and in different parts of the estancia. Then you would find here and there an animal looking young and even fat, standing by itself, away from the others, not moving or eating, and with obviously something the matter with it. If taken in time and got to move quickly, and the horseman could give it a sharp run, it would probably recover. Should it, however, have gone too far, all one could do was to kill it, and take off its hide, rather than let it lie down on the ground and die slowly by inches. The epidemic went on for some little time, and we lost a good many cattle, and curiously enough it was much more towards the Cerro end of the estancia than it was at La Concordia. During this time, I was constantly out in the camp, looking up sick animals, and I took Juan and Justiniano with me, to take off the hides when necessary. Towards the end of the month I was out with the latter having a look round, and we came across a cow evidently very bad, for it could hardly stand on its legs and, when I tried to move it, it seemed only to totter from side to side. I jumped off my horse, handing the reins to the Indian, and caught hold of its tail with both hands to pull it over. I pulled my hardest, when the hair came suddenly out of the tail, and before I could recover myself I fell sideway into a bunch of big thistles which stood near. Unfortunately, I fell right among them, and felt one of the stiff sharp thorns pierce the flesh on the inside of my left arm, just below the elbow. I turned up my sleeve and tried to get it out with my knife but was unable to do so. We killed the poor cow, and I left Justiniano to commence taking off the hide while I rode back to the Cerro and sent his uncle Juan to help him. I then had another try to get out the thorn, but could not manage it. I bathed it with hot water, and as it was getting a bit painful, applied a hot poultice and hoped for the best. September came in fine, and towards noon the sun began to feel quite warm. At the beginning of its second week, twenty-two soldiers rode up, and said they wanted horses. I saw they meant business, so I told Justiniano to get all our horses into the corral. I had the rosillo saddled in the courtyard, so he was all right, as it was unusual for soldiers to take a horse one had saddled, except for some special reason, or because they really wished to be as disagreeable as they could. They were travelling out north, and were evidently pressed for time. They took six of our horses, including the "manchado," which had caused the death of the poor young Englishman, and left us one, an old bay, and he looked a very poor one. However, there was no alternative, so we had to put up with it, but it gave me a reminder of what we had to expect. The two colts we had tamed, now well-behaved horses, they paid no attention to whatever, and for this I was glad. My arm had become swollen and inflamed, and continued to give me a good deal of pain, and I was obliged to have it in a sling. It was