Our Liking For Our Earliest Flower Was All The Greater Because We Could Eat It And Liked Its Acid Taste, Also Because It Had A Bulb Very Nice To Eat - A Small Round Bulb The Size Of A Hazel Nut, Of A Pearly White, Which Tasted Like Sugar And Water.

That little sweetness was enough to set us all digging the bulbs up with table knives, but even little children can value things for their beauty as well as taste.

The _macachina_ was like the wood-sorrel in shape, both flower and leaf, but the leaves were much smaller and grew close to the ground, as the plant flourished most where the grass was close- cropped by the sheep, forming a smooth turf like that of our chalk downs. The flowers were never crowded together like the buttercup, forming sheets of shining yellow, but grew two or three inches apart, each slender stem producing a single flower, which stood a couple of inches above the turf. So fine were the stems that the slightest breath of wind would set the blossoms swaying, and it was then a pretty sight, and often held me motionless in the midst of some green place, when all around me for hundreds of yards the green carpet of grass was abundantly sprinkled with thousands of the little yellow blossoms all swaying to the light wind.

These green level lands were also a favourite haunt of the golden plover on their first arrival in September from their breeding-places many thousands of miles away in the arctic regions. Later in the season, as the water dried up, they would go elsewhere. They came in flocks and were then greatly esteemed as a table-bird, especially by my father, but we could only have them when one of my elder brothers, who was the sportsman of the family, went out to shoot them. As a very small boy I was not allowed to use a gun, but as I had been taught to throw the _bolas_ by the little native boys I sometimes associated with, I thought I might be able to procure a few of the birds with it. The _bolas_, used for such an object, is a string a couple of yards long, made from fine threads cut from a colt's hide, twisted or braided, and a leaden ball at each end, one being the size of a hen's egg, the other less than half the size. The small ball is held in the hand, the other swung round three or four times and the _bolas_ then launched at the animal or bird one wishes to capture.

I spent many hours on several consecutive days following the flocks about on my pony, hurling the _bolas_ at them without bringing down more than one bird. My proceedings were no doubt watched with amusement by the people of the estancia house, who were often sitting out of doors at the everlasting mate-drinking; and perhaps Don Anastacio did not like it, as he was, I imagine, something of a St. Francis with regard to the lower animals.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 98 of 186
Words from 51868 to 52387 of 98444