An English traveller, whose name is lost, has left a description of _Buenos Ayres_ as it was in the year 1658. At that time only Spaniards might proceed in Spanish ships to their Indian possessions. Other nations of Europe, however, were occasionally permitted to trade with the cities on the river Plate; and at _Buenos Ayres_, in the above-mentioned year, our countryman found twenty Dutch and two English ships preparing to proceed homewards, laden with bull-hides, plate, and vigonia wool, which they had obtained in exchange for other commodities. At that time the military resources of the city of _Buenos Ayres_ were not great; for we read that, on the alarm of an attack by a French squadron, they had to send for aid to the Viceroy at _Lima_, who caused to be levied, with much difficulty and by the exercise of force, a hundred men, who did not reach the eastern coast until eight or nine months after they had been sent for. The town of _Buenos Ayres_ contained four hundred houses, and was not enclosed, either by wall or ditch. Its fortifications consisted in a bastion at the mouth of the rivulet, with two small iron guns, and in a small earthwork surrounded by a ditch, commanding the river, and on which were mounted ten iron guns. This fort contained the house of the governor of the place, who had under him a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, formed into three companies, the captains of which were appointed or removed at his will. The soldiers received pay at the rate of four _reals_ a day. But the governor had further at his disposal the additional means of defence of twelve hundred horses, upon which, in case of necessity, he mounted as many citizens as could be collected together, to act as cavalry. The houses of the town were then built of sun-dried bricks. They were of one storey, and were thatched with canes and straw. They contained spacious rooms, and had large court-yards and adjoining gardens full of orange, lemon, and fig trees, of pear and of apple trees; of numerous kinds of vegetables; and of excellent melons. Wine, then as now, was almost the only article of diet which was sold at a high price; and the markets of the town were supplied abundantly with beef, mutton, venison, poultry, and game of various sorts. A partridge might be purchased for a penny. Ostriches were to be found in the neighbourhood in great numbers; and the traveller, whose description I quote from, makes a remark from general observation which indicates more subtle instinct on the part of those birds than they usually obtain credit for. “I saw one thing of these creatures very remarkable, and that is, while the hen sits upon the eggs, they have the instinct or forethought to provide for their young; so five or six days before they come out of the shell they set an egg in each of the four corners of the place where they sit; these eggs they break, and when they rot, worms and maggots breed in them in prodigious numbers; which serve to nourish