Through the Heart of Patagonia

enix-Stony ground-Skeletons of guanaco-Fine scenery-Short rest-Colt killed-Base camp made-Boyish dreams-Sunday-Routine at

the Tehuelches, not a Tehuelche. He called himself a Patagonero, and belonged to one of the tribes of Pampa Indians of the north. His tribe, he told me, were Christians. Before we le

say "Camp." When fighting with the elements one goes through three distinct stages. First, there is the stage exultant, during which you feel the joy of battle, and struggle rejoicingly. The second comes when the irresistible tires you down, however strong you are, and forces the sense of your puniness so plainly upon you that you feel a sort of hurt despair, and a half impulse to give in before a force so far beyond you. Last of all, you go on enduring until you become, as it were, acclimatised, and

were many guanacos about, and I was not surprised to hear that this lagoon, Laguna La Cancha, was a very favourite encampment of the Indians. The scenery surrounding the pool is peculiarly inhospitable. Some one remarked that it reminded him of Doré's illustrations to the Inferno, adding, "If y

moving along the winter roads. Here was wind, cold, and a march, cargo to be fixed and refixed to the day's end, then a windy camp-fire, and

poses wild as regarded their habits. Yet good guanaco-hounds represent very sterling value to their owners, whose livelihood they procure. The best at the work I met with in Patagonia were those which belonged to this Indian guide. We called the man Como No because, whatever question was put to him, his invaria

A

black against the cold blue horizon of the pampa. Sometimes, when he lost sight of us for any length of time, he would burn a bush to give us our direction by the smoke, and we would follow on, driving the pack-horses and those free ones which were not being used either for riding or cargo at the time.

rive them off, kill and cut up the quarry, giving the hounds the liver, strip the feathers if it happened to be an ostrich, and then mount and ride on once more. This performance would be repeated over an

aced on bushes and devour it. Such was eventually the fate of the last remnants of the mutton we had with us, and the loss was all

eet above the sea-level, and the temperature was ext

the ca?adon being very wide and devoid of shelter. The water was broken into small sharp waves by the wind, and we were glad to collect what firewood was obtainable-bushes being scarce at that spot-and make a fire. The Indian burned a bush and warmed himself. His dogs had, unaided by him, killed a small guanaco and a fox (Canis

orn-covered, often stony and strewn with fragments of basalt. Generally overhead a pallid blue sky, and below wind, wind, perpetual wind. So we toiled on past little chill lagoons, ruffled with the keen breeze, until in the afternoo

. I had not seen myself since leaving Colohuapi, and confess I found no cause for vanity in the sight of a distinctly dirty-lookin

ALKING

from it. The Azulejo had been lost, but was brought in quite spent, by Barckhausen. Poor little beast! He lay down more dead than alive under a bush, a pathetic little figure enough. After reaching camp, Jones and I had to turn out again, pretty tired as we were, to look for food. We rode for hours, and saw only a herd of guanaco. At this season the country round about here is rather devo

strongly of the picture in which Hiawatha sailed into "the kingdom of Ponemah, the Land of the Hereafter." That scene was just so wild, and so remote, with a gre

led a valley between two scrub-covered hills. From far off it looked level, but in reality we found it to be intersected and veined with mighty gas

this we hunted for three days, during which time I shot a couple of upland geese, which made the sum total of our bag. In a new country one has always to buy experience. We were buying ours at this period. Owing to the wildness of our horses the journey from Trelew had been an espe

thorn-lean gorges towards the east. Here nothing lived save the strong birds of prey, and lions, whose tracks we observed leading to the rocks. Death lay

chos, and so pushed on over hill rising behind hill, stony, dark

ke under my foot, and the geese were away. We lay up for a time, but the birds did not return, so we took a turn westwards in the hope of getting some coots I had observed the day before upon another lagoon, close to Lake Buenos Aires. Upon the shore of the lake a smart shower of sleet, hail, and

tiful. The rifted dusky blue, the long pale gleam of water shining like an angel's sword, the white snow-peaks,

AM BA

he ground and pulled over the male as he swung upwards. After riding seven leagues, we got our small results of the day's seeking within a mile of the camp! One or other of us had seen

starting two months before, as upon me principally fell the duty of providing for the pot, so that upon coming in of an evening on the clo

helter of a thorn-bush can be in the Kingdom of the Winds, you could only learn by an experience such as was ours. Below the camp, which stood on a ridge, the ground fell away in a three-mile slope to the usually angry water; eastwards was a pantano or swamp of yellow reeds, which ran a long way below the scrub-grown ridge. The tents huddled back-to-wind, as

CLAD I

he past! I seemed again to be watching the boats coming in and the tides rising with the well-known ripple and pouring rush of water on a shallow beach, tides that in boyish days held so infinite a romance. Where did the storms that broke there come from? whither went the dark hulls after they sank below the blue edge of sea? Or where did the fishermen sail their boats to-lonely rocks from which they brought back parrot-b

was noticeable how Sunday abroad always affected men, some of whom at home spared small attention for the day. Life went evenly. The others took it in turn to cook. I generally rode out early. The troop were rounded up and our first meal came about 7 o'clock. After that I used to go to my tent and write while the men busied themselves with any

ind at night, the clear cinders of the fire or a whiff of burning wood-one receives the spark that fires the train of thought and leads us far away. No indolence of the soul this, but the fulfilling of some beautiful law at the junction of the spiritual and the nat

gh-water mark, or, as I should rather say, the flood-mark of the lake was outlined by piles and piles of driftwood of milk-toothlike whiteness. Some of the trunks were as large in girth as my body. All this comes down from the mountain forests, carried by torrents from the melting snows. The vegetation on that side of the lake was the most florid

BUENO

heart of the wind's domain. While we were there the wind never died down, it blew all the time, often lifting sand and gravel, and sometimes a great piece

gged slip of califate-wood. The tent contained two beds made up of skins and ponchos laid on the green canvas floor, a soldered tin of plug tobacco served by way of a candlestick and upheld a candle-end. Round and about the tent and on its excrescent flooring were heaped our boxes, otherwise the wind would h

nice shot, then walked a step or two and fell dead. At Horsham Camp we lived in some dread of scorpions; Jones found one on his saddle, Burbury another in the flour or the cooking-pot, and some roosted in our bedding. By the way, our kitchen arrangements were becoming very scanty at

our way we were astonished to see three herds of guanaco-fourteen, and ten, and then twenty-one-at

, OF THE ARGENTINE

ng to the nature of the ground, he was unable to get a shot. We were naturally very anxious to secure a specimen of this very i

s. Burbury said that region was more dismal than Tierra del Fuego-old deserts, varied by marshes and califate-bush, stone and boulder, thorn and sand. After a rest in the afternoon we rode on, and

e far from being depressed on this occasion, for in this old camp of Mr.

orqueta. The flat-bottomed pot still survives, but the round one and the kettle are more damaged tha

ing-cases, and while I was engaged in lighting the fire

early new!" It was so, and then aga

, as I knew, to Mr. Waag's Commission of Limits, as they call the Boundary Commission out there. When I met that gentleman in Buenos Aires I never dreamt that I should yet be reduced to stealing his cooking utensils. But we did not "steal" them, we only "availed" ourselves of them. I hope my readers see the differe