220 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



finitely more perfect than the new, and if there 

 be such a thing as historical memory in us, it is 

 not strange that the sweetest moment in any life, 

 pleasant or dreary, should be when Nature draws 

 near to it, and, taking up her neglected instru- 

 ment, plays a fragment of some ancient melody, 

 long unheard on the earth. 



It might be asked : If nature has at times this 

 peculiar effect on us, restoring instantaneously 

 the old vanished harmony between organism and 

 environment, why should it be experienced in a* 

 greater degree in the Patagonian desert than in 

 other solitary places, a desert which is water- 

 less, where animal voices are seldom heard, and 

 vegetation is gray instead of green? I can only 

 suggest a reason for the effect being so much 

 greater in my own case. In sub-tropical woods 

 and thickets, and in wild forests in temperate re- 

 gions, the cheerful verdure and bright colors of 

 flower and insects, if we have acquired a habit of 

 looking closely at these things, and the melody and 

 noises of bird-life engages the senses; there is 

 movement and brightness ; new forms, animal and 

 vegetable, are continually appearing, curiosity 

 and expectation are excited, and the mind is so 

 much occupied with novel objects that the effect 

 of wild nature in its entirety is minimized. In 

 Patagonia the monotony of the plains, or expanse 

 of low hills, the universal unrelieved grayness of 

 everything, and the absence of animal forms and 

 objects new to the eye, leave the mind open and 



