XII 
CRISTIANO: A HORSE 
A GaucHo of my acquaintance, when I lived on 
the pampas and was a very young man, owned 
a favourite riding-horse which he had named 
Cristiano. To the gaucho “Christian” is simply 
another word for white man: he gave it that 
name because one of its eyes was a pale blue-grey 
almost white—a colour sometimes seen in the eyes 
of a white man, but never in an Indian. The other 
eye was normal, though of a much lighter brown 
than usual. Cristiano, however, could see equally 
well out of both eyes, nor was the blue eye on one 
side correlated with deafness, as in a white cat. His 
sense of hearing was quite remarkable. His colour 
was a fine deep fawn, with black mane and tail, and © 
altogether he was a handsome and a good, strong, 
sound animal; his owner was so much attached 
to him that he would seldom ride any other horse, 
and as a rule he had him saddled every day. 
Now if it had only been the blue eye I should 
probably have forgotten Cristiano, as I made no 
notes about him, but I remember him vividly to 
this day on account of something arresting in his 
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