lack and dead, though still
they stand rattling one against the other with the breeze. Then dark
clouds are seen in the west; the fierce pampero bursts forth with
irresistible force; they bend before it, and in a few seconds the whole
forest is levelled with the ground. Here, under the influence of the
heat and moisture, they rapidly decompose and disappear, fertilising the
soil. Once more the clover rushes up, and the plain again smiles with a
verdant hue, and welcomes back the cattle, who have been driven to
distant pastures.

GAUCHOS OF THE PAMPAS.

See the inhabitant of this region,--the bold Gaucho, whether owner of
thousands of heads of cattle, or the humble peon or chasqui, servant or
courier,--mounted on his fiery steed. What command he has over it! How
admirably he and the animal seem adapted to each other! If a proprietor
or chief manager, he will probably be habited in a white shirt, with
wide trousers richly embroidered with deep lace; the chiripa--a piece of
cloth covering the body and passing round his legs--being tied with a
band; a poncho over his shoulders; boots of polished leather, or, it may
be, of simple skin; his heels adorned with a pair of enormous spurs, of
silver or less valuable metal, with rowels of prodigious circumference;
with his rebenque, or horse-whip, in hand, made of cow-hide, and set off
by a handle of massive silver. All classes residing on the Pampas,
whether in Uruguay or the Far West, are called Gauchos.

Such in early life was General Urquiza, for some time governor of his
native province of Entre Rios. The term is, however, applied generally
to the lower orders.

Hardy, and sparely built, like the Arabs of the desert the Gaucho lives
on horseback. For most nights the ground is his bed and his saddle his
pillow, a piece of hide or a poncho his only covering. He will gallop
thirty leagues a day without fatigue.

From his infancy he has been taught the use of the lasso and bolas; and
in his boyhood learned to catch the fowls, goats, and sheep about his
father's rancho, or to capture partridges in a similar way. Yet he is
but little fitted for the ordinary hard work of life. In consequence of
his over-exertion and irregular life, his long abstinence from food, and
neglect of a due proportion of vegetable aliment, his body appears to be
dried-up, his vital energies fail, and his term of existence is
shortened.

Impatient of rebuke, he will not brook a hasty word,