6 HUNTING CAMPS. 



But it so happened that when I was travelling in 

 this region the shooting of guanaco was by no means a 

 pastime. We were a party of eight, and beyond the 

 emergency rations which we carried to ensure us 

 against the chance of crossing a gameless tract, we had 

 nothing save a small allowance of flour between us and 

 hunger. Besides this, I wished to shoot half-a-dozen 

 old bucks, or machos as they are termed in that 

 country, for my collection. Our travels were carried 

 out on horseback, and at this period our advance was 

 a good deal hindered by the continual straying during 

 the night time of one or many of our troop of horses. 

 The time spent by the gauchos in tracking and recover- 

 ing these often left me many hours to spare for sport, 

 and day by day I learned more and more to respect the 

 intelligence of the guanaco. The experience of a typical 

 day may perhaps be of interest. 



It is sunrise, and I have just discovered that out of 

 our sixty horses only forty-six remain to us ; the rest 

 have strayed in the night and may be anywhere within 

 three or four leagues, as the tracks give ample evidence 

 that the madrina, or brood mare, which the horses of 

 each tropilla are trained to follow, has broken her 

 hobbles and gone off eastward at a trot. A couple of 

 gauchos will start immediately to track them, while 

 there is plenty of work for the rest of the party in 

 camp, where a number of new maletas or packs have to 

 be fashioned to replace those that hard usage and the 

 exigencies of travel have worn out. ,A few skins are 

 very necessary for this work, and so it is with the 

 prospect of a threefold use for any guanaco I can shoot 

 that I set out. We need the meat to eat, the skins to 

 make packs for a part of our outfit, and I am eager to 



