154 To the River Plate and Back 



time were common in Spain and Portugal. Some of 

 them escaped, and finding upon the pampas sufficient 

 pasturage, rapidly multiplied, until wild cattle and 

 horses became numerous in Uruguay and in the prov- 

 inces south of the Rio de la Plata. The Indians 

 learned to utilize the cattle and became horsemen, as did 

 the aborigines of the Western plains of North America. 

 The cattle were long-horned, shaggy, and of medium 

 size, closely resembling the semi-domesticated cattle 

 of Texas. The horses were stocky creatures like the 

 bronchos of our own Western States. As the country 

 began to be more thickly settled and divided into estates, 

 the range-cattle were brought within enclosures, and 

 the herds came to be recognized as belonging to certain 

 owners. They were branded or marked. For a long 

 time hides, hair, tallow, hoofs, and horns were the 

 principal exports, though 'jerked beef salted and 

 dried in the open air was shipped in considerable 

 quantities to the lands to the north nearer the equator. 

 Meat thus prepared is still exported, and in Bahia and 

 Rio de Janeiro I saw slabs of salted beef half an inch 

 thick, a foot wide, and from two to three feet long, 

 hanging at the doors of the grocery shops alongside 

 of dried codfishes and bunches of smoked herrings. It 

 did not look appetizing to me, but it is extensively used 

 by the poorer classes in Brazil, and, when cut up and 

 boiled with vegetables, may serve to add some nutri- 

 ment and flavor to the mess. In the year 1889 the 

 exportation of live cattle to England was begun, but 

 the animals were so poor in quality that the experiment 

 was not profitable. This led to the importation of 

 blooded stock, and to-day throughout the older and 

 more thickly settled provinces the long-horned Spanish 

 cattle have almost entirely disappeared. The owners 



