wore a bandage. The storm was said to have been of limited extent: we
certainly saw from our last night's bivouac a dense cloud and lightning
in this direction. It is marvellous how such strong animals as deer
could thus have been killed; but I have no doubt, from the evidence I
have given, that the story is not in the least exaggerated. I am glad,
however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Dobrizhoffen,
[4] who, speaking of a country much to the northward, says, hail fell
of an enormous size and killed vast numbers of cattle: the Indians
hence called the place _Lalegraicavalca_, meaning "the little white
things." Dr. Malcolmson, also, informs me that he witnessed in 1831 in
India, a hail-storm, which killed numbers of large birds and much
injured the cattle. These hailstones were flat, and one was ten inches
in circumference, and another weighed two ounces. They ploughed up a
gravel-walk like musket-balls, and passed through glass-windows, making
round holes, but not cracking them.
Having finished our dinner, of hail-stricken meat, we crossed the
Sierra Tapalguen; a low range of hills, a few hundred feet in height,
which commences at Cape Corrientes. The rock in this part is pure
quartz; further eastward I understand it is granitic. The hills are of
a remarkable form; they consist of flat patches of table-land,
surrounded by low perpendicular cliffs, like the outliers of a
sedimentary deposit. The hill which I ascended was very small, not
above a couple of hundred yards in diameter; but I saw others larger.
One which goes by the name of the "Corral," is said to be two or three
miles in diameter, and encompassed by perpendicular cliffs, between
thirty and forty feet high, excepting at one spot, where the entrance
lies. Falconer [5] gives a curious account of the Indians driving
troops of wild horses into it, and then by guarding the entrance,
keeping them secure. I have never heard of any other instance of
table-land in a formation of quartz, and which, in the hill I examined,
had neither cleavage nor stratification. I was told that the rock of
the "Corral" was white, and would strike fire.
We did not reach the posta on the Rio Tapalguen till after it was dark.
At supper, from something which was said, I was suddenly struck with
horror at thinking that I was eating one of the favourite dishes of the
country namely, a half-formed calf, long before its proper time of
birth. It turned out to be Puma; the meat is very white and remarkably
like veal in taste. Dr. Shaw was laughed at for stating that "the
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