Through the Heart of Patagonia

eye?Caiiadon of the dry river?Bad ground?Flies?Ostrich eggs? Shooting guanaco?River Chico of Chubut?Puma's visit at night?Condor? Lady killed?Singing in camp? Stormy night?Breakdown of waggon? Guanaco on stony ground?Long chase?Guanaco's death. I Will not bore my readers with all the technicalities of our preparations for the real start. Suffice it to say that our total belongings were stowed upon a waggon and on the backs of four pack-horses. We had in all sixty horses, and eight men. About forty of these horses had been running wild upon the pampa for eight months previous to our acquiring them. During that time they had been lost and had only been recaptured shortly before our arrival in Trelew. The purchase of them was, however, the best speculation I could make under the circumstances, since all the animals were good and sound. Had I bought by small instalments in Trelew, not only would every man within journeying distance have very naturally attempted to palm off upon me the worst and most vicious animals he possessed, but the horses, not being used to one another's company, would have been impossible to keep together at night upon the pampas, as the various sections composing such a tropilla would inevitably have scattered to the four points of the compass. Patagonian horses, which are descended from those brought over by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, are never stabled, but are turned out rain and snow in their troops. These troops or tro...