268 Recent Journey in South America. [Maré u 
Black cattle are never to be met with in these plains; but sometimes 
(though rarely) a lion is killed, and its flesh looked upon as delicious 
food. At this town we observed a ruined mud fort, mounted with a 
one pound swivel, but so honey-combed, as to threaten much more danger 
to the firer than to the party aimed at. There was also a long four pounder 
lying on the ground, but useless from having been spiked in the war of 
the Montenero. 
On leaving Punta del Sauce all population ceases ; except that you 
meet with here and there a scattered hut, called a Puesto, inhabited by 
men who gain an uncertain living by hunting the wild mares of the 
Pampas, and killing them for their hides. These people may be described 
as resembling the Back-woodsmen of North America. They are conti- 
nually shifting their habitation, as the prey of which they are in search 
becomes scarce ; and they seldom follow this wandering mode of life for 
any great length of time; always abandoning it as soon as they have 
gained a little money to purchase cattle and commence breeding them in 
another situation. But to begin even this first occupation of mare-kill- 
ing, it is necessary to be possessed of a herd of about two hundred tame 
horses and mares, all of which are trained to follow a bell fastened to the 
neck of the most docile among them—which is hence called Madrina. 
The horses of this herd are used for riding, but the mares for breeding 
only. Two or more gauchos having joined their stock of horses together,. 
they erect a mud house on the open waste, and thatch it on the top with 
rushy grass; after which they procure from a great distance, and by 
almost incredible labour, a quantity of wooden palisades, with which they 
form a corral, or penfold, of great size. Their stock in trade being thus 
established, they set out from their new home to scour the country ; 
taking little or no material for subsistence with them, but depending on 
their own skill in procuring it for themselves when needed. They are 
frequently absent on these expeditions for a month together ; never sleeping 
under a roof during all that time, and their food the flesh of wild animals, 
‘and a little brackish water. The only means which they have of dressing 
the former is by roasting it on fires made with horse-dung ; for there is 
no other fuel to be met with. Their mode of taking the wild mares of 
which they are in search is very simple, and attended by little difficulty. 
Immediately they encounter a herd of wild horses they drive their own 
troop of tame ones among them, and the two soon become, as it were, 
incorporated together. The whole are then driven in one bedy towards 
the Puesto, and on reaching it are made to enter the enclosures of -pali- 
sades ; where the wild mares are noosed one by one, with the lazo, and 
dragged outside to a short distance, where they are slaughtered, and 
their hides taken off—the carcasses being left to be devoured by the 
vultures, caranchos, and other birds of prey which are always present in 
vast numbers in the immediate vicinity of those loathsome shambles. 
There are frequently not less than a hundred carcasses at one time left to 
be devoured in this manner. Ifthe mares happen to be fat, this sub- 
stance is used for the fires and lamps of the Gauchos; but generally 
speaking, the hide is the sole source of the profit derived from this 
disgusting occupation. The bones, indeed, after the vultures, &c. have 
icked them clean, are used for fuel, in addition to the dried dung and - 
tallow. On these fires it is that the Gauchos roast the flesh that is their 
only food. In our journey across the plain, the situation of these Puestos 
might always be discovered at a great distance in advance, by the cloud 
