290 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



stances under which they had been taken and the impossibility of 

 replacing them. 



Once across the Gallegos we emerged upon flat ground, and 

 here we found a road with a line of telephone-posts running along 

 one side of it. Gallegos was by that time only eighteen miles 

 ahead, but with our tired horses that appeared a long distance. 

 The country was absolutely featureless, the black posts sticking up 

 against a dull sky, the brown earth absorbing such light as there 

 was. A very cold wind blew across our faces, but there was one 

 thing that cheered us, that told us our wanderings were over — the 

 humming of the wind in the wires overhead. 



The road dipped and rose over the long undulations, and at 

 last, as we topped one of the many inclines, Gallegos straggled into 

 sight, obviously a frontier town, all wire fences, wooden and 

 corrugated-iron houses with painted roofs. The emotions with 

 which one returns and feels the long wanderings over are not 

 easy to describe. I rode slowly up the main street and passed the 

 bank — for there is a bank at Gallegos, and the fact gave one a 

 sensation of being very civilised indeed. I dismounted and went 

 into the building to inquire about the steamer for Punta Arenas, 

 where I hoped to pick up a homeward-bound boat. A steamboat 

 was to have started for Punta Arenas that same morning, I was 

 told, but as the captain was in gaol, her departure had been post- 

 poned for a day or so. The delay seemed a special dispensation 

 for my benefit, for, had she adhered to her original date, I must 

 have been too late to go by her. I understood that the captain's 

 crime lay in having drawn up his anchor without waiting to 

 receive a written permit. 



Luckily I had not been preceded at Gallegos by any "lord," 

 hence I drew the cash necessary for my passage and payments at 

 the bank without any trouble. Then I went on to the hotel and 

 put up my horse, the good little big-hearted Moro, who had carried 

 me a hundred and fifty miles in three days and looked fat on it. 

 Afterwards I bought a cigar, a very bad one, but a cigar for all 

 that, and so proceeded down to the beach to secure my passage. 

 Up on the shingle were several ships high and dry, and out in the 

 fairway about the very smallest steamer I have ever seen, yet a 



