198 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



service to us, and, as it happened, Bernardo, in the course of his 

 adventurous career, had had some experience in the engine-room 

 of a Brazilian steamer. 



So on February 15 we set out for Lake Viedma, with the idea 

 of bringing the launch, if possible, down the River Leona, which 

 is the connecting waterway between the Lakes Viedma and 

 Argentino. 



To travel from' our starting" point at the foot of Mount Buenos 

 Aires to Lake Viedma it was necessary to skirt Lake Argentino 

 until the southern outlet of the Leona was reached, and then to 

 follow that river to its source in Lake Viedma. The distance was 

 about eighty miles more or less, and included the fording of the 

 River Santa Cruz. 



Our party was made up of four men and twenty-one horses, 

 and upon one of the packs we took a light canvas collapsible boat 

 and a pair of oars with which to negotiate the Santa Cruz. 



On the following evening we arrived on its southern bank. 

 There we found an old Commission boat that was used as a ferry, but 

 it was beached, with the usual contrariety of things, on the wrong 

 side of the stream, which is from one hundred and fifty to two 

 hundred yards wide at this spot and runs with a swift current. 

 Many a Gaucho has lost his life in attempting to cross lower down. 



Next morning it was still dark when the plume of smoke rose 

 from our camp-fire of califate-wood, and as we sat round it waitino- 

 for the asado to cook, we smoked (a bad habit when indulo-ed in 

 before breakfast, against which one would warn everybody else) 

 and drank matd. It was a cool dawn I remember that developed 

 later into a hot day. We put the collapsible boat together, and 

 Cattle, after a mishap with a rowlock, brought the old and leakv 

 ford-boat across, as we needed her to transport our baoo-aae. We 

 piled the cargo into her, and such weak places as we could deal 

 with we strengthened. 



The theory was to take the filly through the river behind the 

 boat, trusting that the old black bell-mare would follow her off- 

 spring, and the troop in its turn follow the mare, as had occurred 

 on the occasion of our former crossing of the river near the settle- 

 ment of Santa Cruz. 



