Traveller s Cookbook South America

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In four decades of travel around South America

researching travel guides, Ben Box has enjoyed the
flavours of the region at roadside shacks, market
comedores, indigenous kitchens, Welsh tea rooms
and modern restaurants. Every experience, from
receptions with government ministers to lunch in
community projects for displaced children, has
fostered his deep appreciation of what South
America has to offer the visitor. The restrictions of
travel imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic gave all
travellers time to reflect on what it is that makes
visiting other countries so special. For Ben, food is
integral to so many memorable occasions, and to
share its character and variety through cooking and
writing is the perfect opportunity to rekindle the joy
of travel, to combine the stories that have arisen on
the road with the stories behind the food and drink
of this inspirational part of the world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am a professional guidebook writer but only an
amateur cook and I have received a lot of help in
compiling this collection of recipes.
Sarah Cameron, who has been my travelling
companion for longer than we care to remember,
cooked or advised on the cooking of the majority of
the recipes and cast her editorial eye over some of
the text.
UK-based Swedish writer and traveller Anna Maria
Hellberg Moberg ( amhellbergmoberg.co.uk) cooked
most of the Uruguayan recipes and some of the
Colombian and Argentine dishes. She also
contributed some stories to the book.
Carolyn Humphries ( carolynhumphries.co.uk) is
a food writer, editor and audio describer. Her advice
at the start of the project set me off on the right foot
and I am most grateful to her for allowing me to
draw on her expertise on many occasions.
Fábio Sombra (writer, artist, musician and tour
guide, Rio de Janeiro), contributed the feature on
cachaça and caipirinha (page 96) and gave me
numerous tips and hints. Robert and Daisy
Kunstaetter (travellers, writers and archaeological
investigators, Vilcabamba) contributed to the coffee
feature (page 144) and helped with the preparation
of the Ecuador chapter. With all three of them it was
great to be able to draw upon our various travels
together. Gary Sargent, resident in Peru, provided
much background for the feature on wine (page 50).
My warmest thanks go to Katie Mackenzie for
cooking pastel de choclo and to Jenny Box for
cooking empanadas de horno. Both of them, and
Katie’s family, provided lots of tasting notes and
encouragement throughout the project. Other people
who gave help, suggestions, ingredients and ideas in
the UK were Marion Morrison, Sophie Paine and
Lynda Saint. Rowland and Surinder Warboys, Nick
and Frances Beasley and Clare Free and her family
were willing tasters of soups and breads.
For their assistance in recommending local chefs,
my warmest thanks go to Nicolás Kugler in
Argentina; Fabiola Mitru and Mariana Sánchez Mitru
in Bolivia; César Augusto Angel Valencia in Colombia;
Claire Antell and Tony Thorne (whom I also thank for
their ideas for the Guianas chapter); and Cecilia
Kamiche in Peru.
And to the chefs themselves, a huge thank you
for their enthusiasm and support: Federico Fialayre
(Buenos Aires), Juan Pablo Reyes (La Paz), Edward
Seisun Manterola (Chile), Alvaro Reinoso Carvalho
(Quito – thanks to Jascivan Carvalho, too), Eon John
(Georgetown – many thanks to Jessica Hatfield, as
well), Juana Zunini (Lambayeque) and Laura Rosano
(Chacra Ibira Pitá).
Finally, this project would have been a lot harder
to undertake without the existence of Raja Stores,
Ipswich.

FEEDBACK REQUEST
At Bradt Guides we’re aware that books start to go out of date
on the day they’re published – and that you, our readers, are
out there in the field doing research of your own. So why not
tell us about your experiences? Contact us on 01753 893444
or info@bradtguides.com. We will forward emails to the
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on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (@BradtGuides).
CONTENTS
Introduction

Using this book

ARGENTINA

BOLIVIA

BRAZIL

CHILE

COLOMBIA

ECUADOR

GUIANAS

PARAGUAY

PERU

URUGUAY

VENEZUELA
Glossary

Suppliers

Further information
INTRODUCTION
In 1981 I was working as a subeditor and
proofreader on the South American Handbook
(published at that time by Trade and Travel
Publications, which later went on to become
Footprint Travel Guides). In those days, the
Handbook was not very effusive in its restaurant
descriptions and, as a true disciple of the brand, nor
was I. This is the report of my very first lunch in
South America, on Tuesday 1 September 1981,
Cartagena, Colombia: ‘Ate lunch at the Nautilus fish
restaurant (fabulous menu, with photos of the
submarine and the crewmen’s signatures). Good food
(814 pesos for two of us).’ The Handbook said:
‘Nauticus [sic], in the old wall of the city, facing the
statue of La India Catalina, excellent seafood, good
value.’
Three days later Sarah Cameron and I were
based in Medellín. On a guided tour of nearby tourist
sites, we stopped for lunch at the Parador
Tequendamita, near La Ceja, ‘by a small, picturesque
waterfall…We had typical antioqueña food, which
was very dry (beans, minced meat, rice, patacón,
arepa, chicharrón) – and pudding – we were very
touristic and left all the mazamorra (maize in milk)…’
– a bit more detail than on Nautilus, but neither very
enthusiastic nor kind to tourists. Afterwards we
continued to Rionegro, which ‘has outskirts of
sumptuous fincas de recreo (country estates) and
workers’ clubs. The town is growing and will grow
even more when a new Medellín airport is completed
nearby.’

Colombia is known for its vast array of excellent fruits SS

Fast forward to 9 November 2018, to the most

recent meal that I had in South America, also in
Colombia, at the Río Claro Reserva Natural between
Medellín and Bogotá. My report was as clipped as
ever: ‘Food in the restaurant is good; open kitchen
for all to see what’s being cooked.’
After lunch, the group of birdwatchers I was with
loaded our gear into a bus and headed back to the
now fully functional Rionegro airport for a flight to
Bogotá. A landslide after torrential rain had to be
cleared from the road, causing a last, frantic dash to
catch the plane.
Rionegro, at the time of writing, marks almost full
circle in my South American travels. Those brief
descriptions in no way represent an entire career’s
worth of eating in South America. Whether one
lovingly records every detail of every dish, or
concisely records the what, where and how much, I,
like every traveller, know that food is a hugely
important part of one’s journey.

FOOD AND TOURISM

For travellers, food serves a number of purposes: at
its most simple level it sustains you on the road,
from breakfast before setting out on a long day, to
the produce bought in the local market for a meal in
the hostel kitchen; from a bag of mandarins and a
packet of Oreos for the bus journey to a fine dinner
in a fashionable restaurant.
Food is the uniting factor between vendor and
buyer in the panadería, between people eating
together, between cook and diner. It is the stuff of
celebration, from exuberant cakes in the pastry shop
window to an asado at a family gathering to the
communal feasts of the annual saint’s day.
Through restaurants outside the region and a
wealth of information on social media, the reputation
of South American food is growing internationally.
Many people travel to the continent with at least
some knowledge of the cuisine and want to eat the
food in its country of origin, to learn where and how
the region’s distinctive ingredients are cultivated, and
to bring home happy memories of one of the most
important aspects of South American life.
Putting food in its cultural context is one of the
principal aims of what, until the Covid-19 pandemic,
was a burgeoning market in food tourism. As the
World Food Travel Association sums up: ‘The act of
traveling for a taste of place in order to get a sense
of place’ ( worldfoodtravel.org/what-is-food-
tourism). And, like many world destinations, South
America has added gastronomy to its already lengthy
list of attractions. There is no shortage of activities
that fit the food tourism brief: street food tours and
market visits, cookery classes, social dining (meal
sharing), regional product routes (trails focusing on
coffee in Colombia, for example, or wine in Chile or
Argentina) and food festivals (international and
local).

THE RE-EVALUATION OF FOOD

At the forefront of the recent fanfare for South
American food have been the chef/entrepreneurs
whose restaurants regularly feature in ‘world’s best…’
polls. They are most frequently applauded for re-
evaluating native ingredients and traditions,
exploring and foraging in remote parts of their
country, showcasing seasonal produce and fusing
local with European and Asian influences. Many
learnt their trade in Europe and have returned to
bring modern techniques and sensibilities to the
South American kitchen.
Until recently, French and Italian cuisines were
regarded as the most desirable styles of cooking in
smart South American restaurants, so where did this
movement away from Europe towards a distinctive
South American gastronomic identity come from?
Much of the credit is regularly given to the Peruvian
chef Gastón Acurio who, with his wife, pastry chef
Astrid Gutsche, returned to Peru after studying and
working in Europe to open Astrid y Gastón in Lima in
1994. Although it was originally a French-influenced
restaurant, Acurio soon redirected Astrid y Gastón’s
focus towards Peru. Through a string of different
restaurants, television series and books, he
enlightened first his own country then the wider
world to what Peruvian food has to offer. But Acurio
was not the first figure to do this. This accolade is
usually awarded to the journalist Bernardo Roca Rey,
who wrote under the pseudonym of El Comensal
(The Diner). In 1986 he was invited to Lake
Huacachina (near Ica, Peru) to judge a competition
of chefs and their ‘traditional Peruvian dishes’. Roca
Rey was deeply unimpressed, insisting that none of
the dishes was remotely traditional. His argument
was that the truly authentic Peruvian food could be
found in local markets and communal kitchens,
particularly in places where people from the Sierra
and jungle had fled to the cities to escape the civil
strife affecting the country at that time. The chefs
challenged Roca Rey to cook them an authentic
meal, which he did using produce from the market in
Ica. From this incident sprang the concept of
Novoandina cuisine, a marriage of traditional
Peruvian ingredients with modern techniques.
Inspiring a wave of Peruvian chefs, the concept soon
spread to other countries where local chefs sought
out traditional ingredients to prepare with
contemporary methods and styles.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOOD IN SOUTH
AMERICA
Why did native ingredients need ‘rescuing’ in the first
place? This is not a problem unique to South
America, but historically the whole system of
producing and consuming food has been affected by
circumstances peculiar to the continent.
The oldest primary food crops were the lima
bean, the potato and certain squashes, which had
long histories of domestication in the Andean and
Pacific coastal areas, although corn, domesticated in
Mesoamerica (the region from central and southern
Mexico down to Costa Rica), appeared soon after the
beginnings of village life. As an increasing number of
crops, camelids and guinea pigs were domesticated,
farming became more productive and pottery more
advanced. Commerce grew and states began to
develop throughout central and north-central Peru,
with associated social structure and hierarchies.
Llamas were a main source of protein for Chavín people MILTON RODRIGUEZ/S

It is generally accepted that the Norte Chico

culture, which emerged in about 3200BC in the
valleys of the rivers Supe, Pativilca and Fortaleza
some 185km north of present-day Lima, was an
independent ‘cradle of civilisation’. The ceremonial
city of Caral was built around 2600BC (the same time
as the oldest pyramids in Egypt) and is thought to be
the oldest organised political state in the western
hemisphere. Evidence here hints at an elite
controlling agricultural production and cotton, with a
diet supplemented by protein from fish and seafood.
After Norte Chico’s decline (c. 1800BC), the Chavín
culture of the central Andes (c. 900–500BC) was the
next major political and religious centre, bringing
under its control what had previously been
independent groups. The Chavín people’s diet was
based on potatoes, corn and quinoa, with protein
coming from fish and seafood from the Pacific Ocean
and meat either from hunted deer or camelids, such
as alpacas, or dried (charki) from domesticated
llamas. Among Chavín’s advances were significant
improvements in agriculture through the use of
irrigation, the domestication of animals and the
expansion of crop cultivation. There followed a
succession of empires on the coast and in the
highlands, whose diets were largely similar to, and
whose agricultural methods refined those of, Chavín.
These were Nazca-Paracas (2nd century BC to AD500),
the Moche (AD100–800), Early Lima (AD100–650),
Huari-Tiwanaku (AD600–1000), Chimú (from about
AD900) and Chachapoyas (from about AD750). In the
late 15th century these last two succumbed to the
Incas’ imperial drive from the Colombia-Ecuador
border to the Río Maule in Chile. There were other
groups, of course, in Ecuador and Colombia and
throughout the southern Andes, some of which also
fell under Inca hegemony. While these empires were
coming and going in South America, cultures such as
the Maya and Aztec were flourishing in Central
America and Mexico. It is certain that there were
contacts between the regions, including an exchange
of foodstuffs, but there appears to have been no
crossover in political or religious ideology.

BEANS AND WHAT THEY MEAN

Beans are an example of the first ‘exchange’
between North and South America. It has not yet
been finally determined whether the origin of all
beans was from Mesoamerica alone, or from the
Andes of modern Peru as well. Either way, these two
regions were the centres of domestication of the
plant Phaseolus vulgaris. From each centre the bean
spread north and south, becoming one of the North
American people’s triumvirate of ‘sustainers’: corn,
squash and beans grown as companion plants.
Beans in all their varieties are cholesterol-free, high
in vegetable protein, rich in complex carbohydrates,
vitamins, minerals and fibre. What’s more, bean
plants fix nitrogen in the soil and thus benefit other
crops. That much I knew from growing beans in
every vegetable plot we have ever owned, but
beyond that I hadn’t given much thought to their
provenance.
South America is known for its wide variety of beans SS
Arepas are a classic South American street food ALEXANDR VOROBEV/S

STREET AND FAST FOOD

Eating outdoors in South America is a natural thing to do, from

the full-on experience of an asado (page 282), to a simple
feast of fish taken straight from sea to grill.
At the beach, ambulantes (itinerant vendors) sell coconut
water from the nut the moment it has fallen from the palm, ice
creams from bicycles with a bell, ices flavoured and coloured
with garish syrups. At bus stops baskets of local specialities are
thrust up at the windows, or carried head-high down the aisle
before the seller travels back to base. Anywhere people gather,
for recreation or something more solemn, you can guarantee
that someone will be selling savouries like anticuchos (ox-heart
kebabs), arepas and tamales (pages 300 and 179), and sweets
from Peruvian picarones (page 243) to Uruguayan garrapiñada
(candied peanuts). In Puerto Maldonado (Peru), for example,
you step out of the airport, or off a canoe, and vendors are at
your side pressing upon you bags of freshly shelled or candied
Brazil nuts.
On a busy Tuesday evening in Salvador (Brazil) I was
invited to the Bloco Olodum ( olodum.com.br) drumming
rehearsal – a thrilling experience, as the volume and rhythmic
precision of the Afro-Brazilian beats became a physical force
flowing through my whole body. Afterwards we joined the
crowds in Largo Tereza Batista for beer and churrasco from the
street. Tin-can barbecues sold stringy coalho cheese, cut into
finger-sized blocks and impaled on wooden sticks. Youngsters
pulled ‘coffee machines’ – racks of thermoses adapted into
model trucks – behind them. The most famous Bahian street
food is acarajé (page 92), but overall, Brazilians are expert at
snacks (petiscos), collectively referred to as salgadinhos
(savouries). Some are kibe (a deep-fried or baked mince with
onion, mint and flour), coxinha (teardrop-shaped, deep-fried
chicken or meat coated in breadcrumbs) and pastel de feira
(Japanese-inspired, deep-fried pastry parcel filled with cheese,
meat or palm hearts). It took me a while to decipher ‘x’ on
menu boards: xis, pronounced like ‘cheese’ (a burger, ranging
from simple to the huge x-tudo – with absolutely everything).
Then there are sandwiches like misto quente (ham and
cheese), bauru (ham and steak in a French roll), beirute
(cheese, ham, tomato, lettuce in a pitta), not forgetting pão de
queijo (page 235).
Talking of sandwiches…Argentina has its choripán, a hot-
dog bun with a chorizo cooked on the BBQ with chimichurri.
Bolivia has the sanduíche de chola (pork, salsa, pickled
vegetables). In Chile there are completos, hot dogs with a
huge variety of fillings, barros jarpa (a grilled cheese and ham
sandwich), barras luco (grilled cheese and beef sandwich) and
chacarero (a steak and green beans sandwich). Peru’s
sandwich special is the butifarra, made up of a special
Peruvian ham, a salsa criolla of onion and yellow chilli, lettuce
 and mayonnaise or mustard in a round or oblong bun – you
can find great versions at Gastón Acurio’s La Lucha stands and,
a personal and unexpected discovery for me, in the old wine
bar of Antiga Taberna Queirolo in Pueblo Libre, Lima. In
Montevideo you cannot miss the chivito, a bun filled with
steak, mozzarella, ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato and fried egg.
If you prefer a hot dog, the Uruguayan pancho is not a humble
thing: an extra-long sausage upon which you load relishes
galore and toppings like corn and cheese.

“MARKETS ARE A GREAT PLACE TO HEAD

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A FAST MEAL.”
Markets are a great place to head if you’re looking for a
fast meal. Most have a Sección de Comidas where you can
trust the local fare, while shopping malls have food courts
where you can mix and match regional dishes with
international fast foods. A different kind of fast food can be
found on the waterfront in Paramaribo (Suriname) at the
Indonesian warungs (page 188), some of which are open from
breakfast till dusk. The way to start the day in Ayacucho (Peru)
is to head to Mercado Central F Vivanco between 6am and
8am for a breakfast drink of maca, a mixture of maca, quinoa
and apple. Maca (Lepidium meyenii) is a tuber that only grows
at altitude between 3,800m and 4,400m. Resembling a cross
between a parsnip and turnip, it can be eaten roasted, boiled
or cooked and dried to make a flour. It is also dried and made
into supplements, sold as Peruvian ginseng or, more
dramatically, the Andean Viagra. Most recently, maca was
being marketed in Lima in ‘punches’ with other seeds, pulses
and fruits, as a tonic to ward off Covid-19.

The bean was carried from the western

hemisphere to Europe and thence the rest of the
world in the Columbian Exchange (the transfer of
people, ideas, foods, commodities and diseases
between Europe and Africa and the Americas). Like
corn, cassava, sweet potato, potatoes, squash,
cacao, peanuts, chilli peppers and pineapple, it
became a staple across the globe, in the same way
that sugar cane, bananas and other tropical fruits,
rice, soybeans, wheat and other cereals were
brought to South America and developed as
significant economic crops.
Before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas,
many foodstuffs (including beans) were common to
everybody, and archaeological evidence indicates
that a policy of ‘enough food for all’ prevailed before
and during Inca times. Some foods, however, were
deemed suitable only for the ‘elite’.
In the case of the bean, the archaeologist Gail
Ryser (page 314) discovered that the Moche, who
dominated the Peruvian coast from AD100–800,
converted the lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus – called
pallares in Peru) from a staple crop into a status
symbol and ceremonial food. It became associated
with the warrior class, so much so that, in Moche
iconography, a military cadre of Bean Warriors was
created. Among the thousands of Moche ceramics in
the wonderful Museo Larco in Lima, you can find
ranks of beans with human faces, carrying spears
and other instruments, advancing around the
circumference of stirrup pots (squat jars with a
handle and spout). These anthropomorphised beans
took on the same attributes as human warriors,
namely the symbolisation of life, death and
rejuvenation, but whether the real warriors’ battle
gear included representations of beans is not clear.
In other ceramics, beans are depicted as tools of
divination, sharing a legendary landscape with deities
and their assistants, anthropomorphised birds,
felines, reptiles and foxes.

FOOD FOR ALL

Inca ‘elite foods’, such as corn and meat, were
reserved for the nobility and for those people chosen
to be sacrificed. This does not mean, however, that
the ordinary people were deprived. On the contrary,
Inca society was a system in which all members were
adequately fed out of a centrally controlled network
of storehouses. Qullqas or colcas held crops, as well
as textiles, weapons and other important materials,
for provisioning armies, providing for festivals and
sharing among the population in times of shortage.
They were set a day’s march apart (about 22km) on
the royal roads and close to areas of intense
agriculture. The fine qullqas of Pinkuylluna, a
pleasant climb from the town of Ollantaytambo in
Peru’s Sacred Valley of the Incas, near Cuzco, are an
excellent demonstration of the Incas’ understanding
of airflow and temperature control for storing
produce. As harvests were distributed fairly to all,
there was no need for money and no need for the
redistributive market economy which was prevalent
in Mesoamerica – one of the main divergences
between Central and South American societies. This,
like many other features of the Inca empire (roads,
architecture, communal labour, irrigation and
terraced fields, for example – page 246), was
perfected from what they inherited from the people
they conquered and the cultures that preceded them.
The qullqas of Pinkuylluna, Peru SS

The Spaniards were in awe of the cornucopia of

produce in Aztec markets, the Inca roads and the
qullqas – without which their conquest would not
have been so easy – but they upended the Andean
model in favour of the European hierarchy which left
the underprivileged hungry and downtrodden.

VEGETABLE KINGDOM
Elisabeth Luard, in her book The Latin American
Kitchen, writes that South America boasts a
‘vegetable kingdom without equal anywhere else on
earth’. The continent’s topography and huge range of
climates has created a vast diversity of habitats in
which humans could exploit a wealth of native
vegetables and fruits for food. Pre-Columbian
farmers learnt how to cultivate these plants and,
where necessary, neutralise their unsavoury or
dangerous properties. A plant-based diet was
supplemented with hunted meat and fish and, in the
Andes in particular, meat from farmed llamas,
alpacas and guinea pigs.
The European colonisers were not enamoured of
many of the South American foods that they came
across and so imported their preferred cereals and
sources of protein. Through the resulting Columbian
Exchange (page 12) and the later introduction, with
slavery, of African crops, the South American
vegetable and fruit basket was enriched by new
varieties, just as the benefits of South American
produce were spread elsewhere around the globe.
On the negative side, the arrival of Europeans
disrupted indigenous foodways, ‘all of the traditional
activities, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours
associated with the food in […] daily life’ (see Julia
Darnton; page 314). Colonial/imperial and later
republican policies, such as the prioritisation of food
as a commodity to be traded, led to the devaluation
of local culinary knowledge. Indigenous, Afro-
descended and mestizo food cultures became
associated with low productivity and poverty, while
European foods were promoted as invigorating and
economically more powerful. The resultant
industrialisation of production has led to ills such as
deforestation, change of land use and diet, poor
working conditions, and soil and water
contamination.
Among the earliest and most lasting examples of
the damage caused by industrialisation were the
sugar-cane plantations in Brazil, which were
developed to satisfy European markets from the end
of the 16th century. Their expansion destroyed the
Atlantic Forest and their continued spread, for the
production of bioplastics and biofuels, now poses
threats to the Amazon and Pantanal. Meanwhile, the
loss of mangroves in Ecuador to make way for
shrimp farms, the destruction of forest and cerrado
in Paraguay and Brazil for cattle grazing and soybean
production, and the felling of primary forest for oil
palm plantations in Colombia and Peru is well
documented. Banana cultivation in, for example,
Colombia and Ecuador is doubly problematic in that it
overtakes large areas of land, but its very nature
makes monoculture susceptible to disease.

A SPIRITUAL DIMENSION
The forces militating against traditional food cultures
failed to eradicate them. Reverence for the earth and
the understanding that wealth comes not from
metals and stones, but plants, water, the sky and the
soil, was something that the Incas tried to impress
upon the Spanish conquistadores, without success.
There are countless examples of the belief that food
is the gift of the gods throughout South American
myths and traditions. For example, the Tiriyó (Trio)
people from the border between Suriname and Brazil
tell of a man called Paraparawa who was shown how
to cultivate, harvest and replant yams, cassava,
sweet potatoes and plantains by Waraku, the spirit of
a fish who became his wife. Her father, a huge
alligator (a snake in some versions), brought these
previously unknown foods to the wedding feast and
his gift to Paraparawa became everyone’s good
fortune.

CASSAVA
In Ecuador’s Amazonian lowlands, not far from the grass
airstrip that had been cleared from the surrounding forest,
some of the Huaorani village’s cassava plants were growing
among the bushes and trees. Moi, the village leader,
encouraged several of our group to lift the roots as a small
contribution to the day’s harvest. To general amusement, we
amateur cassava-diggers set to. Cassava strikes easily from a
cut piece of stem set upright in the soil. The fan-like leaves
can be eaten when young, but the main food source is the
tubers, which have a dark brown, fibrous surface and a chalky
white or yellowish inside. They grow like long, fat fingers from
the underground root.
Cassava is highly versatile: it can be boiled, steamed,
baked, fried, made into flour and tapioca and into a beer. It
has many alternative names: manioc, yuca (not to be confused
with yucca), mandioca, macaxeira, aipim, Brazilian arrowroot.
There are two main varieties, sweet and bitter. The latter
contains a higher concentration of antinutrients than the
former and can cause poisoning if not treated properly (‘yuca’
comes from the Guaraní word juka – to kill). Moi’s gringo gang
was harvesting the former as he cleaned and peeled a root on
the spot and urged us to try it raw, before gnawing away at it
himself.
The plant was domesticated in west-central Brazil, from
where it spread to become one of the main staples of South
America and Mesoamerica. For the Spanish conquistadores, it
was regarded as neither safe to eat nor nutritious.
Nevertheless, European traders transported it to Asia and,
more significantly, Africa, where in sub-Saharan regions it is
now a staple food.
In this book, cassava is featured in the following recipes:
farofa (page 103), sancocho (page 140), yuca frita (page 150),
metemgee (page 200), bojo cake (page 210), payaguá
mascada (page 230) and chipa almidón (page 236).
 Cassava is a highly versatile ingredient AUGUSTO JOHANN/S

The four raymis (religious festivals) of the Inca

calendar governed a year-long cycle of events based
around the equinoxes and solstices. Rituals still
preformed today in Andean countries ask the gods to
ensure that favourable conditions return in time for
the next growing season. Capac Raymi, the
December solstice, celebrates the seed becoming a
seedling, for humans a time for initiation and entry
into adulthood. At the March equinox, Pawkar Raymi,
when plants bring forth flowers and fruit to be
harvested, Pachamama (Mother Earth) is honoured,
as she is again on 1 August at the start of the
Andean New Year. In fact, every day Pachamama is
thanked for the bounty of the land with simple
offerings of coca leaves or the pouring of a drop of
drink on the ground.
For pre-Columbian peoples it was important to
include food with the goods that accompanied the
soul on its journey after death. Today the Day of the
Dead (Día de los Muertos/de los Difuntos), or All
Saints’ (Día de los Santos) on 1 and 2 November
respects those who have passed away and celebrates
life with prayers and flowers. Food plays a major
role, too. In the Andes especially, babies made of
bread (guaguas de pan or tantawawas), sometimes
representing deceased family members, are taken to
the cemetery either to be eaten in a picnic or placed
on the gravestone (in which case the bread is baked
very hard so that it does not perish), while in
Ecuador, the graveside visit includes a meal with
colada morada (page 179).
The religions the enslaved Africans brought to
Brazil from the 16th century onwards gradually
merged into the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé
in the 19th century. Everyone, Candomblé maintains,
is influenced by an orixá, a spiritual guide
responsible for one’s daily life. Each orixá has his or
her own temperament, colours and preferred foods
and drink. Offerings – made at outdoor locations
favoured by a particular orixá, or in places of worship
called terreiros – will always include the orixá’s
favourite foods, many of which feature ingredients,
like dendê (page 310), which also travelled from
Africa.

WHY FOOD MATTERS

Today’s struggle in relation to food has encouraged
many communities and projects to espouse the
principles of the Slow Food Movement (
slowfood.com) and its emphasis on food sovereignty:
‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally
appropriate food produced through ecologically
sound and sustainable methods, and their right to
define their own food and agriculture systems’ (as
stated in the Nyéléni Declaration, made at the World
Forum for Food Sovereignty by 500 delegates who
met in Mali in February 2007). Indigenous, rural,
women’s and trade union movements throughout the
continent now follow these principles (see Prainha do
Canto Verde, page 100), and Venezuela has even
established the right to food sovereignty in law.
It was in the context of a growing awareness of
Slow Food principles that the re-evaluation of
traditional ingredients took place (page 7), leading to
many of the region’s top chefs subscribing to the
UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #2, Zero Hunger
(SDG2 – sdg2advocacyhub.org). The subsequent
Chefs’ Manifesto focuses on eight points: ingredients
grown with respect for the earth and its oceans;
protection of biodiversity and improved animal
welfare; investment in livelihoods; value natural
resources and reduce waste; celebrate local and
seasonal food; focus on plant-based ingredients;
education on food safety and healthy diets; and
nutritious food that is accessible and affordable for
all.
As the unsustainability of mass meat consumption
is increasingly recognised, there is a growing
movement towards vegetarianism and veganism in
South America, confounding centuries-old meat-
eating habits. In Brazil, for example (the world’s
largest exporter of meat in 2020), a 2021 study
showed that 32% of Brazilians will choose a vegan
option in a restaurant if this is offered, and 46%
choose not to eat meat at least once a week. A 2020
study in Argentina found that 12% of the population
declared themselves vegan and 12% flexitarian. São
Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago de
Chile and Bogotá are all great cities in which to find
vegan restaurants. Chefs like Narda Lepes of Narda
Comedor in Buenos Aires, Manoella Buffara of Manu
in Curitiba, and César Costa of Corrutela in São Paulo
showcase vegetables, but not to the exclusion of
meat. See also Río Muchacho (page 173) and Laura
Rosano (page 269).
LIVING WELL
In 2008 and 2009 respectively, Ecuador and Bolivia
incorporated into their constitutions the concept of
Sumak kawsay, a Quechua phrase put forward in the
1990s to express a politico-social concept of ‘living
well’ – vivir bien – or the ‘plentiful life’. Its Aymara
equivalent in Bolivia is Suma qamaña. While the term
itself does not have a pre-Columbian basis, the
origins of its principles lie in the American indigenous
world view of the interconnectedness and the
reciprocal relationship of all things. It has acquired
many modern values which confront notions of
economic growth and accumulation, but its
foundation remains an aspiration for life as
community, living in harmony with nature and with
other human beings.
As part of Vivir Bien, which was enshrined in the
2009 Constitution, Bolivia launched its Biocultura
programme – the economic and cultural promotion of
the country’s indigenous and farming populations,
together with the conservation of biodiversity. One of
the first municipalities to enter the scheme was
Torotoro, in the province of Potosí. The town itself is
in the middle of a 45km-long, 10km-wide valley
flanked by hogbacks, like the plates of a
Stegosaurus’ back. Apart from being a geologist’s
paradise, Torotoro’s economy is based upon
‘biocultural tourism’. On arrival, all visitors must apply
to the local guides’ association. Not only did our
guide take us to see dinosaur footprints (among
much else), he also played his charango (a small,
stringed musical instrument) for us in the ‘Cathedral’,
a church-like rock formation at Ciudad de Itas. When
not picnicking on the trails, we ate by the market in
comedores whose owners are supplied with local
produce from farms whose traditional methods are
preserved with full local government support.

Producing fresh cheese in the Peñas Valley, Bolivia IMAGEBROKER/A

CHEESE
Many South American recipes include cheese to impart flavour
and act as a thickening and binding agent. Queso fresco (fresh
cheese), is most common, often added to dishes as a garnish
and baked into cassava breads; queso blanco (white cheese) is
similar in appearance and taste and used in the same way. The
difference is that fresco is curdled with animal rennet, while
blanco is curdled by an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar.
The matured form of queso fresco is queso maduro, which,
being cured for longer, is firmer and has a lower water content.
There are great subtleties between regional cheeses, and
many local varieties owe their origins to European colonists,
from Spain, Portugal and, latterly, immigrants from Italy and
Germany.
In Venezuela there is firm and salty llanero from the Llanos,
queso palmita from Zulia state (firm, white with a springy
bite), queso Guayanés from Guayana state (a soft, fresh
cheese eaten young) and queso de mano (literally, cheese
from the hand: soft, white and elastic, in form flat and round,
which can be used in arepas and cachapas).
Brazilian cheeses include coalho, an elastic cheese often
sold barbecued on sticks, and, from Minas Gerais, queijo
Minas, made from cow’s milk, sold in three varieties: frescal
(fresh, white and eaten young), meia-cura (half-aged) and
curado (aged, which is quite hard and more yellow); all three
are slightly salty and grainy in texture. Also from Minas comes
canastra, whose production is strictly controlled in the Serra da
Canastra hills. I once spent an instructional morning in Belo
Horizonte’s huge central market tasting cheese samples from
brie to wedding-cake size wheels of queijo canastra. Stall-
holders proffered slivers to prospective buyers through a sales
‘window’ severely restricted by piles of cheese on the counter
and bags suspended from the ceiling. To further my education,
I also took advantage of the local cachaça (page 96), tots of
which were being offered at neighbouring stalls.
The names of several Argentine cheeses have an Italian
ring – reggianito, sardo and provoleta, for example – as a
result of the massive influx of immigrants from that country
(page 26). Chilean specialities include unpasteurised chanco
and pasteurised panquehue. In Ecuador, Hacienda Zuleta (
zuleta.com) boasts 19 varieties of fine artisan cheese, which
are the legacy of the expertise of Swiss cheesemaker Oskar
Purtschert in the 1950s. His goal was to recreate cheeses from
his home country, which he could not find in South America,
but so much hand-crafted variety in a rural setting is more the
exception than the rule.

Fresh cheese on sale in Peru OLGAPS/S

“THE NAMES OF SEVERAL ARGENTINE

CHEESES HAVE AN ITALIAN RING.”
One cheese that I should very much like to have tasted was
in Peru. By chance we arrived in the village of Madeán in the
 Yauyos during a music and dance competition between four
communities, funded by an NGO to encourage community
pride in local customs. During the Chacatán dance, which had
a driving theme played on a solo violin, a woman from La
Florida’s troupe veered off in my direction. ‘Join us,’ she
insisted. Then a man pulled Sarah in, so into the plaza we
went. In spite of, or maybe because of the gringo ringers in
their group, La Florida won that Sunday’s 1,500-sol (£300)
prize and for our contribution to the victory, we were awarded
a fresh, white cheese. Josué, our companion and driver,
advised us against eating it. ‘You won’t have the antibodies to
cope with it,’ he said.
Finding ingredients in the UK for the recipes in this book
has presented a few challenges, but cheese consistently posed
the biggest problem. In the list of suppliers (page 313) we
suggest some places you might look, but when we could not
find what we needed we experimented. Feta worked OK in
most cases as a replacement for queso fresco, but where
another cheese was used, we say so in the recipe.

USING THIS BOOK

This is a book for travellers who like to cook. I hope
that cooks who like to travel will also be interested in
following its journey through some of South
America’s inspirational dishes. Compiling the list of
recipes encouraged me to do a lot of reminiscing.
The journeys that I made were all packed with a
huge variety of incidents and there are all sorts of
triggers that bring back memories. But can you
recreate an experience in a dish (rather than an
entry in a notebook or a photo)? Certainly – in the
intention behind cooking it, the desire to recapture a
time, a place and a favour, and in the satisfaction of
learning how food unites your travels with the land
through which you move.
This book is a celebration of everyday South
American food. In the course of my research, I was
able to re-evaluate and appreciate South American
ingredients that previously I had taken for granted.
All those dishes that I had at the Parador
Tequendamita (page 5) all those years ago I now
understand better and, for the most part, enjoy.
Few of the dishes we’ve included are elaborate or
exotic, although one or two are quite complex. The
recipes belong to a tradition that has passed the test
of time; they work, they taste good and they have a
story to tell. They are also largely very adaptable:
the ingredients required are available in most places
and where ingredients are more obscure we try to
give practical alternatives. (See page 313 for a list of
specialist suppliers.)
Trying to recreate South American dishes in the
UK (or the US) may test the guiding principle of
using the freshest of what’s available. It would be
great to forage on the banks of an Andean stream or
on the Pacific seashore, or to pick Amazonian fruit
from the trees, but geography militates against that.
So the idea is to get to know the recipes and to be
spontaneous with them. If you can substitute
something home-grown or local, do so. But bear in
mind that there are some things that you cannot
easily replace, for instance coconut, many fruits, and
cassava and all the products derived from it (page
15).
Recipes are not set in stone; they grow and
develop with the times. No South American cook
would expect a precise, line-by-line adherence to a
set of instructions. As Elizabeth Luard says in The
Latin American Kitchen: ‘The Latin American kitchen,
in a nutshell, is reactive rather than recipe-led:
what’s right for the dish matters more than slavish
attention to authenticity. It’s the spirit which counts…’
In that vein, note that the conversions from metric to
imperial vary a bit throughout the book and that, in
some cases, we’ve rounded quantities up or down
according to what works best for that recipe.
This book invites you, then, to improvise, have
fun, and enhance your memories of South America
by recreating the essence of the food. If you have
not been to South America, the recipes and the
features attached to them may act as an inspiration
to visit or, at the very least, provide a form of
armchair (or dining table) travel. Spill a drop of drink
to honour Pachamama, raise a glass to the growers
and the market traders, the cooks in the comedores
and the chefs in the gourmet restaurants. Remember
where the food comes from and share it with orgullo
– pride.
Alfajores de maicena (page 47) CECILIA DI DIO/S

ARGENTINA
LOCRO
Meat, corn and vegetable stew

PALETA DE CORDERO SUREÑA

Southern lamb leg/shank

MATAMBRE ARROLLADO
Rolled, stuffed beef

PUCHERO
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
gorgeous banqueting-hall of her father, she looked and felt as if
assisting at a funeral feast, and that she even then would have been
the better of the visor to prevent many conjectures on what her
saddened looks might mean. But the time for assuming the mask
arrived, and the nobles of the land, with their haughty dames, and
many a knight, and many a damsel fair, bedight in silk and cloth of
gold, and blazing with jewels, graced the tapestried ball-room, on
which a flood of brilliant light was poured from lamp and torch. And
each in joyous mood, cheered by the merry minstrels, and by the
sound of harp and viol, impatiently awaited the commencement of
the dance, when they were informed that it was stayed for an
expected and honourable guest. And now again curiosity was at its
height. But presently there was a flourish of the music, and a cry of
the ushers to make way for the noble Earl of Ormisdale, and the large
doors at the foot of the hall were flung wide open, and the gallant
young earl, masked, and attended by a train of young gentlemen, all
his kinsmen, or picked and chosen friends, advanced amid murmurs
of admiration to the middle of the hall. Here they were met and
welcomed by the baron, who led the earl to his lovely daughter, and
having presented him to her, the guests were presently gratified by
seeing the gallant young nobleman take the hand of the Lady Isabel,
and lead her out to dance. Nor were there any present whose eyes did
not follow them with admiration, though the measure chosen by the
high-born damsel savoured more that night of grace and dignity than
lightness of either heart or heel. Meantime, the old baron was so full
of joy and delight, that it was remarked by all, as he was still seen
near his daughter and her partner. But their hearts were both
quaking: the unhappy Lady Isabel’s with thinking of her promise to
her father, and that of her betrothed with a fear known only to
himself, for he had heard that she had loved, and now observed her
narrowly. And, not content with this, he asked her, as he sat beside
her, many a wily question, till at last he spoke his fears in plain guise,
and she, with many sighs and tears shed within her mask, confessed
the truth; still saying, that for her father’s sake she would be his wife,
if he accepted of her on such terms. But now her father whispered to
her that she must presently prepare to keep her word, as this must be
her bridal-night, for to that purpose alone was this high wassail kept.
Her lover, too, no way daunted by his knowledge of her heart,
pressed on his suit to have it so. And now was the despairing damsel
almost beside herself, when her father, announcing aloud his
purpose to the astonished guests, called for the priest, and caused all
to unmask. But in what words shall we paint the surprise, the
delight, the flood of joy that came upon the heart of the Lady Isabel,
when the earl’s mask was removed, and she beheld in him her much
beloved Roderick, who, his cousin being dead, was now the Earl of
Ormisdale!
And now was each corner of the castle, from basement stone to
turret height, filled with joyous greetings, and the health and
happiness of the noble Earl Roderick, and of his bride, the dutiful
Lady Isabel, deeply drank in many a wassail bowl.
The stately castle and its revels, the proud baron and his pomp, the
beauteous dame and her children’s children, have now passed away
into oblivion, save this slight record, which has only been preserved
in remembrance of the daughter’s virtue, who preferred her father’s
happiness to her own.—Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, 1833.
 THE DESPERATE DUEL.

By D. M. Moir, M.D.
Nay, never shake thy gory locks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it!—Macbeth.

It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o’clock,

when I waukened from my night’s rest, and was about thinking to
bestir mysel, that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard,
stretching south frae our back windows. I listened—and I listened—
and I better listened—and still the sound of the argle-bargling
became more distinct, now in a fleeching way, and now in harsh
angry tones, as if some quarrelsome disagreement had ta’en place. I
hadna the comfort of my wife’s company in this dilemma; she being
awa, three days before, on the top of Tammy Trundle the carrier’s
cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her mother (my
gudemother, like) having been for some time ill, with an income in
her leg, which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age; the
twa doctors there, no speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely
old women, being able to mak naething of the business; so nane
happened to be wi’ me in the room, saving wee Benjie, who was lying
asleep at the back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head,
as sound as a top. Nevertheless, I lookit for my claes; and opening
one-half of the window-shutter, I saw four young birkies well
dressed; indeed three of them customers of my ain, all belanging to
the toun; twa of them young doctors; ane of them a writer’s clerk;
and the ither a grocer; the hale looking very fierce and fearsome, like
turkey cocks; swaggering about with their hands and arms as if they
had been the king’s dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which
ane of the surgeons, a speerity, out-spoken lad, Maister Blister, was
haddin’ in his grip.
I jaloused at ance what they were after, being now a wee up to
firearms; so I saw that skaith was to come o’t, and that I wad be
wanting in my duty on four heads—first, as a Christian; second, as a
man; third, as a subject; and fourth, as a father, if I withheld mysel
frae the scene, nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against
such crying iniquity as the wanton letting out of human blood; sae
furth I hastened—half-dressed, with my gray stockings rolled up my
thighs, over my corduroys, and my auld hat aboon my cowl—to the
kail-yard of contention.
I was just in the nick of time, and my presence checked the
effusion of blood for a little;—but wait a wee. So high and furious
were at least three of the party, that I saw it was catching water in a
sieve to waste words on them, knowing, as clearly as the sun serves
the world, that interceding would be of no avail. Howsomever, I
made a feint, and threatened to bowl awa for a magistrait, if they
wadna desist, and stop from their barbarous and bluidy purpose;
but, i’fegs, I had better have keepit my counsel till it was asked for.
“Tailor Mansie,” quoth Maister Thomas Blister, with a furious cock
of his eye (he was a queer Eirish birkie, come ower for his
yedication), “since ye have ventured to thrust your nose,” said he,
“where nobody invited ye, you must just stay,” said he, “and abide by
the consequences. This is an affair of honour,” quoth he; “and if ye
venture to stir one foot from the spot, och then,” said he, “by the
poker of St Patrick, but whisk through ye goes one of these leaden
playthings, as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat, or cabbaged broadcloth.
Ye have now come out, ye observe, hark ye,” said ye, “and are art and
part in the business;—and, if one, or both, of the principals be killed,
poor devils,” said he, “we are all alike liable to take our trial before
the Justiciary Court, hark ye; and, by the powers,” said he, “I doubt
not but that, on proper consideration, they will allow us to get off
mercifully, on this side of hanging, by a verdict of manslaughter.”
’Od, I fund mysel immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it
baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that,
come the warst when it wad, they surely wad not hang the faither of a
helpless sma family, that had naething but his needle for their
support, if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make
peace between the youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I
abode in silence, though not without many queer and qualmish
thochts, and a pit-patting of the heart, no unco pleasant in the
tholing.
“Blood and wounds!” bawled Maister Thomas Blister, “it would be
a disgrace for ever on the honourable profession of physic,” egging
on puir Maister Willie Magneezhy, whose face was as white as
double-bleached linen, “to make any apology for such an insult. You
not fit to doctor a cat,—you not fit to bleed a calf,—you not fit to
poultice a pig,—after three years apprenticeship,” said he, “and a
winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping-glasses of ’Pocrates,” said
he, “and by the pistol of Gallon, but I would have caned him on the
spot, if he had just let out half as much to me. Look ye, man,” said he,
“look ye, man, he is all shaking” (this was the truth); “he’ll turn tail.
At him like fire, Willie.”
Magneezhy, though sadly frightened, looked a thocht brighter, and
made a kind o’ half stap forrit. “Say that ye’ll ask my pardon once
more,—and if no,” said the puir lad, with a voice broken and
trembling, “then we must just shoot one another.”
“Devil a bit,” answered Mr Bloatsheet, “devil a bit. No, sir; you
must down on your bare knees, and beg ten thousand pardons for
calling me out here, in a raw morning; or I’ll have a shot at you,
whether you will or no.”
“Will you stand that?” said Blister, with eyes like burning coals.
“By the living jingo and the holy poker, Magneezhy, if you stand that
—if you stand that, I say, I stand no longer your second, but leave you
to disgrace, and a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not
as a gentleman, then let him do it and be done.”
“No, sir,” replied Magneezhy, with a quivering voice, which he
tried in vain, puir fellow, to render warlike (he had never been in the
volunteers, like me). “Hand us the pistols, then, and let us do or die!”
“Spoken like a hero, and brother of the lancet: as little afraid at the
sight of your own blood, as at that of your patients,” said Blister.
“Hand over the pistols.”
It was an awfu’ business. Gude save us, such goings on in a
Christian land! While Mr Bloatsheet, the young writer, was in the act
of doing what he was bid, I again, but to no purpose, endeavoured to
slip in a word edgeways. Magneezhy was in an awfu’ case; if he had
been already shot, he could not have looked mair clay and corpse-
like; so I took a kind of whispering, while the stramash was drawing
to a bloody conclusion, with Maister Harry Molasses, the fourth in
the spree, who was standing behind Bloatsheet, with a large
mahogany box under his arm, something in shape like that of a
licensed packman, ganging about from house to house through the
country-side, selling toys and trinkets, or niffering plated ear-rings
and sic like, wi’ young lasses, for auld silver coins or cracked tea-
spoons.
“Oh!” answered he, very composedly, as if it had been a canister fu’
of black rappee, or blackguard, that he had just lifted down from his
tap shelf, “it’s just Doctor Blister’s saws, whittles, and big knives, in
case ony of their legs or arms be blawn away, that he may cut them
off.” Little wad have prevented me sinking down through the ground,
had I not remembered, at the preceese moment, that I myself was a
soldier, and liable, when the hour of danger threatened, to be called
out, in marching order, to the field of battle. But by this time the
pistols were handed to the two infatuated young men—Mr
Bloatsheet, as fierce as a hussar dragoon, and Magneezhy, as supple
in the knees as if he was all on oiled hinges; so the next consideration
was to get weel out of the way, the lookers-on running nearly as great
a chance of being shot as the principals, they no being accustomed,
like me, for instance, to the use of arms; on which account, I
scougged mysel behind a big pear-tree; baith being to fire when
Blister gied the word “Off!”
I had hardly jouked into my hidy-hole, when “crack, crack” played
the pistols like lightning, and as soon as I got my cowl ta’en from my
een, and looked about, wae’s me, I saw Magneezhy clap his hand to
his brow, wheel round like a peerie, or a sheep seized wi’ the sturdie,
and then play flap down on his braidside, breaking the necks of half a
dozen cabbage-stocks, three of which were afterwards clean lost, as
we couldna pit them all into the pat at ae time. The hale o’ us ran
forrit, but foremost was Bloatsheet, who, seizing Magneezhy by the
hand, said wi’ a mournful face, “I hope you forgive me?—Only say
this as long as you have breath, for I am off to Leith harbour in half a
minute.”
 The blude was rinning ower puir Magneezhy’s een, and drib-
dribbling frae the neb o’ his nose; so he was truly in a pitiful state;
but he said with more strength than I thocht he could have mustered,
—“Yes, yes, fly for your life, I am dying without much pain—fly for
your life, for I am a gone man!”
Bloatsheet bounced through the bit kail-yard like a maukin, clamb
ower the bit wa’, and aff like mad; while Blister was feeling
Magneezhy’s pulse with ane hand, and looking at his doctor’s watch,
which he had in the ither.
“Do ye think that the puir lad will live, doctor?” said I till him.
He gave his head a wise shake, and only observed, “I dare say, it
will be a hanging business amang us. In what direction do you think,
Mansie, we should all take flight?”
But I answered bravely, “Flee them that will, I’se flee nane. If am
ta’en prisoner, the town-officers maun haul me frae my ain house;
but nevertheless I trust the visibility of my innocence will be as plain
as a pikestaff to the een of the fifteen.”
“What then, Mansie, will we do with poor Magneezhy? Give us
your advice in need.”
“Let us carry him down to my ain bed,” answered I; “I wad not
desert a fellow-creature in his dying hour! Help me down wi’ him,
and then flee the country as fast as you are able!”
We immediately proceeded, and lifted the poor lad, wha had now
dwaumed away, upon our wife’s hand-barrow, Blister taking the feet,
and me the oxters, whereby I got my waistcoat a’ japanned with
blude; so, when we got him laid right, we proceeded to carry him
between us down the close, just as if he had been a stickit sheep, and
in at the back door, which cost us some trouble, being narrow, and
the barrow getting jammed in; but, at lang and last, we got him
streeked out aboon the blankets, having previously shooken Benjie,
and waukened him out of his morning’s nap.
A’ this being accomplished, and got ower, Blister decamped,
leaving me my leeful lane, excepting Benjie, wha was next to
naebody, in the house with the deein’ man. What a frightfu’ face he
had, all smeared ower with blude and pouther! And I really jaloused,
that if he deed in that room, it wad be haunted for ever mair, he
being in a manner a murdered man, so that, even should I be
acquitted of art and part, his ghaist might still come to bother us,
making our house a hell upon yirth, and frightening us out of our
seven senses. But, in the midst of my dreadful surmeeses, when all
was still, so that you might hae heard a pin fall, a knock-knock-knock
cam to the door, on which, recovering my senses, I dreaded first that
it was the death-chap, and syne that the affair had gotten wind, and
that it was the beagles come in search of me; so I kissed little Benjie,
wha was sitting on his creepie, blubbering and greeting for his
parritch, while a tear stood in my ain ee, as I gaed forrit to lift the
sneck, to let the officers, as I thocht, harry our house, by carrying aff
me, its master; but it was—thank Heaven!—only Tammy Bodkin
coming in whistling to his wark with some measuring-papers hinging
round his neck.
“Ah, Tammy,” said I to him, my heart warming at a kent face, and
making the laddie, although my bounden servant by a regular
indenture of five years, a friend in my need, “come in, my man. I fear
ye’ll hae to tak charge of the business for some time to come. Mind
what I tell’d ye about the shaping and the cutting, and no making the
goose ower warm, as I doubt I am about to be harled awa to the
Tolbooth.”
Tammy’s heart louped to his mouth.
“Ay, maister,” he said, “ye’re joking. What should ye have done
that ye should be ta’en to sic an ill place?”
“Ah, Tammy, lad,” answered I, “it is but ower true.”
“Weel, weel,” quo’ Tammy—I really thought it a great deal of the
laddie—“weel, weel, they canna prevent me coming to sew beside ye;
and, if I can tak the measure of customers without, ye can cut the
claith within. But what is’t for, maister?”
“Come in here,” said I to him, “and believe your ain een, Tammy,
my man.”
“Losh me!” cried the puir laddie, glowering at the bluidy face of the
man in the bed. “Ay—ay—ay! maister; save us, maister; ay—ay—ay—
you have na cloured his harnpan wi’ the goose? Ay, maister, maister!
what an unyirthly sight!! I doubt they’ll hang us a’;—you for doing’t,
and me on suspicion, and Benjie as art and part, puir thing. But I’ll
rin for a doctor. Will I, maister?”
 The thocht had never struck me before, being in a sort of a manner
dung stupid; but catching up the word, I said wi’ all my pith and birr,
“Rin, rin, Tammy, rin for life and death!”
Tammy bolted like a nine-year-auld, never looking ahint his tail:
so, in less than ten minutes, he returned, hauling alang auld Doctor
Gripes, whom he had wakened out o’ his bed by the lug and horn, at
the very time I was trying to quiet young Benjie, wha was following
me up and doun the house, as I was pacing to and fro in distraction,
girning and whinging for his breakfast.
“Bad business, bad business; bless us, what is this?” said the auld
doctor, staring at Magneezhy’s bluidy face through his silver
spectacles—“What’s the matter?”
The puir patient knew at once his maister’s tongue, and, lifting up
ane of his eyes—the other being stiff and barkened down—said in a
melancholy voice, “Ah, master, do ye think I’ll get better?”
Doctor Gripes, auld man as he was, started back, as if he had been
a French dancing-master, or had strampit on a het bar of iron. “Tom,
Tom, is this you? What, in the name of wonder, has done this?” Then
feeling his wrist—“But your pulse is quite good. Have you fallen, boy?
Where is the blood coming from?”
“Somewhere about the hairy scaup,” answered Magneezhy, in his
own sort of lingo. “I doubt some artery’s cut through!”
The doctor immediately bade him lie quiet, and hush, as he was
getting a needle and silken thread ready to sew it up; ordering me to
get a basin and water ready, to wash the puir lad’s physog. I did so as
hard as I was able, though I wasna sure about the blude just; auld
Doctor Gripes watching ower my shouther, wi’ a lighted penny
candle in ae hand, and the needle and thread in the ither, to see
where the bluid spouted frae. But we were as daft as wise; so he bade
me tak my big shears, and cut out a’ the hair on the fore part of the
head as bare as my loof; and syne we washed, and better washed; so
Magneezhy got the ither ee up, when the barkened blude was loosed,
looking, though as pale as a clean shirt, mair frighted than hurt; until
it became plain to us all, first to the doctor, syne to me, and syne to
Tammy Bodkin, and last of a’ to Magneezhy himsel, that his skin was
na sae much as peeled; so we helped him out of the bed, and blithe
was I to see the lad standing on the floor, without a haud, on his ain
feet.
I did my best to clean his neckcloth and sark-neck of the blude,
making him look as decentish as possible, considering
circumstances; and lending him, as the Scripture commands, my
tartan mantle to hide the infirmity of his bluidy breeks and
waistcoat. Hame gaed he and his maister thegither, me standing at
our close mouth, wishing them a gude morning, and blithe to see
their backs. Indeed, a condemned thief with the rope about his neck,
and the white cowl tied ower his een, to say naething of his hands
yerked thegither behind his back, and on the nick of being thrown
ower, couldna been mair thankfu’ for a reprieve than I was, at the
same blessed moment. It was like Adam seeing the deil’s rear
marching out o’ Paradise, if ane may be allowed to think sic a thing.
The hale business—tag, rag, and bobtail—soon, however, spunkit
out, and was the town talk for mair than ae day. But ye’ll hear.
At the first I pitied the puir lads, that I thocht had fled for ever and
aye from their native country to Bengal, Seringapatam, Copenhagen,
Botany Bay, or Jamaica; leaving behint them all their friends and
auld Scotland, as they might never hear o’ the gudeness of
Providence in their behalf. But—wait a wee.
Wad ye believe it? As sure’s death, the hale was but a wicked trick
played by that mischievous loon Blister and his cronies, upon ane
that was a simple and saft-headed callant. Deil a haet was in the ae
pistol but a pluff o’ pouther; and, in the ither, a cartridge paper, fu’ o’
bull’s blood, was rammed down upon the charge, the which, hiting
Magneezhy on the ee-bree, had caused a business that seemed to
have put him out o’ life, and nearly put me (though ane of the
volunteers) out of my seven senses.—Mansie Wauch.
 THE VACANT CHAIR.

By John Mackay Wilson.

You have all heard of the Cheviot mountains. They are a rough,
rugged, majestic chain of hills, which a poet might term the Roman
wall of nature; crowned with snow, belted with storms, surrounded
by pastures and fruitful fields, and still dividing the northern portion
of Great Britain from the southern. With their proud summits
piercing the clouds, and their dark, rocky declivities frowning upon
the glens below, thay appear symbolical of the wild and untamable
spirits of the Borderers who once inhabited their sides. We say, you
have all heard of the Cheviots, and know them to be very high hills,
like a huge clasp riveting England and Scotland together; but we are
not aware that you may have heard of Marchlaw, an old, gray-looking
farm-house, substantial as a modern fortress, recently, and, for aught
we know to the contrary, still inhabited by Peter Elliot, the proprietor
of some five hundred surrounding acres. The boundaries of Peter’s
farm, indeed, were defined neither by fields, hedges, nor stone walls.
A wooden stake here, and a stone there, at considerable distances
from each other, were the general landmarks; but neither Peter nor
his neighbours considered a few acres worth quarrelling about; and
their sheep frequently visited each other’s pastures in a friendly way,
harmoniously sharing a family dinner, in the same spirit as their
masters made themselves free at each other’s tables.
Peter was placed in very unpleasant circumstances, owing to the
situation of Marchlaw House, which, unfortunately, was built
immediately across the “ideal line,” dividing the two kingdoms; and
his misfortune was, that, being born within it, he knew not whether
he was an Englishman or a Scotchman. He could trace his ancestral
line no farther back than his great-grandfather, who, it appeared
from the family Bible, had, together with his grandfather and father,
claimed Marchlaw as their birthplace. They, however, were not
involved in the same perplexities as their descendant. The parlour
was distinctly acknowledged to be in Scotland, and two-thirds of the
kitchen were as certainly allowed to be in England;—his three
ancestors were born in the room over the parlour, and, therefore,
were Scotchmen beyond question; but Peter, unluckily, being
brought into the world before the death of his grandfather, his
parents occupied a room immediately over the debatable boundary
line which crossed the kitchen. The room, though scarcely eight feet
square, was evidently situated between the two countries; but, no
one being able to ascertain what portion belonged to each, Peter,
after many arguments and altercations upon the subject, was driven
to the disagreeable alternative of confessing he knew not what
countryman he was. What rendered the confession the more painful
was, that it was Peter’s highest ambition to be thought a Scotsman.
All his arable land lay on the Scottish side; his mother was
collaterally related to the Stuarts; and few families were more
ancient or respectable than the Elliots. Peter’s speech, indeed,
bewrayed him to be a walking partition between the two kingdoms—
a living representation of the Union; for in one word he pronounced
the letter r with the broad, masculine sound of the North Briton, and
in the next with the liquid burr of the Northumbrians.
Peter, or, if you prefer it, Peter Elliot, Esquire of Marchlaw, in the
counties of Northumberland and Roxburgh, was, for many years, the
best runner, leaper, and wrestler between Wooler and Jedburgh.
Whirled from his hand, the ponderous bullet whizzed through the air
like a pigeon on the wing; and the best “putter” on the Borders
quailed from competition. As a feather in his grasp, he seized the
unwieldy hammer, swept it round and round his head,
accompanying with agile limb its evolutions, swiftly as swallows play
around a circle, and hurled it from his hands like a shot from a rifle,
till antagonists shrunk back, and the spectators burst into a shout.
“Well done, squire! the squire for ever!” once exclaimed a servile
observer of titles. “Squire! wha are ye squiring at?” returned Peter.
“Confound ye! where was ye when I was christened squire? My
name’s Peter Elliot—your man, or onybody’s man, at whatever they
like!”
 Peter’s soul was free, bounding, and buoyant as the wind that
carolled in a zephyr, or shouted in a hurricane, upon his native hills;
and his body was thirteen stone of healthy substantial flesh, steeped
in the spirits of life. He had been long married, but marriage had
wrought no change upon him. They who suppose that wedlock
transforms the lark into an owl, offer an insult to the lovely beings
who, brightening our darkest hours with the smiles of affection,
teach us that that only is unbecoming in the husband which is
disgraceful in the man. Nearly twenty years had passed over them;
but Janet was still as kind, and, in his eyes, as beautiful as when,
bestowing on him her hand, she blushed her vows at the altar; and he
was still as happy, as generous, and as free. Nine fair children sat
around their domestic hearth, and one, the youngling of the flock,
smiled upon its mother’s knee. Peter had never known sorrow; he
was blest in his wife, in his children, in his flocks. He had become
richer than his fathers. He was beloved by his neighbours, the tillers
of his ground, and his herdsmen: yea, no man envied his prosperity.
But a blight passed over the harvest of his joys, and gall was rained
into the cup of his felicity.
It was Christmas-day, and a more melancholy-looking sun never
rose on the 25th of December. One vast, sable cloud, like a universal
pall, overspread the heavens. For weeks the ground had been covered
with clear, dazzling snow; and as throughout the day the rain
continued its unwearied and monotonous drizzle, the earth assumed
a character and appearance melancholy and troubled as the heavens.
Like a mastiff that has lost its owner, the wind howled dolefully down
the glens, and was re-echoed from the caves of the mountains, as the
lamentations of a legion of invisible spirits. The frowning, snow-clad
precipices were instinct with motion, as avalanche upon avalanche,
the larger burying the less, crowded downward in their tremendous
journey to the plain. The simple mountain rills had assumed the
majesty of rivers; the broader streams were swollen into the wild
torrent, and, gushing forth as cataracts, in fury and in foam,
enveloped the valleys in an angry flood. But at Marchlaw the fire
blazed blithely; the kitchen groaned beneath the load of preparations
for a joyful feast; and glad faces glided from room to room.
Peter Elliot kept Christmas, not so much because it was Christmas,
as in honour of its being the birthday of Thomas, his first-born, who
that day entered his nineteenth year. With a father’s love, his heart
yearned for all his children; but Thomas was the pride of his eyes.
Cards of apology had not then found their way among our Border
hills; and as all knew that, although Peter admitted no spirits within
his threshold, nor a drunkard at his table, he was, nevertheless, no
niggard in his hospitality, his invitations were accepted without
ceremony. The guests were assembled; and the kitchen being the
only apartment in the building large enough to contain them, the
cloth was spread upon a long, clean, oaken table, stretching from
England into Scotland. On the English end of the board were placed
a ponderous plum-pudding, studded with temptation, and a smoking
sirloin; on Scotland, a savoury and well-seasoned haggis, with a
sheep’shead and trotters; while the intermediate space was filled
with the good things of this life, common to both kingdoms and to
the season.
The guests from the north and from the south were arranged
promiscuously. Every seat was filled—save one. The chair by Peter’s
right hand remained unoccupied. He had raised his hands before his
eyes, and besought a blessing on what was placed before them, and
was preparing to carve for his visitors, when his eyes fell upon the
vacant chair. The knife dropped upon the table. Anxiety flashed
across his countenance, like an arrow from an unseen hand.
“Janet, where is Thomas?” he inquired; “hae nane o’ ye seen him?”
and, without waiting an answer, he continued—“How is it possible he
can be absent at a time like this? And on such a day, too? Excuse me
a minute, friends, till I just step out and see if I can find him. Since
ever I kept this day, as mony o’ ye ken, he has always been at my
right hand, in that very chair; I canna think o’ beginning our dinner
while I see it empty.”
“If the filling of the chair be all,” said a pert young sheep-farmer,
named Johnson, “I will step into it till Master Thomas arrive.”
“Ye’re not a father, young man,” said Peter, and walked out of the
room.
Minute succeeded minute, but Peter returned not. The guests
became hungry, peevish, and gloomy, while an excellent dinner
continued spoiling before them. Mrs Elliot, whose goodnature was
the most prominent feature in her character, strove, by every
possible effort, to beguile the unpleasant impressions she perceived
gathering upon their countenances.
“Peter is just as bad as him,” she remarked, “to hae gane to seek
him when he kenned the dinner wouldna keep. And I’m sure Thomas
kenned it would be ready at one o’clock to a minute. It’s sae
unthinking and unfriendly like to keep folk waiting.” And,
endeavouring to smile upon a beautiful black-haired girl of
seventeen, who sat by her elbow, she continued in an anxious
whisper—“Did ye see naething o’ him, Elizabeth, hinny?”
The maiden blushed deeply; the question evidently gave freedom
to a tear, which had, for some time, been an unwilling prisoner in the
brightest eyes in the room; and the monosyllable, “No,” that
trembled from her lips, was audible only to the ear of the inquirer. In
vain Mrs Elliot despatched one of her children after another, in quest
of their father and brother; they came and went, but brought no
tidings more cheering than the moaning of the hollow wind. Minutes
rolled into hours, yet neither came. She perceived the prouder of her
guests preparing to withdraw, and, observing that “Thomas’s
absence was so singular and unaccountable, and so unlike either him
or his father, she didna ken what apology to make to her friends for
such treatment; but it was needless waiting, and begged they would
use no ceremony, but just begin.”
No second invitation was necessary. Good humour appeared to be
restored, and sirloins, pies, pasties, and moorfowl began to disappear
like the lost son. For a moment, Mrs Elliot apparently partook in the
restoration of cheerfulness; but a low sigh at her elbow again drove
the colour from her rosy cheeks. Her eye wandered to the farther end
of the table, and rested on the unoccupied seat of her husband, and
the vacant chair of her first-born. Her heart fell heavily within her;
all the mother gushed into her bosom; and, rising from the table,
“What in the world can be the meaning o’ this?” said she, as she
hurried, with a troubled countenance, towards the door. Her
husband met her on the threshold.
“Where hae ye been, Peter?” said she, eagerly. “Hae ye seen
naething o’ him?”
“Naething, naething,” replied he; “is he no cast up yet?” And, with
a melancholy glance, his eyes sought an answer in the deserted chair.
His lips quivered, his tongue faltered.
 “Gude forgie me,” said he, “and such a day for even an enemy to be
out in! I’ve been up and doun every way that I can think on, but not a
living creature has seen or heard tell o’ him. Ye’ll excuse me,
neebors,” he added, leaving the house; “I must awa again, for I canna
rest.”
“I ken by mysel, friends,” said Adam Bell, a decent-looking
Northumbrian, “that a faither’s heart is as sensitive as the apple o’
his e’e; and I think we would show a want o’ natural sympathy and
respect for our worthy neighbour, if we didna every one get his foot
into the stirrup without loss o’ time, and assist him in his search. For,
in my rough, country way o’ thinking, it must be something
particularly out o’ the common that would tempt Thomas to be
amissing. Indeed, I needna say tempt, for there could be no
inclination in the way. And our hills,” he concluded, in a lower tone,
“are not ower chancy in other respects, besides the breaking up o’ the
storm.”
“Oh!” said Mrs Elliot, wringing her hands, “I have had the coming
o’ this about me for days and days. My head was growing dizzy with
happiness, but thoughts came stealing upon me like ghosts, and I felt
a lonely soughing about my heart, without being able to tell the
cause; but the cause is come at last! And my dear Thomas—the very
pride and staff o’ my life—is lost—lost to me for ever!”
“I ken, Mrs Elliot,” replied the Northumbrian, “it is an easy matter
to say compose yourself, for them that dinna ken what it is to feel.
But, at the same time, in our plain, country way o’ thinking, we are
always ready to believe the worst. I’ve often heard my father say, and
I’ve as often remarked it myself, that, before anything happens to a
body, there is a something comes ower them, like a cloud before the
face o’ the sun; a sort o’ dumb whispering about the breast from the
other world. And though I trust there is naething o’ the kind in your
case, yet as you observe, when I find myself growing dizzy, as it were,
with happiness, it makes good a saying o’ my mother’s, poor body.
‘Bairns, bairns,’ she used to say, ‘there is ower muckle singing in your
heads to-night; we will have a shower before bedtime.’ And I never,
in my born days, saw it fail.”
At any other period, Mr Bell’s dissertation on presentiments would
have been found a fitting text on which to hang all the dreams,
wraiths, warnings, and marvellous circumstances, that had been
handed down to the company from the days of their grandfathers;
but, in the present instance, they were too much occupied in
consultation regarding the different routes to be taken in their
search.
Twelve horsemen, and some half-dozen pedestrians, were seen
hurrying in divers directions from Marchlaw, as the last faint lights
of a melancholy day were yielding to the heavy darkness which
appeared pressing in solid masses down the sides of the mountains.
The wives and daughters of the party were alone left with the
disconsolate mother, who alternately pressed her weeping children
to her heart, and told them to weep not, for their brother would soon
return; while the tears stole down her own cheeks, and the infant in
her arms wept because its mother wept. Her friends strove with each
other to inspire hope, and poured upon her ear their mingled and
loquacious consolation. But one remained silent. The daughter of
Adam Bell, who sat by Mrs Elliot’s elbow at table, had shrunk into an
obscure corner of the room. Before her face she held a handkerchief
wet with tears. Her bosom throbbed convulsively; and, as
occasionally her broken sighs burst from their prison house, a
significant whisper passed among the younger part of the company.
Mrs Elliot approached her, and taking her hand tenderly within
both of hers—“Oh, hinny! hinny!” said she, “yer sighs gae through my
heart like a knife! An’ what can I do to comfort ye? Come, Elizabeth,
my bonny love, let us hope for the best. Ye see before ye a sorrowin’
mother—a mother that fondly hoped to see you an’—I canna say it—
an’ I am ill qualified to gie comfort, when my own heart is like a
furnace! But, oh! let us try and remember the blessed portion,
‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,’ an’ inwardly pray for
strength to say ‘His will be done!’”
Time stole on towards midnight, and one by one the unsuccessful
party returned. As foot after foot approached, every breath was held
to listen.
“No, no, no,” cried the mother, again and again, with increasing
anguish, “it’s no the foot o’ my ain bairn;” while her keen gaze still
remained riveted upon the door, and was not withdrawn, nor the
hope of despair relinquished, till the individual entered, and with a
silent and ominous shake of his head, betokened his fruitless efforts.
The clock had struck twelve; all were returned, save the father. The
wind howled more wildly; the rain poured upon the windows in
ceaseless torrents; and the roaring of the mountain rivers gave a
character of deeper ghostliness to their sepulchral silence; for they
sat, each wrapt in forebodings, listening to the storm; and no sounds
were heard, save the groans of the mother, the weeping of her
children, and the bitter and broken sobs of the bereaved maiden,
who leaned her head upon her father’s bosom, refusing to be
comforted.
At length the barking of the farm dog announced footsteps at a
distance. Every ear was raised to listen, every eye turned to the door;
but, before the tread was yet audible to the listeners—“Oh! it is only
Peter’s foot!” said the miserable mother, and, weeping, rose to meet
him.
“Janet, Janet!” he exclaimed, as he entered, and threw his arms
around her neck, “what’s this come upon us at last?”
He cast an inquisitive glance around his dwelling, and a convulsive
shiver passed over his manly frame, as his eye again fell on the
vacant chair, which no one had ventured to occupy. Hour succeeded
hour, but the company separated not; and low, sorrowful whispers
mingled with the lamentations of the parents.
“Neighbours,” said Adam Bell, “the morn is a new day, and we will
wait to see what it may bring forth; but, in the meantime, let us read
a portion o’ the Divine Word, an’ kneel together in prayer, that,
whether or not the day-dawn cause light to shine upon this singular
bereavement, the Sun o’ Righteousness may arise wi’ healing on His
wings, upon the hearts o’ this afflicted family, an’ upon the hearts o’
all present.”
“Amen!” responded Peter, wringing his hands; and his friend,
taking down the “Ha’ Bible,” read the chapter wherein it is written
—“It is better to be in the house of mourning than in the house of
feasting;” and again the portion which saith—“It is well for me that I
have been afflicted, for before I was afflicted I went astray.”
The morning came, but brought no tidings of the lost son. After a
solemn farewell, all the visitants, save Adam Bell and his daughter,
returned every one to their own house; and the disconsolate father,
with his servants, again renewed the search among the hills and
surrounding villages.
 Days, weeks, months, and years rolled on. Time had subdued the
anguish of the parents into a holy calm; but their lost first-born was
not forgotten, although no trace of his fate had been discovered. The
general belief was, that he had perished on the breaking up of the
snow; and the few in whose remembrance he still lived, merely spoke
of his death as a “very extraordinary circumstance,” remarking that
“he was a wild, venturesome sort o’ lad.”
Christmas had succeeded Christmas, and Peter Elliot still kept it in
commemoration of the birthday of him who was not. For the first few
years after the loss of their son, sadness and silence characterized the
party who sat down to dinner at Marchlaw, and still at Peter’s right
hand was placed the vacant chair. But, as the younger branches of
the family advanced in years, the remembrance of their brother
became less poignant. Christmas was, with all around them, a day of
rejoicing, and they began to make merry with their friends; while
their parents partook in their enjoyment, with a smile, half of
approval and half of sorrow.
Twelve years had passed away; Christmas had again come. It was
the counterpart of its fatal predecessor. The hills had not yet cast off
their summer verdure; the sun, although shorn of its heat, had lost
none of its brightness or glory, and looked down upon the earth as
though participating in its gladness; and the clear blue sky was
tranquil as the sea sleeping beneath the moon. Many visitors had
again assembled at Marchlaw. The sons of Mr Elliot, and the young
men of the party, were assembled upon a level green near the house,
amusing themselves with throwing the hammer, and other Border
games, while himself and the elder guests stood by as spectators,
recounting the deeds of their youth. Johnson, the sheep-farmer,
whom we have already mentioned, now a brawny and gigantic fellow
of two-and-thirty, bore away in every game the palm from all
competitors. More than once, as Peter beheld his sons defeated, he
felt the spirit of youth glowing in his veins, and, “Oh!” muttered he,
in bitterness, “had my Thomas been spared to me, he would hae
thrown his heart’s blude after the hammer, before he would hae been
beat by e’er a Johnson in the country!”
While he thus soliloquized, and with difficulty restrained an
impulse to compete with the victor himself, a dark, foreign-looking,
strong-built seaman, unceremoniously approached, and, with his
arms folded, cast a look of contempt upon the boasting conqueror.
Every eye was turned with a scrutinizing glance upon the stranger. In
height he could not exceed five feet nine, but his whole frame was the
model of muscular strength; his features open and manly, but deeply
sunburnt and weather-beaten; his long, glossy, black hair, curled into
ringlets by the breeze and the billow, fell thickly over his temples and
forehead; and whiskers of a similar hue, more conspicuous for size
than elegance, gave a character of fierceness to a countenance
otherwise possessing a striking impress of manly beauty. Without
asking permission, he stepped forward, lifted the hammer, and,
swinging it around his head, hurled it upwards of five yards beyond
Johnson’s most successful throw. “Well done!” shouted the
astonished spectators. The heart of Peter Elliott warmed within him,
and he was hurrying forward to grasp the stranger by the hand, when
the words groaned in his throat, “It was just such a throw as my
Thomas would have made!—my own lost Thomas!” The tears burst
into his eyes, and, without speaking, he turned back, and hurried
towards the house to conceal his emotion.
Successively, at every game, the stranger had defeated all who
ventured to oppose him, when a messenger announced that dinner
waited their arrival. Some of the guests were already seated, others
entering; and, as heretofore, placed beside Mrs Elliot was Elizabeth
Bell, still in the noontide of her beauty; but sorrow had passed over
her features, like a veil before the countenance of an angel. Johnson,
crest-fallen and out of humour at his defeat, seated himself by her
side. In early life he had regarded Thomas Elliot as a rival for her
affections; and, stimulated by the knowledge that Adam Bell would
be able to bestow several thousands upon his daughter for a dowry,
he yet prosecuted his attentions with unabated assiduity, in despite
of the daughter’s aversion and the coldness of her father. Peter had
taken his place at the table; and still by his side, unoccupied and
sacred, appeared the vacant chair, the chair of his first-born,
whereon none had sat since his mysterious death or disappearance.
“Bairns,” said he, “did nane o’ye ask the sailor to come up and tak
a bit o’ dinner wi’ us?”
“We were afraid it might lead to a quarrel with Mr Johnson,”
whispered one of the sons.