84 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



own conditions, has only a pair of soft weak 

 hands. 



To one fresh from the softness and smoothness 

 of civilization, unaccustomed to manual labor, how 

 hard then is the lot of the settler! Behind him 

 physical comfort and beautiful dreams; before 

 him the prospect of long years of unremitting toil, 

 every day of which will unfit him more and more 

 for a return to the gentle life of the past; while, 

 for only result, he will have food enough to satisfy 

 hunger, and a rude shelter from extremes of heat 

 and cold, from torrents of winter rain and blinding 

 clouds of summer dust. Yet is he happy. For the 

 vanished substantial comforts and airy splendors 

 there is a compensation gilding his rough existence 

 with a better brightness than that of any hope 

 of future prosperity which may yet linger in his 

 mind. It is the feeling the settler experiences 

 from the moment of his induction into the desert 

 that he is engaged in a conflict, and there is no 

 feeling comparable with it to put a man on his 

 mettle and inspire him with a healthy and endur- 

 ing interest in life. To this feeling is added the 

 charm of novelty caused by that endless proces- 

 sion of surprises which nature prepares for the 

 pioneer an experience unknown to the rural life 

 of countries that have long been under cultiva- 

 tion. The greatest drawbacks and difficulties en- 

 countered have this charm strongest in them, and 

 are robbed by it of half their power to discourage 

 the mind. 



