Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
EL OMBÚ
Uniform with this volume The Readers' Library. 50 volumespublished. Full list of titles can be had from the PublishersDuckworth & Co. Covent Garden, London
El Ombú
by W. H. Hudson
Author of "Green Mansions," "The Purple Land," "A
Crystal Age," "A Little Boy Lost"
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
First Published 1902.
Reissued under the title of "South American Sketches" 1909
Published in the Readers Library 1920
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain by R. Folkard & Son, London
To my Friend
R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
("Singularisimo escritor ingles")
Who has lived with and knows (even to the marrow as they wouldthemselves say) the horsemen of the Pampas, and who alone of Europeanwriters has rendered something of the vanishing colour of that remote life.
NOTE.
The two short stories included in this volume are reprints:—the"Story of a Piebald Horse" from a book of travel and adventure inSouth America, long out of print; the other, "Niño Diablo," is taken,by permission, from Macmillan's Magazine. The two long stories nowappear for the first time, excepting only the incidents of the Englishinvasion told in "El Ombú," and the Appendix to the same story, whichformed part of an article describing the game of El Pato in theBadminton Magazine.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| 1. | El Ombú | 1 |
| 2. | Story of a Piebald Horse | 69 |
| 3. | Niño Diablo | 89 |
| 4. | Marta Riquelme | 125 |
| 5. | Appendix to El Ombú | 174 |
EL OMBÚ.
This history of a house that had been was told in the shade, onesummer's day, by Nicandro, that old man to whom we all loved to listen,since he could remember and properly narrate the life of every personhe had known in his native place, near to the lake of Chascomus, on thesouthern pampas of Buenos Ayres.
In all this district, though you should go twenty leagues to thisway and that, you will not find a tree as big as this ombú, standingsolitar