216 Ldle Days in Patagonia. 
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, I 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 suspense 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 changes in us, however brief in duration 
they may be, and in most cases they are very brief, 
