36 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



driftwood. The big oysters were so characteristic and so 

 universally present that throughout the trip we used their 

 bed as the fixed level above or below which we located 

 our finds. On this occasion we found so many that we 

 wanted to bring home that we had to pile them in heaps and 

 leave them. Next day, while Stein and Turner put our 

 wagon together, Shumway and I went out with a horse 

 and two-wheeled cart and brought them in, at the same 

 time making a carefully measured diagram of a section 

 of the bluff. Here we had our first taste of the ever- blow- 

 ing wind which sweeps across the pampa. To work at 

 all it was necessary to wear goggles, as the sand blew into 

 our eyes every time we touched the ground in any way, 

 and it was almost impossible to stand on the exposed 

 shoulders of the hill. 



Finally a long-waited-for bunch of horses came in and 

 the two likeliest were hitched into the wagon for trial. 

 Every time the brake was put on to make the pull heavy, 

 they balked; so we drove right over to the narrow gauge 

 railroad, got a flat car, loaded all our property upon it, 

 and in two hours were sitting in the first-class half of the 

 only passenger car on the train speeding — so to speak — 

 toward Trelew. The forty- two miles were covered in two 

 and a half hours, all of which time we were passing through 

 the sheep ranges given as a grant to compensate the com- 

 pany for building the road. 



Trelew is the largest town in all Patagonia, having some 

 2,000 inhabitants, and being the center of the Welsh col- 

 ony, which came to this land about 1865 to obtain freedom 

 to worship in their own way. They took land in the val- 

 ley of the Chubut River; land that looks desperately 

 bad, but which when irrigated yields good crops, especially 

 of alfalfa and oats. These Welsh build their houses of 

 adobe bricks, making a neat and comfortable home, though 

 never luxurious. For years they struggled to get a bare 

 living, until about 1890, when, as more people began to settle 



