58 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



a heifer took to the water and succeeded in swim- 

 ming to the island, where she was lost to her owner. 

 About a year later this animal was seen by a man 

 who had gone to the island to cut rushes for thatch- 

 ing purposes. The cow and the pigs, to the number 

 of about twenty-five or twenty-six, were lying fast 

 asleep in a small grassy hollow where he found them, 

 the cow stretched out at full length on the ground, 

 and the pigs grouped or rather heaped round her ; 

 for they were all apparently ambitious to rest with 

 their heads pillowed on her, so that she was almost 

 concealed under them. Presently one of the drove, 

 more wakeful than his fellows, became aware of his 

 presence and gave the alarm, whereupon they started 

 up like one animal and vanished into a rush-bed. 

 The cow, thus doomed to live " alone, yet not 

 alone," was subsequently seen on several occasions 

 by the rush-cutters, always with her fierce followers 

 grouped round her like a bodyguard. This con- 

 tinued for some years, and the fame of the cow that 

 had become the leader and queen of the wild island 

 pigs was spread abroad in the valley ; then a human 

 being, who was not a " sentimentalist," betook him- 

 self to her little kingdom with a musket loaded with 

 ball, and succeeded in finding and shooting her. 



In spite of what we have been taught, it is some- 

 times borne in on us that man is a little lower than 

 the brutes. 



After hearing this incident one does not at once 

 sit down with a good appetite to roast beef or swine's 

 flesh. 



