THE PLAINS OF PATAGONIA 207 



the prospect. On every side it stretched away in 

 great undulations; but the undulations were wild 

 and irregular; the hills were rounded and cone- 

 shaped, they were solitary and in groups and 

 ranges; some sloped gently, others were ridge- 

 like and stretched away in league-long terraces, 

 with other terraces beyond; and all alike were 

 clothed in the gray everlasting thorny vegetation. 

 How gray it all was ! hardly less so near at hand 

 than on the haze-wrapped horizon, where the hills 

 were dim and the outline blurred by distance. 

 Sometimes I would see the large eagle-like, white- 

 breasted buzzard, Buteo erythronotus, perched on 

 the summit of a bush half a mile away; and so 

 long as it would continue stationed motionless 

 before me my eyes would remain involuntarily 

 fixed on it, just as one keeps his eyes on a bright 

 light shining in the gloom; for the whiteness of 

 the hawk seemed to exercise a fascinating power 

 on the vision, so surpassingly bright was it by 

 contrast in the midst of that universal unrelieved 

 grayness. Descending from my look-out, I would 

 take up my aimless wanderings again, and visit 

 other elevations to gaze on the same landscape 

 from another point; and so on for hours, and 

 at noon I would dismount and sit or lie on my 

 folded poncho for an hour or longer. One day, 

 in these rambles, I discovered a small grove com- 

 posed of twenty to thirty trees, about eighteen 

 feet high, and taller than the surrounding trees. 

 They were growing at a convenient distance 



