116 BAHIA BLANC A TO BUENOS AYRES. [chap. vi. 



however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Drobriz- 

 hofFer,* who, speaking of a country much to the northward, 

 says, hail fell of an enormous size and killed vast numbers of 

 cattle : the Indians hence called the place Lalegraicavalca^ 

 meaning " the little white things." Dr. Malcolmson, also, in- 

 forms me that he witnessed in 1831 in India, a hail-storm, which 

 killed numbers of large birds and much injured the cattle. 

 These hail-stones were flat, and one was ten inches in circum- 

 ference, and another weighed two ounces. They ploughed up a 

 gravel-walk like musket-balls, and passed through glass- windows, 

 making round holes, but not cracking them. 



Having finished our dinner of hail-stricken meat, we crossed 

 the Sierra Tapalguen ; a low range of hills, a few hundred feet 

 in height, which commences at Cape Corrientes. The rock in 

 this part is pure quartz ; further eastward I understand it is gra- 

 nitic. Tlie hills are of a remarkable form ; they consist of flat 

 patches of table-land, surrounded by low perpendicular cliffs, 

 like the outliers of a sedimentary deposit. The hill which I 

 ascended was very small, not above a couple of hundred yards 

 in diameter ; but I saw others larger. One which goes by the 

 name of the " Corral," is said to be two or three miles in dia- 

 meter, and encompassed by perpendicular clifls between thirty 

 and forty feet high, excepting at one spot, where the entrance 

 lies. Falconerj* gives a curious account of the Indians driving 

 troops of wild horses into it, and then by guarding the entrance, 

 keeping them secure. I have never heard of any other instance 

 of table-land in a formation of quartz, and which, in the hill I 

 examined, had neither cleavage nor stratification. I was told 

 that the rock of the " Corral" was white, and would strike fire. 



We did not reach the posta on the Rio Tapalguen till after it 

 was dark. At supper, from something which was said, I was 

 suddenly struck with horror at thinking that I was eating one of 

 The favourite dishes of the country, namely, a half-formed calf, 

 long before its proper time of birth. It turned out to be Puma ; 

 the meat is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste. Dr. 

 Shaw was laughed at for stating that '' the flesh of the lion is 

 in great esteem, having no small affinity with veal, both in 



* History of the Abipones, vol. ii. p. 6. 

 f Falconer's Patagonia, p. 70. 



