often getting them in their lips and outer
nostrils, from which they cannot dislodge them.

FISH IN THE PARANA.

Among the many fine fish in the river is the dorado,--something like a
trout in colour, but deeper; in shape, more resembling the snapper. The
natives catch it with unbaited hooks. The fisherman selects a point of
rock jutting over the stream, and having secured three polished hooks,
back to back, attached to a line, throws it as far from him as possible
into the water, giving it several strong jerks to make it look like
small fry darting about. The dorado makes a dash at them, and gets
hooked--generally through the back.

PART FIVE, CHAPTER THREE.

THE PAMPAS.

Westward of the Parana and the Province of Buenos Ayres stretches out
the wide-extended and almost level plain of the Pampas, reaching to the
base of the Andes. It is a wild, savage region, sprinkled over here and
there with salt-lakes and marshes, in which a few streams, traversing it
at considerable distances apart, lose themselves.

The tracks across it are marked by the whitened skeletons of the horses
and bullocks which have succumbed to the fatigues of the journey, or the
want of water, and have been picked clean by the carranchas, and others
of the vulture tribe, or by the active teeth of the voracious little
armadillos, which clear away the refuse of the feast left by their
feathered companions. Here and there forts or post-houses are found,
garrisoned by the wild Gauchos--their appearance in keeping with the
scenery.

The huts are generally built of the stalks of huge thistles, and are
sometimes mere enclosures, destitute of roofs. They are surrounded by
stockades, in many instances formed of thick hedges of cacti, well
calculated to resist an attack from the still savage Indians who roam
throughout the region in search of plunder.

It is on these plains that the little bizcacha in vast numbers form
their burrows; by the side of which, during the day, their small friends
the owls of the Pampas take up their posts, and watch the passers-by.
Vast herds of horses and cattle now roam in unrestrained freedom across
them. Here the tall rhea, the American ostrich, with outstretched wings
runs swiftly across the plain. Towards its southern boundaries the
huanacu and the deer--Cervus campestris--in large herds range at large,
while the pools and marshes are inhabited by enormous flocks of wild
fowl of all descriptions. Here hun