Sir Francis Bond Head (1793-1875) known as ‘Galloping Head’, was a soldier who later served as lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, but who was dismissed from his post when rebellion broke out there in 1837. Before this, he had tried unsuccessfully to set up a mining company in Argentina. It is from this period of his life that the characteristically entitled Rough Notes Taken During Some Rapid Journeys Across the Pampas and Among the Andes (published in 1826) were written, in a headlong and jocular style which belies the actual hardships of his journey. Part of the interest of the account today lies in the fact that Charles Darwin had read it and referred to it frequently and admiringly in his letters home as he traversed the same country six years later: ‘Do you know Head’s book? it gives an excellent account of the manners of this country’.