GENERAL. 29 



Their faces are blackened by exposure, their long black 

 and matted hair reaching the shoulders and mingUng 

 with the beard. They are rarely off horseback. They are 

 dressed in long wide cotton drawers, and a garment called 

 ' chiripa,' in lieu of trousers, girdled round the waist with 

 a long woven belt (faja), a leather pouch-belt, into which 

 is thrust, across the loins, a long knife, a shirt and poncho, 

 a coloured handkerchief over the head, and felt hat. 

 The skin of a colt's hind legs, freed from the hair, and 

 dried and softened by rubbing, serves for boots, the point 

 of the 'hock' forming the heel, and the big and second toes 

 protruding. They wear huge iron spurs, with rowels three 

 inches in diameter, and have rarely known other bed 

 than their ' recado ' (saddle) stretched on the ground, their 

 ' ponchos,' or cloaks, with the saddle-cloths, forming their 

 covering. Their horse-gear is their sole furniture. The 

 lasso, when not in use, is coiled and fastened behind the 

 recado, and lays over the rump of the horse, and with balls 

 (' bolas ') for balUng wild horses slung iu the belts, a 

 powerful bit in the horse's mouth, and hide reins, the 

 man and his outfit are complete. He rarely knows any 

 other food than beef, ' asado,' with or without salt ; his 

 luxuries are ' mate,' Paraguay tea, sucked through a tube 

 from a gourd, and cigarettes. Born to the horse, as it 

 were, the gaucho is a splendid horseman, dexterous with 

 the lasso. In full career after a wild bull or cow, he swings 

 the lasso and throws it unerringly over the animal's horns ; 

 then checking the horse, the lasso, which is fastened to a 

 ring in the broad hide girth of the saddle, 'recado,' is 

 drawn taut, and the animal swung down or thrown. 



A single man will thus catch and kill his meat in the 

 plain ; the animal being thrown, the trained horse will 

 stand or move onwards in such a way as to keep the lasso 

 tight, and prevent the animal from rising, while the 



