merica, not possessed by the Spaniards, extends
from their settlements to the Straits of Magellan. This country on its
eastern side, along the Atlantic ocean, from the Rio Plata southwards,
is remarkable for having no trees of any kind, except a few peach
trees planted by the Spaniards in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres;
so that the whole eastern coast of Patagonia, extending near four
hundred leagues from north to south, and as far back into the interior
as any discoveries have yet been made, contains nothing that can be
called by the name of wood, and only a few insignificant shrubs
in some places. Sir John Narborough, who was sent out expressly by
Charles II to examine this country, wintered upon this coast in Port
St Julian and Port Desire, in the year 1670, and declares that he did
not see a stick in the whole country large enough to make the handle
of a hatchet. But, although this 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 lea