And Some Of His Acts
Are Inexplicable, As For Instance The Public Execution In The
Interests Of Religion And Morality Of A Charming Young Lady Of Good
Family And Her Lover, The Handsome Young Priest Who Had Captivated The
Town With His Eloquence.
Why he did it will remain a puzzle for ever.
There were many other acts which to foreigners and
To those born in
later times might seem the result of insanity, but which were really
the outcome of a peculiar, sardonic, and somewhat primitive sense of
humour on his part which appeals powerfully to the men of the plains,
the gauchos, among whom Rosas lived from boyhood, when he ran away
from his father's house, and by whose aid he eventually rose to
supreme power.
All these things do not much affect the question of Rosas as a ruler
and his place in history. Time, the old god, says the poet, invests
all things with honour, and makes them white. The poet-prophet is not
to be taken literally, but his words so undoubtedly contain a
tremendous truth. And here, then, one may let the question rest. If
after half a century, and more, the old god is still sitting, chin on
hand, revolving this question, it would be as well to give him, say,
another fifty years to make up his mind and pronounce a final
judgment.
CHAPTER IX
OUR NEIGHBOURS AT THE POPLARS
Homes on the great green plain - Making the acquaintance of our
neighbours - The attraction of birds - Los Alamos and the old lady of
the house - Her treatment of St. Anthony - The strange Barboza family -
The man of blood - Great fighters - Barboza as a singer - A great quarrel
but no fight - A cattle-marking - Dona Lucia del Ombu - A feast - Barboza
sings and is insulted by El Rengo - Refuses to fight - The two kinds of
fighters - A poor little angel on horseback - My feeling for Anjelita -
Boys unable to express sympathy - A quarrel with a friend - Enduring
image of a little girl.
In a former chapter on the aspects of the plain I described the groves
and plantations, which marked the sites of the estancia houses, as
appearing like banks or islands of trees, blue in the distance, on the
vast flat sea-like plain. Some of these were many miles away and were
but faintly visible on the horizon, others nearer, and the nearest of
all was but two miles from us, on the hither side of that shallow
river to which my first long walk was taken, where I was amazed and
enchanted with my first sight of flamingoes. This place was called Los
Alamos, or The Poplars, a name which would have suited a large
majority of the estancia houses with trees growing about them, seeing
that the tall Lombardy poplar was almost always there in long rows
towering high above all other trees and a landmark in the district. It
is about the people dwelling at Los Alamos I have now to write.
When I first started on my riding rambles about the plain I began to
make the acquaintance of some of our nearest neighbours, but at first
it was a slow process. As a child I was excessively shy of strangers,
and I also greatly feared the big savage house-dogs that would rush
out to attack any one approaching the gate. But a house with a grove
or plantation fascinated me, for where there were trees there were
birds, and I had soon made the discovery that you could sometimes meet
with birds of a new kind in a plantation quite near to your own.
Little by little I found out that the people were invariably friendly
towards a small boy, even the child of an alien and heretic race; also
that the dogs in spite of all their noise and fury never really tried
to pull me off my horse and tear me to pieces. In this way, thinking
of and looking only for the birds, I became acquainted with some of
the people individually, and as I grew to know them better from year
to year I sometimes became interested in them too, and in this and
three or four succeeding chapters I will describe those I knew best or
that interested me the most. Not only as I first knew or began to know
them in my seventh year, but in several instances I shall be able to
trace their lives and fortunes for some years further on.
When out riding I went oftenest in the direction of Los Alamos, which
was west of us, or as the gauchos would say, "on the side where the
sun sets." For just behind the plantation, enclosed in its rows of
tall old poplars, was that bird-haunted stream which was an
irresistible attraction. The sight of running water, too, was a never-
failing joy, also the odours which greeted me in that moist green
place - odours earthy, herby, fishy, flowery, and even birdy,
particularly that peculiar musky odour given out on hot days by large
flocks of the glossy ibis.
The person - owner or tenant, I forget which - who lived in the house
was an old woman named Dona Pascuala, whom I never saw without a cigar
in her mouth. Her hair was white, and her thousand-wrinkled face was
as brown as the cigar, and she had fun-loving eyes, a loud
authoritative voice and a masterful manner, and she was esteemed by
her neighbours as a wise and good woman. I was shy of her and avoided
the house while anxious to get peeps into the plantation to watch the
birds and look for nests, as whenever she caught sight of me she would
not let me off without a sharp cross-examination as to my motives and
doings. She would also have a hundred questions besides about the
family, how they were, what they were all doing, and whether it was
really true that we drank coffee every morning for breakfast; also if
it was true that all of us children, even the girls, when big enough
were going to be taught to read the almanac.
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