78 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



labors were quite profitless ; fresh armies of geese 

 on their way north were continually pouring in, 

 making a vast camping ground of the valley, till 

 scarcely a blade of grass remained for the perish- 

 ing cattle. 



Viewed from a distance, in comfortable homes, 

 this contest of man with the numberless destruc- 

 tive forces of nature is always looked on as the 

 great drawback in the free life of the settler the 

 drop of bitter in the cup which spoils its taste. It 

 is a false notion, although it would no doubt be 

 upheld as true by most of those who are actually 

 engaged in the contest, and should know. This 

 is strange, but not unaccountable. Our feelings 

 become modified and changed altogether with re- 

 gard to many things as we progress in life, and 

 experience widens, but in most cases the old ex- 

 pressions are still used. We continue to call black 

 black, because we were taught so, and have always 

 called it black, although it may now seem purple 

 or blue or some other color. We learn a kind of 

 emasculated language in the nursery, from school- 

 masters, and books written indoors, and it has 

 to serve us. It proves false, but its falsity is per- 

 haps never clearly recognized; nature emanci- 

 pates us and the feeling changes, but there has 

 been no conscious reasoning on the matter, and 

 thought is vague. One hears a person relating 

 the struggles and storms of his early or past life, 

 and receiving without protest expressions of sym- 

 pathy and pity from his listeners; but he knows 



