Neither must we omit the _mate_ gourd
which dangles at his waist, in readiness to receive its infusion of
_yerba_, or Paraguay tea, which he sucks through that tin tube, called
_bombilla_, and looking for all the world like the broken spout of an oil-
can with a couple of pieces of nutmeg-grater soldered on, as strainers, at
the lower end; nor the string of sapless _charque_ beef, nor the pouchful
of villanous tobacco, nor the paper for manufacturing it into
_cigarritos_, nor the cow's-horn filled with tinder, and the flint and
steel attached. Thus mounted, clothed, and equipped, he is ready for a
gallop of a thousand leagues.
He is a strange individual, this Gaucho Juan. Born in a hut built of mud
and maize-stalks somewhere on the superficies of these limitless plains,
he differs little, in the first two years of his existence, from peasant
babies all the world over; but so soon as he can walk, he becomes an
equestrian. 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. In those
important years when our American youth are shyly beginning to claim the
title of young men, and are spending anxious hours before the mirror in
contemplation of the slowly-coming down upon their lip, young Juan (who
never saw a dozen printed books, and perhaps has only _heard_ of looking-
glasses) is galloping, like a portion of the beast he rides, over a
thousand miles of prairie, lassoing cattle, ostriches, and guanacos,
fighting single-handed with the jaguar, or lying stiff and stark behind
the heels of some plunging colt that he has too carelessly bestrid.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146