82 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



pick it up in its native state during his walks 

 abroad in the forest. The simple-minded aborigi- 

 nes, always ready to humor an eccentric taste, 

 will assist him in collecting it; and, finally, for a 

 small consideration in the form of colored beads 

 and pocket-mirrors, convey it in large sacks and 

 hampers to the place of embarkation. It is not 

 meant that the immigrant in all cases paints his 

 particular delusion in colors bright as these; let 

 him shade the picture until it corresponds in tone 

 with his individual creation a dream and a delu- 

 sion it will nevertheless remain. Not in these 

 things which will never be his, nor in still cherish- 

 ing the dream will he find his pleasure, but in 

 something very different. 



I speak not of that large percentage of immi- 

 grants who are doomed to find no pleasure at all, 

 and no good. To the youth of ardent generous 

 temperament, arrived in some far-off city where 

 all men are free and equal, and the starched con- 

 ventionalities of the old world are unknown, it is 

 perhaps the hardest thing to believe that when he 

 slips down not a hand will be put forth to raise 

 him; that when he pronounces these common 

 words, "I have come to the end of my tether," in- 

 stantly all the smiling faces surrounding him will 

 vanish as if by magic; that the few sovereigns 

 remaining in his pocket at any time are as a chain, 

 shortened each day by a link, holding him back 

 from some terrible destiny. . . . Let us delay no 

 longer in this moral place of skulls, but follow 



