148 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



five months, and during this time we had not only received no news fi-om 

 the outside world, but after leaving the Santa Cruz River on our trip 

 north we met with no person, either Indian or white, until on our return 

 journey we reached the settlements near the mouth of the Rio Chico. It 

 had been one long, delightful journey over vast plains, along the base of 

 high basaltic platforms, across swollen rivers, through the deep and wind- 

 ing, basalt-capped canon of the River Chico, over the continental divide, 

 and down the Pacific slope into the very midst of the virgin forests that 

 flanked the mountains in the interior of the Andes. There was little of 

 adventure, but much of novelty and interest, so that time passed only too 

 rapidly. 



