12 HUNTING CAMPS. 



decoyed on board his ship a Tehuelche Indian, one of that 

 race whose " huge footsteps " the Spaniards found and 

 marvelled at when first they touched upon the Patagonian 

 sands. The prisoner was destined to be presented as a 

 gift to the King of Spain by his great sea-captain, but the 

 ship had hardly lost sight of the coast when the poor savage 

 pined and died. Had he survived one is apt to wonder 

 what would have been his outlook upon Spain. Belonging 

 to a primitive people, few in number, bred in a land of 

 limitless solitudes, how would he have faced the populous 

 cities, the varied magnificence that waited for him across 

 the .-sea ? The contrasts must surely have cowed and over- 

 whelmed him. The traveller in Patagonia to-day under- 

 goes the inverse experiences. As soon as he leaves behind 

 him one or other of the little settlements, he finds himself 

 in circle after circle of flat and arid regions, and whether 

 on foot or in the saddle, seems to be himself always the 

 highest point between the horizons. 



The fauna of Patagonia are as distinctive as the scenes 

 they inhabit. In the course of a spring, summer, and 

 autumn it was impossible to gain adequate experience of 

 more than a limited portion of the immense area of Southern 

 Argentina. My course lay in the land of the Tehuelches, 

 south of the 4oth parallel of latitude, between the Rio 

 Deseado and the Straits of Magellan, and there the pampas 

 offered wide and in many places absolutely virgin hunting- 

 grounds, over which roamed herds of guanaco, as well as 

 of wild cattle, two sub-species of puma, the cavy or Pata- 

 gonian hare (Dolichotis patagonica), and everywhere over 

 the plains the common grey fox or hoary dog was to be 

 found in almost inconceivable numbers. I was too far 

 south to touch the range of the jaguar, which is said to be 

 marked by the Rio Negro, north of which river I never 

 hunted. 



The grey fox, although not an animal of actual interest 



