careless movement placing themselves a dozen yards behind me.

But this same trick of the rhea is wonderful to see when the hunted
bird is spent with running and is finally overtaken by one of the
hunters who has perhaps lost the bolas with which he captures his
quarry, and who endeavours to place himself side by side with it so as
to reach it with his knife. It seems an easy thing to do: the bird is
plainly exhausted, panting, his wings hanging, as he lopes on, yet no
sooner is the man within striking distance than the sudden motion
comes into play, and the bird as by a miracle is now behind instead of
at the side of the horse. And before the horse going at top speed can
be reined in and turned round, the rhea has had time to recover his
wind and get a hundred yards away or more. It is on account of this
tricky instinct of the rhea that the gauchos say, "El avestruz es el
mas _gaucho_ de los animales," which means that the ostrich, in its
resourcefulness and the tricks it practises to save itself when
hard pressed, is as clever as the gaucho knows himself to be.




CHAPTER VII

MY FIRST VISIT TO BUENOS AYRES

Happiest time--First visit to the Capital--Old and New Buenos Ayres--
Vivid impressions--Solitary walk--How I learnt to go alone--Lost--The
house we stayed at and the sea-like river--Rough and narrow streets--
Rows of posts--Carts and noise--A great church festival--Young men in
black and scarlet--River scenes--Washerwomen and their language--Their