So damp was the ground, that there were large beds of a coarse cyperus, in which great numbers of a very small water-rail lived and bred.
While staying in this upper region, we lived entirely upon tortoise-meat: the breast-plate roasted (as the Gauchos do carne con cuero), with the flesh on it, is very good; and the young tortoises make excellent soup; but otherwise the meat to my taste is indifferent.
One day we accompanied a party of the Spaniards in their whale-boat to a salina, or lake from which salt is procured.

After landing we had a very rough walk over a rugged field of recent lava, which has almost surrounded a tuff-crater at the bottom of which the salt-lake lies.

The water is only three or four inches deep and rests on a layer of beautifully crystallised, white salt.

The lake is quite circular, and is fringed with a border of bright green succulent plants; the almost precipitous walls of the crater are clothed with wood, so that the scene was altogether both picturesque and curious.

A few years since the sailors belonging to a sealing-vessel murdered their captain in this quiet spot; and we saw his skull lying among the bushes.
During the greater part of our stay of a week the sky was cloudless, and if the trade-wind failed for an hour the heat became very oppressive.