cherished plains.

The modern Centaur of the desolate regions of the New World, the Llanero
spends his life on horseback; all his actions and exertions must be
assisted by his horse; for him the noblest effort of man is when,
gliding swiftly over the boundless plain and bending over his spirited
charger, he overturns an enemy or masters a wild bull. The following
lines of Victor Hugo seem as though copied from this model: "He would
not fight but on horseback; he forms but one person with his horse; he
lives on horseback; trades, buys, and sells on horseback; eats, drinks,
sleeps, and dreams on horseback." Like the Arab he considers his horse
his best and most reliable friend on earth, often depriving himself of
rest and comfort after a hard day's journey to afford his faithful
companion abundance of food and water.

Few people in the world are better riders than the Llaneros of
Venezuela, if we except perhaps the Gauchos of Buenos Ayres, or equal
to either in the dexterity they display in the wonderful feats of
horsemanship to which their occupations in the field inure them from
childhood. Their horses, moreover, are so well trained to the various
evolutions of their profession, that animal and rider seem to possess
but one existence.

The life of the Llanero, like that of the Gaucho his prototype, is
singularly interesting, and resembles in many respects that of others
who, like them, have their abode in the midst of extensive plains. Thus
they have been aptly styled the Cossacks and the Arabs of the New World,
with both of whom they have many points in common, but more especially
do they resemble the last named. When visiting the famous Constantine
Gallery of paintings at Versailles, I was struck with the resemblance of
the Algerine heroes of Horace Vernet to our own, revealing at once the
Moorish descent of the latter, independently of other characteristic
peculiarities.

[Sir Francis Head, in his "Journeys across the Pampas," gives
the following description of the infancy of a closely similar
race.]

"Born in the rude hut, the infant Gaucho receives little attention, but
is left to swing from the roof in a bullock's hide, the corners of which
are drawn towards each other by four strips of hide. In the first year
of his life he crawls about without clothes, and I have more than once
seen a mother give a child of this age a sharp knife, a foot long, to
play with. As soon as he walks, his infantine