116 BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES. [cHap. v1. 
however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Drobriz- 
hoffer,* who, speaking of a country much to the northward, 
says, hail fell of an enormous size and killed vast numbers of 
cattle: the Indians hence called the place Lalegraicavalca, 
meaning “the little white things.” Dr. Malcolmson, also, in- 
forms me that he witnessed in 1831 in India, a hail-storm, which 
killed numbers of large birds and much injured the cattle. 
These hail-stones were flat, and one was ten inches in circum- 
ference, and another weighed two ounces. They ploughed up a 
gravel-walk like musket-balls, and passed through glass-windows, 
making round holes, but not cracking them. 
Having finished our dinner of hail-stricken meat, we crossed 
the Sierra Tapalguen ; a low range of hills, a few hundred feet 
in height, which commences at Cape Corrientes. The rock in 
this part is pure quartz; further eastward I understand it is gra- 
nitic. The hills are of a remarkable form; they consist of flat 
patches of table-land, surrounded by low perpendicular cliffs, 
like the outliers of a sedimentary deposit. The hill which I 
ascended was very small, not above a couple of hundred yards 
in diameter ; but I saw others larger. One which goes by the 
name of the “Corral,” is said to be two or three miles in dia- 
meter, and encompassed by perpendicular cliffs between thirty 
and forty feet high, excepting at one spot, where the entrance 
lies. Falconer gives a curious account of the Indians driving 
troops of wild horses into it, and then by guarding the entrance, 
keeping them secure. I have never heard of any other instance 
of table-land in a formation of quartz, and which, in the hill I 
examined, had neither cleavage nor stratification. I was told 
that the rock of the “‘ Corral” was white, and would strike fire. 
We did not reach the posta on the Rio Tapalguen till after it 
was dark. At supper, from something which was said, I was 
suddenly struck with horror at thinking that I was eating one of 
the favourite dishes of the country, namely, a half-formed calf, 
long before its proper time of birth. It turned out to be Puma; 
the meat is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste. Dr. 
Shaw was laughed at for stating that “ the flesh of the lion is 
in great esteem, having no small affinity with veal, both in 
* History of the Abipones, vol. ii. p. 6. 
t Falconer’s Patagonia, p. 70. 
