48 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



lips are all bestained and red with the beautiful 

 juice. 



The magnetism of the river (to go back to that 

 subject) is probably intensified by the prevailing 

 monotonous grays, greens, and browns of nature 

 on either side of it. It has the powerful effect of 

 brightness, which fascinates us, as it does the 

 moth, and the eye is drawn to it as to a path of 

 shining silver that is, of silver in some condi- 

 tions of the atmosphere, and of polished steel in 

 others. At ordinary times there is no other 

 brightness in nature to draw the sight away and 

 divide the attention. Only twice in the year, for 

 a brief season in spring and again in autumn, 

 there is anything like large masses of bright color 

 in the vegetation to delight the eyes. The com- 

 monest of the gray-foliaged plants that grow on 

 the high grounds along the borders of the valley 

 is the chanar, Gurliaca decorticans, a tree in form, 

 but scarcely more than a bush in size. In late 

 October it bears a profusion of flowers in clusters, 

 in shape, size, and brilliant yellow color resem- 

 bling the flower of the broom. .A f this season the 

 uplands along the valley have a otrangely gay ap- 

 pearance. Again, there is yellow in the autumn 

 the deeper yellow of xanthophyl when the 

 leaves of the red willows growing on the banks 

 of the river change their color before falling. This 

 willow (Salix humboldtiana) is the only large wild 

 tree in the country ; but whether it grew here prior 

 to the advent of the Spanish or not, I do not know ? 



