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
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
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