46 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
grey desolation—a desert where life was impossible 
to man—fading into the blue haze of the horizon ; 
and there was nothing beyond it. On that grey strip, 
on the borders of the unknown beyond, they could 
search for tortoises, and hunt a few wild animals, 
and gather a few wild fruits, and hard woods and 
spines for weapons; and then return to the river, 
as children go back to their mother. All things were 
reflected in its waters, the infinite blue sky, the 
clouds and heavenly bodies; the trees and tall 
herbage on its banks, and their dark faces; and 
just as they were mirrored in it, so its current 
was mirrored in their minds. The old man, grown 
blind with age, from constantly seeing its image 
so bright and persistent, would be unconscious of 
his blindness. It was thus more to him than all 
other objects and forces in nature; the Inca might 
worship sun and lightning and rainbow; to the 
inhabitant of the valley the river was more than 
these, the most powerful thing in nature, the most 
beneficent, and his chief god. 
I do not know, nor can any one know, whether 
the former dwellers in the valley left any descen- 
dants, any survivors of that age that left some traces 
of a brightening intellect on its stone work. Pro- 
bably not; the few Indians now inhabiting the 
valley are most probably modern colonists of another 
family or nation; yet it did not surprise me to hear 
that some of these half-tame, half-christianized 
savages had, not long before my visit, sacrificed a 
white bull to the river, slaying it on the bank 
