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daughters would often come to our rancho mounted upon the same horse. They ride like men, but with their knees tucked up higher; a habit which comes, perhaps, of their being accustomed, when travelling, to ride the loaded horses. The duty of the women is to load and unload the horses; to make the tents for the night; in short, to be, like the wives of all savages, useful slaves. The men fight, hunt, take care of the horses, and make the riding-gear. One of their chief in-door occupations is to knock two stones together till they become round, in order to make the bolas. With this important weapon the Indian catches his game, and also his

horse, which roams free over the plain. In fighting, his first attempt is to throw down his enemy's horse with the bolas,

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and when entangled by the fall, to kill him with his pike (chuzo). If the bolas only catch the neck or body of an animal, they are often carried away and lost. As the mak ing of the stones round is the labor of two days, the manu facture of the balls is a very common employment. Several of the men and women had their faces painted red, but I nev er saw the horizontal bands which are so common among the Fuegians. Their chief pride consists in having everything made of silver. I have seen a cacique with his spurs, stirrups, handle of his knife, and bridle, made of this metal. The headstall and reins, being of wire, were not thicker than whip-cord; and to see a fiery steed wheeling about under the command of so light a chain gave to the horsemanship a remarkable character of elegance.

tle son.

The chief Indians always have one or two picked horses, which they keep ready for any urgent occasion. When the troops of General Rosas first arrived at Cholechel they found there a tribe of Indians, of whom they killed twenty or thirty. The cacique escaped in a manner which astonished every one. He sprang upon an old white horse, taking with him his litThe horse had neither saddle nor bridle. To avoid the shots, the Indian rode in the peculiar manner of his nation, namely, with an arm round the horse's neck, and one leg only on its back. Thus hanging on one side, he was seen patting the horse's head, and talking to him. The pursuers made every effort in the chase; the commandant three times changed his horse; but all in vain. The old Indian father What a fine picture one

and his son escaped and were free. can form in one's mind-the naked, bronze-like figure of the

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old man, with his little boy, riding like Mazeppa on the white horse, thus leaving far behind him the host of pursuers!

In a battle at the small Salinas a tribe, consisting of about one hundred and ten Indians, men, women, and children, were nearly all taken or killed. Four men ran away together. They were pursued: one was killed, and the other three were taken alive. They turned out to be messengers from a large body of Indians, united in the common cause of defence, near the Cordillera. The tribe to which they had been sent was on the point of holding a grand council; the feast of mare's flesh was ready, and the dance prepared: in the morning the messengers were to have returned to the Cordillera. They were remarkably fine men, very fair, above six feet high, and all under thirty years of age. The three survivors, of course, possessed very valuable information, and to extort this they were placed in a line. The two first, being questioned, answered, "No sé" (I do not know), and were one after the other shot. The third also said "No sé;" adding, "Fire! I am a man, and can die!" Not one syllable would they breathe to injure the united cause of their country.

During my stay at Bahia Blanca, while waiting for the Beagle, an account came that a small party, forming one of the postas on the line to Buenos Ayres, had been found all murdered. The next day three hundred men arrived from the Colorado, a large portion of whom were Indians, and passed the night here. In the morning they started for the scene of the murder, with orders to follow the rastro or track, even if it led them to Chile. One glance at the rastro tells these people a whole history. Supposing they examine the

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track of a thousand horses, they will soon guess the number of mounted ones by seeing how many have cantered; by the depth of the other impressions, whether any horses were loaded with cargoes; by the irregularity of the footsteps, how far tired; by the manner in which the food has been cooked, whether the pursued travelled in haste; by the gen eral appearance, how long it has been since they passed. They consider a rastro ten days or a fortnight old quite recent enough to be hunted out.

In journeying from the Rio Negro to the Colorado we came in sight of a famous tree, which the Indians reverence as the altar of Walleechu. It stands on a high part of the plain, and hence is a landmark visible at a great distance. As soon as a tribe of Indians come in sight of it they offer their adorations by loud shouts. The tree itself is low, much branched, and thorny: just above the root it has a diameter of about three feet. It stands by itself, without any neighbor, and was indeed the first tree we saw; afterward we met with a few others of the same kind, but they were far from common. Being winter, the tree had no leaves, but in their place numberless threads, by which the various offerings, such as cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, etc., had been hung upon it. Poor Indians, not having anything better, only pull a thread out of their ponchos and fasten it to the tree. Richer Indians are accustomed to pour spirits and matë (tea) into a certain hole, and likewise to smoke upward, thinking thus to afford all possible gratification to Walleechu. To complete the scene, the tree was surrounded by the bleached bones of horses which had been slaughtered as sacrifices.

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All Indians, of every age and sex, make their offerings; they then think that their horses will not tire, and that they themselves shall be prosperous. The Gaucho who told me this said that, in the time of peace, he had witnessed this scene, and that he and others used to wait till the Indians had passed by, for the sake of stealing from Walleechu the offerings. The Gauchos think that the Indians consider the tree as the god himself; but it seems far more probable that they regard it as his altar.

THE NEGRO.

WE determined to pass the night at one of the posthouses, a day's ride from Bahia Blanca. This posta was com manded by a negro lieutenant, born in Africa; and, to his credit be it said, there was not a rancho between the Colorado and Buenos Ayres in nearly such neat order as his. He had a little room for strangers, and a small corral for the horses, all made of sticks and reeds; he had also dug a ditch round his house as a defence, in case of being attacked. This would, however, have been of little avail if the Indians had come; but his chief comfort seemed to rest in the thought of selling his life dearly. A short time before, a body of Indians had travelled past in the night; if they had known of the posta, our black friend and his four soldiers would assuredly have been slaughtered. I did not anywhere meet a more civil and obliging man than this negro; it was therefore the more painful to see that he would not sit down and eat with us.