124 



THE PAMPAS INDIANS. 



of our civilised world, and what does the civilised 

 world know of them ? It votes them savages et 

 voild tout ; but as soon as fire-arms shall get into 

 the hands of these brave naked men, they will 

 tumble into the political scale as suddenly as if 

 they had fallen from the moon ; and while the civi- 

 lized world is watching the puny contests of Spa- 

 niards who were born in the old world, against 

 their children who were born in the new one, and 

 is arguing the cause of dependence versus inde- 

 pendence, which in reality is but a quibble, the 

 men that the ground belongs to will appear, and we 

 shall then wonder how it is that we never felt for 

 them, or cared for them, or hardly knew that they 

 existed. 



It may to many appear improbable that they 

 should be ever able to overturn any of the feeble 

 governments which at present exist ; yet these men, 

 without fire-arms, and with nothing in their hands 

 but the lance, which is literally a reed, were twice 

 within fifty leagues of Buenos Aires while I was 

 in the country, and the Montaneros went among 

 them while I was at San Luis, to offer to arm 



