CHAPTER XVI 



WILD CATTLE 



Denseness of forest — Wild cattle originally escaped from early settlers — 

 Grown somewhat shaggy— Indians will not hunt them in forest — Patagonia not 

 a big-game country — Hunting wild cattle— Disappointment — Hunter s para- 

 dise — Twelve blank days— Sport on Punta Bandera — Big yellow bull — Losing 

 the herd— Baffling ground — Charge of hull and cow— A shot at last— Hunting 

 in forests on Mount Frias — Str:ng shoes — Winter hunting — Shoot bull— Shoot 

 huenml five-pointer — Wild-cattle hunting first-class sport. 



Very different to the easy sport afforded by the huemul was our 

 experience of hunting wild cattle in the forests which clothe more 

 or less densely the ravines and slopes of the lower Andes. These 



. forests, which in some parts are 



' absolutely impenetrable in the spring, 



because at that season \}i\^ pantanos 

 are saturated with the rains and 

 melting snow, give shelter to many 

 scattered herds of wild cattle. 



Captain Musters, writing in 1871, 

 speaks ol hunting these animals 

 under the Cordillera, but their 

 existence in a wild state dates 

 from a far earlier period — in fact, from the time of the first 

 Spanish occupation, when cattle escaped from the \ aldez Penin- 

 sula, and roaming over the pampas at length reached the high 

 grass and sheltered j^laces of the Cordillera. Finding these 

 entirely to their liking, they have ever since lived and bred in that 

 region ; their numbers, no doubt, being from time to time increased 

 by deserters from the unfenced farms on the east coast of Pata- 

 gonia. It is a strange thing that cattle which escape almost 

 invariably head north-west towards the Cordillera. This fact has 



Wn.D CATTLE BKEKI) 



