196 EAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



via7io and smoking a cigarette, would have made his 

 fortune on the stage as a brigand. Valdiviano is simply 

 made by pounding a ribbon of dried charqui between 

 two stones and boiling it in water ; the peons on some 

 estates, hunters, carriers, &c., sometimes go for weeks 

 on this food alone, never tasting bread or vegetables; 

 when made, it is of a deep brick-dust colour, full of the 

 fibres of the charqui. At first it creates nausea, being 

 exceedingly strong food and not endurable by all 

 stomachs ; but after a while people get very fond of it. 

 It tastes to me something like mild horseflesh. 



Meanwhile I busied myself in plucking a couple of 

 plover and roasting the lomo stake, supporting the latter 

 by two sticks slanting over a fire"of embers, spatching 

 the plover and placing them breast upwards on the 

 glowing embers; and then, spreading our ponchos on 

 the ground, we discussed the lot. Gracious, what an 

 appetite that Jose had ! Valdiviano, plover, and steak 

 disappeared down his throat like an alligator^s, and 

 truth to say, down mine too. Jose fished out from his 

 alfoljas two bottles of beer, which speedily disappeared 

 also, and then we lay on our backs watching the smoke 

 of our cigars curl up to the clear blue Chile sky, as 

 happy as two kings. Ah ! I sometimes wish myself back 

 again. But there is an old saying about " eating one^s 

 cake and having it too,^' and also one about "all play and 

 no work, '' and I suppose they are both as veracious as 

 most proverbs. 



We were aroused from our torpor by a voice, " Que 

 hay, senores ; donde estan las bandurris ? " (What, 

 sleeping ! where are the curlew ?) and the mayordomo 

 stood before us. "Look here, sir; as I was passing 

 along by that ditch there, close by that laguna, I saw 



