THE PAMPAS OF PATAGONIA. 25 



the barranca within fifty yards, the remainder of the herd are 

 scattered to the four winds, leaving me to reflect on having 

 once more proved the truth of the Greek saying, that 

 " to-day the gods are with the hunted, to-morrow with the 

 hunter." 



By the time I have cut up the dead buck, the evening is 

 beginning to draw on. I make an unsightly but eminently 

 welcome pack of the meat and skin which the cruzado per- 

 mits me to cargo up, and then we set out determinedly for 

 camp. On our way there, no events of any interest occur, 

 and it is just turning dusk when, rounding a scrap of the 

 barranca, I see the smoke of the camp-fire, and between it 

 and me a little troop of six horses with the black mare, 

 which I learn later that the gauchos have found a dozen 

 miles away up the black trail. 



From the description given above it will be seen that 

 although the pampas possess no animal that carries a trophy, 

 yet a day spent upon them with the rifle is capable of yield- 

 ing excellent sport, a fact perhaps enhanced by the know- 

 ledge that so far very few sportsmen have visited them. 

 Indeed, with the exception of Captain Chaworth Musters, of 

 the Royal Navy, who in 1876 roamed all over the south of 

 Patagonia in company with a tribe of Tehuelches, it would 

 seem that this region is one of the rare parts of the earth 

 to which the British sportsman has not been attracted. 

 The voyage is long and the fauna do not present any great 

 variety, yet guanaco, wild cattle, ostriches, and pumas exist 

 upon its pampas in vast numbers. Having described a day 

 with the rifle alone, it will be well to turn to an even more 

 exhilarating method of hunting pampa game, that is with 

 horse and hound. 



Before leaving Buenos Aires I had purchased a fawn- 

 coloured hound, an imposing-looking creature, big enough 

 and fast enough, one would have thought, to pull down any 

 macho, however large or strong. This hound, Tom, accom- 



