2 26 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



as historical memory in us, it is not strange that the 

 sweetest moment in any life, pleasant or dreary, 

 should be when Nature draws near to it, and, taking 

 up her neglected instrument, plays a fragment of 

 some ancient melody, long unheard on the earth. 



It might be asked : If nature has at times this 

 peculiar effect on us, restoring instantaneously the 

 old vanislied harmony between organism and environ- 

 ment, why should it be experienced in a greater 

 degree in the Patagonian desert than in other 

 solitary places, — a desert which is waterless, where 

 animal voices are seldom heard, and vegetation is 

 grey instead of green ? I can only suggest a reason 

 for the effect being so much greater in my own 

 case. In sub-tropical woods and thickets, and in 

 wild forests in temperate regions, the cheerful ver- 

 dure and bright colours of flower and insects, if we 

 have acquired a habit of looking closely at these 

 things, and the melody and noises of bird-life 

 engages the senses ; there is movement and bright- 

 ness ; new forms, animal and vegetable, are con- 

 tinually appearing, curiosity and expectation are 

 excited, and the mind is so much occupied with 

 novel objects tliat the effect of wild nature in its 

 entirety is minimized. In Patagonia the monotony 

 of the plains, or expanse of low hills, the universal 

 unrelieved greyness of everything, and the absence 

 of animal forms and objects new to the eye, leave 

 the mind open and free to receive an impression of 

 visible nature as a whole. One gazes on the pro- 

 spect as on the sea, for it stretches away sea-like, 



