THE PAMPA VEGETATION 43 



his dooryard. When burned they not only make a hot 

 fire, but the embers hold fire almost like coal, and leave 

 behind a clinker-like ash which suggests that the wood 

 in it contained a good deal of inorganic matter. We had 

 expected to have trouble in getting fuel as the travelers 

 on our western prairies do, and had appointed Shumway 

 chief high-collector-of- the- wood, but this bush took from 

 that office all its difficulties. 



Another common bush is the callifate, and this has thin 

 delicate leaves, and bears a small red barberry-like berry, 

 the only fruit in the country, which with plenty of sugar 

 can be made into a jam. The wood, which is bright yellow 

 in color, is a poor fuel, for it will not burn green, and 

 is light and quickly consumed. Still another and smaller 

 bush bore broad evergreen leaves, each ending in a sharp 

 spine, but the wood of this never got large enough for 

 fuel. It is, however, another of the plants full of pitch, 

 and so inflammable that if fired the whole bush will 

 blaze up and burn rapidly, making a dense smoke which 

 is often used by the herders for signals ; or a bush may be 

 lighted to warm one's hands by during cold weather. Be- 

 sides these most prominent bushes there are several others, 

 among them a low one without leaves but with the stem 

 green and jointed not unlike our horsetails, which bush 

 was much eaten by the horses and sheep. All these bushes 

 had bright and conspicuous blossoms which, opening one 

 after another, made the immediate landscape very attrac- 

 tive. The colors of the flowers were mostly yellow, though 

 there were one or two with white blossoms, but red and 

 blue flowers were conspicuously lacking. 



At noon our guide left us with some pesos in his pocket, 

 and we pushed on to a small laguna or fresh water pond 

 which remained from a larger one made by the rains. We 

 had covered twenty-three or twenty-four miles, which 

 during the early part of our trip was an average march, 

 though later we could make considerably more. For the 



