the book and have had to cut it down a good deal and to reshape it, as
in the first draft it would have made too long and formless a history.

The house where I was born, on the South American pampas, was quaintly
named _Los Veinte-cinco Ombues,_ which means "The Twenty-five Ombu
Trees," there being just twenty-five of these indigenous trees--
gigantic in size, and standing wide apart in a row about 400 yards
long. The ombu is a very singular tree indeed, and being the only
representative of tree-vegetation, natural to the soil, on those great
level plains, and having also many curious superstitions connected
with it, it is a romance in itself. It belongs to the rare Phytolacca
family, and has an immense girth--forty or fifty feet in some cases;
at the same time the wood is so soft and spongy that it can be cut
into with a knife, and is utterly unfit for firewood, for when cut up
it refuses to dry, but simply rots away like a ripe water-melon. It
also grows slowly, and its leaves, which are large, glossy and deep
green, like laurel leaves, are poisonous; and because of its
uselessness it will probably become extinct, like the graceful pampas
grass in the same region. In this exceedingly practical age men
quickly lay the axe at the root of things which, in their view, only
cumber the ground; but before other trees had been planted the
antiquated and grand-looking ombu had its uses; it served as a
gigantic landmark to the traveller on the great monotonous plains, and
also afforded refreshing shade to man and horse in summer; while the
native doctor or herbalist would sometimes pluck a leaf for a patient
requiring a very violent remedy for his disorder. Our trees were about
a century old and very large, and, as they stood on an elevation, they
could be easily seen at a distance of ten miles. At noon in summer the
cattle and sheep, of which we had a large number, used to rest in
their shade; one large tree also afforded us children a splendid play-