CHAPTER XIII 



JOURNEY TO LAKE ARGENTINO 



Dividing expedition — Darwin's trip up the Santa Cruz — Provisions — Shoeing 

 horses — Pampa grass and marsh grass— Start for Lake Argentine — Burbury 

 and Bernardo — Visit various estancias — Negro — Suspicious wayfarers — Hospi- 

 tality — Canadon of the Santa Cruz — Dry pampa — Sunsets — Game and wildfowl 

 — Flamingos — Sandflies — Mystery Plain— Lake Argentine— River del Bote 

 — Mount Viscachas — Lonely lagoon — Death-place of guanaco — Neigh of 

 guanaco — Large herds — Thorny grass — Description of Lake Argentine — A 

 tragedy of wild life — Condors — Numerous birds and beasts of prey — Severities 

 of winters — Snowfall — Burmeister Peninsula — Lake Rica or South Fjord — Bad 

 weather — The Wild Man of Santa Cruz. 



I SPENT a few days in Santa Cruz making arrangements to 

 divide my expedition into two parts, leaving Scrivenor with the 

 peones to collect fossils and specimens in the neighbourhood of the 

 River Santa Cruz, where most interesting deposits exist, while I 

 with Burbury and a peon, whom I picked up at Santa Cruz, 

 recrossed the continent to the lake-region. 



In a huge country like Patagonia, to explore and to collect at the 

 same tirne is practically out of the question, but by dividing our 

 forces I hoped to achieve both ends more satisfactorily. 



The lake which I now wished to visit is the last very large 

 piece of water in the long chain of Andean lakes and lagoons. It 

 is a little to the south of 50° S. lat. From this lake, Lake Argen- 

 tino, the River Santa Cruz flows eastwards and empties itself into 

 the Atlantic, the settlement of Santa Cruz being situated at the 

 mouth of the river. It was by following the course of this river 

 upwards for some 140 miles that Darwin made his only serious 

 expedition into the interior of Patagonia. His party found the 

 passage of the river both dangerous and laborious, and Captain 

 FitzRoy decided to return to Santa Cruz on the fifth day, after 

 they sighted the snowy summits of the Cordillera. Thus they 

 never reached Lake Argentino. 



