scenes, amidst the struggles of the cities with provincial feudalism, between the life which is passing away and the new life gradually arising. The Cantor goes from one settlement to another "de tapera en galpon," singing the deeds of the heroes of the pampa whom the law persecutes, the lament of the widow whose sons have been taken off by the Indians in a recent raid, the defeat and death of the brave Ranch, the final overthrow of Facundo Quiroga, and the fate of Santos Perez.
The Cantor is performing in his simple way the same labor of recording customs, history, and biography, which was performed by the mediæval bard, and his verses would hereafter be collected as documents and authorities for the future historian, but that there stands beside him another more cultivated form of society with a knowledge of events superior to that displayed by this less favored chronicler in his artless rhapsodies. Two distinct forms of civilization meet upon a common ground in the Argentine Republic: one, still in its infancy, which, ignorant of that so far above it, goes on repeating the crude efforts of the Middle Ages; the other, disregarding what lies at its feet, while it strives to realize in itself the latest results of European civilization; the nineteenth and twelfth centuries dwell together one inside the cities,—the other without them.
The Cantor has no fixed abode; he lodges where night surprises him; his fortune consists in his verses and in his voice. Wherever the wild mazes of the cielito are threaded, wherever there is a glass of wine to drink, the Cantor has his place and his particular
