Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

104 FOKTALEZA ARGKNTINA. Sept. thought we were very suspicious characters, especially Mr. Darwin, whose objects seemed most mysterious. In consequence, we were watched, though otherwise most hospitably treated ; and when I proposed to return, next morning, to the boat, trifling excuses were made about the want of horses and fear of Indians arriving, by which I saw that the commandant wished to detain us, but was unwilling to do so forcibly ; telling him, therefore, I should walk back, and setting out to do so, I elicited an order for horses, maugre the fears and advice of his major, who gave him all sorts of warn- ings about us. However, he sent an escort with us, and a troop of gaucho soldiers were that very morning posted upon the rising grounds nearest to the Beagle, to keep a watch on our movements. We afterwards heard, that the old major's suspicions had been very much increased by Harris's explanation of Mr. Darwin's occupation. ' Un naturalista' was a term unheard of by any person in the settlement, and being unluckily explained by Harris as meaning < a man that knows every thing,' any further attempt to quiet anxiety was useless. As this small settlement has seldom been visited by strangers, I will describe its primitive state. In the midst of a level country, watered by several brooks, and much of it thickly covered with a kind of trefoil, stands a mud -walled erection, dignified with the sounding appellation of ' La fortaleza pro- tectora Argentina.' It is a polygon, 282 yards in diameter, having about twenty-four sides, and surrounded by a narrow ditch. In some places the walls are almost twenty feet high, but in others I was reminded of the brothers' quarrel at the building of ancient Rome, for there is a mere ditch, over which a man could jump. It is, however, said by the gauchos, that a ditch six feet wide will stop a mounted Indian, and that their houses require no further defence from attacks of the aborigines. How, or why it is that such excellent horse- men do not teach their horses to leap, I cannot understand. Within, and outside the fort, were huts (ranchos) and a few