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By the time he is four years old there is scarcely a colt in all the Argentine that he will not fearlessly mount; at six, he whirls a miniature lasso around the horns of every goat or ram he meets. At twenty-one he is in his glory. Then we must look for him in the pulperías, the bar-rooms of the Pampas, whither he repairs on Sundays and fiestas, to get drunk on aguardiente or on Paraguay rum.
There was but one man in the only house here, and him I shall always remember as a good specimen of a California ranger. He had been a tailor in Philadelphia, and getting intemperate and in debt, he joined a trapping party and went to the Columbia river, and thence down to Monterey, where he spent everything, left his party, and came to the Pueblo de los Angelos, to work at his trade. Here he went dead to leeward among the pulperias, gambling rooms, etc., and came down to San Pedro, to be moral by being out of temptation. He had been in the house several weeks, working hard at his trade, upon orders which he had brought with him, and talked much of his resolution, and opened his heart to us about his past life. After we had been here some time, he started off one morning, in fine spirits, well dressed, to carry the clothes which he had been making to the pueblo, and saying he would bring back his money and some fresh orders the next day. The next day came, and a week passed, and nearly a fortnight, when, one day, going ashore, we saw a tall man, who looked like our friend the tailor, getting out of the back of an Indian's cart, which had just come down from the pueblo. He stood for the house, but we bore up after him; when finding that we were overhauling him, he hove-to and spoke us. Such a sight I never saw before. Barefooted, with an old pair of trowsers tied round his waist by a piece of green hide, a soiled cotton shirt, and a torn Indian hat; "cleaned out," to the last reál, and completely "used up." He confessed the whole matter; acknowledged that he was on his back; and now he had a prospect of a fit of the horrors for a week, and of being worse than useless for months. This is a specimen of the life of half of the Americans and English who are adrift over the whole of California. One of the same stamp was Russell, who was master of the hide-house at San Diego, while I was there, and afterwards turned away for his misconduct. He spent his own money and nearly all the stores among the half-bloods upon the beach, and being turned away, went up to the Presidio, where he lived the life of a desperate "loafer," until some rascally deed sent him off "between two days," with men on horseback, dogs, and Indians in full cry after him, among the hills. One night, he burst into our room at the hide-house, breathless, pale as a ghost, covered with mud, and torn by thorns and briers, nearly naked, and begged for a crust of bread, saying he had neither eaten nor slept for three days. Here was the great Mr. Russell, who a month before was "Don Tom
Instead of rolling themselves in their ponchos, with their feet turned to the spring sun, they were scattered throughout the country, stopping one another, exchanging private signals, and haunting the least frequented pulperias, in which they could converse without danger. This movement was principally to be observed on one of the squares remote from the centre of the city.
The horseman hammered with the butt of a heavy revolver at the doors of low pulperias, of obscene lean-to sheds sloping against the tumble-down piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters within could be heard in the pauses of the thundering clatter of his blows. He called out men's names menacingly from the saddle, once, twice.
At every accident, or remarkable feat, the old people set up a deafening screaming and clapping of hands. Several blue jackets were reeling about among the houses, which showed that the pulperias had been well patronized.
Here he went dead to leeward among the pulperias, gambling-rooms, &c., and came down to San Pedro to be moral by being out of temptation. He had been in the house several weeks, working hard at his trade, upon orders which he had brought with him, and talked much of his resolution, and opened his heart to us about his past life.
Yet, if we peer into filthy pulperías here and there between San Luis and San Juan, we may catch a glimpse of a shaggy, swarthy savage, gambling, gambling as if for life; and we may also hear of more than one affray in which his dagger has "come home richer than it went." A little later, the son of wealthy Don Prudencio has become not a common laborer but a comrade of common laborers.
Horsemen spurred through, shouting; groups of sombreros set level on heads against the vertical sun were drifting away into the streets, where the open doors of pulperias revealed an enticing gloom resounding with the gentle tinkling of guitars. The National Guards were thinking of siesta, and the eloquence of Gamacho, their chief, was exhausted.
At every accident, or remarkable feat, the old people set up a deafening screaming and clapping of hands. Several blue jackets were reeling about among the houses, which showed that the pulperias had been well patronized.
In all of these his money, his credit and his welcome had long since been spent; but Blythe felt that he would have fawned in the dust at the feet of an enemy that morning for one draught of aguardiente. In two of the pulperias his courageous petition for drink was met with a refusal so polite that it stung worse than abuse.
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