She came in
immediately after we were seated, and I scarcely recognized her; for
she was not only clean now, but good-looking as well, with that rich
olive colour on her oval face, her black hair well arranged, and her
dark eyes full of tender, loving light. She was now wearing a white
merino dress with a quaint maroon-coloured pattern on it, and a white
silk kerchief fastened with a gold brooch at her neck. It was pleasant
to look at her, and, noticing my admiring glances, she blushed when
she sat down, then laughed. The breakfast was excellent. Roast mutton
to begin, then a dish of chickens stewed with rice, nicely flavoured
and coloured with red Spanish _pimenton_. A fowl roasted or boiled,
as we eat them in England, is wasted, compared with this delicious
_guiso de potto_ which one gets in any _rancho_ in the Banda
Orient. After the meats we sat for an hour cracking walnuts,
sipping wine, smoking cigarettes, and telling amusing stories; and I
doubt whether there were three happier people in all Uruguay that
morning than the un-Scotched Scotchman, John Carrickfergus, his
un-ding-donging native wife, and their guest, who had shot his man on
the previous evening.
After breakfast I spread my _poncho_ on the dry grass under a
tree to sleep the siesta. My slumbers lasted a long time, and on waking
I was surprised to find my host and hostess seated on the grass near
me, he busy ornamenting his surcingle, she with the _mate_-cup
in her hand and a kettle of hot water beside her.
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