The Purple Land: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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 gull 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 _blas�_ 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 infectans_, but, as that information
leaves something to be desired, I will proceed in a few words to
describe the beast. It inhabits the entire Chilian, 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 that 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 a 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 daybreak 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 but 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 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 _mat�_, 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 would 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, birdy, hurdy-gurdy, 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
observation 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.

Back to chapter list of: The Purple Land