The meal was finished in a much shorter time than I have occupied in describing it, and soon each driver harried off to lasso his oxen, which they lashed to the yokes, and we were again in motion.
About three o’clock we drew up beside some rough hammocks of earth to feed the cattle; the country was more undulating, and was here covered with wire-grass, which the cattle at once began to feed upon. I had here a first view of the Sierra of Cordova, the boundary line of the provinces of Cordova and San Luis.
The patron had purchased an old cow a few days before at San Bernardo, and having stinted the men as long as possible, he now decided to kill her. This was no easy matter, for the cow was as stubborn and furious as any bull, and had only been kept manageable by attaching her by a strap of hide to another animal equally fierce and ungovernable. These two animals had required particular care to prevent them from straying from the troop.
The strap that bound the two brutes together was cut asunder, and Don Manuel, the best gaucho of the party, set off in full chase of the doomed cow, swinging the lasso above his head, and urging on his horse by repeated applications of the enormous spurs that adorned his heels. When within eight or ten yards of the animal, the valiant don, with a fiercely uttered ca-jo, let fly the lasso, and at the same time wheeled his horse.
The cow, continuing on her headlong course, was suddenly brought up by the fatal noose tightening around her neck, and she went tumbling to the ground.
It was a wonder to me that the fall did not break her neck. She arose, bewildered, to her feet, and for an instant paused; but quickly divining the cause of her entrapment, she lowered her head, and made a run at the don and his horse; but the little animal that he bestrode having been well trained, was in a gallop before the cow drew near, and the lasso kept as tight as ever. The victim now uttered a loud bellow, and charged blindly at one of the cart-wheels: the force of the shock with which she struck rendered her wild with rage. She bellowed until the tightened noose choked all utterance, when she renewed her charges upon the men, horses, and carts. The patron now called loudly upon Maistro Ramon, one of the leading men, and, mounting his mule, Maistro galloped to the rescue.
The cow stood at bay, tossing up the earth with her nose, and stamping wrathfully with her hoofs; but her new assailant was a skilful gaucho. He started her, and threw his noose around one of her hind legs, when, galloping in opposite directions, the two men tripped the animal up, and stretched her upon the ground.
One of the peons fastened her four hoofs together with a piece of hide, and another man officiated as butcher. With his long knife he despatched her, and in half an hour she was skinned, cut up, and divided among the carts. When the meat was cooked I ate a moderate-sized piece, and strolled away from the men, who were gormandizing beside the fires, to watch the curious feast that the birds of prey were making upon the refuse parts of the cow.
Whether some of the birds of prey discover their food by means of sight or scent, has long been an unsettled question, some naturalists affirming that the former sense is their principal guide, and others that the latter is the only one.
Audubon, in his Ornithological Biography, gives some accounts of interesting experiments that he made with the turkey-buzzard, proving that this bird is attracted only by the organs of vision to its food. Other writers have offered other observations, corroborative of Audubon’s position. And I would here present a fact that came to my observation, concerning one of the most common South American birds, helping to show that Audubon was correct in his opinion.