124 WHAT MR. DARWIN SAW. 



ARGENTINE CONFEDERATION. 



THE AGOUTI. 



One night in the Falkland Islands we slept on the neck 

 of land at the head of Choiseul Sound, which forms the south- 

 west peninsula. The valley 

 was pretty well sheltered from 

 the cold wind ; but there was 

 very little brushwood for fuel. 

 The Gauchos, however, soon 

 found what, to my great sur- 

 prise, made nearly as hot a fire as coals ; this was the skele- 

 ton of a bullock lately killed, from which the flesh had been 

 picked by the carrion-hawks. They told me that in winter 

 they often killed a beast, cleaned the flesh from the bones 

 with their knives, and then with these same bones roasted 

 the meat for their supper. 



THE LA PLATAN. 



AT Santa Fe I was confined for two days to my bed by 

 a headache. A good-natured old woman, who attended me, 

 wished me to try many odd remedies. A common practice 

 is to bind an orange-leaf or a bit of black plaster to each tem- 

 ple; and a still more general plan is to split a bean into 

 halves, moisten them, and place one on each temple, where 

 they will easily stick. It is not thought proper ever to re- 

 move the bean or plaster, but to let them drop off; and 

 sometimes, if a man with patches on his head is asked what 

 is the matter, he will answer, "I had a headache the day be- 

 fore yesterday." 



