Letters of Mr. J. Graham Kerr. 355 



tance of eight leagues. This volante was a peculiar sort of 

 carriage, between a buggy and a stanhope, it was drawn by 

 five horses and driven by a young native. Waving an adieu 

 to the landlord, we started off at a trot until we got clear of 

 the town, when the pace got into a smart gallop, and at this 

 we sped rapidly on our way. The road was a mere track 

 across the open pampa ; the ground was firm, without being- 

 dry enough to be dusty, and there was a pleasing soft- 

 ness about our motion, due to the absence of stones upon 

 the road ; at the same time there was plenty of shaking 

 about ; one wheel would occasionally sink down a biscacha- 

 burrow, sending one flying up into the air and making one 

 convulsively clutch the handrail. Our way varied in cha- 

 racter, now galloping wildly over a stretch of close green 

 turf, then moving more slowly through some swampy ground, 

 and anon threading our way cautiously through a lonely 

 laguna, with water over the axle-trees. This drive was my 

 first real view of the country out here ; here I had my first 

 glimpses of the Argentine fauna ; now I saw with my own 

 eyes many sights I had often read about. Altogether it was 

 an intensely enjoyable and interesting drive. It being now 

 towards the close of winter, the tall grasses of the pampas 

 were brown and withered ; here aud there might be seen a 

 stretch of beautiful close-cropped turf, generally on the 

 slope overlooking a lagoon, and in it a cluster of large 

 burrows resembling those of the rabbit, but twice as big ; 

 these I recognized as biscacha villages, their four-footed 

 owners not being visible ; but perched at the mouth of some 

 of the burrows was a pair of delightful little Prairie Owls, 

 sitting bolt upright close together, motionless as statues, save 

 for the slow rotation of their heads, keeping an eye on us as 

 we sped past. By the edge of a lagoon might be seen a 

 flock of dark-coloured Ibises, probing the mud with their 

 slender curved bills, and carrying one back in imagination 

 to the long past days of those Egyptian monuments on which 

 the sacred bird figures so prominently. Upon the other side 

 of the lagoon a group of tall Flamingoes of a beautiful rosy 

 pink colour appeared to dream away their existence, motion- 



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