COUNTRY LIFE.

Pastoral life has ever been much the same. The South American estanciero, who is rich in broad tracts of land and vast herds of cattle, has many features of character in common with pastoral chiefs and princes in the old countries of the east, and many of their social customs bear a strict resemblance. So, likewise, the ordinary quarter or half breed herdsman of the pampas has much in common with the herdsmen who pitch their black tents and roam with their flocks in the wilds of Arabia and Tartary. These two classes may be said to constitute the whole of the native population of the pampas. With sheep, as has been already intimated, they have but little to do, their time being almost entirely occupied with attention to horned cattle. The native proprietors owning large estates seldom reside on them during the year more than the last two months of summer. They commit the entire management to a trusty majordomo, and establish themselves in the cities and large towns, where their children can have the advantage of schools and society, and they themselves can gossip with their neighbors, lounge at the cafés, frequent the opera and the play, indulge their predilection for gaming, and, on high and solemn days, attend church to ogle the ladies, criticize the music, and stare at the performance. The rich proprietor is a gentleman of polished manners, and is never seen on the street, at church, theatre, or elsewhere with any marks of carelessness to mar his personal appearance, or anything appertaining to his costume unworthy of his character and social position. He keeps a handsome carriage and a pair of horses, round, sleek, and grave in their attitudes and motions as the Pope's mule. In this the señora, with two of his grown daughters, or a trio of the younger children, rides out on pleasant days after the five o'clock dinner. His house is richly furnished, and stocked with servants in sufficient numbers to divide the work into small departments and make it easy. The table is supplied with a plenteous variety of rich viands. The cooks are trained to remember the national taste for garlic. The wines are of respectable age and excellent flavor; and, what is much to the praise of the master and his household, are always imbibed in strict moderation. If there be extravagance anywhere, it is in the dress of the family. Here the old Spaniard's love of display marks his American descendant, and finds its utmost gratification. Even children that are still dependent on the care of their nurses are tricked out in laces, velvets, and embroidery of silver and gold. The estate which supports this style came by a long inheritance, or a short confiscation, which was one of the results of some period of bloody civil strife. It cost the proprietor nothing. Its management occasions him little, if any, annoyance or solicitude, and he spends its proceeds just as easily as they flow into his coffers. Such, in brief, is the rich SpanishAmerican cattle farmer or estanciero. If it be the true philosophy of life to eat and drink and die to-morrow, then is he a great philosopher and a happy man. The second class deserving notice in any view of country life in the pampas consists of small proprietors of land and herds, small renters of land and owners of a few cattle, and the laborers who assist in the general work of the farms It will be observed that what seems to be three classes are here specified in one. The distinction, however, relates more to small degrees of difference as to wealth than to any difference in the character and appearance of the parties themselves. In their modes of thinking and ways of life, the small landed proprietor, the small land renter, and the common day laborer, are substantially the same. They are alike distinguished in that country by the term "gaucho." This is the term applied to them by the large proprietors and the wealthy and educated classes of the cities and towns. The term itself is an architectural one, and is used in the Spanish language to denote unlevel superficies. In its application to persons, therefore, it may be understood to signify rough, un

polished mental character, and irregular, wandering, semi-savage habits and customs. The house in which the gaucho lives, if he can be said to live in a house at all, is called a rancho, a term familiar to American ears since the war with Mexico and the settlement of California. The gaucho's rancho is the same thing as the Englishman's hut, or the Irishman's shanty. Its four corner posts are simple stakes driven into the ground. Its rafters and general framework are stalks of the aloe or the cane. Its sides and ends are plastered with mud, its floor is the common earth, and its roof is thatched with paja, a species of reed that is found in the low grounds and on the edges of ponds and streams turoughout the pampas. It is not usually divided into separate compartments. The furniture is almost as rude as that of an Indian's wigwam. In one end are stakes driven into the ground, on which a cow-hide is stretched, forming the bed of the family. A rough wooden stool, or the skeleton of a horse's head, forms the only chair. An iron pot and a few tin pans and drinking vessels complete the sum total of the household goods and chattels. Of course, there is no very great amount of work to be done under the roof of such a primitive establishment. There is nothing to eat but beef and pumpkin. The cooking is, therefore, merely a trifle. There is not much to wash and iron, because children in that mild climate are not much addicted to clothing, and the costume of adults, except when tricked out for a visit or a holiday, is reduced to the plainest style and the smallest quantity. The pampas señora's gala dress consists of white camisa, white stockings, plain kid shoes or black lasting gaiters, a fringed silk handkerchief or bright shawl for the head, and a gown of brightcolored silk or cotton. In describing the costume of the gaucho it will be proper to include the trappings of his horse, which, like the Arab, he makes his constant companion, but which he never regards with the Arab's gratitude and affectionate consideration. The saddle consists of a wooden frame, over which are strapped woollen blankets of various colors. Thus composed, it forms an agreeable seat for the long journey of the day, and a comfortable bed when the halt is ordered for the night. The stirrup straps are made long, and the stirrup itself so small as to admit only the great toe. The bridle is of finely plaited raw-hide, and is frequently richly ornamented with silver. An unornamented bridle may be regarded as a mark of extreme poverty, and a ragged one as proof of uncommon laziness and degradation. And in this connexion it may be proper to remark that the pampa horseman never curbs the neck of his steed, but rides with a long rein. This partly accounts for the fact that the pampa horse is remarkably sure-footed, and makes a long journey with but little appearance of fatigue-galloping with ease to himself fifty miles in five consecutive hours.

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If the gaucho be something of a "paquete" (or dandy) in his tastes, his style of dress is both picturesque and pleasing. His full costume in such a case consists of red cloth cap with tassels, close-fitting jacket of cloth, woollen flannel or merino, plaited on the shoulders with large flowing sleeves, resembling altogether the tightly drawn bodice of a fashionable lady. What is called in Spanish a "chiripa," usually made of some gaily striped woollen, is wound round the thighs, and fastened over the hips with a girdle, called a teridor." These, with white cotton drawers, usually fringed at the ankle to at least the depth of twelve inches, and "botas de potro"-colt's hide_boots-constitute the gaucho's tout ensemble. The chiripa is usually selected with some care, but the country dandy's highest taste is expended upon the teridor or girdle around his waist. This is almost invariably adorned with Spanish silver dollars or gold doubloons, worn as buttons where there are holes for them, and simply as ornaments where there are none. Frequently both buttons and ornaments are of pure gold. The writer remembers one of these country paquetes, who came into town on some business with one of the American merchants, and had on his teridor sixteen gold doubloons, which, converted into United States hard

currency, would amount to two hundred and fifty-six dollars. So the reader will perceive that semi barbarous as well as civilized life has its expensive tastes to be gratified. In this particular case the gaucho's teridor would purchase complete the toilette of the American belle, provided she would forego Brussels laces, Italian crapes, India cashmeres, and would set a dandy on his feet in Chesnut street or Broadway, in full attire, with some loose change in his pocket for the opera or the play.

The gaucho, whether dandified or plain, is a gentleman of leisure. If he be only a herdsman he has but little to engage his thoughts or tax his energies. If he be the owner of a herd, so much the better for that love of idleness which is one of his ruling passions. His establishment does not cost him a moment's care. A boy, mounted on an old horse, with a piece of broiled beef in his pocket and a jug of water within convenient reach, rides round the cattle during the day to keep them within the owner's unfenced domain, to see that some honest neighbor does not mistake them for his own property, and to drive them up to the rodes at sundown. To the proprietor, therefore, the boys and their herds furnish merely incidental occupation. The climate and soil are favorable to the cultivation of all kinds of vegetables, but he has no garden. The most delicious fruits might be produced, but he has neither trees nor vines. His herd would afford him milk and butter, but he does not drink a gill of milk in a round year on his own farm, nor eat an ounce of butter in a lifetime. The sapallo, or pumpkin, which he takes with his meat, grows like a gourd, wildly and without attention; but frequently he is even too indolent to put himself to the trouble of digging a hole and dropping the seed in, and rather than do so buys his pumpkin of some foreign immigrant or more industrious brother native. He will pay some little attention to his favorite horse, and that is about the sum of his industry and the extent of his cares in this world. As for the next he knows precious little about it, and cares still less. His serious life-long occupation consists of racing horses and gambling with his neighbors. And as he can neither read nor write, and is not obliged to labor, his passion for these pastimes is no matter of surprise. The larger portion of the proceeds of his cattle is squandered in this wretched way. As in the case of his brethren of the blackleg profession, in more civilized communities, his good fortune to-day beggars him to-morrow. The more rapid his losses, the more desperate he becomes. At such moments he will not only stake his last dollar, but his horse and trappings, the clothes on his back, and (more than this) he will even put to the hazard the concubine in his rancho, or stake his own body and soul, pledging himself to remain in confinement till some friend can ransom him by paying the required sum. Such constant and desperate playing might be expected to lead to violent quarrels, and even to bloodshed and death. Quarrels do frequently attend their play, but violence and death not often. Every gaucho carries a knife in his girdle, and the enraged player will draw and strike in the first moments of his passion, but parties interfere, he quickly cools down and is easily pacified.

An extended and detailed sketch of the native pastoral life of the pampas would be out of place in the present article. If it were otherwise, and were such a sketch faithfully drawn, it would seriously shock the feelings of those who know pastoral life only from romancing books of travel or poetic descriptions. Poets, of all living men-aye, even more than successful politicians or popular preachers-need a very wide margin. The writer knows not that he has ever been able to conceive so clear an idea of the exquisite taste and fertile ingenuity, the illimitable skill and exhaustless invention of the human soul, as when reading descriptions of pastoral life in poetic numbers or romantic prose. It is no matter of wonder that the faculties which first made pastoral life a thing of beauty afterwards invented the telescope, the quadrant, the printing press, the steamboat, the rail car, and the magnetic wire. It may be a

misfortune to be destitute of that wonderful faculty which can clothe with beauty the meanest clod. But it is as surely an inestimable blessing to be endowed with that plain common sense which paints the world and men, if it may be said to paint anything, just as they live and move. And the writer would respectfully inquire of any brother of the fraternities of romantic travellers and pastoral poets, whether fleas do not abound in pastoral countries, and whether pastoral maidens were found in Swiss hats, buff skirts, kid shoes, streaming ribbons, crook in hand, seated on a flowery bank, while gentle streams went murmuring at their feet; or, half naked and besmeared with filth, they sat on the shady side of a leaking, smoky, and dirty cabin, busily employed at plucking the vermin out of each other's long, greasy, tangled hair?

The religion of the pampas is, in the native mind, a thing of vague, superstitious tradition. In the remote districts the population is so sparse and so widely scattered that it would be difficult to provide church accommodation in localities that would insure attendance. The souls that live thus secluded from the great highways of southern life are but little cared for, and are consequently acquainted only with the most simple rudiments of the national faith and worship. The cross as a symbol, the evening hymn to the Virgin, the brief prayer for protection and blessing to the patron saint, form the principal marks of distinction between the religious customs of these Christians, these mixed descendants of the Spanish conquerors, and those of their Indian neighbors of the Grand Chaco and the Patagonian wilds. Their moral habits are gimply what might be expected from their rude condition and non-intercourse with classes whose education produces a better example. Far out in the plains marriage is the exception, and polygamy prevails without disgrace or even censure from the lips of either sex. It is, in brief, a state of society in which are to be found many of the vices of civilization, and but few of its virtues.

THE RIVER AND THE CITY.

La Plata, with its great tributaries, forms the grand outlet for the whole of that immense portion of the southern continent which lies south of the Amazon and east of the Andes. Of this rich and vast country, the principal port is the city of Buenos Ayres. Before the independence it was the only port, and in consequence of that fact it enjoyed almost from its foundation superior advantages. The city stands on the west bank, and extends to the edge of the river. Its site is about in the middle of a long semi-circular sweep or bend, which the river makes between Point San Fernando and Point Indio, a distance, probably, of fifty miles. The highest point of elevation in the site above the river is, perhaps, not more than fifty feet. The city covers nearly as much ground as Philadelphia, and lies much in the same form-the reachuelo, or little river flowing around the southwestern suburb, corresponds to the Schuylkill and La Plata to the Delaware, except that the former has, at the point where it leaves the city, a width of thirty miles. Approaching from the sea the city presents a fine appearance. The harbor is very capacious. The inner roads, where vessels of not more than two hundred and fifty tons are anchored, are about a mile and a quarter from the beach, and the outer roads, where vessels of heavier tonnage anchor, are distant from the beach not less than seven miles. To a distance of six or eight hundred yards from its margin the river is so shoal that a man may wade it. This, it may seem to us, should have taught the founders that a mole was a necessity of the first importance to the comfort, reputation, and prosperity of the port. But they never did so understand, and, until within the last ten years, all cargoes were landed at first in small vessels called lighters, and where these touched bottom their freight was transferred to horse carts having crate bodies and high wheels. Some eight years ago a mole was built extending far enough to meet the lighters. At the same time the lighters ought to have been

supplanted by steam tugs, but they were not; and, it is presumed, continue to be used to this day. They afford but a sorry convenience for discharging a ship's cargo. Considering the days of high wind, when it is impossible for the lighters to carry sail, and the incessant propensity of the Spaniard to procrastinate, it may at once be inferred that the discharge of a ship is a tedious and vexatious undertaking in the port of Buenos Ayres. The fact is, that some of the captains arriving at that port for the first time wear out their patience, and then nearly swear away their lungs before they get ready to bend sail and stand southward for the ocean. Probably the principal reason in the minds of the conquerors for founding a city on a beach so broad and shallow was to place it beyond the reach of an enemy's guns. In this their plan was a triumph in their day. But in this day of swamp angels, Barnard, Gillmore, or Farragut would anchor in the outer roads, and, with their improved artillery, quickly batter the city to the ground. Buenos Ayres, in several respects, can hardly be regarded as a Spanish-American city-certainly not in the same sense as Chuquesaca, La Paz, and Cochabamba. Being the only port of entry on the river, under the dominion of old Spain, it enjoyed peculiar privileges, and cultivated intercourse with the ports of other countries to an extent which greatly modified its purely Spanish characteristics. And still, as the chief port for the immense productions of the sheep and cattle farms of the pampas, it excels in wealth and all the means of civilization, and is great enough to be a competitor of Rio de Janeiro, the commercial metropolis of the southern continent.

SYSTEM OF FARM ACCOUNTS.

BY JOHN H. BOURNE, MARSHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.

THE following essay is presented, not as a system of book-keeping adapted to mercantile business, where large sales are daily made, but for the use of the thousands of farmers scattered all over our broad land, from Maine to California, owning farms varying in size from ten to a thousand acres. Nor is it brought forward as the only or the best one that can be employed, but as one that has proved practicable, and that can be carried out by any one who can write and perform simple operations in arithmetic.

The importance of keeping an account of the income and expenses of the farm has not been fully estimated by the majority of farmers. If they have dealings with their neighbors, they keep some record of it; but they cannot tell how the account stands with their farm. They do not know whether there is more profit in raising hay or corn, potatoes or cabbages, cattle or hogs, or whether any thing pays. It is not always advisable to take note of the expenses of every field, yet it is often well to see what it costs to raise a crop of grain, roots, &c., in order to judge the comparative value of each.

Many farmers are deterred from keeping a record of their receipts and expenditures by the belief that it is too complicated for them; others, that it will take too much time; a few, because of their unwillingness to attend to any intellectual labor; and others, still, because they do not feel its importance. It is important and practicable for all, and no man should consider that he has reached the rank of No. 1 farmers unless he keeps accurate accounts with his farm; and tone of the best means to reach that rank is to commence and continue wellarranged, simple, and accurate farm accounts. We admit that it is more difficult to arrive at the exact cost of a certain crop or animal, than for the merchant to