After a thirty-mile ride under a hot sun, fortunately on the easiest of horses, we were none of us sorry to stop for a short time at Carcarana, and obtain some refreshment, before proceeding—­horses, carriage, and all—­by train to Rosario, another colony on the line.  Arrived at the latter place, I thought I had had enough riding for the first day, and therefore visited the various farms and houses in the carriage, the rest of the party going, as before, on horseback.  After a round of about fifteen miles, we returned to the station, where we were kindly received by the sister of the station-master.  An excellent dinner was provided for us in the refreshment-room, before we entered our special train, and Rosario was reached at about ten o’clock.

Sunday, September 17th.—­A kind friend sent his carriage to take us to the English church, a brick building, built to replace the small iron church that existed here previously, and only opened last month.  The service was well performed, and the singing of the choir excellent.  We paid a visit to the Sunday schools after luncheon, and then drove to the quinta of Baron Alvear.  The road lies through the town, past the race-course, crowded with Gauchos, getting up scratch races amongst themselves, and on, over undulating plains and water-courses, into the open country.  Sometimes there was a track, sometimes none.  In some places the pastures were luxuriantly green; in others the ground was carpeted with white, lilac, and scarlet verbena, just coming into bloom—­for it is still early spring here.  Here and there came a bare patch, completely cleared by the locusts, who had also stripped many of the fine timber trees in the garden of the quinta.  On the gate-posts, at the entrance, were the nests of two oven-birds, like those we had already seen on the telegraph-posts, so exactly spherical as to look like ornaments.  In one of the shrubberies a fine jaguar was shut up in a cage, who looked very like a tiger.  Though he had evidently just had his dinner, he was watching with greedy interest the proceedings of some natives in charge of a horse—­an animal which he esteems a great delicacy, when procurable.

On our way across the camp we saw a great quantity of the seeds of the Martynia proboscidea, mouse-burrs as they call them,—­devil’s claws or toe-nails:  they are curious-looking things, as the annexed woodcut will show.

[Illustration:  Devils Horns]

Frank Buckland has a theory—­and very likely a correct one—­that they are created in this peculiar form for the express purpose of attaching themselves to the long tails of the wild horses that roam about the country in troops of hundreds.  They carry them thousands of miles, and disseminate the seed wherever they go at large in search of food and water.