The Aspect Of The Plain Was Different In What Was Called A "Thistle
Year," When The Giant Thistles, Which Usually Occupied Definite Areas
Or Grew In Isolated Patches, Suddenly Sprang Up Everywhere, And For A
Season Covered Most Of The Land.
In these luxuriant years the plants
grew as thick as sedges and bulrushes in their beds, and were taller
than usual, attaining a height of about ten feet.
The wonder was to
see a plant which throws out leaves as large as those of the rhubarb,
with its stems so close together as to be almost touching. Standing
among the thistles in the growing season one could in a sense _hear_
them growing, as the huge leaves freed themselves with a jerk from a
cramped position, producing a crackling sound. It was like the
crackling sound of the furze seed-vessels which one hears in June in
England, only much louder.
To the gaucho who lives half his day on his horse and loves his
freedom as much as a wild bird, a thistle year was a hateful period of
restraint. His small, low-roofed, mud house was then too like a cage
to him, as the tall thistles hemmed it in and shut out the view on all
sides. On his horse he was compelled to keep to the narrow cattle
track and to draw in or draw up his legs to keep them from the long
pricking spines. In those distant primitive days the gaucho if a poor
man was usually shod with nothing but a pair of iron spurs.
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