158 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



I was awakened by Jones with the welcome news that breakfast 

 was ready, and that he had got up early and been at work upon 

 the Mauser, which he said had haunted his dreams. It was, he 

 declared, as good as ever, and this proved to be the case. The 

 trigger had been slightly bent, and a small stone lodged in the 

 mechanism had been overlooked in the bad light of the previous 

 evening. Altogether the affair stands out as one gigantic piece 

 of luck. 



It was not now at all a presentable weapon. It was, indeed, an 

 object any gunmaker would have shied at, but it started business 

 again by taking a particular stone out of the neighbouring cliff 

 with all its old accuracy. To celebrate the event we made a plum 

 duff of flour, which we ate with a tin of Swiss milk. After- 

 wards we made quite a bag of pigeons (Cohimba maculosa), which 

 frequented the scrub of the river in great numbers. 



Patagonia is a land so far from shops that one must not lose 

 anything, and if you do lose anything, it is strange how persistent 

 one becomes in looking for it. Scrivenor once rode twenty-five 

 miles for a pipe ; I have spent half a weary day following my old 

 tracks for a similar purpose. I think the only article lost upon 

 the expedition, and left lost, was Barker's large knife, and we 

 had ridden fifty miles the day he dropped it. Jones lost a 

 pair of pipes one day galloping, and after four days searching — 

 at odd times — found them both again ! Burbury lost a knife at 

 the Fenix River — but I might go on multiplying instances for 

 ever. 



Well, now that we had found the guns, remained the horses, 

 and after these we started next morning, moving our small camp 

 up to where they had been abandoned. 



I remember that day, for I was riding the roughest horse in 

 all our troop, a stout little Zaino, which shook and vibrated like a 

 miniature torpedo-boat. At length we came to the hio-h barranca 

 above the river, down which Mula had fallen and nearly immolated 



poor Barckhausen. We human beings toboganned down the 



measured angle being 38°— and the horses slid down upon their 

 haunches. Part of the cliff accompanied us in our descent. Then 

 followed that nasty boulder-strewn piece of journeying I have 



