SET OUT FOR BUENOS AYHES. 135 



now nse bows and aiTows. I believe a small tribe 

 in Banda Oriental must be excepted ; but they are 

 widely separated from the Pampas Indians, and 

 border close on those tribes that inhabit the forest 

 and live on foot. It appears, therefore, that these 

 arrow-heads are antiquarian relics* of the Indians, 

 before the great change in habits consequent on 

 the introduction of the horse into South America. 



CHAPTER VI. 



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

 Posta — Driving Horses — Bolas — Partridges and P'oxes — Fea- 

 tures 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 Cat- 

 tle are slaughtered. 



BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. 



September 8th. — I hired a Gaucho to accompa- 

 ny 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 distance he would mistake it for an 

 Indian, and would fly like the wind away. The 

 distance to Buenos Ayres is about four hundred 

 miles, and nearly the whole way through an unin- 

 habited country. We started early in the morn- 

 ing ; 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 scat- 



* Azara has even doubted whether the Pampas Indians ever 

 used bows. 



