118 BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. [CHAP. vi. 



and garters, woven oy the Indian women. The patterns were 

 very pretty, and the colours brilliant ; the workmanship of the 

 garters was so good that an English merchant at Buenos Ay res 

 maintained they must have been manufactured in England, till 

 he found the tassels had been fastened by split sinew. 



September ISth. We had a very long ride this day. At the 

 twelfth posta, whi:h is seven leagues south of the Rio Salado, 

 we came to the first estancia with cattle and white women. 

 Afterwards we had to ride for many miles through a country 

 flooded with water above our horses' knees. By crossing the 

 stirrups, and riding Arab-like with our legs bent up, we con- 

 trived to keep tolerably dry. It was nearly dark when we 

 arrived at the Salado ; the stream was deep, and about forty 

 yards wide ; in summer, however, its bed becomes almost dry, 

 and the little remaining water nearly as salt as that of the sea. 

 We slept at one of the great estancias of General Rosas. It was 

 fortified, and of such an extent, that arriving in the dark 1 

 thought it was a town and fortress. In the morning we saw 

 immense herds of cattle, the general here having seventy-four 

 square leagues of land. Formerly nearly three hundred men 

 were employed about this estate, and they defied all the attacks 

 of the Indians. 



September 19th. Passed the Guardia del Monte. This is a 

 nice scattered little town, with many gardens, full of peach and 

 quince trees. The plain here looked like that around Buenos 

 Ayres ; the turf being short and bright green, with beds of 

 clover and thistles, and with bizcacha holes. I was very much 

 struck with the marked change in the aspect of the country after 

 having crossed the Salado. From a coarse herbage we passed on 

 to a carpet of fine green verdure. I at first attributed this to 

 some change in the nature of the soil, but the inhabitants 

 assured me that here, as well as in Banda Oriental, where there 

 is as great a difference between the country around Monte Video 

 and the thinly-inhabited savannahs of Colonia, the whole was 

 to be attributed to the manuring and grazing of the cattle. 

 Exactly the same fact has been observed in the prairies* of North 

 America, where coarse grass, between five and six feet high, 



* See Mr. Atwater's account of the Prairies, in Silliman's X. A. Journal 

 vol. L p. 117. 



