106 B.1H1A BRANCA, [chap.vi 



CHAPTER VI. 



Set out for Buenos Ayres — Rio Sauce— Sierra Ventana — Third Posta— 

 Driving Horses — Bolas — Partridges and Foxes — Features of the Country — 

 Long-legged Plover — Teru-tero — Hail-storm — Natural Enclosures in the 

 Sierra Tapalguen— Flesh of Puma— Meat Diet — Guardia del Monte- 

 Effects of Cattle on the Vegetation— Cardoon — Buenos Ayres — Corral 

 where Cattle are slaughtered. 



BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. 



September 8th. — I hired a Gaucho to accompany me on my 

 ride to Buenos Ayres, though with some difficulty, as the father 

 of one man was afraid to let him go, and another, who seemed 

 willing, was described to me as so fearful, that I was afraid to 

 take him, for I was told that even if he saw an ostrich at a dis- 

 tance, he would mistake it for an Indian, and would fly like the 

 wind away. The distance to Buenos Ayres is about four hun- 

 dred miles, and nearly the whole way through an uninhabited 

 country. We started early in the morning ; ascending a few 

 hundred feet from the basin of green turf on which Bahia Blanca 

 stands, we entered on a wide desolate plain. It consists of a 

 crumbling argillaceo-calcareous rock, which, from the dry nature 

 of the climate, supports only scattered tufts of withered grass, 

 without a single bush or tree to break the monotonous uniformity. 

 The weather was fine, but the atmosphere remarkably hazy ; I 

 thought the appearance foreboded a gale, but the Gauchos said 

 it was owing to the plain, at some great distance in the interior, 

 being on fire. After a long gallop, having changed horses twice, 

 we reached the Rio Sauce : it is a deep, rapid, little stream, 

 not above twenty-five feet wide. The second posta on the 

 road to Buenos Ayres stands on its banks ; a little above there is 

 a ford for horses, where the water does not reach to the horses' 

 belly ; but from that point, in its course to the sea, it is quite 

 impassable, and hence makes a most useful barrier against the 

 Indians. 



