Part 2
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.