I was senseless. A crowd of women came and
began weeping--they thought I was dead--then I was taken in a procession
to the chemist, who sent me to a hospital, where I found my collar bone
broken. I did nothing for three weeks.
This estancia is a splendid one for learners, because there is a little
of everything. Once I had a month with the threshing machine, sleeping
out with the mosquitoes, and getting meat nearly raw for food; but a lot
of money can be made from the harvest.
Then, after a few weeks' holiday to England, we came back, and I went
down south with my brother to sow alfalfa seed. We had a caravan on
wheels, and learned how to plough and sow. We went to a camp
race-meeting, where every estancia has its own tent, there is racing all
day and dancing at night.
I often look back upon these jolly times. Work was exacted with anything
but kindness, but the life was simple and very healthy, and many
pleasant reminiscences are talked over when it is my luck to join others
around the camp fire before falling to sleep with nothing but a
bullock's head as a pillow and a "recado" as a blanket and the glorious,
starry sky above one.
THE SOCIAL SIDE OF CAMP LIFE.
To an outsider, life in the camps or country might be considered very
slow: the distance between the estancias being so great, the ordinary
form of social life is quite impossible; for instance, when one goes to
pay a call on a neighbour, even a first call, it means going for the
day, starting in the cool of the morning and returning in the evening,
and so allowing the horses to have a rest.
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