Hardy, and sparely built, like the Arabs of the desert the Gaucho lives on horseback. For most nights the ground is his bed and his saddle his pillow, a piece of hide or a poncho his only covering. He will gallop thirty leagues a day without fatigue.
From his infancy he has been taught the use of the lasso and bolas; and in his boyhood learned to catch the fowls, goats, and sheep about his father’s rancho, or to capture partridges in a similar way. Yet he is but little fitted for the ordinary hard work of life. In consequence of his over-exertion and irregular life, his long abstinence from food, and neglect of a due proportion of vegetable aliment, his body appears to be dried-up, his vital energies fail, and his term of existence is shortened.
Impatient of rebuke, he will not brook a hasty word, and will conclude a connection with a master at a moment’s notice, by demanding to have his account made up. Horse-racing and gambling are his weaknesses. His knife is ready at hand, and though fatal results seldom follow being engaged in a quarrel, he attempts to inflict a cut on the face of his antagonist, and there to leave his mark. His food he cooks on a stick—the asadevo—fixed in the ground before the fire; and eats it without bread or any kind of vegetable, washing it down with copious draughts of yerba.
He will gamble on all occasions, either with cards, dominoes, or coin—a pitch-and-toss style of game. His horse-racing is more for the sake of obtaining the bets staked on the match. He also delights to bet on the strength of his horse. This is tried by fastening a pair of horses tail to tail, but at some distance, so that each end of a short lasso is tied to the saddle or girth of either animal. They are then mounted, and urged by whip and spur in opposite directions, until the stronger draws the weaker over the goal—a line marked on the ground. In spite of his gambling propensities, he is often intrusted with hundreds of doubloons for the purchase of cattle by his master.
His mode of catching partridges is curious. Armed with a loop attached to the end of a thin stick, he will ride on till he sees a covey of birds on the ground; and then commences circling round them,—the birds, curiously enough, not attempting to fly, but trying to run away instead. The horseman keeps on narrowing his circle, till he at last gets near enough to drop the loop over a bird’s head, when he whips it up, a captive, though in no way injured—so that birds can thus be caught alive.
Breaking-in Colts.
Witness the operation of breaking-in a wild colt from amidst a herd of a hundred or more. A Gaucho called the dormador makes his appearance, dressed in a thin cotton shirt secured by a scarf round the waist, and a coloured handkerchief bound to his head, while his legs are guarded by a huge pair of boots, armed with enormous spurs. There he stands, with his lasso coiled up and thrown carelessly over his arm. He advances towards the herd, followed by two mounted Gauchos dressed in full costume. As the colts gallop round the corral, into which they have been driven, with wild eyes and waving manes, he selects one of them; and whirling his lasso lightly round, casts it over the animal’s head, sinking down at the same time on his left knee, and holding it with both hands. No sooner does the colt feel the lasso than it bounds into the air, and dashes off, the dormador sliding and crouching along the ground, playing him, as a fisherman does a large salmon, till he has separated him from the rest of the herd. He then brings him into the centre of the corral, plunging and rearing, with his tether much shortened. Another Gaucho throws his lasso on the ground under the colt’s fore-feet, and by an upward jerk tightens it round his legs. At the same time the dormador lets his lasso out freely; the horse dashes out till it is brought to the ground by the other lasso, with a shock sufficient, it would seem, to break every bone in his body. There he lies motionless, while his fore and hind-feet are secured.
At length restored to consciousness, after some convulsive plunges he again gets on his feet, and is led by a further relay of Gauchos to a post, where he is saddled and bridled in spite of his struggles. Regaining his strength, he plunges, kicks, and bites in all directions, the Gauchos nimbly getting out of his way. The dormador, watching his opportunity, now leaps into the saddle, and signs to his companions to cast off the leg-lasso. Immediately the colt, finding his legs free, jumps straight off the ground, and then commences to back, plunge, and dash furiously out. The dormador, however, sticks on; and another Gaucho, coming behind, administers a lash with his long cutting whip, which makes the poor animal start off at full speed, with a snort like a scream. A mounted Gaucho rides on either side of him, to keep him straight. Off he goes over the level country for miles, occasionally stopping to back and kick; but each time his efforts grow fainter, till at length he is ridden back, with eyes bloodshot, covered with foam and blood, and perfectly bewildered, when he is unsaddled and tied to the post. “Poor beast!” observes Captain Kennedy, who describes such a scene, “he looks as much broken down as broken in.” Few of the Gauchos, however, can overcome a horse after the manner of the one whose feat he witnessed.
Patagonians.
The chief tribe of Patagonians who inhabit the region as far south as the Strait of Magellan, go under the name of Pehuenches—men of tall and muscular stature, with thick black hair, high foreheads, and broad faces, but in no way