Rough Notes Taken During Some Rapid Journeys Across the Pa

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"description": "LibriVox recording of Rough Notes Taken During Some Rapid Journeys Across the Pampas and Among the Andes by Francis Bond Head.
Read in English by Sue Anderson


\u201cGalloped on with no stopping, but merely to change horses until five o\u2019clock in the evening\u2014very tired indeed, but . . . saw fresh horses in the corral, and resolved to push on. At half-past seven, after having galloped a hundred and fifty-three miles, and been fourteen hours and a half on horseback got to the post\u2014quite exhausted\u2014I could scarcely speak . . . an hour before daylight was awakened by the Gaucho, got up, had some mate, mounted my horse, and as I galloped along felt pleased that the sun should find me at my work. . .\u201d

Later in life nicknamed \u201cGalloping Head,\u201d for his exploits on the Argentine pampas, Sir Frances Head Bond, went to the Argentine in 1825 as mining supervisor for the Rio Plata Mining Association, a group of English speculators whose ill-planed and financially disastrous idea it was to send Cornish miners to re-open old gold and silver mines in the former Spanish colonies. His \u201cRough Notes,\u201d often written in a staccato style that is surprisingly fresh, show a gusty, resourceful adventurer\u2014 riding across the Andes on mules who sank into snow above their knees at every step, obliging the riders to balance their feet on the mules\u2019 ears; clambering down 250 feet of notched sticks to inspect a silver mine; foraging bluntly for food for his men in a land of scarcity: \u201cWe found they had got dry peaches and live goats. We put some of the former in a pot to boil . . . and because I was very hungry, I put a pistol to (the goat\u2019s) ear, and in a short time he was roasting on the burning embers.\u201d Sir Bond Head later served as lieutenant \u2013governor of Upper Canada 1835-1837. - Summary by Sue Anderson


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