Image in my mind which has never quite lost a certain disturbing
effect.
CHAPTER X
OUR NEAREST ENGLISH NEIGHBOUR
Casa Antigua, our nearest English neighbour's house - Old Lombardy
poplars - Cardoon thistle or wild artichoke - Mr. Royd, an English
sheep-farmer - Making sheep's-milk cheeses under difficulties - Mr.
Royd's native wife - The negro servants - The two daughters: a striking
contrast - The white blue-eyed child and her dusky playmate - A happy
family - Our visits to Casa Antigua - Gorgeous dinners - Estanislao and
his love of wild life - The Royds' return visits - A homemade carriage -
The gaucho's primitive conveyance - The happy home broken up.
One of the most important estancias in our neighbourhood, at all
events to us, was called Casa Antigua, and that it was an ancient
dwelling-place in that district appeared likely enough, since the
trees were the largest and had an appearance of extreme age. It must,
however, be remembered that in speaking of ancient things on the
pampas we mean things a century or two old, not many hundreds or
thousands of years as in Europe. Three centuries in that part of South
America takes us back to prehistoric times. These Lombardy poplars,
planted in long rows, were the largest I had seen: they were very
tall; many of them appeared to be dying of old age, and all had
enormous rough-barked buttressed trunks.
