R. B. Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936)

"Above the town, in a foothill of the Sierra Madre about three leagues away, is situated the 'Enchanted City,' never yet fouled by the foot of man, but yet existent, and believed in by all those who follow that best part of history, the traditions which have come down to us from the times when men were wise, and when imagination governed judgment, as it should today, being the noblest faculty of the human mind." p.15

While the Spaniards slaughtered or enslaved tens of thousands of indigenous South Americans the Jesuits over 150 years converted many to Christianity, taught them agricultural techniques and animal husbandry, and created large ranches out of the wilderness, worked and run by natives, without resorting to threats or weapons. This is a good read if you're inclined toward history.

This is a collection of sketches mostly by Graham, a Scot, about his travel some 125 years ago around south Texas and down to Mexico City and back, a largely lawless, desolate, and dangerous expanse at that time aside from (arguably) San Antonio. The risk from Apaches was second to that from various other sorts of expert and ruthless bandits, with whom Graham was not entirely without empathy.

Graham was a most interesting character, as was his wife, and pretty good writer. I wish he had show more written more about this. If you are a historian of the south or know this part of the world, then you might add a star. Graham wrote much about his travels and was highly regarded by other writers, including G.B. Shaw, C.K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, and H.G. Wells.

Graham's book about his 1897 excursion across Morocco was the inspiration for Shaw's play "Captain Brassbound's Conversion", where I learned about Graham from Shaw's preface. Shaw said that Graham's character defied belief but for Shaw's having "seen him with these eyes".

Graham eventually entered Scottish politics, and informed by the inequities and misery he had seen in the world, became an advocate for universal suffrage, an 8-hour workday, and other wild Socialist ideas, before becoming disgusted by Socialists' petty dissension and turning finally to the Labour Party, Scottish nationalism, and Scottish independence as the best hopes for finding social justice there.

In 1936 Graham died during a visit to Argentina, where he had once ranched cattle and been greatly admired, and he received a country-wide tribute there before the final journey home. Here is a short video of part of his funeral on a small island on a small Scottish lake:
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/5936

Wikipedia has a good entry on Graham, and here is more biography:
https://www.electricscotland.com/history/graham/RBCG008BiographicalOutline.pdf show less

I know of Graham as a remarkable adventurer in Latin America and an anarchist ; I knowlittle of him as a writer, but he is praised by W.H. Hudson, who ought to be a qualified judge for this genre