Letters on South America: Comprising Travels on the Banks of the Paraná and Rio de la Plata, Volume 1

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Collection of letters written to General William Miller, Field Marshall of Peru.

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Página 28 - His face was not only burnt almost to blackness by the sun, but it was blistered to the eyes ; while large pieces of shrivelled skin stood ready to fall from his parched lips. He wore a pair of plain ear-rings, a foraging cap, a tattered poncho, blue jacket, with tarnished red facings; a large knife in a leathern sheath ; a pair of potro boots, and rusty iron spurs, with rowels an inch and a half in diameter. His horse was a noble animal, and sweated profusely.
Página 126 - ... lisping babe replies. Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread : He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, Where age and want sit smiling at the gate : Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick ? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives: Is there a variance ? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more : Despairing quacks...
Página 263 - ... pence a-head more ; the staking and cleaning the hides, once more, three pence; and lastly, a like sum for the carting to Goya, making the whole cost one shilling for each skin. Of this contract ten thousand animals were delivered ; the skins were packed in bales and sold in Buenos Ayres at six rials or three shillings each, and they sold ultimately in England for seven or eight shillings ; that is, the skins sold for about 2,800 to 3,000 per cent, on the first cost of the horse from which the...
Página 27 - ... uncombed of the same colour, matted with perspiration, and powdered with dust. His face was not only burnt almost to blackness by the sun, but it was blistered to the eyes ; while large pieces of shrivelled skin stood ready to fall from his parched lips. He wore a pair of plain...
Página 263 - I have still in my possession," says Mr. Robertson, "a contract which I made in Goya, with an estanciero, for twenty thousand wild horses, to be taken on his estate, at the price of a medio each ; that is to say, three pence for each horse or mare ! The slaughter of them cost three pence...
Página 263 - ... whole not one shilling for each skin. Of this contract ten thousand animals were delivered ; the skins were packed in bales and sold in Buenos Ayres at six reals, or three shillings each, and they sold ultimately in England for seven or eight shillings, that is, for about twentyeight or thirty times the first cost of the horse from which the skin was taken. Such is the accumulative value sometimes of the produce which is taken from the hands of the grower in one country before it gets into the...
Página 178 - ... of South America. The higher class of estancieros, seeing the new order of things established, and knowing they had now a sure and profitable market for their hides, were gradually up and stirring, many availing themselves of Don Pedro's help to re-organize their estancias, and to collect again their herds of cattle.
Página 230 - ... Being a good-natured man, he laughed loudest himself at the jokes which he did not half understand ; and when subsequently the guitarrista took him off to admiration in his mode of making love, Don Felipe was the most pleased man in the company. The guitarreros of South America, like the Italian buffos of the lower class, have all a facility greater or less, of acting the improvisatore. They have also a good deal of wit, and a perception of character, the more clear in proportion to the elements...
Página 178 - ... the anarchy and disorder of the revolutionary period. A certain gaucho, Don Pedro Campbell, was hired by one of the Robertsons 'to cut the camp'. No small difficulty was experienced at first in bringing back all the peons or Gauchos to their old habits of labour and subordination [Robertson wrote], so completely had they been demoralized by the lawless life which, as Artigueno soldiers, many of them had led. But high wages, regularly paid, worked wonders. In many parts, indeed, the bolder and...
Página 179 - Canalla! thieves! villains! assassins!" he would lay about him with stick, knife, or sabre, whichever came first to his hand. With the quickness of thought he would thus disperse the dismayed crew, and then burst into a horse laugh as he leant on the counter of the pulperia. Such was Don Pedro's mode of reading the riot act in the province of Corrientes. In these various ways the country, as if by magic, started into industrious life and mercantile activity, in every section of its wide extent.

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