Description
The first stop for the night after leaving Buenos Aires for Mendoza – a distance to ride of 318 leagues. (1000 miles). "We stopped at Puente de Marques, unpacked the horses, spread my recado, or saddle, for my bed, and put all things to rights. The postmaster went to finish a tank, which he was building by the well and I walked a few yards off and looked over the plain. The sun’s red orb was just touching the horizon, and cast a ruddy glow over the low thatched cottage, the well, and the stooping figure. Beyond was nothing but thistles, dark purple in the distance, then reddish & brown but nothing else for miles and miles. This part of the country is called the Traversia. Darwin, in his most amusing and instructive "Journal of Researches" says that the beds of shingle composing the Traversia were accumulated by the waves of the sea before the Pampas was formed".
This is a page from a unique leather-bound volume of Robert Elwes’ travelogue 'A Sketcher's Tour Round the World', first published 1854, (see page 124 for corresponding passage).
The book contains the printed text of the manuscript but remarkably, the monochrome wash illustrations are hand painted by Elwes. The book bears a handwritten inscription ‘Mary F Elwes from her affect. husband Robert Elwes Jan 25 1878’, dated after Robert Elwes became ill at Congham, his Norfolk home. On 28th January 1878 , their youngest daughter Violet noted in her diary: “Papa much worse”. Less than three months later, Robert Elwes died on 17th April aged 58.
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
Courtesy of a private collector
Location
Puente de Márquez, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Country
Argentina
Tags
Category
Landscapes & Seascapes
