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48 chapters
FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO
FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO
Author of "Idle Days In Patagonia," "The Purple Land," "A Crystal Age," "Adventures Among Birds," Etc. Preamble—The house where I was born—The singular ombu tree—A tree without a name—The plain—The ghost of a murdered slave—Our playmate, the old sheep-dog—A first riding-lesson—The cattle: an evening scene—My mother—Captain Scott—The hermit and his awful penance...
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CHAPTER II MY NEW HOME
CHAPTER II MY NEW HOME
We quit our old home—A winter day journey—Aspect of the country—Our new home—A prisoner in the barn—The plantation—A paradise of rats— An evening scene—The people of the house—A beggar on horseback—Mr. Trigg our schoolmaster—His double nature—Impersonates an old woman— Reading Dickens—Mr. Trigg degenerates—Once more a homeless wanderer on the great plain...
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CHAPTER III DEATH OF AN OLD DOG
CHAPTER III DEATH OF AN OLD DOG
The old dog Caesar—His powerful personality—Last days and end—The old dog's burial—The fact of death is brought home to me—A child's mental anguish—My mother comforts me—Limitations of the child's mind—Fear of death—Witnessing the slaughter of cattle—A man in the moat—Margarita, the nursery-maid—Her beauty and lovableness—Her death—I refuse to see her dead...
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CHAPTER IV THE PLANTATION
CHAPTER IV THE PLANTATION
Living with trees—Winter violets—The house is made habitable—Red willow—Scizzor-tail and carrion-hawk—Lombardy poplars—Black acacia —Other trees—The fosse or moat—Rats—A trial of strength with an armadillo—Opossums living with a snake—Alfalfa field and butterflies—Cane brake—Weeds and fennel—Peach trees in blossom— Paroquets—Singing of a field finch—Concert-singing in birds—Old John—Cow-birds' singing—Arrival of summer migrants...
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CHAPTER V ASPECTS OF THE PLAIN
CHAPTER V ASPECTS OF THE PLAIN
Appearance of a green level land—Cardoon and giant thistles—Villages of the vizcacha , a large burrowing rodent—Groves and plantations seen like islands on the wide level plains—Trees planted by the early colonists—Decline of the colonists from an agricultural to a pastoral people—Houses as part of the landscape—Flesh diet of the gauchos— Summer change in the aspect of the plain—The water-like mirage—The giant thistle and a "thistle year"—Fear of fires—An incident at a fire—The pampero , or sout
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CHAPTER VI SOME BIRD ADVENTURES
CHAPTER VI SOME BIRD ADVENTURES
Visit to a river on the pampas—A first long walk—Water-fowl—My first sight of flamingoes—A great dove visitation—Strange tameness of the birds—Vain attempts at putting salt on their tails—An ethical question: When is a lie not a lie?—The carancho , a vulture-eagle— Our pair of caranchos —Their nest in a peach tree—I am ambitious to take their eggs—The birds' crimes—I am driven off by the birds—The nest pulled down...
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CHAPTER VII MY FIRST VISIT TO BUENOS AYRES
CHAPTER VII MY FIRST VISIT TO BUENOS AYRES
Happiest time—First visit to the capital—Old and New Buenos Ayres— Vivid impressions—Solitary walk—How I learnt to go alone—Lost—The house we stayed at and the sea-like river—Rough and narrow streets— Rows of posts—Carts and noise—A great church festival—Young men in black and scarlet—River scenes—Washerwomen and their language—Their word-fights with young fashionables—Night watchmen—A young gentleman's pastime—A fishing dog—A fine gentleman seen stoning little birds—A glimpse of Don Eusebio, th
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CHAPTER VIII THE TYRANT'S FALL AND WHAT FOLLOWED
CHAPTER VIII THE TYRANT'S FALL AND WHAT FOLLOWED
The portraits in our drawing-room—The Dictator Rosas who was like an Englishman—The strange face of his wife, Encarnacion—The traitor Urquiza—The Minister of War, his peacocks and his son—Home again from the city—The war deprives us of our playmate—Natalia, our shepherd's wife—Her son, Medardo—The Alcalde, our grand old man— Battle of Monte Caseros—The defeated army—Demands for fresh horses— In peril—My father's shining defects—His pleasure in a thunderstorm —A childlike trust in his fellow-men—
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CHAPTER IX OUR NEIGHBOURS AT THE POPLARS
CHAPTER IX OUR NEIGHBOURS AT THE POPLARS
Homes on the great green plain—Making the acquaintance of our neighbours—The attraction of birds—Los Alamos and the old lady of the house—Her treatment of St. Anthony—The strange Barboza family— The man of blood—Great fighters—Barboza as a singer—A great quarrel but no fight—A cattle-marking—Dona Lucia del Ombu—A feast—Barboza sings and is insulted by El Rengo—Refuses to fight—The two kinds of fighters—A poor little angel on horseback—My feeling for Anjelita— Boys unable to express sympathy—A qu
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CHAPTER X OUR NEAREST ENGLISH NEIGHBOUR
CHAPTER X OUR NEAREST ENGLISH NEIGHBOUR
Casa Antigua, our nearest English neighbour's house—Old Lombardy poplars—Cardoon thistle or wild artichoke—Mr. Royd, an English sheep-farmer—Making sheep's-milk cheeses under difficulties—Mr. Royd's native wife—The negro servants—The two daughters: a striking contrast—The white blue-eyed child and her dusky playmate—A happy family—Our visits to Casa Antigua—Gorgeous dinners—Estanislao and his love of wild life—The Royds' return visit—A home-made carriage— The gaucho's primitive conveyance—The ha
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CHAPTER XI A BREEDER OF PIEBALDS
CHAPTER XI A BREEDER OF PIEBALDS
La Tapera, a native estancia—Don Gregorio Gandara—His grotesque appearance and strange laugh—Gandara's wife and her habits and pets— My dislike of hairless dogs—Gandara's daughters—A pet ostrich—In the peach orchard—Gandara's herds of piebald brood mares—His masterful temper—His own saddle-horses—Creating a sensation at gaucho gatherings—The younger daughter's lovers—Her marriage at our house—The priest and the wedding breakfast—Demetria forsaken by her husband...
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CHAPTER XII THE HEAD OF A DECAYED HOUSE
CHAPTER XII THE HEAD OF A DECAYED HOUSE
The Estancia Canada Seca—Low lands and floods—Don Anastacio, a gaucho exquisite—A greatly respected man—Poor relations—Don Anastacio a pig-fancier—Narrow escape from a pig—Charm of the low green lands—The flower called macachina —A sweet-tasting bulb —Beauty of the green flower-sprinkled turf—A haunt of the golden plover—The bolas —My plover-hunting experience—Rebuked by a gaucho—A green spot, our playground in summer and lake in winter—The venomous toad-like Ceratophrys —Vocal performance of th
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CHAPTER XIII A PATRIARCH OF THE PAMPAS
CHAPTER XIII A PATRIARCH OF THE PAMPAS
The grand old man of the plains—Don Evaristo Penalva, the Patriarch— My first sight of his estancia house—Don Evaristo described—A husband of six wives—How he was esteemed and loved by every one—On leaving home I lose sight of Don Evaristo—I meet him again after seven years—His failing health—His old first wife and her daughter, Cipriana—The tragedy of Cipriana—Don Evaristo dies and I lose sight of the family...
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CHAPTER XIV THE DOVECOTE
CHAPTER XIV THE DOVECOTE
A favourite climbing tree—The desire to fly—Soaring birds-A peregrine falcon—The dovecote and pigeon-pies—The falcon's depredations—A splendid aerial feat—A secret enemy of the dovecote— A short-eared owl in a loft—My father and birds—A strange flower— The owls' nesting-place—Great owl visitations...
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CHAPTER XV SERPENT AND CHILD
CHAPTER XV SERPENT AND CHILD
My pleasure in bird life—Mammals at our new home—Snakes and how children are taught to regard them—A colony of snakes in the house— Their hissing confabulations—Finding serpent sloughs—A serpent's saviour—A brief history of our English neighbours, the Blakes...
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CHAPTER XVI A SERPENT MYSTERY
CHAPTER XVI A SERPENT MYSTERY
A new feeling about snakes—Common snakes of the country—A barren weedy patch—Discovery of a large black snake—Watching for its reappearance—Seen going to its den—The desire to see it again—A vain search—Watching a bat—The black serpent reappears at my feet— Emotions and conjectures—Melanism—My baby sister and a strange snake—The mystery solved...
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CHAPTER XVII A BOY'S ANIMISM
CHAPTER XVII A BOY'S ANIMISM
The animistic faculty and its survival in us—A boy's animism and its persistence—Impossibility of seeing our past exactly as it was—Serge Aksakoff's history of his childhood—The child's delight in nature purely physical—First intimations of animism in the child—How it affected me—Feeling with regard to flowers—A flower and my mother —History of a flower—Animism with regard to trees—Locust trees by moonlight—Animism and nature-worship—Animistic emotion not uncommon —Cowper and the Yardley oak—The
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CHAPTER XVIII THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER
CHAPTER XVIII THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER
Mr. Trigg recalled—His successor—Father O'Keefe—His mild rule and love of angling—My brother is assisted in his studies by the priest— Happy fishing afternoons—The priest leaves us—How he had been working out his own salvation—We run wild once more—My brother's plan for a journal to be called The Tin Box —Our imperious editor's exactions—My little brother revolts— The Tin Box smashed up—The loss it was to me...
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CHAPTER XIX BROTHERS
CHAPTER XIX BROTHERS
Our third and last schoolmaster—His many accomplishments—His weakness and final breakdown—My important brother—Four brothers, unlike in everything except the voice—A strange meeting—Jack the Killer, his life and character—A terrible fight—My brother seeks instructions from Jack—The gaucho's way of fighting and Jack's contrasted—Our sham fight with knives—A wound and the result—My feeling about Jack and his eyes—Bird-lore—My two elder brothers' practical joke...
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CHAPTER XX BIRDING IN THE MARSHES
CHAPTER XX BIRDING IN THE MARSHES
Visiting the marshes—Pajonales and juncales—Abundant bird life—A coots' metropolis—Frightening the coots—Grebe and painted snipe colonies—The haunt of the social marsh hawk—The beautiful jacana and its eggs—The colony of marsh trupials—The bird's music—The aquatic plant durasmillo—The trupial's nest and eggs—Recalling a beauty that has vanished—Our games with gaucho boys—I am injured by a bad boy—The shepherd's advice—Getting my revenge in a treacherous manner—Was it right or wrong?—The game of
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CHAPTER XXI WILD-FOWLING ADVENTURES
CHAPTER XXI WILD-FOWLING ADVENTURES
My sporting brother and the armoury—I attend him on his shooting expeditions—Adventure with golden plover—A morning after wild duck— Our punishment—I learn to shoot—My first gun—My first wild duck—My ducking tactics—My gun's infirmities—Duck-shooting with a blunderbuss—Ammunition runs out—An adventure with rosy-bill duck— Coarse gunpowder and home-made shot—The war danger comes our way—We prepare to defend the house—The danger over and my brother leaves home...
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CHAPTER XXII BOYHOOD'S END
CHAPTER XXII BOYHOOD'S END
The book—The Saladero, or killing-grounds, and their smell—Walls built of bullocks' skulls—A pestilential city—River water and Aljibe water—Days of lassitude—Novel scenes—Home again—Typhus—My first day out—Birthday reflections—What I asked of life—A boy's mind—A brother's resolution—End of our thousand and one nights—A reading spell—My boyhood ends in disaster...
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CHAPTER XXIII A DARKENED LIFE
CHAPTER XXIII A DARKENED LIFE
A severe illness—Case pronounced hopeless—How it affected me— Religious doubts and a mind distressed—Lawless thoughts—Conversation with an old gaucho about religion—George Combe and the desire for immortality...
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CHAPTER XXIV LOSS AND GAIN
CHAPTER XXIV LOSS AND GAIN
The soul's loneliness—My mother and her death—A mother's love for her son—Her character—Anecdotes—A mystery and a revelation—The autumnal migration of birds—Moonlight vigils—My absent brother's return—He introduces me to Darwin's works—A new philosophy of life— Conclusion...
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Preamble—The house where I was born—The singular Ombu tree—A tree without a name—The plain—The ghost of a murdered slave—Our playmate, the old sheep-dog—A first riding-lesson—The cattle: an evening scene—My mother—Captain Scott—The hermit and his awful penance. It was never my intention to write an autobiography. Since I took to writing in my middle years I have, from time to time, related some incident of my boyhood, and these are contained in various chapters in The Naturalist in La Plata, Bir
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
We quit our old home—A winter day journey—Aspect of the country—Our new home—A prisoner in the barn—The plantation—A paradise of rats— An evening scene—The people of the house—A beggar on horseback—Mr. Trigg our schoolmaster—His double nature—Impersonates an old woman— Reading Dickens—Mr. Trigg degenerates—Once more a homeless wanderer on the great plain. The incidents and impressions recorded in the preceding chapter relate, as I have said, to the last year or two of my five years of life in th
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The old dog Caesar—His powerful personality—Last days and end—The old dog's burial—The fact of death is brought home to me—A child's mental anguish—My mother comforts me—Limitations of the child's mind—Fear of death—Witnessing the slaughter of cattle—A man in the moat—Margarita, the nursery maid—Her beauty and lovableness—Her death—I refuse to see her dead. When recalling the impressions and experiences of that most eventful sixth year, the one incident which looks biggest in memory, at all even
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Living with trees—Winter violets—The house is made habitable—Red willow—Scissor-tail and carrion-hawk—Lombardy poplars-Black acacia— Other trees—The foss or moat—Rats—A trial of strength with an armadillo—Opossums living with a snake—Alfalfa field and butterflies —Cane brake—-Weeds and fennel—Peach trees in blossom—Paroquets— Singing of a field finch—Concert-singing in birds—Old John—Cow- birds' singing—Arrival of summer migrants. I remember—better than any orchard, grove, or wood I have ever en
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Appearance of a green level land—Cardoon and giant thistles—Villages of the Vizcacha, a large burrowing rodent—Groves and plantations seen like islands on the wide level plains—Trees planted by the early colonists—Decline of the colonists from an agricultural to a pastoral people—Houses as part of the landscape—Flesh diet of the gauchos— Summer change in the aspect of the plain—The water-like mirage—The giant thistle and a "thistle year"—Fear of fires—An incident at a fire—The pampero , or south
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Visit to a river on the pampas—A first long walk—Waterfowl—My first sight of flamingoes—A great dove visitation—Strange tameness of the birds—Vain attempts at putting salt on their tails—An ethical question: When is a lie not a lie?—The carancho, a vulture-eagle—Our pair of caranchos—Their nest in a peach tree—I am ambitious to take their eggs—The birds' crimes—I am driven off by the birds—The nest pulled down. Just before my riding days began in real earnest, when I was not yet quite confident
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Happiest time—First visit to the Capital—Old and New Buenos Ayres— Vivid impressions—Solitary walk—How I learnt to go alone—Lost—The house we stayed at and the sea-like river—Rough and narrow streets— Rows of posts—Carts and noise—A great church festival—Young men in black and scarlet—River scenes—Washerwomen and their language—Their word-fights with young fashionables—Night watchmen—A young gentleman's pastime—A fishing dog—A fine gentleman seen stoning little birds—A glimpse of Don Eusebio, th
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The portraits in our drawing-room—The Dictator Rosas who was like an Englishman—The strange face of his wife, Encarnacion—The traitor Urquiza—The Minister of War, his peacocks, and his son—Home again from the city—The War deprives us of our playmate—Natalia, our shepherd's wife—Her son, Medardo—The Alcalde our grand old man— Battle of Monte Caseros—The defeated army—Demands for fresh horses— In peril—My father's shining defects—His pleasure in a thunder storm—A childlike trust in his fellow-men—
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Homes on the great green plain—Making the acquaintance of our neighbours—The attraction of birds—Los Alamos and the old lady of the house—Her treatment of St. Anthony—The strange Barboza family— The man of blood—Great fighters—Barboza as a singer—A great quarrel but no fight—A cattle-marking—Dona Lucia del Ombu—A feast—Barboza sings and is insulted by El Rengo—Refuses to fight—The two kinds of fighters—A poor little angel on horseback—My feeling for Anjelita— Boys unable to express sympathy—A qu
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Casa Antigua, our nearest English neighbour's house—Old Lombardy poplars—Cardoon thistle or wild artichoke—Mr. Royd, an English sheep-farmer—Making sheep's-milk cheeses under difficulties—Mr. Royd's native wife—The negro servants—The two daughters: a striking contrast—The white blue-eyed child and her dusky playmate—A happy family—Our visits to Casa Antigua—Gorgeous dinners—Estanislao and his love of wild life—The Royds' return visits—A homemade carriage— The gaucho's primitive conveyance—The ha
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
La Tapera, a native estancia—Don Gregorio Gandara—His grotesque appearance and strange laugh—Gandara's wife and her habits and pets— My dislike of hairless dogs—Gandara's daughters—A pet ostrich—In the peach orchard—Gandara's herds of piebald brood mares—His masterful temper—His own saddle-horses—Creating a sensation at gaucho gatherings—The younger daughter's lovers—Her marriage at our house—The priest and the wedding breakfast—Demetria forsaken by her husband. When, standing by the front gate
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The Estancia Canada Seca—Low lands and floods—Don Anastacio, a gaucho exquisite—A greatly respected man—Poor relations—Don Anastacio a pig-fancier—Narrow escape from a pig—Charm of the low green lands—The flower called macachina —A sweet-tasting bulb— Beauty of the green flower-sprinkled turf—A haunt of the golden plover—The Bolas —My plover-hunting experience—Rebuked by a gaucho—A green spot, our playground in summer and lake in winter—The venomous toad-like Ceratophrys—Vocal performance of the
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The grand old man of the plains—Don Evaristo Penalva, the Patriarch— My first sight of his estancia house—Don Evaristo described—A husband of six wives—How he was esteemed and loved by every one—On leaving home I lose sight of Don Evaristo—I meet him again after seven years—His failing health—His old first wife and her daughter, Cipriana—The tragedy of Cipriana—Don Evaristo dies and I lose sight of the family. Patriarchs were fairly common in the land of my nativity: grave, dignified old men wit
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
A favourite climbing tree—The desire to fly—Soaring birds—A peregrine falcon—The dovecote and pigeon-pies—The falcon's depredations—A splendid aerial feat—A secret enemy of the dovecote— A short-eared owl in a loft—My father and birds—A strange flower— The owls' nesting-place—Great owl visitations. By the side of the moat at the far end of the enclosed ground there grew a big red willow, the tree already mentioned in a former chapter as the second largest in the plantation. It had a thick round
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
My pleasure in bird life—Mammals at our new home—Snakes and how children are taught to regard them—A colony of snakes in the house— Their hissing confabulations—Finding serpent sloughs—A serpent's saviour—A brief history of our English neighbours, the Blakes. It is not an uncommon thing, I fancy, for a child or boy to be more deeply impressed and stirred at the sight of a snake than of any other creature. This at all events is my experience. Birds certainly gave me more pleasure than other anima
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
A new feeling about snakes—Common snakes of the country—A barren weedy patch—Discovery of a large black snake—Watching for its reappearance—Seen going to its den—The desire to see it again—A vain search—Watching a bat—The black serpent reappears at my feet— Emotions and conjectures—Melanism—My baby sister and a strange snake—The mystery solved. It was not until after the episode related in the last chapter and the discovery that a serpent was not necessarily dangerous to human beings, therefore
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
The animistic faculty and its survival in us—A boy's animism and its persistence—Impossibility of seeing our past exactly as it was—Serge Aksakoff's history of his childhood—The child's delight in nature purely physical—First intimations of animism in the child—How it affected me—Feeling with regard to flowers—A flower and my mother— History of a flower—Animism with regard to trees—Locust-trees by moonlight—Animism and nature-worship—Animistic emotion not uncommon—Cowper and the Yardley oak—The
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Mr. Trigg recalled—His successor—Father O'Keefe—His mild rule and love of angling—My brother is assisted in his studies by the priest— Happy fishing afternoons—The priest leaves us—How he had been working out his own salvation—We run wild once more—My brother's plan for a journal to be called The Tin Box —Our imperious editor's exactions—My little brother revolts— The Tin Box smashed up—The loss it was to me. The account of our schooling days under Mr. Trigg was given so far back in this history
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Our third and last schoolmaster—His many accomplishments—His weakness and final breakdown—My important brother—Four brothers, unlike in everything except the voice—A strange meeting—Jack the Killer, his life and character—A terrible fight—My brother seeks instructions from Jack—The gaucho's way of fighting and Jack's contrasted—Our sham fight with knives—A wound and the result—My feeling about Jack and his eyes—Bird-lore—My two elder brothers' practical joke. The vanishing of the unholy priest f
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Visiting the marshes—Pajonales and Juncales—Abundant bird life—A Coots' metropolis—Frightening the Coots—Grebe and Painted Snipe colonies—The haunt of the Social Marsh Hawk—The beautiful Jacana and its eggs—The colony of Marsh Trupials—The bird's music—The aquatic plant Durasmillo—The Trupial's nest and eggs—Recalling a beauty that has vanished—Our games with gaucho boys—I am injured by a bad boy— The shepherd's advice—Getting my revenge in a treacherous manner—Was it right or wrong?—The game of
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
My sporting brother and the armoury—I attend him on his shooting expeditions—Adventure with Golden Plover—A morning after Wild Duck— Our punishment—I learn to shoot—My first gun—My first wild duck—My ducking tactics—My gun's infirmities—Duck-shooting with a blunderbus—Ammunition runs out—An adventure with Rosy-bill Duck— Coarse gunpowder and home-made shot—The war danger comes our way—We prepare to defend the house—The danger over and my brother leaves home. I have said I was not allowed to shoo
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
The book—The Saledero, or killing-grounds, and their smell—Walls built of bullocks' skulls—A pestilential city—River water and Aljibe water—Days of lassitude—Novel scenes—Home again—Typhus—My first day out—Birthday reflections—What I asked of life—A boy's mind—A brother's resolution—End of our thousand and one nights—A reading spell—My boyhood ends in disaster. This book has already run to a greater length than was intended; nevertheless there must be yet another chapter or two to bring it to a
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
A severe illness-Case pronounced hopeless-How it affected me-Religious doubts and a mind distressed-Lawless thoughts—Conversation with an old gaucho about religion—George Combe and the desire for immortality. After we had gone back impoverished to our old home where I first saw the light-which was still my father's property and all he had left-I continued my reading, and was so taken up with the affairs of the universe, seen and unseen, that I did not feel the change in our position and comforts
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
The soul's loneliness—My mother and her death-A mother's love for her son—Her character-Anecdotes-A mystery and a revelation—The autumnal migration of birds—Moonlight vigils—My absent brother's return—He introduces me to Darwin's works—A new philosophy of life—Conclusion. The mournful truth that a man—every man-must die alone, had been thrust sharply into my mind and kept there by the frequent violent attacks of my malady I suffered at that time, every one of which threatened to be the last. And
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