United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When I complimented him at dinner on his very skilful performance, the Joven, being in a loquacious mood, said, after a pause for thought, "Oh, yes," beamed with friendliness, and promptly devoured another plateful of beef. I asked him whether he never regretted the quiet of his father's Cornish farm, in view of the strenuous exertions his duties as rough-rider at Espartillar imposed on him.
It is an interesting sight seeing wild young horses being broken-in, and receiving their first instruction in the service of man. The rough-rider at Espartillar was a younger brother of the manager's, a short, sturdy, round-faced, grinning Cornish lad of eighteen, a youth of large appetite, but of few words, universally known as "The Joven," which merely means "the lad."
At Espartillar there were quite twenty acres of peach trees, and when Lyon and I wished to be of use, the manager frequently asked us to hitch-up the wagon, and bring him in a few sackfuls of peaches for preserving. Espartillar boasted a great neglected wilderness of a garden, as untidy and unkempt as a fashionable pianist's hair, but growing the most wonderful collection of fruit.
The Joven knocked out his pipe, lit another, thought for five minutes, and then said, "No, it's fun," displaying every tooth in his head as he did so as a proof that his conversational brevity was due not to a surly disposition, but to the limitations of his vocabulary. The pupils at Espartillar were exceedingly well treated.
The vast solitudes of Espartillar were within eight hours of Buenos Ayres, three by wagon and five by rail, so it was possible to wander out one night to the star-lit camp, where the silence was only broken by the screech of an occasional night-bird, or the beat of the wings of myriads of flighting ducks, without the slightest trace of man or his works perceptible in the great, grey, still, unpeopled world, and to be sitting the next night in evening clothes in a garish, over-gilt, over-decorated restaurant, humming with the clatter of plates and the chatter of high-pitched Argentine voices, as a noisy string-band played selections from the latest Paris operette.
I am told by learned people that he is not a true toad, that his proper name is Ceratophrys ornata, and that he is a cannibal, feeding on harmless frogs and toads which he kills with his poison-fangs. There was a plentiful supply of these creatures at Espartillar, and the pupils, when they found an escuerzo, loved to tease him with a stick.
The operator whirls the bolas round his head, and sends them flying at the objective with unfailing certainty, and the animal "emboladoed" drops as though shot through the head. I have seen these used on "outside camps," but on a well-managed estancia, such as Espartillar, the use of the bolas is strictly prohibited, since it tends to break the animal's leg.
I prefer to recollect the Espartillar I knew, a place of unending spaces and glorious sunshine, with air almost as intoxicating as wine, where innumerable spurred plovers screamed raucously all day long, where the little ground-owls blinked unceasingly at the edge of their burrows; where bronze-green ibises flashed through the sunlight, and rose-coloured spoonbills trailed in pink streaks across the blue sky, as they flew in single file from one laguna to another.
Word Of The Day