Out on the Pampas is a work of fiction written by the famous author, G.A. Henty. It is a story of an English family who emigrated to the Pampas in Argentina. It tells how they built up the settlement of Mount Pleasant from barren land into a prospering plantation. The book covers about 5 years of time in total. The book takes place sometime during the 1800’s.
Before I begin to summarize the plot of the book, I must quickly tell you about the characters. The family’s last name is Hardy. Mr. Frank Hardy is a forty year old English Architect, who had spent his youth in North America exploring the western part of the country. He is married to Mrs. Clara Hardy. Mrs. Hardy is about thirty-five years old. The couple has had four children. Charley is the oldest, and, at the beginning of the book, is fifteen years old. His brother, Hubert, is fourteen. They have two sisters. Maud is twelve, and Ethel is eleven.
The book begins with Mr. Hardy proposing the prospect of emigration to his wife, Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Hardy agrees that they should emigrate, and together they research the best country to emigrate to. They decide on Argentina, which is a country in South America. Land in that region can be bought for dirt cheap (pun intended), and Mr. Hardy also knows some people that live nearby. The family spends nine months preparing to emigrate. Charley and Hubert learn woodwork and gardening, while the girls learn to cook and tend to animals. The whole family learns Spanish as well, so that they can speak to the inhabitants of Argentina, and the children also learn to ride. They then set out on their voyage by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. There is a storm along the way, and everyone in the family except Mr. Hardy gets seasick. They then arrive at the land the Mr. Hardy owns.
They build small huts to live in while they build the main house, and then they build the house. Mr. Hardy has also purchased several hundred cattle and sheep, and also some chickens, and many many seeds. They plant many of these crops, including maize (corn) and live prosperously until Indians come and steal away a large portion of their cattle. Mr. Hardy, Charley, and Hubert gather a party of their neighbors, and go after the Indians. This is the first real conflict of the story. In the end, they surprise the Indians and get their cattle back. Shortly after this affair, they build a fort around their house, and add some new expansions. They are able to easily repel the Indians when they come for revenge. They care for the wounded Indians during the defense of their land, and then give them horses and set them free.
After this there are quiet times for a fairly long period. Several years have passed since the arrival of the Hardys on the Pampas. Charley was now eighteen years of age, Hubert seventeen, Maud fifteen, and Ethel fourteen. One day Ethel took a trip to their neighbor’s plantation (a good ride of ten or more miles), and spent the night. The next day, a man came to the Hardy estate saying that the house had been burned to the ground. Immediately, Mr. Hardy sent messengers to his neighbors, and gathered a search party. They found the bodies of everyone there except Ethel, and, after giving the victims a burial, followed the track of the Indians, assuming that Ethel had been carried off. The Indians set the prairie on fire to confuse the whites, and, hopefully throw them of the trail. This was to no purpose. The search party was able to find the proper trail, and keep following them to where the Indians had made their camp. They arrived just in time, and, with the aid of the Indians that they had treated with hospitality previously, were able to get Ethel back from the Indians. The Chief of the Indians was killed in the combat, and so one of the friends of the whites was elected to be the new Chief. These were the only large tribe of hostile Indians in the surrounding country, so not only was Ethel rescued, peace with the Indians was also established.
In the following years, Ethel and Maud moved back to England with Mrs. Hardy to get a good education, and, not long after that, Mr. Hardy also moved to England, leaving Charley and Hubert to maintain the plantation. Eventually, Charley and Hubert sold Mount Pleasant, and then they moved back to England as well, and married. The book ends with all the members of the family established comfortably in England.
I really enjoyed Out on the Pampas. I think the reason that I enjoyed it was because I like adventure books, and I also like books written in a similar time period. I also really enjoy G.A. Henty’s writing style. My only complaint with this book was that I had to read a lot in order to get my assignments done on time, and I would have preferred if it had been a two-week book instead of the one-week book that it was.