and murmur to
myself----

'Oh dear me!' I say, 'if my purse were only half as big as my heart,
wouldn't I quickly gather together a thousand of these white slaves and
sail merrily off with them to the Land of the Silver West! And men would
learn to laugh there who hardly ever smiled before, and tendons would wax
wiry, and muscles hard, and pale faces grow brown with the tints of
health. And health would mean work, and work would mean wealth, and--but,
heigho! what is the good of dreaming? Only some day--yes, _some_ day--and
what a glorious sunrise it will be for this empire--Government will see
its way to grant free passages to far-off lands, in which there is peace
and plenty, work and food for all, and where the bread one eats is never
damped by falling tears. God send that happy day! And send it soon!

It is the memory of our first months and years of a downright pleasant
life that makes me write like this. We poor lads--my brothers and I--poor,
but determined, found everything so enjoyable at our new home in the
Silver West that oftentimes we could not help wishing that thousands of
toiling mortals from Glasgow and other great overcrowded cities would only
come out somehow and share our posy. For really, to put it in plain and
simple language, next to the delight of enjoying anything oneself, should
it only be an apple, is the pleasure of seeing one's neighbour have a
bite.

Now here is a funny thing, but it is a fact. The air of Mendoza is so
wonderfully dry and strong and bracing that it makes men of boys in a very
short time, and makes old people young again. It might not smooth away
wrinkles from the face, or turn grey hair brown, or even make two hairs
grow where only one grew before; but it does most assuredly rejuvenate the
heart, and shakes all the wrinkles out of that. Out here it is no uncommon
thing for the once rheumatic to learn to dance, while stiff-jointed
individuals who immigrated with crutches under their arms, pitch these
crutches into the irrigation canals, and take to spades and guns instead.

It is something in the air, I think, that works these wondrous changes,
though I am sure I could not say what. It may be oxygen in double doses,
or it may be ozone, or even laughing gas; but there it is, and whosoever
reads these lines and doubts what I say, has only to take flight for the
beautiful province of Mendoza, and he shall remain a sceptic no longer.

Well, as soon as we got over the fatigues