Now That We Had One Of The Genuine Big
Ones Among Us It Would Perhaps Be Our Great Good Fortune
To witness a
real big fight; for sooner or later some champion duellist from a
distance would appear to challenge
Our man, or else some one of our
own neighbours would rise up one day to dispute his claim to be cock
of the walk. But nothing of the kind happened, although on two
occasions I thought the wished moment had come.
The first occasion was at a big gathering of gauchos when Barboza was
asked and graciously consented to sing a _decima_ - a song or ballad
consisting of four ten-line stanzas. Now Barboza was a singer but not
a player on the guitar, so that an accompanist had to be called for. A
stranger at the meeting quickly responded to the call. Yes, he could
play to any man's singing - any tune he liked to call. He was a big,
loud-voiced, talkative man, not known to any person present; he was a
passer-by, and seeing a crowd at a rancho had ridden up and joined
them, ready to take a hand in whatever work or games might be going
on. Taking the guitar he settled down by Barboza's side and began
tuning the instrument and discussing the question of the air to be
played. And this was soon settled.
Here I must pause to remark that Barboza, although almost as famous
for his _decimas_ as for his sanguinary duels, was not what one would
call a musical person.
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