1833.] RIDING ARAB-FASHION. 125 



women. Afterwards we had to ride for many miles through 

 a country flooded with water above our horses' knees. By 

 crossing the stirrups, and riding Arab-hke with our legs 

 bent up, we contrived to keep tolerably dry. It was nearly 

 dark when we arrived 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 fortress. In the morning we saw immense herds of 

 cattle, the general here having seventy-four square leagues 

 of land. Formerly nearly three hundred men were employed 

 about this estate, and they defied all the attacks of the 

 Indians. 



September i<^th. — 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 green, with 

 beds of clover 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 Salado. From a 

 coarse herbage we pass 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 difi"erence 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 observed in the prairies * of North America, 

 where coarse grass, between five and six feet high, when 

 grazed by cattle, changes into common pasture land. I am 

 not botanist enough to say whether the change here is 

 owing to the introduction of new species, to the altered 

 growth of the same, or to a difference in their proportional 

 numbers. Azara has also observed with astonishment this 

 change : he Is likewise much perplexed by the immediate 

 appearance of plants not occurring In the neighbourhood, 

 on the borders of any track that leads to a newly-constructed 

 hovel. In another part he says, t "ces chevaux (sauvages) 

 ont la manie de pr6f6rer les chemins, et le bord des routes 



* See Mr. Atwater'* account of the Prairies, in Silliman's N. A. Journal, 

 vol. i., p. 117. 



t Azara's " Voyag^e," vol. i., p. 373. 



