According to all accounts, the clouds of glory I
brought into the world--a habit of smiling at everything I looked at
and at every person that approached me--ceased to be visibly trailed
at about that age; I only remember myself as a common little boy--just
a little wild animal running about on its hind legs, amazingly
interested in the world in which it found itself.
Here, then, I begin, aged five, at an early hour on a bright, cold
morning in June--midwinter in that southern country of great plains or
pampas; impatiently waiting for the loading and harnessing to be
finished; then the being lifted to the top with the other little ones
--at that time we were five; finally, the grand moment when the start
was actually made with cries and much noise of stamping and snorting
of horses and rattling of chains. I remember a good deal of that long
journey, which began at sunrise and ended between the lights some time
after sunset; for it was my very first, and I was going out into the
unknown. I remember how, at the foot of the slope at the top of which
the old home stood, we plunged into the river, and there was more
noise and shouting and excitement until the straining animals brought
us safely out on the other side. Gazing back, the low roof of the
house was lost to view before long, but the trees--the row of twenty-
five giant ombu-trees which gave the place its name--were visible,
blue in the distance, until we were many miles on our way.
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