146 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



was a little story to be read on the wet sand. A huemul had 

 come down to drink the preceding evening, and had been stalked 

 by a puma and her cub. The puma must have been giving her 

 offspring a lesson in killing. You could see that the puma had 

 leaped upon the huemul from a neighbouring thicket, and there 

 had been a struggle. The huemul, however, managed to dash 

 back into the trees and finally made his escape upon the other 

 side of the patch of forest. 



After resting the night we rode up the Gorge, where we saw 

 some guanaco and found an ostrich egg. We left the three extra 

 horses tethered in the camp, and rode along the heights above the 

 river. The going was bad all the time. Stones, cliffs and rifts 

 hindered our advance, but presently we began to leave the bush 

 behind and entered into a bare tract of iron-grey hillsides and 

 black boulders. Here we stopped for a meal, for which we made 

 an omelette of the ostrich egg, and ate it powdered with chocolate. 

 We cooked it in a tin plate with a little mutton-fat, and uncommonly 

 good we found it. 



About two leagues farther on I shot a guanaco, but my desire 

 was to see a huemul. Every new variety of game was of interest 

 to us, not only from the zoological point of view, but also from 

 that of the hungry man, for we had had a very long spell of 

 guanaco meat. We spent the night in a spot where the horses 

 fed on some fair grass. 



We climbed the highest eminence at dawn and looked out for 

 a smoke behind the island, but seeing none we pushed on. I was 

 riding far ahead along the tableland above the river valley when I 

 saw a huemul. It sprang out from some rocks ahead of me. It 

 was a young buck, and when he caught sight of me he stood at 

 gaze. The huemul is one of the most beautiful deer in the world, 

 although he only carries small spiked horns of no great size. His 

 summer coat is of a rich reddish-brown, which, when examined 

 closely, is found to be thickly mingled with white hairs. In shape 

 huemules are rather strongly built, being about the size of fallow- 

 deer. I have given a detailed account of the habits of the huemul, 

 of which no other record exists, in a later chapter, so will say no 

 more upon that subject here. I was most unwillingly obliged to 



