Brought Forward

In Short

This collection of sketches and short stories by R. B. Cunninghame Graham captures the shifting moods of the early twentieth century, bridging the remote South American pampas and the war-weary streets of Britain. Through evocative travel writing and character studies, it reflects on lost empires, the quiet dignity of ordinary people caught in history's machinery, and the enduring pull of the wild. The book has lasted because of its unsparing observation, lyrical prose, and the author's rare knack for rendering vanishing ways of life with vivid immediacy.

The Story

The book opens with reflections on writing and memory, moving from a forgotten wigwam in the Mexican desert to the sudden, stark impact of the First World War on Scottish brassfitters learning of fallen friends. From there, the narrative shifts to the sun-baked lagoons and rolling camps of Uruguay and Argentina, where men gather to select and brand hundreds of horses destined to cross the ocean for the Great War. Amidst the lush marshlands and ancient trees, gauchos and camp-dwellers live out a rhythmic, saddle-bound existence, racing horses across open plains and sharing simple rituals of mate and gin with passing sailors.

The perspective expands to embrace historic echoes, recounting the legendary expedition of Garibaldi's aging veteran paraded through cheering European streets, and contrasting it with the raw frontier life of Brazilian border towns where violence simmers just beneath a brilliant sun. Jesuit missions in Paraguay stand half-reclaimed by the surrounding jungle, their decaying wooden churches echoing with the memory of old faiths and stubborn resistance, exemplified by stone idols carved in the shape of Cortés's long-dead horse.

Returning to the northern hemisphere, the atmosphere grows heavier with the anxieties of industrial civilization and the distant thunder of modern warfare. In quiet English countryside lanes and sweltering city squares, ordinary folk read sensational newspaper reports of motorized slaughter in Belgium while trying to reconcile the horrific scale of combat with their daily routines. Street-corner prophets preach doctrines of love to indifferent crowds of urchins and policemen, while soldiers return home to London accompanied by proud sweethearts and grieving sisters. The collection circles back to its initial elegiac theme on the South American frontier, where men round up the last troop of horses and bid them farewell, knowing the grass across the sea smells of blood.

How It Unfolds

• The voyage begins — The author reflects on the precarious trade of writing against the backdrop of war, recalling desert shelters and old stone carvings left behind by vanished Indian tribes.
• Gathering the troop — Horsemen assemble by a land-locked Uruguayan bay surrounded by primeval woods to collect and manage bands of horses brought down by tugboat.
• Echoes of heroism — A frail veteran of Garibaldi's campaigns is carried through ecstatic crowds, evoking a shared romantic memory of struggle and liberation.
• Frontier movement — Carefree riders dash across dusty plazas and sun-bleached border towns in Brazil and Uruguay, armed and drifting through a timeless routine.
• Midnight rides — Companions travel under the Southern Cross across vast, moonlit plains to reach a camp dance, their horses' gear jingling in the cool night air.
• Shadows of the conflict — Farmers and fishermen in peaceful English landscapes struggle to comprehend harrowing newspaper dispatches describing mechanized carnage in Belgium.
• Mission ruins — Explorers and friars revisit old Jesuit reductions deep in the Paraguayan interior, discovering ancient churches half-engulfed by forest and stone monuments to forgotten beasts.
• The final farewell — Ranch hands lead five hundred horses down to a great lake at sunset, speaking a melancholy elegy for animals destined for European battlefields.

The People

Central figures emerge briefly but sharply against vast landscapes. Geordie, a silent factory worker in Scotland, learns of his brother Jimmy's death in battle and walks out dourly to take up an avenging rifle. Pablo Suarez, an elegant gaucho with negro blood and the bearing of a Roman emperor, works alongside Miguel Paralelo and the Indian El Pampita to handle restless herds on the riverbanks. Jango Chaves rides a spirited horse through the white-walled streets of Santa Anna do Libramento, embodying the proud, unyielding spirit of the frontier. Frutos Barragán hosts neighboring riders at his rural homestead for a night of dancing across the starlit plains. Hijinio Rojas and skilled Correntino centaurs display breathtaking horsemanship during festival games, reining in their mounts with effortless precision. Finally, an unnamed street orator preaches a fervent gospel of love in a sweltering city square, while a returning soldier named George walks arm-in-arm through London with his sister Gladys and sweetheart Ethel, carrying a rifle and a heavy pack.

In Its Own Voice

“The little wigwam, shaped like a gipsy tent, stood close to a thicket of huisaché trees in flower.”

This line sets a contemplative tone early in the book while describing a solitary shelter discovered during a journey through the Sierra Madre.

“Humming-birds poised themselves before the purple bunches of the ceiba flowers, their tongues thrust into the calyx and their iridescent wings whirring so rapidly, you could see the motion, but not mark the movement...”

This sentence captures the vibrant, sun-drenched natural life of the South American riverbanks.

“Eat well... there is no grass like that of La Pileta, to where you go across the sea. The grass in Europe all must smell of blood.”

This poignant farewell is spoken by a gaucho to the horses being shipped away to war, summarizing the book's overarching sorrow.

What It's Really About

The collection explores the painful collision between ancient, unhurried ways of life and the violent mechanization of the modern world. It questions the true cost of empire and progress, contrasting the open, animal-linked freedom of the South American pampas with the cramped anxieties and jingoistic hysteria of wartime Europe. Underlying the descriptive sketches is a deep sympathy for the dispossessed—whether indigenous peoples erased by history, gauchos living on lawless frontiers, or working-class soldiers marching off to an industrialized slaughter. Cunninghame Graham interrogates the durability of human faith, the illusions of nationalism, and the quiet resilience of nature as it reclaims the monuments left behind by ambitious men.

Why Read It Today

Readers who love rich travel writing, atmospheric prose, and a strong sense of place will find much to admire here. Reading Cunninghame Graham feels like listening to an observant, world-weary traveler recount stories by a dying campfire; his sentences possess a rhythmic cadence that rewards slow, attentive reading. Modern readers should be prepared for the unvarnished period attitudes, archaic dialects, and occasional archaic racial language reflective of the early twentieth century, which the author records without sentimentality or modern softening. Yet what stays with you long after closing the book is its haunting clarity—the image of horses swimming into golden lake water, the sound of silver spurs on dusty ground, and a profound, elegiac lament for a world on the brink of irrevocable change.