56 BAHIA BLANCA. [CHAP. rv. 



overtook and killed his two friends. His own horse's legs were also 

 caught by the bolas ; but he jumped off, and with his knife cut them 

 free ; while doing this he was obliged to dodge round his horse, and 

 received two severe wounds from their chuzos. Springing on the 

 saddle, he managed, by a most wonderful exertion, just to keep ahead 

 of the long spears of his pursuers, who followed him to within sight of 

 the fort. From that time there was an order that no one should stray 

 far from the settlement. I did not know of this when I started, and 

 was surprised to observe how earnestly my guide watched a deer, 

 which appeared to have been frightened from a distant quarter. 



We found the Beagle had not arrived, and consequently set out on 

 our return, but the horses soon tiring, we were obliged to bivouac on 

 the plain. In the morning we had caught an armadillo, which, although 

 a most excellent dish when roasted in its shell, did not make a very 

 substantial breakfast and dinner for two hungry men. The ground at 

 the place where we stopped for the night, was incrusted with a layer of 

 sulphate of soda, and hence, of course, was without water. Yet many 

 of the smaller rodents managed to exist even here, and the tucutuco 

 was making its odd little grunt beneath my head, during half the night 

 Our horses were very poor ones, and in the morning they were soon 

 exhausted from not having had anything to drink, so that we were 

 obliged to walk. About noon the dogs killed a kid which we roasted. 

 I ate some of it, but it made me intolerably thirsty. This was the 

 more distressing as the road, from some recent rain, was full of little 

 puddles of clear water, yet not a drop was drinkable. I had scarcely 

 been twenty hours without water, and only part of the time under a hot 

 Bun, yet the thirst rendered me very weak. How people survive two 

 or three days under such circumstances, I cannot imagine ; at the same 

 time, I must confess that my guide did not suffer at all, and was 

 astonished that one day's deprivation should be so troublesome to me. 



I have several times alluded to the surface of the ground being in- 

 crusted with salt. This phenomenon is quite different from that of the 

 salihas, and more extraordinary. In many parts of South America, 

 wherever the climate is moderately dry, these incrustations occur ; but 

 I have nowhere seen them so abundant as near Bahia Blanca. The 

 salt here, and in other parts of Patagonia, consists chiefly of sulphate 

 of soda with some common salt. As long as the ground remains moist 

 in these salitrales (as the Spaniards improperly call them, mistaking 

 this substance for saltpetre), nothing is to be seen but an extensive 

 plain composed of a black, muddy soil, supporting scattered tufts of 

 succulent plants. On returning through one of these tracts, after a 

 week's hot weather, one is surprised to see square miles of the plain 

 white, as if from a slight fall of snow, here and there heaped up by the 

 wind into little drifts. This latter appearance is chiefly caused by the 

 salts being drawn up, during the slow evaporation of the moisture, 

 round blades of dead grass, stumps of wood, and pieces of broken 

 earth, instead of being crystallized at the bottoms of the puddles of 

 water. The salitrales occur either on level tracts elevated only a few 

 feet atove the level of the sea, or on alluvial land bordering rivers. 



