The gauchos returned to breakfast at about eleven o clock, and while they were eating their beef and taking maté, I took a walk into the vicinity of our host’s dwelling. Close at hand were two or three large staked enclosures called corrals, into which the horses used by the family were driven nightly for convenience’ sake. At the time of my visit, all the animals save one had been turned out to graze; this one remained, as is customary, tied to a stake throughout the day, to be in readiness for any emergency. The poor fellow stands all day without eating a mouthful of food. He could not eat grain, having learned to eat nothing but grass; and as hay was an unknown luxury on the pampa, he was obliged to wait until night came for his food.
As I wandered about the place, my attention was drawn to the little parties of animals grazing around me. The oxen were very large, and would compare most favorably with the finest in North America. The cows so resembled the oxen in roughness of form and size of limb, that I at once pronounced them inferior to our own in beauty. Out of thousands of cows upon the estancia, only three were milked, and these but once a day. These cows, more civilized than their relatives upon the plains, yield only five or six quarts of milk daily, and I wondered at their barrenness, but was afterwards informed by the estanciero that they gave him all the milk he wanted for cheese, and, therefore, he need not care to improve the stock.
The size of the horses I noticed to be, on the average, smaller than that of our own animals, though there were many noble specimens, both of size and beauty, feeding on the plains. These large horses are generally selected to sell to Chilians; for the people of Chili prefer large animals, and even trot their horses in some of the cities.
The pampa horses never feel the brush or comb; their coats are rough, and, instead of heavy manes and flowing tails, they can boast of little in either. In one thing they can claim superiority over our own most valuable animals: a pampa horse can gallop a whole day with a man upon its back, and can endure privations that would soon kill our stable-reared pets.
When I returned to the hut, I informed our host that in my country animals are habitually kept housed, in better buildings, in many instances, than his own residence; and, moreover, in place of allowing them to dwindle to mere skeletons, by living upon dead grass in the winter time, as many of his horses did, they are fed upon an article called hay,—prepared grass,—and grow fat and sleek on grain.
“What!” exclaimed Don Carlos, “horses in houses! Who ever heard of such a thing?” And the look he gave implied that his private opinion was that North Americans are greater fools than he took them to be.
It was useless to argue the great value of our horses in comparison with his; he could not believe that a horse ever was worth two hundred dollars; he had twenty thousand, which he valued at four dollars each, and forty thousand horned cattle, that he estimated at eight dollars per head.
I would here remark that the same kind of cattle could have been bought ten years since for half the price he estimated his worth; but now the herdsman had discovered that by slaughtering animals for their hides thousands have been wasted, and now the demand far exceeds the supply, and the price of raw hides can never be cheaper than it is at present.
Don Carlos, unlike the farmers of the Banda Oriental, did not believe in sheep grazing; therefore he never permitted his flocks to increase beyond fifteen thousand. An offer of fifty cents a head would have been immediately accepted, and when he received the money, he would have placed it in a goat-skin, with others of his treasures, and buried it in the ground.
I had noticed in one of the corrals some curious cattle, of a breed unknown to me; on inquiry I learned that they were of the Niata breed, which originated among the Indians of the southern pampas, and was once more numerous than the kind now common. This breed is seldom met with at present, and Don Carlos had secured these in his corral by order of a foreigner in Buenos Ayres, who intended sending them to Paris. These animals have low, heavy foreheads, the lower part being recurved. The teeth project from the mouth, the lips being short and incapable of being closed; in fact, they bear resemblance to pug-nosed dogs. This has the effect of giving them a fierce and terrible look. Our host remembered the time when a severe drought prevented the usual growth of grass, and dried it up; but while other cattle lived through the season, many of the Niata breed were found dead upon the plains, because, on account of the peculiar formation of their jaws and lips, they could not lay hold of the grass.