48 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



chased the cart, assured us that he had a good, gentle cart-horse which he 

 would bring and show us the next day. In accordance with his promise 

 he appeared on the following morning with a considerably undersized and 

 rather inferior looking animal, which on examination proved to be only 

 three years of age and had evidently belonged to some Indian family with 

 children, by whom it had been ridden and driven almost from the time 

 of its birth, which was the cause of its stunted and unthrifty appearance. 

 Our friend, Senor Ortis by name, proceeded immediately to harness and 

 hitch to the cart "El Moro," the roan, in order to display to us his 

 many good points as a cart horse. All being ready he jumped in the cart, 

 seized the lines, and yelling and whipping incessantly circled about 

 over the rough and uneven country lying between us and the beach at a 

 most reckless gait, continually urging " El Moro " to greater efforts and 

 occasionally drawing near and halting for an instant in order to tell us 

 that el moro era tin biten caballo con imtcJia fiierza, when he would 

 again dash off at a frantic rate, as though the merits of the animal were 

 entirely dependent upon the greatest speed he could attain. This oper- 

 ation was repeated several times, when out of compassion we purchased 

 the animal, which, however deficient he might be in physical strength, 

 was evidently willing. "El Moro" justified our expectations and proved 

 a tractable, docile and willing animal. 



It is the custom in Argentina, in working horses to carts, to have only 

 one horse in harness, which of course is the shaft horse, while on either 

 side is placed a cinch horse. These pull by a single cinch rope and 

 from one side of the animal only. One end of the cinch rope is made 

 fast to the cart at any convenient place, while the other is provided with 

 a hook which is hooked into a cinch ring on that side of the horse next 

 to the shafts, the cinch having previously been made taut and the body 

 of the animal protected with rugs and a pair of heavy leather pads stuffed 

 with straw, some eighteen inches long, oval in cross-section, about two 

 by four inches in diameter, placed one on either side of the horse's spine. 



We were not long in procuring two mares, which we used as cinch 

 horses, and the morning of May sixteenth found us ready and equipped 

 for our work, just two and one half months after our departure from 

 New York. 



