Gulf Coast breeze. [volume] (Crawfordville, Fla.) 1897-19??, 1897-12-24
LASSOTNG THE CONDOR.
A FORTUNE GAINED IN A YEAR IN
THIS UNIQUE TRADE.

for Zach COudor's Head Mammoth
Birds Destroyed Cattle Twenty tundorS
aFrcuucnt Days work Tor an American.
Henry W. Knowles, who went to
Chile from San Francisco in 1870 with
Henry MeigS Of South American rail
road fame aud enormous wealth came
mp the coast to Los Angeles the other
day, after mn absence Of fifteen years
from California. He went away n
poor boy from San Francisco. and is
now paying taxes on some million dol
lars worth of property in Callao,
Perm, and in Valparaiso and other cit
les in Chile.
81 got my start toward fortune,
said he To- II Los Angeles correspond
cnt of the Philadelphia Times, when
pressed to tell how he had prospered
in South America. "by lassoing con.
doris. That may seem very strange
occupation for money making, but 1t
was not so uncommon down in Chile
aud Peru. You see | had lived IA II
boy so long among the plainsmcn in
Kansas and Nevada that ! became cN-
pert with the lariat and on u horse.
The Chilean government, AZ the sug.
gestion of Meigs, gave bounty of -
for every condor killed in the repub.
lie. You see the birds had become
such nuisance and were increasing
so fast that they devoured tens of
thousands Of dollars worth of food
every year. aud attacked herds of
sheep, and eyon calves and colts, in
their fcrocity for . carcass to prey
upon.
"Woll, the Chilenns felt 40 prosper
Gus that, coupled with their natural
indolerce, they did not care to avail
themselves of the opportunities to
make money 10y Staying the condors,
for the vocation requires hard work
and many physical risks. | had not
been down in Chile q week before |
saw chance To make more money
than | had ever before dreamed ofpos.
sessing by lassoing and killing the
mammoth birds. There were three of
Us Yankees in Valparaiso, and We de-
cided to go into the condor. killing
business. The next day. mounted on
horses that Meigs bought for us, and
armed with guns and lariats, We start
oil out to hunt condors among the
foothills and canyons and crsgs Of the
Andes mountains. We went over 800
miles, out among the cattlemen and
sheep herders. For few days we
had instructions from few Chileans
as to the most experienc methods of
capturing tho enormous aud savage
birds
''In a few weeks we Yankees had
learned every detail of hunting con-
doris, and our native ingenuity had
added to the experience Of the Chill
cans. For months got from ten to
twenty condor heads every day, and
each one in our party did half AZ we'll
as that Every month during the
years 1871 and 1872 and 1873 got
warrants on tue Chilean treasury for
from 800 to $500. One month when
had forwarded PIG dried condor
heads TO the controller of Chile aud
had sworn that there was no fraud by
me, | got u warrant for $lOS0.
"rhe big birds used to be found in
nocks of seventy or eight in the graz
ing countries of the lower Andes in
Central Chile. Like other members
of the vulture family they search ey-
erywhere for carcasses upon which to
feed They have wonderfully keen
eye, and | have proved to myself that
a condor can see dead animal ten and
even fifteen miles away.
Twenty years ago il was no
thing to see hundreds Of
these freebooters lowering over the
plains, each one rayenOus and de-
termined dinner robber from the
herds below, to which the shadow of
u condor's wing carried as much terror
IA the appearance Of hawk does 10 u
brood of chickens. The condor was
the greatest enemy the stOck-raisers
in that part Of South America had to
contend with, and it was his persist.
ent and destructive raids on grazing
cattle that made him an outlaw with Il
price on his head.
chow did we capture these fero-
cious birds? Our first job every morn
ing before we had even peep Of sun
light over the mountains was to carry
the carcass Of dead animal, as u
horse or COW, out on the plain,
where it could easily be seen from all
points OF the compass We moved
about every few days from one locality
to another, and never put the body |
twice in the same place, because Of the
extreme suspiciousness Of an average
condor. Generally, we would move
three or four miles every twentyfour |
hours. Sometimes, when we were