On the other hand no one need starve or go hungry for long in any of the countries of the River Plate; unless he elects to be and to remain a persistent loafer in one of the large towns. Even then he has only to ask and he will receive food, at almost any restaurant or private house. If he refuse to beg or to leave town, he may suffer hunger and thirst, otherwise he cannot. To begin with he can always get a job at one thing or another from any of the numerous private agencies which have standing orders for labour, and even schoolmasters, for the “Camp,” and which are as avid of candidates for such jobs as any crimp of the old days was for men of any kind to sling aboard a ship. Once in the camp any man who has had the grit to go there is sure of finding someone wanting some kind of work which he can do in some sort of fashion. There he will recover such of his normal health and strength as he may have lost as a city unemployed, and will soon shake into a capacity for, and get, something better to do than his first job.[3] The native agricultural labourer or “peon” is a very free and easy and light-hearted kind of person, and must be treated accordingly if his services are to be retained. He is never rude unless in answer to obviously intentional offence offered to himself, and will work very much harder for an employer he likes than for one he finds unsympathetic. Indeed he will only remain with the latter on his own tacit understanding that he takes things easily. When he has accumulated a few dollars of wages he will take himself off to the nearest store or township and indulge in such dissipation as the place affords. From thence he departs with perhaps a few cheap handkerchiefs or other small finery, in the breast of his blouse, which he bestows as gifts at various friendly cottages; at each of which he may while away a day, partaking of pot luck, a shake down on the floor, and innumerable mates and cigarettes, making himself merrily agreeable to his hosts. When he gets tired of this, or has exhausted the immediate circle of his friends, he will return to work on the property on which he left off; or somewhere else should he find himself not as well received on his return as he had hoped. It is pretty much all one to him. An experienced native peon need never go far begging for a job. These men are strong and wiry, capable of spurts of very hard work indeed; so that, even with frequent intervals for chat with everyone available, their average day’s work is usually by no means a bad one. Severity in an employer they will take with perfect good humour; but any affected superiority, or “side,” on his part will meet with a very contemptuous resentment. They are true sons of a Republic, though holding school-learning in the deep respect observable in peasantry almost all the world over.