In return they could purchase anything they wanted-knives,
spurs, rings for horse-gear, clothing, yerba mate and sugar; tobacco,
castor-oil, salt and pepper, and oil and vinegar, and such furniture
as they required--iron pots, spits for roasting, cane-chairs, and
coffins. A little distance from the house were the kitchen, bakery,
dairy, huge barns for storing the produce, and wood-piles big as
houses, the wood being nothing but stalks of the cardoon thistle or
wild artichoke, which burns like paper, so that immense quantities had
to be collected to supply fuel for a large establishment.
Two of the smallest of us were handed over to the care of a sharp
little native boy, aged about nine or ten years, who was told to take
us out of the way and keep us amused. The first place he took us to
was the great barn, the door of which stood open; it was nearly empty
just then, and was the biggest interior I had ever seen; how big it
really was I don't know, but it seemed to me about as big as Olympia
or the Agricultural Hall, or the Crystal Palace would be to any
ordinary little London boy. No sooner were we in this vast place than
we saw a strange and startling thing--a man, sitting or crouching on
the floor, his hands before him, the wrists tied together, his body
bound with thongs of raw hide to a big post which stood in the centre
of the floor and supported the beam of the loft above.
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