I 22 
The Naturalist in La Plata, 
stupid, good-tempered brute, so greedy that when 
you offered him a piece of meat he would swallow 
half your arm, and so obedient that at a word he 
would dash himself against the horns of a bull, and 
face death and danger in any shape. But, my 
brother told me, he would not face a skunk — he 
would die first. One day I took him out and found a 
skunk, and for upwards of half an hour I sat on my 
horse vainly cheering on my cowardly follower, and 
urging him to battle. The very sight of the enemy 
gave him a fit of the shivers ; and when the irascible 
little enemy began to advance against us, going 
through the performance by means of which he 
generally puts his foes to flight without resorting to 
malodorous measures — stamping his little feet in 
rage, jumping up, splutteriug and hissing and 
flourishing his brush like a warlike banner above his 
head — then hardly could I restrain my dog from 
turning tail and flying home in abject terror. My 
cruel persistence was rewarded at last. Continued 
shouts, cheers, and hand-clappings began to stir the 
brute to a kind of frenzy. Torn by conflicting 
emotions, he began to revolve about the skunk at a 
lumbering gallop, barking, howling, and bristling 
up his hair ; and at last, shutting his eyes, and with 
a yell of desperation, he charged. I fully expected 
to see the enemy torn to pieces in a few seconds, 
but when the dog was still four or five feet from 
him the fatal discharge came, and he dropped down 
as if shot dead. For some time he lay on the earth 
perfectly motionless, watched and gently bedewed 
by the victorious skunk ; then he got up and crept 
whining away. Gradually he quickened his pace, 
