UP THE URUGUAY RIVER. 217
the country in a useful map. He believed devoutly, as indeed does my excellent friend, Mr. G. Lennon Hunt, H.B.M.'s Consul, Rio de Janeiro, in Baliia Blanca as the future port of Buenos Aires. The population there will be white, ignoring the mixed breeds, that curse of the older settlements. The climate is excellent, and the " Indian^^ tribes, more like Germans than Patagonians, hospitably harboured our unfortunate Welsh colonists, and gave them cattle to save them from starvation.
From La Paz I went to see Mr. Henley^s flax, and found the owner drinking cold mate, which is generally held to be an emetic. The agriculturist never can forget what he has learned at home ; the richest soil with the sunniest exposure had been chosen, and the seed which had become hot here produced poorly, there refused to grow, and where the yield was good it had fed the ants. The people say there is poison in these grounds, which have lain fallow since the days of their creation. The fact is, that its over- luxuriance, its '^ sourness'^ or superabundance of humic and ulmic acid, require previous correction. The readiest way is to sow a few crops of maize and to burn down the stubbles, spreading the ashes over the surface. Also it might be advisable to treat the soil with ^' tosca,-*^ which is here highly calcareous, as the presence of shells proves. There is little doubt that Mr. Henley will succeed, as far as flax-growing, but whether he prospers or not is question- able. I saw the remnants of the English colony which he had brought out. The unhappies had been for some time crowded together eighteen in one room. They had been fed daily with beef, which in England they saw perhaps on Sundays. Consequently, out of forty-one, eighteen died^ mostly of dysentery, and others, especially the women, sought their fortunes elsewhere. I rode past a few of them employed in field labour, and their surly hang-dog looks,
