Much to everyone's relief The Delineator appeared at breakfast looking himself again; he replied to the enquiries showered upon him that his indisposition could be explained in the words used by Herbert Spencer, when he defined life as "The continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." The Delineator said that that formula, when one considered the various cookings, including the Oriental style we had lately sampled, exactly described the cause of his passing illness, from which he was now happily recovered. The morning was bright, and nothing but the drying mud remained to remind us of the rains of yesterday. At breakfast some strange tales were told of a frightened nutria which generally slept peacefully under a wardrobe in the dressing-room; but last night the room had another occupant, whose sleep was not so peaceful as that of the nutria, and at the first sound of a snore the poor animal was so scared that it leapt from its usual bed and rushed round the room till it found a way of escape, through the window, to a more restful soot. Cattle-dipping was to be the sight of the morning, and as soon as the out-door menagerie was explored, under the guidance of our hostess, who has a wonderful knack with all animals, the coach and cavalcade of riders set forth to the scene of operations. Here we found a large number of animals ready to be dipped. This process is necessary to clean the animals from the garrapata. This is a tick which has been, and still is, the terror of the north. It is the means of transmitting to cattle the disease known as "Texas Fever." The rough native cattle do not suffer badly from this fever, but any newly imported fine stock from the south generally succumb to it. Time after time wealthy men who realized the menace this pest was to the north have attempted to fight it, but their efforts have not been successful. Often their loss has been immense, sometimes as many as 95% of the total animals brought into the neighbourhood from the Province of Buenos Aires have died. Undoubtedly these constant failures helped to give the northern district a bad name, but the experiments with the animals should have been carried on by means of acclimatisation. Animals for the north should be carefully handled, and with constant vigilance, adapted to their surroundings. These are the principles on which the Santa Fé Land Company have been working, and they confidently predict that before long they will be selling pedigree bulls with tick on them. When this is an accomplished fact, another great barrier to the progress of the north will have been broken down. The cattle tick has two phases in its life. [Illustration: _Cattle leaving Dip._]