CHAPTER VII 



Excursion to St. Fe — Thistle Beds — Habits of the Bizcacha — Little Owl — Saline 

 Streams — Level Plains — Mastodon — St. Fe — Change in Landscape — Geology 

 — Tooth of extinct Horse — Relation of the Fossil and recent Quadrupeds of 

 North and South America — Effects of a great Drought — Parana — Habits of the 

 Jaguar — Scissor-beak — Kingfisher, Parrot, and Scissor-tail — Revolution — Buenos 

 Ayres — State of Government. 



BUENOS AYRES TO ST. f£ 



September 2'jtJi. — In the evening I set out on an excursion to 

 St. Fe, which is situated nearly three hundred EngHsh miles 

 from Buenos Ayres, on the banks of the Parana. The roads 

 in the neighbourhood of the city, after the rainy weather, were 

 extraordinarily bad. I should never have thought it possible 

 for a bullock -waggon to have crawled along: as it was, they 

 scarcely went at the rate of a mile an hour, and a man was 

 kept ahead, to survey the best line for making the attempt. 

 The bullocks were terribly jaded : it is a great mistake to 

 suppose that with improved roads, and an accelerated rate of 

 travelling, the sufferings of the animals increase in the same 

 lo 



