Then
Making A Demi-Volte In The Air, With The Other Arm Outstretched
In A Like Manner, He Wheeled Round, With Astonishing
Force, In An Opposite Direction.
Such a horse is well broken; and although this at first
may appear useless, it is far otherwise.
It is only carrying
that which is daily necessary into perfection. When a bullock
is checked and caught by the lazo, it will sometimes
gallop round and round in a circle, and the horse being
alarmed at the great strain, if not well broken, will not
readily turn like the pivot of a wheel. In consequence many
men have been killed; for if the lazo once takes a twist
round a man's body, it will instantly, from the power of the
two opposed animals, almost cut him in twain. On the
same principle the races are managed; the course is only
two or three hundred yards long, the wish being to have
horses that can make a rapid dash. The race-horses are
trained not only to stand with their hoofs touching a line,
but to draw all four feet together, so as at the first spring
to bring into play the full action of the hind-quarters. In
Chile I was told an anecdote, which I believe was true; and
it offers a good illustration of the use of a well-broken
animal. A respectable man riding one day met two others, one
of whom was mounted on a horse, which he knew to have
been stolen from himself. He challenged them; they answered
him by drawing their sabres and giving chase. The
man, on his good and fleet beast, kept just ahead: as he
passed a thick bush he wheeled round it, and brought up
his horse to a dead check. The pursuers were obliged to
shoot on one side and ahead. Then instantly dashing on,
right behind them, he buried his knife in the back of one,
wounded the other, recovered his horse from the dying
robber, and rode home. For these feats of horsemanship
two things are necessary: a most severe bit, like the Mameluke,
the power of which, though seldom used, the horse
knows full well; and large blunt spurs, that can be applied
either as a mere touch, or as an instrument of extreme pain.
I conceive that with English spurs, the slightest touch of
which pricks the skin, it would be impossible to break in a
horse after the South American fashion.
At an estancia near Las Vacas large numbers of mares
are weekly slaughtered for the sake of their hides, although
worth only five paper dollars, or about half a crown apiece.
It seems at first strange that it can answer to kill mares
for such a trifle; but as it is thought ridiculous in this
country ever to break in or ride a mare, they are of no value
except for breeding. The only thing for which I ever saw
mares used, was to tread out wheat from the ear, for which
purpose they were driven round a circular enclosure, where
the wheat-sheaves were strewed. The man employed for
slaughtering the mares happened to be celebrated for his
dexterity with the lazo. Standing at the distance of twelve
yards from the mouth of the corral, he has laid a wager
that he would catch by the legs every animal, without missing
one, as it rushed past him. There was another man
who said he would enter the corral on foot, catch a mare,
fasten her front legs together, drive her out, throw her down,
kill, skin, and stake the hide for drying (which latter is a
tedious job); and he engaged that he would perform this
whole operation on twenty-two animals in one day. Or he
would kill and take the skin off fifty in the same time. This
would have been a prodigious task, for it is considered a
good day's work to skin and stake the hides of fifteen or
sixteen animals.
November 26th. - I set out on my return in a direct line
for Monte Video. Having heard of some giant's bones at
a neighbouring farm-house on the Sarandis, a small stream
entering the Rio Negro, I rode there accompanied by my
host, and purchased for the value of eighteen pence the head
of the Toxodon. [4] When found it was quite perfect; but
the boys knocked out some of the teeth with stones, and then
set up the head as a mark to throw at. By a most fortunate
chance I found a perfect tooth, which exactly fitted one of
the sockets in this skull, embedded by itself on the banks
of the Rio Tercero, at the distance of about 180 miles from
this place. I found remains of this extraordinary animal
at two other places, so that it must formerly have been common.
I found here, also, some large portions of the armour
of a gigantic armadillo-like animal, and part of the great
head of a Mylodon. The bones of this head are so fresh,
that they contain, according to the analysis by Mr. T. Reeks,
seven per cent of animal matter; and when placed in a
spirit-lamp, they burn with a small flame. The number
of the remains embedded in the grand estuary deposit which
forms the Pampas and covers the granitic rocks of Banda
Oriental, must be extraordinarily great. I believe a straight
line drawn in any direction through the Pampas would cut
through some skeleton or bones. Besides those which I
found during my short excursions, I heard of many others,
and the origin of such names as "the stream of the animal,"
"the hill of the giant," is obvious. At other times I heard
of the marvellous property of certain rivers, which had the
power of changing small bones into large; or, as some
maintained, the bones themselves grew. As far as I am aware,
not one of these animals perished, as was formerly supposed,
in the marshes or muddy river-beds of the present land, but
their bones have been exposed by the streams intersecting the
subaqueous deposit in which they were originally embedded.
We may conclude that the whole area of the Pampas is one
wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic quadrupeds.
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