United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As they turned to enter the pulperia a native man, barefoot, glided noiselessly up and addressed the doctor in Spanish. He was yellowish-brown, like an over-ripe lemon; he wore a cotton shirt and ragged linen trousers girded by a leather belt. His face was like an animal's, live and wary, but without promise of much intelligence.
Standing before her, he said that he had met me at the pulperia and had put to me the question which a simple old countryman must ask of every traveller from Montevideo What the news was? Then, assuming a dry, satirical tone, which years of practice would not enable me to imitate, he proceeded to give my fantastical answer, garnished with much original matter of his own.
Riding in a south-westerly direction towards the Rio Marlo in the Tacuarembo department, I soon left the plains of Paysandu behind me, and, being anxious to get well away from a neighbourhood where I was expected to kill someone, I did not rest till I had ridden about twenty-five miles. At noon I stopped to get some refreshment at a little roadside pulperia.
When I entered he was holding forth on the pretty well-worn theme of fate versus free will; his arguments were not, however, the usual dry philosophical ones, but took the form of illustration, chiefly personal reminiscences and strange incidents in the lives of people he had known, while so vivid and minute were his descriptions sparkling with passion, satire, humour, pathos, and so dramatic his action, while wonderful story followed story that I was fairly astonished, and pronounced this old pulperia orator a born genius.
After riding about five leagues, I rested for a couple of hours, then proceeded again at a gentle trot till about the middle of the afternoon, when I dismounted at a wayside pulperia or store and public-house all in one, where several natives were sipping rum and conversing.
By twelve o'clock, when I stopped to rest my horse and get some refreshment at a wayside pulperia, I had got over about eight leagues. This was travelling at an imprudent pace, of course; but in the Banda Oriental it is so easy to pick up a fresh horse that one becomes somewhat reckless.
"My wife," I said, "set her heart on having a side-saddle, as she is very fond of riding; so, having business which took me to town, I there purchased one for her, and was returning with it on a led horse my wife's horse, unfortunately when I stopped last evening to get some refreshment at a pulperia on the road.
Under the piazza of a "pulperia," two men were seated, decked out with knots of ribbons and bouquets, and playing the violin and the Spanish guitar.
The nights beneath tropical latitudes are very beautiful and very clear; they mysteriously prepare that beneficent dew which fertilizes a soil exposed to the rays of a cloudless sky so the inhabitants of Lima prolong their nocturnal conversations and receptions; household labors are quietly finished in the dwellings refreshed by the shadows, and the streets are soon deserted; scarcely is some pulperia still haunted by the drinkers of chica or quarapo.
Not far away in a pulperia on the shore-following Calle Grande three other sailors swaggered with their cues around Coralio's solitary billiard-table. The boat lay there as if under orders to be ready for use at any moment. There was in the atmosphere a hint of expectation, of waiting for something to occur, which was foreign to the air of Coralio.
Word Of The Day