out of sight. My companion said, "We must now get on our horses: load
your pistol;" and he looked to his own sword. I asked, "Are they
Indians?"--"Quien sabe? (who knows?) if there are no more than three,
it does not signify." It then struck me, that the one man had gone over
the hill to fetch the rest of his tribe. I suggested this; but all the
answer I could extort was, "Quien sabe?" His head and eye never for a
minute ceased scanning slowly the distant horizon. I thought his
uncommon coolness too good a joke, and asked him why he did not return
home. I was startled when he answered, "We are returning, but in a
line so as to pass near a swamp, into which we can gallop the horses as
far as they can go, and then trust to our own legs; so that there is no
danger." I did not feel quite so confident of this, and wanted to
increase our pace. He said, "No, not until they do." When any little
inequality concealed us, we galloped; but when in sight, continued
walking. At last we reached a valley, and turning to the left,
galloped quickly to the foot of a hill; he gave me his horse to hold,
made the dogs lie down, and then crawled on his hands and knees to
reconnoitre. He remained in this position for some time, and at last,
bursting out in laughter, exclaimed, "Mugeres!" (women!). He knew them
to be the wife and sister-in-law of the major's son, hunting for
ostrich's eggs. I have described this man's conduct, because he acted
under the full impression that they were Indians. As soon, however, as
the absurd mistake was found out, he gave me a hundred reasons why they
could not have been Indians; but all these were forgotten at the time.
We then rode on in peace and quietness to a low point called Punta
Alta, whence we could see nearly the whole of the great harbour of
Bahia Blanca.
The wide expanse of water is choked up by numerous great mud-banks,
which the inhabitants call Cangrejales, or _crabberies_, from the
number of small crabs. The mud is so soft that it is impossible to
walk over them, even for the shortest distance. Many of the banks have
their surfaces covered with long rushes, the tops of which alone are
visible at high water. On one occasion, when in a boat, we were so
entangled by these shallows that we could hardly find our way. Nothing
was visible but the flat beds of mud; the day was not very clear, and
there was much refraction, or as the sailors expressed it, "things
loomed high." The only object within our view which was not level was
the horizon; rushes looked like bushes unsupported in the air, and
water like mud-banks, and mud-banks like water.
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