124 BAHIA BLANC A TO BUENOS AY RES chap. 



We saw in the shops many articles, such as horsecloths, belts, 

 and garters, woven by 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 Ayres 

 maintained they must have been manufactured in England, till 

 he found the tassels had been fastened by split sinew. 



September i Zth. — We had a very long ride this day. At 

 the twelfth posta, which 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 I 

 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 i <^th. — 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 



^ See Mr. Atwater's "Account of the Prairies," in Sillimati's N'. A./onnial, vol. i. 

 p. 117. 



