Information respecting Botanical Travellers. 1 41 



a few specimens of what he said Signor Bonpland told him were rare 

 plants; one a species of Cleome, plentiful near Buenos Ayres, a dwarf 

 Eupatorium which I had often seen in the Pampas, and a slender 

 species of Colutea, abundant in Banda Oriental ; and near this farm 

 I gathered a beautiful purple-flowered perennial Senecio, found first 

 in a valley between the hills of Maldonado. Leaving this, the last 

 English stage on a journey of sixteen leagues from Buenos Ayres, 

 with a supply of five fresh horses, on the morning of the 14th, we 

 travelled four leagues through a fine grassy country, containing no 

 variety of herbage. The dry parts of it were beautifully adorned with 

 three or four species of purple and yellow Oxalis. We breakfasted 

 at the Guardia de la Monte, in the Pancho of an Italian gardener, 

 whose wife was a daughter of one of the late ephemeral governors 

 of Buenos Ayres. She was now, with her husband, contentedly 

 transplanting onions, of which crop they had several acres. Onions 

 are all transplanted in this country, as they will not thrive in seed- 

 beds. 



Leaving this in a S.W. direction, through a country nearly unin- 

 habited, something like the Scottish moors, covered with a species 

 of Santolina, called by the natives Genga Nigro, from its imparting 

 a black and dismal appearance to a country of hundreds of miles in 

 extent, enlivened only in a few places with flowers of the Oxalis and 

 a few species of Verbena ; in the afternoon we passed some extensive 

 lagunes, on whose shores not a vestige of aquatic plants were seen, 

 on account of the summer drought. About sunset we crossed the 

 Riosolado, or Sollan, as it is pronounced. There we saw what in 

 England would be accounted cruel and wasteful ; for the drivers of 

 a herd of about 2000 cattle, which the men, sixteen in number, were 

 conducting to Buenos Ayres, having stopped at the above river for the 

 night, had killed two young cows which had newly dropped their 

 calves. These cows are their favourite food, which they roast nearly 

 whole, just taking out the entrails. They place the whole carcase, with 

 the skin on, over a large fire : thus it lies until they consider it suffi- 

 ciently roasted, when all hands fall to work with their long knives, 

 satisfying their appetites as fast as they can, without either bread or 

 salt. This they called came con cuera, and a choice feast. The two 

 orphan calfs being left strolling in the desert, a flock of buzzards had 

 begun to torment the helpless young creatures and to endeavour to 

 kill them by first picking out their eyes : in this way they destroy 

 great quantities of sheep : even horses are thus killed by these strong 

 and ravenous birds. Having crossed the river, we travelled about 

 twelve miles farther, mostly in the dark, when we arrived at a post- 



