1833.] SPANISH SETTLEMENT. LC5 



plains and looking* towards the interior, the view is generally 

 bounded by the escarpment of another plain, rather higher, but 

 equally level and desolate ; and in every other direction the hori- 

 zon is indistinct from the trembling mirage which seems to rise 

 from the heated surface. 



In such a country the fate of the Spanish settlement was soon 

 decided ; the dryness of the climate during the greater part of 

 the year, and the occasional hostile attacks of the wandering 

 Indians, compelled the colonists to desert their half-finished 

 buildings. The style, however, in which they were commenced 

 shows the strong and liberal hand of Spain in the old time. 

 The result of all the attempts to colonize this side of America 

 south of 41°, have been miserable. Port Famine expresses by its 

 name the lingering and extreme sufferings of several hundred 

 wretched people, of whom one alcne survived to relate their mis- 

 fortunes. At St. Joseph's Bay, on the coast of Patagonia, a 

 small settlement was made ; but during one Sunday the Indians 

 made an attack and massacred the whole party, excepting two 

 men, who remained captives during many years. At the Rio 

 Negro I conversed with one of these men, now in extreme old age. 



The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its Flora.* On the 

 arid plains a few black beetles (Heteromera) might be seen 

 slowly crawling about, and occasionally a lizard darted from side 

 to side. Of birds we have three carrion hawks, and in the val- 

 leys a few finches and insect-feeders. An ibis (Theristicus me- 

 lanops— a species said to be found in central Africa) is not 

 uncommon on the most desert parts : in their stomachs I found 

 grasshoppers, cicadae, small lizards, and even scorpions-. J " At 

 one time of the year these birds go in flocks, at another ii pairs ; 

 their cry is very loud and singular, like the neighing of the 

 guanaco. 



* I found here a species of cactus, described by Professor Henslow, under 

 the name of Opuntia Darwinii (Magazine of Zoology and Botany, vol. i. 

 p. 466), which was remarkable by the irritability of the stamens, when I 

 inserted either a piece of stick or the end of my finger in the flower. The 

 segments of the perianth also closed on the pistil, but more slowly than the 

 stamens. Plants of this family, generally considered as tropical, occur in North 

 America (Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 221), in the same high latitude 

 as here, namely, in both cases, in 47°. 



t These insects were not uncommon beneath stones- I found one cannibal 

 scorpion quietly devouring another, 



