For Many Leagues North And South Of San Nicolas And
Rozario, The Country Is Really Level.
Scarcely anything which
travellers have written about its extreme flatness, can be
considered as exaggeration.
Yet I could never find a spot
where, by slowly turning round, objects were not seen at
greater distances in some directions than in others; and
this manifestly proves inequality in the plain. At sea, a
person's eye being six feet above the surface of the water,
his horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In like
manner, the more level the plain, the more nearly does the
horizon approach within these narrow limits; and this, in
my opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur which one would
have imagined that a vast level plain would have possessed.
October 1st. - We started by moonlight and arrived at the
Rio Tercero by sunrise. The river is also called the Saladillo,
and it deserves the name, for the water is brackish.
I stayed here the greater part of the day, searching for fossil
bones. Besides a perfect tooth of the Toxodon, and many
scattered bones, I found two immense skeletons near each
other, projecting in bold relief from the perpendicular cliff
of the Parana. They were, however, so completely decayed,
that I could only bring away small fragments of one of the
great molar teeth; but these are sufficient to show that the
remains belonged to a Mastodon, probably to the same species
with that, which formerly must have inhabited the Cordillera
in Upper Peru in such great numbers. The men
who took me in the canoe, said they had long known of these
skeletons, and had often wondered how they had got there:
the necessity of a theory being felt, they came to the
conclusion that, like the bizcacha, the mastodon was formerly
a burrowing animal! In the evening we rode another stage,
and crossed the Monge, another brackish stream, bearing the
dregs of the washings of the Pampas.
October 2nd. - We passed through Corunda, which, from
the luxuriance of its gardens, was one of the prettiest
villages I saw. From this point to St. Fe the road is not very
safe. The western side of the Parana northward, ceases to
be inhabited; and hence the Indians sometimes come down
thus far, and waylay travellers. The nature of the country
also favours this, for instead of a grassy plain, there is an
open woodland, composed of low prickly mimosas. We
passed some houses that had been ransacked and since deserted;
we saw also a spectacle, which my guides viewed
with high satisfaction; it was the skeleton of an Indian
with the dried skin hanging on the bones, suspended to the
branch of a tree.
In the morning we arrived at St. Fe. I was surprised
to observe how great a change of climate a difference of only
three degrees of latitude between this place and Buenos
Ayres had caused. This was evident from the dress and
complexion of the men - from the increased size of the
ombu-trees - the number of new cacti and other plants -
and especially from the birds. In the course of an hour I
remarked half-a-dozen birds, which I had never seen at
Buenos Ayres. Considering that there is no natural boundary
between the two places, and that the character of the
country is nearly similar, the difference was much greater
than I should have expected.
October 3rd and 4th. - I was confined for these two days
to my bed by a headache. A good-natured old woman,
who attended me, wished me to try many odd remedies. A
common practice is, to bind an orange-leaf or a bit of black
plaster to each temple: and a still more general plan is, to
split a bean into halves, moisten them, and place one on
each temple, where they will easily adhere. It is not thought
proper ever to remove the beans or plaster, but to allow
them to drop off, and sometimes, if a man, with patches on
his head, is asked, what is the matter? he will answer, "I
had a headache the day before yesterday." Many of the
remedies used by the people of the country are ludicrously
strange, but too disgusting to be mentioned. One of the
least nasty is to kill and cut open two puppies and bind
them on each side of a broken limb. Little hairless dogs are
in great request to sleep at the feet of invalids.
St. Fe is a quiet little town, and is kept clean and in good
order. The governor, Lopez, was a common soldier at the
time of the revolution; but has now been seventeen years
in power. This stability of government is owing to his
tyrannical habits; for tyranny seems as yet better adapted
to these countries than republicanism. The governor's favourite
occupation is hunting Indians: a short time since
he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold the children at the rate
of three or four pounds apiece.
October 5th. - We crossed the Parana to St. Fe Bajada,
a town on the opposite shore. The passage took some hours,
as the river here consisted of a labyrinth of small streams,
separated by low wooded islands. I had a letter of introduction
to an old Catalonian Spaniard, who treated me with
the most uncommon hospitality. The Bajada is the capital
of Entre Rios. In 1825 the town contained 6000 inhabitants,
and the province 30,000; yet, few as the inhabitants are, no
province has suffered more from bloody and desperate
revolutions. They boast here of representatives, ministers, a
standing army, and governors: so it is no wonder that they
have their revolutions. At some future day this must be
one of the richest countries of La Plata. The soil is varied
and productive; and its almost insular form gives it two
grand lines of communication by the rivers Parana and
Uruguay.
I was delayed here five days, and employed myself in examining
the geology of the surrounding country, which was
very interesting.
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