16 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



yet the season for ripe fruits, and its branches 

 were laden only with the great nests of the indus- 

 trious woodman. Though it was now the end 

 of December and past the egg season, in my crav- 

 ing for a drop of moisture I began to pull down 

 and demolish the nests no light task, considering 

 how large and compactly made they were. I was 

 rewarded for my pains by finding three little 

 pearly-white eggs, and, feeling grateful for small 

 mercies, I quickly broke them on my parched 

 tongue. 



Half an hour later, about eleven o'clock, as we 

 slowly dragged on, a mounted man appeared driv- 

 ing a small troop of horses towards the river. 

 We hailed him, and he rode up to us, and informed 

 us that we were only about a mile from the river, 

 and after hearing our story he proceeded to catch 

 horses for us to ride. Springing on to their bare 

 backs we followed him at a swinging gallop over 

 that last happy mile of our long journey. 



We came very suddenly to the end, for on 

 emerging from the thickets of dwarf thorn trees 

 through which we had ridden in single file the 

 magnificent Eio Negro lay before us. Never river 

 seemed fairer to look upon: broader than the 

 Thames at Westminster, and extending away on 

 either hand until it melted and was lost in the blue 

 horizon, its low shores clothed in all the glory of 

 groves and fruit orchards and vineyards and 

 fields of ripening maize. Far out in the middle 

 of the swift blue current floated flocks of black- 



