7o 
A. NEGRO TO R. COLORADO 
CHAP. 
the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface of 
perpetual snow—all support organic beings. 
To the northward of the Rio Negro, between it and the 
inhabited country near Buenos Ayres, the Spaniards have only 
one small settlement, recently established at Bahia Blanca. 
The distance in a straight line to Buenos Ayres is very nearly 
five hundred British miles. The wandering tribes of horse 
Indians, which have always occupied the greater part of this 
country, having of late much harassed the outlying estancias, 
the government at Buenos Ayres equipped some time since an 
army under the command of General Rosas for the purpose of 
exterminating them. The troops were now encamped on the 
banks of the Colorado ; a river lying about eighty miles north¬ 
ward of the Rio Negro. When General Rosas left Buenos 
Ayres he struck in a direct line across the unexplored plains : 
and as the country was thus pretty well cleared of Indians, he 
left behind him, at wide intervals, a small party of soldiers with 
a troop of horses (a posta ), so as to be enabled to keep up a 
communication with the capital. As the Beagle intended to 
call at Bahia Blanca, I determined to proceed there by land ; 
and ultimately I extended my plan to travel the whole way by 
the postas to Buenos Ayres. 
August I i th. —Mr. Harris, an Englishman residing at Pata- 
gones,a guide, and five Gauchos, who were proceeding to the army 
on business, were my companions on the journey. The Colo¬ 
rado, as I have already said, is nearly eighty miles distant: and as 
we travelled slowly, we were two days and a half on the road. 
The whole line of country deserves scarcely a better name than 
that of a desert. Water is found only in two small wells ; it 
is called fresh ; but even at this time of the year, during the 
rainy season, it was quite brackish. In the summer this must 
be a distressing passage ; for now it was sufficiently desolate. 
The valley of the Rio Negro, broad as it is, has merely 
been excavated out of the sandstone plain ; for immedi¬ 
ately above the bank on which the town stands, a level 
country commences, which is interrupted only by a few trifling 
valleys and depressions. Everywhere the landscape wears 
the same sterile aspect ; a dry gravelly soil supports tufts of 
