split sinew.
September 18th.--We had a very long ride this day. At the twelfth
posta, which is seven leagues south of the Rio Salado, we came to the
first estancia with cattle and white women. Afterwards we had to ride
for many miles through a country flooded with water above our horses'
knees. By crossing the stirrups, and riding Arab-like with our legs
bent up, we contrived to keep tolerably dry. It was nearly dark when
we arrived at the Salado; the stream was deep, and about forty yards
wide; in summer, however, its bed becomes almost dry, and the little
remaining water nearly as salt as that of the sea. We slept at one of
the great estancias of General Rosas. It was fortified, and of such an
extent, that arriving in the dark I thought it was a town and fortress.
In the morning we saw immense herds of cattle, the general here having
seventy-four square leagues of land. Formerly nearly three hundred men
were employed about this estate, and they defied all the attacks of the
Indians.
September 19th.--Passed the Guardia del Monte. 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
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