124 AN ANIMAL DIET. [chap. vi. 



posta. Tapalguen itself, or the town of Tapalguen, if it 

 may be so called, consists of a perfectly level plain, studded 

 over, as far as the eye can reach, with the toldos, or oven- 

 shaped huts of the Indians. The families of the friendly 

 Indians, who were fighting on the side of Rosas, residea 

 here. We met and passed many young Indian women, 

 riding by two or three together on the same horse ; they, 

 as well as many of the young men, were strikingly hand- 

 some — their fine ruddy complexions being the picture of 

 health. Besides the toldos, there were three ranchos ; one 

 inhabited by the Commandant, and the two others by 

 Spaniards with small shops. 



We were here able to buy some biscuit. I had now been 

 several days without tasting anything besides meat : I did 

 not at all dislike this new regimen ; but I felt as if it would 

 only have agreed with me with hard exercise. I have heard 

 that patients in England, when desired to confine them- 

 selves exclusively to an animal diet, even with the hope 

 of life before their eyes, have hardly been able to endure it. 

 Yet the Gaucho in the Pampas, for months together, 

 touches nothing but beef. But they eat, I observe, a very 

 large proportion of fat, which is of a less animalized 

 nature ; and they particularly dislike dry meat, such as 

 that of the agouti. Dr. Richardson,* also, has remarked, 

 ' ' that when people have fed for a long time solely upon lean 

 animal food, the desire for fat becomes so insatiable, that 

 they can consume a large quantity of unmixed and even oily 

 fat without nausea : " this appears to me a curious physio- 

 logical fact. It is, perhaps, from their meat regimen that 

 the Gauchos, like other carnivorous animals, can abstain 

 long from food. I was told that at Tandeel, some troops 

 voluntarily pursued a party of Indians for three days, 

 without eating or drinking. 



We saw in the shops many articles, such as horsecloths, 

 belts, and garters, woven by the Indian women. The 

 patterns were very pretty, and the colours brilliant ; the 

 workmanship of the garters was so good that an English 

 merchant at Buenos Ayres maintained they must have been 

 manufactured in England, till he found the tassels had been 

 fastened by split sinew. 



September i^th. — We had a very long ride this day. At 

 the twelfth posta, which is seven leagues south of the Rio 

 Salado, we came to the first estancia with cattle and white 



* "Fauna Boreali- Americana," vol. i., p. 35. 



