able anchorage....

Here now was a city growing rich, ungracefully--a city of arrogant
Spanish colonists, of poverty-stricken immigrants, of down-trodden lower
classes ... a city of riches ... a city of blood.... Here mud, here
money....

Into a city half mud hovels, half marble-fronted houses, gauchos drove
herd upon herd of cattle, baffled, afraid. Here Irish drove streams of
gray bleating sheep. Here ungreased bullock carts screamed. From the
blue-grass pampas they drove them, where the birds sang, and water
rippled, where was the gentleness of summer rain, where was the majesty
of great storms, clouds magnificently black and jagged lightning, where
were great white moons and life-giving suns, where was the serpent in
the grass, and the unique tree, where were swift horses.... Beeves that
had once been red awkward calves, and then sullen, stupid little
bullocks, and then proud young bulls, with graceful horns.... Such as
earnest Christians believed had lowed at the manger of Christ born in
Bethlehem.... And stupid, suspicious sheep, that had once been white
gamboling lambs, playful as pups, and so ridiculously innocent
looking!--didn't they call their Lord _Agnus Dei_, Lamb of God?--and
gentle ewes and young truculent rams, like red-headed schoolboys, eager
for a fray, and shamefaced wethers.... And by their thousands and their
tens of thousands they drove them into Buenos Aires, and slew them for
their hides....

But this was sentimental, Shane said. Bullocks and sheep must die, and
the knife is merciful as any death. But oughtn't these things be done
by night, privily, as they should bury the dead? Must they drive down
these infinities of creatures, and slaughter them openly and callously,
until the air was salt with blood, until the carrion crows hovered over
the city in battalions? Had they no feeling, had they no shame? Must the
pitiful machinery of life be exposed so airily?

Of course it must, he knew. These things had to be done in bulk. Now
weren't the middle ages when one killed a cow because one had to eat:
one killed a sheep because the winter was coming when woolens were
needed. All Europe needed shoes, saddles, combs, anti-macassars,
afghans--what not? And Europe was a big place, so in bulk they must
bellow and bleat and die, and have their hides torn from their pitiful
bodies, salted, and chucked in the hold of a ship.

Of course it must. That was civilization.

Section 3

From long ago, fro