122 
BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS A FEES 
CHAP. 
given, that the story is not in the least exaggerated. I am glad, 
however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Drobriz- 
hoffer, 1 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 1831 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 2 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 
c> o 
1 History of the Abipones , vol. ii. p. 6. 
2 Falconer’s Patagonia , p. 70. 
