142 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: NARRATIVE. 



Stream the current was broken up into a great number of channels sepa- 

 rated by low shingle beds, so that we had no difficulty in effecting a cross- 

 ing. After crossing the river we emerged upon a low, broad and level 

 valley lying between the river and the forest. As we crossed the grass- 

 covered valley and entered the edge of the forest, we came upon a deer, 

 and since we had not provided ourselves with meat, having depended, as 

 was always our custom when travelling in Patagonia, upon such game as 

 should come to hand, we stopped long enough to slaughter it and dress 

 the carcass. After caring for the skin, skull and such limb bones as would 

 be necessary for properly mounting the specimen, and placing them where 

 they would be secure until our return, we kept on our way through the 

 forest, until we arrived, late in the afternoon, on the banks of a river, the 

 southernmost of those that flow from the glaciers in Mayer Basin, at a 

 point just below w^here it emerges from a rather deep gorge, and as we 

 subsequently ascertained, some three or four miles below the glacier in 

 which it has its source. The stream was not fordable, so we camped for 

 the night, and the following morning, leaving our pack horses picketed 

 on both water and grass, so that they would not suffer in case we were 

 not able to return, or chose to remain away for tw^o or three days, we took 

 our saddle-horses, camera, one rifle and such bedding and provisions as 

 were absolutely necessary, and proceeded up the river by the south bank 

 to the glacier. It proved to be literally alpine climbing on horseback and 

 was incomparably the worst country over which we had ever taken horses. 

 It is a thousand wonders that our horses ever succeeded in getting through 

 alive. However, we accomplished the journey without any serious injury 

 to either ourselves, our horses, or outfit, and arrived at the front of the 

 glacier at about ten o'clock. The day was everything that could be de- 

 sired. Not a cloud could be seen and, as we rode upon the top of the 

 terminal moraine and looked at the great, white river of ice from three to 

 five miles in width and perhaps forty in length, I thought it one of the 

 most beautiful and impressive sights I had ever seen. I had never before 

 seen a glacier, except at a distance, so that the entire situation was both 

 novel and interesting. The peculiar rounded hillocks of the terminal 

 moraine were most instructive and explained many phenomena which I 

 had noticed on the plains. The terminal moraine at the time of our visit 

 was several feet higher than the front of the glacier, and this in turn was 

 somewhat higher than was the surface of the ice at a distance of a quarter 



