Before Many Days She Left, With All Her Noisy Crowd Of Dogs And Birds And Daughters, And Of The Events Of The Succeeding Days And Weeks Nothing Remains In Memory Except One Exceedingly Vivid Impression - My First Sight Of A Beggar On Horseback.

It was by no means an uncommon sight in those days when, as the gauchos were accustomed to say,

A man without a horse was a man without legs; but it was new to me when one morning I saw a tall man on a tall horse ride up to our gate, accompanied by a boy of nine or ten on a pony. I was struck with the man's singular appearance, sitting upright and stiff in his saddle, staring straight before him. He had long grey hair and beard, and wore a tall straw hat shaped like an inverted flower-pot, with a narrow brim - a form of hat which had lately gone out of fashion among the natives but was still used by a few. Over his clothes he wore a red cloak or poncho, and heavy iron spurs on his feet, which were cased in the _botas de potro_, or long stockings made of a colt's untanned hide.

Arrived at the gate he shouted _Ave Maria purissima_ in a loud voice, then proceeded to give an account of himself, informing us that he was a blind man and obliged to subsist on the charity of his neighbours. They in their turn, he said, in providing him with all he required were only doing good to themselves, seeing that those who showed the greatest compassion towards their afflicted fellow-creatures were regarded with special favour by the Powers above.

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