460 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



As Captain Mayne had determined to await the arrival of 

 letters which we expected by one of the Pacific Steam Navi- 

 gation Company's vessels, which, leaving Valparaiso on the 

 13th of the month, was due at Sandy Point on the 19th, we 

 had some spare time on our hands, which some of the officers 

 took advantage of, to start on a shooting expedition on the 

 11th to Elizabeth Island, while those of us who remained at 

 the settlement were busily occupied in writing up our cor- 

 respondence, etc. On the afternoon of the 15th, while Captain 

 Mayne and I were walking over the plains to the northward, 

 we descried a party of Patagonians in the distance, and 

 before long they met us, presenting a very striking spectacle. 

 There were about fifty adults, all mounted, and accompanied 

 by a large troop of dogs. As they defiled along, clad in their 

 guanaco-skin mantles, which were for the most part stained 

 of a brick-red colour, with their bolas hanging by their 

 saddles, and some with swords by their sides, they appeared 

 to great advantage, several of the men being very handsome, 

 and almost all of large size. The tallest, an old man with 

 thick gray hair, was afterwards measured at the governor's 

 house, and found to be six feet ten inches in height. Most of 

 them, as they met us, contented themselves with smiling and 

 passing on, but one or two stopped to speak to us, and one 

 individual majestically motioned to me to pick up his bolas, 

 which he had dropped. On their arrival at the settlement, 

 they were greeted with a musical performance by the military 

 band, and thereafter held an interview with the governor. 



Our shooting party rejoined us on the 16th with a hundred 

 and forty geese as the result of their labours, and I received 

 from them a fine specimen of an old gander, which I subse- 

 quently skinned. We were by this time ready to start for 

 the westward, to resume our work, as soon as the mail-steamer 



