occasionally make their appearance and quickly destroy all the herbage. Jaguars lurk in the tall reed-grass in the vicinity of the great herds, and are the most formidable enemies of the pastoral Indians. In one place much infested by these animals, La Cruz and his Chilian attendants rode intrepidly into the midst of the thick cover to rouse the game, while the trembling Indians looked on with amazement; but the jaguars, not used to be sought thus boldly, stole off timidly, and the Chilians won a bloodless triumph. On this adventure La Cruz remarks,-'In our hills there are many large and fierce lions, and our country fellows, 'such of them as have any feats to boast of, catch and despatch ' them with the lasso quicker than they would a lamb.'--P.178. It was not till two-thirds of the journey across the Pampas were completed that the great herds of wild mares were met with; which, according to the Indians, extended onward without intermission to the eastern coast. The humid atmosphere of the sea-coast began now to be perceptible. Showers of rain and violent thunder-storms grew frequent. The country looked more luxuriant, and was more replete with animal as well as vegetable life. La Cruz exclaims in raptures, that the land is 'all good for tillage or for pasture, and that the road is delightful.' At length, on the 5th July, eighty-one days after leaving Fort Ballenar, of which fifty-one were actual days of march, La Cruz and his party entered the fortress of Melincué, on the frontiers of the government of Buenos Aires. But there he was surprised by a singular piece of intelligence, which at once frustrated all his plans, and caused him the most serious embarrassment. He learned, in short, that the English, under General Whitelock, had ascended the Rio de la Plata, and were actually in possession of Buenos Aires. His pecuniary resources consisted almost wholly of bills on that place. He had a numerous retinue to support; and, considering all hope of credit at Buenos Aires to be irretrievably lost, he deemed it advisable to reduce his expenditure as much as possible by the immediate dismissal of his attendants. Had his resolution been less prompt, fortune would have come to his aid, and he would have learned in a few days of the reverses which followed the short-lived triumph of the English. But his decision was adapted to the difficulties of his situation. He dismissed his followers, and hastened from Melincué, where his journal closes, to Cordoba, where the governor of the province was organizing a determined resistance to the foreign invaders.

Such was the abortive conclusion of this remarkable expedition. The length of the road, accurately measured by La Cruz, from Fort Ballenar to Melincué was 519 British statute

miles, 33 yards. The entire road to Buenos Aires, by a short cut, passing south of Melincué, he estimated, from information he received, at 651 miles. To this may be added 160 miles, for the length of the road from Ballenar to Conception, though it is not evident that it was ever contemplated to render this portion practicable for wheel-carriages. Thus the whole distance between the chief places on the opposite sides of the continent is little more than 800 miles; the greater part of which is a level plain, sufficiently supplied with wood and water, and offering no serious impediment to the traveller. The cost of constructing or repairing the road was reckoned by La Cruz at 46,051 pesos, of which sum 15,151 pesos were for constructing the road and cutting through ridges of lava and scoriæ in the Andes, from Ballenar to Butacura; 15,300 for removing difficulties in the Cordillera of Puconi Maguida; 14,100 for various improvements in the road through the plain to the Chadileubu; and from that river to Buenos Aires, being two-thirds of the whole distance, an expenditure of only 1500 pesos or dollars was required.

The political troubles which, immediately subsequent to the date of this journey, went on continually increasing in the Spanish-American provinces, will sufficiently explain why no advantage whatever was taken of the labours of La Cruz. He being an ardent patriót, figured as a member of the first Chilian Congress, which assembled in 1812. When the royalist army entered Chili shortly after, under Osorio, La Cruz appeared foremost in the ranks of the patriots. The royalists obtained the victory, and, though their triumph was not of long duration, it sufficed to subject their opponents to the bitterest persecution. La Cruz was sent, with other state prisoners, to the island of Juan Fernandez, where he remained in hard servitude till liberated by the revolution effected by San Martin. He then obtained, as the reward of his services and his sufferings, the rank of general; and subsequently filled the high post of Lieut.-Governor of the Provinces of Santiago and Valparaiso. Of the date of his death, his editor, D. de Angelis, leaves us in total ignorance.

To the geographer, the journal of La Cruz, notwithstanding its dry and meagre character, is in the highest degree interesting. All the other routes across the Pampas with which we are acquainted, affording accurate details, conduct towards Northern Chili, by Mendoza, and intersect only those streams which join the Rio del Diamante. It was known, by report, that this river, flowing sluggishly in a deep channel, called the Desaguadero, or Drain, on the south side of the route from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, spread into a lake, and was wasted somewhere in the plains. Now, the route of La Cruz seems to have lain precisely

in the direction best calculated to throw light on the arrangement of the waters of the interior. As we retrace his route, proceeding from east to west, the first considerable body of water which we meet with is the Desaguadero of the Diamante, in the middle of the continent; fifteen leagues north of the lake in which it terminates, and which is many leagues further south than has been hitherto supposed. We next find, at a very short distance, the Chadileubu, which rises in the Cordillera of Melalguè, and flows into the Desaguadero. Proceeding some leagues farther, we come on the Cobuleubu, or Rio Colorado, making a bold circuit eastward through the Pampas, as it descends from the Andes near Maulé, before it turns southwards to the sea. As we approach the Cordillera, we arrive at the Cudileubu and the Neuquen, the latter receiving the Tocoman and Reinguileubu, all considerable rivers, the united waters of which, under the name of Mucum-leubu, flow southwards into the Rio Negro. The Neuquen, and Cobuleubu, both appeared to him to be navigable downwards from the place where he crossed them; and he speaks of floating timber down the Reinguileubu, to supply the western, and more barren portion of the Pampas, as of a thing easily practicable. Thus, he appears to have crossed the chief rivers which enter the sea on the Patagonian coasts, or at least their most considerable branches, and he obtained from the Indian caciques who accompanied him copious information respecting the sources, and the numerous confluents of all the rivers from the Diamante to the Rio Negro. He learned that ten days' journey south of the Cobuleubu, the river Cariguenague (the Huenahue of Molina), issuing from the Cordillera of Deguin, and running into the Limayleubu, forms the boundary between the Pehuenches and the Guilliches, or Southern Indians.

Respecting the Limayleubu which La Cruz frequently made the object of his inquiries, the accounts of the Indians were positive and distinct. All concurred in stating it to be the greatest river with which they were acquainted on the eastern side of the Andes; that it was no where fordable, and that it received the Neuquen, Cudileubu, and all the other rivers of the eastern Andes northwards to the sources of the Rio Colorado. It issues, according to them, from a beautiful lake called Alomini, of great size; for the Cacique Manguel had travelled a day and a half along its shores. It is situated between the Cordilleras Miguen and Quenuco, and has an island in the middle of it. The river Limayleubu is small at first, but is soon swelled by the accession of a great many streams, of which the last in order, as named by the Indians, is the Naguelguapi. This river springs, they said, not from a lake, but from a morass of the same name. Be

sides the lake Alomini, the Indian chiefs also knew a lake called Guechulauguen, situated further south, and the waters of which flow into the Limayleubu.

Let us now see how far these accounts may be made to explain, or to coincide with preceding statements. We supposed, at first, that the lake of Villarica, which is twenty-four leagues in circumference, and has an island in its centre, might be the Alomini of the natives. Molina, it is true, says, that its Indian name is lauquen; but this in reality is only a general term, meaning sea, and not a proper name. The same writer, however, when he says that the river Tolten flows from the lake of Villarica into the Pacific Ocean, states a fact which appears to us to overthrow completely our first hypothesis; for it cannot be easily admitted that rivers flow in opposite directions from the same lake. But if the source of the Limaylenbu be not in the lake of Villarica, it is not very far from it; and perhaps the difficulty of fixing its situation is in a great measure removed by the following extract from some old missionary correspondence sent to La Cruz from Valdivia, and of which he did not perceive the more important application. The Jesuit Imonoff, in a letter dated Villarica, March 4, 1716, thus proceeds:

'Being desirous to know something of the road which passes to the other side of the Cordillera, constructed by the ancient inhabitants of the country, and of the excellence of which the Indians boast so much, I had occasion to observe, as far as I penetrated within the Cordillera, that the greater part of the road is without the least rise, only just beyond the lake there is a low ridge, somewhat uneven, beyond which are the plains. Immediately on entering the plains, is encountered a beautiful lake, and at the extremity of it is a volcano, named Rico-leufu.* The beauty of this lake cannot be adequately expressed, and its volcano being situated in the midst of so singular a level, and so close to the road to Bueno's Aires, might possibly serve as a mark, or beacon, to persons travelling to that place.'

If this account be received as authentic (and we know not why it should be rejected), then the lake seen by P. Imonoff is assuredly the Alomini-lauquen of the Indians. One consideration alone appears to us sufficient to identify them completely; namely, that the sources of the Limayleubu, as represented to La Cruz by the Indians, are evidently situated near the chief pass or road to Valdivia, Osorno, and the other southern settlements. South of the Limayleubu, said the Caciques, the passes of the Andes

*The Padre has evidently misapplied the name leufu, or leubu, which signifies not a volcano, but a river.

From

are low, and free from snow at all seasons of the year.
this it is manifest, that the road explored by P. Imonoff was
south of the Limayleubu; and as this river was considered by
the Indians to be fifteen days' journey distant from the Cobu-
leubu, and at least three days' from Osorno in the opposite direc-
tion, it appears to us that it is impossible to fix on a situation
better calculated to reduce into harmony all particulars respect-
ing it, than the plains immediately to the east of Villarica.

To those acquainted with the merits of Falkner's 'Description
' of Patagonia,' it might appear disingenuous, or at least ungra-
cious on our part, if we were to pass by in silence the statements
of that honest missionary, so much at variance with our own con-
clusions respecting the sources of the Limayleubu. But a cri-
tical enquiry into the causes of Falkner's mistake (which we
think quite explicable), in transferring the Limayleuħu to the
southern side of the Rio Negro, would lead us beyond our pre-
scribed limits. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with ob-
serving, that his own account of that river bears internal evidence
of error. Thus, after informing us that the Rio Negro comes
from the north, he goes on to say, 'the people of Chili give the
same name (Limayleubu, or river of leeches) to all the great
river (Rio Negro); but this is through a mistake, they being
'ignorant of some of its branches, of which this is one, and not
'so big as the Sanguel, and much less than the main branch,
even at its first appearance out of the Cordillera.' Now, it is
obvious that the mistake is Falkner's, and not that of the people
of Chili, who were much more likely to be well acquainted with
the rivers issuing from the Cordilleras than a missionary dwelling
in the eastern Pampas, and who called the main branch of the
Rio Negro the Limayleubu, whereas Falkner gave this name to
a little stream (the river Encarnacion of our maps), the Indian
name of which is Tucamalel.

Thus it appears to us to be clearly established that the main branch of the Rio Negro rises in the lake Alomini, situated in the Cordilleras, east of Villarica; and that, issuing thence under the name of Limayleubu, and being joined by numerous streams, among others by the Naguelguapi, mentioned by Falkner, it soon becomes a great river, of considerable width, and nowhere fordable. It afterwards receives the Cariguenague, coming from the north, and lower down, the Mucumleubu, itself a great river; the numerous tributaries to which were crossed by La Cruz. The latter river is evidently the Sanguel, or reed river of FalkThese united waters proceed southwards a short way, till meeting the southern branch of the Rio Negro, they turn eastward to the ocean. The northern, and principal branch of the

ner.

1