ROUND AND ABOUT LAKE BUENOS AIRES 



133 



In summer the north shore of Lake Buenos Aires is one of 

 the poorest game centres in Patagonia. During the first fortnight 

 of our stay there we shot but two guanacos. Sometimes for a 

 week one would see nothing save an old ostrich, which was often 

 observed at the far end of the marsh where the horses fed, but 

 he was a wary bird with an experience of human methods, and he 

 would never allow us to approach within shot. 



It seemed probable, from the evidence of the tracks, that at the 

 beginning of the hard weather the guanaco trekked down to the 

 level of the lake. For one track made in November there were 

 twenty made in July. The foregoing remarks only refer to the 

 northern shore of the lake ; on the eastern and southern sides 

 things were very different, and about them we enjoyed good 

 sport. 



On November 21, Scrivenor, Jones and I made a little 

 expedition to the River Fenix where it enters the lake, and there 

 we came upon the most favourable camping-ground we had yet 

 seen in the whole country. We pitched our camp — afterwards 

 called Rosy Camp — in the midst of high yellow grass beside the 

 narrow river that wound between banks, on which green low 

 scrub ran riot, and enormous califate-bushes made impenetrable 

 patches of thicket. Jones and I, on our arrival, went to examine 

 the mouth of the river. Our camp was quite drowsy with the 

 humming of insects, for, sheltered as it was from the wind by trees 

 and by the cliffs of a lonely hummock, it gave us a delightful feeling 

 of comfort and well-being after our many very different experiences 

 of camps among the high dunes and rocks over which the wind 

 whistled. 



On the way Jones shot a Chiloe widgeon and I an upland 

 goose. We found many tracks of puma and some of guanaco and 

 huemul. As we walked towards the lake, I saw upon the outer- 

 most promontory of land a guanaco outlined against the evening 

 sky. Hurrying on as fast as we could, which was not very fast, 

 as I had poisoned my knee and was lame, we found the herd on a 

 neck of land, to escape from which they would be obliged to pass 

 within a hundred yards of us provided they did not take to the 

 water. So we decided not to stalk them, but simply showed 



