20 HUNTING CAMPS. 



curiosity : he loves to meet his kind and to hear the news 

 which in the wide solitude of such countries passes from 

 mouth to mouth. It was in this way that the intelligence 

 of Queen Victoria's death travelled through the far interior 

 of Patagonia in an astonishingly short space of time. 



Sometimes, however, as might be expected, pampa 

 news is not very reliable, as, for example, when in the year 

 above alluded to a report came up from the coast that the 

 Russians had invaded India and the French were in London. 

 This rumour may or may not have been traceable to a couple 

 of prospectors, who, having fought under Villebois de Ma- 

 reuil in South Africa and been wounded there, afterwards 

 took ship in one of the returning horse-boats to Buenos 

 Aires, from whence they had drifted down into Patagonia. 



I cut up the guanaco and place it as far as circumstances 

 will permit beyond the reach of the ubiquitous foxes, and 

 then, retracing my steps to the cruzado, I mount and resume 

 my search for game. In this I am almost immediately suc- 

 cessful, for as I round the last of the hummocks, I notice a 

 cavy springing across a dry lagoon. He has not seen me 

 and in a second I am out of the saddle. The cavy is a 

 curious animal not unlike an English hare, but twice as 

 large ; its method of progression, however, is rather that 

 of the kangaroo. As the cavy approaches the further side 

 of the lagoog, he stops and sits up on his hind-legs, his small 

 and delicate fore-paws looking strangely out of proportion. 

 For once the cover is good, for there is near me a patch of 

 dry, white thorn reaching to within fifty yards of the edge 

 of the mud lagoon. On my left hand I slip a kind of rough, 

 fingerless glove made of skin, which is a great protection, 

 and crawl up under the thorn bushes. Peering round them, 

 I see the cavy is still sitting at about a hundred yards' 

 distance. I slip a solid bullet instead of the soft-nosed one 

 into my rifle and shoot the cavy through the shoulders. He 

 turns out to be rather a large male, weighing, as far as I can 



