Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/311

Rh, and halted again at ten. The peones rode on horseback, and prodded the oxen with long goads. The boy lighted the fire for the roasting, gave the beasts their fodder, polished up the lanterns, and brought water for drinking.

The landscape passed before him like an indistinct vision: vast groves of little brown trees; villages consisting of a few scattered houses, with red and battlemented façades; very vast tracts, possibly the ancient beds of great salt lakes, which gleamed white with salt as far as the eye could reach; and on every hand, and always, the prairie, solitude, silence. On very rare occasions they met two or three travellers on horseback, followed by a herd of picked horses, who passed them at a gallop, like a whirlwind. The days were all alike, as at sea, lengthy and wearisome; but the weather was fine.

But the peones became more and more exacting every day, as though the lad were their bond slave; some of them treated him brutally, and threatened him; all forced him to serve them without mercy. They made him carry great bundles of forage; they sent him to get water at long distances; and he, broken with fatigue, could not even sleep at night, continually tossed about as he was by the violent jolts of the wagon, and the deafening groaning of the wheels and wooden axles. In addition to this, the wind having risen, a fine, reddish, greasy dust, which enveloped everything, penetrated the wagon, made its way under the covers, filled his eyes and mouth,, robbed him of sight and breath, constantly, oppressively, insupportably.