Half Hours in the Far South

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ... the hardy little horse, though not half his weight, pulls him struggling, bellowing, and half-choked, up to the required spot. Here a second lasso is adroitly thrown, so that the bullock puts his hind legs into the noose, when it is immediately pulled tight, and he falls heavily to the ground. The first horseman now dismounts, removes his lasso from the horns, and when he has remounted, the lasso on the legs is slackened, the bullock gets up, steps out of the loop, and walks sulkily in among his doomed brethren. Thus does the work of the day progress, the monotony being relieved by occasional accidents and casualties. Here comes a man dashing along with slackened rein and busy spur, when suddenly his horse comes down; not, indeed, after the manner of an English horse performing the same feat, but planting his forehead on the ground he turns a complete somersault like a practised acrobat. The rider, however, alights on his feet, runs clear of his horse's heels, and joining in the peals of laughter which his contretemps has elicited from his dusky companions, jumps on his erring steed, and is soon galloping along as recklessly as before. Perhaps, too, the girth or cincha, to which the lasso is fastened, gives way, when the whole trappings are suddenly and rudely snatched from underneath the astonished rider, who falls prone to the earth. The lasso itself, when kept at its fullest tension by a horse at one end and a bullock at the other, suddenly parts in the middle, and the end comes back in the face of the rider with such force as to leave an ineffaceable scar across his swarth brow. These slight accidents only serve, however, to make the work of the day less monotonous, and afford food for gossip while sucking the never-failing mate or tea over the evening...