Bahia Blanca scarcely deserves the name of a village. A few houses
and the barracks for the troops are enclosed by a deep ditch and
fortified wall. The settlement is only of recent standing (since
1828); and its growth has been one of trouble. The government of
Buenos Ayres unjustly occupied it by force, instead of following
the wise example of the Spanish Viceroys, who purchased the land
near the older settlement of the Rio Negro, from the Indians. Hence
the need of the fortifications; hence the few houses and little
cultivated land without the limits of the walls; even the cattle
are not safe from the attacks of the Indians beyond the boundaries
of the plain on which the fortress stands.
The part of the harbour where the "Beagle" intended to anchor being
distant twenty-five miles, I obtained from the Commandant a guide
and horses, to take me to see whether she had arrived. Leaving the
plain of green turf, which extended along the course of a little
brook, we soon entered on a wide level waste consisting either of
sand, saline marshes, or bare mud. Some parts were clothed by low
thickets, and others with those succulent plants which luxuriate
only where salt abounds.
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