country be destitute of wood, it abounds in pasture, as the whole land seems made up of downs of a light dry and gravelly soil, producing great quantities of long grass, which grows in tufts, interspersed with large spots of barren gravel.  In many places this grass feeds immense herds of cattle, all derived from a few European cattle brought over by the Spaniards at their first settling, which have thriven and multiplied prodigiously, owing to the abundance of herbage which they every where met with, and are now so increased and extended so far into different parts of Patagonia, that they are not considered as private property; thousands of them being slaughtered every year by the hunters, only for their hides and tallow.

The manner of killing these cattle, being peculiar to that part of the world, merits a circumstantial description.  Both Spaniards and Indians in that country are usually most excellent horsemen; and accordingly the hunters employed on this occasion are all mounted on horseback, armed with a kind of spear, which, instead of the usual point or blade in the same line with the shaft, has its blade fixed across.  Armed with this instrument, they ride at a beast and surround him, when the hunter that is behind hamstrings him, so that he soon falls, and is unable to rise from the ground, where they leave him and proceed against others, whom they serve in the same manner.  Sometimes there is a second party attending the hunters, on purpose to skin the cattle as they fall; but it is said that the hunters sometimes prefer to leave them to languish in torment till next day, from an opinion that the lengthened anguish bursts the lymphatics, and thereby facilitates the separation of the skin from the carcass.  Their priests have loudly condemned this most barbarous practice, and have even gone so far, if my memory do not deceive me, as to excommunicate such as persist to follow it, yet all their efforts to put an entire stop to it have hitherto proved ineffectual.

Besides great numbers of cattle which are slaughtered every year in this manner, for their hides and tallow, it is often necessary, for the uses of agriculture, and for other purposes, to catch them alive, and without wounding them.  This is performed with a most wonderful and most incredible dexterity, chiefly by means of an implement or contrivance which the English who have resided at Buenos Ayres usually denominate a lash.  This consists of a very strong thong of raw hide, several fathoms in length, with a running noose at one end.  This the hunter, who is on horseback, takes in his right hand, being properly coiled up, and the other end fastened to the saddle:  Thus prepared, the hunters ride at a herd of cattle, and when arrived within a certain distance of a beast, they throw their thong at him with such exactness, that they never fail to fix the noose about his horns.  Finding himself thus entangled, the beast usually endeavours to run away, but the hunter attends his motions, and