The Station.

Otago Witness, Issue 1422, 22 February 1879, Page 5

The Station.

THE CATTLE CAMP.

Whoever visits a Colorado cattle camp for the first time is certain to experience surprise, because if he come 3 from tbe green pastures of Kentucky, Missouri, or Illinois, ho has never seen anything like it before j more than probable never heard of anything approaching the reality. Invited by tome friend, perhaps, to see the cattle and the camp, he rides over oceans of bristling cactus, sage bushes, and short, wiry grass that hardly appears adequate for extended goose pasture, and in sight of thousands of cattle that are really fat— at any time cattle are expected to look fat on the best of Eastern farms. Away ahead of him, out from the mirage of tbe desert, therejlooms before his wearied vision— wearied with the sand and the cactus and the sage bushes of the interminable plain —near some, protecting bluff, or perhaps a crashed old cotton wood, or a stray bunch of willow, what appears to be a square box. The bluff, or the cotton wood, or the clump of willows marks the cattle camp, and that square box is the corral. It is called " corral" becaiise that is the Spanish or Mexican word for cattleyard, and becauso — what perhaps makes the word still more acceptable— it hints of barbarianism, and sounds meaner.

As he nears the corral another box of lesser importance, giadually asserts itself iv the foreground ; that is the herder's dugout, or cabin, as the case may be, and makes the cattle camp complete. The corral is perhaps a hundred feet square, constructed of cottonwood posts driven in the ground, with their tops interlined with strips of rawhide or willow brush, to hold tliom in place. The dusout is simple, a sido-hill cellar, covered with poles, brush and dirt. Perhaps there is a cabin instead, then the walls are generally of logs, but the roof is the same in either case, and the floors in both instances are almost invariably of dirt; rude bunks composed of small poles or rough boards line the insido v. alls one above another like steamboat berths, and a very dirfcy sfcovc, knee-doep in ashes, and onuu

mented with fresco work in tobacco juice (or a rude fireplace in its Btead) occupies one corner or end of the room Perhaps the occupant is not at home j more than likely he is not, but that can make no possible difference with the guests, so far as accommodations are concerned} custom will not permit a stock-man to lock his door. The guest has brought his blanket, and the provisions are at hand ; there is the floursack in the corner, the molasses jug close by, the coffee pot on the stove and the Bide of bacon hanging on its peg ; more than likely a leg of antelope or a quarter of beef is suspended from a pole outside. What more can he ask P Clearly nothing, if he knows enough to help himself. When the stranger has satisfied his stomach, he may look around and satisfy his mind. Everything is perfectly primitive in its simplicity ; perhaps this camp is twenty five miles from any other, the owner having two or three thousand head of cattle on the adjacent range, and yet all the implements of the craft, and all the provisions, and utensils of the house, can ba picked up, packed into a waggon and carted off on tea minutes' notice. The whole "outfit" can hardly differ in material respects from that of Jacob and Esau, eminent stock growers, on essentially this same plan. They had a tent in lieu of the dugout, it is true, but it had the advantage of portability, and many stockmen use tents to this day. " Marks aud brands," " corrals," "pack-saddles," "lariats," "quirts," "pocket pins," "spurs," and " rubbing-posts" were doubtless as common and as necessary items in the makeup of a cattle camp in those timos as now, and I doubt whether a single impleuient used in the great cattle business of the plains to day, could have been called a new invention or idea at any period of time for the last fivo thoumnd years. The Indian and the despised Mexican vie with the white stockgrowers of the iplains in the paraphernalia of camp and herd, and indeed, both" in the terms peculiar to the craft and the tools of the trade, the white man seeing to have successfully imitated the savage in all essential re3pecta. — New York Tribune.