After their departure, the commissioners removed to the lake where the Cacique Lincon's people were located, and which bore his name. Its situation was about five leagues from the mountain-range beyond, something more than three to the west of that on which the conferences had been held, and about five and a half from one named after Pichiloncoy, another friendly Cacique, of whom more hereafter. From this place, looking to the north-west, one boundless plain presented itself to the eye. The Ventana mountain bore south-west, extending its lesser ramifications to the west-south-west, as far as the Curumualà, a small group of hills which may be seen running west to the more elevated range of Guamini; an extensive plain running between them. The highest part of the Guamini bore west 10° north, and was lost in the boundless pampas beyond.
A stay here for a few days gave them a tolerable insight into the manners and customs of the natives. Nothing could exceed the laziness and brutality, in general, of the men, who, looking upon the women as inferior beings, treated them as the most abject slaves. Not only were they obliged to attend to all the ordinary duties of the family, but upon them also, devolved the care of their husbands' horses, and even the tending of the sheep and cattle. Polygamy was permitted, and, according to his means, it appeared that a man kept more or less wives, which, so far from causing jealousy, seemed generally a source of satisfaction to the ladies themselves, inasmuch as it led to the lightening by subdivision of their domestic labours. Unless engaged in some predatory excursion, or in hunting deer and guanacoes, and other smaller animals, for their skins, the men seemed to pass their whole time in sleeping, drinking, and gambling, the habitual vices of all the tribes:--they are passionately fond of cards, which they obtain from the Spaniards, and will play for ever at dice, which they make themselves ingeniously enough, and, like gamesters in other parts of the world, will stake their all upon a throw, reckless of reducing their families to utter destitution.
In each toldo, or tent, which is made of hides stretched upon canes, and easily removeable from one place to another, five or six families, barely separated from each other, perhaps twenty or thirty persons in all, were closely huddled together in the most horrible state of filth imaginable; indeed, in many respects, they were but little removed in their habits from the brute creation. If fuel was scarce, as was often the case in the pampas, they cared not to cook their meat, but ate it raw, and always drank the warm blood of every animal they killed:--like beasts of prey, there was no part, even to the contents of the stomach and intestines, which they would not greedily devour.