This
Would Have Been A Prodigious Task, For It Is Considered A
Good Day's Work To Skin And Stake The Hides Of Fifteen Or
Sixteen Animals.
November 26th.
- I set out on my return in a direct line
for Monte Video. Having heard of some giant's bones at
a neighbouring farm-house on the Sarandis, a small stream
entering the Rio Negro, I rode there accompanied by my
host, and purchased for the value of eighteen pence the head
of the Toxodon. [4] When found it was quite perfect; but
the boys knocked out some of the teeth with stones, and then
set up the head as a mark to throw at. By a most fortunate
chance I found a perfect tooth, which exactly fitted one of
the sockets in this skull, embedded by itself on the banks
of the Rio Tercero, at the distance of about 180 miles from
this place. I found remains of this extraordinary animal
at two other places, so that it must formerly have been common.
I found here, also, some large portions of the armour
of a gigantic armadillo-like animal, and part of the great
head of a Mylodon. The bones of this head are so fresh,
that they contain, according to the analysis by Mr. T. Reeks,
seven per cent of animal matter; and when placed in a
spirit-lamp, they burn with a small flame. The number
of the remains embedded in the grand estuary deposit which
forms the Pampas and covers the granitic rocks of Banda
Oriental, must be extraordinarily great. I believe a straight
line drawn in any direction through the Pampas would cut
through some skeleton or bones. Besides those which I
found during my short excursions, I heard of many others,
and the origin of such names as "the stream of the animal,"
"the hill of the giant," is obvious. At other times I heard
of the marvellous property of certain rivers, which had the
power of changing small bones into large; or, as some
maintained, the bones themselves grew. As far as I am aware,
not one of these animals perished, as was formerly supposed,
in the marshes or muddy river-beds of the present land, but
their bones have been exposed by the streams intersecting the
subaqueous deposit in which they were originally embedded.
We may conclude that the whole area of the Pampas is one
wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic quadrupeds.
By the middle of the day, on the 28th, we arrived at
Monte Video, having been two days and a half on the road.
The country for the whole way was of a very uniform character,
some parts being rather more rocky and hilly than
near the Plata. Not far from Monte Video we passed
through the village of Las Pietras, so named from some
large rounded masses of syenite. Its appearance was rather
pretty. In this country a few fig-trees round a group of
houses, and a site elevated a hundred feet above the general
level, ought always to be called picturesque.
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