TOPOGRAPHY OF AEGENTINA. 



431 



burnt bricks. ** Earth, trees, and bush," writes Mr. Knight, " had all assumed the 

 same curious hue, the effect being something like that of early winter on some of 

 the vegetation of northern Europe. We could not at first conjecture what the 

 strange appearance signified — it was as if some pestilential blast had withered up 

 all the life of the land. On approaching we found this to be a vast multitude 

 of locusts, that were settled so thickly on everything that no twig or leaf or 

 inch of bare earth was left visible. There was nothing to be seen anywhere under 

 the sky but the mahogany-coloured bodies of these fearful creatures,- we rode 

 through several leagues of them, and as we rode they rose from under our feet 

 in thousands, with a multitudinous crackling sound as of a huge bonfire, and then 



Fig. 169.— TucTJMAN. 

 Scale 1 : 1,500,000. 



Landeli'- i - i^Agua 



Vl/est oF Greenwich 65° 



30 Miles. 



when we had passed, settling down again, but revealing in their short flight the 

 devastation they had wrought. Little but bare barkless stacks were left of tree 

 and bush ; even the grass had been devoured down to the ground." * 



Tucuman, metropolis of the north, although preserving in a slightly modified 

 form the old Quichua name of Tucma applied to the province under the Inca 

 rule, is nevertheless of Spanish foundation, dating from the year lo85. This 

 historical city is admirably situated, at an altitude of 1,480 feet, in a fertile and 

 highly-cultivated plain, which inclines gently down to the E,io Sali, and rises 

 westwards in the direction of the superb peaks of the Sierra Aconquija. Here 

 Belgrano defeated tho Spaniards, and here the National Congress proclaimed the 



* Op. cit., Vol. I., p. 289. 



