46 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



to 



grey desolation — a desert where life was impossible 

 to mau — fading into the blue haze of the horizon ; 

 and there was nothing beyond it. On that grey strip, 

 on the borders oE the unknown beyond, they could 

 search for tortoises, and hunt a few wild animals, 

 and gather a few wild fruits, and hard woods and 

 spines for weapons ; and then return to the river, 

 as children o-o back to their mother. All thino-s were 

 reflected in its w^aters, the infinite blue sky, the 

 clouds and heavenly bodies ; the trees and tall 

 herbage on its banks, and their dark faces ; and 

 just as they were mirrored iu it, so its current 

 was mirrored in their minds. The old man, grown 

 blind with age, from constantly seeing its image 

 so bright and persistent, would be unconscious of 

 his blindness. It was thus more to him than all 

 other objects and forces in nature ; the Inca might 

 worship sun and lightning and rainbow ; to the 

 inhabitant of the valley the river was more than 

 these, the most powerful thing in nature, the most 

 beneficent, and his chief god. 



I do not know, nor can anjr one know, whether 

 the former dwellers in the valley left any descen- 

 dants, any survivors of that age that left some traces 

 of a brightening intellect on its stone work. Pro- 

 bably not ; the few Indians now inhabiting the 

 valley are most probably modern colonists of another 

 family or nation ; yet it did not surprise me to hear 

 that some of these half-tame, half-christianized 

 savages had, not long before my visit, sacrificed a 

 white bull to the river, slaying it on the bank 



