CL X.] REASONING OF MULES. 189 



dragged him on shore. Some of the " vacqueros," as 

 the herdsmen are called, are wonderfully adroit in 

 throwing the lasso, when riding at full speed ; they 

 throw it over the horns of the cattle, and the heads of 

 the horses, and can hold the strongest if sideways on, 

 but I have seen some old bulls that knew how to get 

 loose. They would run straight away from the vacquero 

 in places where he could not ride round them, and get- 

 ting a straight pull on the lasso, would break it, or draw 

 it out of his hands. There are no horses or mules, and 



very few cattle, however, that know how to do this. 



j 



After crossing the river, we soon reached Pital, where 

 I had a cup of tea and got a fresh mule. We now 

 turned nearly at right angles to our former course, and 

 struck into the dark forest, the road through which I 

 have already described. It was very wet and muddy. 

 In some places, although it was only the commencement 

 of the wet season, the mules sank above their knees. 

 On this occasion, as on many others, I had often to 

 notice how well the mule remembered places where in 

 some former year it had avoided a particularly bad 

 place by making a detour. I was riding a mule that 

 had tender feet, having just recovered from the bite of a 

 spider, that had occasioned the loss of one of its hoofs, 

 and when it came near to a place where it could escape 

 the deep mud by going over a stony part it would slacken 

 its pace and look first at the mud, then at the stones, 

 evidently balancing in its mind which was the least evil. 

 Sometimes, too, when it came to a very bad place, which 

 was better at the sides, I left it to itself, and it would be 

 so undecided which side was the best, that making 

 towards one it would look towards the other, and end by 



