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
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