extraordinary size and appearance. They were big as fowls' eggs, but
not egg-shaped: they were flat, and about half-an-inch thick, and
being white, looked like little blocks or bricklets made of compressed
snow. The hail continued falling until the earth was white with them,
and in spite of their great size they were driven by the furious wind
into drifts two or three feet deep against the walls of the buildings.

It was evening and growing dark when the storm ended, but the light
next morning revealed the damage we had suffered. Pumpkins, gourds,
and water-melons were cut to pieces, and most of the vegetables,
including the Indian corn, were destroyed. The fruit trees, too, had
suffered greatly. Forty or fifty sheep had been killed outright, and
hundreds more were so much hurt that for days they went limping about
or appeared stupefied from blows on the head. Three of our heifers
were dead, and one horse--an old loved riding-horse with a history,
old Zango--the whole house was in grief at his death! He belonged
originally to a cavalry officer who had an extraordinary affection for
him--a rare thing in a land where horseflesh was too cheap, and men as
a rule careless of their animals and even cruel. The officer had spent
years in the Banda Oriental, in guerilla warfare, and had ridden Zango
in every fight in which he had been engaged. Coming back to Buenos
Ayres he brought the old horse home with him. Two or three years later
he came to my father, whom he had come to know very well, and said he
had been ordered to the upper provinces and was in great trouble about
his horse. He was twenty years old, he said, and no longer fit to be
ridden in a fight; and of all the people he knew there was but one man
in whose care he wished to leave his horse. I know, he said, that if
you will take him and promise to care for him until his old life ends,
he will be safe; and I should be happy about him--as happy as I can be
without the horse I have loved more than any other being on earth. My