Casting A Lurid
Light In The Heavens, Towards Which Rise Volumes Of Smoke, It
Attracts The Attention Of The Native, Who Lifts His Starting Eyes
Towards Heaven In A Speechless Prayer To The Holy Virgin.
Madly
leaping on his fleetest horse, without saddle, and often without
bridle, he wildly gallops down the wind, as the roaring, crackling
fire gains upon him.
In this mad race for life, men, horses,
ostriches, deer, bullocks, etc., join, striving to excel each other
in speed. Strange to say, the horse the native rides, cheered on by
the touch of his master, is often the first to gain the lake or
river, where, beneath its waters at least, refuge may be found. In
their wild stampede, vast herds of cattle trample and fall on one
another and are drowned. A more complete destruction could not
overtake the unfortunate traveller than to be caught by this
remorseless foe, for not even his ashes could be found by mourning
friends. The ground thus burnt retains its heat for days. I have had
occasion to cross blackened wastes a week after this most destructive
force in nature had done its work, and my horse has frequently reared
in the air at the touch of the hot soil on his hoofs.
The Gaucho has a strange method of fighting these fires. Several
mares are killed and opened, and they, by means of lassos, are
dragged over the burning grass.
The immensity of the pampas is so great that one may travel many
miles without sighting a single tree or human habitation. The weary
traveller finds his only shade from the sun's pitiless rays under the
broad brim of his sombrero. At times, with ears forward and extended
nostrils, the horse gazes intently at the rippling blue waters of the
mirage, that most tantalizingly deceptive phenomenon of nature. May
it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage
as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water?
Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of great lakes and
broad rivers rose up before me, lapping emerald green shores, where I
could cool my parched tongue and lave in their crystal depths; yet
to-day those waters are as far off as ever, and exist only in my
hopes of Paradise. Not until I stand by the "River of Life" shall I
behold the reality.
The inhabitant of these treeless, trackless solitudes, which, with
their waving grass, remind one of the bosom of the ocean, develops a
keen sight Where the stranger, after intently gazing, descries
nothing, he will not only inform him that animals are in sight, but
will, moreover, tell him what they are. I am blest with a very clear
vision, but even when, after standing on my horse's back, I have made
out nothing, the Gaucho could tell me that over there was a drove of
cattle, a herd of deer, a troop of horses, or a house.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 42 of 161
Words from 21186 to 21688
of 83353