378 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
the slowest to resentment, the most reluctant to 
enter into a quarrel ; whereas in this species angry 
demonstrations were made when the intruder was 
yet far off, and before he had shown any hostile 
intentions. 
My last case—the last, that is, of the few I have 
selected—relates to a singular variation in the 
human species. On this occasion I was again 
travelling alone ina strange district on the southern 
frontier of Buenos Ayres. On a bitterly cold mid- 
winter day, shortly before noon, I arrived, stiff and 
tired, at one of those pilgrims’ rests on the pampas 
—a wayside pulperia, or public house, where the 
traveller can procure anything he may require or 
desire, from a tumbler of Brazilian rum to make 
glad his heart, to a poncho, or cloak of blue cloth 
with fluffy scarlet lining, to keep him warm 0’ 
nights; and, to speed him on his way, a pair of 
cast-iron spurs weighing six pounds avoirdupois, 
with rowels eight inches in diameter, manufactured 
in this island for the use of barbarous men beyond 
the sea. The wretched mud-and-grass building was 
surrounded by a foss crossed by a plank draw- 
bridge ; outside of the enclosure twelve or fourteen 
saddled horses were standing, and from the loud 
noise of talk and laughter in the bar I conjectured 
that a goodly company of rough frontiersmen were 
already making merry at that early hour. It was 
necessary for me to go in among them to see the 
proprietor of the place and ask permission to visit 
his kitchen in order to make myself a “ tin of coffee,” 
that being the refreshment I felt inclined for. 
When I went in and made my salutation, one man 
