The Guide of the Desert

"We have nothing to fear at present," said he to me. "However, I think we shall act prudently in not remaining here any longer. Which way are you going?"

"Upon my word," I answered him frankly, "I avow that I do not know." Notwithstanding his apparent coolness, he allowed a gesture of surprise to escape him.

"What!" said he, "You do not know?"

"No! Strange as it may appear to you, it is so. I know not where I am, nor where I am going."

"Come, come; that's a joke, is it not? For some motive or other you do not wish – which shows your prudence – to acquaint me with the object of your travel; but it is impossible that you do not really know in what spot you are, and the place to which you are going."

"I repeat to you, caballero, that what I tell you is true. I have no motive for concealing the object of my travel; I am merely wandering on account of the unfaithfulness of a guide whom I had engaged, and who abandoned me some days ago."

He reflected an instant, then taking me cordially by the hand:

"Pardon me the absurd suspicions of which I am ashamed," said he, "but the situation in which I find myself must be my excuse; let us mount our horses, and get away from here. While we are on the road, we can talk; I hope soon you will know me better."

"I need not know you more," I replied; "from the first moment I felt myself attached to you."

"Thank you," said he, smiling. "To horse, to horse! We have a long journey to make."

Five minutes later we were galloping away, leaving to the vultures that already wheeled in large circles above our heads with harsh and discordant cries, the corpses of the Indians killed during the combat.

While we were proceeding, I related to the gaucho my life and adventures, as far as I thought necessary he should know. This recital pleased him by its singularity.

It was easy to perceive that, notwithstanding the brusque and sometimes even harsh manner he affected, this man possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and great practical knowledge of life; and that he had for a long time frequented not only the best American society, but also visited Europe with advantage, and seen the world under its most varied phases. His elevated thoughts, always characterised by nobility of mind, his good sense, his lively, vigorous, and attractive conversation, interested me in him more and more; and although he kept the most complete silence as regards his personal circumstances, and had not even told me his name, I nevertheless felt the sentiment of sympathy with which he had at first inspired me continually increasing.

We passed the whole day laughing and talking, at the same time rapidly advancing towards the rancho where we were to pass the night.

"Look," said the gaucho to me, pointing out a slight column of smoke, which was ascending spirally towards the sky; "that is where we are going, and in a quarter of an hour we shall be there."

"Thank God," I answered, "for I begin to feel fatigued."

"Yes," said he to me, "you have not yet become used to long journeys; but patience, in a few days you will think nothing of it."

"I hope so."

"By-the-bye," said he, as if the thought suddenly occurred to him, "you have not yet told me the name of the pícaro who abandoned you."

"Robbing me of a gun, a sabre, and a horse – things for which I have ceased to grieve."

"How is that?"

"Why, because it is probable that the bribón will not bring them back to me."

"You are wrong to think that; although the desert may be large, a rascal cannot so easily conceal himself there as you think."

"What good would it do to find him?"

"You do not know what may happen; perhaps someday I shall come across him."

"That is true; they call him, in Buenos Aires, Pigacha, but his real name among his own people is the Venado; he is blind of the right eye. I hope that is sufficient description," I added.

"I believe so," answered he; "and I promise you if I meet him I shall recognise him. But here we are."

In fact, at twenty paces before me appeared a rancho, the complete outline of which the first shades of night prevented me from making out, but the sight of which, after a fatiguing day, and especially after the wild life to which I had been so long condemned, rejoiced my heart in giving rise to the hope of that frank and cordial hospitality which is never refused in the pampa.

Already the dogs hailed our arrival with their deafening bark, and leaped furiously around our horses. We were obliged to give them a taste of the whip, and soon our horses stopped before the entrance to the rancho, where a man was standing with a lighted torch in one hand, and a gun in the other. This man was tall, with bold features, and a bronzed complexion lit up by the ruddy reflection of the torch which he held above his head gave me a good idea, with his athletic form and wild appearance, of the true gaucho of the pampas. On perceiving my companion, he bowed deferentially.

"I hail you, most pure Mary," he said.

"Conceived without sin."

"Can we enter, Don Torribio?"

"Enter, Señor Don Zeno Cabral; this house and all it contains belongs to you."

We dismounted without asking anything further, and after a young man of eighteen or twenty, half-naked, who had run out at the call of his master or father – I did not get to know which – had taken the bridle of our horses and had led them away, we entered, followed by the dogs who had so noisily announced our arrival, and who, instead of being hostile to us, leaped around us with signs of pleasure.

This habitation, like all those of the gauchos, was a hut of earth intermingled with reeds, covered with straw; constructed, in fact, with all the primitive simplicity of the desert.

A bed formed of four stakes driven into the earth, supporting a hurdle of reed or strip of leather interlaced, on which was placed, like a European mattress, the untanned skin of an ox; some other hides laid on the floor near the wall for the children's beds, some bolas, some lazos, the indispensable arms of the gauchos, some horses' harness hung from stakes of wood pierced in the wall of the rancho, formed the only furniture of the inner room.

As to the first room, its furniture was simpler still, if possible; it was composed of a hurdle of reeds, supported by six stakes, and serving for a sofa, the heads of two oxen in the place of an armchair, a little barrel of water, a brass kettle, some gourds serving for drinking vessels, a wooden bowl, and an iron spit stuck vertically before the fireplace, which was in the very middle of the apartment.

We have described this rancho thus minutely, because all resemble one another in the pampa, and are, so to speak, constructed on the same model.

Only, as this one belonged to a comparatively rich man, apart from the main building, and at about twenty yards' distance, there was another used as a magazine for the hides and the meats that were to be dried, and surrounded by a tolerably extensive hedge about three yards high, forming the corral, behind which the horses were sheltered.

The honours of the rancho were done for us by two ladies, whom the gaucho introduced to us as his wife and daughter.

The latter, about fifteen years of age, was tall, well made, and endowed with a rather uncommon beauty; she was named Eva, as I afterwards learned; her mother, though still young – she was at the most thirty years of age – had now only the fugitive remains of a beauty which had been very remarkable once.

My companion appeared to be an intimate friend of the ranchero and his family, by whom he was received with signs of the utmost pleasure, moderated by a cloud of respect and almost fear.

On his side, don Zeno Cabral – for I at last knew his name – acted towards them with patronising unceremoniousness.

The reception was what it ought to be, that is to say, most frank and cordial. These honest people only studied to be agreeable to us; the least thanks on our part filled them with joy.

Our repast, which we ate with a good appetite, was composed as usual of the asado, or roast beef, of goya cheese, and of harina, or the flour of mandioca the whole moistened by some libations of caña or sugar brandy, which, under the name of traguitos, little draughts, circulated freely, and finished by putting us in good humour.

As a compliment to this repast, much more comfortable than doubtless the European reader will suppose, when our cigarettes were lighted, doña Eva took down a guitar, and after having presented it to her father, who, smoking all the while, commenced to prelude with his four fingers united, she danced before us with that grace and that elasticity which only belong to the women of South America, a cielito, followed immediately by a montonera. Then the young man, of whom I have already had occasion to speak, and who was not the servant but the son of the ranchero, sang with a fresh, full, musical voice, and with an expression which went to our hearts.

A strange incident then occurred, the meaning of which I could not understand. Don Quino, the young man, sang with inexpressible passion these charming verses of Quintana: —

Feliz aquel que junto a tí suspira,
Que el dulce nectar de tu risa bebe.
Que a demandarte compasión se atreve,
Y blandamente palpitar te mira.[1 - Happy he who sighs near thee, who drinks the sweet nectar of thy smile, who dares to ask pity of thee, and sees thee gently agitated.]