6 THE HORSE. 



betray their acquaintance with the spur and saddle, walk slowly away for 

 some distance, then, breaking into a trot as they seek their safety, snort and 

 look behind them, first with one eye and then with the other, turning their 

 nose from right to left, and carrying their long tail high in the air*." 



The same pleasing writer describes the system of horse-management 

 among the rude inhabitants of the plains of South America. They have 

 no stables, no fenced pastures. One horse is usually kept tied at the door 

 of the hut, fed scantily at night on maize ;. or at other times several may be 

 enclosed in the corral, which is a circular space surrounded by rough posts, 

 driven firmly into the ground. The mares are never ridden, or attempted 

 to be tamed, but wander with their foals wherever they please. 



When the Gaucho, the native inhabitant of the plains, wants horses for 

 himself or for the supply of the traveller, he either goes with his lasso to the 

 corral, and selects those, possibly, who on the preceding day had for the 

 first time been backed, or he scampers across the plain, and presently 

 returns with an unwilling, struggling, or subdued captive. When the 

 services of the animals have been exacted, he either takes them to the 

 corral, and feeds them with a small quantity of maize, if he thinks he shall 

 presently need them again, or he once more turns them loose on the plains. 



Travellers give some amusing accounts of the manner in which all this is 

 effected — Miers t thus describes the lasso, simple in its construction, but 

 all-powerful in the hands of the Gaucho. 



" The Lasso is a missile weapon used by every native of the United 

 Provinces and Chile. It is a very strong plaited thong of equal thickness, 

 half an inch in diameter, and forty feet long ; made of many strips of green 

 hide, plaited like a whipthong, and rendered supple by grease. It has, at 

 one end, an iron ring above an inch and a half in diameter, through which 

 the thong is passed, and this forms a running noose. The Gaucho, or 

 native Peon, is generally mounted on horseback when he uses the lasso. 

 One end of the thong is affixed to his saddle girth : the remainder he coils 

 carefully in his left hand, leaving about twelve feet belonging to the noose- 

 end, in a coil, and a half of which he holds in his right hand. He then 

 swings this long noose horizontally round his head, the weight of the iron 

 ring at the end of the noose assisting in giving to it, by a continued circular 

 motion, a sufficient force to project it the whole length of the line." 



When the Gauchos wish to have a grand breaking-in, they drive a whole 

 herd of wild horses into the corral. — " The corral was quite full of horses, 

 most of which were young ones about two or three years old. The capi- 

 /«r (chief Gaucho), mounted on a strong steady horse, rode into the corral 

 and threw his lasso over the neck of a young horse, and dragged him to 

 the gate. For some time he was very unwilling to leave his comrades ; 

 but the moment he was forced out of the corral, his first idea was to gal- 

 lop away : however a timely jerk of the lasso checked him in the most ef- 

 fectual way. The peons now ran after him on foot and threw a lasso over 

 his fore-legs just above the fetlock, and twitching it, they pulled his legs 

 from under him so suddenly, that I really thought the fall he got had killed 

 him. In an instant a Gaucho was seated on his head, and with his long- 

 knife, and in a few seconds, cut off the whole of the horse's mane, while 

 another cut the hair from the end of his tail. This they told me was a 

 mark that the horse had been once mounted. They then put a piece of 

 hide into his mouth to serve for a bit, and a strong hide halter on his head. 

 The Gaucho who was to mount, arranged his spurs, which were unusually 



* Head's Journey across the Pampas, p. 258. f Miers' Travels in Chile, vol, i. p. 88 



