the breath of fashion +has not penetrated, scanned the _New York Herald_, read the glorious +news, and, taking off their hats, deigned publicly to recognize the +existence of a God, and after standing reverently silent, masticating +their green cigars in contemplation of His wondrous ways, to take a +drink. + +Aquatic plants and ferns known only to hotels, and constituting a +sub-family of plants, which by the survival of the ugliest have come at +last to stand gas, dust, saliva, and an air befogged with Chypre, grew in +the fountain where, in the tepid water, gold fish with swollen eyes, and +blotched with patches of unhealthy white, swam to and fro, picking up +crumbs and rising to the surface when some one threw a smoked-out +cigarette into the basin, in the midst of which a fig-leaved Naiad held a +stucco shell. + +The corridors were blocked with Saratoga trunks; perspiring porters +staggered to and fro, bending beneath the weight of burdens compared to +which a sailor’s chest is as a pill-box. + +All went well; the tapes clicked off their international lies, detailing +all the last quotations of the deep mines upon the Rand, the fall in +Spanish Fours; in fact, brought home to those with eyes to see, the way +in which the Stock Exchange had put a rascals’ ring around the globe. + +Waiters ran to and fro, their ears attuned to every outrage upon French, +seeking to find the meaning of the jargons in which they were addressed. + +Majestic butlers in black knee-breeches, and girt about the neck with +great brass chains, moved slowly up and down, so grave and so respectable +that had you laid your hands upon any one of them and made a bishop of +him he would have graced the post. + +Mysterious, well-dressed men sat down beside you, and after a few words +proposed to take you in the evening to show you something new. + +Women walked to and fro, glaring at one another as they had all been +tigresses, or again, catching each other’s eyes, reddened, and looked +ashamed, as if aware, though strangers, that they understood the workings +of the other’s heart. + +Burano chandeliers and modern tapestry, with red brocade on the two +well-upholstered chairs, imparted beauty and a look of wealth, making one +feel as if by striking an electric bell a door would open and a troop of +half-dressed women file into the court, after the fashion of another kind +of inn. + +Outside the courtyard Paris roared, chattered, and yelped, cycles and +automobiles made the poor _piéton’s_ life a misery, and set one thinking +how inferior after all the Mind which thought out Eden was to our own. + +Upon the asphalt the horizontales lounged along, pushing against the +likely-looking passer-by like cats against a chair. + +Cabs rattled, and the whole _clinquant_ town wore its best air of +unreality, which it puts off alone upon the morning of a revolution. + +Through boulevards, parvis, cités, along the quays, in the vast open +spaces which, like Saharas of grey stone, make the town desolate, in +cafés, brothels, theatres, in church and studio, and wherever men most +congregate, groups stood about reading the news, gesticulating, weeping, +perspiring, and agog with a half-impotent enthusiastic orgasm of wildest +admiration for Spain, Cervera, and the men who without bunkum or illusion +steamed to certain death. And, curiously enough, the execration fell not +so much upon Chicago as on “ces cochons d’Anglais,” who by their base +connivance had wrought the ruin of the Spanish cause. + +Yankees themselves read and remarked with sneers that England’s turn was +coming next, and after “Kewby,” that they reckoned to drag the British +flag through every dunghill in New York; then one winked furtively and +said, “We need them now, but afterwards we’ll show Victoria in a cage for +a picayune a peep, and teach the Britishers what to do with their old +Union Jack,” thinking no doubt of the ten-cent paper which is sold in +every city of the States, stamped with the Spanish flag. + +And as I sat, musing on things and others—thinking, for instance, that +when you scratch a man and see his blood you know his nature by the way +he bears his wound, and that the Spaniards, wounded to the death, were +dying game (after the fashion of the English in times gone by, before +Imperialism, before the Nonconformist snuffle, the sweating system, and +the rest had changed our nature), and that the Yankees at the first touch +cried out like curs, though they had money, numbers, and everything upon +their side—I fell a-thinking on the Spain of old. Inigo Lopez de +Mendoza, el Gran Capitan, Cortes (not at the siege of Mexico, but in the +rout before Algiers) came up before me, and I thought on the long +warfare, extending over seven hundred years, by which Spain saved the +southern half of Europe from the Moors; upon Gerona, Zaragoza, and, most +of all, upon Cervera, last of the Quixotes, Vara de Rey, Linares, and the +poor peasants from Galician hills, thyme-scented wastes in Lower Aragon, +Asturian mountains, and Estremenian oak-woods, who, battling against +superior numbers, short of food, of ammunition, and bereft of hope, were +proving their descent from the grim soldiers of the Spanish “Tercios” of +the Middle Ages, and making the invaders of their country pay for their +piracy in blood. + +Blood is the conqueror’s coin the whole world over, and if the island +which Columbus found for Spain pass into other hands, let those who take +it pour out their blood like water to inaugurate their reign of peace. + +Where the connection between the senses and the brain comes in, which +influences first, and how, or whether a wise Providence, always upon His +guard (after the fashion of an operator in a Punch and Judy show), +influences each man directly, as by celestial thought suggestion, I +cannot tell. + +All that I know is, that once walking on the rampart gardens which in +Cadiz overhang the sea and form the outside rim of the “Taza de Plata,” +as the Spaniards call the town, I on a sudden saw the River Plate. The +Gauchos, plains, wild horses, the stony wastes, the ostriches (the +“Alegria del Desierto”), came up before me, and in especial a certain +pass over a little river called the Gualiyan; the sandy dip, the +metallic-looking trees, the greenish river with the flamingoes and white +herons and the black-headed swans; the vultures sitting motionless on the +dead trees, and most of all the penetrating scent of the mimosa, known to +the natives as the “espinillo de olor.” + +Turning and wondering why, I saw a stunted tree with yellow blossoms duly +ticketed with its description “Mimosa” this or that, and with its +“habitat” the warmer district of the River Plate. + +I leave these things to wise philosophers and to those men of science who +seem to think mankind is worth the martyrdom of living dogs and cats; or +who, maybe, drag out the entrails of their quivering fellow-mortals +merely to stimulate their senses or erotic powers. + +But the “dwawm” over, looking about, fenced in by swarms of overjoyed +Americans, all talking shrilly, reading out the news, exultant at the +triumph of their fleet, puffed up and arrogant as only the descendants of +the Puritans can be, I saw a Spaniard sitting with his daughter, a girl +about nineteen. + +Himself a Castellano rancio, silent and grave, dressed all in black, +moustache waxed to a point, square little feet like boxes, brown little +hands, face like mahogany, hair cropped close, and with the unillusional +fatalistic air of worldly wisdom mixed with simplicity which +characterizes Spaniards of the older school. + +Being a Christian, he spoke no tongue but that which Christians use, was +proud of it, proud of his ignorance, proud (I have no doubt) of his +descent. + +No doubt he saw everything through the clear dazzling atmosphere of old +Castille, which Spaniards of his kind seem to condense and carry off with +them for use in other climes. + +Seeing so clearly, he saw nothing clear, for the intelligence of man is +so contrived as to be ineffective if a mist of some sort is not +interposed. + +The daughter fair, fair with the fairness of a Southern, blue-eyed, and +skin like biscuit china, hands and feet fine, head well set on, and yet +with the decided gestures and incisive speech, the “aire recio,” and the +“meneo” of the hips in walking, of the women of her race. + +They sat some time before a pile of newspapers, the father smoking +gravely, taking down the smoke as he were drinking it, and then in a few +minutes breathing it out to serve as an embellishment to what he said, +holding his cigarette meanwhile fixed in a little silver instrument +contrived like two clasped hands. + +The Spanish newspapers were, of course, all without news, or said they +had none, and as the daughter read, the old man punctuated with +“Valiente,” “Pobrecitas,” and the like, when he heard how before El +Caney, Vara de Rey had died, or how the Americans had shot the three +Sisters of the Poor whose bodies were found lying with lint and medicine +in their hands. + +“Read me the papers of the Americans, hija de mi corazon,” and she began, +translating as she read. + +Reading of the whole agony, choking but self-possessed, she read: the +_Vizcaya_, _Almirante Oquendo_, and the rest; the death of Villamil, he +who at least redeemed the promise made to the Mother of his God in Cadiz +before he put to sea. + +And as she read the old man gave no sign, sitting impassive as a fakir, +or like an Indian warrior at the stake. + +She went on reading; the fleet steamed through the hell of shot and +shell, took fire, was beached, blew up, and still he gave no sign. + +Cervera steps on board the conqueror’s ship, weeping, gives up his sword, +and the old man sat still. + +When all was finished, and the last vessel burning on the rocks, slowly +the tears fell down his old brown cheeks, and he broke silence. “Virgen +de Guadalupe, has not one escaped?” and the girl, looking at him through +her now misty eyes, “No, papa, God has so willed it. . . . What is wrong +with your moustache?” + +Then, with an effort, he took down his grief, said quietly, “I must +change my hairdresser,” got up, and offering his daughter his arm, walked +out impassible, through the thick ranks of the defeated foe. + + + + +ROTHENBERGER’S WEDDING + + +SHORT and broad-shouldered, with the flaxen hair and porcelain-coloured +eyes of the true man of Kiel or Koenigsberg, Dr. Karl Rothenberger prided +himself on being a townsman of the Great Kant, “who make the critique of +pure sense.” For him in vain the modern mystic spread his nets; his +mass, his psychological research, his ethics based on the saving of his +own gelatinous soul, said nothing to the man of Koenigsberg. His work to +minister by electricity to the rheumatic, the gouty; to those who had +loved perhaps well, but certainly in a vicarious and post-prandial +fashion; his passion fishing with a float; a “goode felawe,” not too +refined, but yet well educated; his literary taste bounded by idealistic +novels about materialistic folk, and the drum-taps of the bards of +Anglo-Saxon militarism; the doctor looked on the world as a vast +operating theatre, sparing not even his own foibles in his diagnosis of +mankind. All sentiment he held if not accursed, yet as superfluous, and +though he did not pride himself exactly on his opinions, knowing them +well to be but the result of education, and of a few molecules of iron, +more or less, in the composition of his blood, yet would deliver them to +all and sundry, as he were lecturing to students in a university. Women +he held inferior to men, as really do almost all men, although they fear +to say so; but again, he said, “de womens they have occupy my mind since +I was eighteen years.” + +So after many wanderings in divers lands, he came, as wise men will, to +London, and set up his household gods in a vast plane-tree-planted square +(with cat ground in the middle called a garden), and of which the +residents each had a key, but never walked in, sat in, or used in any +way, though all of them would have gone to the stake rather than see a +member of the public enter into its sacred precincts, or a stray child +play in it, unless attended by a nurse. + +Honours and fees fell thick on Rothenberger, and he became greatly +belettered, member of many a learned, dull society. He duly purchased a +degree; and squares and crescents quite a mile away sent out their +patients, and were filled with the sonorous glory of his name. One thing +was wanting, and that one thing troubled him not a little; but he yet saw +it was inevitable if he would rise to Harley Street or Saville Row, and +the sleek pair of horses which (without bearing-reins) testify to a +doctor’s status in the scientific world. A wife, or as he said, a “real +legitimate,” to prove to all his patients that he was a moral man. +Strange that the domestic arrangements of a public man should militate +for or against him; but so it is, at least in England, where even if a +man cheat and spread ruin to thousands, yet he may find apologists, +chiefly, of course, amongst that portion of the public who have not +suffered by his delinquencies, so that his life be what is known as pure. +Morals and purity in our group of islands seem to condone drunkenness, +lies, and even theft (so that the sum stolen be large enough), and to +have crystallized themselves into a censorship of precisely the very +thing as to which no man or woman has the right to call another to +account. + +So Rothenberger, looking about for a vessel by means of which to purify +himself (and push his business), lit on a girl with money, living, as he +said, “oot by Hampstead way;” went through the process known as courting, +in a mixture of German and of English, eked out with Plaat-Deutsch, and +finally induced the lady to fix the day on which to make him pure. +Science and business jointly having so taken up his time that he had +learnt but little English, he was at some loss, and left arrangements to +the family of his intended wife. + +Not knowing English customs, he had written asking in what costume he +should appear on the great day, and received a letter telling him to make +his appearance at the church duly dressed in a tall hat, light trousers, +and a new frock coat. Frock coat he read as “frac,” and ordered wedding +garments such as he thought suitable, with the addition of a brand-new +evening coat. The wedding breakfast having been ordered at the Hotel +Metropole, he there transferred himself, proposing to pass the night +before his final entry into moral life quietly and decently, as befits +one about to change his state. But as he said, “God or some other thing +was of another mind,” for when I was arriving at the place, mein head +feel heavy, and I was out of sorts, and when I ring the bell, a housemaid +answer it wit a hot-water jug, and came into the room. Himmel, what for +a girl, black hair like horse’s tail, great glear plue eyes, and tall and +fat, it was a miracle. I fall in love wit her almost at once, but I say +nothings, only wink little at her with my eye. All the night long I +could not schleep, thinking part of the housemaid, part of mein wife, and +part if perhaps I was not going to do a very silly ding. When it was +morning I have quite forgot the church, but still remember what the +clergyman was like. So I go to the porter (he was a landsman of my own), +and ask him to get me a cab, and then explain, I was to be married oot by +Hampstead way, that morning at eleven and half o’clock. The porter say +what church shall I tell the schelm to drive to, but mein Got I have +forgot. So I say, go to Hampstead, and I will go to all the churches and +ask if a German is to be married, till I find the right one out. The +cabman think that I was mad, and I get into the cab dressed in clear +trousers, white waistcoat, and plue necktie, mit little spot; shiny new +boots that hurt me very much; with yellow gloves three-quarter-eight in +size, and with my new “frac” coat, so that I think myself, eh, +Rothenberger, was that really you? The cabman wink mit de porter, and we +start away. We drive and drive, first to one church and then another, +and I always ask, is it in this church that a German is to be marry at +half twelve o’clock? Dey grin at me, and every one say no. De dime +approach, and I was sweating in the cab, not knowing what they say if at +half twelve o’clock I not turn up to time. At last looking out from the +window I see the clergyman walking along the street mit a big hymnbook in +his hand. I cry to him, Ach Himmel, it is I, Karl Rothenberger, that you +must marry at half twelve o’clock. He stop, and shomp into the cab, and +then we drive to church. + +All was so glad to see me, for I hear one say, I thought the German must +have change his mind. I ran into the church, and my wife say, What for a +costume is it that you have? Frock coat and clear grey pants, dat is not +wedding dress; so I say I know dat, but why you write to me, mind and buy +a new “frac coat”? + +They mumble out their stuff, and when the clergyman ask me if I want this +woman for mein wife, I say, all right, and all the people laugh like +everythings. Then when he say, I, Karl, do promise and etcetera, I say, +dat is so, and de people laugh again. At last it all was done, and we +drive off to the hotel to have the breakfast, and mein wife look +beautiful in her new travelling dress. At the hotel the company was met, +and I go up to mein apartment to change the dam frac coat, to wash mein +hands, and put a little brillantine on my moustache, whilst mein wife mit +the bridesmaids go to another room, and all the company was waiting down +below. + +I want hot water, so I rang the bell, and the stout pretta chambermaid +she bring it in a jug. How the thing pass I never knew till now, but I +wink at her, and she laugh, and then—she put down the jug, just for a +moment,—for the company, mein wife, her father, and the bridesmaids, all +was waiting down below. So I come down and make mein speech, talk to the +bridesmaids, and we eat like anythings, and then we drive away to pass +our honeymoon, and somehow I feel mein head much lighter than before. +Marriage is good for man, it sober him, it bring him business, and it +bring him children, and . . . I am happy mit my wife . . . The +housemaid, oh yes, ach Got, I hear that some one take from the place to +live mit him, and it is not a wonder, for she was so tall, so stout, have +such black hair, and such great eyes, it was a pity that she spend her +life answering the bell, and bringing up hot water in a jug. + + + + +LA CLEMENZA DE TITO + + +THE hotel paper had a somewhat misguiding “Comfort” as its telegraphic +address. Upon the walls were reproductions of sporting prints by Leech, +depicting scions of the British aristocracy taking their pleasures not so +very sadly after all, and easily demonstrating their superiority to +several smock-frocked rustics by galloping close past them, and shouting +“Tally-ho,” holding their left ear between their thumb and finger to +emphasize the note. Apollinaris and whisky splits, Fritz Rupprecht’s +“Special,” with other advertisements of a like nature, filled up the +blanks between the oleographs. _Iron and Commerce_, with the _Cook’s +Excursionist and Engineering_, lay untouched upon the tables, serving to +show that if some books be not real books at all, there are newspapers +which are, as it were, but dummies, holding no police news, football +specials, murders, assaults on women, divorce cases, and other items +which the educated public naturally expects within their sheets. +Slipshod and futile, but attentive German waiters, went about bringing +hot whisky, whisky and soda, whisky and lemonade, and whisky neat to the +belated customers. Upon the tables glasses had made great rings, +commercial travellers had left their pigskin satchels in a heap, and, by +the fire, a group of travellers sat silently drinking after the Scottish +fashion, and spitting in the grate. Twelve o’clock, half-past twelve, +then one by one they dropped away murmuring good-night, and setting down +their glasses with an air of having worked manfully for a good night’s +repose. + +Still I sat on gazing into the fire, and almost unaware that on the other +side sat a companion of my vigil, till at last he said, “Do you know +Yambo, sir?” and to my vague assent rejoined, “Yambo on the Arabian +coast, just opposite Hodeida, where vessels in the pilgrim trade +discharge their ‘niggers.’ It’s the port for Mecca, that is, the +‘Sambaks’ used to put in there, but now we do the traffic right from +Mogador.” I looked with interest at the man, liking his Demosthenic +style of opening remarks. Tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in navy +blue, boots like small packing-cases, and a green necktie in which was +stuck a cairngorm pin; he wore a silver watch-chain with a small +steering-wheel attached to it; not quite a sailor, yet a look of the sea +about his clothes; he had a face open and innocent, yet wrinkled round +the eyes like a young elephant, and struck me as being, perhaps not +foolish, certainly not wise, but with a tinge of worldly wisdom gathered +in seaport towns, at music-halls, and other places where those who go +down to the sea in ships gain their experience of life. “Yambo,” I said; +“I thought that Jeddah was the port the pilgrims landed at.” “Well, so +it is,” he said, “but I was thinking about Yambo, been there a many +times, used to run arms for the tribes to fight the Turks, when I was +fourth engineer in the old _Pyramus_. Yes, yes, I’ve been at sea most +all my life, though my old dad keeps a slap-up hotel at +Weston-super-Mare. No need to go to sea, no, but you know some folks +would go to hell for pleasure, and I suppose I’m one. Dad, you know—now +were you ever at Weston-super-Mare?—is fond of literature, does a bit +himself, Chambers you know; mostly upon the conchology and the fossils of +the South Devon coast; awfully fond of it, and so am I, nothing I like +better than, after getting out of the engine-room, to lie on deck and +read one of Bulwer’s books or Dickens’s, both of them stunning. No, I +never write myself. Can’t make out what set me thinking about Yambo. +What! you won’t? Well, waiter, waiter, Garçong, as we used to say at +Suez, another whisky, slippy, you know. I’ve always been a temperate +man, but like a nightcap before turning in. Perim ain’t so far off from +Yambo; ah yes, now I remember what it was I had to say. You know them +Galla girls? prime, ain’t they? But Perim, I remember being Shanghaied +there, nothing to do, a beastly hole; sand, beastly, gets in your socks, +gets in your hair, makes you feel dirty, no matter how you wash. Well, +you know, there were about two hundred of us there, some kind of +Government work was going on, and I was left there out of my ship, kind +of loaned off, you see, to help the Johnnies at the condensing works. +I’ve been at Suez, Yambo as I told you, Rangoon, down at Talcahuano on +the Chilean coast, wrecked in Smythe’s Channel, and been about a bit, but +Perim fairly takes the cake, not even a sheet of blotting-paper between +it and hell. As I was saying, then, we were cooped up, and not a woman +in the place; even the Government saw it at last, thought maybe worse +would happen if they did nothing, and sent and got six of them Galla +girls. Leastwise, if they didn’t send for them, they let a Levantine, +Mirandy was his name, introduce them on the strict Q.T. Well, you know, +the thing was like this, sir—you know them Galla girls, black as a boot +and skins always as cool as ice, even in a khamsin; some people says they +are better than white girls; but not in mine; but anyhow they’ve got no +‘Bookay d’Afreek’ about them, it always turns me sick. As I was saying, +I thought I’d have a ‘pasear’ one evening, so I lemonaded up to the +‘Mansion,’ and began talking to one of them girls, sort of to pass the +time. Serpent upon the rocks, eh? well, that old Solomon knew something +about girls. Now here comes in the curious thing, it always strikes me +just as if I’d read it in a book; Dickens now or Thackeray could have +’andled it, Bulwer would ’ave made it a little loosious. Just as the gal +was taking off her things—oh, no offence, captain, I’m telling you the +thing just as it happened—I saw she had a crucifix a-hanging round her +neck. Papist? Oh no, not much; father, he sat under Rev. Hiles +Hitchens, light of the Congregationalists. No, no, nothing to do with +Rome, never could bear the influence of the confessor in a family. A +little free myself, especially below latitude forty, but at ’ome and in +the family I like things ship-shape. Well, as I said, round her black +neck she had a silver crucifix, contrast of colour made the thing stand +out double the size. Ses I, ‘What’s that?’ and she says, ‘Klistian girl, +Johnny, me Klistian all the same you.’ That was a stopper over all, and +I just reached for my hat, says, ‘Klistian are yer,’ and I gave her two +of them Spanish dollars and a kiss, and quit the place. What did she +say? Why, nothing, looked at me and laughed, and says, ‘You Klistian, +Johnny, plenty much damn fool.’ No, I don’t know what she meant, I done +my duty, and that’s all I am concerned about. + +“Another half, just a split whisky and Apollinaris. Well, if you won’t, +good-night;” and the door slammed, leaving me gazing at the +fast-blackening fire. + + + + +SOHAIL + + +SOHAIL is the Arabic name of the star Canopus, to which a curious belief +belongs. It appears that in some fashion, known alone to Allah, the fate +of the Arab race is bound up with the star. Where it sheds its light +their empire flourishes, and there alone. Wherefore or why the thing is +so, no true believer seems to know, but that it is so he is well aware, +and that suffices him. + +Questionings and doubts, changes of costume and religion, striving for +ideals, improvements, telegraphs and telephones, are well enough for +Christians, whose lives are passed in hurry and in hunting after gold. +For those who have changed but little for the last two thousand years, in +dress, in faith and customs, it is enough to know it is a talismanic +star. Let star-gazers and those who deal in books, dub the star Alpha +(or Beta) Argo, it is all one to Arabs. If you question knowledge, say +the Easterns, it falls from its estate. If this is so the empiric method +has much to answer for. Knowledge and virtue and a horse’s mouth should +not pass through too many hands. Knowledge is absolute, and even +argument but dulls it, and strips it of its authenticity, as the bloom of +a ripe peach is lost, almost by looking on it. + +Of one thing there can be no doubt. When in the Yemen, ages before the +first historian penned the fable known as history, the Arabs, watching +their flocks, observed Sohail, it seems to have struck them as a star +differing from all the rest. + +Al-Makkari writes of it on several occasions. The Dervish Abderahman +Sufi of Rai, in his _Introduction to the Starry Heavens_, remarks that, +at the feet of Sohail is seen, in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, a “curious +white spot.” The “curious white spot” astronomers have thought to be the +greater of the two Magellan clouds. Perhaps it is so, but I doubt if the +Arabs, as a race, were concerned about the matter, so that they saw the +star. + +From wandering warring tribes Mohammed made a nation of them. Mohammed +died and joined the wife in paradise, of whom he said, “By Allah, she +shall sit at my right hand, because when all men laughed she clave to +me.” Then came Othman, Ali, and the rest, and led them into other lands, +to Irak, Damascus, El Hind, to Ifrikia, lastly to Spain, and still their +empire waxed, even across the “black waters” of the seas, and still +Sohail was there to shine upon them. In the great adventure, one of the +few in which a people has engaged; when first Tarik landed his Berbers on +the rock which bears his name; at the battle on the Guadalete where the +king, Don Roderick, disappeared from the eyes of men, leaving his golden +sandals by a stream; to Seville, Cordoba, and Murcia, the land of Teodmir +ben Gobdos, to which the Arabs gave the name of Masr, right up to +Zaragoza, Sohail accompanied the host. A curious host it must have been +with Muza riding on a mule, and with but two-and-twenty camels to carry +all its baggage. From Jativa to Huesca of the Bell, where King Ramiro, +at the instigation of Abbot Frotardo (a learned man), cut off his nobles’ +heads as they were poppies in a field, they followed it across the +Pyrenees, halting at the spot where from his “Camp in Aquitaine” Muza +dispatched a messenger to Rome to tell the Pope that he was coming to +take him by the beard if he refused Islam. Then the wise men (who always +march with armies), looking aloft at night, declared the star was lost. +Although they smote the Christian dogs, taking their lands, their +daughters, horses, and their gold, on several occasions as Allah willed +it, yet victory was not so stable as in Spain. Perhaps beyond the +mountains their spirits fell from lack of sun, or their horses sickened +in the fat plains of France. + +Then the conquering tide had spent itself and flowed back into Spain; at +Zaragoza the first Moorish kingdom rose. Al-Makkari writes that at that +time Sohail was visible in Upper Aragon, but low on the horizon. Again +the Christians conquered, and the royal race of Aben Hud fled from the +city. Ibn Jaldun relates that, shortly afterwards, Sohail became +invisible from Aragon. The Cid, Rodrigo Diaz, he of Vivar (may God +remember him), prevailed against Valencia, and from thence the star, +indignant, took its departure. And so of Jativa, Beni Carlo, and +Alpuixech. + +Little by little Elche, with its palm-woods, and even Murcia bade it +good-bye, as one by one, in the centuries of strife, the Christians in +succession conquered each one of them. At last the belief gained ground +that, only at one place in Spain, called from the circumstance Sohail, +could the star be seen. At Fuengirola, between Malaga and Marbella, +still stands the little town the Arabs called Sohail, lost amongst +sand-hills, looking across at Africa, of which it seems to form a part; +cactus and olive, cane-brake and date palms, its chiefest vegetation; in +summer, hot as Bagdad, in winter, sheltered from the winds which come +from Christendom by the Sierras of the Alpujarra and Segura. Surely +there the star would stop, and let the Arab power flourish under its +influence, and there for centuries it did stand stationary. The City of +the Pomegranate was founded, the Alhambra, with its brilliant court, the +Generalife; and poets, travellers, and men of science gathered at +Granada, Cordoba, and at Isbilieh. Ab-Motacim, the poet king of Cordoba, +planted the hills with almond trees, to give the effect of snow, which +Romaiquia longed for. He wrote his _Kasidas_, and filled the courtyard +full of spices and sugar for his queen to trample on, when she saw the +women of the brick-makers kneading the clay with naked feet, and found +her riches but a burden to her. Averroes and Avicenna, the doctors of +medicine and of law, laid down their foolish rules of practice and of +conduct, and all went well. Medina-el-Azahra, now a pile of stones where +shepherds sleep or make believe to watch their sheep, where once the +Caliph entertained the ambassador from Constantinople, showing him the +golden basin full of quicksilver, “like a great ocean,” rose from the +arid hills, and seemed eternal. Allah appeared to smile upon his people, +and in proof of it let his star shine. Jehovah though was jealous. A +jealous God, evolved by Jews and taken upon trust by Christians, could +not endure the empire of Islam. Again town after town was conquered, +Baeza, Loja, Antequera, Guadix and Velez-Malaga, even Alhama (Woe is me, +Alhama), lastly Granada. Then came the kingdom of the Alpujarra, with +the persecutions and the rebellions, Arabs and Christians fighting like +wolves and torturing one another for the love of their respective Gods. +Yet the star lingered on at Fuengirola, and whilst it still was seen hope +was not lost. A century elapsed, and from Gibraltar—from the spot where +first they landed—the last Moors embarked. In Spain, where once they +ruled from Jaca to Tarifa, no Moor was left. Perhaps about the mountain +villages of Ronda a few remained, but christianized by force, the sword +and faggot ever the best spurs to the true faith. But they were not the +folk to think of stars or legends, so that no one (of the true faith) +could say whether Sohail still lingered over Spain. + +Trains, telegraphs, and phonographs, elections and debates in parliament, +with clothes unsuited to the people they deform, give a false air of +Europe to the land. The palm-trees, cactus, canes, and olives, the tapia +walls, the women’s walk and eyes, the horses’ paces, and the fatalistic +air which hangs on everything, give them the lie direct. The empire of +the Arabs, though departed, yet retains its hold. The hands that built +the mosque at Cordoba, the Giralda, the Alhambra, and almost every parish +church in Southern Spain, from ruined aqueduct and mosque, sign to the +Christian half derisively. So all the land from the gaunt northern +mountains to the hot swamps along the Guad-el-Kebir (stretching from +Seville to San Lucar) is part of Africa. The reasons are set forth +lengthily by the ethnographers, economists, and the grave foolish rout of +those who write for people who know nothing, of what they do not +understand themselves. + +But the star’s lingering is the real cause, and whilst it lingers things +can never really go on in Spain as they go on in England, where gloom +obscures all stars. The Arabs, issuing from the desert like the khamsin, +came, conquered, and possessed, their star shone on them, and its rays +sank deep into the land. Their empire waned, and they, retreating, +disappeared into the sands from whence they sprang. Spain knows them +not, but yet their influence remains. Only at Cadiz can the talisman be +seen, shining low down on the horizon, and still waiting till the +precession of the equinoxes takes it across the Straits. Let it recross, +and shine upon the old wild life of the vast plains, upon the horsemen +flying on the sands, whirling and circling like gulls, whilst the veiled +women raise the joyous cry which pierces ears and soul; upon the solemn +stately men who sit and look at nothing all a summer’s day, and above all +upon the waveless inland sea men call the Sahara. + +There may it shine for ever on the life unchanged since the Moalakat, +when first the rude astronomers observed the talisman and framed the +legend on some starry night, all seated on the ground. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + * * * * * + + RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON & BUNGAY. + + * * * * * + + + + +NOTES. + + +{20} A redomon is a half-tamed horse. + +{26} Hydrochoerus capybara. + +{32} The Gauchos often lay a deer-skin on their saddles, and wear boots +made of deer-skin, alleging that serpents are afraid to touch them. + +{46} Accustomed pasture. + +{51} The Brazilians call the tapir “O gran besta.” The Guarani word is +Mborebi. + +{52} Potrero is a fenced pasture, from “potro,” a colt. + +{54a} “Matto” is a wood in Portuguese, and at these two Mattos, +tradition says, the rival armies had encamped. + +{54b} Except for the Gaelic “larach,” I know no word in any language +which exactly corresponds to “tapera,” as indicating the foundations of a +house grassed over. + +{56a} Called _Superior de las misiones_. + +{56b} Feliz de Azara, _Description y Historia del Paraguay_. + +{56c} Es menester convenir, en que aunque los padres manda ban alli en +todo, usaron de su autoridad con una suavidad y moderacion que no puede +menos de admirarse.—Azara, _Historia del Paraguay_, Tom. 1, p. 282: +Madrid 1847. + +{60a} Piptadenia communis. + +{60b} Acacia maleolens. + +{60c} Vitex Taruma. + +{60d} Genipa Americana. + +{62} “Estero” is the word used in Paraguay for a marsh. These marshes +are generally hard at the bottom, so that you splash through them for +leagues without danger, though the water is often up to the horse’s +girths. + +{63a} Alazan tostado antes muerto que cansado. The Arabs think highly +of the dark chestnut. See the Emir Abdul Kader on Horsemanship. + +{63b} The Yatai is a dwarf palm. It is the Cocos Yatais of botanists. + +{63c} Cattle-farm. + +{69} Cocos Australis. + +{78} Guazu is big, in Guarani. + +{131} It had a chorus reflecting upon convent discipline: + + “For though the convent rule was strict and tight, + She had her exits and her entrances by night.” + +{170a} “Medias hasta la berija +Con cada ojo como un charco, +Y cada ceja era un arco +Para correr la sortija.” + +{170b} “En un overo rosao, fletel lindo y parejito, +Cayo al bajo al trotecito, y lindamente sentao. +Un paisano del Bragao, de apelativo Laguna, +Mozo ginetazo ahijuna, como creo que no hay otro +Capaz a llevar un potro a sofrenarlo en la luna.” + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIRTEEN STORIES*** + + +******* This file should be named 48510-0.txt or 48510-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/8/5/1/48510 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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