It is said that "Uruguay's pasture
lands could feed all the cattle of the world, and sheep grow fat at
50 to the acre." In 1889, when I first went there, there were thirty-
two millions of horned cattle grazing on a thousand hills. Liebig's
famous establishments at Fray Bentos, two hundred miles north of
Montevideo, employs six hundred men, and kills one thousand bullocks
a day.
Uruguay has some good roads, and the land is wire-fenced in all
directions. The rivers are crossed on large flat-bottomed boats
called balsas. These are warped across by a chain, and carry as
many as ten men and horses in one trip. The roads are in many places
thickly strewn with bones of dead animals, dropped by the way, and
these are picked clean by the vultures. No sooner does an animal lie
down to die than, streaming out of the infinite space, which a moment
before has been a lifeless world of blue ether, there come lines of
vultures, and soon white bones are all that are left.
On the fence-posts one sees many nests of the casera (housebuilder)
bird, made of mud. These have a dome-shaped roof, and are divided by
a partition inside into chamber and ante-chamber. By the roadside are
hovels of the natives not a twentieth part so well-built or rain-
tight. Fleas are so numerous in these huts that sometimes, after
spending a night in one, it would have been impossible to place a
five-cent piece on any part of my body that had not been bitten by
them. Scorpions come out of the wood they burn on the earthen floor,
and monster cockroaches nibble your toes at night. The thick, hot
grass roofs of the ranches harbor centipedes, which drop on your face
as you sleep, and bite alarmingly. These many-legged creatures grow
to the length of eight or nine inches, and run to and fro with great
speed. Well might the little girl, on seeing a centipede for the
first time, ask: "What is that queer-looking thing, with about a
million legs?" Johnny wisely replied: "That's a millennium. It's
something like a centennial, only its has more legs."
After vain attempts to sleep, you rise, and may see the good wife
cleaning her only plate for you by rubbing it on her greasy hair and
wiping it with the bottom of her chemise. Ugh! Proceeding on the
journey, it is a common sight to see three or four little birds
sitting on the backs of the horned cattle getting their breakfast,
which I hope they relish better than I often did.
A WAKE, AND HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN.
During my journey I was asked: Would I like to go to the wake held
that night at the next house, three miles away? After supper, horses
were saddled up and away we galloped.
