This Shows That The Gauchos,
Although They Do Not Appear To Do So, Yet Really Must
Exert Much Muscular Effort In Riding.
The hunting will
cattle, in a country so difficult to pass as this is on account
of the swampy ground, must be very hard work.
The
Gauchos say they often pass at full speed over ground which
would be impassable at a slower pace; in the same manner
as a man is able to skate over thin ice. When hunting, the
party endeavours to get as close as possible to the herd without
being discovered. Each man carries four or five pair of
the bolas; these he throws one after the other at as many
cattle, which, when once entangled, are left for some days
till they become a little exhausted by hunger and struggling.
They are then let free and driven towards a small herd of
tame animals, which have been brought to the spot on purpose.
From their previous treatment, being too much terrified
to leave the herd, they are easily driven, if their
strength last out, to the settlement.
The weather continued so very bad that we determine
to make a push, and try to reach the vessel before night.
From the quantity of rain which had fallen, the surface
of the whole country was swampy. I suppose my horse fell
at least a dozen times, and sometimes the whole six horses
were floundering in the mud together. All the little streams
are bordered by soft peat, which makes it very difficult for
the horses to leap them without falling. To complete our
discomforts we were obliged to cross the head of a creek
of the sea, in which the water was as high as our horses'
backs; and the little waves, owing to the violence of the
wind, broke over us, and made us very wet and cold. Even
the iron-framed Gauchos professed themselves glad when
they reached the settlement, after our little excursion.
The geological structure of these islands is in most
respects simple. The lower country consists of clay-slate
and sandstone, containing fossils, very closely related to, but
not identical with, those found in the Silurian formations
of Europe; the hills are formed of white granular quartz
rock. The strata of the latter are frequently arched with
perfect symmetry, and the appearance of some of the masses
is in consequence most singular. Pernety [8] has devoted
several pages to the description of a Hill of Ruins, the
successive strata of which he has justly compared to the
seats of an amphitheatre. The quartz rock must have been
quite pasty when it underwent such remarkable flexures
without being shattered into fragments. As the quartz
insensibly passes into the sandstone, it seems probable that
the former owes its origin to the sandstone having been
heated to such a degree that it became viscid, and upon cooling
crystallized. While in the soft state it must have been
pushed up through the overlying beds.
In many parts of the island the bottoms of the valleys are
covered in an extraordinary manner by myriads of great
loose angular fragments of the quartz rock, forming "streams
of stones." These have been mentioned with surprise be
every voyager since the time of Pernety. The blocks are
not water-worn, their angles being only a little blunted; they
vary in size from one or two feet in diameter to ten, or even
more than twenty times as much. They are not thrown
together into irregular piles, but are spread out into level
sheets or great streams. It is not possible to ascertain their
thickness, but the water of small streamlets can be heard
trickling through the stones many feet below the surface.
The actual depth is probably great, because the crevices
between the lower fragments must long ago have been filled
up with sand. The width of these sheets of stones varied
from a few hundred feet to a mile; but the peaty soil daily
encroaches on the borders, and even forms islets wherever
a few fragments happen to lie close together. In a valley
south of Berkeley Sound, which some of our party called
the "great valley of fragments," it was necessary to cross
an uninterrupted band half a mile wide, by jumping from
one pointed stone to another. So large were the fragments,
that being overtaken by a shower of rain, I readily found
shelter beneath one of them.
Their little inclination is the most remarkable circumstance
in these "streams of stones." On the hill-sides I have
seen them sloping at an angle of ten degrees with the horizon;
but in some of the level, broad-bottomed valleys, the
inclination is only just sufficient to be clearly perceived.
On so rugged a surface there was no means of measuring the
angle, but to give a common illustration, I may say that the
slope would not have checked the speed of an English mail-coach.
In some places, a continuous stream of these fragments
followed up the course of a valley, and even
extended to the very crest of the hill. On these crests huge
masses, exceeding in dimensions any small building, seemed
to stand arrested in their headlong course: there, also, the
curved strata of the archways lay piled on each other, like
the ruins of some vast and ancient cathedral. In endeavouring
to describe these scenes of violence one is tempted to pass
from one simile to another. We may imagine that streams
of white lava had flowed from many parts of the mountains
into the lower country, and that when solidified they had been
rent by some enormous convulsion into myriads of fragments.
The expression "streams of stones," which immediately
occurred to every one, conveys the same idea. These
scenes are on the spot rendered more striking by the contrast
of the low rounded forms of the neighbouring hills.
I was interested by finding on the highest peak of one
range (about 700 feet above the sea) a great arched fragment,
lying on its convex side, or back downwards.
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