SHOOTING IN CHILE. 193 



no help for it^ so I plodded back and captured liini again, 

 taking the precaution this time of bringing a manea, or 

 leg- strap, with me. 



By this time the doctor was far out of sight, leaving 

 me to pick up the slain and settle the *^' cripples/^ 

 Putting them into a sack which I had brought with me, I 

 left them in a hole in the rocks and went on my way, 

 cursing all doctors, plovers, and horses. However, I 

 did not much care, as I had an idea somehow I should 

 get a handurria or two, and I struck across for some 

 hilly ground covered with thick brush and broken rocks, 

 where the mayordomo had told me overnight I should 

 be sure to find a partridge. So just before getting 

 there I dismounted, put the manea on my horse and 

 beat the brush. I had hardly trod out three or four 

 tussocks when up got a covey of five, and left two of 

 their number on the ground. These partridges are not 

 a true partridge — in fact are not a partridge at all, I 

 believe ; the plumage is not the same, the breast has no 

 horseshoe, and the taste of the bird is decidedly difi'erent ; 

 they fly strong, and carry away a deal of shot. I beat 

 and shot the hill-side for above an hour, and got five 

 brace of birds, a large number for Chile, but they had 

 scarcely been shot at. Another item to my bag may 

 seem rather odd, and that was a fine old dog fox at least 

 four feet long. I caught sight of him sneaking behind 

 a rock, and rolled him over in the open with a duck- 

 shot cartridge which I put in for his especial benefit. It 

 sounds funny, but I had not the slightest compunction in 

 killing him ; on the contrary, the greatest possible 

 pleasure. These Chile foxes sometimes grow to an 

 enormous size; the Valparaiso hounds once killed one 

 five feet long. To give an idea of their size and strength 



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