62 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



had neither seen nor winded the puma, and began to unsling my 

 rifle. In the middle of the operation, when I already had the 

 hindering bag upon the ground, the puma, which up to that moment 

 had continued to lash its tail and stare at me, turned round and 

 loped off at the cumbrous and uncouth canter habitual to these 

 animals. At one hundred and fifty yards it stopped for an instant, 

 but was off again at once. I attempted to mount my horse with 

 the idea of galloping down the puma, an easy thing to do, as 

 these animals never run far, and are readily blown, but the horse, 

 which happened to be a mule-footed oscuro, known as Mula, 

 became quite unmanageable. I at once coo-ed and was joined by 

 young Humphrey Jones, who in eighteen years' residence in Pata- 

 gonia had never seen a puma, and as he had strong sporting 

 instincts, was extremely anxious to encounter one. We followed 

 the track of the lion — as the puma is locally called — but after 

 topping the hill it led along a bare slope and was lost in a clump of 

 high dry bush, where it was quite hopeless to find the creature. 

 We rode back into camp very disappointed. 



Just as Mr. Selous remarks that hunters sometimes spend years 

 in Africa before they come upon their first lion, so many a man is 

 as long in Patagonia before he comes across his first puma. The 

 puma is a very furtive and cowardly animal, and though we saw so 

 few during our months of travel, I have no doubt that many a 

 puma watched our troop passing across the pampa from the 

 safe cover of rocks and bushes. Seeing or not seeing pumas is 

 purely a matter of luck, and the tales concerning pumas having 

 attacked men, which abound in the country, are generally fabri- 

 cations. A puma with young will attack man if he stumbles upon 

 her and her family, and my friend Mr. Waag told me that on 

 one occasion a puma in the Cordillera had shown evident signs 

 of attack. In the majority of cases, even when wounded the 

 puma will only snarl and spit, and the Indians, as well as the 

 Gauchos, despatch it with the bolas. 



The puma is a terrible foe to the sheep-farmer, levying heavy 

 toll upon flocks, and often enjoys a long career of sheep- killino- 

 before strychnine or the bullet puts an end to its existence. 



The snow is directly responsible for the death of a great many 



