AT LAST, PATAGONIA! 7 



a pretty problem, to which I shall devote a chapter 

 at the end of this book. 



Our survey concluded, we set out in the direc- 

 tion of the Rio Negro. Before quitting the 

 steamer the captain had spoken a few words to us. 

 Looking at us as though he saw us not, he said 

 that the ship had gone ashore somewhere north of 

 the Eio Negro, about thirty miles he thought, and 

 that we should doubtless find some herdsmen's 

 huts on our way thither. No need then to burden 

 ourselves with food and drink! At first we kept 

 close to the dunes that bordered the seashore, wad- 

 ing through a luxuriant growth of wild liquorice 

 a pretty plant about eighteen inches high, with 

 deep green feathery foliage crowned with spikes 

 of pale blue flowers. Some of the roots which 

 we pulled up from the loose sandy soil were over 

 nine feet in length. All the apothecaries in the 

 world might have laid in a few years' supply 

 of the drug from the plants we saw on that morn- 

 ing. 



To my mind there is nothing in life so delightful 

 as that feeling of relief, of escape, and absolute 

 freedom which one experiences in a vast solitude, 

 where man has perhaps never been, and has, at 

 any rate, left no trace of his existence. It was 

 strong and exhilarating in me on that morning; 

 and I was therefore by no means elated when we 

 descried, some distance ahead, the low walls of 

 half a dozen mud cabins. My fellow-travelers 

 were, however, delighted at the discovery, and we 



