Not identified. The contributor states that he first visited the sierra and the pampas of Buenos Ayres Province in 1848-49. By that date, had apparently lived for some time in the province; tells of visiting slaughter-house in vicinity of Buenos Ayres: refers to "my residence at Azul." Mentions cultivating the acquaintance of a cacique "with the view of gathering information as to the religion and peculiar customs of the Pampas Indians." Refers to himself as "an old traveller"; is obviously familiar with the Continent. His reference to England as "this country" implies that he was in England at the time of writing the articles; so too does the Office Book notation that the first section of "South American Scraps" was paid for "in advance by W.H.W” and that the sum paid for the second section was "Advanced at various times." (No payment is recorded for "Life in a Saladero.")

Both "Life in a Saladero" and "South American Scraps" underwent revision. The first, revised by Wills, displays few eccentricities of language. But the second, despite the revision, contains unidiomatic constructions, bookish vocabulary, and ponderous sentences, with clause piled on clause, that indicate that the writer is not a native speaker of English. The second section of the "Scraps" Dickens damned in a letter to Wills, July 23, 1851 (MS Huntington Library) for its violations of grammar and its unintelligibility. The last two pages he characterized as an "involved, inextricable damnable whirlwind of words." This second section of the "Scraps" was included in the Putnam volume of selections from H.W.: The World Here and There, 1852.

Author: Anne Lohrli; @ University of Toronto Press, 1971.