SOUTHWARD HO! 19 



quiet, solitary-looking cliff, until at last the Primero de Mayo was 

 swallowed up in the vast embrace of the Golfo Nuevo. It was 

 between evening and night when we approached our harbourage, 

 Puerto Madryn. The half-lights were playing above it, and the 

 afterglow of the sunset still shone feebly behind the land. We 

 saw only raw cliff capped by dark verdure — the rim of the vast 

 pampas which roll away in rising levels league upon league 

 towards the Andes. 



The sea was cold, the wind was cold, the land looked forlorn 

 and a-cold. Presently from it a little boat put out containing a 

 figure wrapped in a long military cloak. This was the sub- 

 prefect, who thus welcomed us to these desolate shores, for 

 Patagonia from the sea is a desolate prospect indeed. It would be 

 difficult to give an adequate idea of the dismal aspect presented by 

 Puerto Madryn upon that evening. Suffice it to say that the 

 settlement consists of half a dozen houses atid a flagstaff ; the 

 first crouch on the lip of the tide and the second shivers above on 

 the bare pampa-rim. 



There seals and divers haunt the sea, a few guanaco-herds live 

 upon the coast-lands, and there, in inhospitable fashion, the little 

 colony of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great 

 primordial nature. In the evening lights the cliffs showed curiously 

 pallid above a strip of dead sand and shingle, only the sky and the 

 water seemed alive. 



Next morning we hoped to get our baggage ashore and were 

 moving early with that object in view. But the trend of public 

 opinion in Puerto Madryn appears to be towards the conviction 

 that there is no sort of reason for hurry under any circumstances. 

 Hence the cargo disgorged itself slowly, and after interminable 

 waiting we found our particular share of it would not be reached 

 that night. It was, in fact, not till the afternoon of the second day 

 that we achieved a partial recovery of our belongings from the 

 holds and took the first consignment of it ashore. The morning 

 had broken clear and fine, but mid-day brought a change. And 

 by the time we had our boatload completed and rocketed away 

 shorewards at the tail of the Primero de Mayds steam-launch, a 

 beam sea was flying in spray high over us. 



