CHAPTER XI. 



Start on our return to the coast : Stricken with rheumatism : Receive our 

 first news of the Spanish- American War, *fuly 26th, 1898 : Arrival at 

 Santa Cruz : Mr. Colburn decides to return home and awaits steamer at 

 Santa Cruz: f go to Gallegos on horseback: Caught in a blizzard: 

 Across the ice-covered pampas : Reach the estancia of Mr. Halliday at 

 North Gallegos : Cross the river to the Port of Gallegos ; My rheuma- 

 tism improves slowly because of insufficient comforts and I decide to return 

 home : Embark for Sandy Point in the "Joseph F. Lovart" of the Nem 

 York Pilot Fleet : An uneventful voyage of forty-seven days from Sandy 

 Point to New York in the steamship "Maori" : Arrive home much 

 benefited by my long voyage through the Tropics : Arrange for my third 

 and last trip to Patagonia. 



FOR more than a month I had been faithfully engaged in exploring 

 the country between and to the eastward of Lakes Pueyrredon 

 and Buenos Aires in hopes of finding representatives of the Pyro- 

 therium beds and their fauna. In the accomplishment of this I had 

 not only been signally unsuccessful, but my search had been so thor- 

 ough that I felt reasonably sure that they were not represented, except 

 possibly by one or more small and insignificant exposures, anywhere, 

 within a reasonable distance. During all this time I had passed but 

 three nights in camp under the shelter of a tent. My work for more than 

 two months, in fact ever since we had entered the practically unknown 

 country north of the Rio Chico, had been continued from early morn 

 until late at night, with irregular meals, and I generally passed the night 

 with no other shelter than that afforded by a chance bush, and often 

 with only my saddle blanket and slicker for a bed. As a matter of fact, 

 through want of funds my entire work in Patagonia was carried on under 

 most discouraging circumstances and with quite inadequate equipment, 

 considering the magnitude of the task I had set myself to accomplish. 

 With winter setting in and the chief purpose of this, my second visit to 



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