part in the festival. The Argentine gaucho only drinks when excited by music and verse,[1] and every grocery has its guitar ready for the hands of the Cantor who perceives from afar where the help of his "gay science" is needed, by the group of horses about the door. The Cantor intersperses his heroic songs with the tale of his own exploits. Unluckily his profession of Argentine bard does not shield him from the law. He can tell of a couple of stabs he has dealt, of one or two misfortunes (homicides!) of his, and of some horse or girl he has carried off.
In 1840, a Cantor was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, on the banks of the majestic Paraná, in the midst of a group of gauchos whom he was keeping in eager suspense by the long and animated tale of his labors and adventures. He had already related the abduction of his love, with the difficulties overcome on the occasion; also his misfortune and the dispute that led to it; and was relating his encounter with the soldiery, and the stabs with which he defended himself, when the noisy advance and the shouts of a body of troops made him aware that this time he was sur-
- ↑ Without wandering from our subject, we may here call to mind the noteworthy resemblance between the Argentines and the Arabs. In Algiers, Oran, Mascara, and the desert encampments, I constantly saw the Arabs collected in coffee-shops—strong drink being forbidden them,—closely crowded about the singer, or more usually two singers, who accompany themselves with guitars in a duet, and recite national songs of a mournful character like our tristes before mentioned. The Arabian bridle is of plaited leather thongs, continued into a whip-lash like ours; the bit which we use is that of the Arabs, and many of our customs show the intercourse of our ancestors with the Moors of Andalusia. I have met some Arabs whom I could have sworn I had seen in my own country.
