ancholy, silent, sedate, and crafty demeanor; of Arabic appearance, riding upon asses, and sometimes clothed in goat-skins, like the hermit of En-gedi. There are places where the people live exclusively on wild honey and the fruit of the carob-tree, as St. John did on locusts in the desert. The Llanista himself is alone unconscious of being the most unfortunate, wretched, and barbarous of mortals, and thanks to this ignorance, he lives contentedly and happily when hunger does not trouble him.
I have already said that there are in Rioja some reddish mountains which bear at a distance a resemblance to towers and feudal castles in ruins; and still other medieval characteristics are mingled with the Oriental resemblances above referred to, for in Rioja there has been a contest of a century between two hostile families, whose enmity, rank, and celebrity find an accurate parallel among the Ursini, Colonnas, and Medici of Italian feuds. The whole history of the civilized inhabitants of La Rioja is that of the contentions of the Ocampos and Davilas. These families, alike ancient, rich, and noble, long strove with each other for supremacy, and, even long before the Revolution of Independence, had divided the population into parties like those of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. A great number of the members of these two families have distinguished themselves in arms, at the bar, and in industrial pursuits; for the Davilas and the Ocampos were ever attempting to surpass each other by every method of acquiring power recognized by civilization. The extinction of this hereditary animosity was often an object of the policy of the patriots of Buenos Ayres.
