THE PAMPAS OF PATAGONIA. 21 



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 dis- 

 covery. I 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 hindquarter of cavy, when down the stream 

 I hear the honk of geese. I catch the cruzado, slip on his 

 bridle, throw a rug over him and ride off to find the birds. 

 Round the first bend I come in sight of them, two ganders 

 with white backs and grey breasts, two brown females with 

 their chestnut heads upland geese. The stalk is easy 

 enough, the Patagonian goose not having learned the wis- 



