Here And There, But Sometimes At Long Distances Apart, There Is A
Pulperia On The Road.
This is always designated by having a white
flag flying on the end of a long bamboo.
At these places cheap
spirits of wine and very bad rum can be bought, along with tobacco,
hard ship-biscuits (very often full of maggots, as I know only too
well), and a few other more necessary things. I have observed in some
of these wayside inns counters made of turf, built in blocks as
bricks would be. Here the natives stop to drink long and deep, and
stew their meagre brains in bad spirits. These draughts result in
quarrels and sometimes in murder.
The Gaucho, like the Indian, cannot drink liquor without becoming
maddened by it. He will then do things which in his sober moments he
would not dream of. I was acquainted with a man who owned a horse of
which he was very fond This animal bore him one evening to a pulperia
some miles distant, and was left tied outside while he imbibed his
fill inside. Coming out at length beastly intoxicated, he mounted his
horse and proceeded homeward. Arriving at a fork in the path, the
faithful horse took the one leading home, but the rider, thinking in
his stupor that the other way was the right one, turned the horse's
head. As the poor creature wanted to get home and have the saddle
taken off, it turned again. This affront was too much for the Gaucho,
who is a man of volcanic passions, so drawing his knife, he stabbed
it in the neck, and they dropped to the ground together.
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