252 THE OX. 



the city of Assumption, on the Paraguay, in the year 1556. 

 The owner of these animals having driven them overland to 

 the Great Rio Grange or Parana, constructed a rude raft, 

 and entrusted them to the care of one Gaete, who descended 

 the Parana, and then, ascending the Paraguay, landed his 

 precious charge at the city of Assumption. As his re- 

 compense for many months of toil and danger, Gaete re- 

 ceived one cow, which gave rise to the saying, common 

 in these provinces, that a thing is as dear as Gaete's cow. 

 Whether all the vast herds of South America are derived 

 from this humble source, may be questioned. But however 

 this be, it is certain that the cattle of Europe soon multi- 

 plied amazingly, found their way to the woods and rich 

 Pampas, where they increased in the state of liberty, and 

 now extend in countless multitudes from the southern 

 boundary of Buenos Ayres, to far within the tropics to the 

 north, stretching, in many cases, from the Atlantic to the 

 Cordilleras. They are found in the Brazilian as well as in 

 the Spanish provinces, in the wild as well as in a domesti- 

 cated state, and have extended beyond the Andes into the 

 beautiful countries on the Pacific, where they are reared in 

 the state of domestication. But it is in the more temperate 

 parts of Paraguay, and the countries of the Rio de la Plata, 

 extending westward, that their numbers have become the 

 greatest, and that those marvellous herds of them are to 

 be beheld, which have escaped entirely from the dominion of 

 man, and fly from his presence like beasts of chase. They 

 migrate in search of fresh pastures with the changes of the 

 season, the strongest of the bulls assuming the guidance of 

 the herd. They have deviated little from the Andalusian 

 type, except that they have assumed a greater uniformity of 

 colour, and that the bulls exhibit less of ferocity and bold- 

 ness, as is common with other animals naturalized in Ame- 

 rica. Their colour is a blackish-brown ; their size is nearly 

 the same as in the original race, exceeding it in the more 

 temperate countries, and falling short of it in the warmer. The 



