16 HUNTING CAMPS. 



spent by the gauchos in tracking and recovering these often 

 left me many hours to spare for sport, and day by day I 

 learned more and more to respect the intelligence of the 

 guanaco. The experience of a typical day may perhaps be 

 of interest. 



It is sunrise, and I have just discovered that out of our 

 sixty horses only forty-six remain to us ; the rest have 

 strayed in the night and may be anywhere within three or 

 four leagues, as the tracks give ample evidence that the 

 madrina, or brood mare, which the horses of each Iropilla 

 are trained to follow, has broken her hobbles and gone off 

 eastward at a trot. A couple of gauchos will start imme- 

 diately to track them, while there is plenty of work for the 

 rest of the party in camp, where a number of new malelas 

 or packs have to be fashioned to replace those that hard 

 usage and the exigencies of travel have worn out. A few 

 skins are very necessary for this work, and so it is with the 

 prospect of a threefold use for any guanaco I can shoot 

 that I set out. We need the meat to eat, the skins to make 

 packs for a part of our outfit, and I am eager to obtain a 

 skin or two as the animals approach their summer pelage. 



Soon the camp is left behind and, looking back on it, 

 the fact strikes me that it presents a picture very unlike 

 the idea of a camp which is prevalent in any other countries 

 which I have visited. A mere pile of baggage, an open fire 

 and the blankets and bedding airing in the morning sun, a 

 troop of horses feeding in the marshes by the river, and on 

 all sides the low cliffs of the valley shutting in the horizon. 

 Turning my back upon camp, I ride out with thirteen clear 

 hours before me. The country is quite new to me, and 

 apart from the fact that the river gives no hint of a ford by 

 which to cross it, the nature of the ground on the southern 

 bank looks more favourable for my purpose. As I ride 

 slowly along, I put up a brace of upland geese from the bed 

 of the stream, and soon after I perceive a game-track lead- 



