The Voyage of the Beagle - The Original Classic Edition. Darwin Charles

gravel, which extends far and wide over the open plain. Water is extremely scarce, and, where found, is almost invariably brackish. The vegetation is scanty; and although there are bushes of many kinds, all are armed with formidable thorns, which seem to warn the stranger not to enter on these inhospitable regions.

       The settlement is situated eighteen miles up the river. The road follows the foot of the sloping cliff, which forms the northern boundary of the great valley in which the Rio Negro flows. On the way we passed the ruins of some fine estancias, which a few years since had been destroyed by the Indians. They withstood several attacks. A man present at one gave me a very lively description of what took place. The inhabitants had sufficient notice to drive all the cattle and horses into the corral which surrounded the house, and likewise to mount some small cannon. (4/1. The corral is an enclosure made of tall and strong stakes. Every estancia, or

       farming estate, has one attached to it.)

       The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several

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       hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in

       two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and

       taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The

       only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented

       with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My

       informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would

       cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result

       of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. The Indians, with great steadiness, came to

       the very fence of the corral: but to their surprise they found the posts fastened together by iron nails instead of leather thongs, and, of course, in vain attempted to cut them with their knives.

       This saved the lives of the Christians: many of the wounded Indians were carried away by their companions, and at last, one of the

       under caciques being wounded, the bugle sounded a retreat. They retired to their horses, and seemed to hold a council of war. This was an awful pause for the Spaniards, as all their ammunition, with

       the exception of a few cartridges, was expended. In an instant the

       Indians mounted their horses, and galloped out of sight. Another attack was still more quickly repulsed. A cool Frenchman managed the gun; he stopped till the Indians approached close, and then raked their line with grape-shot: he thus laid thirty-nine of them

       on the ground; and, of course, such a blow immediately routed the

       whole party.

       The town is indifferently called El Carmen or Patagones. It is built on the face of a cliff which fronts the river, and many of

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       the houses are excavated even in the sandstone. The river is about

       two or three hundred yards wide, and is deep and rapid. The many islands, with their willow-trees, and the flat headlands, seen one behind the other on the northern boundary of the broad green valley, form, by the aid of a bright sun, a view almost

       picturesque. The number of inhabitants does not exceed a few hundreds. These Spanish colonies do not, like our British ones, carry within themselves the elements of growth. Many Indians of pure blood reside here: the tribe of the Cacique Lucanee constantly have their Toldos on the outskirts of the town. (4/2. The hovels of the Indians are thus called.) The local government partly supplies them with provisions, by giving them all the old worn-out horses, and they earn a little by making horse-rugs and other articles of riding-gear. These Indians are considered civilised; but what their character may have gained by a lesser degree of ferocity, is almost

       counterbalanced by their entire immorality. Some of the younger men

       are, however, improving; they are willing to labour, and a short

       time since a party went on a sealing-voyage, and behaved very well. They were now enjoying the fruits of their labour, by being dressed in very gay, clean clothes, and by being very idle. The taste they showed in their dress was admirable; if you could have turned one of these young Indians into a statue of bronze, his drapery would have been perfectly graceful.

       One day I rode to a large salt-lake, or Salina, which is distant fifteen miles from the town. During the winter it consists of a shallow lake of brine, which in summer is converted into a field of snow-white salt. The layer near the margin is from four to five inches thick, but towards the centre its thickness increases. This

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       lake was two and a half miles long, and one broad. Others occur in the neighbourhood many times larger, and with a floor of salt, two and three feet in thickness, even when under water during the

       winter. One of these brilliantly white and level expanses, in the

       midst of the brown and desolate plain, offers an extraordinary spectacle. A large quantity of salt is annually drawn from the salina: and great piles, some hundred tons in weight, were lying ready for exportation.

       The season for working the salinas forms the harvest of Patagones; for on it the prosperity of the place depends. Nearly the whole population encamps on the bank of the river, and the people are employed in drawing out the salt in bullock-waggons. This salt is crystallised in great cubes, and is remarkably pure: Mr. Trenham Reeks has kindly analysed some for me, and he finds in it only 0.26 of gypsum and 0.22 of earthy matter. It is a singular fact that it

       does not serve so well for preserving meat as sea-salt from the

       Cape de Verd islands; and a merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he considered it as fifty per cent less valuable. Hence the Cape de Verd salt is constantly imported, and is mixed with that from these salinas. The purity of the Patagonian salt, or absence from it of those other saline bodies found in all sea-water, is the only assignable cause for this inferiority: a conclusion which no one, I think, would have suspected, but which is supported by the fact lately ascertained, that those salts answer best for preserving

       cheese which contain most of the deliquescent chlorides. (4/3. Report of the Agricultural Chemistry Association in the "Agricultural Gazette" 1845 page 93.)

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       The border of the lake is formed of mud: and in this numerous large crystals of gypsum, some of which are three inches long, lie

       embedded; whilst on the surface others of sulphate of soda lie

       scattered about. The Gauchos call the former the "Padre del sal," and the latter the "Madre;" they state that these progenitive salts always occur on the borders of the salinas, when the water begins to evaporate. The mud is black, and has a fetid odour. I could not at first imagine the cause of this, but I afterwards perceived that

       the froth which the wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervae; I attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing

       to some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able to exist in

       brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate

       of soda and lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during the

       long summer, the surface is hardened into a solid layer of salt?

       Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, and breed

       here, throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, and at the Galapagos

       Islands, I met with these birds wherever there were lakes of brine. I saw them here wading about in search of food--probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or confervae. Thus we have a little