Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the "Olio" of a Desultory Reader.
WILD OXEN AND WILD DOGS AT BUENOS AYRES.
"This fertile province is remarkable for two kinds of wild animals, wild oxen and wild dogs.
"The number of wild oxen here is so great, that every year 100,000 are killed solely for the use of their hides. About 20 hunters on horseback proceed to spots where these animals are known to herd, having in their hands a long stick shod with iron, very sharp, with which they strike the ox that they pursue, on one of the hind legs; and they make the blow so adroitly, that they almost always cut the sinews in two above the joint. The animal soon afterwards falls, and cannot rise again. The hunters instead of stopping, pursue the other oxen at full gallop, with the reins loose, striking in the same manner all which they overtake; thus eighteen or twenty men will with ease fell 7 or 800 oxen in an hour. When they are tired of the exercise, they dismount to rest, and afterwards, without danger, knock on the head the oxen which they have wounded. After taking the skin, and sometimes the tongue and suet, they leave the rest for the birds of prey.
"Wild Dogs.--These ferocious animals have descended from some of the domestic kinds that have formerly gone astray, and have multiplied to an excessive degree in the counties near Buenos Ayres. They live under ground in holes, which may be easily discovered by the quantity of bones heaped round them: It may be with propriety supposed, that some time or other, when the wild oxen are destroyed, so that the dogs cannot obtain them, they will fall upon men.
One of the governors of Buenos Ayres thought this subject so well worth his attention, that he sent some soldiers to destroy the wild dogs, and they killed great numbers of them with their muskets. But on their return, they were insulted by the women and children of the town who were very insolent--they called them mataperros, which means dog-killers: whence it has happened, that the men, disheartened by a false shame, have never returned to that kind of hunting."
[Fed. Rep.]