During December And January When This Desert World Of Thistles Dead
And Dry As Tinder Continued Standing, A Menace And
Danger, the one
desire and hope of every one was for the _pampero_ - the south-west
wind, which in hot
Weather is apt to come with startling suddenness,
and to blow with extraordinary violence. And it would come at last,
usually in the afternoon of a close hot day, after the north wind had
been blowing persistently for days with a breath as from a furnace. At
last the hateful wind would drop and a strange gloom that was not from
any cloud would cover the sky; and by and by a cloud would rise, a
dull dark cloud as of a mountain becoming visible on the plain at an
enormous distance. In a little while it would cover half the sky, and
there would be thunder and lightning and a torrent of rain, and at the
same moment the wind would strike and roar in the bent-down trees and
shake the house. And in an hour or two it would perhaps be all over,
and next morning the detested thistles would be gone, or at all events
levelled to the ground.
After such a storm the sense of relief to the horseman, now able to
mount and gallop forth in any direction over the wide plain and see
the earth once more spread out for miles before him, was like that of
a prisoner released from his cell, or of the sick man, when he at
length repairs his vigour lost and breathes and walks again.
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