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to five “ brazeros,” i.e., five arm spans; and as it is in consequence
much too short to answer the purpose of a lasso, these mounted
tramps are no longer able to capture stray bullocks for the sole
pleasure of gouging out the tongue as a dainty dish. Indeed, a
gentleman of Durazno, for many years resident in the country,
informed me that it was now no uncommon thing to see a Gaucho
carrying a hempen rope instead of a thong, the want of a lasso
leaving him without the means of helping himself to a cowhide.
About Colon the prevailing plants were a large thistle and a
purple-flowered Echiiim, and these so predominated as at a distance
to seem to cover the entire surface of the ground. A light fall of
rain, and a puffy breeze, combined to make it a bad day for insect
hunting, and accordingly very few of these creatures were seen or
captured. Of birds, the cardinal grosbeak, partridges, and pigeons,
were abundant.
Some days subsequently we received, through the courtesy of
the directors of the railway company, permission to travel free
to the extremity of their line, and of this indulgence we availed
ourselves so far as to make a trip to Durazno, the northern terminus
of the railway. Accordingly, a party consisting of the captain
and four of us ward-room officers started by a train leaving the central
terminus at seven in the morning. This railway, which has been
for eleven years in existence, and for a long time struggling agamst
unfavourable circumstances (rebellion and so forth), is now gradually
assuming a prosperous condition, and has been extended so
far that it now pierces the republic of Uruguay in a northern
direction, to a distance of 128 miles from Monte Video. As we
emerged from the precincts of the town, and passed through a
hamlet called “ Bella-Vista,” on the shores of the bay, we noticed
here and there woods of the eucalyptus tree growing in great luxuriance
to a height of eighty and even a hundred feet, the foliage of
adjoining trees being so interlocked as to afford considerable patches
of shelter from the sun’s rays. Sir George Nares, who has had
some experience of these trees in Australia, where they are indigenous,
said that he had rarely seen them clad with so dense a
foliage. We were told that these trees had been imported and
planted only twelve years previously; yet such is their rapidity of
growth, that they are now of the magnitude of forest trees. On
reaching a distance of about twelve miles from Monte Video, the
.lumber of trees (none of which, except the willows, were indigenous)
had so far decreased, that the few solitary representatives which
dotted the landscape served only to render the paucity of the race
the more remarkable. The surface configuration of the land was
everywhere the same— a gently undulating grass-covered plain,
where the depths from crest to hollow averaged about thirty feet,
admitting a range of vision of about twelve miles from the summit
of each rise. Of ravines, fissures, or gullies, there were none; and
as the railway track had evaded the difficulties of levelling by
pursuing a most meandering course, not even a cutting was to be
seen to afford means for arriving at a geological examination of
the district. About the station of Independencia, rock was to be
seen for the first time, consisting of a coarse-grained (apparently
felspathic) granite, showing itself through the alluvial soil in the
shape of low rounded masses, or as boulders disseminated in
streams directed radially from the outcropping source. A t the
next station, appropriately named “ Las Piedras” (the stones), the
rock was in greater proportion; and during the remainder of our
journey north, perhaps once in every ten miles, the wide expanse
of grass-land would be varied by an odd-looking outcrop of granite.
Stone was evidently a rare commodity in these parts, most of the
huts being built of sticks and mud.
As far as Santa Lucia, a station about forty miles from Monte
Video, the land (divided into fields by hedgerows of aloes) was
studded thickly enough with large prickly thistles of a very
coarse description ; but to the northward of this position the
prominent features of the landscape underwent a change. Trees
disappeared altogether, and except along the river banks, where
some bushes resembling bog-myrtle eked out an existence, no
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