CHAPTER VI
BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES
Set out for Buenos Ayres--Rio Sauce--Sierra Ventana--Third
Posta--Driving Horses--Bolas--Partridges and Foxes--Features of the
Country--Long-legged Plover--Teru-tero--Hail-storm--Natural Enclosures
in the Sierra Tapalguen--Flesh of Puma--Meat Diet--Guardia del
Monte--Effects of Cattle on the Vegetation--Cardoon--Buenos
Ayres--Corral where Cattle are Slaughtered.
SEPTEMBER 18th.--I hired a Gaucho to accompany me on my ride to Buenos
Ayres, though with some difficulty, as the father of one man was afraid
to let him go, and another, who seemed willing, was described to me as
so fearful, that I was afraid to take him, for I was told that even if
he saw an ostrich at a distance, he would mistake it for an Indian, and
would fly like the wind away. The distance to Buenos Ayres is about
four hundred miles, and nearly the whole way through an uninhabited
country. We started early in the morning; ascending a few hundred feet
from the basin of green turf on which Bahia Blanca stands, we entered
on a wide desolate plain. It consists of a crumbling
argillaceo-calcareous rock, which, from the dry nature of the climate,
supports only scattered tufts of withered grass, without a single bush
or tree to break the monotonous uniformity. The weather was fine, but
the atmosphere remarkably hazy; I thought the appearance foreboded a
gale, but the Gauchos said it was owing to the plain, at some great
distance in the interior, being on fire. After a long gallop, having
changed horses twice, we reached the Rio Sauce: it is a deep, rapid,
little stream, not above twenty-five feet wide. The second posta on
the road to Buenos Ayres stands on its banks, a little above there is a
ford for horses, where the water does not reach to the horses' belly;
but from that point, in its course to the sea, it is quite impassable,
and hence makes a most useful barrier against the Indians.
Insignificant as this stream is, the Jesuit Falconer, whose information
is generally so very correct, figures it as a considerable river,
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