CHAPTER VI.
A COLONY OF ENGLISH GENTLEMEN.
My faith in the estancia as a field for my activities had been weak from the first; the Mayordomo's words on his return had extinguished it altogether; and after hearing that ostrich parable I had only remained from motives of pride. I now determined to go back towards Montevideo, not, however, over the route I had come by, but making a wide circuit into the interior of the country, where I would explore a new field and perhaps meet with some occupation at one of the estancias on the way. Riding in a south-westerly direction towards the Rio Malo in the Tacuarembó department, I soon left the plains of Paysandù behind me, and being anxious to get well away from a neighbourhood where I was expected to kill some one, I did not rest till I had ridden about twenty-five miles. At noon I stopped to get some refreshment at a little road-side pulperia. It was a wretched-looking place, and behind the iron bars protecting the interior, giving it the appearance of a wild beast's cage, lounged the store-keeper, smoking a cigar. Outside the bar were two men with English-looking faces. One was a handsome young fellow with a somewhat worn and dissipated look on his bronzed face; he was leaning against the counter, cigar in mouth, looking slightly tipsy, I thought, and wore a large revolver slung ostentatiously at his waist. His companion was a big heavy man, with immense whiskers sprinkled with grey, evidently very drunk, for he was lying full-length on a bench, his face purple and swollen, snoring loudly. I asked for bread, sardines, and wine, and careful to observe the custom of the country I was in, duly invited the tipsy young man to join in the repast. An omission of this courtesy might, amongst proud and sensitive Orientals, involve one in a sanguinary quarrel, and of quarrelling I had just then had enough.
He declined with thanks, and entered into conversation with me; then the discovery, quickly made, that we were compatriots gave us both great pleasure. He at once offered to take me to his house with him, and gave a very glowing account of the free jovial life he led in company with several other Englishmen—sons of gentlemen, every one of them, he assured me—who had bought a piece of land and settled down to sheep-farming in this lonely district. I gladly accepted the invitation, and when we had finished our glasses he proceeded to wake the sleeper.
"Hullo, I say, Cap, wake up, old boy," shouted my new friend. "Quite time to go home, don't you know. That's right—up you come. Now let me introduce you to Mr. Lamb. I'm sure he's an acquisition. What, off again! Damn it, old Cloud, that's unreasonable, to say the least of it."
At length, after a great deal of shouting and shaking, he succeeded in rousing his drunken companion, who staggered up and stared at me in an imbecile manner.
"Now let me introduce you," said the other. "Mr. Lamb. My friend, Captain Cloudesley Wriothesley. Bravo! Steady, old cock—now shake hands."
The Captain said nothing, but took my hand, swaying forwards as if about to embrace me. We then with considerable difficulty got him on to his saddle and rode off together, keeping him between us to prevent him from falling off. Half-an-hour's ride brought us to my host Mr. Vincent Winchcombe's house. I had pictured to myself a charming little homestead, buried in cool greenery and flowers and filled with pleasant memories of dear old England; I was, therefore, grievously disappointed to find that his '* home" was only a mean-looking rancho, with a ditch round it, protecting some ploughed or dug-up ground, on which not one green thing appeared. Mr. Winchcombe explained, however, that he had not yet had time to cultivate much. "Only vegetables and such things, don't you know," he said.
"I don't see them," I returned.
"Well, no; we had a lot of caterpillars and blister beetles and things, and they eat everything up, don't you know," said he.
The room into which he conducted me contained no furniture except a large deal table and some chairs; also a cupboard, a long mantel-piece, and some shelves against the walls. On every available place were pipes, pouches, revolvers, cartridge boxes, and empty bottles. On the table were tumblers, cups, a sugar-basin, a monstrous tin tea-pot, and a demijohn, which I soon ascertained was half-full of Brazilian rum or caña. Round the table five men were seated smoking, drinking tea and rum and talking excitedly, all of them more or less intoxicated. They gave me a hearty welcome, making me join them at the table, pouring out tea and rum for me, and generously pushing pipes and pouches towards me.
"You see," said Mr. Winchcombe, in explanation of this convivial scene, "there are, altogether, ten of us settlers here going in for sheep-farming and that sort of thing. Four of us have already built houses and bought sheep and horses. The other six fellows live with us from house to house, don't you know. Well, we've made a jolly arrangement—old Cloud—Captain Cloud, don't you know, first suggested it
and it is that every day one of. the four—the Glorious Four we are called— keeps open house; and it's considered the right thing for the other nine fellows to drop in on him sometime during the day, just to cheer him up a bit. Well, we soon made the discovery—old Cloud, I fancy, made it—that tea and rum were about the best things to have on these occasions. To-day it was my day and to-morrow it will be some other fellow's, don't you know. And, by Jove, how lucky I was to meet you at the pulperia! It will be ever so much jollier now."
I had certainly not stumbled upon a charming little English paradise in this Oriental wilderness, and as it always makes me uncomfortable to see young men drifting into intemperate habits and making asses of themselves generally, I was not rapturously delighted with "old Cloud's" system. Still I was glad to find myself with Englishmen in this distant country, and in the end I succeeded in making myself tolerably happy. The discovery that I had a voice pleased them greatly, and when, somewhat excited from the effects of strong cavendish, rum and black tea, I roared out—
"And may his soul in Heaven dwell,
Who first found out the leather botél,"
they all got up and drank my health in big tumblers, and declared they would never let me leave the colony.
Before evening the guests departed, all except the Captain. He had sat with us at the table, but too far gone in his cups to take part in the boisterous fun and conversation. Once in about every five minutes he had implored some one in a husky voice to give him a light for his pipe, then, after two or three ineffectual pufts, he would let it go out again. He had also attempted two or three times to join in the chorus of a song, but soon relapsed again into his imbecile condition.
Next day, however, when he sat down refreshed by a night's sleep to breakfast, I found him a very agreeable fellow. He had no house of his own yet, not having received his money from home, he confidentially informed me, but lived about, breakfasting in one house, dining in a second, and sleeping in a third. "Never mind," he would say, "by-and-by it will be my turn; then I will receive you all every day for six weeks to make it all square."
None of the colonists did any work, but all spent their time lounging about and visiting each other, trying to make their dull existence endurable by perpetual smoking and tea and rum-drinking. They had tried, they told me, ostrich hunting, visiting their native neighbours, partridge-shooting, horse-racing, &c.; but the partridges were too tame for them, they could never catch the ostriches, the natives didn't understand them, and they had finally given up all these so-called amusements. In each house a peon was kept to take care of the flock and to cook, and as the sheep appeared to take care of themselves, and the cooking merely meant roasting a piece of meat on a spit, there was very little for the hired men to do, "Why don't you do these things for yourselves?" I innocently asked.
"I fancy it wouldn't quite be the right thing, don't you know," said Mr. Winchcombe.
"No," said the Captain gravely, "we haven't quite come down to that yet."
I was greatly surprised to hear them. I had seen Englishmen sensibly roughing it in other places, but the lofty pride of these ten rum-drinking gentlemen was quite a new experience to me.
Having spent a somewhat listless morning, I was invited to accompany them to the house of Mr. Bingley, one of the Glorious Four. Mr. Bingley was really a very nice young fellow, living in a house far more worthy of the name than the slovenly rancho tenanted by his neighbour Winchcombe. He was the favourite of the colonists, having more money than the others and keeping two servants. Always on his reception-day he provided his guests with hot bread and fresh butter, as well as with the indispensable rum-bottle and tea-pot. It therefore happened that, when his turn came round to keep open house, not one of the other nine colonists were absent from his table.
Soon after our arrival at Bingley's, the others began to appear, each one on entering taking a seat at the hospitable board, and adding another cloud to the dense volume of tobacco smoke obscuring the room. There was a great deal of hilarious conversation; songs were sung, and a vast amount of tea, rum, bread and butter and tobacco consumed; but it was a wearisome entertainment, and by the time it was over, I felt heartily sick of this kind of life.
Before separating, after "John Peel" had been sung with great enthusiasm, some one proposed that we should get up a fox-hunt in real English style. Every one agreed, glad at anything, I suppose, to break the monotony of such an existence, and next day we rode out followed by about twenty dogs, of various breeds and sizes, brought together from all the houses, After some searching about in the most likely places, we at length started a fox from a bed of dark-leafed Mio-mio bushes. He made straight away for a range of hills about three miles distant, and over a beautifully smooth plain, so that we had a very good prospect of running him down. Two of the hunters had provided themselves with horns, which they blew incessantly, while the others all shouted at the top of their lungs, so that our chase was a very noisy one. The fox appeared to understand his danger and to know that his only chance of escape lay in keeping up his strength till the refuge of the hills was reached. Suddenly, however, he changed his course, this giving us a great advantage, for by making a short cut we were all soon close at his heels, with only the wide level plain before us. But reynard had his reasons for what he did; he had spied a herd of cattle, and in a very few moments had overtaken and mixed with them. The herd, struck with terror at our shouts and hornblowing, instantly scattered and flew in all directions, so that we were able still to keep our quarry in sight. Far in advance of us the panic in the cattle ran on from herd to herd, swift as light, and we could see them miles away fleeing from us, while their hoarse bellowings, and thundering tread, came borne by the wind faintly to our ears. Our fat lazy dogs ran no faster than our horses, but still they laboured on, cheered by incessant shouts, and at last ran into the first fox ever properly hunted in the Banda Oriental.
The chase, which had led us far from home, ended close to a large estancia house, and while we stood watching the dogs worrying their victim to death, the capatas of the establishment, accompanied by three men, rode out to inquire who we were, and what we were doing. He was a small dark native, wearing a very picturesque costume, and addressed us with extreme politeness.
"Will you tell me, senores, what strange animal you have captured?" he asked.
"A fox!" shouted Mr. Bingley, triumphantly waving the brush, which he had just cut off, over his head. "In our country—in England, we hunt the fox with dogs, and we have been hunting after the manner of our country."
The capatas smiled, and replied that if we were disposed to join him it would afford him great pleasure to show us a hunt after the manner of the Banda Oriental.
We consented gladly, and mounting our horses set off at a swinging gallop after the capatas and his men. We soon came to a small herd of cattle; the capatas dashed after them, and unloosening the coils of his lasso flung the noose dexterously over the horns of a fat heifer he had singled out, then started homewards at a tremendous pace. The cow, urged forward by the men, who rode close behind and pricked it with their knives, rushed on bellowing with rage and pain, trying to overtake the capatas, who kept just out of reach of its horns; and in this way we quickly reached the house. One of the men now flung his lasso and caught the beast's hind leg; pulled in two opposite directions, it quickly came to a standstill; the other men now dismounting, first hamstrung, then ran a long knife into its throat. Without removing the hide, the carcase was immediately cut up, and the choice pieces flung on to a great fire of wood, which one of the men had been making. In an hour's time we all sat down to a feast of carne con cuero, or meat roasted in the hide, juicy, tender and exquisitely flavoured. I must tell the English reader who is accustomed to eat meat and game which has been kept till it is tender, that before the tender stage is reached, it has been permitted to get tough. Meat, game included, is never so tender or deliciously flavoured as when cooked and eaten immediately after it is killed. Compared with meat at any subsequent stage, it is like a new-laid egg or a salmon with the cream on, compared with an egg or a salmon after a week's keeping.
We enjoyed the repast immensely, though Captain Cloud bitterly lamented that we had neither rum nor tea to wash it down. When we had thanked our entertainer and were about to turn our horses' heads homewards, the polite capatas once more stepped out and addressed us.
"Gentlemen," he said, " whenever you feel disposed to hunt, come to me and we will lasso and roast a heifer in the hide. It is the best dish the republic has to offer the stranger, and it will give me great pleasure to entertain you; but I beg you will hunt no more foxes over the ground belonging to this estancia, for you have caused so great a commotion amongst the cattle I am placed here in charge of, that it will take my men two or three days to find them all and bring them back again."
We gave the desired promise, plainly perceiving that fox-hunting in the English fashion is not a sport adapted to the Oriental country. Then we rode back, and spent the remaining hours at the house of Mr. Girling, of the Glorious Four, drinking rum and tea, smoking unlimited pipes of cavendish, and talking over our hunting experience.