54 



TOWN OF SAN LUIS. 



* ^ >!« * 



i^HFUK day (from Buenos Aires). We arrived 

 an hour after sunset — fortified post — scrambling in 

 the dark for the kitchen — cook unwilling — correo 

 (the courier) gave us his dinner — ^huts of wild- 

 looking people — three women and girls almost 

 naked* — their strange appearance as they cooked our 

 fowls. Our hut — old man immoveable — Maria or 

 Marequita's figure — little mongrel boy — three or 

 four other persons. Roof supported in the centre 

 by a crooked pole — holes in roof and walls — walls 

 of mud, cracked and rent — a water-jug in the corner 

 on a three-pronged stick — Floor, the earth — the 

 eight hungry peons, by moonlight, standing with 

 their knives in their hands over a sheep they were 

 going to kill, and looking on their prey like relent- 

 less tigers. 



* " They be so wild as the donkey," said one of the Cornish 

 party, smiling ; he then very gravely added, " and there be one 

 thing, sir, that I do observe, which is, that the farther we do go, 

 the wilder things do get !" 



