At Anniversaries Of The Death The
Tomb Is Filled With Flowers, And Candles Are Lit Inside, While A
Wreath Is Hung On The Door.
A favorite custom is to attend mass on
Sunday morning, then visit the cemetery, and spend the afternoon at
the bull-fights.
NATIVE HOUSES AND HABITS.
Uruguay is essentially a pastoral country, and the finest animals of
South America are there raised. 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.
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