86 liXlc Days in Patagonia. 



have come to the end of my tether," instantly all the 

 smiling faces surrounding him will vanish as if by 

 magic; that the few sovereigns remaining in his 

 230cket at any time are as a chain, shortened each 

 day by a link, holding him back from some tei-rible 

 destiny. . . . Let us delay no longer in this moral 

 place of skulls, but follow that wise and sturdy 

 youth who, wrapping his cloak about his face, passes 

 unharmed through the poisonous atmosphere of the 

 landing-place, and hurries a thousand miles away, 

 while ever 



l;(jfore liiui, likr a Llood-reil flai;-, 



flutters and shines the dream that lures him on. 

 And now at his journey's end comes reality to lay 

 rude hands on him with rough shaking. Meanwhile, 

 before he has quite recovered from the shock, that 

 red flag on which his dreamy eyes liave been so long 

 fixed stays not, but travels on and on to disappear at 

 last like a sunset cloud in tlie distant horizon. He 

 does not miss it greatly after all. The actual is 

 much in his thoughts. When a man is Ijuffeting the 

 waves he does not curiously examine the landscape 

 before him and co]ii[ilain that there are no bright 

 flowers on the trees. Xew experience takes the 

 ])lace of \ anished dreams, which, like water-lilies, 

 blossom <ndy on stagnant pools. Here are none of 

 the innumerable appliances to secure comfort he has 

 been used to from infancy, retrardino- them almost 

 as spontaneous productions of the earth ; no hand 

 to perform a hundred necessary otfices, so that this 



