8 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



as that feeling of relief, of escape, and absolute 

 freedom, which one experiences in a vast solitude, 

 where man has perhaps never been, and has, at any 

 rate, left no trace of his existence. It was strong 

 and exhilarating in me on that morning ; and I was 

 therefore by no means elated when we descried, 

 some distance ahead, the low walls of half a dozen 

 mud cabins. My fellow-travellers were, however, 

 delighted at the discovery, and we hastened on, 

 thinking that we were nearer to the settlement than 

 we had supposed. But we found the huts un- 

 inhabited, the doors broken down, the wells choked 

 up and overgrown with wild liquorice plants. 



We learnt subsequently that a few venturesome 

 herdsmen had made their home in this remote spot 

 with their families, and that about a year before 

 our visit the Indians had swept down on them and 

 destroyed the young settlement. Very soon we 

 turned our backs on the ruined hovels, my com- 

 panions loudly expressing their disappointment, 

 while I felt secretly glad that we were yeb to drink 

 a little more deeply of the cup of wild nature. 



After walking on some distance we found a narrow 

 path leading away southward from the ruined 

 village, and, believing that it led direct to the Car- 

 men, the old settlement on the Rio Negro, which is 

 over twenty miles from the sea, we at once resolved 

 to follow it. This path led us wide of the ocean. 

 Before noon we lost sight of the low sand-hills on 

 our right hand, and as we penetrated further into 

 the interior the dark-leafed bushes I have mentioned 



