36 FROM SAN LUIS TO KOSAEIO. 



than either of the two main roads. From the "Villa" there are three roads. The ^jrincipal, 

 or post-road, turn.s to the northeastward, and after reaching the Rio Tercero, joins that 

 from Cordova, and follows tlie hank of the latter river to Saladillo. The next road coasts the 

 Rio Cuarto to its junction with the Tercero, at Saladillo ; and the one we took diverges from 

 this last at La Reduccion, and strikes directly across the country. Of the three, the safest 

 is by the Tercero ; and next that by the Cuarto, or by the Punta del Sauce, as it is called ; 

 these two being defended against Indians by post-houses and forts, or stockades; while the last 

 is over a desert country. La Reduccion is fortified, as usual, by a ditch and wall; its population 

 is given in the statistical table of the department; and as we did not stop there, I know nothing 

 more respecting it. 



The place where we stopped for the night is near a stream called there Las Chilcas ; but far- 

 ther to the northward, Chucul. At the ford it has very little current, and half a mile to the 

 southward spreads out into marshes and ponds, which are quite salt, and swarming with wild 

 fowl. Lions and tigers are also found there. These, and, indeed, everything undomesticated, 

 from a mosquito to a lion, are called, by the country people, by the name of '^bichos" — a word 

 meaning, literally, vermin, and corresponding, in its corruption, to our southwestern significa- 

 tion of the term "varmint." 



Before our arrival at camp we missed the track and got into the edge of this marsh, and 

 were soon so completely bewildered that we did not know how to get out: fortunately, the 

 arriero discovered, through the darkness of the night, a distant hut, and, leaving us to await his 

 return, rode off to procure a guide. The denizens of the pampa, like sailors, have, by long 

 practice, acquired the habit of discerning and "making out" distant objects that are invisible 

 to the unpracticed eye. Those of them with whom I have been would frequently call attention 

 to some distant speck and confidently assert whethei' it was a deer, an ostrich, a horse, or an 

 ox; just as the sailor knows land in the faint pencil-mai-k above the horizon, which to the eye 

 of a landsman has no meaning. 



December 2^. — Travelled about sixteen miles over pampa, with occasional lagunas on each side, 

 and stopped for the siesta near one of these, where, except an occasional clump of low bushes called 

 chilcas, there was no sign of a tree or shelter from the sun. We were delayed on our journey, first 

 by losing the road, and next by the sickness of one of the mules. As it may appear singular 

 we should lose our path on the open pampa, I will state that we followed a track which had been 

 used in dry weather, and it led us into a marsh, around which we were obliged to make a long 

 detour. The illness of the mule was supposed to arise from a retention of urine, from which 

 animals on the pamjia frequently suffer, in consequence of the bad water they drink. In order 

 to induce him to make an effort to relieve himself, the arriero and his man commenced emitting 

 wind violently from their mouths, thus making a disagreeable though not uncommon noise, 

 which at times appeared to be on the point of producing the desired effect ; but after a while a 

 more desperate remedy was resorted to : the mule was ridden at full speed two miles up the 

 road and back, under which operation he fell several times, and then followed a repetition of 

 the former remedy. In the mean time, we were at a halt on the pampa where there was neither 

 shelter, water, nor prospect of getting an animal to supply the place of the sick one nearer 

 than La Reduccion. The efforts to effect a cure, therefore, were highly interesting to me, and 

 I readily lent my aid as far as wind went. At length, after repeated gallops and volleys, the 

 poor animal did really relieve his bladder, and at once got well; whereupon, the arriero threw 

 his head back and piously — but rather indelicately, considering the character of the Virgin — 

 exclaimed, "Gracias a Dios y Maria Santisima, ya meo." He told me he had made a vow to 

 the Virgin that he would perform some kind of penance if she would relieve the mule; and had 

 done the same for me on our departure from San Luis, when he found I was almost too lame to 

 travel, and seemed very much shocked when I doubted that the vow had anything to do with 

 the cure of either myself or the mule. 



At our stopping-place I made a bed with my horse gear, in a position that would at least 



