d by sluggish streams or shallow lakes, boundless as the ocean, seemingly limitless in extent, there is an exhilarating air and a rich herbage on which browse coun

d be enchanted to see whole tracts of land covered by the Verbena Melindres, which appears, even long before you reach it, to be of a bright scarlet. There are also acres and acres of the many-flowered camomile and numberless other plants; while large tracts of low-lying land are covered with coarse pampa grass, affording

her. Living the wild, free life of the Indian, and retaining the language of Spain; the finest horseman of the world, and perhaps the worst assassin; the most open-handed and hospitable, yet the accomplished purloiner of his neighbor's cattle; imitating the Spaniard in the beautifully-chased silver trappings of his horse, and the untutored Indian in his miserable adobe hovel; spending his whole wealth in heavy gold or silver bell-shaped stirrups, bridle, or spurs (the rowel of the latter sometimes having a diameter of six inches), and leaving his home destitute of the ve

heart, for he kills his enemies with as little compunction as he kills the ostrich. "The Gaucho, with his proud and dissolute air, is the most unique of all South American characters. He is courageous and cruel, active and tireless. Never more at ease than when on the wildest horse; on the ground, out of his element. His politeness is excessive, his nature fierce." The children do

han as similar to the napkins the mother provides for her child. Below this black and white leg covering come the long boots, made from one piece of seamless hide. These boots are nothing more than the skin from the hind legs of an animal-generally a full-grown horse. The bend of the horse's leg makes the boot's heel. Naturally the toes protrude, and this is not sewn up, for the Gaucho never puts more than his big toe in the stirrup, which, like the bit in his horse's mouth, must be of solid si

wn among them. The father gives his son a few cattle, and the young man, after building himself a h

. One evening I called at a rancho made of dry thistle-stalks bound together with hide and thatched with reeds, Finding the inmates very hospitable, I stayed there two or three hours to rest. Coming out of the house again, I found to my dismay that during our animated gossip my horse had broken loose and left me. Now the loss of a horse is too trivial a matter to interest Anthony the saint, but a horse having saddle and bridle attached to him makes it quite a different matter, for these often cost ten times the price of the horse. One of the saint's especial duties is to fin

on horseback, and, although some of them had perhaps never seen a book before, I found them exceedingly quick to learn. In four or five months the older

head of my bed, and its very presence would cure me. When I refused this offer and smiled at its absurdity, the boy thought me very strange. To be so wise in some respects, and yet so ignorant as to refuse such a chance, was to him incomprehensible. The saints, I found, are there often lent out to friends that they may exercise their healing powers, or rented out to strangers at so much a day, When they are not thus on duty, but in a quiet corner of the hut, they get lonely. The woman will then go for a visit, taking her saint with her, either in her arms or tied to the saddle. This image she will place with the saint her host owns, and they will talk together and teach one another. A saint is supposed to know only its own particular work, although one nam

grows wild, tied around the neck of an infant in order that its teeth might come with greater promptitude and less pain. A string of dog's teeth serves the same purpose. To cure a bad wound, the priest will be called in that he may write around the sore some Latin prayer backwards. Headache is easily cured by tying around the head the cast-off skin of a snake. Two puppies are killed and boun

ted the priest at the nearest town with a large and expensive silver cross-the emblem of suffering purity. Near her lived a person for whom she had an especial aversion, but that enemy she got rid of in surely the strangest of ways, which she described to me. Catching a snake, and holding it so that its poison might not reach he

ld walk six miles carrying his image if he would only grant her a certain prayer. This petition he granted, and off she trudged with her divine (?) load. Those acquainted with dwellers on the prairie know that this was indeed a great task, horses being so cheap and riding so universal. Mrs. Flower was unaccustomed to walk even the

ot be obtained, glass has not been introduced, so the holes are left as open spaces, across which, when the pampa wind blows, a hide is stretched. No hole is left in the roof for the smoke of the fire to escape, for this to the native is no inconvenience whatever. When I have been compell

, the real word for shell, but calls it cuchara del agua, or water spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy, long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep, cuts off the head of a serpent-seemingly, however, not doing it much harm, for it still wriggles-sticks his horse when in anger, and, alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The forward march of the outer world concerns him not; indeed he imagines that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He will gaze with w

ones, but this is not usual. Dry bones burn better, and thistle-stalks better still. He will then lie down on mother earth with the horse-cloth under him and the saddle for a pillow. When travelling with these men I have known them, without any comment, stretch themselves on the ground, even though the rain

and very bad rum can be bought, along with tobacco, hard ship-biscuits (very often full of maggots, as I know only too well), and a few other more necessary things. I have observed in some of these wayside inn

length beastly intoxicated, he mounted his horse and proceeded homeward. Arriving at a fork in the path, the faithful horse took the one leading home, but the rider, thinking in his stupor that the other way was the right one, turned the horse's head. As the poor creature wanted to get home and have the saddle taken off, it turned again. This affront was too much fo

f such little worth are the mares that they are very often killed for their hide, or to serve as food for swine. At one estancia I visited I was informed that one was killed each day for pig feed. The mare can be driven long distances, even a hundred miles a day, for several successive days,

THE AUTHOR IN

able. On the cheek of such an animal the Gaucho will burn a cross and then

unable to get one mouthful of food on the journey, and the saddle was not taken off his back for a moment. He was very wild, yet one evening between five and eight o'clock, he bore me safely a distance of thirty-six

t they were found, forty-three years later, even down to the Straits of Magellan, a distance of eleven hundred miles. With good pasture and a limitless expanse to roam over, they soon turned from the dozens to thousands, and may now be counted by millions. The Patagonian "foot" Indians quickly turned into "horse" Indians, for on those wide prairie lands a man without a horse is almost comparable to a man without legs. In former years, thousands of wild horses roamed over these extensive plains, but the struggle of mank

of hide, tied together by twisted ropes, also of hide. When the hunters have, by galloping from different directions, baffled the bird in his flight, they thunder down

lesh of the ostrich is dry and tough, and its feathers are not to be compared in beauty with those of the African specimen. Generally a very harmless bird, he is truly formidable during breeding time. If one of the eggs is so much as touched he will break the whole number to shivers. Woe to the ma

ard, after fattening himself upon them during the six hotter months of the year, is enabled to retire to the recesses of his cave, where he tranquilly sleeps through the remaining six. The shell of the ostrich's egg is about the thickness of an antique china cup, but the iguana finds no difficulty in breaking it open with a slash of his tail Th

picable dish by him, for he is no epicure. When he has nothing he is also contented. His philoso

tnote: Dr. Hartwig in "Argentina," 1910] An estancia is almost invariably called by the name of some saint, as are the different fields belonging to it. "Holy Mary field" and "Saint Joseph field" are common names. Notwithstanding the fact that there may be thousands of cows on a ranch, the visitor may be unable to get a drop of milk to drink. "Cows are not made

ure, for if one is caught in a trap it will be found next morning half, if not a

ards heaven in a speechless prayer to the Holy Virgin. Madly leaping on his fleetest horse, without saddle, and often without bridle, he wildly gallops down the wind, as the roaring, crackling fire gains upon him. In this mad race for life, men, horses, ostriches, deer, bullocks, etc., join, striving to excel each other in speed. Strange to say, the horse the native rides, cheered on by the touch of his master, is often the first to gain the lake or river, where, beneath its waters at least, refuge may be found. In

es. Several mares are killed and opened, and they, by

ently at the rippling blue waters of the mirage, that most tantalizingly deceptive phenomenon of nature. May it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water? Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of gr

ently gazing, descries nothing, he will not only inform him that animals are in sight, but will, moreover, tell him what they are. I am blest with a very clear vision, but even

rgentine, and of late years the prairie has developed into one of the largest wheat-producing

alian farmers from the Piedmont Hills. Baron Hirsch has also planted a colony of Russian Jews there, and provided them with farm implements. Wheat, corn, and linseed are the principal crops, bu

e north in clouds that sometimes darken the sun. Some of the swarms have been estimated to be sixty miles long and from twelve to fifteen miles wid

be taken off the track. A fine of $100 is imposed upon any settler failing to report the presence of locust swarms or hopper eggs on his land. Various means are adopted by the land-owner to save what he can from the voracious insects. Men, women and children mount their horses and drive flocks of sheep to and fro over the ground to kill them. A squatter with whom I stayed got his laborer

e. Men dug trenches, kindled fires, and burned millions of them. Ditches two yards wide and deep and two hundred feet long were completely filled up by these living waves. But all efforts were unavailing-the earth remained covered. A Waldensian acquaintance suffered for several years from this fearful plague. Some seasons he was not even able to get back so much as the seed he planted. If the locusts passed him, it so happened that the pampero wind blew with such terrific force that we have looked in vain even for the straw. The latter was actually torn up by the roots

dollars. Dr. W. A. Hirot, in "Argentina," says: "Argentina has more live stock than any other country of the world. Ten million hides have been exported in one year, and it is not improbable that the

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the home of the emu, armadillos, and ants; sandy deserts, where the wind drifts the sand like snow, piling it up in ever-shifting hills about thirty feet in height. Bolivia, shut in geographically and politically, is a world in itself-a world of vari

mines of Potosi alone have furnished the world over $1,500,000,000 worth of silver since the

able people have also left wonderful remains, to build which stones thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and six feet thick, were quarried, carried and elevated. The Temple of the Sun. the most sacred edifice of the Incas, was one of the richest buildings the sun has ever shone upon, and it was itself a mine of wealth. From this one temple, Pizarro, the Spanish conqueror, took 24,000 pounds of gold and 82,000 pounds of silver. "Ninety million dollars' worth of precious metals was torn from Inca temples alone." The old monarch of the country, A

he most unscrupulous manner, with little care but to win it. The lands, and the persons as well, of the conquered races were parcelled out and appropriated by the victors as the legitimate spoils of victory. Every day outrages were perpetrated, at the contemplation of which humanity shudders. They suffered the provident arrangements of the Incas to fall into decay. The poor Indian, wi

he conquests of Sennacherib and Zinghis-Khan." Millions perished at the forced labor of the mines, The Incan Empire had, it is ca

, man or woman, should be compelled to carry more than three hundred pounds' weight at one load! Is it cause for wonder that the poor, down-trodden natives, se

e game. The most unbounded scope was given to licentiousness. The young maiden was torn remorselessly from the arms of her family to gratify the passion of her brutal conqueror. The sacred houses of the Virgins of t

compulsory. Men and women with small children were compelled to journey as much as thirty-six miles to atten

acility, did not forbid this worship, but placed the crucifix between the two. Where the Inca suns and moons were of solid gold and silve

se than those described to us of the times of Paganism, and of monstrous consequences to morality and the national welfare ... they may be reckoned as a barbarous mixture of idolatry and superstition, sustained by infamous avarice. The Indian who is chosen to make a feast either has to use up in it his little s

s idolatry, whether in India, Africa, or anywhere else, and the worship of Roman images is essentially idolatry as much as the worship of any other kind of images. Romanism substituted for one set

the whites wherever they find them, and practising great cruelties, having bored holes in the heads of their victims and sucked the brains out while they were yet alive. Sixteen whites are said to have been killed in this way! These same Indians are those who

as well as Romanized, Mr. Milne, of t

out of them, and who make the children render service to pay for masses for deceased parents and relatives. Tears came to our eyes as Mr. Penzotti and I watched them practising their heathen rites

yet be stretched out to help them? Civilization, after all, is not entirely made up of greed and lust, but in it there is righteousness and truth. May the day soon dawn wh

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Incan rulers were massacred, its civilization has been of the lowest. Buildings, irrigation d

e imprisoned and murdered. Now "the morning light is brea

ken forward. She can export over five million dollars' worth of rubber in one year, and is now spen