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They reached Albano soon after eleven o'clock, and Jean left his man in the car while he went in to the Ristorante of the Albergo della Posta. He ordered a cup of coffee, and sat down at one of the little marble tables near the door to drink it. There was no one else in the place at the moment. "Can you tell me the way to the Villino Bella Vista?" The waiter looked at him curiously.
We followed the course of the Rio Tapalguen, through a very fertile country, to the ninth posta. Tapalguen, itself, or the town of Tapalguen, if it may be so called, consists of a perfectly level plain, studded over, as far as the eye can reach, with the toldos or oven-shaped huts of the Indians. The families of the friendly Indians, who were fighting on the side of Rosas, resided here.
I reached the place of our bivouac by sunset, and drinking much mat,, and smoking several cigaritos, soon made up my bed for the night. The wind was very strong and cold, but I never slept more comfortably. In the morning, having fairly scudded before the gale, we arrived by the middle of the day at the Sauce posta. On the road we saw great numbers of deer, and near the mountain a guanaco.
Stiamo Dio grazia assai bene di salute, particolarmente io, quando viene una lettera di Salisburgo. Vi prego di scrivermi tutti giorni di posta, e se anche non avete niente da scrivermi, solamente vorrei averlo per aver qualche lettera tutti giorni di posta. Egli non sarebbe mal fatto, se voi mi scriveste qualche volta una letterina italiana. Signor Jomelli spoke to us and was very civil.
The eggs of this bird are esteemed a great delicacy. September 16th. To the seventh posta at the foot of the Sierra Tapalguen. The country was quite level, with a coarse herbage and a soft peaty soil.
We stayed the night at the posta, the conversation, as was generally the case, being about the Indians. The Sierra Ventana was formerly a great place of resort; and three or four years ago there was much fighting there. My guide had been present when many Indians were killed: the women escaped to the top of the ridge, and fought most desperately with great stones; many thus saving themselves.
And I have dined in many restaurants of gilded and mirrored magnificence, but in none I thought so well decorated as the Posta with its bare walls and coarse clean linen and no ornament at all, except the stand in the centre where we could pick out our fruit or our vegetable.
At the twelfth posta, which is seven leagues south of the Rio Salado, we came to the first estancia with cattle and white women. Afterwards we had to ride for many miles through a country flooded with water above our horses' knees. By crossing the stirrups, and riding Arab-like with our legs bent up, we contrived to keep tolerably dry.
Nor has any restaurant, crowded with the creations of Paquin and Worth, seemed more brilliant than the Posta filled with officers. In Philadelphia I had never seen an army officer in uniform in my life; at the Posta I saw hardly anything else.
This would, however, have been of little avail, if the Indians had come; but his chief comfort seemed to rest in the thought of selling his life dearly. A short time before, a body of Indians had travelled past in the night; if they had been aware of the posta, our black friend and his four soldiers would assuredly have been slaughtered.
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