Ii. p. 207
[7] The elephant which was killed at Exeter Change was
estimated (being partly weighed) at five tons and a half.
The elephant actress, as I was informed, weighed one ton less;
so that we may take five as the average of a full-grown
elephant. I was told at the Surry Gardens, that a hippopotamus
which was sent to England cut up into pieces was estimated at
three tons and a half; we will call it three. From these
premises we may give three tons and a half to each of the five
rhinoceroses; perhaps a ton to the giraffe, and half to the
bos caffer as well as to the elan (a large ox weighs from
1200 to 1500 pounds). This will give an average (from the above
estimates) of 2.7 of a ton for the ten largest herbivorous
animals of Southern Africa. In South America, allowing 1200
pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for the guanaco and
vicuna, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, peccari, and
a monkey, we shall have an average of 250 pounds, which I
believe is overstating the result. The ratio will therefore
be as 6048 to 250, or 24 to 1, for the ten largest animals
from the two continents.
[8] If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of
a Greenland whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous
animal being known to exist, what naturalist would have ventured
conjecture on the possibility of a carcass so gigantic being
supported on the minute crustacea and mollusca living in the
frozen seas of the extreme North?
[9] See Zoological Remarks to Capt. Back's Expedition, by Dr.
Richardson. He says, "The subsoil north of latitude 56 degs.
is perpetually frozen, the thaw on the coast not penetrating
above three feet, and at Bear Lake, in latitude 64 degs., not
more than twenty inches. The frozen substratum does not of
itself destroy vegetation, for forests flourish on the surface,
at a distance from the coast."
[10] See Humboldt, Fragments Asiatiques, p. 386: Barton's
Geography of Plants: and Malte Brun. In the latter work it is
said that the limit of the growth of trees in Siberia may be
drawn under the parallel of 70 degs.
[11] Sturt's Travels, vol. ii. p. 74.
[12] A Gaucho assured me that he had once seen a snow-white or
Albino variety, and that it was a most beautiful bird.
[13] Burchell's Travels, vol. i. p. 280.
[14] Azara, vol. iv. p. 173.
[15] Lichtenstein, however, asserts (Travels, vol. ii. p. 25)
that the hens begin sitting when they have laid ten or twelve
eggs; and that they continue laying, I presume, in another
nest. This appears to me very improbable. He asserts that four
or five hens associate for incubation with one cock, who sits
only at night.
[16] When at the Rio Negro, we heard much of the indefatigable
labours of this naturalist. M. Alcide d'Orbigny, during the
years 1825 to 1833, traversed several large portions of South
America, and has made a collection, and is now publishing the
results on a scale of magnificence, which at once places himself
in the list of American travellers second only to Humboldt.
[17] Account of the Abipones, A.D. 1749, vol. i. (English
Translation) p. 314
[18] M. Bibron calls it T. crepitans.
[19] The cavities leading from the fleshy compartments of
the extremity, were filled with a yellow pulpy matter, which,
examined under a microscope, presented an extraordinary
appearance. The mass consisted of rounded, semi-transparent,
irregular grains, aggregated together into particles of
various sizes. All such particles, and the separate grains,
possessed the power of rapid movement; generally revolving
around different axes, but sometimes progressive. The movement
was visible with a very weak power, but even with the highest
its cause could not be perceived. It was very different from
the circulation of the fluid in the elastic bag, containing
the thin extremity of the axis. On other occasions, when
dissecting small marine animals beneath the microscope, I have
seen particles of pulpy matter, some of large size, as soon as
they were disengaged, commence revolving. I have imagined, I know
not with how much truth, that this granulo-pulpy matter was in
process of being converted into ova. Certainly in this zoophyte
such appeared to be the case.
[20] Kerr's Collection of Voyages, vol. viii. p. 119.
[21] Purchas's Collection of Voyages. I believe the date was
really 1537.
[22] Azara has even doubted whether the Pampas Indians ever
used bows.
CHAPTER VI
BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES
Set out for Buenos Ayres - Rio Sauce - Sierra Ventana -
Third Posta - Driving Horses - Bolas - Partridges and
Foxes - Features of the Country - Long-legged Plover -
Teru-tero - Hail-storm - Natural Enclosures in the Sierra
Tapalguen - Flesh of Puma - Meat Diet - Guardia del
Monte - Effects of Cattle on the Vegetation - Cardoon -
Buenos Ayres - Corral where Cattle are Slaughtered.
SEPTEMBER 18th. - I hired a Gaucho to accompany me
on my ride to Buenos Ayres, though with some difficulty,
as the father of one man was afraid to let him
go, and another, who seemed willing, was described to me
as so fearful, that I was afraid to take him, for I was told
that even if he saw an ostrich at a distance, he would mistake
it for an Indian, and would fly like the wind away.
The distance to Buenos Ayres is about four hundred miles,
and nearly the whole way through an uninhabited country.
We started early in the morning; ascending a few hundred
feet from the basin of green turf on which Bahia Blanca
stands, we entered on a wide desolate plain. It consists of
a crumbling argillaceo-calcareous rock, which, from the dry
nature of the climate, supports only scattered tufts of withered
grass, without a single bush or tree to break the monotonous
uniformity.
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[5] I mean this to exclude the total amount which may have been
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