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As we steam along and pass the estancias of wealthy farmers, I observe on the banks hundreds of cows, large troops of horses, and flocks of sheep, in numbers sufficient to puzzle even the calculating Pedder. There are very few wild trees to be seen, except on the highlands an occasional specimen of the Ombu or Algaroba species.
Not far, however, before catching sight of another object, which enables him to steer his course with greater precision. This a tree, a grand vegetable giant of the species called ombu, known to every gaucho beloved, almost held sacred by him, as affording shade to his sun-exposed and solitary dwelling.
On this point the later period at which the parasitical young bird acquires fear of man and also bearing on the whole subject under discussion, I shall add here some observations I once made on a dove hatched and reared by a pigeon at my home on the pampas. A very large ombu tree grew not far from the dove-cote, and some of the pigeons used to make their nests on the lower horizontal branches.
As can easily be imagined, after their compulsory rest on the OMBU, the travelers were up betimes and ready to start. At eight o'clock they set off. No means of transport being procurable so far south, they were compelled to walk.
Anthony The strange Barboza family The man of blood Great fighters Barboza as a singer A great quarrel but no fight A cattle-marking Dona Lucia del Ombu A feast Barboza sings and is insulted by El Rengo Refuses to fight The two kinds of fighters A poor little angel on horseback My feeling for Anjelita Boys unable to express sympathy A quarrel with a friend Enduring image of a little girl.
About three o'clock in the morning, however, the Major noticed that the roots were beginning to graze the ground occasionally, and by sounding the depth of the water with a long branch, Tom Austin found that they were getting on rising ground. Twenty minutes afterward, the OMBU stopped short with a violent jolt. "Land! land!" shouted Paganel, in a ringing tone.
The ombu is a very singular tree indeed, and being the only representative of tree-vegetation, natural to the soil, on those great level plains, and having also many curious superstitions connected with it, it is a romance in itself.
The enormous and twisted trunk of this tree is planted firmly in the soil, not only by its great roots, but still more by its vigorous shoots, which fasten it down in the most tenacious manner. This was how it stood proof against the shock of the mighty billow. This OMBU measured in height a hundred feet, and covered with its shadow a circumference of one hundred and twenty yards.
Before he has got half-way up the hill, Caspar, taking the bridle of his own horse from the branch, leaps into the saddle, and gallops down to meet him. The gaucho has a reason for not hailing him at a distance, or calling him to come under the ombu, till he first held speech with him. "Caspar!" shouts the youth excitedly, soon as he catches sight of the other coming towards him. "What news?
The OMBU was borne onward so rapidly by the impetuous torrent, that anyone might have supposed some powerful locomotive engine was hidden in its trunk. It seemed likely enough they might continue drifting in this way for days.