Skip to content

No image available

Twenty-four Years a Cowboy and Ranchman in Southern Texas and Old Mexico

No image available

Twenty-four Years a Cowboy and Ranchman in Southern Texas and Old Mexico

by Will Hale

  • Used
  • near fine
  • Paperback
Condition
Near Fine
ISBN 10
0806112727
ISBN 13
9780806112725
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 2 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
La Mesa, California, United States
Item Price
NZ$19.67
Or just NZ$17.70 with a
Bibliophiles Club Membership
NZ$6.97 Shipping to USA
Standard delivery: 2 to 8 days

More Shipping Options

Payment Methods Accepted

  • Visa
  • Mastercard
  • American Express
  • Discover
  • PayPal

About This Item

University of Oklahoma Press. A clean crisp uncracked softcover copy in near fine condition. First paperback edition. . Near Fine. Soft cover. 1975.

Synopsis

The Caribbean as Fermor experienced it in the 1940's was a world of incredible fusions and contradictions that didn't exist anywhere else in the world -- the mix of indigenous, African and European cultures, the juxtaposition of American advertisements with ancient cannibal practices, the incredible richness of the natural environment coupled with the decaying state of the colonial cities. Although Fermor had travelled extensively, he found the West Indies to be unlike anything he could have imagined, and each new experience is a surprise. This book is a pleasure to read, full of excitement and rich sensory experience, as well as beautifully written. Language, religion, costume, geography - the author inquires into everything, and because of this natural curiosity, he gets himself into some interesting, and often funny, situations, like being chased around the beach by a blindfolded man with a divining rod. Equally interesting, though, are his descriptions of the specific melding of cultures that has occurred exclusively in these islands:"The afternoon was baking and shadowless, and the town seemed only with an effort to remain upright among its thoroughfares of dust. It was as empty as a sarcophagus. The French guide-book describes it as a great centre of elegant Creole life in the past, hinting at routs and cavalcades and banquets of unparalleled sumptuousness. Acts of God must have fallen upon it with really purposeful vindictiveness, for not by the most violent manhandling of the imagination could one associate a chandelier or a powdered wig with this collection of hovels. Not even a dog was to be seen. But behind a tall crucifix stood a cemetery of such dimensions - Pere Lachaise and the Campo Santo gone mad...These acres inhabited by the dead, these miniature hails and palaces and opera-houses, were, it occurred to me, the real town, and the houses falling to ruins outside the railings were in the nature of a negligible suburb."He is generally respectful of the cultures he encounters, and describes the dining habits of cannibals without batting an eyelash:"The victims were prepared while still alive, by cutting slits down the back and sides into which pimentos and other herbs were stuffed. After being dispatched with a mace, they were trussed to poles and roasted over a medium fire, while the women busied themselves turning and basting, and catching the lard in gourds and calabashes, which they allowed to set and then stored away. They would eagerly lick the sticks where the gravy had fallen. Often the meal was half roasted, and then half boiled. Some of the meat was eaten on the spot, the rest was cut up and smoked and also prudently put by for lean or unpatriotic periods in the future. But there was a symbolical aspect to these banquets. They were considered to seal a military victory, to put it for ever beyond question. De Rochefort reports that a Carib prisoner, while being made ready, would jeer at his captors, saying that, although they would soon be eating him, he had already swallowed so many of their family or tribe, and was so thoroughly nourished on their neighbours and kin, that they would virtually be eating one of their own people. This kind of language would continue until the final blow was delivered. It never failed to exasperate the company, and to cast an atmosphere of dejection over the whole meal." That is the beauty of this narrative -- it is just one tasty morsel after another.

Reviews

(Log in or Create an Account first!)

You’re rating the book as a work, not the seller or the specific copy you purchased!

Details

Bookseller
Maxwell's House of Books US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
031585
Title
Twenty-four Years a Cowboy and Ranchman in Southern Texas and Old Mexico
Author
Will Hale
Format/Binding
Soft cover
Book Condition
Used - Near Fine
Quantity Available
1
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10
0806112727
ISBN 13
9780806112725
Publisher
University of Oklahoma Press
Date Published
1975
Pages
183
Size
16mo - over 5¾ - 6¾
Keywords
WESTERN AMERICANA COWBOY HISTORY OFFWHITE WITH RED LETTERING KCA0414

Terms of Sale

Maxwell's House of Books

Full refund including original shipping costs for up to 15 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.

About the Seller

Maxwell's House of Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 2 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2019
La Mesa, California

About Maxwell's House of Books

San Diego's Premier Used BookstoreEstablished in 2003, Maxwell's House of Books has over 30,000 books to choose from. A general used bookstore specializing in scholarly and academic titles, philosophy, literature, psychology, political science theology, archaeology and more.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Crisp
A term often used to indicate a book's new-like condition. Indicates that the hinges are not loosened. A book described as crisp...
Fine
A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...

This Book’s Categories

tracking-