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They suffer no hair to grow on the face, and some extract even their eyebrows. Their dress is simple, consisting of a 'chiripa' or piece of cloth round the loins, and the indispensable guanaco cape, which is hung loosely over the shoulders and held round the body by the hand, though it would obviously seem more convenient to have it secured round the waist with a belt of some kind.
When I reached the pass I fell into a narrow path with bushes and trees growing on either side; here, suddenly, the figure of a young man stepped out from the trees and stood before me. It was all in white poncho, chiripa, drawers, even its boots, and wore a broad-brimmed straw hat on its head.
Instead of the first mentioned, he uses the poncho, a long, broad blanket, with a slit in the centre to admit his head. For trousers he wears very wide white drawers, richly embroidered with broad needlework and stiffly starched. Over these he puts a black chiripa, which really I cannot describe other than as similar to the napkins the mother provides for her child.
Their horse-hide boots are only worn, for reasons of economy, when hunting. The women dress like the men except as regards the chiripa, instead of which they wear a loose kind of gown beneath the cape, which they fasten at the neck with a silver brooch or pin. The children are allowed to run about naked till they are five or six years old, and are then dressed like their elders.
If a proprietor or chief manager, he will probably be habited in a white shirt, with wide trousers richly embroidered with deep lace; the chiripa a piece of cloth covering the body and passing round his legs being tied with a band; a poncho over his shoulders; boots of polished leather, or, it may be, of simple skin; his heels adorned with a pair of enormous spurs, of silver or less valuable metal, with rowels of prodigious circumference; with his rebenque, or horse-whip, in hand, made of cow-hide, and set off by a handle of massive silver.
He wore the picturesque gaucho costume; a camiseta, or blouse, of the finest black cloth, profusely decorated with silver buttons, puffs and pleats, and scarlet and green embroidery; a chiripa, the shawl-like garment worn in place of trousers, of the finest yellow or vicuna-coloured wool, the white carsoncillos, or wide drawers, showing below, of the finest linen, with more fringe and lace-work than was usual in that garment.
That is the famous chiripá, or Gaucho petticoat, which, like the bracae of the Northern barbarians some nineteen hundred years ago, distinguishes him from the inhabitants of civilized communities.
Around the man's waist, holding up his drawers and chiripa, is wound a long colored belt, with tasseled ends left hanging over his boot, down the right side; and over that he invariably wears a broad skin belt, clasped at the front with silver and adorned all around with gold or silver coins. In this the long knife is carried. What shall I say of the domestic life of these people?
After calling for rum and water, to be in the fashion, I sat down on a bench, and, lighting a cigarette, prepared to listen. He was dressed in shabby gaucho habiliments cotton shirt, short jacket, wide cotton drawers, and chiripa, a shawl-like garment fastened at the waist with a sash, and reaching down half-way between the knees and ankles.
He was a short, broad-shouldered man with reddish-grey hair, stiff, bristly whiskers and moustache of the same hue, sharp blue eyes, and a nose decidedly upturned. He wore a red cotton handkerchief tied on his head, a blue check shirt, and a shawl wound round his body in place of the chiripa usually worn by native peasants.
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