60 CENTRAL AMERICA. 



lop. The wild horned cattle of Central 

 America are by far the wildest of any that 

 have come under my notice, though not so 

 savage as many that I have seen in the 

 sierras of Spain ; they inhabit the thickest 

 and most inaccessible coverts ; they are 

 vigilantly watchful by day and by night, 

 and their great power of smell enables them 

 to scent the approach of danger a long way 

 off, especially from windward. They are 

 often seen by those who know their haunts 

 standing in the rivers a little before noon, 

 but, on the slightest alarm or taint of man 

 in the air, they make immediately, in a 

 body, for the most impenetrable underwood, 

 through which their great weight enables 

 them to make their way ; and seldom stop, 

 even when not hunted, until they have 

 placed a good distance between themselves 

 and the cause of their flight. If they are 

 hunted, the trail is first examined, and then 

 followed at a good pace through the under- 

 wood, the horses getting some aid from the 

 species of path pressed down by the herd ; 

 at the first burst the game leaves the pur- 

 suers far behind, but at last the condi- 

 tion of corn-fed horses begins to tell, and 

 the last mile is generally run in view ; but 



