12 HUNTING CAMPS. 



cavy through the shoulders. He turns out to be rather 

 a large male, weighing, as far as I can judge, about 

 19 Ibs. Very pleased at my good fortune, for the cavy 

 is excellent eating, I tie him to the back of my saddle 

 and proceed upon my way. 



For two or three hours I ride, sometimes across bare 

 tablelands, sometimes through canadones, without any 

 sight of game. Not that the country is absolutely 

 barren of life, for foxes are lying in the thickets, and 

 scavenger birds, chimangos and coranchos, drowse in 

 the noonday heat upon the low bush, but of guanaco I 

 see no sign. The sun climbs higher and higher, the 

 wind still blows with the steady roar that has continued 

 with rare intervals through the months I have spent 

 in Patagonia and is destined to continue through the 

 months I am yet to spend there. The cruzado is a 

 first-rate walker, my country saddle of rugs and skins is 

 exceedingly comfortable, the circle of sight is always 

 enlarging, or I should rather say changing, mirages, 

 sketched as it were in black and blue pen-strokes, 

 flicker and fade on the horizon, taking now the shape of 

 a reflected landscape, again that of a solitary rider 

 myself. 



At length, I come to a canadon deeper and wider 

 than any I have yet seen, the grass in it is green marsh- 

 grass, and a narrow stream of water trickles through it. 

 I ride down into the valley and off saddle, place my 

 horse-rugs to dry, rub down the cruzado and turn him 

 loose to graze. Then I go to my saddle-bags and make 

 a far from cheering discovery. 1 have forgotten to 

 bring any lunch, and six hours in that upland air have 

 made me very hungry. I am just debating with myself 

 the choice between no lunch and a hastily-cooked 



