208 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



the clean sand beneath the shade and shelter of some friendly tree or bush 

 that grew upon the summit. If one but compares the aimless, idle manner 

 in which, according to Hudson's own account, he passed the greater por- 

 tion of his time, with the strenuous interest and exertion displayed by 

 Darwin while travelling through the same region, the characteristics of 

 the two men must appear quite distinct. If Hudson found Patagonia 

 monotonous, and so uninteresting as to compel him to lapse into a state 

 of mental inactivity comparable, as he himself states, only to the normal 

 mental condition of the savage, it was due to his personal equation rather 

 than the uninteresting nature of the country. Darwin found the region 

 full of interest, with a wealth of material to stimulate the mind and 

 awaken the energies, as is abundantly evidenced in his popular account 

 of the voyage of the "Beagle," every page of which is delightful, and, 

 although written sixty years ago, is to-day and will remain the greatest 

 compendium of useful information extant concerning that region. 



It is true that these plains are inhospitable, that over vast regions the 

 curse of sterility is the one omnipresent characteristic, that the fauna and 

 flora are meagre and little diversified, that the prevailing dull brown color 

 imparted to the landscape by the scanty covering of dry and withered 

 grass is monotonous and ill calculated to create enthusiasm in one of 

 a highly artistic temperament, that, for the most part, these plains remain 

 still uninhabited and are largely uninhabitable. But do not these very 

 facts lend to this region a certain interest? If the plains of Pata- 

 gonia are devoid of a single mountain, the level surface is relieved by a 

 series of magnificent terraces and deep transverse valleys, traversed in 

 some cases by noble rivers ; while the traveller who ventures far into the 

 interior will be rewarded by the discovery of the remains of extinct craters 

 and gigantic dikes filling huge fissures in the earth's crust, from which at 

 a time in a not so remote past vast sheets of molten lava were poured 

 forth over the surface of the surrounding country and now appear as lofty 

 basaltic platforms, capping the higher tablelands of the interior over 

 hundreds of square miles and intersected by a labyrinth of deep and 

 almost inaccessible caiions, which, by reason of their rugged and pictur- 

 esque nature, supply most of the essential features of an excessively 

 mountainous region, save that in this case the traveller over the plains is 

 forced to descend rather than ascend in order to observe the full effects of 

 nature's handiwork. For in this instance she has departed from her usual 



