SOUTHWARD HO! 



27 



THE START ON OUR LONG TREK 



a cavy {Dolichotis patagonicd). So we marched on over the 

 rolling downs day after day, sometimes catching a glimpse of 

 the sea, sometimes journeying across pampas where the far 

 horizons met in pale blue sky and puffed white clouds above, 

 and below grass and 

 endless scrub. We 

 saw Cayenne plover 

 ( Vanellus cayennensis) 

 at an early stage of 

 our travels. 



I have already 

 mentioned the herds 

 of guanaco that roam 

 the interior. This 

 animal belongs dis- 

 tinctively to South 

 America, and is to be 

 found nowhere else in 



the world. Darwin writes of it as follows : " The guanaco, or 

 wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Pata- 

 gonia. ... It is an elegant animal in a state of nature, with a 

 long slender neck and fine legs." In colour the guanaco is of a 

 golden-brown with white underparts, the hair upon the sides being 

 somewhat long and fleecy. Enormous herds of from three to five 

 hundred live upon the pampas, and we were aware that we should 

 chiefly depend for meat on those we might chance to shoot during 

 many months to come. 



One evening, when I was riding ahead.with the troop of horses, 

 I saw my first guanaco. Coming round a bend of the winding 

 canadon, I looked up arid perceived him. The sight was highly 

 picturesque. It was an old buck standing alone on the top of a 

 cliff some two hundred feet high and looking down at me. He 

 was posed against a background of pale green glinting sunset. I 

 had hardly time to unsling my rifle before he bounded away. We 

 saw many thousands afterwards, but somehow in the nature of 

 things I shall never forget that first one. 



On the coast-farms, which, it must be recollected, are many of 



