Cape San Anto?iio, Buenos Ayres. 407 



of the way in which a rancho, a tree, or a herd of cattle or 

 horses, appears on the horizon, is reached, passed, and fades 

 in the distance, to be replaced by some such other object, 

 as the rider gallops steadily on, fifty miles before noon, ninety 

 by the time he finally dismounts and stakes out his horse. 

 Words cannot describe the pampas ; they need to be seen to 

 be appreciated properly. It is strange that various writers 

 find their influence to be gloomy and saddening, and attribute 

 the natural Spanish gravity of the country-people to this 

 most unnatural cause. They are solemn and impressive at 

 times — in a summer thunder-storm, or at night, with a fierce 

 pampero wind driving a few white clouds across the full 

 moon ; but commend me to the warm sunlight, the sensation 

 of perfect freedom in that great solitude, the line where plain 

 and sky meet so palpably, yet so unattainably, though the 

 long leagues gather behind one, day after day, while the 

 only sounds are those of the breeze among the grasses and 

 scarlet " margaritas " (verbenas) , the occasional cry o£ a bird, 

 and the continuous dull roll of the horse's hoofs, with its 

 jingling accompaniment from the Spanish saddle-housings. 



The actual alluvial soil here is shallow, and consists of 

 about nine inches of black earth, followed by a foot of clay 

 (locally called ''greda") ; then comes sand, and after that — 

 more sand ! which expresses all that is known of the depth 

 of the latter stratum. There are no stones or pebbles, not 

 even of the size of a pin-head ; but sea-shells make their ap- 

 pearance in the sand at from eight to ten feet below the surface 

 of the ground. Water is found at a depth of from four to 

 eight feet, but is very often either salt or brackish. Probably 

 the district averages only six feet above the level of the sea. 



Of the grasses, suflfice it to say that they have undergone 

 various important modifications during the last fifty years, 

 the "cortadera'' or pampa-grass being only found in the 

 rincones now, and having been replaced by soft grasses. De 

 Moussy, in his late Avork on the Argentine Confederation, 

 includes this district among the highest class of pastoral lands 

 in the province of Buenos Ayres; and Buenos Ayres yields 

 precedence to no other country in the world on that point. 



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