BACK TO CIVILISATION 179 



was scarcely a pleasure to see cognac advertisements again, and to 

 smell the dregs of yesterday yet awash on the greasy grey metal 

 counter ! A concertina was playing the old aching tunes that 

 always seem to carry with them tags of vice and crime. 



RESIDENTS OF SANTA CRUZ 



We pushed on for Santa Cruz, and on the way passed the 

 house of another trader, who also sold liquor. It squatted beside 

 the river, which here flowed blue and estuary-like between white- 

 faced cliffs backed by bald hills. A board over the door of 

 the shop bore the legend "Z« Gaviota," or Seagull. It was 

 evidently part of the wreckage of some boat washed up on these 

 beaches. 



Santa Cruz town is situated on the banks of a large estuary 

 formed by the junction of the rivers Santa Cruz and the Southern 

 Chico before they fall into the Atlantic. It is a straggling place, a 

 collection of wooden houses with roofs of corrugated iron. The chief 

 export is wool, which in the season lies in long rows of bales upon 



