Of these scenes unconsciously omitted, I will now give one which
should have appeared in the chapter describing my first visit to
Buenos Ayres city: placed here it will serve very well as an
introduction to this last chapter.
In those days, and indeed down to the seventies of last century, the
south side of the capital was the site of the famous Saladero, or
killing-grounds, where the fat cattle, horses and sheep brought in
from all over the country were slaughtered every day, some to supply
the town with beef and mutton and to make _charque,_ or sun-dried
beef, for exportation to Brazil, where it was used to feed the slaves,
but the greater number of the animals, including all the horses, were
killed solely for their hides and tallow. The grounds covered a space
of three or four square miles, where there were cattle enclosures made
of upright posts placed close together, and some low buildings
scattered about To this spot were driven endless flocks of sheep, half
or wholly wild horses and dangerous-looking, long-horned cattle in
herds of a hundred or so to a thousand, each moving in its cloud of
dust, with noise of bellowings and bleatings and furious shouting of
the drovers as they galloped up and down, urging the doomed animals
on. When the beasts arrived in too great numbers to be dealt with in
the buildings, you could see hundreds of cattle being killed in the
open all over the grounds in the old barbarous way the gauchos use,
every animal being first lassoed, then hamstrung, then its throat cut
--a hideous and horrible spectacle, with a suitable accompaniment of
sounds in the wild shouts of the slaughterers and the awful bellowings
of the tortured beasts.
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