INDIAN ROADS 213 



tracks, was one of the places where the tribes col- 

 lected. " This place," says the diary of the 1778 

 expedition, " is the first point where the hostile Indians 

 meet and rest when they leave the Sierra and on 

 returning from their invasions. They not only rest 

 there, but have their winter pasture there " (in the 

 dry season). I Zeballos has described the Indian track, 

 the rusirillada, between Epecuen, Atreuco and Traru 

 Lauquen, where the travesia on the road to Chile 

 began. 2 It was not less than 1,000 feet in width. 

 At the foot of the dunes there were deep parallel 

 grooves made by the feet of the raided cattle, which 

 were taken away by the " Chilefios." 



The two main roads of the colonial period are the 

 roads to Chile and Peru. On leaving Buenos Aires 

 there was one road for a distance of about 320 miles. 

 The " trade road " passed through Lujan, Areco and 

 Sauce, and reached the Carcaraiia, or Rio Tercero, at 

 Esquina. It therefore kept at some distance from 

 the Parana (32 to 16 miles), on the tableland, crossing 

 the valleys which were embedded in it and represented 

 so many bad parts. It then ascended the Tercero on 

 the right bank as far as the Paso Fereira, at the spot 

 where Villa Maria is to-day. At Esquina de Medrano 

 (Villa Maria) the road to Chile branched off to the 

 south-east, reached San Luis by following the Rio 

 Cuarto, going through Achiras and San Jose del Morro, 

 and, after a travesia seventy-eight miles in length, 

 came to the Rio Tunuyan at La Paz, and ascended 

 the river to Mendoza.3 



' Coll. de Angelis, v. 



» Est. Zeballos, Descripcion amena de la Repuhlica Argentina, vol. i, 

 " Vi^je al pais de los Araucanos " (Buenos Aires, 1881). 



3 Martin de Moussy says that a more direct route, avoiding the 

 detour to the north by the Rio Tercero, was followed in the eighteenth 

 century between Buenos Aires and San Luis, by way of Salto and 

 the Rio Quinto as far as the latitude of fort Constitucion (Villa Mer- 

 cedes). Woodbine Parish's map (1839) and Napp's map (1876) both 

 show a road by way of Salto and Melincue to the Rio Cuarto, where 

 it joins the ordinary road. However that may be, these roads were 



