8 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



hastened on, thinking that we were nearer to the 

 settlement than we had supposed. But we found 

 the huts uninhabited, the doors broken down, the 

 wells choked up and overgrown with wild liquorice 

 plants. 



We learnt subsequently that a few venturesome 

 herdsmen had made their home in this remote spot 

 with their families, and that about a year before 

 our visit the Indians had swept down on them and 

 destroyed the young settlement. Very soon we 

 turned our backs on the ruined hovels, my com- 

 panions loudly expressing their disappointment, 

 while I felt secretly glad that we were yet to 

 drink a little more deeply of the cup of wild na- 

 ture. 



After walking on some distance we found a nar- 

 row path leading away southward from the ruined 

 village, and, believing that it led direct to the Car- 

 men, the old settlement on the Rio Negro, which 

 is over twenty miles from the sea, we at once re- 

 solved to follow it. This path led us wide of 

 the ocean. Before noon we lost sight of the low 

 sand-hills on our right hand, and as we pene- 

 trated further into the interior the dark-leafed 

 bushes I have mentioned were more abundant. 

 The dense, stiff, dark-colored foliage of these 

 bushes give them a strange appearance on the 

 pale sundried plains, as of black rocks of num- 

 berless fantastic forms scattered over the grayish- 

 yellow ground. No large fowls were seen; small 

 birds were, however, very abundant, gladdening 



