a cliff about sixty feet higli over the Parana. The river
here is very broad, with many islands, which are low
and wooded, as is also the coast of the opposite shore.
The view would resemble that of a great lake, if it were not
for the linear-shaped islets, which alone give the idea of
running water. The cliffs are the most picturesque part;
sometimes they are absolutely perpendicular, and of a red
colour; at other times in large broken masses, covered with
cacti and mimosa-trees. The real grandeur, however, of an
immense river like this, is derived from reflecting how im.-
jiortant a means of communication and commerce, it forms
between one nation and another; to what a distance it
travels; and from how vast a territory it drains the great
body of fresh water which flows past your feet.
For many leagues north and south of San Nicholas and
Rozario, the country is really level. Scarcely any thing
which travellers have written about its extreme flatness, can
be considered as exaggeration. Yet I could never find a
spot, where, by slowly tmming round, objects were not
seen at greater distances in some directions than in others;
and this manifestly proves inequality in the plain. At sea,
a person’s eye being six feet above the surface of the water,
his horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In like
manner, the more level the plain, the more nearly does the
horizon approach within these narrow limits: and this, in
my opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur, which one
would Lave imagined that a vast level plain would have
possessed.
O c t o b e r 1 s t .—AA"e started by moonlight and arrived at
the Rio Tercero by sunrise. This river is also called the
Saladillo, and it deserves the name, for the water is brackish.
I staid here the greater part of the day, searching for
fossil bones. Falconer mentions having seen, in the bed of
this river, great bones, and the case of a giant armadillo.
By good fortune, I discovered a tooth embedded in a layer
of rock marl, which was afterwards found exactly to fit the
socket in the head of a strange animal, the Toxodon, which
will presently be mentioned. Hearing also of the remains
of one of the old giants, which a man told me he had seen
on the banks of the Parana, I procured a canoe, and proceeded
to the place. Two groups of immense bones projected
in bold relief from the perpendicular cliff. They
were, however, so completely decayed, that I could only
bring away small fragments of one of the great molar-teeth;
but these M'ere sufficient to show that the remains belonged
to a species of Mastodon. The men who took me in the
canoe, said they had long known of them, and had often
wondered how they had got there : the necessity of a theory
being felt, they came to the conclusion, that, like the bizcacha,
the mastodon formerly was a burrowing animal! In the
eyening we rode another stage, and crossed the Monge,
another brackish stream, bearing the dregs of the washings
of the Pampas.
O c t o b e r 2 d . •— We passed through Corunda, which,
from the luxuriance of its gardens, was one of the prettiest
villages I saw. From this point to St. Fe the road is not
very safe. The western side of the Parana further northward,
ceases to be inhabited ; and hence the Indians sometimes
come down, and waylay travellers. The nature of the
country also favours this, for instead of a grassy plain, there
is an open woodland, composed of low prickly mimosas.:
We passed some houses that had been ransacked and since
deserted; we saw also a spectacle, which my guides viewed
with high satisfaction; it was the skeleton of an Indian with
the dried skin hanging on the bones, suspended to the
branch of a tree.
In the morning we arrived at St. Fe. I was surprised to
observe how great a change of climate a difference of only
three degrees of latitude between this place and Buenos
Ayres had caused. This was evident from the dress and
complexion of the men—from the increased size of the ombu-
trees—the number of new cacti and other plants—and especially
from the birds. In the course of an hour I remarked
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