GUARDIA DEL MONTE. 151 



day. At the twelfth posta, which is seven leagues 

 south of the Rio Salado, we came to the first es- 

 tancia with cattle and white women. Afterwards 

 we had to ride for many miles through a country 

 flooded with water above our horses' knees. Ey 

 crossing the stiiTups, and riding Arab-like, with 

 our legs bent up, wo contrived to keep tolerably 

 dry. It was nearly dark when we an-ived 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 foiti-ess. In the morn- 

 ing we saw immense herds of cattle, the general 

 here having seventy-four square leagues of land. 

 Formerly nearly three hundred men were employ- 

 ed about this estate, and they defied all the attacks 

 of the Indians. 



September I'dth. — 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 gi'een, with beds of clo- 

 ver 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 Sa- 

 lado. 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 differ- 

 ence 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 ob- 



