On inquiry, I found that the distance from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso was about a thousand miles. The road led across the vast plains called the Pampas, and also over the lofty mountainous chain called the Andes. It was rough and ill wrought, and was therefore seldom travelled with carriages. I learned, also, that it was beset with thieves and robbers.
In four days after my arrival, my preparations were complete, and I departed. I was mounted on a strong horse, which had been caught upon the plains and trained to the saddle. I was attended by a stout Indian, also well mounted, as a guide. We were each armed with a brace of pistols and a dirk. Thus equipped, we set forward.
Soon after leaving the city we entered upon a broken country, which was for the most part entirely in a state of nature. Here and there, was a villa surrounded by a plantation, but with these exceptions, everything had a wild aspect. It was now May—a period at which, in the land of my nativity, the trees and plants are springing into life. But here, it was autumn, and the sere and yellow leaf was visible over the landscape. Still, many of the shrubs and grasses maintained their verdure, and put forth their blossoms. The aspect of nature, however, was strange. The trees were of kinds I had never seen before, and the birds were all different from those with which I had been familiar.
In the course of two days, we were upon the pampas. These resembled the prairies of the west, but they are on a far grander scale. They stretch out to an amazing distance—their whole extent being nearly ten times as great as that of New England. The surface is slightly undulating, and generally covered with grass. A few groups of stunted palm trees are visible, and pools of salt water are occasionally met with.
Along the road we found huts, about twenty miles apart, designed for the accommodation of travellers. We sometimes met persons on horseback, and saw numerous herds of wild cattle and troops of horses grazing upon the plains. We had several opportunities of witnessing the skill of the hunters in taking these animals with the lasso. This is a long rope with a noose at the end. The hunter, who is mounted, carries this in a coil upon his arm; when he approaches his prey, he whirls it in the air, and at last throws it with such skill and precision that the noose falls over the animal’s neck.
We one day saw a hunter noose a wild bull at a short distance from us. When the lasso was thrown, the animal was at full speed, and the hunter in chase, at the distance of about twenty feet. The noose was immediately drawn tight around the neck of the flying beast. Wild with fright and pain, the creature rushed forward, bellowing with all his lungs. The huntsman held on to the rope; the horse, seeming to understand the game, kept in a position to strain it to the utmost, and at the same time to embarrass the progress of the maddened fugitive. At this the creature approached the road, his mouth foaming, his tongue, swollen and black, hanging from his mouth, and his eyeballs seeming ready to gush from their sockets. Attempting to leap across a chasm, he faltered, and fell with a heavy groan into the middle of the path. The hunter sprung from his horse, and plunged a knife deep into his neck. The bull struggled, rose to his feet and plunged furiously forward. But he soon staggered, and reeling round and round, fell dead to the earth.
The Bear and Panther.
It was on as beautiful an autumnal day as ever ushered in the Indian summer, that I made an excursion after game among a group of mountains, or rather on a link in the great chain of the Alleghany range, which runs in a northeastern direction in that part of Pennsylvania which bounds the New York line.
I had kept the summit of the mountains for several miles, without success, for a breeze had arisen shortly after sunrise which rattled through the trees, and made it unfavorable for hunting on dry ground; and indeed the only wild animal I saw was a bear, that was feeding on another ridge across a deep valley, and entirely out of reach of my rifle shot. I therefore descended the mountain in an oblique direction, towards the salt springs, which I soon reached, and after finding others had preceded me here, I left the spot for another mountain on which I intended to pass the remainder of the day, gradually working my way home. This mountain was covered with chestnut trees, and here it was that I caught a glimpse of the bear from the other ridge, and found he had disappeared but a short time previous to my arrival on this mountain. I followed his track for three miles, for chestnuts lay in abundance on the ground, and bears, like hogs, root up the leaves in search of food beneath, and it no doubt had lingered about here eating its meal until my near approach gave warning of its danger. This I could discover, as the leaves having been wet by the melted frost on the top, a path could be traced where the bear in running had turned the dried part of the leaves uppermost. I quickened my pace along the mountain side and around the turn of the mountain, with the hopes of surprising the bear, and after a rapid chase for the distance above mentioned, all proved fruitless, and I relinquished further pursuit. Warm with this exercise, and somewhat fatigued, I descended the mountain side, and took my seat beside a stream of water which gently washed the base of the mountain, and emptied itself into the head of the waters of the Susquehannah.
I had remained, sitting on a fallen tree whose branches extended considerably into the water, for perhaps an hour and a half, when of a sudden I heard a rustling among the leaves on the mountain immediately above my head, which at first was so distant that I thought it merely an eddy in the wind, whirling the leaves from the ground; but it increased as rapidly, and approached so near the spot where I sat, that instinctively I seized my rifle, ready in a moment to meet any emergency which might offer.