The Purple Land/Volume 1/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
MATERIALS FOR A PASTORAL.
Leaving the eloquent old horse-tamer's rancho early next morning, I continued my ride, jogging quietly along all day, and leaving the Florida department behind me entered upon that of the Durazno. Here I broke my journey at an estancia where I had an excellent opportunity of studying the manners and customs of the Orientals, and where I also underwent experiences of a mixed character and greatly increased my knowledge of the insect world. This house, at which I arrived an hour before sunset to ask for shelter ("permission to unsaddle" is the expression the traveller uses), was a long low structure, thatched with rushes, but the low enormously thick walls were built of stone from the neighbouring sierras, in pieces of all shapes and sizes, and presenting, outwardly, the rough appearance of a stone fence. How these rudely piled-up stones, without cement to hold them together, had not fallen down was a mystery to me; and it was more difficult still to imagine why the rough interior, with its innumerable dusty holes and interstices, had never been plastered.
I was kindly received by a very numerous family, consisting of the owner, his hoary-headed old mother-in-law, his wife, three sons, and five daughters, all grown up. There were also several small children belonging, I believe, to the daughters, notwithstanding the fact that they were unmarried. I was greatly amazed at hearing the name of one of these youngsters. Such Christian names as Trinity, Heart of Jesus, Nativity, John of God, Conception, Ascension, Incarnation, are common enough, but these had scarcely prepared me to meet with a fellow-creature named—well, Circumcision! Besides the people, there were dogs, cats, turkeys, ducks, geese, and fowls, without number. Not content with all these domestic birds and beasts, they also kept a horrid shrieking paroquet, which the old woman was incessantly talking to, explaining to the others all the time, in little asides, what the bird said or wished to say, or, rather, what she imagined it wished to say. There were also several tame young ostriches, always hanging about the big kitchen or living-room, on the look-out for a brass thimble, or iron spoon, or other little metallic bonne bouche to be gobbled up when no one was looking. A pet armadillo kept trotting in and out, in and out the whole evening, and a lame cull was always standing on the threshold in everybody's way, perpetually wailing for something to eat—the most persistent beggar I ever met in my life.
The people were very jovial and rather industrious for so indolent a country. The land was their own, the men tended the cattle, of which they appeared to have a large number, while the women made cheeses, rising before daylight to milk the cows.
During the evening two or three young men—neighbours, I imagine, who were paying their addresses to the young ladies of the establishment—dropped in; and after a plentiful supper we had singing and dancing to the music of the guitar, on which every member of the family—excepting the babies—could strum a little.
About eleven o'clock I retired to rest, and stretching myself on my rude bed of rugs, in a room adjoining the kitchen, I blessed these simple-minded hospitable people. Good heavens, thought I to myself, what a glorious field is waiting here for some new Theocritus! How unutterably worn out, stilted, and artificial, seems all the so-called pastoral poetry ever written when one sits down to supper and joins in the graceful Cielo or Pericon in one of these remote semi-barbarous South American estancias! I swear I will turn poet myself, and go back some day to astonish old blasé Europe with something so—so—What the deuce was that? My sleepy soliloquy was suddenly brought to a most lame and impotent conclusion, for I had heard a sound of terror—the unmistakable zz-zzing of an insect's wings. It was the hateful Vinchuca, Here was an enemy against which British pluck and six-shooters are of no avail, and in whose presence one begins to experience sensations which are not usually supposed to enter into the brave man's breast. Naturalists tell us that it is the Connorhinus infestans, but as that information leaves something to be desired, I will proceed in few words to describe the beast. It inhabits the entire Chihan, Argentine, and Oriental countries, and to all the dwellers in this vast territory it is known as the Vinchuca; for, like a few volcanoes, deadly vipers, cataracts and other sublime natural objects, it has been permitted to keep the ancient name bestowed on it by the aborigines. It is all over of a blackish-brown colour, as broad as a man's thumb-nail, and flat as the blade of a table-knife—when fasting. By day it hides, bug-like, in holes and chinks, but no sooner are the candles put out, than forth it comes to seek whom it may devour; for, like the pestilence, it walks in darkness. It can fly, and in a dark room knows where you are and can find you. Having selected a nice tender part, it pierces the skin with its proboscis or rostrum, and sucks vigorously for two or three minutes, and, strange to say, you do not feel the operation, even when lying wide awake. By that time the creature, so attenuated before, has assumed the figure, size and general appearance of a ripe gooseberry, so much blood has it drawn from your veins. Immediately after it has left you the part begins to swell up and burn as if stung by nettles. That the pain should come after and not during the operation is an arrangement very advantageous to the vinchuca, and I greatly doubt whether any other blood-sucking parasite has been equally favoured by nature in this respect.
Imagine then my sensations when I heard the sound of not one but two or three pairs of wings! I tried to forget the sound and go to sleep. I tried to forget about. those rough old walls full of interstices—a hundred years old they were, my host had informed me. Most interesting old house, thought I; and then very suddenly a fiery itching took possession of my great toe. There it is! said I; heated blood, late supper, dancing and all that. I can almost imagine that something has actually bitten me, when of course nothing of the kind has happened. Then, while I was furiously rubbing and scratching it, feeling a badger-like disposition to gnaw it off, my left arm was pierced with red-hot needles. My attentions were quickly transferred to that part; but soon my busy hands were called elsewhere, like a couple of hard-worked doctors in a town afflicted with an epidemic; and so all night long, with only occasional snatches of miserable sleep, the contest went on.
I rose early, and going to a wide stream, a quarter of mile from the house, took a plunge which greatly refreshed me and gave me strength to go in quest of my horse. Poor brute! I had intended giving him a day's rest, so pleasant and hospitable had the people shown themselves; but now I shuddered at the thought of spending another night in such a purgatory. I found him so lame that he could scarcely walk, and so returned to the house on foot and very much cast down. My host consoled me by assuring me that I would sleep the siesta all the better for having been molested by those "little things that go about," for in this very mild language he described the affliction. After breakfast, at noon, acting on his hint, I took a rug to the shade of a tree and lying down quickly fell into a profound sleep, which lasted till late in the afternoon.
That evening visitors came again and we had a repetition of the singing, dancing and other pastoral amusements, till near midnight; then thinking to cheat my bedfellows of the night before, I made my simple bed in the kitchen. But here also the vile vinchucas found me, and there were, moreover, dozens of fleas that waged-a sort of guerilla warfare all night, and in this way exhausted my strength and distracted my attention, while the more formidable adversary took up his position. My sufferings were so great that before day-break I picked up my rugs and went out a distance from the house to lie down on the open plain, but I carried with me a smarting body and got very little rest. When morning came I found that my horse had not yet recovered from his lameness.
"Do not be in a hurry to leave us," said my host, when I spoke of it; "I perceive that the little animals have again fought with and defeated you. Do not mind it; in time you will grow accustomed to them."
How they contrived to endure it, or even to exist, was a puzzle to me; but possibly the vinchucas respected them and only dined when, like the giant in the nursery rhyme, they "smelt the blood of an Englishman."
I again enjoyed a long siesta and when night came I resolved to place myself beyond the reach of the vampires, and so, after supper, went out to sleep on the plain. About midnight, however, a sudden storm of wind and rain drove me back to the shelter of the house, and the next morning I rose in such a deplorable state that I deliberately caught and saddled my horse, though the poor beast could scarcely put one foot on the ground. My friends laughed good humouredly when they saw me making these resolute preparations for departure. After partaking of bitter maté, I rose and thanked them for their hospitality, "You surely do not intend leaving us on that animal!" said my host. " He is unfit to carry you."
"I have no other," I replied, "and am anxious to reach my destination."
"Had I known this I should have offered you a horse before," he returned, and then he sent one of his sons to drive the horses of the estancia into the corral.
Selecting a good-looking animal from the herd, he presented it to me, and as I did not have money enough to buy a fresh horse whenever I wanted one, I accepted the gift very gladly. The saddle was quickly transferred to my new acquisition, and once more thanking these good people and bidding adieu, I resumed my journey.
When I gave my hand before leaving to the youngest, and also, to my mind, the prettiest of the five daughters of the house, instead of smiling pleasantly and wishing me a prosperous journey, like the others, she was silent, and darted a look at me, which seemed to say, "Go, sir; you have treated me badly, and you insult me by offering your hand; if I take it, it is not because I feel disposed to forgive you, but only to save appearances."
At the same moment, when she bestowed that glance on me which said so much, a look of intelligence passed over the faces of the other people in the room. All this revealed to me that I had just missed a very pretty little idyllic flirtation, conducted in very novel circumstances. Love cometh up as a flower, and men and charming women naturally flirt when brought together. Yet it was hard to imagine how I could have started a flirtation and carried it on to its culminatory point in that great public room, with all those eyes on me; dogs, babes, and cats tumbling about my feet; ostriches staring covetously at my buttons with great vacant eyes; and that intolerable paroquet perpetually reciting, "How the waters came down at Lodore," in its own shrieky, beaky parrot language. Tender glances, soft whispered words, hand-touchings, and a thousand little personal attentions, showing which way the emotions tend, would scarcely have been practicable in such a place and in such conditions, and new signs and symbols would have to be invented to express the feelings of the heart. And doubtless these Orientals, living all together in one great room, with their children and pets, like our very ancient ancestors, the pastoral Aryans, do possess such a language. And this pretty language I should have learnt from the most willing of teachers, if those venomous vinchucas had not dulled my brain with their persecutions and made me blind to a matter which had not escaped the attentions of even unconcerned lookers-on. Riding away from the estancia the feeling I experienced at having finally escaped from these execrable "little things that go about" was not one of unmixed satisfaction.