CHAPTER V.
LIFE OF JUAN FACUNDO QUIROGA.
"Moreover these traits belong to the original character of the human race. The man of nature who has not yet learned to restrain or disguise his passions, displays them in all their energy, and gives himself up to their impetuosity."—Alex. History of the Ottoman Empire.
HIS INFANCY AND YOUTH.
Between the cities of San Luis and San Juan, lies an extensive desert, called the Travesia, a word which signifies want of water. The aspect of that waste is mostly gloomy and unpromising, and the traveller coming from the east does not fail to provide his chifles with a sufficient quantity of water at the last cistern which he passes as he approaches it. This Travesia once witnessed the following strange scene. The consequences of some of the encounters with knives so common among our gauchos had driven one of them in haste from the city of San Luis and forced him to escape to the Travesia on foot, and with his riding gear on his shoulder, in order to avoid the pursuit of the law. Two comrades were to join him as soon as they could steal horses for all three. Hunger and thirst were not the only dangers which at that time awaited him in the desert; a tiger that had already tasted human flesh had been following the track of those who crossed it for a year, and more than eight persons had already been the victims of this preference.
