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This episode is brought to you by Flitting Fireflies. Tonight we'll read from the seventh chapter of British naturalist Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Titled, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe The Voyage of the Beagle is the title most commonly given to the book first published in 1839 as Darwin's journal and remarks. Bringing him considerable fame and respect, the book Chronicles Darwin's five-year journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he made groundbreaking observations that contributed to his theory of evolution by natural selection. If you'd like to start from the beginning, the first episode of this series aired on June 10, 2024, with subsequent monthly episodes exploring Darwin's Journey in detail. This chapter explores Darwin's overlanded journey from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe, Argentina, providing vivid descriptions of the landscape, people, and wildlife heme counters. The region is dominated by flat fertile plains, which Darwin admires for their vastness and agricultural potential. He observes the lifestyle of the local inhabitants, including Gouchos, whose skills and horsemanship and simple yet resourceful way of life fascinate him. Darwin also reflects on the the history and politics of the region, commenting on the social conditions and the impact of Spanish colonization. He describes the wildlife in detail, noting the abundance of large birds like reas and the diversity of smaller animals.

Darwin continues his geological studies, examining rock formations and fossils that reveal the natural history of the area. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. September 27th. In the evening I set out on an excursion to Santa Fe, which is situated nearly 300 English miles from Buenos Aires on the banks of the Peronna. The roads in the neighborhood of the city after the rainy weather were extraordinarily bad. I should never have thought it possible for a bullock wagon to have crawled along. As it was, they scarcely went at the rate of a mile an hour, and a man was kept ahead to survey the best line for making the attempt. The bullocks were terribly jaded. It is a great mistake to suppose that with improved roads and an accelerated rate of traveling, the sufferings of the animals increase in the same proportion. We pass the train of wagons and a troop of beasts on their road to Mendoza. The distance is about 580 geographical miles and the journey is generally performed in 50 days. These wagons are very long, narrow, and thatched with reeds. They have only two wheels, the diameter of which in some cases is as much as 10 feet. is drawn by sixocks, which are urged on by a goat at least twenty feet long. This is suspended from within the roof. For the wheel-bullocks a smaller one is capped, and for the intermediate pair a point projects at right angles from the middle of the long one. The whole apparatus looked like some implement of war. September 28th. We passed the small town of Luxembe, where there is a wooden bridge over the river, a most unusual convenience in this country. We passed also a recco. The plains appeared level, but were not so, in fact, for in various places the horizon was distant. The Estancias are here, wide apart, for there is little good pasture, owing to the land being covered by beds either of an acreed clover or of the great thistle. The latter, well known from the animated description given by Sir F. Had, were at this time of the year two-thirds grown. In some parts, they were as high as the horses back, but in others, they had not yet sprung up, and the ground was bare and dusty as on a turnpike road. The clumps were of the most brilliant green, and they made a pleasing miniature likeness of broken forest land. When the thistles are full grown, the great beds are impenetrable, except by a few tracks as intricate as those in Alabrant. These are only known to the robbers who at this season inhabit them and sally forth at night to rob with impunity. Upon asking at a house whether robbers were numerous, I was answered that the fossils are not up yet, the meaning of which reply was not at first very obvious. There is little interest in passing over these tracks, for they are inhabited by few animals or birds, accepting the Viskacha and its friend, the little owl. The Viskacha is found as far south as the Ryo Negro in latitude 41 degrees, but not beyond. It cannot subsist on the gravely and desert plains of Patagonia, but prefers a clay or sandy soil which produces a different and more abundant vegetation. Near Mendoza, at the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs in close neighborhood with the allied alpine species. It is a very curious circumstance in its geographical distribution that it has never been seen. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Banda Oriental, to the eastward of the river Uruguay. Yet, in this province, there are planes which appear admirably adapted to its habits. The yurkway has formed an insuperable obstacle to its migration. Although the broader barrier of the piranha has been passed, and the viscachah is common, and entre rios, the province between these two great rivers. Near Buenos Aires, these animals are exceedingly common. Their most favorite resort appears to be those parts of the plane, which during one half of the year are covered with giant disels. To the exclusion of other plants. The gaucho's affirm that it lives on roots, which from the great strength of its non-tieth, and the kind of places frequented by it seems probable. In the evening, the visca chas come out in numbers and quietly sit at the mouths of their burrows on their haunches. At such times they are very tame, and a man on horseback passing by seems only to present an object for their grave contemplation. run very awkwardly, and when running out of danger from their elevated tails and short front legs much resemble great rats. The viskata has one very singular habit, namely dragging every hard object to the mouth of its burrow. Around each group of holes, many bones of cattle, stones, distal stocks, heart lumps of earth, etc., are collected into an irregular heap, which frequently amounts to as much as a wheelbarrow would contain. I was credibly informed that a gentleman, when riding on a dark night, dropped his watch. He returned in the morning, and by searching the neighborhood of every viscachahol on the line of road, as he expected, he soon found it. This habit of picking up whatever may be lying on the ground anywhere near its habitation must cost much trouble. For what purpose it is done, I am quite unable to form even the most remote conjecture. It cannot be for defense, because the rubbish is chiefly placed above the mouth of the burrow, which enters the ground at a very small inclination. No doubt there must exist some good reason, but the inhabitants of the country are quite ignorant of it.

The only fact which I know analogous to it is the habit of that extraordinary Australian bird, the caledera maculona, which makes an elegant, faulted passage of twigs for playing in, and which collects near the spot, land, and sea shells, bones, and the feathers of birds, especially brightly colored ones. Mr. Goolen, who has described these facts informs me that the natives, when they lose any hard object, search the playing passages, and he is known a tobacco pipe thus recovered.

The Little Owl, which has been so often mentioned on the plains of Buenos Aires, exclusively

inhabits the holes of the Vizcacha, but in Banda Oriental, it is its own workmen.

the open day, but more especially in the evening, these birds may be seen in every direction, standing frequently by pairs on the hillock near their burrows. If disturbed, they either enter the hole, or uttering a shrill harsh cry, move with a remarkably unilatory flight to a short distance. And then, turning around, steadily gaze at their pursuer. Occasionally in the evening, they may be heard hooting. It is said that snakes are their common prey during the daytime. In the evening, we crossed the Rio RSFA when a simple raft made of barrels lashed together and slept at the post house on the other side. I this day paid horse hire for 31 leagues, and although the sun was glaring hot, I was but little fatigued. When Captain Head talks of riding 50 leagues on a day, I do not imagine the distance is equal to 150 English miles. At all events, the 31 leagues was only 76 miles in a straight line. And in an open country, I should think four additional miles for turnings would be a sufficient allowance. 29th and 30th, we continued to ride over plains of the same character. At San Nicholas, I first saw the noble river of the Parana, at the foot of the cliff on which the town stands, some large vessels were at anchor, before arriving at Rosario. We crossed the solidio, a stream of fine clear running water, but too saline to drink. Rosario is a large town built on a dead-level plane, which forms a cliff about 60 feet high over the Peronah. The river here is very broad, with many islands which are low and water, as is also the opposite shore. The view would resemble that of a great lake, if it were not for the linear shaped islands, which alone gives the idea of running water. The cliffs are the most picturesque part. Sometimes they are absolutely perpendicular and of a red color. At other times in large broken masses covered with cacti and momoosatries. The real grandeur, however, of an immense river like this, is derived from reflecting how important a means of communication and a commerce it forms between one nation and another. To what a distance it travels, and from how vast a territory it drains the great body of fresh water which flows past your feet. For many leagues north and south of San Nicolas and Rosario, the country is really level. Scarsely anything which travelers have written about its extreme flatness can be considered as exaggeration.

Yet, I could never find a spot where, by slowly turning round, objects were not seen at greater distances in some directions than in others. And this manifestly proves inequality in the plane. at sea, a person's eye being six feet above the surface of the water, his horizon is two

miles and four-fifths distant. In like manner, the more level the plane, the more nearly does the horizon approach within these narrow limits. And this, in my opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur which one would have imagined that a vast level plane would have possessed. October 1st We started by moonlight and arrived at the Rio Tercero by sunrise. The river is also called the Saladillo and it deserves the name for the water as brackish. I stayed here the greater part of the day searching for fossil bones. It's a perfect tooth of the toxidon and many scattered bones, I found two immense skeletons near each other, projecting in bold relief from the perpendicular cliff of the piranha. They were, however, so completely decayed that I could only bring away small fragments of one of the great molar teeth. But these are sufficient to show that there are means belonged to a mastodon, probably the same species with that which formally must have inhabited in Upper Peru in such great numbers. The men who took me in the canoe said they had long known of these skeletons and had often wondered how they got there. The necessity of a theory being felt that came to the conclusion that, like the Vizcacha, the mastodon was formally a burrowing animal. In the evening we rode another stage, and crossed another brackish stream, bearing the dregs of the washings of the pompous. October 2nd, we passed through Corunda, which from the luxuriance of its gardens was one of the prettiest villages I saw. From this point to Santa Fe, the road is not very safe. The western side of the Peron on northward ceases to be inhabited. The nature of the country, his open woodland, composed of low, prickly mimosas. We passed some houses that had been ransacked and since deserted. In the morning we arrived in Santa Fe. I was surprised to observe how great a change of climate, a difference of only three degrees of latitude between this place and Buenos Aires had caused. This was evident from the dress and the complexion of the men, from the increased size of the trees, the number of new cacti and other plants, and especially from the birds. the course of an hour, I remarked half a dozen birds, which I had never seen at Buenos Aires, considering that there is no natural boundary between the two places, and that the character of the country is nearly similar. The difference was much greater than I should have expected. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n y