After passing the Indian graves, about a league from Libertad, we turned off to the right, by a path that led directly to the Mico, without going through the town. After crossing several rounded grassy hills, we reached the river, and found it swollen with recent rains, but fordable. Sometimes travellers are detained several days, unable to cross, and I was always glad when, returning to the mines, I had put it behind me. Now and then a traveller is drowned when attempting to cross the swollen river, but these accidents are rare, as it is well known, by certain rocks being covered, when it is unfordable. If carried away, a traveller has little chance to save his life, as just below the crossing the river is rapid and the banks precipitous. I heard of one man who had had a very narrow escape. He was trying to cross on mule-back, but his beast lost its footing, rolled over, and was rapidly washed away. The poor man was carried into the roaring rapids, and would soon have been drowned, but a herdsman on the bank, who was looking for cattle, threw his lasso cleverly over the drowning traveller, and dragged him on shore. Some of the "vacqueros," as the herdsmen are called, are wonderfully adroit in throwing the lasso; when riding at full speed, they throw it over the horns of the cattle, or the heads of the horses, and can hold the strongest if sideways on. But I have seen some old bulls that knew how to get loose; they would run straight away from the vacquero in places where he could not ride round them, and getting a straight pull on the lasso, would break it, or draw it out of his hands. There are no horses or mules, and very few cattle, however, that know how to do this, I was told by the herdsmen.