The mode in which the horses are harnessed is admirably adapted to this sort of rough driving. They draw by the saddle instead of the collar, and having only one trace instead of two, they are able, on rough ground, to take advantage of every firm spot; where the ground will only bear passing over once, every peon takes his own path, and the horses' limbs are all free and unconstrained.

In order to harness and unharness, the peons have only to hook and unhook the lasso which is fixed to their saddle; and this is so simple and easy, that we constantly observed, when the carriage stopped, that before any one of us could jump out of it, the peons had unhooked, and were out of our sight to catch fresh horses in the corrál.

If, in a gallop, anything was dropped by one of the peons, he would unhook, gallop back, and overtake the carriage without its stopping for him. I often thought how admirably in practice this mode of driving would suit the particular duties of that noble branch of our army, the Horse Artillery.

The rate at which the horses travel (if there are enough of them) is quite surprising. Our cart, although laden with twentyfive hundredweight of tools, kept up with the carriage at a handgallop. Very often, as the two vehicles were going at this pace, some of the peons, who were always in high spirits, would scream out, "Ah mi patrón!" and then all shriek and gallop with the carriage after me; and frequently I was unable to ride away from them.

But strange as the account of this sort of driving may sound, *the secret would be discovered by any one who could see the horses arrive. In England, horses are never seen in such a state: the spurs, heels, and legs of the peons are literally bathed with blood, and from the sides of the horses the blood is constantly flowing rather than dropping.

After this description, in justice to myself, I must say that it is impossible to prevent it. The horses cannot trot, and one cannot draw the line between cantering and galloping, or, in merely passing through the country, alter the system of riding, which all over the Pampas is cruel.

The peons are capital horsemen, and we saw them several times, at a gallop, throw the rein on the horse's neck, take from

one pocket a bag of loose tobacco, and with a piece of paper, or a leaf of the Indian corn, make a cigar, and then take out a flint and steel and light it.

The post-huts are from twelve to thirty-six miles, and in one instance fifty-four miles from each other; and as it would be impossible to drag a carriage these distances at a gallop, relays of horses are sent on with the carriage, and are sometimes changed five times in a stage.

It is scarcely possible to conceive a wilder sight than our carriage and covered cart, as I often saw them,* galloping over the trackless plain, and preceded or followed by a troop of from thirty to seventy wild horses, all loose and galloping, driven by a Gaucho and his son, and sometimes by a couple of children. The picture seems to correspond with the danger which positively exists in passing through uninhabited regions, which are so often invaded by the merciless Indians.

In riding across the Pampas, it is generally the custom to take an attendant, and people often wait to accompany some carriage; or, if they are in condition, ride with the courier, who gets to Mendoza in twelve or thirteen days. In case travellers wish to carry a bed and two small portmanteaus, they are placed upon one horse, which is either driven on before, or by a halter tied to the postilion's saddle.

The most independent way of travelling is without baggage and without an attendant. In this case, the traveller starts from Buenos Aires or Mendoza with a Gaucho, who is changed at every post. He has to saddle his own horses, and to sleep at night upon the ground on his saddle; and as he is unable to carry any provisions, he must throw himself completely on the feeble resources of the country, and live on little else than beef and water. It is, of course, a hard life; but it is so delightfully inde

* I was one day observing them, instead of looking before me, when my horse fell into a biscachero, and rolled over upon my arm. It was so crushed that it made me very faint; but before I could get into my saddle, the carriages were almost out of sight, and while the sky was still looking green from the pain I was enduring, I was obliged to ride after them, and I believe I had seven miles to gallop as hard as my horse could go, before I could overtake the carriage to give up my horse.

pendent, and if one is in good riding condition, so rapid a mode of travelling, that I twice chose it, and would always prefer it; but I recommend no one to attempt it unless he is in good health and condition.

When I first crossed the Pampas, I went with a carriage; and although I had been accustomed to riding all my life, I could not ride at all with the peons, and after galloping five or six hours was obliged to get into the carriage; but after I had been riding for three or four months, and had lived upon beef and water, I found myself in a condition which I can only describe by saying that I felt no exertion could kill me. Although I constantly arrived so completely exhausted that I could not speak, yet a few hours' sleep upon my saddle, on the ground, always so completely restored me, that for a week I could daily be upon my horse before sunrise, could ride till two or three hours after sunset, and have really tired ten or twelve horses a day. This will explain the immense distances which people in South America are said to ride, which I am confident could only be done on beef and water.

At first, the constant galloping confuses the head, and I have often been so giddy when I dismounted that I could scarcely stand; but the system, by degrees, gets accustomed to it, and it then becomes the most delightful life which one can possibly enjoy. It is delightful from its variety, and from the natural train of reflections which it encourages--for, in the grey of the morning, while the air is still frosty and fresh, while the cattle are looking wild and scared, and while the whole face of nature has the bloom of youth and innocence, one indulges in those feelings and speculations in which, right or wrong, it is so agreeable to err: but the heat of the day and the fatigue of the body gradually bring the mind to reason; before the sun has set many opinions are corrected, and, as in the evening of life, one looks back with calm regret upon the past follies of the morning.

In riding across the Pampas with a constant succession of Gauchos, I often observed that the children and the old men rode quicker than the young men. The children have no judg ment, but they are so light, and always in such high spirits, that they skim over the ground very quickly.. The old grey-headed Gaucho is an excellent horseman, with great judgment; and

although his pace is not quite so rapid as the children's, yet, from being constant and uniform, he arrives at his goal nearly in the same time. In riding with the young men, I found that the pace was unavoidably influenced by their passions, and by the subject on which we happened to converse; and when we got to the post, I constantly observed that, somehow or other, time had been lost.

In crossing the Pampas, it is absolutely necessary to be armed, as there are many robbers or salteadores, particularly in the desolate province of Santa Fé.

The object of these people is of course money, and I therefore always rode so badly dressed and so well armed, that although, with no one but a child as a postilion, I once passed a gang of these salteadores who had evidently halted for no good purpose, they did not think it worth while to attack me. I always carried two brace of detonating pistols in a belt, and a short detonating double-barrelled gun in my hand. I made it a rule never to be an instant without my arms, and to cock both barrels of my gun whenever I met any Gauchos.

With respect to the Indians, a person riding can use no precaution, but must just run the gauntlet, and take his chance, which, if calculated, is a good one.

is

If he fall in with them, he must be tortured and killed, but it very improbable that he should happen to find them on the road; however, they are so cunning, they ride so quick, and the country is so uninhabited, that it is impossible to gain any information about them; besides this, the Gauchos are in such alarm, and there are so many constant reports concerning them, that it becomes useless to attend to any; and I believe it is just as safe to ride towards the spot at which one hears they are, as to turn back. The greatest danger in riding alone across the Pampas proceeds from the constant falls which the horses get in the holes of the biscachos. I calculated that, upon an average, my horse fell with me in a gallop once in every three hundred miles; and although, from the ground being very soft, I was never seriously hurt, yet previous to starting one cannot help feeling what a forlorn situation it would be, to break a limb or dislocate a joint so many hundred miles from any sort of assistance.

TOWN OF SAN LUIS.

FIFTH day (from Buenos Aires). We arrived an hour after sunset-fortified post-scrambling in the dark for the kitchencook unwilling-correo (the courier) gave us his dinner-huts of wild-looking people-three women and girls almost naked their strange appearance as they cooked our fowls. Our hutold man immoveable-Maria or Marequita's black figure-little mongrel boy-three or four other persons. Roof supported in the centre by a crooked pole-holes in the roof and walls—walls of mud, cracked and rent—a water-jug in the corner on a threepronged stick-floor, the earth-the eight hungry peons, by moonlight, standing with their knives in their hands over a sheep they were going to kill, and looking on their prey like relentless tigers.

In the morning, Morales and the peons standing round the fire-the blaze making the scene behind them obscure and dark -the horizon like the sea, except here and there the back of a cow to be seen-waggon and coach just discernible.

In the hut all our party occupied with the baggage-lighted by a candle crooked and thin-Scene of urging the patrón (Master) to get horses, and Marequita to get milk-the patrón wakening the mongrel boy.

Twelfth day.-Left the post hut with three changes of horses to get to San Luis, distant thirty-six miles-inquired the way of one of the Gauchos who was driving the carriage--he dismounted and traced it with his finger on the road-we were to turn off, when about three leagues, at a dead horse which we should see.

* 66 They be so wild as the donkey," said one of the Cornish party, smiling; he then very gravely added, "and there be one thing, sir, that I do observe, which is, that the farther we do go, the wilder things do get!"