I06 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



lake white-fish. The quality of the flesh is not inferior to that of the 

 speckled brook-trout. 



On the following morning, January the fourth, I set out on horseback 

 to find the house of the two Englishmen who, we had been told, lived at 

 the east end of the lake. I was especially desirous of ascertaining what 

 arrangements we could make with them for being conveyed across the 

 river in the boat they were represented as having. I found no evidences 

 whatever of any habitation at the eastern end of the lake, but following 

 along the north shore in a westerly direction for about twenty-five miles I 

 came upon the house in the edge of the mountains. Only one of the men 

 was at home and he was suffering with a broken ankle and was attended 

 by a couple of Chileno laborers. I was immediately made welcome to such 

 meagre accommodations as the place afforded. When I asked concern- 

 ing the boat, what was my disappointment on being informed that it had 

 been abandoned two years previously at a point some sixty-five miles 

 below the lake. It had been seen within the last six months by one of 

 the men and its owner had no doubt that it still remained where they had 

 left it. He assured me that if it could be of any service to us, we were 

 welcome to it. I remained at this place over night and returned the next 

 day, January the fifth, to camp in time to make the necessary arrange- 

 ments for starting on the following morning down the river in quest of 

 the abandoned boat, which we hoped might still be sufficiently serviceable 

 to enable us to cross the river in safety. Before leaving our camp on the 

 Rio Bota, however, we did not neglect to catch and salt down a supply 

 of fish sufficient to last us for several days. 



On the morning of January sixth we left the Rio Bota and, knowing it 

 would be impossible to travel for any great distance along the river val- 

 ley, we at once climbed the long and precipitous incline by the same 

 route by which we had descended from the plain into the valley. We 

 were all day gaining the summit, and a severe and trying task it was for 

 our horses. We camped at night by a small lake at the top of the 

 pampa and the following morning set out on our journey down the river. 



Throughout the seventh and eighth of January we travelled steadily over 

 the pampa, keeping for the most part near the crest of the bluff which 

 overlooked the deep valley of the noble river. The surface of the valley, 

 like that of the pampa, was everywhere parched and barren. As Darwin 

 has truthfully said, "the curse of sterility was everywhere." While trav- 



