Pioneering in the Pampas Author:Richard A. Seymour, Juan Carlos Casas One peculiar side benefit of the British influence in Argentina are the writings of travelers, gentlemen that while depicting their own experiences lend the present reader a better understanding of what was happening at the roots of the "official" history. This historical research criterium can also be applied to the genre known as literatura... more » gauchesca. Based upon the "gaucho?s" own point of view, and told in his particular language, these dramas can easily be mistaken as spun far from reality, and risk becoming considered literary concoctions without solid factual roots. Opposing this stands Pioneering in the Pampas, as it is the actual historical racconto of the vicissitudes of two young British gentlemen in the Argentine pampas of 1865. Richard Seymour?s outstanding memory and love for detail transform his writings into a journey through everyday life in the Pampas Indian frontier during the mid eighteen hundreds, and make an excellent basis for a better understanding of classic titles such as Lucio Mansilla?s "una excursión a los indios Ranqueles" (which took place during those years, by the way), Esteban Echeverrías?s "la Cautiva", Hilario Ascasubi?s "Santos Vega", and Jose Hernandez "Martin Fierro". In the Author's own words, his book is "... the simple narration of the difficulties which beset the settler in the first few years of his enterprise, more particularly when he has been tempted to fix himself outside the older settlements, and to be, as in the case of the writer and his companions, in the truest sense of the word, a Pioneer". With the educated and fluent prose of an "average" nineteenth century Oxford scholar, the geography of the Pampas and the times before railroads and immigration waves acquire amazingly realistic characteristics.« less