This
is a nice scattered little town, with many gardens, full of
peach and quince trees. The plain here looked like that
around Buenos Ayres; the turf being short and bright green,
with beds of clover and thistles, and with bizcacha holes.
I was very much struck with the marked change in the
aspect of the country after having crossed the Salado. From
a coarse herbage we passed on to a carpet of fine green verdure.
I at first attributed this to some change in the nature
of the soil, but the inhabitants assured me that here, as
well as in Banda Oriental, where there is as great a difference
between the country round Monte Video and the
thinly-inhabited savannahs of Colonia, the whole was to be
attributed to the manuring and grazing of the cattle. Exactly
the same fact has been observed in the prairies [7] of
North America, where coarse grass, between five and six
feet high, when grazed by cattle, changes into common pasture
land. I am not botanist enough to say whether the
change here is owing to the introduction of new species,
to the altered growth of the same, or to a difference in their
proportional numbers. Azara has also observed with astonishment
this change: he is likewise much perplexed by the
immediate appearance of plants not occurring in the neighbourhood,
on the borders of any track that leads to a newly-
constructed hovel. In another part he says, [8] "ces chevaux
(sauvages) ont la manie de preferer les chemins, et le bord
des routes pour deposer leurs excremens, dont on trouve des
monceaux dans ces endroits." Does this not partly explain
the circumstance? We thus have lines of richly manured
land serving as channels of communication across wide districts.
Near the Guardia we find the southern limit of two European
plants, now become extraordinarily common. The
fennel in great profusion covers the ditch-banks in the
neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, Monte Video, and other towns.
But the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) has a far wider
range: [9] it occurs in these latitudes on both sides of the,
Cordillera, across the continent. I saw it in unfrequented
spots in Chile, Entre Rios, and Banda Oriental. In the
latter country alone, very many (probably several hundred)
square miles are covered by one mass of these prickly plants,
and are impenetrable by man or beast. Over the undulating
plains, where these great beds occur, nothing else can now
live. Before their introduction, however, the surface must
have supported, as in other parts, a rank herbage. I doubt
whether any case is on record of an invasion on so grand
a scale of one plant over the aborigines. As I have already
said, I nowhere saw the cardoon south of the Salado; but
it is probable that in proportion as that country becomes
inhabited, the cardoon will extend its limits. The case is
different with the giant thistle (with variegated leaves) of
the Pampas, for I met with it in the valley of the Sauce.
According to the principles so well laid down by Mr. Lyell,
few countries have undergone more remarkable changes,
since the year 1535, when the first colonist of La Plata landed
with seventy-two horses.
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