performed in fifty days. These waggons are very long, narrow, and
thatched with reeds; they have only two wheels, the diameter of which
in some cases is as much as ten feet. Each is drawn by six bullocks,
which are urged on by a goad at least twenty feet long: this is
suspended from within the roof; for the wheel bullocks a smaller one is
kept; and for the intermediate pair, a point projects at right angles
from the middle of the long one.
The whole apparatus looked like some implement of war.
September 28th.--We passed the small town of Luxan where there is a
wooden bridge over the river--a most unusual convenience in this
country. We passed also Areco. The plains appeared level, but were not
so in fact; for in various places the horizon was distant. The
estancias are here wide apart; for there is little good pasture, owing
to the land being covered by beds either of an acrid clover, or of the
great thistle. The latter, well known from the animated description
given by Sir F. Head, were at this time of the year two-thirds grown;
in some parts they were as high as the horse's back, but in others they
had not yet sprung up, and the ground was bare and dusty as on a
turnpike-road. The clumps were of the most brilliant green, and they
made a pleasing miniature-likeness of broken forest land. When the
thistles are full grown, the great beds are impenetrable, except by a
few tracts, as intricate as those in a labyrinth. These are only known
to the robbers, who at this season inhabit them, and sally forth at
night to rob and cut throats with impunity. Upon asking at a house
whether robbers were numerous, I was answered, "The thistles are not up
yet;"--the meaning of which reply was not at first very obvious. There
is little interest in passing over these tracts, for they are inhabited
by few animals or birds, excepting the bizcacha and its friend the
little owl.
The bizcacha [1] is well known to form a prominent feature in the
zoology of the Pampas. It is found as far south as the Rio Negro, in
lat. 41 degs., but not beyond. It cannot, like the agouti, subsist on
the gravelly and desert plains of Patagonia, but prefers a clayey or
sandy soil, which produces a different and more abundant vegetation.
Near Mendoza, at the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs in close
neighbourhood with the allied alpine species. It is a very curious
circumstance in its geographical distribution, that it has never been
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