Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South AmericaRay, George Whitfield
Religion
Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South America
Ray, George Whitfield
Ray, George Whitfield, 1868- -- Travel -- South America; South America -- Description and travel
As I have said, horses are left to die in the public streets. It has
been my painful duty to pass moaning creatures lying helplessly in the
road, with broken limbs, under a burning sun, suffering hunger and
thirst, for three consecutive days, before kind death, the sufferer's
friend, released them. Looking on such sights, seeing every street
urchin with coarse laugh and brutal jest jump on such an animal's
quivering body, stuff its parched mouth with mud, or poke sticks into
its staring eyes, I have cried aloud at the injustice. The policeman
and the passers-by have only laughed at me for my pains.
In my experiences in South America I found cruelty to be a marked
feature of the people. If the father thrusts his dagger into his enemy,
and the mother, in her fits of rage, sticks her hairpin into her maid's
body, can it be wondered at if the children inherit cruel natures? How
often have I seen a poor horse fall between the shafts of some loaded
cart of bricks or sand! Never once have I seen his harness undone and
willing hands help him up, as in other civilized lands. No, the lashing
of the cruel whip or the knife's point is his only help. If, as some
religious writers have said, the horse will be a sharer of Paradise
along with man, his master, then those from Buenos Ayres will feed in
stalls of silver and have their wounds healed by the clover of eternal
kindness. "God is Love."
I have said the streets are full of holes. In justice to the
authorities I must mention the fact that sometimes, especially at the
crossings, these are filled up. To carry truthfulness still further,
however, I must state that more than once I have known them bridged
over with the putrefying remains of a horse in the last stages of
decomposition. I have seen delicate ladies, attired in Parisian
furbelows, lift their dainty skirts, attempt the crossing--and sink in
a mass of corruption, full of maggots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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