A tropilla of pack mules brought up the rear in charge of a thin
brown muleteer, sitting his long-eared beast very near the tail, legs
thrust 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 patronized by the first families on account of
his Blanco opinions, had been recommended by Don Jose for commissary and
organizer of that expedition. The points of his grey moustache hung far
below his chin, and, riding on Mrs. Gould's left hand, he looked about
with kindly eyes, pointing out the features of the country, telling the
names of the little pueblos and of the estates, of the smooth-walled
haciendas like long fortresses crowning the knolls above the level of
the Sulaco Valley. It unrolled itself, with green young crops, plains,
woodland, and gleams of water, park-like, from the blue vapour of the
distant sierra to an immense quivering horizon of grass and sky, where
big white clouds seemed to fall slowly into the darkness of their own
shadows.
Men ploughed with wooden ploughs and yoked oxen, small on a boundless
expanse, as if attacking immensity itself.
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