222 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



ness, and sometimes makes them mad with joy, like 

 animals newly escaped from captivity. And, for a 

 similar reason, the civilized life is one of continual 

 repression, although it may not seem so until a 

 glimpse of nature's wildness, a taste of adventure, 

 an accident, suddenly makes it seem unspeakably 

 irksome ; and in that state we feel that our loss in 

 departing from nature exceeds our gain. 



It was elation of this kind, the feeling experienced 

 on going back to a mental condition we have out- 

 grown, which I had in the Patagonian solitude ; for 

 I had undoubtedly gone lack ; and that state of in- 

 tense watchfulness, or alertness rather, with suspen- 

 sion of the higher intellectual faculties, represented 

 the mental state of the pure savage. He thinks 

 little, reasons little, having a surer guide in his in- 

 stinct ; he is in perfect harmony with nature, and is 

 nearly on a level, mentally, with the wild animals 

 he preys on, and which in their turn sometimes 

 prey on him. If the plains of Patagonia affect a 

 person in this way, even in a much less degree than 

 in my case, it is not strange that they impress them- 

 selves so vividly on the mind, and remain fresh in 

 memory, and return frequently ; while other scenery, 

 however grand or beautiful, fades gradually away, 

 and is at last forgotten. To a slight, in most cases 

 probably a very slight, extent, all natural sights and 

 sounds affect us in the same way; but the, effect is 

 often transitory, and is gone with the first shock of 

 pleasure, to be followed in some cases by a profound 

 and mysterious melancholy. The greenness of 



