174 Account of a Journey ao'oss the 



Being now only 40 leagues from the town of Tucuman and 

 my patience quite exhausted^ I quitted the tropa, and accom- 

 panying the owner of 32 mules which were going to the mines 

 of Peru, I started with him on the 20th. It proved no easy 

 job for the 4 men and the proprietor to drive these animals, 

 they strayed so much into the thorny brushwood ; and though 

 the driver was faced from top to toe with a hide protector, he 

 had much difficulty in making his way through the woods, 

 especially where the Chaneos abounded. These delays how- 

 ever allowed me to botanize and to gather a few seeds, for of 

 flowering specimens there were none. About 9 o'clock we 

 halted in the woods and kindled a fire to prepare our asado 

 for supper, but the night proved so extremely cold that we 

 could not sleep, so we started at about 3 in the morning and 

 travelled till sunrise, when we arrived at the site of a few 

 ranchos. Here we tied our horses to trees, entered the most 

 decent looking dwelling, which proved to be the principal inn, 

 as I suppose, of the country, for few were the habitations of 

 any kind that we had seen, and called for something for break- 

 fast. The morning being very chilly w^e were ushered into 

 the principal apartment, which was nothing more than a 

 roughly finished hut, covered with a sort of long grass, its 

 sides not even plastered with mud, only stuffed with straw 

 and sticks between the posts ; in the centre was a large fire 

 of sticks, a welcome sight for oiu* cold persons ; this fire-place 

 was a circle of large coarse stones, 6 feet in diameter, placed 

 in the centre of the room, and holding as many ashes as seemed 

 a twelvemonth's accumulation. Four women, 6 naked child- 

 ren, and a lot of dogs, cats, and poultry surrounded the fire, 

 all contending which should get the largest share of an over- 

 plus of boiled pompions which had been left from last night's 

 supper. One old woman was busy scraping the outer skin 

 from more pompions for the family's breakfast, while the 

 others sat idly looking on. The mode of preparing the pom- 

 pions for food was to slit the largest in halves, and then put- 

 ting them into the hottest part of this enormous fire, to fill 

 the hollow or concave side with hot charred wood. While 

 they they were thus roasting the landlord desired that the 

 cow should be brought in and milked, which was done ac- 



