PATAGONIA 



13 



usual sort of folk who form the bulk of dwellers on the edge of 

 civilisation. 



In Patagonia it is not difficult to leave civilisation behind 

 you, for between lat. 43° 

 and 50° S. the interior, 

 save for a very few pioneers 

 and small tribes of wan- 

 dering Tehuelche Indians, 

 is at the present day un- 

 peopled. When the line of 

 the Cordillera is reached, 

 you come to a region abso- 

 lutely houseless, where no 

 human inhabitant is to be 

 found. Comparatively speak- 

 ing, but little animal life 

 flourishes under the un- 

 numbered snow peaks, and 

 in the unmeasured spaces 

 of virgin forest, which cover 

 those valleys and in many 

 places cloak the mountains 

 from base to shoulder. 

 Hundreds of square miles 



of forest-land, gorges, open slopes, and terraced hollows lie lost in 

 the vast embrace of the Patagonian Andes, on which the eye of 

 man has never yet fallen. 



Our travels took us over a great part of the country. Starting 

 in September 1900, we zigzagged from Trelew by Bahia 

 Camerones, to Lakes Colhue and Musters and along the River 

 Senguerr to Lake Buenos Aires. After spending a time in the 

 neighbourhood of that lake, we followed the Indian trail for some 

 distance, then touching the Southern Chico we reached Santa 

 Cruz on the east coast in January 1901. Leaving most of the 

 expedition there, I returned with two companions by the course of 

 the River Santa Cruz to the Cordillera, where I remained for 

 some months, and in May I once more crossed the continent to 





W!W«P?P~'r"^T^ ^ '^ 



HALF-BREED GAUCHO 



