254 THE OX. 



blishment, according to Azara, requires about 70 horses, the 

 Gauchos almost living on horseback. Individual proprietors 

 have often enormous herds, some, according to Spix, as many 

 as 40,000 head. In Paraguay, the practice is to drive the 

 cattle once a-week, or oftener, to an elevated circuit, termed 

 the Rodeo ; in other cases this is only done once a-year, when 

 the bulls are emasculated, generally at the age of two years, 

 and the cattle branded with the owners' mark. These animals 

 do not differ in appearance from those that are entirely wild. 



But, besides these wilder herds, it is common for the owners 

 to keep a number of tame cattle, which are used for draught, 

 or for yielding milk, which is partly made into cheese. But 

 so little do the people of the country understand the making 

 of butter, that the Emperor of the Brazils, in possession of 

 the finest herds in the world, used to obtain the butter for 

 his own use from Ireland ? after a voyage of several months. 

 The flesh of these tame cattle is preferred to that of the wild. 

 They are kept in enclosures during the night, and permitted 

 to pasture, during the day, in the meadows and adjoining 

 plains. 



From these herds of cattle are derived those enormous 

 supplies of skins which form the chief export of the countries 

 of the Rio de la Plata and the interior. Azara informs us, 

 that, in 1796, the export of hides from Buenos Ayres and 

 Monte Video alone was from 800,000 to a million annually ; 

 but, to form an idea of the magnitude of the continued car- 

 nage of those noble herds, w T e must consider the vast and pro- 

 digal consumption of the interior, where no value is set upon 

 the lives of animals so bounteously supplied. They afford 

 the only animal food of the settled inhabitants, who use it 

 with a waste that exceeds belief, selecting the favourite parts, 

 and leaving the rest in the wilderness. The animals, too, are 

 killed in multitudes by the Indians, who plunder them from 

 the farms, or pursue them in mere wantonness. Further, 

 the mortality amongst them is excessive, from the attacks of 

 wild beasts, the torments of venomous insects, which pursue 



