210 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



had suddenly transformed itself from a thinking 

 machine into a machine for some other unknown 

 purpose. To think was like setting in motion a 

 noisy engine in my brain; and there was some- 

 thing there which bade me be still, and I was 

 forced to obey. My state was one of suspense and 

 watchfulness: yet I had no expectation of meet- 

 ing with an adventure, and felt as free from ap- 

 prehension as I feel now when sitting in a room 

 in London. The change in me was just as great 

 and wonderful as if I had changed my identity 

 for that of another man or animal; but at the 

 time I was powerless to wonder at or speculate 

 about it; the state seemed familiar rather than 

 strange, and although accompanied by a strong 

 feeling of elation, I did not know it did not know 

 that something had come between me and my in- 

 tellect until I lost it and returned to my former 

 self to thinking, and the old insipid existence. 



Such changes in us, however brief in duration 

 they may be, and in most cases they are very brief, 

 but which so long as they last seem to affect us 

 down to the very roots of our being, and come as 

 a great surprise a revelation of an unfamiliar 

 and unsuspected nature hidden under the nature 

 we are conscious of can only be attributed to an 

 instantaneous reversion to the primitive and 

 wholly savage mental conditions. Probably not 

 many men exist who would be unable to recall 

 similar cases in their own experience; but it 



