554 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



mountains, but a track by which it is possible to ride across a 

 bog. The horses born and bred in the island, know full well 

 when they are approaching dangerous ground, and tremble all 

 over when forced to step upon it. 



At every ten miles or so a shepherd's cottage was met with. 

 Usually the shepherd was a Scotchman in the employ of the 

 Falkland Company. Otherwise the entire route was uninhabited. 

 Some of the shepherds are married. They seem well off and 

 were very hospitable. These Scotchmen have almost entirely 

 supplanted the " gauchos " from the mainland, who did all the 

 cattle work at the time of Darwin's visit to the islands. They 

 come out from home usually entirely unaccustomed to riding, 

 but very soon become most expert with the lasso and bolas, and 

 can ride and break the wildest horses. There were only two 

 Spanish gauchos in the employ of the Company at the time of 

 our visit. 



The Company's shepherds are each allowed eight horses, a 

 fresh one for every day of the week, and a pack-horse. The 

 horses feed together on the moorland near the shepherd's cottage, 

 and keep together in a band though quite free. An old broken- 

 down mare, which cannot roam far, is usually kept with each band. 



Generally, the mare is one in which the hoofs, as occurs 

 quite commonly in the Falklands from the softness of the soil, 

 are grown out and turned up, somewhat like ram's horns.* 

 Though the gauchos themselves are a thing of the past in the 

 Falklands, their Spanish terms for all matters connected with 

 cattle and horses survive, and are in full use among the Scotch 

 shepherds. Such a maimed animal as above described is accor- 

 dingly called a " Chapina " (chapina, a woman's clog). The band 

 of horses, which is called the " Tropija," never deserts the 

 " Chapina." 



A man, after riding 30 or 40 miles and about to change 

 horses, merely takes the saddle off his horse, gives the animal's 

 back a rub with his fingers, to set the hair free where the saddle- 

 cloth pressed, and lets the horse go. The horse never fails to 



* The hoofs of cattle in the islands grow out in a similar manner. 

 "Proc. Zool. Soc.," 1861, p. 44, 1869, p. 59. See also C. Darwin's "Journal 

 of Researches," p. 192. 



