what the gauchos offer you. The filth of the post-houses is beyond description, dirt and vermin of every kind in them, and no accommodation of any sort for the traveller; even our peons preferred sleeping in the open air, and you would not suspect them of being over nice; I never in my life saw such a set of wild devils. "The country is more uninteresting than any I ever travelled over, in any quarter of the globe. I should divide it into five regions:--first, that of thistles, inhabited by owls and biscachas; secondly, that of grass, where you meet with deer and ostriches, and the screaming horned plover; thirdly, the region of swamps and bogs, only fit for frogs; fourthly, that of stones and ravines, where I expected every moment to be upset; and, lastly, that of ashes and thorny shrubs, the refuge of the tarantula and binchuco, or giant bug. Its geological aspect differed somewhat from what I expected. I should say that, to the north and south of Mendoza, there have been volcanoes, the eruptions from which have covered the country (perhaps the bed of a sea) with ashes as far as San Luis: the peculiar soil so formed, combined with the effects of climate and the salt lakes, may perhaps account for the particular species of thorny plants which are undescribed and confined to this region. The mountain streams, overflowing the saline lakes, are the origin of the vast swamps between San Luis and the Rio Quarto; and the decomposed granite and gneiss from the Sierra de Cordova, gives rise to the difference in the soil, and to its elevation along the Rio Tercero." MENDOZA. The province of Mendoza occupies a space of something more than 150 miles from north to south, along the eastern side of the Cordillera of the Andes, and nearly an equal distance from east to west, measured from the Desaguadero to the central ridge of the Andes. The northern boundary is formed by a line passing east and west through the post station of Chañar, about eighteen miles north of the city, which divides it from the jurisdiction of San Juan. To the south the nominal frontier line is the river Diamante, although lands beyond that river have been purchased from the Indians, which are likely, perhaps, to become some of the most valuable of the province, especially for the purposes of cattle breeding, for which those in the vicinity of Mendoza are not suitable.