Part 3

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.