Page 106 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

the heat of the day, she rode on a well-shaped, light-footed
pony in the centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de cam-
po, picturesque in great hats, with spurred bare heels, in
white embroidered calzoneras, leather jackets and striped
ponchos, rode ahead with carbines across their shoulders,
swaying in unison to the pace of the horses. A tropilla of
pack mules brought up the rear in charge of a thin brown
muleteer, sitting his long-eared beast very near the tail, legs
thrust far forward, the wide brim of his hat set far back,
making a sort of halo for his head. An old Costaguana offi-
cer, a retired senior major of humble origin, but patronized
by the first families on account of his Blanco opinions, had
been recommended by Don Jose for commissary and orga-
nizer of that expedition. The points of his grey moustache
hung far below his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould’s left
hand, he looked about with kindly eyes, pointing out the
features of the country, telling the names of the little pueb-
los and of the estates, of the smooth-walled haciendas like
long fortresses crowning the knolls above the level of the
Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with green young crops,
plains, woodland, and gleams of water, park-like, from the
blue vapour of the distant sierra to an immense quivering
horizon of grass and sky, where big white clouds seemed to
fall slowly into the darkness of their own shadows.
Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen,
small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking immensity
itself. The mounted figures of vaqueros galloped in the dis-
tance, and the great herds fed with all their horned heads
one way, in one single wavering line as far as eye could

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