NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
889 
to examine some reported coal beds. The route lay over the dreary moorland, and wound 
and turned about in order to avoid the treacherous bogs. A “pass” in the Falkland 
Islands means not a practicable cleft in the mountains but a track by which it is possible 
to ride across a bog. The horses born and bred in the island know full well when they 
are approaching dangerous ground, and tremble all over when forced to step on it. A 
most interesting plant, the Bog Balsam ( Bolax glebarici), occurs all over the moors, closely 
simulating in appearance the Azorella selago described in Chapter IX. as covering the sur- 
face of the ground in Kerguelen Island with elastic cushions. The Bolax forms closely 
similar springy compact rounded lumps of dark green on the Falkland soil (see PL XXX Y.). 
At every 10 miles or so a shepherd’s cottage was met with, otherwise the entire route 
was uninhabited. Usually the shepherd was a Scotchman in the employ of the Falkland 
Company ; some of the shepherds are married, and seem well off and were very hospi- 
table. These Scotchmen have almost entirely supplanted the “ gauchos ” from the 
mainland, who did all the cattle work at the time of Darwin’s visit to the islands ; they 
come out from home usually entirely unaccustomed to riding, but very soon become most 
expert with the lasso and bolas, and can ride and break in the wildest horses. There 
were only two Spanish gauchos in the employ of the Company at the time of the ship’s 
visit. The Company’s shepherds are allowed each eight horses, a fresh one for every day 
of the week and a pack horse, which feed together on the moorland near the shepherd’s 
cottage, and keep together in a band though quite free. An old broken down mare which 
cannot roam far is usually kept with each band, and is generally one in which the hoofs, 
as occurs quite commonly in the Falklands from the softness of the soil, are grown out 
and turned up somewhat like rams’ horns. Though the gauchos themselves are matters 
of the past in the Falklands, their Spanish terms for all things connected with cattle and 
horses survive and are in full use among the Scotch shepherds. Such a maimed animal 
as above described is accordingly called a “ chapina ” ( chapina , a woman’s clog) ; the 
band of horses, which is called a “ tropija,” never deserts its chapina. 
A man after riding 30 or 40 miles and about to change horses merely takes the 
saddle off his horse, gives the animal’s back a rub with his fingers, to set the hair free 
where the saddle cloth pressed, and lets the horse go, when it never fails to return to 
its tropija and feeding ground. Horses were changed several times on the route, since 
the party were the guests of the Company, and were treated most hospitably ; the tired 
horses were always simply turned loose, to find their own way back for 20 miles or so 
The progress on the trip was mostly slow, because of the bogginess of the ground, and 
it was dark by the time the party reached the end of the 60 miles’ ride. v 
An experienced guide is required in order to traverse the Falkland Island wastes 
and find the passes. To a stranger every hill and mountain appears alike, and many 
persons have lost their way and their lives on the moors. The most experienced “ camp ” 
men (Spanish, campo) lose themselves sometimes, especially when a thick fog comes 
