His ideas are restricted to
his occupation, and his religious notions limited to the traditional
instruction handed down from the days when his forefathers lived amid
civilized men, or to the casual teaching of some fervent missionary, who
devotes himself to the spiritual welfare of these lonely dwellers on the
Plains. Eight or ten persons at the utmost form a _hato_, and suffice
for all the requirements of thousands of cattle. The women are as much
accustomed to solitude as the men, and spend their time in domestic
occupations, or in cultivating the little patch of ground upon which
their supply of maize and cassava is grown. The occasion of their
marriage is perhaps the only one of their visit to a town,--perhaps
their only opportunity of seeing a printed book. Men and women alike are
a simple, healthy, ignorant race, borrowing manners, dress, and dialect
rather from the Indian than from the Spanish stock.
Such as he is, nevertheless, and for the purposes which his existence
subserves, the true Llanero is indeed well placed in his peculiar
region. A man of middle stature, usually of broad and powerful build,
short-necked, with square head and narrow forehead, and with eyes that
would be black, if it were not for the fire that flickers in them with a
carbuncle-like intensity. From the hips upward the Llanero is straight
and well-proportioned; but his constant equitation curves and bandies
his legs in a manner plainly visible whenever he attempts to walk.
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