286 • NATURAL HISTORY OF 



intensely salt 1 Darkness was now gathering rapidly, and I 

 listened intently for tlie noise of voices or guns, but there was 

 an entire silence, save for the rustling of the wind through 

 the grass. By-and-by I heard the neigh of a guanaco, and, 

 looking round, saw it indistinctly at no great distance from 

 me, apparently puzzled to know what I was. 



By ten p.m. I felt that it would be useless to attempt to 

 walk farther, as I was utterly done up, and it was too dark to 

 see in what direction I was going. I therefore lay down in the 

 grass in the lee of a low barberry-bush. The grass was soak- 

 ing wet, and there was a piercing breeze blowing ; but I fell 

 asleep for a short time, and wakened with a sensation of 

 deadly cold, accompanied with violent cramps in my limbs. 

 Fortunately, no more rain fell, and the night was clear, with a 

 fine display of stars overhead. I thus lay on the ground, weigh- 

 ing the probabilities of my being able to find my way back to 

 camp next day, or of my leaving my bones to bleach in the 

 Patagonian desert, while the wind rustled through the bushes, 

 and snipes gave vent to their desolate nocturnal cries. The 

 night seemed very long, though in reality short, and I 

 anxiously watched for the morning, noting how the stars 

 moved over the face of the sky, and gradually weaned. At 

 last a faint light appeared in a particular spot on the horizon, 

 which satisfied me as to which was the east ; day gradually 

 dawned, and by twenty minutes to three A.M., on the 24th, 

 it was light enough to allow me to rise from my lair and 

 set out in a direction intermediate between that where the 

 sun had set the night before, and that whence it was pre- 

 paring to arise. 



It was a bright, clear morning, and I felt more hopeful 

 than the night before, and concentrated my energies into 

 walking as hard as I could. I first traversed a considerable 



