'in the Chuput Valley, Patagonia. 29 



vegetation, with the exception of low stunted bushes, prin- 

 cipally thorns, which find root everywhere and afford a 

 plentiful supply of firewood, with here and there a cliff of 

 tosca containing innumerable osseous remains of sharks, 

 seals, small mammals, and fish, and which, if thoroughly 

 examined, would certainly yield great results. At a higlier 

 elevation there are many extensive tracts of land clothed 

 with coarse grass, the bushes only a foot or two in height 

 and few in number ; and these are the homes of large herds 

 of Guanacos and Rheas. During my visit we made two 

 hunting-excursions :■ — one to a tract of elevated tableland 

 about fifteen miles to the south of the village, named by 

 the colonists, from the absence of bushes, " Clear Land ;" 

 the other to Ninfas Point, some forty-five miles to the 

 north-east of the colony. The latter is one of the prin- 

 cipal hunting-grounds of the Tehuelche Indians j and here I 

 saw for the first time a herd of about 200 Guanacos and 

 numerous Rheas. The only bird which occurs here, and 

 which I did not see at the colony, was Sarcoi^hamphus gry- 

 phus ; and though Vultures on a close acquaintance are cer- 

 tainly not attractive, a Condor sitting nearly upright, partly 

 supported by its tail, on the pinnacle of a lofty cliff over- 

 looking the deep-blue waters of New Bay, was a picture to 

 attract the eye of the most unobservant, and a fit accompani- 

 ment of a scene of such grandeur as one witnesses there. 



The whole country (I speak from my own observation) 

 within a twenty-mile radius of the village exhibits unmista- 

 kable traces of the action of the sea. Banks evidently once 

 shingle, little hills precisely like the present sandhills on the 

 coast, only clothed with thick bushes and numerous deposits 

 of marine shells, can be seen in every direction. About two 

 miles to the north of the village is a large lagoon, the water 

 of which is brackish, evidently a lingering remnant of the 

 ocean, from which it is now distant at least seven miles j the 

 shores of this lagoon in some places are literally paved with 

 marine shells. 



With the exception of a few willows along the banks of the 

 river, and some poplars which have been planted by one of 



