A More Complete Destruction Could Not Overtake The Unfortunate Traveller Than To Be Caught By This Remorseless Foe, For Not Even His Ashes Could Be Found By Mourning Friends.

The ground thus burnt retains its heat for days.

I have had occasion to cross blackened wastes a week after this most destructive force in nature had done its work, and my horse has frequently reared in the air at the touch of the hot soil on his hoofs.

The Gaucho has a strange method of fighting these fires. Several mares are killed and opened, and they, by means of lassos, are dragged over the burning grass.

The immensity of the pampas is so great that one may travel many miles without sighting a single tree or human habitation. The weary traveller finds his only shade from the sun's pitiless rays under the broad brim of his sombrero. At times, with ears forward and extended nostrils, the horse gazes intently at the rippling blue waters of the mirage, that most tantalizingly deceptive phenomenon of nature. May it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water? Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of great lakes and broad rivers rose up before me, lapping emerald green shores, where I could cool my parched tongue and lave in their crystal depths; yet to-day those waters are as far off as ever, and exist only in my hopes of Paradise.

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