50 HUNTING CAMPS. 



yet that the beauty of environment appeals to some siib- 

 conscious self is certain, for scene after scene not sensibly 

 noticed at the moment of seeing remains clearly etched on 

 the memory. The Patagonian Andes may well be described 

 as " unspeakably grand and terrible," for such is the im- 

 pression they usually make upon the mind ; but on the 

 day I write of the sun was shining brilliantly and had 

 changed the whole aspect of the scene. For once the 

 formidable summits, 8,000 or 9,000 feet high, crowned with 

 snow and clothed about their flanks and spurs with dense 

 black forest-lands, were lit and softened. In the sky there 

 was not a cloud, and far below me the lake, so often storm- 

 tossed, shone like a pool of fathomless blue. 



Although it had been still enough in the valleys, a pretty 

 strong wind was blowing on the heights. A bold escarp- 

 ment hid me completely from the bulls, and it was not until 

 I was opposite a rock which I had marked as being on a line 

 with them that I peered over. At first I could discover no 

 sign of the wild cattle, but moving cautiously to another 

 coign of vantage I saw one, a great brindled bull, walk slowly 

 into view along a game-track. He was soon followed by a 

 second bull, if anything a larger animal ; this latter was an 

 overo, as the Spaniards call a piebald of black and white. 

 The third was not visible. The bulls were about four 

 hundred yards away, but between me and them was a wide 

 outcrop of glacial detritus, among which I crawled towards 

 a boulder, within a hundred yards of which it seemed to me 

 likely the bulls would pass. I was hardly half way to the 

 boulder, when a pair of horns suddenly came in sight. These 

 belonged to an animal lying down lower on the hillside, 

 and which had hitherto been hidden by the rocks. At a 

 hurried glance I imagined it must be the first of the two bulls 

 I was stalking, as the colour was brindled. He was quite 

 unaware of my presence, and remained so while I crawled 

 forward with great care to the next point I had selected. 



