124 ^'^^^ Days in Patagonia. 



point. Ou the plain some thirty miles east of 

 Salinas Grandes, in a small band of ostriches there 

 appeared one pnre white individual. Some of the 

 Indians, when out hunting, attempted its capture, 

 but they soon ceased to chase it, and it was called 

 thereafter the god of the ostriches, and it was said 

 among them that some great disaster, perhaps 

 death, would overtake any person who should do it 

 haimi. 



