106 BAHIA BLANC A. [chap. vi. 



CHArTER VI. 



Hct out for Buenos Ayres— Rio Sauce — Sieira Ventana — Third Posta-- 

 Driving Horses — Bolas — Partridges and Foxes — Features of the Country- 

 Long-legged Plover — Teru-tero — Hail-storm — Natural Enclosures in the 

 Sierra Tapalguen— Flesh of Puma — Meat Diet — Guardia del Monte- 

 Effects of Cattle on the Vegetation— Cardoon — Buenos Ayres — Corral 

 where Cattle are slaughtered. 



BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES 



September 8th. — I hired a Gaucho to accompany me on my 

 ride to Buenos Ayres, though with some difficulty, as the father 

 of one man was afraid to let him go, and another, w ho seemed 

 \s illing, was described to me as so fearful, that I was afraid to 

 take him, for I was told that even if he saw an ostrich at a dis- 

 tance, he would mistake it for an Indian, and w^ould fly like th.e 

 wind away. The distance to Buenos Ayres is about four lum- 

 dred miles, and nearly the wdiole way through an uninhabited 

 country. We started early in the morning ; ascending a few 

 hundred feet from the basin of green turf on which Bahia Blanca 

 stands, we entered on a wide desolate plain. It consists of a 

 crumbling argillaceo-calcareous rock, which, from tliedry nature 

 of the climate, supports only scattered tufts of withered grass, 

 M'ithout a single bush or tree to break the monotonous uniformity. 

 The weather was fine, but the atmospliere remarkably hazy ; I 

 thought the appearance foreboded a gale, but the Gauchos said 

 it was owing to the plain, at some great distance in the interior, 

 being on fire. After a long gallop, having changed horses twice, 

 we reached the Rio Sauce : it is a deep, rapid, little stream, 

 not above twenty-five feet wide. The second posta on the 

 road to Buenos Ayres stands on its banks ; a little above there is 

 a ford for horses, M'here the water does not reach to the horses' 

 belly ; but from that point, in its course to the sea, it is quite 

 Impassable, and hence makes a most us(!ful barrier against the 

 Indians. 



