40 MALDONADGO. [cmap IIL 
July 26th.—We anchored at Monte Video. The Beagle was 
employed in surveying the extreme southern and eastern coasts 
of America, south of the Plata, during the two succeeding years. 
To prevent useless repetitions, I will extract those parts of my 
journal which refer to the same districts, without always attend- 
ing to the order in which we visited them. 
Ma.ponabo is situated on the northern bank of the Plata, 
and not very far from the mouth of the estuary. It is a most 
quiet, forlorn, little town; built, as is universally the case in 
these countries, with the streets running at right angles to each 
other, and having in the middle a large plaza or square, which, 
from its size, renders the scantiness of the population more evi- 
dent. It possesses scarcely any trade; the exports being con- 
fined to a few hides and living cattle. ‘The inhabitants are chiefly 
landowners, together with a few shopkeepers and the neces- 
sary tradesmen, such as blacksmiths and carpenters, who do nearly 
all the business for a circuit of fifty miles round. The town is 
separated from the river by a band of sand-hillocks, about a mile 
broad: it is surrounded, on all other sides, by an open slightly- 
undulating country, covered by one uniform layer of fine green 
turf, on which countless herds of cattle, sheep, and horses graze. 
There is very little land cultivated even close to the town. A 
few hedges, made of cacti and agave, mark out where some wheat 
or Indian corn has been planted. The features of the country 
are very similar along the whole northern bank of the Plata. 
The only difference. is, that here the granitic hills are a little 
bolder. The scenery is very uninteresting; there is scarcely a 
house, an enclosed piece of ground, or even a tree, to give it an 
air.of cheerfulness. Yet, after being imprisoned for some time 
in a ship, there is a charm in the unconfined feeling of walking 
over boundless plains of turf. Moreover, if your view is limited 
to a small space, many objects possess beatfty. Some: of the 
smaller birds are brilliantly coloured; and the bright green 
sward, browsed short by the cattle, is ornamented by dwarf 
flowers, among which a plant, looking like the daisy, claimed 
the place of an old friend. What would a florist say to whole 
tracts so thickly covered by the Verbena melindres, as, even at a 
distance, to appear of the most gaudy scarlet ? 
I staid ten weeks at Maldonado, in which time a nearly perfect 
