The Many Islands, With Their Willow-Trees,
And The Flat Headlands, Seen One Behind The Other On The
Northern Boundary Of The Broad Green Valley, Form, By The
Aid Of A Bright Sun, A View Almost Picturesque.
The number
of inhabitants does not exceed a few hundreds.
These Spanish
colonies do not, like our British ones, carry within themselves
the elements of growth. Many Indians of pure blood
reside here: the tribe of the Cacique Lucanee constantly have
their Toldos [2] on the outskirts of the town. The local
government partly supplies them with provisions, by giving them
all the old worn-out horses, and they earn a little by making
horse-rugs and other articles of riding-gear. These Indians
are considered civilized; but what their character may have
gained by a lesser degree of ferocity, is almost counterbalanced
by their entire immorality. Some of the younger men
are, however, improving; they are willing to labour, and a
short time since a party went on a sealing-voyage, and behaved
very well. They were now enjoying the fruits of their
labour, by being dressed in very gay, clean clothes, and by
being very idle. The taste they showed in their dress was
admirable; if you could have turned one of these young
Indians into a statue of bronze, his drapery would have been
perfectly graceful.
One day I rode to a large salt-lake, or Salina, which is
distant fifteen miles from the town. During the winter it
consists of a shallow lake of brine, which in summer is
converted into a field of snow-white salt. The layer near the
margin is from four to five inches thick, but towards the
centre its thickness increases. This lake was two and a half
miles long, and one broad. Others occur in the neighbourhood
many times larger, and with a floor of salt, two and
three feet in thickness, even when under water during the
winter. One of these brilliantly white and level expanses
in the midst of the brown and desolate plain, offers an
extraordinary spectacle. A large quantity of salt is annually
drawn from the salina: and great piles, some hundred
tons in weight, were lying ready for exportation. The season
for working the salinas forms the harvest of Patagones; for
on it the prosperity of the place depends. Nearly the whole
population encamps on the bank of the river, and the people
are employed in drawing out the salt in bullock-waggons,
This salt is crystallized in great cubes, and is remarkably
pure: Mr. Trenham Reeks has kindly analyzed some for me,
and he finds in it only 0.26 of gypsum and 0.22 of earthy
matter. It is a singular fact, that it does not serve so well
for preserving meat as sea-salt from the Cape de Verd
islands; and a merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he
considered it as fifty per cent. less valuable. Hence the
Cape de Verd salt is constantly imported, and is mixed with
that from these salinas.
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