About eleven o'clock
The people were very jovial , and rather industrious for so indolent a country . The land was their own , the men tended the cattle , of which they appeared to have a large number , while the women made cheeses , rising before daylight to milk the cows . During the evening two or three young men -- neighbours , I imagine , who were paying their addresses to the young ladies of the establishment -- dropped in ; and after a plentiful supper , we had singing and dancing to the music of the guitar , on which every member of the family -- excepting the babies -- could strum a little . About eleven o'clock I retired to rest , and , stretching myself on my rude bed of rugs , in a room adjoining the kitchen , I blessed these simple-minded , hospitable people . Good heavens , thought I to myself , what a glorious field is waiting here for some new Theocritus ! How unutterably worn out , stilted , and artificial seems all the so-called pastoral poetry ever written when one sits down to supper and joins in the graceful _ Cielo _ or _ Pericon _ in one of these remote , semi-barbarous South American _ estancias _ ! I swear I will turn poet myself , and go back some day to astonish old _ blasé _ Europe with something so -- so -- What the deuce was that ?