rode up, and very quietly taking the end of the lasso from the man, he lifted up the sheep-skin which covered the saddle, fixed the lasso to the ring which is there made for it, and then instantly set off at a gallop. Never did any one see an obstinate animal so completely conquered! With his tail pointing to the ground, hanging back, and with his four feet all scratching along the ground like the teeth of a harrow, he followed the boy evidently altogether against his will; and the sight was so strange that I instantly galloped by the side of the pig to watch his countenance. He was as obstinate as ever until the lasso choked him, and then he fainted and fell on his side. The boy dragged him in this state, at a gallop, more than three-quarters of a mile over hard rough ground, and at last suddenly stopped, and, jumping off his horse, began to unloose the lasso :—“ Está muerto!" (he is dead) said I to the boy, really sorry for the pig's fate. "Stá vivo!" exclaimed the child, as he vaulted on his horse, and galloped away. I watched the pig for some time, and was observing the blood on his nose, when, to my great surprise, he began to kick his hind leg he then opened his mouth, and at last his eyes; and after he had looked about him a little, like Clarence after his dream, he got up, and very leisurely walked to a herd of ten or twelve pigs of about the same size as himself, who were about twenty yards off. I slowly followed him, and when I came to the herd, I saw that, from the same cause, they had every one of them bloody noses.

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66

The house which I had near Buenos Aires was not only opposite the English burying-ground, but on the road to the Recoléta, which was the great burial-place for the town: about half a dozen funerals passed my window every day, and during the few days I was at Buenos Aires I scarcely ever rode into the town without meeting one.

Although the manners, customs, amusements, and fashions of different nations are constantly changing, and are generally different in different climates, yet one would at first expect that so simple an act as that of consigning to its narrow bed the body of a dead man would, in all countries and in all places, be the same, but though death is the same, funerals are very different.

In the old world, how often does the folly and vanity and vexation of spirit in which a man has lived accompany him to the tomb; and how often are the good feelings of the living overpowered by the vain pomp and ostentation which mock the burial of the dead! In South America the picture is a very different one, and certainly the way in which the people were buried at Buenos Aires appeared more strange to my eyes than any of the customs of the place. Of late years a few of the principal people have been buried in coffins, but generally the dead are called for by a hack hearse, in which there is a fixed coffin, into which they are put, when away the man gallops with the corpse, and leaves it in the vestibule of the Recoléta. There is a small vehicle for children, which I positively thought was a mountebank's cart: it was a light open tray, on wheels painted white, with light blue silk curtains, and driven at a gallop by a lad dressed in scarlet, with an enormous plume of white feathers in his hat. As I was riding home one day, I was overtaken by this cart (without its curtains, &c.), in which there was the corpse of a black boy, nearly naked. I galloped along with it for some distance; the boy, from the rapid motion of the carriage, was dancing sometimes on his back and sometimes on his face; occasionally his arm or leg would get through the bar of the tray, and two or three times I really thought the child would have bounded out of the tray altogether. The bodies of the rich were generally attended by their friends; but the carriages with four people in each were seldom able to go as fast as the hearse.

I went one day to the Recoléta, and just as I got there the little hearse drove up to the gate. The man who had charge of the burial-place received from the driver a ticket, which he read, and put into his pocket; the driver then got into the tray, and taking out a dead infant of about eight months old, he gave it to the man, who carried it swinging by one of its arms into the square-walled burial-ground, and I followed him. He went to a spot about ten yards from the corner, and then, without putting his foot upon the spade, or at all lifting up the ground, he scratched a place not so deep as the furrow of a plough. While he was doing this the poor little infant was lying before us on the ground upon its back : it had one eye open, and the other shut; its face was unwashed, and a small piece of dirty cloth was tied

round its middle: the man, as he was talking to me, placed the child in the middle of the furrow, pushed its arms to its side with the spade, and covering it so barely with earth that part of the cloth was still visible, he walked away and left it. I took the spade, and was going to bury the poor little child myself, when I recollected that as a stranger I should probably give offence, and I therefore walked towards the gate. I met the same man, with an assistant, carrying a tray, in which was the body of a very old man, followed by his son, who was about forty years of age; the party were all quarrelling, and remained disputing for some minutes after they had brought the body to the edge of the trench. This trench was about seven feet broad, and had been dug from one wall of the burial-ground to the other: the corpses were buried across it by fours, one above another, and there was a moveable shutter which went perpendicularly across the trench, and was moved a step forward as soon as the fourth body was interred. One body had already been interred; the son jumped down upon it, and while he was thus in the grave, standing upon one body and leaning against three, the two grave-diggers gave him his father, who was dressed in a long, coarse, white linen shirt. The grave was so narrow that the man had great difficulty in laying the body in it, but as soon as he had done so, he addressed the lifeless corpse of his father, and embraced it with a great deal of feeling :-the situation of the father and son, although so very unusual, seemed at the moment any thing but unnatural. In scrambling out of the grave, the man very nearly knocked a woman out of the tier of corpses at his back; and as soon as he was up, the two attendants with their spades threw earth down upon the face and the white dress of the old man, until both were covered with a very thin layer of earth: the two men then jumped down with heavy wooden rammers, and they really rammed the corpse in such a way that, had the man been alive, he would have been killed. We then all walked away.

MODE OF TRAVELLING.

THERE are two ways of travelling across the Pampas-in a carriage, or on horseback. The carriages are without springs either of wood or iron, but they are very ingeniously slung on hideropes, which make them quite easy enough. There are two sorts of carriages, a long vehicle on four wheels, like a van (with a door behind), which is drawn by four or six horses, and which can carry eight people; and a smaller one on two wheels, about half the length, which is usually drawn by three horses.

When I first went across the Pampas, I purchased for my party a large carriage, and also an enormous two-wheeled covered cart, which carried about twenty-five hundredweight of miners' tools, &c. I engaged a capatáz (headman), and he hired for me a number of peons, who were to receive thirty or forty dollars each for driving the vehicles to Mendoza.

The day before we started, the capatáz came to me for some money to purchase hides, in order to prepare the carriages in the usual way. The hides were soaked, and then cut into long strips, about three-quarters of an inch broad, and the pole, as also almost all the woodwork of the carriage, was firmly bound with the wet hide, which, when dry, shrunk into a band nearly as hard as iron. The spokes, and, very much to our astonishment, the fellies, or the circumference of the wheels, were similarly bound, so that they actually travelled on the hide. We all declared it would be destroyed before it got over the pavement of Buenos Aires, but it went perfectly sound for seven hundred miles, and was then only cut by some sharp granite rocks over which we were obliged to drive.

With respect to provisions, we were told (truly enough) that there is little to be had on the Pampas but beef and water; and a quantity of provisions, with cherry-brandy, &c. &c., was collected by the party, some of whom, I believe, fancied that I was going to take them, not to El Dorado, but to "that undiscovered country from which no traveller returns." However, when we

were ready to start, one of them found out that the loaves and fishes, the canteen, &c., were left out (whether by accident or design, it matters not), and they then all cheerfully consented to "rough it," which is in fact the only way to travel without vexation in any country. We took with us some brandy and tea, but so destitute were we of other luxuries, that the first day we had nothing to drink our tea out of but egg-shells.

As it had been reported to the government of Buenos Aires that the Pampas Indians had invaded the country through which we had to pass, the minister was kind enough to give me an order to a Commandant who was on the road with troops, for assistance if required; and besides this, we purchased a dozen muskets, some pistols and sabres, which were slung to the roof of the carriage.

As it is customary to pay the peons half their money in advance, and as men who have been paid in advance have in all countries a number of thirsty friends, it is very difficult to collect all the drivers. Ours were of all colours, black, white, and red; and they were as wild a looking crew as ever was assembled. We had six horses in the carriage, six in the cart, each of which was ridden by a peon, and I, with one of the party, rode.

The travelling across the Pampas a distance of more than nine hundred miles is really a very astonishing effort. The country,

as before described, is flat, with no road but a track, which is constantly changed. The huts, which are termed posts, are at different distances,* but upon an average, about twenty miles from each other; and in travelling with carriages, it is necessary to send a man on before, to request the Gauchos to collect their horses.

The manner in which the peons drive is quite extraordinary. The country, being in a complete state of nature, is intersected with streams, rivulets, and even rivers, with pantanos (marshes), &c., through which it is absolutely necessary to drive. In one instance the carriage, strange as it may seem, goes through a lake, which of course is not deep. The banks of the rivulets are often very precipitous, and I constantly remarked that we drove over and through places which in Europe any military officer would, I believe, without hesitation report as impassable.

*The distance between each post is published at Buenos Aires, in the Road-book and Almanac.