CHAPTER III. 



THE PAMPAS. 



ESTWAED of the Parana and the Province of 

 Buenos Ayres stretches out the wide -extended 

 and almost level plain of the Pampas, reaching to 

 the base of the Andes. It is a wild, savage region, sprinkled 

 over here and there with salt lakes and marshes, in which a 

 few streams, traversing it at considerable distances apart, lose 

 themselves. 



The tracks across it are marked by the whitened skeletons 

 of the horses and bullocks which have succumbed to the 

 fatigues of the journey, or the want of water, and have been 

 picked clean by the carranchas, and others of the vulture 

 tribe, or by the active teeth of the voracious little armadillos, 

 which clear away the refuse of the feast left by their feathered 

 companions. Here and there forts or post-houses are found, 

 garrisoned by the wild Gauchos — their appearance in keeping 

 with the scenery. 



The huts are generally built of the stalks of huge 

 thistles, and are sometimes mere enclosures, destitute of roofs. 

 They are surrounded by stockades, in many instances formed 

 of thick hedges of cacti, well calculated to resist an attack 



