172 



THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



ki\i:k 111. in 



runnino- side bv side. So the Tehuelches leave their footmarks, 

 which resemble those of the game they live by, and they leave 

 little else to show to those who come after, that here hundreds 

 of men have existed through the centuries, knowing such joys and 

 sufferings as lie between birth and death, onlv a trodden line across 



the waste and a few burnt 

 bushes by the wayside. 



We rode back to the camp, 

 and decided to try the little 

 filly with a short niarch, as 

 much delay was out of the 

 question. The horses all ap- 

 peared to be interested in the 

 arrangement, and refused to 

 be driven unless the filly led. 

 This she did, making her 

 first journey trotting beside 

 her mother. We had to cross a ford, and Barckhausen brouo^ht 

 the fill}' over gently by the ear, Mrs. Trelew objecting extremely 

 to such treatment of her offspring. We are all very careful and 

 tender over our loose-linibed baby. During the short march we 

 saw many guanacos. 



The duration of the expedition might be divided into periods : 

 first, the biscuit period, wnen every one toasted biscuits, hard 

 camp biscuits, shiny and of a great size ; followed by the dump- 

 ling period. Now it was the damper period, which was the most 

 appetising of them all. 



On the last day of the year we managed seven leagues, and 

 camped in a bare canadou. New Year's Day we covered eight 

 leagues of bare and arid steppes of pampa. At this time we had 

 a great deal of hunting. A lame dog, left behind by our Argentine 

 ostrich-hunter, turned out to be excellent for sport. We named 

 him Chichi. We camped by a lagoon of muddy water with a thin 

 strip of {q.{1(\ half encircling it, but the gras.s was rich with seed. 

 jMirag-es haunted our marches throusfh this desolate region. This 

 chapter might be called "Through the Land of Distant Hills." 

 There was a savage loneliness between those wide horizons that 



