Mr. White's House at Estanzuella.
My first day was employed in visiting several of the stations, and very agreeable it was cantering over the springy turf, clothed with grass and thistles, where the sheep and cattle were quietly feeding. Buttercups glittered in the sunshine, but we missed the modest daisies so familiar at home. We were on horseback five hours, and I returned to dinner highly delighted with all I had seen. The second day we took the carriage and a gun, as partridges are plentiful and innumerable flocks of doves. Paid a visit to the estancia of Mr. Giffard, about six miles distant in a direct line, but further by the course we had to take, partly over the open campo. Returning we came close upon some half-dozen ostriches and Mr. White shot at and wounded a very fine male; but it was a painful sight to see the struggles of the poor bird, and we were obliged to get one of the men from a neighbouring station to dispatch it with his knife. Many of these noble birds are still to be met with in the campo, where they are pursued by the natives for the value of the feathers. I was presented with a portion of the feathers of the ostrich killed as described. The third day we were again on horseback for several hours, with a boy carrying a gun and some refreshment. We rode along one of the running streams with which the campo is favoured, to look for some ducks, but the streams were very low, and we only succeeded in bagging one. These streams are invaluable for cattle, and the Banda Oriental in this respect is more fortunate than Buenos Ayres, and in consequence suffers less from drought. Finding game so scarce, the boy was sent home, and we cantered on to visit some of the other stations I had not yet seen, the weather throughout being beautifully fine, clear sunshine, with a bracing and most exhilarating breeze.
There are some curious collections of rocks mostly on the margins of the streams. Huge boulders, thrown up it would seem by some convulsion of nature, and between which trees and enormous cactuses have forced their way, in cases even splitting the stone, especially present a most singular appearance. About Mr. Giffard's quinta there is quite a large formation of this kind, and a collection of very fine ombu trees, several with immense trunks and evidently of great age.
To-day, the last of my visit, has been spent in riding about the quinta, watching the operation of lassoing and bringing into the corral a refractory bull and cow that had left their companions and roamed miles away. The dexterity of the peons, and the way they manage their horses on these occasions, is something wonderful, and fairly exhausts the strength of the animals.
This is the finest season of the year in these countries, and it is impossible to imagine anything more pleasing or more cheerful than the present aspect of the campo. The next two or three months constitute the winter season, which is rainy and cold. September and October (their spring) are generally fine. The heat of summer is, of course, considerable, but it is not so much felt in the open country, where a fresh breeze, as a rule, prevails; it is the towns that are most disagreeable at that period.
To-morrow, I return to Colonia, highly gratified with all I have observed, and with the kind hospitality I have experienced. As I have said, partridges are abundant, but they commonly go singly, and without a pointer they are difficult to follow. Mr. White, however, shot two brace close to his house, when we were walking out before breakfast, and several single ones on other occasions. They are prettily marked birds and delicate eating. He did not happen to have a suitable dog by him at the time. The shepherds all keep fine dogs, mostly of the retriever breed, to assist them in managing their flocks, and there were a good many attached to the house and out-buildings; one of the former, a Scotch terrier, and myself becoming very great friends.
TRIP ON THE CENTRAL ARGENTINE RAILWAY.
I am writing this on board the “Lujan” steamer, built in Buenos Ayres, with engines by a Glasgow house. She is a comfortable boat, with good accommodation for passengers, and the “vivers” excellent, including even champagne at dinner, which in this country is rather an expensive luxury. After a lapse of fifteen years I find myself once more ascending the noble Parana river, which at that time was almost unknown in Buenos Ayres, the little “Argentine” being the first commercial steamer that ever navigated its waters. I predicted the results a few years would bring about, and my expectations have been more than realised, the river being now as freely navigated by steamers as some of those in the United States, with the difference of course that there is not the same amount of population on its banks—population being still the great want of this boundless region.
The station for passengers for the up-river boats is now the terminus of the Northern Railway, at a small stream called Tigre, which is reached in something over an hour's time. We left the station at 10 a.m., and arrived at the wharf alongside which the steamer lay at 11.30. All the passengers, with their luggage, were soon on board, and we started, wending our way through the small branches of the Parana, in many places not wider than a canal, the steamer brushing against the overhanging trees. A couple of hours brought us at last into the wide embouchure of the river at a point named Palmas.
The advantage of the Tigre as a starting point for steamers is that it avoids the disagreeable boating in the roads of Buenos Ayres and crossing the bay for Martin Garcia; in every way it is a desirable arrangement, alike beneficial to the steamers and to the railway. Upwards of a dozen steamers were laying outside the Tigre, in a stream called Lujan (after which this boat is named), two of them large double-decked Yankee river boats and nearly all of them without occupation—a terrible sacrifice of valuable property. Having discussed a solid dejeuner à la fourchette, I came on deck to enjoy the scenery. It was blowing a fresh breeze, dead against us, with a strong current and very cold, cloaks and great coats being a necessity although the day was bright and sunny. For several hours we steamed along, passing only jungle and dense masses of trees, with numerous sailing craft at anchor, laden with cargo, many bound upwards, no doubt with stores for the army in Paraguay.