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 mudbanks,
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 mudbanks, and mudbanks like
water.
We passed the night in Punta Alta, and I employed myself in
searching for fossil bones; this point being a perfect catacomb for
monsters of extinct races.
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