At Last, Patagonia / 5 
out, and the water at the bows was barely waist 
deep, we were lowered by means of ropes into the 
sea, and quickly waded to the shore. 
We were not long in scrambling up the dunes to 
get a sight of the country beyond. At last, Pata- 
gonia! How often had I pictured in imagination, 
wishing with an intense longing to visit this soli- 
tary wilderness, resting far off in its primitive and 
desolate peace, untouched by man, remote from 
civilization! There it lay full in sight before me— 
the unmarred desert that wakes strange feelings 
in us; the ancient habitation of giants, whose foot- 
prints seen on the sea-shore amazed Magellan and 
his men, and won for it the name of Patagonia. 
There, too, far away in the interior, was. the place 
called Trapalanda, and the spirit-guarded lake, on 
whose margin rose the battlements of that mysterious 
city, which many have sought and none have found. 
It was not, however, the fascination of old 
legends that drew me, nor the desire of the desert, 
for not until I had seen it, and had tasted its 
flavour, then, and on many. subsequent occasions, 
did I know how much its solitude and desolation 
would be to me, what strange knowledge it would 
teach, and how enduring its effect would be on my 
spirit. Not these things, but the passion of the 
ornithologist took me. Many of the winged wan- 
derers with which I had.been familiar from child- 
hood in La Plata were visitors, occasional or 
regular, from this grey wilderness of thorns. In 
some cases they were passengers, seen only when 
