122 BAHIA BLANC A TO BUENOS AYRES chap. 



given, that the story is not in the least exaggerated. I am glad, 

 however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Dobriz- 

 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, 

 informs me that he witnessed in 1 83 1 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 ; farther eastward I understand it is 

 granitic. 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 



1 Hhtoty of the Abipones, vol. ii. p. 6. 

 * Falconer's Patagonia, p. 70. 



