163 EXCURSION TO ST. FE. 



also called the Saladillo, and it deserves the name, 

 for the water is brackish. I stayed here the greater 

 part of the day, searching for fossil bones. Be- 

 sides a perfect tooth of the Toxodon, and many 

 scattered bones, I found two immense skeletons 

 near each other, projecting in bold relief from the 

 perpendicular cliff of the Parana. They were, 

 however, so completely decayed, that I could only 

 bring away small fragments of one of the great mo- 

 lar teeth ; but these are sufficient to show that the 

 remains belonged to a Mastodon, probably to the 

 same species with that which formerly must have 

 inhabited the Cordillera in Upper Peru in such 

 great numbers. The men who took me in the ca- 

 noe said they had long known of these skeletons, 

 and had often wondered how they had got there : 

 the necessity of a theory being felt, they came to 

 the conclusion that, like the bizcacha, the masto- 

 don was formerly a burrowing animal ! In the 

 evening we rode another stage, and crossed the 

 Monge, another brackish stream, bearing the dregs 

 of the washings of the Pampas, 



Oct. 2d. — We passed through Corunda, which, 

 from the luxuriance of its gardens, was one of the 

 prettiest villages I saw. From this point to St. Fe 

 the road is not very safe. The western side of the 

 Parana northward ceases to be inhabited, and hence 

 the Indians sometimes come down thus far, and 

 waylay travellers. The nature of the country also 

 favours this, for instead of a grassy plain, there is 

 an open woodland, composed of low, prickly mi- 

 mosas. We passed some houses that had been 

 ransacked and since deserted ; we saw also a spec- 

 tacle, which my guides viewed with high satisfac- 

 tion : it was the skeleton of an Indian, with the 

 dried skin hanging on the bones, suspended to the 

 branch of a tree. 



