The weather was fine, but the atmosphere remarkably hazy; I thought
the appearance foreboded a gale, but the Gauchos said it was owing
to the plain, at some great distance in the interior, being on
fire. After a long gallop, having changed horses twice, we reached
the Rio Sauce: it is a deep, rapid, little stream, not above
twenty-five feet wide. The second posta on the road to Buenos Ayres
stands on its banks, a little above there is a ford for horses,
where the water does not reach to the horses' belly; but from that
point, in its course to the sea, it is quite impassable, and hence
makes a most useful barrier against the Indians.
Insignificant as this stream is, the Jesuit Falconer, whose
information is generally so very correct, figures it as a
considerable river, rising at the foot of the Cordillera. With
respect to its source, I do not doubt that this is the case; for
the Gauchos assured me, that in the middle of the dry summer this
stream, at the same time with the Colorado, has periodical floods,
which can only originate in the snow melting on the Andes. It is
extremely improbable that a stream so small as the Sauce then was
should traverse the entire width of the continent; and indeed, if
it were the residue of a large river, its waters, as in other
ascertained cases, would be saline.
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