I70 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



was tearing in heavy gusts. No wood, no water, no grass. I was 

 afraid we should have to remain there for the night, and also afraid 

 that Mrs. Trelew, the madrina of the Trelew troop, whose udder 

 was big, might drop her foal in that sterile spot. Another danger 

 which menaced us, was that the horses would certainly become 

 lame if they had to travel far over these broken rocks. We there- 

 fore rode on perhaps another fourteen miles, and the dark was 

 falling when we found a camp in a canadon — a bad approach 

 strewn with basalt fragments, but a fair camp at the end with a 

 little stream and good grass. 



On December 29 the Trelew mare dropped her foal, a little 

 disproportionately-boned, huge-jointed alazan filly. During the 

 day Scrivenor and I explored the canadon and I shot a guanaco 

 and an ostrich. The guanaco was a very father of guanacos, old, 

 scarred, black-faced and war-worn. His meat was worse than that 

 of a he-goat. 



To all sides of us stretched the limitless expanses of basalt, 

 and our outlook was not a cheerful one. An examination of the 

 horses' hoofs convinced us that another day's marching such as the 

 last would work great havoc amongst them. I did not know how 

 far this wilderness of basalt might extend, so on December 30 set 

 out with Burbury to attempt to find its boundary. 



Our intention had been to strike the Indian trail under the 

 Cordillera and follow it until we reached the neighbourhood of the 

 River Belgrano, when we would keep the course of that river to 

 its junction with the River Chico, which in its turn would lead us 

 down to the settlement of Santa Cruz, our destination. When I left 

 the Cordillera I had made up my mind to return to them farther 

 south at the Lake Argentino near lat. 50°. To cover a large area 

 of country, and at the same time to collect specimens, is a physical 

 impossibility. I had therefore decided to leave Scrivenor at Santa 

 Cruz to collect fossils in that vicinity, while I myself again crossed 

 the continent to the Andes, some part of which I hoped to explore, 

 and my dreams were not uninfluenced by the stories of the red 

 puma, of the existence of which, however, Scrivenor was very 

 dubious. 



Such, then, were the reasons that were taking us to the eastern 



