PAMPAS. Sept. 1833.
shaped huts of the Indians. The families of the friendly
Indians, who were fighting on the side of Rosas, resided
here. We met and passed many young Indian women, riding
by two or three together on the same horse: they, as well
as many of the young men, were strikingly handsome,—their
fine ruddy complexions being the picture of health. Besides
the toldos, there were three ranchos; one inhabited by
the Commandant, and the two others by Spaniards with small
shops.
We were here able to buy some biscuit. I had now been
several days without tasting any thing besides meat: I did
not at aU dislike this new regimen; but I felt as if it would
only have agreed with very hard exercise. I have heard that
patients in England, when desired to confine themselves exclusively
to an animal diet, even with the hope of life before
their eyes, have hardly been able to endure it. Yet the
Gaucho in the Pampas, for months together, touches
nothing but beef. But they eat, I observe, a very large
proportion of fat, which is of a less animalized nature;
and they particularly dislike dry meat, such as that of the
Agouti. It is, perhaps, from this regimen that the Gauchos,
like other carnivorous animals, can abstain long from food.
I was told that at Tandeel, some troops voluntarily pursued a
party of Indians for three days, without eating or drinking.
We saw in the shops, many articles, such as horsecloths,
belts, and garters, woven by the Indian women. The patterns
werevery pretty, and the colours brilliant; the workmanship
of the garters was so good, that an English merchant at
Buenos Ayres, maintained they must have been manufactured
in England, till he found the tassels had been fastened
by split sinew.
S e p t e m b e r 1 8 t h .—We had a very long ride this day. At
the twelfth posta, which is seven leagues south of Rio Salado,
we came to the first estancia with cattle and white women.
Afterwards we had to ride for many miles through a country
flooded with water above our horses’ knees. By crossing
the stirrups, and riding Arah-like with our legs bent up, we
contrived to keep tolerably dry. It was nearly dark when
we arrived at the Salado ; the stream was deep, and about
forty yards wide ; in summer, however, its bed becomes almost
dry, and the little remaining water nearly as salt as that of the
sea. We slept at one of the great estancias of General Rosas.
It was fortified, and of such an extent, that arriving in the
dark I thought it was a town and fortress. In the morning
we saw immense herds of cattle, as well we might, the general
here having seventy-four square leagues of land. F ormerly
nearly three hundred men were employed about this estate,
and they defied all the attacks of the Indians.
S e p t e m b e r 1 9 t h .—Passed the Guardia del Monte. This
is a nice scattered little town, with many gardens, full of
peach and quince trees. The plain here looked like that
around Buenos Ayres ; the turf being short and bright green,
with beds of clover and thistles, and with bizcacha holes. I
was very much struck with the marked change in the aspect
of the country after having crosspd the Salado. From a coarse
herbage we passed on to a carpet of fine green verdure. I at
first attributed this to some change in the nature of the soil,
hut the inhabitants assured me that in this part, as well as in
Banda Oriental, where there was as great a difference betM’een
the country around Monte Video and the thinly-inhabited
savannahs of Colonia, that the whole was to be attributed to
the manuring and grazing of the cattle. I am not botanist
enough to say, whether the change is owing to the introduction
of new species, to the altered growth of the same, or to
a difference in their proportional numbers. Azara has also
observed with astonishment this change : he is likewise much
perplexed by the immediate appearance of plants not occurring
in the neighbourhood, on the borders of any track that
leads to a newly-constructed hovel. In another part he says,*
“ Ces chevaux (sauvages) ont la manie de préférer les chemins,
et le bord des routes pour déposer leurs excrémens, dont on
trouve des monceaux dans ces endroits.” Does this not
* A z a r a ’s Voyage, vol. i., p. 3 7 3 .
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