Life in Patagonia. 107 
aching limbs on the wet stony ground, with the 
rug they permitted him to wear for only covering. 
When the hunters were unlucky it was customary 
to slaughter a horse for food. The wretched 
animal would be first drawn up by its hind legs 
and suspended from the branches of a great tree, 
so that all the blood might be caught, for this is 
the chicf delicacy of the Patagonian savage. An 
artery would be opened in the neck and the spout- 
ing blood caught in large earthen vessels; then, 
when the savages gathered round to the feast, poor 
Damian would be with them to drink his share of 
the abhorred liquid, hot from the heart of the still 
living brute. In autumn, when the apples were fer- 
mented in pits dug in the earth and lined with borse 
hides to prevent the juice from escaping, he would take 
part, as became a true savage, in the grand annual _ 
drinking bouts. The women would first go round — 
carefully gathering up all knives, spears, bolas, or 
other weapons dangerous in the hands of drunken 
men, to carry them away into the forest, where they 
would conceal themselves with the children. Then 
for days the warriors would give themselves up to 
the joys of intoxication; and at such’times unhappy 
Damian would come in for a large share of ridicule, 
blows, and execrations; the Indians being full of 
boisterous fun or else truculent in their cups, and 
loving above all things to have a Kokdé-huinché, or 
“‘ white fool” for a butt. 
At length, when he came to man’s estate, was 
fluent in their language, and outwardly in all things 
