The extent of the Great Salt Lake is not given, and Garcia says it was impossible to ride round it from the thick woods which lined its banks; but, from an eminence a little to the south, he got a general view of it, as well as of the country for a considerable distance. Looking towards the south, as far as he could see, was one immense level plain, covered with pasturage: to the eastward, in the distance, some woods were visible, which, he was told, extended to the hilly ranges of Guamini and La Ventana. On the opposite side, to the westward of the lake, was a vast forest of chañar, algaroba, and an infinite variety of other trees, which the Indians told him extended with little interruption for three days' journey in that direction; and they added the singular circumstance that, about a day and a half off in the midst of it, upon a hilly range of some extent, were to be seen the ruins of the brick buildings of some former inhabitants (antigua poblacion), though, as to who they might have been, or when they ceased to exist, they had not the smallest notion, neither had they any tradition which could throw light upon it. The fruit-trees, they said, which, had been planted there, had multiplied exceedingly, so that it was a great resort of the Indians in their journeys across the pampas, to gather figs, peaches, walnuts, and apples, and other fruits, of which there was an abundance for all that went there. Wild cattle also, they said, were in the surrounding forest, but they were not so accessible, and were difficult to follow up through the woods. Colonel Garcia hazards no conjecture as to who could have been the settlers in this secluded and remote spot, nor has any one else obtained since any further account of them. The age of the trees might perhaps throw some light upon the date of the buildings, and I imagine that the names alone of those I have mentioned are sufficient to indicate that they must have been of European introduction, and consequently that those who planted them must have done so subsequently to the discovery of that part of the world by the Spaniards. Nothing, I was told, existed at Buenos Ayres which could throw any light whatever upon the subject. Had the practice continued of carrying on these expeditions, it is probable that the Buenos Ayreans would have become better acquainted with the southern part of the pampas; but, upon the opening of an unrestricted trade, the importation of salt from the Cape de Verd Islands and other countries rendered it unnecessary for the government to put itself to any expense about them; and, as individuals without the protection of the troops would not run the risk of encountering the Indians, the Salinas ceased to be resorted to, and the people of Buenos Ayres became reconciled to purchasing of foreigners an article of which they have an inexhaustible supply within their own territory.