A Mysterious Beast 217 



the present has shadowed the existence of this mysterious 

 being. 



About the middle of last year he sent me from Santa Cruz 

 some remains accompanied by the following lines : ' I have 

 succeeded at last in obtaining from the Tehuelche Indians 

 some valuable data in regard to the famous Yemisch, which 

 is not a myth or creation of the fancy, as we have believed, 

 but which really exists. I have seen in the possession of an 

 Indian a piece of the skin of the Yemisch, in which were 

 imbedded the little ossicles, which I send you, just like 

 those which we find in a fossil state with the skeletons of 

 Mylodonts. Hompen, another Tehuelche Indian, has 

 informed me that when coming from Senguer to Santa 

 Cruz he encountered a Yemisch, which blocked his path, 

 and with which he had a fight, succeeding in killing him by 

 blows. According to these people the creature is amphibi- 

 ous, and can walk on land as well as it swims in the water. 

 It is confined in its range to-day to the central parts of 

 Patagonia, living in caves and sheltered retreats on the 

 banks of lakes Colhue, Fontana, and Buenos Aires, and of 

 the Senguer, Aysen, and Huemules rivers; but according 

 to tradition it ranged in former times as far as the Rio Negro 

 in the north, and far south, so the older Indians say, to all 

 of the lakes on the eastern slope of the Andes, and even to 

 the Straits of Magellan. It happened about the middle 

 of this century that a Yemisch which was coming down from 

 the lakes of the Andes to the Santa Cruz River came on 

 shore on the north bank of this stream in the neighborhood 

 of Pavon Island; the Indians fled in terror into the back 

 country, and ever since then, in memory of the unlocked for 

 apparition, have given the spot which they abandoned the 

 name of Yemisch-Aiken (the place, or haunt, of the 

 Yemisch). It is nocturnal in its habits, and is said to be so 

 strong that it will seize horses and drag them down into 

 deep water. According to the description given me it has 

 a short head, with great canine teeth, and small ears, 

 short, flat (plantigrade) feet, with three toes on the front 



