CHAPTER XV.

LUXAN.

Preparations for leaving Mendoza-Provisions for the journey-Curiosity-Departure-Halt for the night— Learned ladies-Ercilla's poetry, and the aborigines of the Pampas-Retrospective glance at the plains and their inhabitants-Sketch of the Patagonians.

LUXAN, Feb. 17.-The servant and guide having arrived in the morning, we discharged the latter-not without reluctance, for an honester creature never breathed—and soon after sunset we took leave of our kind hostess, and mounted

the horses of our

brother, in order to

friend Don Melchior, her

sleep the first night at his

country house, which is on the road to our place of destination, and about seven miles from Mendoza. For several days La Senora Villa Nueva had been diligently making bread, and buying chickens, beef, and mutton, for our provisions on the journey; to which we added a small cask of Mendoza wine. We had enough for a fortnight in case we should be snowed up, or lose our way in the mountains. All the shopkeepers in the street were peeping out of their doors, with cigarros de papel in their mouths, watching our preparations, and the commencement of our journey; it being an event of some interest to them, in the monotonous history of their lives. At last, booted, spurred, and loaded, we sallied forth from the town. We were accompanied by two unmarried sisters of the family,

who were returning on horseback to their brother's house. This is at a village called Luxan, which we did not reach till after dark; for we rode very slowly. The house is like a large English farm-building, with a yard walled all round, which we entered by a large, strong wooden gate. The family consists of an old mother, her sons, and three daughters. We supped and passed the night with them. They made us clean beds, on the dry earthen embankments raised against the walls of the room, all round, like broad benches.

We had a good deal of conversation on the politics of Mendoza, and the prosperous state of its agriculture; and some long stories were told about the Indians. The old lady said she recollected a family of her acquaintance, of fifteen in number, all of whom escaped from

the pursuit of the Indians on three horses only. It is long since they have ceased to enter the cultivated part of the province of Mendoza; though formerly they used to ride up to the very walls of the city. Some of the ladies here had read a great deal, and were perfectly well informed about the history of the New World since its conquest. Don Melchior produced Ercilla's epic poem, which describes in beautiful language, and with much imagination, the numerous battles between the early Spaniards, and the Araucanian Indians, who gave so much trouble to the successors of Pizarro, and who are still unsubdued on the southern frontier of Chili, beyond the limits of the river Biobio, as are likewise most of the tribes on the Pampas. The Araucanians are still endowed with a courage and a capacity of enduring fatigue almost incredible. They are a

superior race, having a regularly established form of government, and a code of laws of their own, which they observe with the utmost strictness. Their qualities, both moral and physical, are said to be above those of other tribes of the New World; and I am assured that it is no uncommon thing for their lives to last above a hundred years, without any loss of corporeal or mental energy.

Having attempted to describe the cities of Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, and Mendoza, it may be well if I here take a brief review of the extensive plains on the borders of which these towns are situated, and add some observations upon the inhabitants, character, and climate, belonging to them.

The greater part of the Banda Oriental has been very accurately surveyed, in consequence of the old disputes between Portugal and