Taught so well
that we used to be amazed at the richness and profusion of the repast.
These dinners were to us like the "collations" and feasts so minutely
and lovingly described in the _Arabian Nights_, especially that dinner
of many courses given by the Barmecide to his hungry guest which
followed the first tantalizing imaginary one. The wonder was that any
man in the position of a sheep-farmer in a semi-barbarous land, far
from any town, could provide such dinners for his visitors.
After dinner my best time would come, when I would steal off to look
for Estanislao, the young native horseman, who was only too
enthusiastic about wild life and spent more time hunting rheas than in
attending to his duties. "When I see an ostrich," he would say, "I
leave the flock and drop my work no matter what it is. I would rather
lose my place on the estancia than not chase it." But he never lost
his place, since it appeared that no one could do anything wrong on
the estancia and not be forgiven by its master.
Then Estanislao, a big fellow in gaucho dress, wearing a red
handkerchief tied round his head in place of hat, and a mass or cloud
of blackish crinkled hair on his neck and shoulders, would take me
round the plantation to show me any nests he had found and any rare
birds that happened to be about.
