I Might Add That Neither Has He
A Table, For With His Fingers And Knife He Eats The Meat Off The
Fire.
Forks he is without, and a horn or shell spoon conveys the soup
to his mouth direct from the copper pan.
So universal is the use of
the shell for this service that the native does not speak of it as
caracol, the real word for shell, but calls it cuchara del agua,
or water spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy,
long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the
knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in
his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep,
cuts off the head of a serpent - seemingly, however, not doing it much
harm, for it still wriggles - sticks his horse when in anger, and,
alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far
isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The
forward march of the outer world concerns him not; indeed he imagines
that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He
will gaze with wonder on your watch, for his only mode of
ascertaining the time is by the shadow the sun casts. As that
luminary rises and sets, so he sleeps and wakes. His only bed is the
sheepskin, which when riding he fastens over his saddle, and the
latter article forms his pillow.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 71 of 313
Words from 18931 to 19184
of 83353
