168 PATAGONIA. [CHAP. vm. 



counter! between ten and twenty heads. I particularly examined 

 the bones ; they did not appear, as some scattered ones which I 

 had seen, gnawed or broken, as if dragged together by beasts of 

 prey. The animals in most cases must have crawled, before 

 dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. Bynoe informs me 

 that during a former voyage he observed the same circumstance 

 on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand 

 the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded guana- 

 cos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At 

 St. Jago in the Cape de Verd islands, I remember having seen 

 in a ravine a retired corner covered with bones of the goat ; we 

 at the time exclaimed that it was the burial-ground of all the 

 goats in the island. I mention these trifling circumstances, be- 

 cause in certain cases they might explain the occurrence of a 

 number of uninjured bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial 

 accumulations; and likewise the cause why certain animals are 

 more commonly embedded than others in sedimentary deposits. 



One day the yawl was sent under the command of Mr. Chaffers 

 with three days' provisions to survey the upper part of the har- 

 bour. In the morning we searched for some watering-places 

 mentioned in an old Spanish chart. We found one creek, at the 

 head of which there was a trickling rill (the first we had seen) 

 of brackish water. Here the tide compelled us to wait several 

 hours ; and in the interval I walked some miles into the interior. 

 The plain as usual consisted of gravel, mingled with soil resem- 

 bling chalk in appearance, but very different from it in nature. 

 From the softness of these materials it was worn into many 

 gulleys. There was not a tree, and, excepting the guanaco, which 

 stood on the hill-top a watchful sentinel over its herd, scarcely 

 an animal or a bird. All was stillness and desolation. Yet in 

 passing over these scenes, without one bright object near, an ill- 

 defined but strong sense of pleasure is vividly excited. One 

 asked how many ages the plain had thus lasted, and how many 

 more it was doomed thus to continue. 



None can reply all seems eternal now. 

 The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, 

 Which teaches awful doubt.* 



* Shelley, Lines on M. Blanc. 



