176 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
that when seen far off, in its low down, dilatory, 
rising and falling flight, it simulates the appearance 
of a horseman in full gallop. To know this anda 
few other things was his vocation. If one had set 
him to find a reversed little ‘s’ in the middle of a 
closely-printed page the tears would have run down 
his brown cheeks, and he would have abandoned 
the vain quest with aching eyeballs. Yet the proof- 
reader can find the reversed little ‘s’ in a few 
moments, without straining his sight. But it is 
infinitely more important to the savage of the 
plains than to us to see distant moving objects 
quickly and guess their nature correctly. His 
daily food, the recovery of his lost animals, and 
his personal safety depend on it; and it is not, 
therefore, strange that every blot of dark colour, 
every moving and motionless object on the horizon, 
tells its story better to him than to a stranger; 
especially when we consider how small a variety of 
objects he is called on to see and judge of in the 
level monotonous region he inhabits. 
This quick judging of dimly seen distant things, 
the eye and mind-achievement of the mounted bar- 
barian on the unobstructed plains, is not nearly so 
admirable as that of his fellow-savage in subtropical- 
regions overspread with dense vegetation, with 
animal life in great abundance and variety, and 
where half the attention must be given ‘ spccies 
dangerous to man, often very smallinsize. In sc.ne 
hot humid forest districts, the European who should 
attempt to hunt or explore with bare feet and legs 
