The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

urnt bricks.
TOPOGRAPHY OF AEGENTINA. 481
" Earth, trees, and bush," writes Mr. Knight, " had all assumed tho
same curious hue, the effect being something like that of early winter on some of
the vegetation of northern Europe. We could not at first conjecture what the
strange appearance signified—it was as if some pestilential blast had withered up
all the Kfe of the land. On approaching we found this to be a vast multitude
of locusts, that were settled so thickly on everything that no twig or leaf or
inch of bare earth was left visible. There was nothing to be seen anywhere under
the sky but the mahogany-coloured bodies of these fearful creatures ; wo rode
through several leagues of them, and as we rode they rose from under our feet
in thousands, with a multitudinous crackling sound as of a huge bonfire, and then
Fig. 169.—TuctTMAN.
Scale 1 : 1,600,000.
West of 'GreenwicVi
,
30 Miles.
when we had passed, settling down again, but revealing in their short flight the
devastation they had wrought. Little but bare barkless stacks were left of tree
and bush ;
even the grass had been devoured down to the ground." *
Tmuman, metropolis of the north, although preserving in a slightly modified
form the old Quichua name of Tucma applied to the province under the Inca
rule, is nevertheless of Spanish foundation, dating from the year 1585. This
historical city is admirably situated, at an altitude of 1,480 feet, in a fertile and
highly-cultivated plain, which inclines gently down to the Rio Sali, and rises
westwards in the direction of the superb peaks of the Sierra Aconquija. Here
Belgrano defeated the Spaniards, and here the National Congress proclaimed the
Op. cit., Vol. I., p. 28
65°