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Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882

"The Voyage of the Beagle"


Driving Horses.
Bolas.
Partridges and Foxes.
Features of the Country.
Long-legged Plover.
Teru-tero.
Hail-storm.
Natural Enclosures in the Sierra Tapalguen.
Flesh of Puma.
Meat Diet.
Guardia del Monte.
Effects of Cattle on the Vegetation.
Cardoon.
Buenos Ayres.
Corral where Cattle are slaughtered.
BAHIA BLANCA TO BUENOS AYRES.
SEPTEMBER 8, 1833.

I hired a Gaucho to accompany me on my ride to Buenos Ayres, though
with some difficulty, as the father of one man was afraid to let
him go, and another who seemed willing, was described to me as so
fearful that I was afraid to take him, for I was told that even if
he saw an ostrich at a distance, he would mistake it for an Indian,
and would fly like the wind away. The distance to Buenos Ayres is
about four hundred miles, and nearly the whole way through an
uninhabited country. We started early in the morning; ascending a
few hundred feet from the basin of green turf on which Bahia Blanca
stands, we entered on a wide desolate plain. It consists of a
crumbling argillaceo-calcareous rock, which, from the dry nature of
the climate, supports only scattered tufts of withered grass,
without a single bush or tree to break the monotonous uniformity.


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