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over the plains, and eat up every leaf wliich retains any moisture
during the dry heats of summer. Before there were herds
of cattle, guanacoes ranged over the country, in great numbers,
as they now do to the southward of the river Negro,
where I have seen them grazing in large companies, like flocks
of sheep. During the droughts above-mentioned vast numbers
of cattle die for want of water, and perhaps this may he
the principal reason why so few trees grow there naturally; but
it cannot he the only one, because they grow where planted,
and partially sheltered, though not watered.
Most people are aware of the scale upon which the cattle
farms of the ‘ Banda Oriental’ and ‘ República Argentina’ were
carried on : hut the civil wars which have succeeded the steady
government of Spain have broken up and ruined many of the
largest establishments, where from one hundred to two hundred
thousand head of cattle were owned by one man—where
the annual increase was about thirty per cent—and where the
animals were, generally speaking, slaughtered for their hides
alone. AVhat must be the natural fertility of a country, which,
without the slightest assistance from man, can nourish such
enormous multitudes of cattle, besides immense droves of
horses and flocks of sheep, and yet, except near its few towns,
appear almost destitute of inhabitants.
To return to our little vessel—entering the Plata in 1832.
Unfavourable winds, and currents setting out of the river,
delayed our progress, and obliged us to anchor frequently.
AVe arrived at Monte Video on the 26th, and lost no time
in making observations for our chronometers, and preparing
for surveying the coasts southward of Cape San Antonio: but
as I found that it would be advisable to visit Buenos Ayres,
in order to communicate with the Government, and obtain
information, we sailed from Monte Video on the 31st, and two
days afterwards anchored off Buenos Ayres. There, however,
we did not remain an hour ; for the misconduct of a Buenos
Ayrean officer on board a vessel under their colours, and a
vexatious regulation with respect to quarantine, decided my
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returning forthwith to Monte Video; and commissioning a
capable person to procure for me copies of some original charts,
which I thought would he exceedingly useful, and which
could only be obtained from the remains of hydrographical information,
collected by Spain, but kept in the archives of
Buenos Ayres. The Beagle anchored again off Monte Video,
on the 3d of August, and as soon as the circumstances which
occasioned her return were made known to Captain G. AV.
Hamilton, commanding the Druid frigate, that ship sailed for
Buenos Ayres.
Scai’cely had the Druid disappeared beneath the horizon,
when the chief of the Monte Video police and the captain of
the port came on board the Beagle to request assistance in
preserving order in the town, and in preventing the aggressions
of some mutinous negro soldiers. I was also requested
by the Consul-general to afford the British residents any protection
in my power; and understanding that their lives, as
well as property, were endangered by the turbulent mutineers,
who were more than a match for the few well-disposed soldiers
left in the town, I landed with fifty well-armed men, and
remained on shore, garrisoning the principal fort, and thus
holding the mutineers in check, until more troops were brought
in from the neighbouring country, by whom they were surrounded
and reduced to subordination. The Beagle’s crew
were not on shore more than twenty-four hours, and were not
called upon to act in any way ; but I was told by the principal
persons whose lives and property were threatened, that the
presence of those seamen certainly prevented bloodshed.
Some days after this little interruption to our usual avocations,
we sailed across the river to Point Piedras, anchored
there for some hours to determine its position, then went to
Cape San Antonio, and from that point (rather than cape)
began our survey of the outer coast. To relate many details of
so slow and monotonous an occupation as examining any shore^
of which the more interesting features have long been known,
could answer no good purpose, and would be very tiresome to
I.
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