bullocks, across the Pampas to Cordova or Mendoza. On his saddle,
chiefly made of untanned horse-hide and sheep-skin, he sits with the
consciousness that he is the horse's master. Indeed, it is rarely that
the real gaucho puts his foot in a stirrup,--for practical purposes of
riding never,--as it is only on state occasions that he uses them.
Stirrups made in this country are of a triangular form, of iron or
silver, with the base fabricated after the fashion of a filigree
cruet-stand, though on a diminutive scale. At the museum in Buenos Ayres
I saw some of these triangular stirrups that were described as having
been brought from Paraguay, made from hard wood, so large, clumsy, and
heavy as to constitute in themselves a load for a horse. With such heavy
stirrups it may be imagined what a weight the gaucho's horse has to
bear, when we consider the component parts of the saddle or recado.

[This saddle is a very complex affair, made up of layers of
sheep-skin, carpet, cow-hide, woollen cloth, etc., too
intricate to be here described. It consists in all of twelve
separate parts.]

The skill and endurance of the gaucho in the management of horses is
very remarkable. One of these men is reported to have stood on the
transverse bar, which crosses over the gate of the corral, and dropped
down upon the back of a horse, while the animal, in company with several
others, without bridle or saddle, was at full gallop out of the
enclosure. What made the feat more adroit was the fact of his having
permitted a looker-on to select the horse for him to bestride before the
whole lot were driven out. The endurance of the gaucho is also striking;
and I have been told of a man, well known at Buenos Ayres, having ridden
a distance of seventy leagues--that is to say, two hundred and ten
miles--in one day to that city.

Senor Don Carlos Hurtado, of Buenos Ayres, informs me that the great
gaucho game, in which the famous Rosas was most proficient, was what is
called _el pialar_,--that is, catching horses by lassoing their feet
(the ordinary mode of doing this round the neck is called _enlaser_).
Two lines of horsemen, each from ten to twenty in number, are placed at
distances so far apart as to allow a mounted gaucho to pass between
them. This man is to gallop as fast as he can from one end to the
other,--in fact, to run the gauntlet. Every horseman in the lines
between which he passes is furnished with a lasso. As he gallo