THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS 127 



November 13. — I went to the River Fenix and shot a guanaco. 

 Afterwards I took a six-mile walk and shot two snipe. Lake 

 Buenos Aires was certainly the very heart of the wind's domain. 

 While we were there the wind never died down, it blew all the 

 time, often lifting sand and gravel, and sometimes a great piece 

 of our camp-fire, sheltered as that was. It raged on most days, 

 blowing so hard that some people in England would not have 

 cared to venture out of doors. 



I have so far given no description of our tents, which were pro- 

 bably the nearest approach to comfort within many hundred miles 

 of Horsham Camp. Mine was small, seven feet by a short six, 

 and four feet high, sustained by four ropes and a pole, the place 

 of the second pole — which we lost — being taken by a bow-legged 

 slip of califate-wood. The tent contained two beds made up of 

 skins and ponchos laid on the green canvas floor, a soldered tin of 

 plug tobacco served by way of a candlestick and upheld a candle- 

 end. Round and about the tent and on its excrescent flooring 

 were heaped our boxes, otherwise the wind would have blown it 

 over. It was a mere bag of a place, with an exit like an animal's 

 hole ; but at night, when the storm howled without, our dim light 

 looked homely, the tobacco-scented air was grateful, and a bit of 

 camphor lent its aroma to the place. And there one could lie at ease 

 and read or think at pleasure. 



On the 14th I shot another guanaco; it was curious that we 

 were always rich in meat or else in absolute want of it. I had gone 

 out on Jones' black horse for a little exercise lowards the River 

 Deseado, and there I surprised the guanaco. He was an old buck 

 and solitary. He gave me a nice shot, then walked a step or two 

 and fell dead. At Horsham Camp we lived in some dread of 

 scorpions ; Jones found one on his saddle, Burbury another in the 

 flour or the cooking-pot, and some roosted in our bedding. By the 

 way, our kitchen arrangements were becoming very scanty at that 

 period ; we had but two cooking-pots left and one kettle, thanks to 

 the energetic treatment they had received at the heels of the 

 cargueros. It was fervently hoped by all the party that nothing 

 would go wrong with any of these, or we should have been most 

 uncomfortably situated. 



