That Was One Of The Images My Mind Received On That Adventurous Day Which Have Not Faded - The Long, Low,

Mud built house, standing on the wide, empty, treeless plain, with three ancient, half-dead, crooked acacia trees growing close

To it, and a little further away a corral or cattle-enclosure and a sheep-fold. It was a poor, naked, dreary- looking house without garden or shade, and I dare say a little English boy six years old would have smiled, a little incredulous, to be told that it was the residence of one of the principal land-owners in that part.

Then, as we have seen, I got my horse, and being delivered from the fear of evil-minded cows with long, sharp horns, I spent a good deal of my time on the plain, where I made the acquaintance of other small boys on horseback, who took me to their homes and introduced me to their people. In this way I came to be a visitor to that lonely- looking house on the other side of the river, and to know all the interesting people in it, including Don Evaristo himself, its lord and master. He was a middle-aged man at that date, of medium height, very white-skinned, with long black hair and full beard, straight nose, fine broad forehead, with large dark eyes. He was-slow and deliberate in all his movements, grave, dignified, and ceremonious in his manner and speech; but in spite of this lofty air he was known to have a sweet and gentle disposition and was friendly towards every one, even to small boys who are naturally naughty and a nuisance to their elders. And so it came about that even as a very small shy boy, a stranger in the house, I came to know that Don Evaristo was not one to be afraid of.

I hope that the reader, forgetting all he has learnt about the domestic life of the patriarchs of an older time, will not begin to feel disgusted at Don Evaristo when I proceed to say that he was the husband of six wives, all living with him at that same house. The first, the only one he had been permitted to marry in a church, was old as or rather older than himself; she was very dark and was getting wrinkles, and was the mother of several grown-up sons and daughters, some married. The others were of various ages, the youngest two about thirty; and these were twin sisters, both named Ascension, for they were both born on Ascension Day. So much alike were these Ascensions in face and figure that one day, when I was a big boy, I went into the house and finding one of the sisters there began relating something, when she was called out. Presently she came back, as I thought, and I went on with my story just where I had left off, and only when I saw the look of surprise and inquiry on her face did I discover that I was now talking to the other sister.

How was this man with six wives regarded by his neighbours? He was esteemed and beloved above most men in his position. If any person was in trouble or distress, or suffering from a wound or some secret malady, he would go to Don Evaristo for advice and assistance and for such remedies as he knew; and if he was sick unto death he would send for Don Evaristo to come to him to write down his last will and testament. For Don Evaristo knew his letters and had the reputation of a learned man among the gauchos. They considered him better than any one calling himself a doctor. I remember that his cure for shingles, a common and dangerous ailment in that region, was regarded as infallible. The malady took the form of an eruption, like erysipelas, on the middle of the body and extending round the waist till it formed a perfect zone. "If the zone is not complete I can cure the disease," Don Evaristo would say. He would send some one down to the river to procure a good-sized toad, then causing the patient to strip, he would take pen and ink and write on the skin in the space between the two ends of the inflamed region, in stout letters, the words, _In the name of the Father_, etc. This done, he would take the toad in his hand and gently rub it on the inflamed part, and the toad, enraged at such treatment, would swell himself up almost to bursting and exude a poisonous milky secretion from his warty skin. That was all, and the man got well!

If it pleased such a man as that to have six wives instead of one it was right and proper for him to have them; no person would presume to say that he was not a good and wise and religious man on that account. It may be added that Don Evaristo, like Henry VIII, who also had six wives, was a strictly virtuous man. The only difference was that when he desired a fresh wife he did not barbarously execute or put away the one, or the others, he already possessed.

I lost sight of Don Evaristo when I was sixteen, having gone to live in another district about thirty miles from my old home. He was then just at the end of the middle period of life, with a few grey hairs beginning to show in his black beard, but he was still a strong man and more children were being added to his numerous family. Some time later I heard that he had acquired a second estate a long day's journey on horseback from the first, and that some of his wives and children had emigrated to the new esctancia and that he divided his time between the two establishments.

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