I had been reading the Uruguayan epic “Tabaré” for hours next morning, and possessing my soul in such patience as one acquires in Latin-America, when I learned by chance that a mucamo, as they call a mozo in Uruguay, had been waiting in the hotel patio below and asking for me every few minutes since the night before, the servants having been too indolent to bring me word. With the better part of a day lost I rode away on a stout, gray-white horse of rocking-chair canter. The muddy or flooded road curved and turned and rose and fell, always seeking the moderate height of the succeeding ridges and here and there crossing gently rounded cuchillas. The mucamo on his piebald was outwardly a most unprepossessing creature, but he was a helpful, cheery fellow, in great contrast to the usual surly workman of southern South America, and though only sixteen and scarcely able to read, he was by no means dull-witted. Apparently there was not a bird, a flower, or an animal which he did not know intimately, and he was supernaturally quick in catching sight or sound of them. The hornero, a little brown bird that makes its ovenlike nest on fence-posts, the branches of trees, and the crosspieces of telegraph-poles, was there in force; the cotorra, a species of noisy paroqueet, was almost as numerous. The chingolo, resembling a sparrow, sits on the backs of grazing cattle and lives on the garrapatas, or ticks, that burrow into the animal’s hide. The bien-te-veo (“I spy you”), a yellow bird with a whistling call suggesting that of a happy child playing hide-and-seek, frequently glided past; the startled cry of the teru-teru rose as we advanced, disturbing it. The latter is called the “sentinel bird” and is so certain to give warning of anything approaching that even soldiers have found it a useful ally. Dark-gray with white wings and a slight crest, it resembles a lapwing with a cry not unlike that of our “killdeer.” The bien-te-veo and the teru-teru live in perfect immunity because of a local superstition similar to the one sailors have for the albatross. The woodpecker of Uruguay is called carpintero, because he works in wood; the viuda (widow), a little white bird with a black head, is so called, my companion explained to me in all innocence, because she produces her brood regularly each year without ever being seen with a male. A little dark-brown bird called the barranquero builds nests like the homes of our ancient cliff-dwellers, in the sides of barrancas, or sand-banks. Among the many small birds, songsters, screamers, and disciples of silence, which eddied about us, one of the most conspicuous was the cardenal, gray with white under the wings, its whole head covered with a bright-red liberty cap. A large bird resembling the stork my companion called “Juan Grande”; others call it the chajá, because of the jeering half-laugh it is always uttering. It lives on the edges of swamps, though it cannot swim. A big brown carancho, a hawk-like bird living on carrion, circled above us with the ordinary South American scavenger buzzard, here called simply cuervo, or crow. There is good shooting of a local partridge in Uruguay, the open season being from April to September. At plowing time the gulls come in great numbers to feast on the fat grubs. The dainty crested Uruguayan sparrow has all but been driven out by the English variety, introduced, if the local legend can be believed, by an immigrant who let a cageful of them fly rather than pay duty on them.

Thus we rode hour after hour over the rolling lomas and cuchillas. The ground was here and there speckled with macachines, daisy-like little flowers of a wild plant that produces a species of tiny sweet potato. The mucamo had never heard of the Castilian tongue; what he spoke was the “lingua oriental.” It was, to be sure, by no means pure Spanish, but a Spaniard would have had no difficulty in understanding him.

At the door of an estancia house with all the comforts reasonably to be expected in so isolated a location I was met by “Pirirín,” son of a former minister to London and Washington, and brother of a well-known Uruguayan writer. His English was as fluent as my own, with just a trace of something to show that it was not his native tongue. An old woman at once brought us mate, and we sucked alternately at the protruding tube each time she refilled the gourd with hot water. The sun soon set across the rich loam country, which was here and there being turned up by plodding oxen, and threw into relief the three cerros chatos, flat-topped hills that give the region its nickname and which suggest that the level of the country was once much higher before it was washed away into the sea by heavy rains that even now gave earth and sky such striking colors.

The wealth and prosperity of the native estanciero of Uruguay is rarely indicated by the size or dignity of his estancia house. As in the Argentine and Chile, many estates are owned by men living in the capital, if not in Europe, each in charge of a gerente, or overseer-manager. Small as Uruguay is—by South American standards it seems tiny, even though it is almost as large as New England—many of its estancias are immense, especially in these northern departments. There has been much chatter by politicians about limiting the size of estates and setting up immigrants in the place of absentee owners, but so far it has chiefly ended in political chatter. The average Uruguayan estancia house is not particularly well adapted to the climate, at least during the winter months. A little clump of poplars or eucalyptus, occasionally a solitary ombú, invariably marks the site of the main dwelling. Not a few men of comparative wealth pig it out on their own immense estates, scorning modern improvements, cut off by impassable roads from markets and all the outside world several months a year, refusing to subscribe to the rural telephone, depending for their news on private postmen hired by groups of their fellows. A few estate owners, especially those who have lived abroad, demand moderate comfort, whether for themselves or their managers, though even “Pirirín” was content with more primitive conditions than many a small American farmer would endure.

It is quickly evident and freely admitted that the average estancia in Uruguay is loose of morals. Estancieros frankly state that it is better if the cook is old and unattractive. It seems to be the rule rather than the exception, for estancia washerwomen and others of their class to present the estate with a score of children by members of the owning family and perhaps by several of the peons as well. Among this class marriage is unpopular and generally considered superfluous. There is much noise about Uruguay’s “advanced” theories of social improvement, yet the law forces, and costumbre expects, no help from the father in the support of his illegitimate children. If he chooses to acknowledge them and aid in their up-bringing, he is credited with an unusually charitable disposition. The woman, on her side, takes her condition as a matter of course. She will admit with perfect equanimity that she is not certain just who is father of this child or that and pointing out one of a half dozen playing about the estancia backyard she will say laughingly, yet with a hint of seriousness and pride, “Ah, sí, el tiene papá;” that is, he is one of her children whose father has recognized him. Yet these women are as punctilious in general courtesy and the outward forms of behavior as their proud patrón or the hidalgo-mannered peons.

Next day “Pirirín” and I rode away in the Sunday morning sunshine across the immense estate, the teru-terus screaming a warning ahead of us wherever we went. In and about a bañado, a swamp full of razor-edged wild grass that cut the fingers at the slightest touch, we saw specimens of the three principal indigenous animals of Uruguay,—the carpincho, nutria, and mulita. The first, large as an Irish terrier, is grayish-brown in color, with an unattractive face sloping back from nose to ears, squirrel-like teeth, and legs suggestive of the kangaroo. Amphibious and sometimes called the river hog, he looks like a cross between a pig and a rabbit, or as if he had wished to be a deer but had found the undertaking so difficult that he had given it up and taken to the water and to rooting instead. On the edges of Uruguayan streams there are many happy little families of the beaver-like nutria, an aquatic animal large as a cat, with long thick fur and a rat-like tail. Playful as a young rabbit, the nutria is quick of hearing and swift of action, taking to the water at once when disturbed and leaving only its nostrils above the surface; yet when cornered it is savage, as many a dog has learned to his sorrow. When the pulperos, or country shopkeepers, of Uruguay found that nutria skins brought a high price from the furriers of Europe and the United States they set the countrymen to killing them off regardless of age, sex, or season, ruining many of the skins by their clumsy handling and all but exterminating the species. The mulita, also called tatu, is a timid, helpless little animal of the iguana family, half-lizard, half-turtle, with a scaly, shield-like covering that suggests medieval armor, and which, dug out of its hole and roasted over a fagot-fire, furnishes a repast fit for kings.

The flora was also striking, for all the absence of forests and large growths. The sina-sina is a small tree with dozens of trunks growing from the same root, willow-like leaves, and large thorns that clutch and tear at anything that ventures within reach of it. A waterside bush called the curupí contains a poison that the Charrúa Indians formerly used for tipping their arrows. The sarandí, a bush growing on the banks of streams with its feet always in the water; the madreselva, or honeysuckle; the chilca, a thinly scattered bush scarcely two feet high, and the guayacán, a bushy plant with beautiful white flowers in season, were the most common landscape decorations. Thousands of macachines covered the ground, white flowers with now and then a touch of yellow or velvety dark-red.

The gauchos of the estate had been ordered to rodear, to round up a large herd of cattle, and soon we came upon them riding round and round several hundred on the crest of a hillock. On the backs of some of the animals chingolos still sat serenely picking away at the garrapatas or the flesh left bare by them. The latter are the chief pest of an otherwise almost perfect ranching country, for thousands of these aggressive ticks burrow into the hide of the animals and suck their blood so incessantly that great numbers of cattle die of anemia or fever. All but the more backward estates now have a big trough-like bath through which the cattle are driven several times a year as a protection against garrapatas, but even so it is one peon’s sole duty to ride over the estate each day to curear, or skin the animals that have died, carry the skin home, and stake it out in the sun to dry.

More than two hours of riding brought us to the almacén or pulpería, the general store that is to be found on or near every large estancia in Uruguay. As the day was Sunday scores of gauchos with that half-bashful, laconic, yet self-reliant air common to their class, ranging all the way from half-Indian to pure white in race, with here and there the African features bequeathed by some Brazilian who had wandered over the nearby border, silently rode up on their shaggy ponies one after another out of the treeless immensity and, throwing the reins of the animal over a fence-post beside many others drowsing in the sun, stalked noiselessly into the dense shade of the acacia and eucalyptus trees about the pulpería, then into the store itself. Most of them were in full regalia of recado, pellones, shapeless felt hat, shaggy whiskers and poncho. With few exceptions the “Oriental” gaucho still clings to bombachas or chiripá, the ballooning folds of which disappear in moccasin-like alpargatas, or into the wrinkled calfskin boots still called botas de potro, though the custom that gave them their name has long since become too expensive to be continued. These “colt boots” were formerly obtained by killing a colt, unless one could be found already dead, removing the skin from two legs without cutting it open, thrusting the gaucho foot into it, and letting it shape itself to its new wearer. A short leather whip hanging from his leather-brown wrist, a poncho with a long fringe, immense spurs so cruel that the ready wit of the pampa has dubbed them “nazarinas,” a gay waistcoat, and last of all a flowing neckcloth, the last word of dandyism in “camp” life, complete his personal wardrobe. It is against the law to carry arms in Uruguay, yet every gaucho or peon has his cuchillo in his belt, or carries a revolver if he considers himself above the knife stage. Every horseman, too, must have his recado, that complication of gear so astonishing to the foreigner, so efficient in use, with which the rural South American loads down his mount. An ox-hide covers the horse from withers to crupper, to keep his sweat from the rider’s gear; a saddle similar to that used on pack animals, high-peaked fore and aft, is set astride this, and both hide and saddle are cinched to the horse by a strong girth fastened by thongs passed through a ringbolt. On the bridle, saddle, and whip is brightly shining silver, over the saddle-quilts and blankets are piled one above the other, the top cover being a saddlecloth of decorated black sheepskin or a hairy pellón of soft, cool, tough leather, and outside all this is passed a very broad girth of fine tough webbing to hold it in place. With his recado and poncho the experienced gaucho has bedding, coverings, sun-awning, shelter from the heaviest rain, and all the protection needed to keep him safe and sound on his pampa wanderings.

As they entered the pulpería the newcomers greeted every fellow-gaucho, though some two score were already gathered, with that limp handshake peculiar to the rural districts of South America, rarely speaking more than two or three words, and these so low as to be barely audible, apparently because of the presence of “Pirirín” and myself. The rules of caste were amazing in a country supposed to be far advanced in democracy. Though the gaucho, in common with most of the human family, considers himself the equal, if not the superior, of any man on earth, he retains many of the manners of colonial days. “Pirirín” and I, as lords of the visible universe and representatives of the wealth and knowledge of the great outside world, had entered the pulpería by the family door and were given the choicest seats—on the best American oil-boxes available—behind the counter. The sophisticated-rustic pulpero greeted us each with a handshake, somewhat weak, to be sure, because that is the only way his class ever shakes hands, but raising his hat each time, while we did not so much as touch ours. To have done so would have been to lower both the pulpero’s and the by-standing gauchos’ opinion of us. Then he turned and greeted his gaucho customers with an air nicely balanced between the friendly and the superior, offering each of them a finger end, they raising their hats and he not so much as touching his.

Yet these slender, wiry countrymen, carrying themselves like self-reliant freemen, with a natural ease of bearing and a courtesy in which simplicity and punctilio are nicely blended, take the stranger entirely on his merits and give and expect the same courtesy as the wealthy estanciero. If the newcomer shows a friendly spirit, his title soon advances from “Señor”—or “Mister,” in honor of his foreign origin, be he French, Spanish, Italian, English, or American—to the use of his first name, and he will be known as “Don Carlos,” “Don Enrique,” or whatever it may be, to the end of his stay. Later, if he is well liked, he may even be addressed as “Ché,” that curious term of familiarity and affection universally used among friends in Uruguay. It is not a Spanish word, but seems to have been borrowed from the Guaraní tongue, in which it means “mine,” and probably by extension “my friend.” To be called “Ché” by the Uruguayan gaucho is proof of being accepted as a full and friendly equal.

In theory the pulpero establishes himself out on the campaña only to sell tobacco, mate, strong drink, and tinned goods from abroad; in practice these country storekeepers have other and far more important sources of income. They are usurers, speculators in land and stock, above all exploiters of the gaucho’s gambling instinct. Thanks perhaps to the greater or less amount of Spanish blood in his veins he will accept a wager on anything, be it only on the weather, on a child’s toys, on which way a cow will run, on how far away a bird will alight, or on whether sol ó número (“sun or number,” corresponding to our “heads or tails”) will fall uppermost at the flipping of a coin. This makes him easy prey to the pulpero, who is usually a Spaniard, Basque, Italian, or “Turk,” and an unconscionable rogue without any other ideal than the amassing of a fortune, yet who somehow grows rich at the expense of the peons and gauchos, instead of meeting the violent death from the quick-tempered hijo del país who despises yet fears him.

The gauchos were originally called “gauderios,” that is, lazy, good-for-nothing rascals. To-day that word is an exaggeration, for they have a certain merit of industry and simple honesty. There is considerable vendetta among them, gambling rows and love affairs especially, much of which goes unpunished, particularly if the perpetrator is a “red” and his victim a “white.” Punishment for fence-cutting or sheep-stealing is surer: as in our own West in earlier days the loss of a man is largely his own affair, while the loss of a flock of sheep or a drove of cattle is serious. To make matters worse, the country comisarios, or policemen, are often subsidized by certain estancieros to the disadvantage of others, and the juez de paz is quite likely to be a rogue, in either of which cases the friends of “justice” usually get off and their enemies get punished.

According to “Pirirín,” the average gaucho is an incorrigible wanderer. Paid but ten or fifteen pesos a month “and found,” and satisfied with quarters which most workmen in civilized lands would refuse with scorn, he is given to capricious changes of abode and is likely to throw a leg over his faithful horse at the least provocation. Among these incurable pampa wanderers there are not a few “poor whites,” often with considerable Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins, its origin lost in their Spanicized names. Hospitality is the first of the virtues of the estanciero, and any genial horseback tramp who turns up may remain on the estancia unmolested for a day, a week, or a month, as the spirit moves him. There was a suggestion of our own cowboys among the group that finally overflowed the pulpería, though the gauchos were less given to noisy horseplay and had far more dignity and courtesy. Some of them could read without having to spell out the words, and while “Orientals” in the mass are not a nation of readers and there is considerable illiteracy, these countrymen were much more in touch with the world’s affairs than the same class in the countries of the West Coast.

The gaucho may still occasionally be heard thrumming a guitar and wailing his sad, Moorish, genuinely Oriental songs, invariably sentimental and deeply melancholy, with never a comic touch, like a lineal descendant of the wandering troubadour of the Middle Ages or the street-singers of the Mohammedan East. When he is not making music or love, he is sucking mate and talking horses. He has more than a score of words for his equine companion, running through every gamut of color, behavior, and pace. His obsession for this topic of conversation is natural, for he has an instinctive horror of going on foot and the horse is to the resident of the pampas what the ship is to the sailor; without it he is hopelessly stranded. Yet his interest is entirely of a utilitarian nature. He is racially incapable of any such affection for his mount as causes other races to spare it unnecessary suffering; if he coddles it at all it is merely for the selfish motive of his own safety or convenience. Among the picturesque types of the campaña and the pampa is the domador, the professional horse-breaker. His customary fee is five pesos a head, “with living,” and his methods are true to his Spanish blood. Instead of being broken early, the colts are allowed to run wild until they are four or five years old; then a drove of them is rounded up in a corral and the victims suddenly lassooed one by one and thrown to the ground. With half a dozen peons pulling on the rope about his neck until he is all but strangled, his legs are tied and a halter is put on and attached to a tree, where the animal is left to strain until he is exhausted, often hurting himself more or less permanently. Then his tongue and lower jaw are fastened in a painful noose that forces him to follow the peon, who rides away, jerking at the rope. Finally, when the weary and frightened animal is trembling in every limb, the brave domador mounts him and, with a horseman on either side to protect him, and pulling savagely at the colt’s sore mouth, the potro is galloped until he is completely worn out. It used to be beneath gaucho dignity to ride a mare, and to this day no self-respecting domador of the old school will consent to tame one. Sometimes the female of the species draws carts, with her colt running alongside, but on the larger estancias she is allowed to roam at large all her days.

In the evening, with the gauchos departed and the pulpería officially closed to the public, we added our bonfire to the sixteen others in honor of St. Peter and St. Paul, which we could count around the horizon, and gathered about the table with the pulpero’s family to play “lottery,” a two-cent gambling card game. It was long after midnight when “Pirirín” shook off the combined fascination of this and the pulpero’s amenable daughter. From my cot behind the pulpería counter I saw the day dawn rosy red, but clouds and a south wind promised rain before my companion roused himself. We got into an araña (spider), a two-wheeled cart which did somewhat resemble that web-weaving insect, and rocked and bumped away across the untracked campaña behind two half-wild young horses. Never was there a let-up from howling at and lashing the reeking animals all the rest of the morning, an English education not having cured “Pirirín” of the thoughtless cruelty bequeathed by his Spanish blood. Through gullies in which we were showered with mud, up and down hill at top speed we raced, until the trembling horses were so weary that we were forced to hitch on in front of them the one the mucamo was riding. In Tacuarembó this owner, or at least prospective owner, of thousands of acres and cattle went to the cheapest hotel and slept on an ancient and broken cot in the same room with two rough and dirty plowmen, while I caught the evening train for the Brazilian border.