2 HUNTING CAMPS. 



sea-captain, but the ship had hardly lost sight of the 

 coast when the poor savage pined and died. Had he 

 survived one is apt to wonder what would have been 

 his outlook upon Spain. Belonging to a primitive 

 people, few in number, bred in a land of limitless soli- 

 tudes, how would he have faced the populous cities, the 

 varied magnificence that waited for him across the sea ? 

 The contrasts must surely have cowed and overwhelmed 

 him. The traveller in Patagonia to-day undergoes the 

 inverse experiences. As soon as he leaves behind him 

 one or other of the little settlements, he finds himself 

 in circle after circle of flat and arid regions, and whether 

 on foot or in the saddle, seems to be himself always the 

 highest point between the horizons. 



The fauna of Patagonia are as distinctive as the 

 scenes they inhabit. In the course of a spring, summer, 

 and autumn it was impossible to gain adequate 

 experience of more than a limited portion of the 

 immense area of Southern Argentina. My course lay 

 in the land of the Tehuelches, south of the 40th parallel 

 of latitude, between the Rio Deseado and the Straits of 

 Magellan, and there the pampas offered wide and in 

 many places absolutely virgin hunting-grounds, over 

 which roamed herds of guanaco, as well as of wild cattle, 

 two sub-species of puma, the cavy or Patagonian hare 

 (Dolichotis patagonica), and everywhere over the plains 

 the common grey fox or hoary dog was to be found in 

 almost inconceivable numbers. I was too far south to 

 touch the range of the jaguar, which is said to be 

 marked by the Rio Negro, north of which river I never 

 hunted. 



The grey fox, although not an animal of actual 

 interest to the sportsman, cannot, however, be ignored, 



