264 Recent Journey in South America. [Marcn, 
placing one of them before the reader, I make him acquainted with the 
exact character of the whole sixteen of which our caravan consisted. 
For this conveyance, I engaged to pay 120 dollars for the journey 
from Mendoga to Buenos Ayres—a distance of three hundred leagues : 
and, for the additional sum of a few dollars, I was to be supplied 
with a riding horse or mule, whenever I chose that mode of con- 
veyance. 
Before starting, I should mention, that the crew of these land ships, 
as they are called, (“ Barcos de Tierra”) consisted simply of the 
driver of each cart; a general director or bailiff (called a Capataz ;) 
a supercargo ; a carpenter ; four men called Boyeros, whose duty it was 
to attend to the oxen during halts, and collect them together when 
needed ; and lastly, three Manseros, or Muleteers, to perform the same 
office by the horses and mules. The passengers on this occasion 
(including four mulatta girls who had been purchased as slaves by some 
residents of Buenos Ayres) made our company amount, in all, to forty- 
three persons. 
It was on a fine sunshine morning of the 20th of August, 1824, that 
our troop started from Mendoga. The scene was an interesting one. 
The friends of all the party were present, waving hands and handker- 
chiefs, pronouncing and receiving farewells, pressing forward to deposit 
little presents and remembrances, and exhibiting the numerous tokens of 
interest and anxiety, which a long, and in some respects hazardous 
journey so naturally excites. As for myself, my cart was presently so 
loaded with tokens of good-will from my Mendoga friends, that I was 
at last obliged to decline receiving any more. 
Our line of march occupied about a quarter of a mile in length; for, 
besides the oxen attached to the carts, there were many spare ones 
intended to supply the place of any that might fall lame, and also a 
considerable number of bulls to supply food for our company, which 
the entrepreneus of the troop engaged to furnish during the whole 
journey, the drivers and other employés eating nothing whatever 
but beef, without vegetables, bread, or even salt. So that, including 
horses and mules, we were attended, at starting, by not less than two 
hundred and thirty head of cattle. 2 
At first, we got on very indifferently, from the draught oxen being 
fresh from grass, and consequently somewhat wild and unmanageable. 
So that during the first day, we did not advance more than four leagues 
from the town. I was not long in discovering that I had done well in 
providing the means of riding on horseback ; for I found that the cart 
I had engaged was useless except as a baggage waggon, on account of 
the almost unbearable violence of the motion, occasioned by the rudeness 
of its construction. On the second day, our troop was in motion long 
before sunrise ; aud I was struck with the remarkable skill with which 
each driver singled out, and caught his own set of oxen, notwithstanding 
the darkness which prevailed. Our road during the second day, lay 
through a sandy desert covered with coarse shrubs; and at night-fall, 
we had not made more than four additional leagues in advance. But 
after the third day, our progress increased ; for we now began to travel 
during the night also; proceeding for four hours regularly, and then 
resting for one hour. Immediately the carts stopped, it was the practice 
of the drivers to unyoke their oxen, and turn them loose, to be attended 
to by the Boyeros; while the drivers themselves instantly lighted fires 
