NOTES ON THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 
3 
case also with the ‘Fuerte/ or enforced national paper, which is 
not current away from the provincial centres and larger towns. 
Yilla de Mercedes is a little to the west and south of the 
Sierra de Cordova, a range chiefly made up of granitic rocks. 
Travellers here take a conveyance less comfortable than a Cali- 
fornian stage-coach, and more like a light but strong omnibus. 
The small quantity of luggage allowed free of charge — twenty- 
five pounds — is packed on the top. Two shaft mules with 
driver, two other pairs with a gaucho postilion for each, with 
conductor, seven people inside and three behind the driver, on 
a sort of box-seat, make the complement. The scenes that 
occur at a start are often very amusing ; the disputes over 
seats, the anxiety of passengers about their packages and 
edibles for the road, but more often the capers of half-wild 
mules when being harnessed. The writer saw one of these 
animals throw itself completely backwards three times, making 
it necessary on each occasion to re-harness it, and after the 
third attempt another was put in its place. 
All being ready, the driver, a wiry half-breed, gathers up 
his reins and cracks his whip, the gauchos tighten the^ traces, ply 
their spurs, and away goes the coach at a wild pace, swaying 
and creaking down the sandy road to the open country, with 
the conductor executing flourishes on his bugle. The dust 
and heat detract but little from the freshness of such a scene 
to an European, especially as the road passes towards rising 
ground. 
After a distance of ten or twelve miles, the bugle sounds 
long and clearly as we cross some rolling country with occa- 
sional trees and shrubs. Suddenly, two men on horseback are 
seen driving horses for the coach into a roughly-constructed 
corral, or enclosure, about seventy or 1 eighty feet square, made 
of brushwood, cut from the country around, and piled some six 
feet in height. Here again is a lively scene in changing mules 
for half- wild horses, the passengers the while stretching their 
legs and smoking. The cigarette forms a wonderful solace to 
the South American traveller ; it whiles away delays, makes 
a bond of sympathy between people from widely-separated 
parts of country that may be fellow-passengers, and brings out 
many a tale of travel and adventure. 
The first stopping-place at night is at a curiously wild spot 
on the borders of the Indian country, a house of one storey, 
with thick mud or adobe walls, forming one end and part of 
one side of an enclosure, about a hundred feet by fifty ; at the 
other end of which is a pair of large wooden doors ; these 
are closed at night, and form a protection for coach and 
passengers. 
After an evening meal of soup, followed by an ‘assado,’ or joint 
