Most of them, when they sold a horse, looked at him and remarked, “Pobrecito, you will go to the Great War,” just as a man looks at his son who is about to go, with feelings of mixed admiration and regret. After we had examined all the Brazilian’s “Tropilla” so carefully that he said, “By Satan’s death, your graces know far more about my horses than I myself, and all I wonder is that you do not ask me if all of them have not complied with all the duties of the Church,” we found that about twenty of them were fit for the Great War. Calling upon Parodi and the capataz of Bopicuá, who all the time had remained seated round the smouldering fire and drinking maté, to prepare the branding-irons, the peons led them off, our head man calling out “Artilleria” or “Caballeria,” according to their size. After the branding, either on the hip for cavalry and on the neck for the artillery, a peon cut their manes off, making them as ugly as a mule, as their late owner said, and we were once more ready for the road, after the payment had been made. This took a little time, either because the Brazilian could not count, or perhaps because of his great caution, for he would not take payment except horse by horse. So, driving out the horses one by one, we placed a roll of dollars in his hand as each one passed the gate. Even then each roll of dollars had to be counted separately, for time is what men have the most at their disposal in places such as Bopicuá. Two hours of sunset still remained, with three long leagues to cover, for in those latitudes there is no twilight, night succeeding day, just as films follow one another in a cinematograph. At last it all was over, and we were free to mount. Such sort of drives are of the nature of a sport in South America, and so the Brazilian drove off the horses that we had rejected, half a mile away, leaving them with a negro boy to herd, remarking that the rejected were as good or better than those that we had bought, and after cinching up his horse, prepared to ride with us. Before we started, a young man rode up, dressed like an exaggerated gaucho, in loose black trousers, poncho, and a “golilla” {194a} round his neck, a lazo hanging from the saddle, a pair of boleadoras peeping beneath his “cojinillo,” {194b} and a long silver knife stuck in his belt. It seemed he was the son of an estanciero who was studying law in Buenos Aires, but had returned for his vacation, and hearing of our drive had come to ride with us and help us in our task. No one on such occasions is to be despised, so, thanking him for his good intentions, to which he answered that he was a “partizan of the Allies, lover of liberty and truth, and was well on in all his studies, especially in International Law,” we mounted, the gauchos floating almost imperceptibly, without an effort, to their seats, the European with that air of escalading a ship’s side that differentiates us from man less civilised.