Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

the heat of the day, she rode on a well-shaped, light-footedpony in the centre of a little cavalcade. Two mozos de campo,picturesque in great hats, with spurred bare heels, inwhite embroidered calzoneras, leather jackets and stripedponchos, rode ahead with carbines across their shoulders,swaying in unison to the pace of the horses. A tropilla ofpack mules brought up the rear in charge of a thin brownmuleteer, sitting his long-eared beast very near the tail, legsthrust far forward, the wide brim of his hat set far back,making a sort of halo for his head. An old Costaguana officer,a retired senior major of humble origin, but patronizedby the first families on account of his Blanco opinions, hadbeen recommended by Don Jose for commissary and organizerof that expedition. The points of his grey moustachehung far below his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould’s lefthand, he looked about with kindly eyes, pointing out thefeatures of the country, telling the names of the little pueblosand of the estates, of the smooth-walled haciendas likelong fortresses crowning the knolls above the level of theSulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with green young crops,plains, woodland, and gleams of water, park-like, from theblue vapour of the distant sierra to an immense quiveringhorizon of grass and sky, where big white clouds seemed tofall slowly into the darkness of their own shadows.Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen,small on a boundless expanse, as if attacking immensityitself. The mounted figures of vaqueros galloped in the distance,and the great herds fed with all their horned headsone way, in one single wavering line as far as eye could