1833.] BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. 113 



I saw one day a soldier striking fire with a piece of 

 flint, which I immediately recognised as having been a 

 part of the head of an arrow. He told me it was found 

 near the island of Cholechel, and that they are frequently 

 picked up there. It was between two and three inches , 

 long, and therefore twice as large as those now used in 

 Tierra del Fuego : it was made of opaque cream-coloured 

 flint, but the point and barbs had been intentionally broken 

 off. It is well known that no Pampas Indians now use 

 bows and arrows. 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. 



BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. 



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

 Posta — Driving Horses — Bolas — Partridges and Foxes — 

 Features 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 Cattle are slaughtered. 



September Sth. — I hired a Gaucho to accompany 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 uninhabited country. We started 

 early in the morning ; 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 scattered tufts of withered grass, 



* Azara has even duubted whether the Pampas Indiant ever uatd bow*. 



