PAMPAS. [CHAP, vu, 



CHAPTEE VII. 



Excursion to St. Fe Thistle Beds Habits of the Bizcacha Little Owl 

 Saline Streams Level Plains Mastodon St. Fe Change in Land- 

 scape Geology Tooth of extinct Horse Kelation of the Fossil and 



recent Quadrupeds of North and South America Effects of a great 

 Drought Parana Habits of the Jaguar Scissor-beak Kingfisher, 

 Parrot, and Scissor-tail ^Revolution Buenos Ayres State of Govern- 

 ment. 



BUENOS AYRES TO ST. FE. 



September 27^. In the evening I set out on an excursion to St. 

 Fe, which is situated nearly three hundred English miles from 

 Buenos Ayres, on the banks of the Parana. The roads in the 

 neighbourhood of the city, after the rainy -weather, were extra- 

 ordinarily bad. I should never have thought it possible for a 

 bullock waggon to have crawled along: as it was, they scarcely 

 went at the rate of a mile an hour, and a man was kept ahead, to 

 survey the best line for making the attempt. The bullocks were 

 terribly jaded : it is a great mistake to suppose that with improved 

 roads, and an accelerated rate of travelling, the sufferings of the 

 animals increase in the same proportion. We passed a train of 

 waggons and a troop of beasts on their road to Mendoza. The 

 distance is about 580 geographical miles, and the journey is 

 generally performed in fifty days. These waggons are very long, 

 narrow, and thatched with reeds; they have only two wheels, the 

 diameter of which in some cases is as much as ten feet. Each is 

 drawn by six bullocks, which are urged on by a goad at least 

 twenty feet long: this is suspended from within the roof; for the 

 wheel bullocks a smaller one is kept; and for the intermediate 

 pair, a point projects at right angles from the middle of the long 

 one. The whole apparatus looked like some implement of war. 



September 28th. We passed the small town of Luxan, where 

 there is a wooden bridge over the river a most unusual conve- 



