Chap, xxi.] VISIT TO TORT DARWIN. 481 



on January 23rd. The Falklands are a treeless expanse of 

 moorland and bog, and bare and barren rock. Though it was 

 summer, and the islands are in about a corresponding latitude 

 to London, a bitterly cold hail-storm pelted in my face as 1 

 was rowed to the shore. The islands are occupied as sheep- 

 and cattle-runs, and since sheep are found to pay best, they are 

 supplanting the cattle, formerly so numerous, to a large extent. 



The mutton is most excellent, but the supply is so far in 

 excess of the small demand, that the Falkland Island Company 

 has a large boiling-down establishment, where their sheep are 

 boiled down for tallow. 



I rode with Lieut. Channer 60 miles across the large island, 

 on which the town of Stanley is situate, to Port Darwin, in 

 order to examine some reported coal-beds, at the request of 

 the Governor. The route lay over the dreary moorland, and 

 wound and turned about in order to avoid the treacherous 

 bogs. A " Pass " in the Falkland Islands means, not a practic- 

 able cleft in the 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 unin- 

 habited. 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 unaccus- 

 tomed to riding, but very soon become most expert with the 

 lasso and bolas, and can ride and break in the wildest horses. 

 There were only two Spanish guachos 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 rams' horns.* 

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



* 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. 1Q2. 



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