The man employed for
slaughtering the mares happened to be celebrated for his dexterity
with the lazo. Standing at the distance of twelve yards from the
mouth of the corral, he has laid a wager that he would catch by the
legs every animal, without missing one, as it rushed past him.
There was another man who said he would enter the corral on foot,
catch a mare, fasten her front legs together, drive her out, throw
her down, kill, skin, and stake the hide for drying (which latter
is a tedious job); and he engaged that he would perform this whole
operation on twenty-two animals in one day. Or he would kill and
take the skin off fifty in the same time. This would have been a
prodigious task, for it is considered a good day's work to skin and
stake the hides of fifteen or sixteen animals.
NOVEMBER 26, 1833.
I set out on my return in a direct line for Monte Video. Having
heard of some giant's bones at a neighbouring farmhouse on the
Sarandis, a small stream entering the Rio Negro, I rode there
accompanied by my host, and purchased for the value of
eighteenpence the head of the Toxodon. (8/4. I must express my
obligation to Mr. Keane, at whose house I was staying on the
Berquelo, and to Mr.
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