Glossary
Alazan, a chestnut horse.
Alpargatas, shoes made of canvas with jute or hemp soles.
Asado, roast meat. In the camp cooked on a spit over the fire.
Asador, the spit on which meat is roasted.
Asulejo, a blue-eyed, grey and white horse.
Bandurria, an ibis.
Barranca, cliff-like banks of river or lagoon.
Bayo, a cream-coloured dun horse.
Blanco, white; a white horse or cow.
Bocado, a thong of raw hide passed twice round the lower jaw of a young horse as a bit.
Bolas, Boleadores, three balls of stone covered with raw hide and attached to one another by twisted thongs of raw hide; used for catching wild animals.
Boliche, a small drinking-store.
Bombilla, a metal tube for sucking the tea from the maté cup.
Bozal, a halter.
Cabresto, a leading rein always attached to the bozal for tying up the horse; from the Spanish word cabestro.
Cacique, an Indian chief or leader.
Cañadon, a dale or dip of low land between stretches of high land.
Capa, a cape or cloak.
Carancho, the large, eagle-like carrion hawk (Polyborus tharus).
Carguero, a pack-horse or mule.
Carpa, a tent, or shelter of a movable kind.
Casa, a house, even if only a mud hut.
Cebruno, a dark mouse-coloured horse with a reddish tinge.
Chico, little.
Chimango, a harrier-like carrion hawk (Milvago Chimango).
China, Indian woman; also a native Criska woman.
Chiripá, a loin-cloth the size of a poncho, and worn so as to form loose, baggy trousers.
Cinch, English spelling of “Cincha,” the raw-hide girth used with native saddles.
Colorado, red; a bay horse.
Cordillera, the chain of mountains called the Andes.
Cruzado, a horse having crossed white feet—i.e., one fore-foot white and one hind-foot of opposite sides; always expected to be good horses.
Estancia, a farm in Argentina.
Estanciero, a stock-farmer in Argentina.
Gateado, a yellow dun horse with a black stripe down the back.
Gaucho, the Argentine cowboy.
Horqueta, a fork; the separation of two streams forming a fork; name of a horse with a forked cutting in the ear.
Macho, a male animal; especially a mule.
Madrina, the bell-mare followed by all the horses or mules of a tropilla.
Manada, a herd of mares.
Manea, hobbles for a horse made of raw hide generally.
Mañero, a cunning, tricky horse or person.
Martineta, the “large partridge” (Calo dromas elegans).
Maté, the small gourd in which the Yerba tea is made; also the tea itself.
Moro, a dark blue roan horse.
Mula, female mule.
Muy limpio, literally “very clean.”
Oscuro, a dark or black horse.
Overo, a spotted or splashed horse.
Palenque, posts or rails put up for tying-up horses.
Pampa, the great plains of South America.
Pampero, the south-west wind, often a hurricane in South America, blowing across the Pampas.
Pangaré, a bay horse, with the peculiar mule-like colouring of the nozzle.
Pantano, a mud hole; a sticky muddy place.
Peon, a working man or porter.
Picaso, a black horse with white feet and face.
Plaza, open square in a town.
Poncho, the rug or shawl, with a hole in middle, to slip over the head.
Potro, a colt or wild horse.
Puchero, mutton or beef boiled with rice, and vegetables when there are any.
Rincon, a corner.
Rosado, a light strawberry roan horse.
Rosillo, a red-roan horse.
Soga, a cord or strip of hide.
Toldo, an awning; the Indian tent of raw hides.
Tordillo, a grey horse.
Tostado, a dark chestnut horse.
Travesia, a desert.
Tropilla, the troop of horses or mules driven in front of travellers in South America.
Vaqueano, a guide.
Vega, a valley.
Yerba, the Paraguayan tea, universal in Argentina.
Zaino, a brown horse.
Footnotes
1 Since writing the above I learn that a German line has put steamers upon this route.
2 When a mare is in foal—as was the case with the black mare—her troop will often desert her and wander away, but when the foal is born the horses become very much attached to it.
3 Darwin describes the guanaco as “generally wild and extremely wary.”
4 This happened in the case of two Mausers I had with me. One came off at the third shot from the mere recoil—a serious business.
5 Except in very rare cases the boleadores should not be used to catch horses. For a kicking animal they are, however, a good corrective.
6 Any traveller, settler or cattleman who is acquainted with the vagaries of cargueros will understand our position. Some of the horses which we used as cargueros had never before had a saddle upon their backs.
7 There is, however, a great variation in the development of the lower limbs in different individuals.
8 This name is preferred by the Indians themselves. To call them los Indios is a breach of etiquette. Paisano means, of course, son of the land, a title in which the Tehuelche takes pride.
9 The evil spirit is supposed to take up its quarters behind the toldos.
10 While prosecuting the inquiries which led to the compilation of this account of the Tehuelches it was thought that the author desired to take a bride from the toldos. He was informed that seven mares would purchase a young and efficient helpmate.
11 Tehuelche beauties are not above wearing a tail of false hair.
12 On the occasions I describe, even the asadores (iron spits three feet in length and sharpened at the end which enters the ground) are taken away and buried by the young women.
13 These customs are now dying out.
14 According to Tehuelche beliefs, the Good Spirit created the animals in the caves of a certain mountain called “God’s Hill,” and gave them to his people for food.
15 Here I disagree with Captain G. C. Musters, who claims excellent walking powers for the Tehuelches. That they can walk well if forced to do so is possible, but we need look no farther than their boots to perceive that they rarely go afoot. The Patagonian pampas are covered with thorn and the thin foot-covering of the Indians would be torn to pieces in the course of a two-hours tramp over such ground.
16 Nansen’s “Esquimaux Life.”
17 The Tehuelches are enormously above the Onas of Tierra del Fuego in the scale of civilisation. A Fuegian woman has been known to live in the Tehuelchian tents, but how she came there I am unable to say. On the other hand, I have never heard of any Tehuelche living with the Tierra del Fuegians, and cannot conceive such a state of things to be possible. But the Tehuelches will mix occasionally with the Araucanian tribes of Northern Patagonia, and intermarriages are common.
18 Pampa travel is like cricket in that it defies forecast. Sometimes everything falls in right, at other times nothing comes opportunely to hand.
19 I believe, as does Dr. Moreno, that a race of Indians, now extinct, once dwelled among the foothills of the Cordillera.
20 This was a very lean buck; a fat doe is excellent.
21 Louis von Plaaten Hallermund, of the Argentine Boundary Commission, almost reached Lake Buenos Aires from Lake Puerrydon about two years previously. Mr. Waag had completed the journey, but we did not know this.
22 A guide who applied to me at Santa Cruz warned me that, if we went without him, we would have great difficulty at this point. He asked ten dollars a day for his services, which I, however, declined.
23 This we came to understand very thoroughly at a later date, when we penetrated to the end of the long twisting arms of the lake.
24 To hunt this swampy ground in shooting-boots is an unnecessary handicap, for the footing is so soft that one sinks to the knee in the worst places. A pair of string-shoes called “alpargatas” are the most useful and suitable footgear for this work, and the gain of their lightness is an added advantage.
25 Where there are sheep, and consequently mutton is procurable, the guanaco is rarely hunted.
26 This method has been referred to in another chapter.
[27] This chapter embodies a paper read before the Zoological Society of London on April 15, 1902, with some additional details.
28 Two kinds of fish came under my observation, but I understood there were four.
29 I hope in a future volume to publish a list of the plants we collected. At the moment of writing all have not reached England.
30 There were also orchids growing about the foothills of the Cordillera. Those I brought back are now under the care of the Curator of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. They should flower before this book is in print.
31 Burbury made his way south just in the nick of time. I was obliged to send him to the coast to meet Scrivenor, who was, according to my arrangements, about to leave for England.
32 I have watched with considerable interest the methods adopted by the Germans as opposed to those of the young man of our own race. I remember an instance of a German who set up as a chemist in a town out Central America way, and whose chief source of income came from the sale of drugs to rather impressionable negroes. In his place the Englishman would have laid in decent English drugs, would have sat behind his counter, and would have dispensed in stolid fashion to the limit of the abilities with which he was blessed. Not so our German friend. His drugs were good, but not supremely so; his prices were cost prices, with a mere shaving of profit.
But his method was excellent.
He made a character-study of each of his customers. He sold a fine tonic, coloured red and reported invincible. He put the title of Dr. before his name, and advertised free consultations, provided the patients bought their medicines at his store. He throve.
33 F. Ameghino, “Première Notice sur le Neomylodon listai, un Représentant vivant des anciens Edentés Gravigrades fossiles de l’Argentina” (La Plata, August 1898); translated under the title “An Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia,” in “Natural Science,” vol. xiii (1898), pp. 324-326.
34 A. Milne-Edwards, “Note sur une nouvelle Espèce de Tatou à cuirasse incomplète (Scleropleura bruneti),” Nouv. Arch. Mus., vol. vii. (1871), pp. 177-179, pl. xii.
35 P. W. Lund, K. Dansk. Vidensk. Selsk. Afhandl., vol. viii. (1841), p. 85 (footnote).
36 H. Burmeister, Anales Mus. Publico Buenos Aires, vol. i. (1864-69), p. 173, pl. v. Fig. 8.
37 Flower and Lydekker, “Introduction to the Study of Mammals,” p. 183.
38 E. Lönnberg, “On some Remains of ‘Neomylodon listai,” Ameghino, brought home by the Swedish Expedition to Tierra del Fuego, 1895-1897, Wissensch. Ergebn. schwedisch. Exped. Magellansländ, unter Leitung v. Otto Nordenskjöld, vol. ii. pp. 149-170, pls. xii.-xiv. (1899).
39 “On some Remains of Grypotherium (Neomylodon) listai and associated Mammals from a Cavern near Consuelo Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia.” Proc. Zool. Soc., 1900, pp. 64-79, pls. v.-ix.
40 R. Hauthal, S. Roth, and R. Lehmann-Nitsche, “El Mamifero Misterioso de la Patagonia, Grypotherium domesticum,” Revista Mus. La Plata, vol. ix. pp. 409-474, pls. i.-v. (1899).—F. P. Moreno, “Note on the Discovery of Miolania and of Glossotherium (Neomylodon) in Patagonia,” Geol. Mag. [4] vol. vi. pp. 385-388 (1899).
41 J. Reinhardt, “Beskrivelse af Hovedskallen af et Kæmpedovendyr, Grypotherium darwinii, fra La Plata-Landenes plejstocene-Dannelser,” K. Dansk. Vidensk. Selsk Skr. [5] vol. xii. (1879), pp. 353-380, pls. i. ii.—H. Burmeister, “Atlas de la Description physique de la République Argentine,” sect. ii. (1881), p. 119, woodc. (Mylodon darwinii),—R. Lydekker, “The Extinct Edentates of Argentina,” Anales Mus. La Plata—Paleont. Argentina, vol. iii. pt. 2 (1894), p. 85, pl. liv.
42 R. Hauthal, op. cit. p. 4.
43 See S. Roth, op. cit. pl. ii. Fig. 1.
44 R. Lydekker, Anales Mus. La Plata—Paleont. Argentina, vol. iii. pt. 2 (1894), p. 73, pl. xlv. Fig. 1.
45 R. Owen, “Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct Gigantic Sloth, Mylodon robustus, Owen” (1842), p. 18.
46 P. Gervais, “Mémoire sur les Formes Cérébrales propres aux Édentés vivants et fossiles,” Nouv. Arch. Mus., vol. xv. (1869), p. 39, pl. iv. Figs. 1, 2.
47 P. Gervais, loc. cit. p. 39, pl. v.
48 Ibid. p. 38, pl. iv. Figs. 3, 4.
49 J. Hyrtl, “Vergleichendanatomische Untersuchungen über das innere Gehörorgan des Menschen und der Säugethiere” (1845), p. 135, pl. v. Fig. 6.
50 P. Z. S. 1899. pl. xv. Figs. 4-6.
51 R. Owen, “The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle.—Part I. Fossil Mammalia” (1840), p. 57, pl. xvi.
52 R. Owen, “Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct Gigantic Sloth, Mylodon robustus, Owen” (1842), p. 154, foot-note.
53 Described respectively by Reinhardt, Burmeister, and Lydekker, loc. cit.
54 F. Ameghino, “Contribucion al Conocimiento de los Mamiferos de la Republica Argentina” (1889), p. 738, pl. xliv. Fig. 8.
55 E. Nordenskjöld, “La Grotte du Glossotherium (Neomylodon) en Patagonie,” Comptes Rendus, vol. cxxix. (1899), p. 1217.
56 Dawkins and Sanford, “The British Pleistocene Mammalia” (Palæont. Soc., 1869), p. 150.
57 F. Ameghino, “Contribucion al Conocimiento de los Mamiferos de la Republica Argentina” (1889), p. 342.
58 F. Ameghino, op. cit. (1889), p. 317.
59 H. Winge, “Jordfundne og nulevende Rovdyr (Carnivora) fra Lagoa Santa, Minas Geraes, Brasilien” (E. Museo Lundii, 1895), p. 31.
60 Dr. Moreno has lately received reports of bear-like tracks in remote parts of the Cordillera, which he thinks may imply that a species of Arctotherium still lives in Patagonia.
61 F. P. Moreno, “Revista Mus. La Plata,” vol. ii. (1891). p. 56, R. Lydekker, “Anales Mus. La Plata—Paleont. Argentina,” vol. ii. pt. 3 (1893), p. 77. pl. xxix.
62 F. Ameghino, op. cit. (1889), p. 324.
63 E. Nordenskjöld, “La Grotte du Glossotherium (Neomylodon)en Patagonie” Comptes Rendus, vol. cxxix. (1899), pp. 1216, 1217.
64 A. Carnot, “Sur une Application de l’Analyse chimique pour fixer l’Age d’Ossements humains préhistoriques,” Comptes Rendus, vol. cxv. (1892), pp. 337-339.
65 Pangolins, armadillos, and sloths are more or less related.
66 SB. Ges. nat. Fr. Berlin, 1892, p. 220; 1894, p. 58.
67 Owing to the very short time allowed before going to press we are unable to furnish a complete list. We hope, however, to give in a future number of the Journal of Botany a full list with notes on critical or otherwise interesting species.