OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



quisition being undoubtedly more recent and of less 

 importance. Briefly, my friends, the most esteemed 

 and the most ancient of our domestic animals have 

 been glorified by honors never bestowed upon prince, 

 emperor, or monarch. Man's gratitude has placed 

 them among the splendors of the firmament. 



"In Asia, where it originated, the ox is no longer 

 found wild ; but in the pampas of South America the 

 species has resumed its primitive freedom and, min- 

 gled with horses that have become equally wild, lives 

 in vast herds beyond the supervision of man. Pam- 

 pas is the name given to the immense plains extend- 

 ing from Buenos Aires to the foot of the Cordilleras 

 of the Andes. During the rainy season they fur- 

 nish rich pasturage of tall grass, but in the dry 

 season verdure disappears and the soil becomes a 

 powdery plain where thistles wave. Nothing, not 

 even a tree, breaks the uniformity of these plains, 

 the limits of which cannot be seen in any direction. 

 There lives the wild ox, descendant of the domesti- 

 cated ox that the Spaniards brought to this part of 

 the New World, for the species did not exist any- 

 where in America before the arrival of Europeans. 



"The few pairs that escaped from their stables or 

 were left to themselves in the pastures of the pam- 

 pas three or four centuries ago, have multiplied so 

 rapidly that to-day the number of cattle there is in- 

 calculable. More than two hundred thousand are 

 slaughtered every year, and still the herds show no 

 sign of diminution. The carnage has long been and 

 still continues to be carried on for the sake of the 



