At Last, Patagonia ! 1 1 



side near the top, and leading to it there is a narrow 

 arched gallery resting on a horizontal branch, and 

 about fourteen inches long. So compactly made is 

 this enormous nest that I have found it hard to 

 break one up. I have also stood upright on the 

 dome and stamped on it with my boots without 

 injuring it at all. During my stay in Patagonia I 

 found about a dozen of these palatial nests ; and 

 my opinion is that like our own houses, or, rather, 

 our public buildings, and some ant-hills, and the 

 vizcacha's village burrows, and the beaver's dam, it 

 is made to last for ever. 



The only mammal we saw was a small armadillo, 

 Dasypus minutus ; it was quite common, and early 

 in the day, when we were still fresh and full of 

 spirits, we amused ourselves by chasing them. "We 

 captured several, and one of my companions, an 

 Italian, killed two and slung them over his shoulder, 

 remarking that we could cook and eat them if we 

 grew hungry before reaching our destination. We 

 were not much troubled with hunger, but towards 

 noon we began to suffer somewhat from thirst. At 

 midday we saw before us a low level plain, covered 

 with long coarse grass of a dull yellowish-green 

 colour. Here we hoped to find water, and before 

 long we descried the white gleam of a lagoon, as we 

 imagined, but on a nearer inspection the white- 

 ness or appearance of water turned out to be only 

 a salt efflorescence on a barren patch -of ground. 

 On this low plain it was excessively sultry ; not a 

 bush could be found to shelter us from the sun : all 



