1 6 Idle Days in Pataoonia. 



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cross my vision or bird-voices assail my hearing 

 more rarely. In that novel state of mind I was in, 

 thought had become impossible. Elsewhere I had 

 always been able to think most freely on horseback ; 

 and on the pampas, even in the most lonely places, 

 my mind was always most active when I travelled 

 at a swinging .gallop. This was doubtless habit ; 

 but now, with a horse under me, 1 had become 

 incapable of reflection : my mind had suddenly 

 transformed itself from a thinking machine into a 

 machine for some other unknown purpose. To 

 think was like setting in motion a noisy engine in 

 my brain ; and there was something there which 

 bade me be still, and I was forced to obey. My 

 state was one of siisj>ense and watchfulness : yet I 

 had no expectation of meeting with an adventure, 

 and felt as free from apprehension as I feel now 

 when sitting in a room in London. The change in 

 me was just as great and wonderful as if I had 

 changed my identity for that of another man or 

 animal ; but at the time I was powerless to wonder 

 at or speculate about it ; the state seemed familiar 

 rather than strange, and although accompanied by 

 a strong feeling of elation, I did not know it — did 

 not know that something had come between me 

 and my intellect — until I lost it and returned to 

 my former self — to thinking, and the old insipid 

 existence. 



Such clianges in us, however brief in duration 

 they may Ije, and in most cases they are very brief, 



