1833.J EXCURSION TO ST. FE'. 123 



CHAPTER YII. 



Excursion to St. Fe— Thistle Beds— Habits of the Bizcacha— Little Owl— 

 Saline Streams— Level Plains— jNIastodon — St. Fc'— Change in Landscape 

 —Geology— Tooth of extinct Horse— Relation of the Fossil and recent 

 Quadrupeds of North and South America — Effects of a great Drought- 

 Parana — Habits of the Jaguar— Scissor-beak— Kingfisher, Parrot, and 

 Scissor-tail — Revolution — Buenos Ayres — State of Government. 



BUENOS AYRES TO ST. FE . 



September 21th. — In tlie evening I set out on an excursion to 

 St. Fe, ^vhicll is situated nearly tliree hundred English miles 

 from Buenos Avres, on the banks of the Parana. The roads in 

 the neighbourhood of the city, after the rainy ^veather, were 

 extraordinarily bad. I should never have thought it possible 

 for a bullock waggon to have crawled along : as it was, tliey 

 scarcely went at the rate of a mile an hour, and a man was kept 

 ahead, to survey the best line for making the attempt. The 

 bullocks were terribly jaded : it is a great mistake to suppose 

 that with improved roads, and an accelerated rate of travelling, 

 the sufferings of the animals increase in the same proportion. 

 "We passed a train of waggons and a troop of beasts on their 

 road to Mendoza. The distance is about 580 geographical miles, 

 and the journey is generally performed in fifty days. These wag- 

 gons are very long, narrow, and thatched with reeds ; they have 

 onlv two wheels, the diameter of which in some cases is as much 

 as ten feet. Each is drawn by six bullocks, which are urged on 

 by a goad at least twenty feet long : this is suspended from 

 within the roof ; for the wheel bullocks a smaller one is kept; 

 and for the intermediate pair, a point projects at right angles 

 from the middle of the long one. The whole apparatus looked 

 like some implement of war. 



September 28th. — We passed the small town of Luxan, where 

 there is a wooden bridge over the river — a most unusual conve- 

 nience in this country. "\Ve passed also Areco. The plains 



