writer has measured the process, watch in hand,and is satisfied that four such workmen will aver age an animal to every fifteen minutes during the working hours of the day. Dried hides are from cattle that are killed for domestic consumption. The drying of them is. rather a tedious operation, a and one that requires good deal of care. Those intended for German and English markets are stretched lengthwise only, by which the hide acquires a much greater thickness than it would if stretched both ways. As many as twenty four or twenty-six stakes are used for fastening the extremities of the hide to the ground. The dry hides designed for Spain, and other markets requiring thin leather, are staked so as to stretch them both laterally and longitudinally as much as possible. Hides shipped to Liverpool and Antwerp are generally twenty per cent. heavier than those intended for other ports; and those which are sent to the Spanish markets are said to be ten per cent better in quality. Salt hides are first steeped in brine, then washed, and after the washing are packed away in alternate layers of hide and salt. Thus prepared they will keep well for at least one year after being taken from the salt. As to the quality of the pampas hides, it may safely be affirmed that better are not known to the commerce of the world. They may owe some of their superior qualities to the climate, some to the pasture, but the principal reason for their superiority is, that the breed of cattle have never been improved. The finer the animal, the thinner and less valuable the general qualities of the hide. This is mainly the reason why the most enterprising estancieros of the south have made no attempt to improve the native breed of cattle. What would be gained in flesh and tal low they think would be lost in hide and labor, and, probably, they are not wrong iu this opinion. Every part of an animal is made available—horns, hoofs, hair, bones, and tallow, as well as the flesh and hide. The tallow is one of the most import ant items belonging to the general traffic. As soon as the flesh is sliced from the carcase, the bones and fat are deposited in vats, in alternate layers, for the purpose of being steamed. The bones are so arranged as to leave apertures through which the steam may quickly pene trate. The door of the vat is then closed, and the steam turned on. In twelve hours or more, according to the size of the vat,' the liquid is drawn off by means of a brass tap. The con densed steam, in the form of a gre4sy liquid, is discharged first, and afterwards the liquid tallow, which is received in tubs, and thence conveyed to a large cast-iron boiler, in which it is purified. From the purifying boiler the tallow is conveyed through a shoot into a large iron tank, where it is allowed to cool down. After this it is drawn off into casks, and is then ready for shipment. Steaming for the purpose of extracting tallow was commenced about thirty-five years ago, and the process has undergone great improvement. The general arrangements necessary for steam ing are quite expensive. A saladero, costing thirty thousand dollars, would require a steam ing apparatus that would cost, at least, one-half that sum. Cattle are always paid for in cash. The risk of delivery is with the purchaser, as stock is invariably bought as it stands on the farm. There is a class of professional drovers iu the country. Unlike the same class in this country, however, they are not proprietors, but are simply hired by the purchasers to convey their droves to market. One capitaz (chief drover) with four or five assistants will convey to market a herd of five or six hundred head.
The price per head for this service will twenty-five to seventy-five cents, according to the distance. When taken from their accustomed pasture grounds, cattle are sometimes restive and disposed to scatter. When any special causes of disturbance occur many are lost—in a few instances whole droves have broken away from their drivers and dispersed in the plains beyond chance of recovery. While en route for market, the custom is to halt for the night on some spot where the feeding is good. The drovers sleep and ride round the herds by turns. On stormy nights it is particularly difficult to keep the herd together, and whenever a general stampede occurs it is usually at such times. Cattle in good condition will stand driving twenty-five miles per day without injury. If pushed beyond this, the effect is very perceptible in what is called tired beef. Cattle once delivered, either at the city markets or the saladeros, receive no further attention; and, when the supply is large, animals are allowed to remain in the pens for a week without a blade of grass or a drop of water. If they do not starve long enough to produce per cent. on the sum total of the exportation. It will readily be perceived from these facts that the barraca business is one of the most important branches of the general trade of the country. It is pretty equally shared by natives and foreign ers. Some very sharp men are engaged therein. They can tell all about a hide when it is yet warm and whole on the back of the steer; or what the quality of a fleece is, and how many pounds it contains before the shears have touched it. While passing through the plaza, observing without being observed, the writer has often been reminded of the accuracy of the wood man's eye and judgment, by which he correctly estimates how many square feet of ship timber or how many cords of wood there are in a standing tree. The extent and importance of this will appear from a single statement. During one year the produce of five hundred and sixty-two thousand head of cattle was shipped at the port of Montevideo alone.
shrinkage of flesh, the proprietors do not care for the sufferings of the poor beasts. Excepting live stock, the produce of the country is offered for sale in a public plaza or market-place. Sometimes the farmers themselves act as their own salesmen, but the general usage is to employ a broker. The broker is styled a barraquero, and his warehouse a barraca. When a mercan tile house wishes to obtain hides, wool, or other produce of the country, a barraquero is employed to attend the sales in the plaza and make the purchase. The articles are then conveyed to his barraca. If it he wool, it is packed (or baled, rather) with a hydraulic press. Hides are simply stored in piles; and at the proper time the barra quero attends to the shipment of the cargo. The merchant has only to provide the money and keep the accounts, and the broker, for the entire cost and trouble of his agency, charges only one That city is the capital and chief port of the republic of Uruguay. And something of the great wealth of that state, in horned cattle, may be inferred from such an annual shipment, especially when it is considered that the revolu tionary has become its chronic and prevailing condition. The total number of hides exported from the river Plate and the Rio Grande for one year was one million five hundred and eighty thousand; another year, one million six hundred and fifty thousand. The amounts included in this statement are nearly all the product of the great pampas lands lying on the eastern and western shores of the river Plate and its tribu taries.