South America under the name of inermis. He states that botanists are
now generally agreed that the cardoon and the artichoke are varieties
of one plant. I may add, that an intelligent farmer assured me that he
had observed in a deserted garden some artichokes changing into the
common cardoon. Dr. Hooker believes that Head's vivid description of
the thistle of the Pampas applies to the cardoon, but this is a
mistake. Captain Head referred to the plant, which I have mentioned a
few lines lower down, under the title of giant thistle. Whether it is
a true thistle I do not know; but it is quite different from the
cardoon; and more like a thistle properly so called.
[10] It is said to contain 60,000 inhabitants. Monte Video, the second
town of importance on the banks of the Plata, has 15,000.
CHAPTER VII
BUENOS AYRES AND ST. FE
Excursion to St. Fe--Thistle Beds--Habits of the Bizcacha--Little
Owl--Saline Streams--Level Plain--Mastodon--St. Fe--Change in
Landscape--Geology--Tooth of extinct Horse--Relation of the Fossil and
recent Quadrupeds of North and South America--Effects of a great
Drought--Parana--Habits of the Jaguar--Scissor-beak--Kingfisher,
Parrot, and Scissor-tail--Revolution--Buenos Ayres State of Government.
SEPTEMBER 27th.--In the evening I set out on an excursion to St. Fe,
which is situated nearly three hundred English miles from Buenos Ayres,
on the banks of the Parana. The roads in the neighbourhood of the city
after the rainy weather, were extraordinarily bad. I should never have
thought it possible for a bullock waggon to have crawled along: as it
was, they scarcely went at the rate of a mile an hour, and a man was
kept ahead, to survey the best line for making the attempt. The
bullocks were terribly jaded: it is a great mistake to suppose that
with improved roads, and an accelerated rate of travelling, the
sufferings of the animals increase in the same proportion. We passed a
train of waggons and a troop of beasts on their road to Mendoza. The
distance is about 580 geographical miles, and the journey is generally
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