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.
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