stirrup and
presses his horse to its maddest gallop, he snatches from his saddle-bow
the loop of a coil of rope, whirls it in his right hand for an instant,
then hurls it, singing through the air, a distance of fifty paces. A jerk
and a strain,--a bellow and a convulsive leap,--his lasso is fast around
the horns of a bull in the galloping herd. The horseman flashes a
murderous knife from his belt, winds himself up to the plunging beast,
severs at one swoop the tendon of its hind leg, and buries the point of
his weapon in the victim's spinal marrow. It falls dead. The man, my
friend, is a Gaucho; and we are standing on the Pampas of the Argentine
Republic.

Let us examine this dexterous wielder of the knife and cord. _He, Juan de
Dios!_ Come hither, O Centaur of the boundless cattle-plains! We will not
ask you to dismount,--for that you never do, we know, except to eat and
sleep, or when your horse falls dead, or tumbles into a _bizcachero_; but
we want to have a look at your savage self, and the appurtenances
thereunto belonging.

And first, you say, the meaning of his name. The title, Gaucho, is applied
to the descendants of the early Spanish colonists, whose homes are on the
Pampa, instead of in the town,--to the rich _estanciero_, or owner of
square leagues of cattle, in common with the savage herdsman whom he
employs,--to Generals and Dictators, as well as to the most ragged Pampa-
Cossack in their pay. Our language is incapable of expressing the idea
conveyed by this term; and the Western qualification "backwoodsman" is
perhaps the nearest approach to a synonyme that we can attain.

The head of our swarthy friend is covered with a species of Neapolitan
cap, (let me confess, in a parenthesis, that my ideas of such head-
coverings are derived from the costume of graceful Signor Brignoli in
"Masaniello,") which was once, in all probability, of scarlet hue, but now
almost rivals in color the jet-black locks which it confines. His face--
well, we will pass that over, and, on our return to civilized life, will
refer the curious inquirer for a fac-simile to the first best painting of
Salvator, there to select at pleasure the most ferocious bandit
countenance that he can find. And now the remainder of his person. He
wears an open jacket of dirt-crusted serge, covered in front with a
gorgeous eruption of plated buttons, and a waistcoat of the same material,
adorned with equal profuseness, and showing at the neck a substr