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Chapter VII
(PLATE 29. ROZARIO.)
Excursion to St. Fé.
Thistle Beds.
Habits of the Bizcacha.
Little Owl.
Saline Streams.
Level Plains.
Mastodon.
St. Fé.
Change in Landscape.
Geology.
Tooth of extinct Horse.
Relation of the Fossil and recent Quadrupeds of North and South
America.
Effects of a great Drought.
Parana.
Habits of the Jaguar.
Scissor-beak.
Kingfisher, Parrot, and Scissor-tail.
Revolution.
Buenos Ayres.
State of Government.
BUENOS AYRES TO ST. FÉ.
SEPTEMBER 27, 1833.
In the evening I set out on an excursion to St. Fé, which is
situated nearly three hundred English miles from Buenos Ayres, on
the banks of the Parana. The roads in the neighbourhood of the
city, after the rainy weather, were extraordinarily bad. I should
never have thought it possible for a bullock waggon to have crawled
along: as it was, they scarcely went at the rate of a mile an hour,
and a man was kept ahead, to survey the best line for making the
attempt. The bullocks were terribly jaded: it is a great mistake to
suppose that with improved roads, and an accelerated rate of
travelling, the sufferings of the animals increase in the same
proportion. We passed a train of waggons and a troop of beasts on
their road to Mendoza. The distance is about 580 geographical
miles, and the journey is generally performed in fifty days. These
waggons are very long, narrow, and thatched with reeds; they have
only two wheels, the diameter of which in some cases is as much as
ten feet. Each is drawn by six bullocks, which are urged on by a
goad at least twenty feet long: this is suspended from within the
roof; for the wheel bullocks a smaller one is kept; and for the
intermediate pair, a point projects at right angles from the middle
of the long one. The whole apparatus looked like some implement of
war.
SEPTEMBER 28, 1833.
We passed the small town of Luxan, where there is a wooden bridge
over the river--a most unusual convenience in this country. We
passed also Areco. The plains appeared level, but were not so in
fact; for in various places the horizon was distant. The estancias
are here wide apart; for there is little good pasture, owing to the
land being covered by beds either of an acrid clover, or of the
great thistle. The latter, well known from the animated description
given by Sir F. Head, were at this time of the year two-thirds
grown; in some parts they were as high as the horse's back, but in
others they had not yet sprung up, and the ground was bare and
dusty as on a turnpike-road. The clumps were of the most brilliant
green, and they made a pleasing miniature-likeness of broken forest
land. When the thistles are full grown, the great beds are
impenetrable, except by a few tracks, as intricate as those in a
labyrinth. These are only known to the robbers, who at this season
inhabit them, and sally forth at night to rob and cut throats with
impunity. Upon asking at a house whether robbers were numerous, I
was answered, "The thistles are not up yet;"--the meaning of which
reply was not at first very obvious. There is little interest in
passing over these tracts, for they are inhabited by few animals or
birds, excepting the bizcacha and its friend the little owl.
The bizcacha is well known to form a prominent feature in the
zoology of the Pampas. (7/1. The bizcacha (Lagostomus
trichodactylus) somewhat resembles a large rabbit, but with bigger
gnawing teeth and a long tail; it has, however, only three toes
behind, like the agouti. During the last three or four years the
skins of these animals have been sent to England for the sake of
the fur.) It is found as far south as the Rio Negro, in latitude 41
degrees, but not beyond. It cannot, like the agouti, subsist on the
gravelly and desert plains of Patagonia, but prefers a clayey or
sandy soil, which produces a different and more abundant
vegetation. Near Mendoza, at the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs
in close neighbourhood with the allied alpine species. It is a very
curious circumstance in its geographical distribution, that it has
never been seen, fortunately for the inhabitants of Banda Oriental,
to the eastward of the river Uruguay: yet in this province there
are plains which appear admirably adapted to its habits. The
Uruguay has formed an insuperable obstacle to its migration:
although the broader barrier of the Parana has been passed, and the
bizcacha is common in Entre Rios, the province between these two
great rivers. Near Buenos Ayres these animals are exceedingly
common. Their most favourite resort appears to be those parts of
the plain which during one-half of the year are covered with giant
thistles, to the exclusion of other plants. The Gauchos affirm that
it lives on roots; which, from the great strength of its gnawing
teeth, and the kind of places frequented by it, seems probable. In
the evening the bizcachas come out in numbers, and quietly sit at
the mouths of their burrows on their haunches. At such times they
are very tame, and a man on horseback passing by seems only to
present an object for their grave contemplation. They run very
awkwardly, and when running out of danger, from their elevated
tails and short front legs, much resemble great rats. Their flesh,
when cooked, is very white and good, but it is seldom used.
The bizcacha has one very singular habit; namely, dragging every
hard object to the mouth of its burrow: around each group of holes
many bones of cattle, stones, thistle-stalks, hard lumps of earth,
dry dung, etc., are collected into an irregular heap, which
frequently amounts to as much as a wheelbarrow would contain. I was
credibly informed that a gentleman, when riding on a dark night,
dropped his watch; he returned in the morning, and by searching the
neighbourhood of every bizcacha hole on the line of road, as he
expected, he soon found it. This habit of picking up whatever may
be lying on the ground anywhere near its habitation must cost much
trouble. For what purpose it is done, I am quite unable to form
even the most remote conjecture: it cannot be for defence, because
the rubbish is chiefly placed above the mouth of the burrow, which
enters the ground at a very small inclination. No doubt there must
exist some good reason; but the inhabitants of the country are
quite ignorant of it. The only fact which I know analogous to it,
is the habit of that extraordinary Australian bird, the Calodera
maculata, which makes an elegant vaulted passage of twigs for
playing in, and which collects near the spot land and sea-shells,
bones, and the feathers of birds, especially brightly coloured
ones. Mr. Gould, who has described these facts, informs me, that
the natives, when they lose any hard object, search the playing
passages, and he has known a tobacco-pipe thus recovered.
The little owl (Athene cunicularia), which has been so often
mentioned, on the plains of Buenos Ayres exclusively inhabits the
holes of the bizcacha; but in Banda Oriental it is its own workman.
During the open day, but more especially in the evening, these
birds may be seen in every direction standing frequently by pairs
on the hillock near their burrows. If disturbed they either enter
the hole, or, uttering a shrill harsh cry, move with a remarkably
undulatory flight to a short distance, and then turning round,
steadily gaze at their pursuer. Occasionally in the evening they
may be heard hooting. I found in the stomachs of two which I opened
the remains of mice, and I one day saw a small snake killed and
carried away. It is said that snakes are their common prey during
the daytime. I may here mention, as showing on what various kinds
of food owls subsist, that a species killed among the islets of the
Chonos Archipelago had its stomach full of good-sized crabs. In
India there is a fishing genus of owls, which likewise catches
crabs. (7/2. "Journal of Asiatic Soc." volume 5 page 363.)
In the evening we crossed the Rio Arrecife on a simple raft made of
barrels lashed together, and slept at the post-house on the other
side. I this day paid horse-hire for thirty-one leagues; and
although the sun was glaring hot I was but little fatigued. When
Captain Head talks of riding fifty leagues a day, I do not imagine
the distance is equal to 150 English miles. At all events, the
thirty-one leagues was only 76 miles in a straight line, and in an
open country I should think four additional miles for turnings
would be a sufficient allowance.
SEPTEMBER 29 AND 30, 1833.
(PLATE 30. PARANA RIVER.)
We continued to ride over plains of the same character. At San
Nicolas I first saw the noble river of the Parana. At the foot of
the cliff on which the town stands, some large vessels were at
anchor. Before arriving at Rozario, we crossed the Saladillo, a
stream of fine clear running water, but too saline to drink.
Rozario is a large town built on a dead level plain, which forms a
cliff about sixty feet high over the Parana. The river here is very
broad, with many islands, which are low and wooded, as is also the
opposite shore. The view would resemble that of a great lake, if it
were not for the linear-shaped islets, which alone give the idea of
running water. The cliffs are the most picturesque part; sometimes
they are absolutely perpendicular, and of a red colour; at other
times in large broken masses, covered with cacti and mimosa-trees.
The real grandeur, however, of an immense river like this is
derived from reflecting how important a means of communication and
commerce it forms between one nation and another; to what a
distance it travels, and from how vast a territory it drains the
great body of fresh water which flows past your feet.
For many leagues north and south of San Nicolas and Rozario, the
country is really level. Scarcely anything which travellers have
written about its extreme flatness can be considered as
exaggeration. Yet I could never find a spot where, by slowly
turning round, objects were not seen at greater distances in some
directions than in others; and this manifestly proves inequality in
the plain. At sea, a person's eye being six feet above the surface
of the water, his horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In
like manner, the more level the plain, the more nearly does the
horizon approach within these narrow limits; and this, in my
opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur which one would have
imagined that a vast level plain would have possessed.
(PLATE 31. TOXODON PLATENSIS. (FOUND AT SALADILLO.))
OCTOBER 1, 1833.
We started by moonlight and arrived at the Rio Tercero by sunrise.
This river is also called the Saladillo, and it deserves the name,
for the water is brackish. I stayed here the greater part of the
day, searching for fossil bones. Besides a perfect tooth of the
Toxodon, and many scattered bones, I found two immense skeletons
near each other, projecting in bold relief from the perpendicular
cliff of the Parana. They were, however, so completely decayed,
that I could only bring away small fragments of one of the great
molar teeth; but these are sufficient to show that the remains
belonged to a Mastodon, probably to the same species with that
which formerly must have inhabited the Cordillera in Upper Peru in
such great numbers. The men who took me in the canoe said they had
long known of these skeletons, and had often wondered how they had
got there: the necessity of a theory being felt, they came to the
conclusion that, like the bizcacha, the mastodon was formerly a
burrowing animal! In the evening we rode another stage, and crossed
the Monge, another brackish stream, bearing the dregs of the
washings of the Pampas.
OCTOBER 2, 1833.
We passed through Corunda, which, from the luxuriance of its
gardens, was one of the prettiest villages I saw. From this point
to St. Fé the road is not very safe. The western side of the Parana
northward ceases to be inhabited; and hence the Indians sometimes
come down thus far, and waylay travellers. The nature of the
country also favours this, for instead of a grassy plain, there is
an open woodland, composed of low prickly mimosas. We passed some
houses that had been ransacked and since deserted; we saw also a
spectacle, which my guides viewed with high satisfaction; it was
the skeleton of an Indian with the dried skin hanging on the bones,
suspended to the branch of a tree.
In the morning we arrived at St. Fé. I was surprised to observe how
great a change of climate a difference of only three degrees of
latitude between this place and Buenos Ayres had caused. This was
evident from the dress and complexion of the men--from the
increased size of the ombu-trees--the number of new cacti and other
plants--and especially from the birds. In the course of an hour I
remarked half-a-dozen birds, which I had never seen at Buenos
Ayres. Considering that there is no natural boundary between the
two places, and that the character of the country is nearly
similar, the difference was much greater than I should have
expected.
OCTOBER 3 AND 4, 1833.
I was confined for these two days to my bed by a headache. A
good-natured old woman, who attended me, wished me to try many odd
remedies. A common practice is, to bind an orange-leaf or a bit of
black plaster to each temple: and a still more general plan is, to
split a bean into halves, moisten them, and place one on each
temple, where they will easily adhere. It is not thought proper
ever to remove the beans or plaster, but to allow them to drop off,
and sometimes, if a man, with patches on his head, is asked, what
is the matter? he will answer, "I had a headache the day before
yesterday." Many of the remedies used by the people of the country
are ludicrously strange, but too disgusting to be mentioned. One of
the least nasty is to kill and cut open two puppies and bind them
on each side of a broken limb. Little hairless dogs are in great
request to sleep at the feet of invalids.
St. Fé is a quiet little town, and is kept clean and in good order.
The governor, Lopez, was a common soldier at the time of the
revolution; but has now been seventeen years in power. This
stability of government is owing to his tyrannical habits; for
tyranny seems as yet better adapted to these countries than
republicanism. The governor's favourite occupation is hunting
Indians: a short time since he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold
the children at the rate of three or four pounds apiece.
OCTOBER 5, 1833.
We crossed the Parana to St. Fé Bajada, a town on the opposite
shore. The passage took some hours, as the river here consisted of
a labyrinth of small streams, separated by low wooded islands. I
had a letter of introduction to an old Catalonian Spaniard, who
treated me with the most uncommon hospitality. The Bajada is the
capital of Entre Rios. In 1825 the town contained 6000 inhabitants,
and the province 30,000; yet, few as the inhabitants are, no
province has suffered more from bloody and desperate revolutions.
They boast here of representatives, ministers, a standing army, and
governors: so it is no wonder that they have their revolutions. At
some future day this must be one of the richest countries of La
Plata. The soil is varied and productive; and its almost insular
form gives it two grand lines of communication by the rivers Parana
and Uruguay.
I was delayed here five days, and employed myself in examining the
geology of the surrounding country, which was very interesting. We
here see at the bottom of the cliffs, beds containing sharks' teeth
and sea-shells of extinct species, passing above into an indurated
marl, and from that into the red clayey earth of the Pampas, with
its calcareous concretions and the bones of terrestrial quadrupeds.
This vertical section clearly tells us of a large bay of pure
salt-water, gradually encroached on, and at last converted into the
bed of a muddy estuary, into which floating carcasses were swept.
At Punta Gorda, in Banda Oriental, I found an alternation of the
Pampaean estuary deposit, with a limestone containing some of the
same extinct sea-shells; and this shows either a change in the
former currents, or more probably an oscillation of level in the
bottom of the ancient estuary. Until lately, my reasons for
considering the Pampaean formation to be an estuary deposit were,
its general appearance, its position at the mouth of the existing
great river the Plata, and the presence of so many bones of
terrestrial quadrupeds: but now Professor Ehrenberg has had the
kindness to examine for me a little of the red earth, taken from
low down in the deposit, close to the skeletons of the mastodon,
and he finds in it many infusoria, partly salt-water and partly
fresh-water forms, with the latter rather preponderating; and
therefore, as he remarks, the water must have been brackish. M. A.
d'Orbigny found on the banks of the Parana, at the height of a
hundred feet, great beds of an estuary shell, now living a hundred
miles lower down nearer the sea; and I found similar shells at a
less height on the banks of the Uruguay; this shows that just
before the Pampas was slowly elevated into dry land, the water
covering it was brackish. Below Buenos Ayres there are upraised
beds of sea-shells of existing species, which also proves that the
period of elevation of the Pampas was within the recent period.
In the Pampaean deposit at the Bajada I found the osseous armour of
a gigantic armadillo-like animal, the inside of which, when the
earth was removed, was like a great cauldron; I found also teeth of
the Toxodon and Mastodon, and one tooth of a Horse, in the same
stained and decayed state. This latter tooth greatly interested me,
and I took scrupulous care in ascertaining that it had been
embedded contemporaneously with the other remains; for I was not
then aware that amongst the fossils from Bahia Blanca there was a
horse's tooth hidden in the matrix: nor was it then known with
certainty that the remains of horses are common in North America.
(7/3. I need hardly state here that there is good evidence against
any horse living in America at the time of Columbus.) Mr. Lyell has
lately brought from the United States a tooth of a horse; and it is
an interesting fact, that Professor Owen could find in no species,
either fossil or recent, a slight but peculiar curvature
characterising it, until he thought of comparing it with my
specimen found here: he has named this American horse Equus
curvidens. Certainly it is a marvellous fact in the history of the
Mammalia, that in South America a native horse should have lived
and disappeared, to be succeeded in after ages by the countless
herds descended from the few introduced with the Spanish colonists!
(PLATE 32. FOSSIL TOOTH OF HORSE, FROM BAHIA BLANCA.)
The existence in South America of a fossil horse, of the mastodon,
possibly of an elephant (7/4. Cuvier "Ossemens Fossils" tome 1 page
158.), and of a hollow-horned ruminant, discovered by MM. Lund and
Clausen in the caves of Brazil, are highly interesting facts with
respect to the geographical distribution of animals. At the present
time, if we divide America, not by the Isthmus of Panama, but by
the southern part of Mexico in latitude 20 degrees, where the great
table-land presents an obstacle to the migration of species, by
affecting the climate, and by forming, with the exception of some
valleys and of a fringe of low land on the coast, a broad barrier;
we shall then have the two zoological provinces of North and South
America strongly contrasted with each other. (7/5. This is the
geographical division followed by Lichtenstein, Swainson, Erichson,
and Richardson. The section from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, given by
Humboldt in the "Polit. Essay on Kingdom of N. Spain" will show how
immense a barrier the Mexican table-land forms. Dr. Richardson, in
his admirable "Report on the Zoology of N. America" read before the
British Association 1836 page 157, talking of the identification of
a Mexican animal with the Synetheres prehensilis, says, "We do not
know with what propriety, but if correct, it is, if not a solitary
instance, at least very nearly so, of a rodent animal being common
to North and South America.") Some few species alone have passed
the barrier, and may be considered as wanderers from the south,
such as the puma, opossum, kinkajou, and peccari. South America is
characterised by possessing many peculiar gnawers, a family of
monkeys, the llama, peccari, tapir, opossums, and, especially,
several genera of Edentata, the order which includes the sloths,
ant-eaters, and armadilloes. North America, on the other hand, is
characterised (putting on one side a few wandering species) by
numerous peculiar gnawers, and by four genera (the ox, sheep, goat,
and antelope) of hollow-horned ruminants, of which great division
South America is not known to possess a single species. Formerly,
but within the period when most of the now existing shells were
living, North America possessed, besides hollow-horned ruminants,
the elephant, mastodon, horse, and three genera of Edentata,
namely, the Megatherium, Megalonyx, and Mylodon. Within nearly this
same period (as proved by the shells at Bahia Blanca) South America
possessed, as we have just seen, a mastodon, horse, hollow-horned
ruminant, and the same three genera (as well as several others) of
the Edentata. Hence it is evident that North and South America, in
having within a late geological period these several genera in
common, were much more closely related in the character of their
terrestrial inhabitants than they now are. The more I reflect on
this case, the more interesting it appears: I know of no other
instance where we can almost mark the period and manner of the
splitting up of one great region into two well-characterised
zoological provinces. The geologist, who is fully impressed with
the vast oscillations of level which have affected the earth's
crust within late periods, will not fear to speculate on the recent
elevation of the Mexican platform, or, more probably, on the recent
submergence of land in the West Indian Archipelago, as the cause of
the present zoological separation of North and South America. The
South American character of the West Indian mammals seems to
indicate that this archipelago was formerly united to the southern
continent, and that it has subsequently been an area of subsidence.
(7/6. See Dr. Richardson's "Report" page 157; also "L'Institut"
1837 page 253. Cuvier says the kinkajou is found in the larger
Antilles, but this is doubtful. M. Gervais states that the
Didelphis crancrivora is found there. It is certain that the West
Indies possess some mammifers peculiar to themselves. A tooth of a
mastodon has been brought from Bahama; "Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal" 1826 page 395.)
(PLATE 33. MYLODON. Height, 7 feet 6 inches; girth round chest, 6
feet 6 inches; maximum breadth of pelvis, 3 feet 7 inches.)
When America, and especially North America, possessed its
elephants, mastodons, horse, and hollow-horned ruminants, it was
much more closely related in its zoological characters to the
temperate parts of Europe and Asia than it now is. As the remains
of these genera are found on both sides of Behring's Straits and on
the plains of Siberia, we are led to look to the north-western side
of North America as the former point of communication between the
Old and so-called New World. (7/7. See the admirable Appendix by
Dr. Buckland to Beechey's "Voyage"; also the writings of Chamisso
in Kotzebue's "Voyage.") And as so many species, both living and
extinct, of these same genera inhabit and have inhabited the Old
World, it seems most probable that the North American elephants,
mastodons, horse, and hollow-horned ruminants migrated, on land
since submerged near Behring's Straits, from Siberia into North
America, and thence, on land since submerged in the West Indies,
into South America, where for a time they mingled with the forms
characteristic of that southern continent, and have since become
extinct.
While travelling through the country, I received several vivid
descriptions of the effects of a late great drought; and the
account of this may throw some light on the cases where vast
numbers of animals of all kinds have been embedded together. The
period included between the years 1827 and 1830 is called the "gran
seco," or the great drought. During this time so little rain fell,
that the vegetation, even to the thistles, failed; the brooks were
dried up, and the whole country assumed the appearance of a dusty
high-road. This was especially the case in the northern part of the
province of Buenos Ayres and the southern part of St. Fé. Very
great numbers of birds, wild animals, cattle, and horses perished
from the want of food and water. A man told me that the deer used
to come into his courtyard to the well, which he had been obliged
to dig to supply his own family with water; and that the partridges
had hardly strength to fly away when pursued. (7/8. In Captain
Owen's "Surveying Voyage" volume 2 page 274, there is a curious
account of the effects of a drought on the elephants, at Benguela
(west coast of Africa). "A number of these animals had some time
since entered the town, in a body, to possess themselves of the
wells, not being able to procure any water in the country. The
inhabitants mustered, when a desperate conflict ensued, which
terminated in the ultimate discomfiture of the invaders, but not
until they had killed one man, and wounded several others." The
town is said to have a population of nearly three thousand! Dr.
Malcolmson informs me, that during a great drought in India the
wild animals entered the tents of some troops at Ellore, and that a
hare drank out of a vessel held by the adjutant of the regiment.)
The lowest estimation of the loss of cattle in the province of
Buenos Ayres alone, was taken at one million head. A proprietor at
San Pedro had previously to these years 20,000 cattle; at the end
not one remained. San Pedro is situated in the middle of the finest
country; and even now abounds again with animals; yet during the
latter part of the "gran seco," live cattle were brought in vessels
for the consumption of the inhabitants. The animals roamed from
their estancias, and, wandering far southward, were mingled
together in such multitudes, that a government commission was sent
from Buenos Ayres to settle the disputes of the owners. Sir
Woodbine Parish informed me of another and very curious source of
dispute; the ground being so long dry, such quantities of dust were
blown about, that in this open country the landmarks became
obliterated, and people could not tell the limits of their estates.
I was informed by an eye-witness that the cattle in herds of
thousands rushed into the Parana, and being exhausted by hunger
they were unable to crawl up the muddy banks, and thus were
drowned. The arm of the river which runs by San Pedro was so full
of putrid carcasses, that the master of a vessel told me that the
smell rendered it quite impassable. Without doubt several hundred
thousand animals thus perished in the river: their bodies when
putrid were seen floating down the stream; and many in all
probability were deposited in the estuary of the Plata. All the
small rivers became highly saline, and this caused the death of
vast numbers in particular spots; for when an animal drinks of such
water it does not recover. Azara describes the fury of the wild
horses on a similar occasion, rushing into the marshes, those which
arrived first being overwhelmed and crushed by those which
followed. (7/9. "Travels" volume 1 page 374.) He adds that more
than once he has seen the carcasses of upwards of a thousand wild
horses thus destroyed. I noticed that the smaller streams in the
Pampas were paved with a breccia of bones, but this probably is the
effect of a gradual increase, rather than of the destruction at any
one period. Subsequently to the drought of 1827 to 1832, a very
rainy season followed which caused great floods. Hence it is almost
certain that some thousands of the skeletons were buried by the
deposits of the very next year. What would be the opinion of a
geologist, viewing such an enormous collection of bones, of all
kinds of animals and of all ages, thus embedded in one thick earthy
mass? Would he not attribute it to a flood having swept over the
surface of the land, rather than to the common order of things?
(7/10. These droughts to a certain degree seem to be almost
periodical; I was told the dates of several others, and the
intervals were about fifteen years.)
OCTOBER 12, 1833.
I had intended to push my excursion farther, but not being quite
well, I was compelled to return by a balandra, or one-masted vessel
of about a hundred tons' burden, which was bound to Buenos Ayres.
As the weather was not fair, we moored early in the day to a branch
of a tree on one of the islands. The Parana is full of islands,
which undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. In the
memory of the master several large ones had disappeared, and others
again had been formed and protected by vegetation. They are
composed of muddy sand, without even the smallest pebble, and were
then about four feet above the level of the river; but during the
periodical floods they are inundated. They all present one
character; numerous willows and a few other trees are bound
together by a great variety of creeping plants, thus forming a
thick jungle. These thickets afford a retreat for capybaras and
jaguars. The fear of the latter animal quite destroyed all pleasure
in scrambling through the woods. This evening I had not proceeded a
hundred yards, before, finding indubitable signs of the recent
presence of the tiger, I was obliged to come back. On every island
there were tracks; and as on the former excursion "el rastro de los
Indios" had been the subject of conversation, so in this was "el
rastro del tigre."
The wooded banks of the great rivers appear to be the favourite
haunts of the jaguar; but south of the Plata, I was told that they
frequented the reeds bordering lakes: wherever they are, they seem
to require water. Their common prey is the capybara, so that it is
generally said, where capybaras are numerous there is little danger
from the jaguar. Falconer states that near the southern side of the
mouth of the Plata there are many jaguars, and that they chiefly
live on fish; this account I have heard repeated. On the Parana
they have killed many wood-cutters, and have even entered vessels
at night. There is a man now living in the Bajada, who, coming up
from below when it was dark, was seized on the deck; he escaped,
however, with the loss of the use of one arm. When the floods drive
these animals from the islands, they are most dangerous. I was told
that a few years since a very large one found its way into a church
at St. Fé: two padres entering one after the other were killed, and
a third, who came to see what was the matter, escaped with
difficulty. The beast was destroyed by being shot from a corner of
the building which was unroofed. They commit also at these times
great ravages among cattle and horses. It is said that they kill
their prey by breaking their necks. If driven from the carcass,
they seldom return to it. The Gauchos say that the jaguar, when
wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes yelping as
they follow him. This is a curious coincidence with the fact which
is generally affirmed of the jackals accompanying, in a similarly
officious manner, the East Indian tiger. The jaguar is a noisy
animal, roaring much by night, and especially before bad weather.
One day, when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, I was shown
certain trees, to which these animals constantly recur for the
purpose, as it is said, of sharpening their claws. I saw three
well-known trees; in front, the bark was worn smooth, as if by the
breast of the animal, and on each side there were deep scratches,
or rather grooves, extending in an oblique line, nearly a yard in
length. The scars were of different ages. A common method of
ascertaining whether a jaguar is in the neighbourhood is to examine
these trees. I imagine this habit of the jaguar is exactly similar
to one which may any day be seen in the common cat, as with
outstretched legs and exserted claws it scrapes the leg of a chair;
and I have heard of young fruit-trees in an orchard in England
having been thus much injured. Some such habit must also be common
to the puma, for on the bare hard soil of Patagonia I have
frequently seen scores so deep that no other animal could have made
them. The object of this practice is, I believe, to tear off the
ragged points of their claws, and not, as the Gauchos think, to
sharpen them. The jaguar is killed, without much difficulty, by the
aid of dogs baying and driving him up a tree, where he is
despatched with bullets.
Owing to bad weather we remained two days at our moorings. Our only
amusement was catching fish for our dinner: there were several
kinds, and all good eating. A fish called the "armado" (a Silurus)
is remarkable from a harsh grating noise which it makes when caught
by hook and line, and which can be distinctly heard when the fish
is beneath the water. This same fish has the power of firmly
catching hold of any object, such as the blade of an oar or the
fishing-line, with the strong spine both of its pectoral and dorsal
fin. In the evening the weather was quite tropical, the thermometer
standing at 79 degrees. Numbers of fireflies were hovering about,
and the musquitoes were very troublesome. I exposed my hand for
five minutes, and it was soon black with them; I do not suppose
there could have been less than fifty, all busy sucking.
OCTOBER 15, 1833.
(PLATE 34. HEAD OF SCISSOR-BEAK.)
(PLATE 35. RHYNCHOPS NIGRA, OR SCISSOR-BEAK.)
We got under way and passed Punta Gorda, where there is a colony of
tame Indians from the province of Missiones. We sailed rapidly down
the current, but before sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather,
we brought-to in a narrow arm of the river. I took the boat and
rowed some distance up this creek. It was very narrow, winding, and
deep; on each side a wall thirty or forty feet high, formed by
trees intwined with creepers, gave to the canal a singularly gloomy
appearance. I here saw a very extraordinary bird, called the
Scissor-beak (Rhynchops nigra). It has short legs, web feet,
extremely long-pointed wings, and is of about the size of a tern.
The beak is flattened laterally, that is, in a plane at right
angles to that of a spoonbill or duck. It is as flat and elastic as
an ivory paper-cutter, and the lower mandible, differently from
every other bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper. In a
lake near Maldonado, from which the water had been nearly drained,
and which, in consequence, swarmed with small fry, I saw several of
these birds, generally in small flocks, flying rapidly backwards
and forwards close to the surface of the lake. They kept their
bills wide open, and the lower mandible half buried in the water.
Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in their course: the
water was quite smooth, and it formed a most curious spectacle to
behold a flock, each bird leaving its narrow wake on the
mirror-like surface. In their flight they frequently twist about
with extreme quickness, and dexterously manage with their
projecting lower mandible to plough up small fish, which are
secured by the upper and shorter half of their scissor-like bills.
This fact I repeatedly saw, as, like swallows, they continued to
fly backwards and forwards close before me. Occasionally when
leaving the surface of the water their flight was wild, irregular,
and rapid; they then uttered loud harsh cries. When these birds are
fishing, the advantage of the long primary feathers of their wings,
in keeping them dry, is very evident. When thus employed, their
forms resemble the symbol by which many artists represent marine
birds. Their tails are much used in steering their irregular
course.
These birds are common far inland along the course of the Rio
Parana; it is said that they remain here during the whole year, and
breed in the marshes. During the day they rest in flocks on the
grassy plains, at some distance from the water. Being at anchor, as
I have said, in one of the deep creeks between the islands of the
Parana, as the evening drew to a close, one of these scissor-beaks
suddenly appeared. The water was quite still, and many little fish
were rising. The bird continued for a long time to skim the
surface, flying in its wild and irregular manner up and down the
narrow canal, now dark with the growing night and the shadows of
the overhanging trees. At Monte Video, I observed that some large
flocks during the day remained on the mud-banks at the head of the
harbour, in the same manner as on the grassy plains near the
Parana; and every evening they took flight seaward. From these
facts I suspect that the Rhynchops generally fishes by night, at
which time many of the lower animals come most abundantly to the
surface. M. Lesson states that he has seen these birds opening the
shells of the mactrae buried in the sand-banks on the coast of
Chile: from their weak bills, with the lower mandible so much
projecting, their short legs and long wings, it is very improbable
that this can be a general habit.
In our course down the Parana, I observed only three other birds,
whose habits are worth mentioning. One is a small kingfisher
(Ceryle Americana); it has a longer tail than the European species,
and hence does not sit in so stiff and upright a position. Its
flight also, instead of being direct and rapid, like the course of
an arrow, is weak and undulatory, as among the soft-billed birds.
It utters a low note, like the clicking together of two small
stones. A small green parrot (Conurus murinus), with a grey breast,
appears to prefer the tall trees on the islands to any other
situation for its building-place. A number of nests are placed so
close together as to form one great mass of sticks. These parrots
always live in flocks, and commit great ravages on the corn-fields.
I was told that near Colonia 2500 were killed in the course of one
year. A bird with a forked tail, terminated by two long feathers
(Tyrannus savana), and named by the Spaniards scissor-tail, is very
common near Buenos Ayres: it commonly sits on a branch of the ombu
tree, near a house, and thence takes a short flight in pursuit of
insects, and returns to the same spot. When on the wing it presents
in its manner of flight and general appearance a
caricature-likeness of the common swallow. It has the power of
turning very shortly in the air, and in so doing opens and shuts
its tail, sometimes in a horizontal or lateral and sometimes in a
vertical direction, just like a pair of scissors.
OCTOBER 16, 1833.
Some leagues below Rozario, the western shore of the Parana is
bounded by perpendicular cliffs, which extend in a long line to
below San Nicolas; hence it more resembles a sea-coast than that of
a fresh-water river. It is a great drawback to the scenery of the
Parana, that, from the soft nature of its banks, the water is very
muddy. The Uruguay, flowing through a granitic country, is much
clearer; and where the two channels unite at the head of the Plata,
the waters may for a long distance be distinguished by their black
and red colours. In the evening, the wind being not quite fair, as
usual we immediately moored, and the next day, as it blew rather
freshly, though with a favouring current, the master was much too
indolent to think of starting. At Bajada, he was described to me as
"hombre muy aflicto"--a man always miserable to get on; but
certainly he bore all delays with admirable resignation. He was an
old Spaniard, and had been many years in this country. He professed
a great liking to the English, but stoutly maintained that the
battle of Trafalgar was merely won by the Spanish captains having
been all bought over; and that the only really gallant action on
either side was performed by the Spanish admiral. It struck me as
rather characteristic, that this man should prefer his countrymen
being thought the worst of traitors, rather than unskilful or
cowardly.
OCTOBER 18 AND 19, 1833.
We continued slowly to sail down the noble stream: the current
helped us but little. We met, during our descent, very few vessels.
One of the best gifts of nature, in so grand a channel of
communication, seems here wilfully thrown away--a river in which
ships might navigate from a temperate country, as surprisingly
abundant in certain productions as destitute of others, to another
possessing a tropical climate, and a soil which, according to the
best of judges, M. Bonpland, is perhaps unequalled in fertility in
any part of the world. How different would have been the aspect of
this river if English colonists had by good fortune first sailed up
the Plata! What noble towns would now have occupied its shores!
Till the death of Francia, the Dictator of Paraguay, these two
countries must remain distinct, as if placed on opposite sides of
the globe. And when the old bloody-minded tyrant is gone to his
long account, Paraguay will be torn by revolutions, violent in
proportion to the previous unnatural calm. That country will have
to learn, like every other South American state, that a republic
cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with
the principles of justice and honour.
OCTOBER 20, 1833.
Being arrived at the mouth of the Parana, and as I was very anxious
to reach Buenos Ayres, I went on shore at Las Conchas, with the
intention of riding there. Upon landing, I found to my great
surprise that I was to a certain degree a prisoner. A violent
revolution having broken out, all the ports were laid under an
embargo. I could not return to my vessel, and as for going by land
to the city, it was out of the question. After a long conversation
with the commandant, I obtained permission to go the next day to
General Rolor, who commanded a division of the rebels on this side
the capital. In the morning I rode to the encampment. The general,
officers, and soldiers, all appeared, and I believe really were,
great villains. The general, the very evening before he left the
city, voluntarily went to the Governor, and with his hand to his
heart, pledged his word of honour that he at least would remain
faithful to the last. The general told me that the city was in a
state of close blockade, and that all he could do was to give me a
passport to the commander-in-chief of the rebels at Quilmes. We had
therefore to take a great sweep round the city, and it was with
much difficulty that we procured horses. My reception at the
encampment was quite civil, but I was told it was impossible that I
could be allowed to enter the city. I was very anxious about this,
as I anticipated the "Beagle's" departure from the Rio Plata
earlier than it took place. Having mentioned, however, General
Rosas's obliging kindness to me when at the Colorado, magic itself
could not have altered circumstances quicker than did this
conversation. I was instantly told that though they could not give
me a passport, if I chose to leave my guide and horses, I might
pass their sentinels. I was too glad to accept of this, and an
officer was sent with me to give directions that I should not be
stopped at the bridge. The road for the space of a league was quite
deserted. I met one party of soldiers, who were satisfied by
gravely looking at an old passport: and at length I was not a
little pleased to find myself within the city.
This revolution was supported by scarcely any pretext of
grievances: but in a state which, in the course of nine months
(from February to October, 1820), underwent fifteen changes in its
government--each governor, according to the constitution, being
elected for three years--it would be very unreasonable to ask for
pretexts. In this case, a party of men--who, being attached to
Rosas, were disgusted with the governor Balcarce--to the number of
seventy left the city, and with the cry of Rosas the whole country
took arms. The city was then blockaded, no provisions, cattle or
horses, were allowed to enter; besides this, there was only a
little skirmishing, and a few men daily killed. The outside party
well knew that by stopping the supply of meat they would certainly
be victorious. General Rosas could not have known of this rising;
but it appears to be quite consonant with the plans of his party. A
year ago he was elected governor, but he refused it, unless the
Sala would also confer on him extraordinary powers. This was
refused, and since then his party have shown that no other governor
can keep his place. The warfare on both sides was avowedly
protracted till it was possible to hear from Rosas. A note arrived
a few days after I left Buenos Ayres, which stated that the General
disapproved of peace having been broken, but that he thought the
outside party had justice on their side. On the bare reception of
this the Governor, ministers, and part of the military, to the
number of some hundreds, fled from the city. The rebels entered,
elected a new governor, and were paid for their services to the
number of 5500 men. From these proceedings, it was clear that Rosas
ultimately would become the dictator: to the term king, the people
in this, as in other republics, have a particular dislike. Since
leaving South America, we have heard that Rosas has been elected,
with powers and for a time altogether opposed to the constitutional
principles of the republic.
(PLATE 36. BUENOS AYRES BULLOCK-WAGGONS.)
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