Roughly speaking, the country to the east of the Andes belongs to Argentina, that on the west to Chili: between them lies a long strip of disputed territory. From this great dividing-line rivers flow into both oceans, into the Atlantic and into the Pacific. On the eastern side of the range, where our travels took us, the rivers cut transversely across the continent to the Atlantic. Such are the Chubut, the Deseado, the southern Chico, which joins with the Santa Cruz in a wide estuary before reaching the ocean, and the Gallegos. At the mouth of each of these a settlement has sprung up.

On the western side the mountains approach more closely to the sea, some of the glaciers on the heights of the Andes actually overhanging the Pacific. The shore is there deeply indented with winding and intricate fjords, and dense dripping forests grow rankly in the humid climate, for the rainfall on the Chilian side of the Cordillera is extraordinarily heavy.

Patagonia is the home of big distances. The Boer used to boast that he could not see the smoke of his neighbour's chimney. On the Atlantic coastland of Patagonia it is often three, four or five days' ride to the nearest farm. The holdings are measured not by the acre or any analogous standard but by the square league. One farm alone in Tierra del Fuego is 400 square leagues in extent. The distances are at first appalling. A man accustomed to cities would here feel forlorn indeed. One stands face to face with the elemental. As you travel into the interior, Nature, with her large loose grasp, enfolds you. There is no possibility of being mentally propped up by one's fellow man. Empty leagues upon leagues surround you on every side, "the inverted bowl we call the sky" above.

Who, having once seen them, can forget the pampas? Evening, and the sun sloping over the edge of the plain like an angry eye, an inky-blue mirage half blotting it out, in the middle distance grass rolling like an ocean to the horizon, lean thorn, and a mighty roaring wind.

Out there in the heart of the country you seem to stand alone, with nothing nearer or more palpable than the wind, the fierce mirages and the limitless distances.

This wild land, ribbed and spined by one of the greatest mountain chains in the world, appears to have been the last habitation of the greater beasts of the older ages. It is now the last country of all to receive man, or rather its due share of human population.

It must not be forgotten that this is the nearest bulk of land to the Antarctic continent. It thrusts forth its vast mass far into southern waters, and beyond lie a covey of islands, small and large, upon the outermost of which is situated the famous Cape Horn.

On the Antarctic continent there is no life to speak of. In Patagonia, the nearest large land, the human race has been, through the centuries, represented by a few thousand nomad Indians, who in their long rovings followed certain well-known trails, from which only a very rare and venturesome individual thought of deviating. Far outside these paths dwelt, according to the native imagination, dangers and terrors unknown. You can follow the same trails to-day. Picture to yourself a dozen or twenty field-paths running side by side, obliterated by the fingers of the spring, and invisible under your feet, but strangely growing into distinctness half a mile ahead, waving onward towards the pampas. Such is the Indian trail.

People in England, one finds, are divided into two groups as to their opinions of the Patagonian climate. One group maintains that the country must be tropical, since it is included in the continent of South America; the other that it is an ice-bound region, for the good reason that it lies close to Tierra del Fuego. Oddly enough, both are in a degree justified, for the summers there are comparatively hot, but the severity of the winter, when snow lies deep on the country, and cutting winds blow down from the frozen heights during those months that bring to us our long English evenings, is undeniable.

Some day, no doubt, the land will lose its untamed aspect; it will become, as others are, moulded by the hand of man, and expectant of him. But now the great words of one whose eyes never rested on Andean loneliness marvellously describes it:

The discovery of Patagonia dates from the early part of the year 1520, when that most intrepid of explorers, Ferdinand Magellan, forced his way doggedly down the east coast in the teeth of continuous storms. With his little fleet of five vessels he pushed on in the hope, which few if any of his companions shared, of finding a strait joining the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Upon what foundation he based this belief cannot now be certainly told, but the analogy of the Cape of Good Hope and rumours that obtained among the geographers and seafaring captains of the day, helped, no doubt, to confirm his own idea that some such outlet existed. As early as 1428, a map of the world, described by one Antonio Galvao as "most rare and excellent," showed the Straits of Magellan under the name of the "Dragon's Tail." This map, being carefully kept in the treasuries of Portugal, was, it may fairly be presumed, known to Magellan. Also there were two globes, made in Nuremberg shortly before he sailed, in which the channel between the great seas was clearly indicated.

For all that, the existence of a passage was far from being an established fact, but Magellan undauntedly continued his voyage down the Patagonian coast in search of it. He reached the harbour now known as San Julian on March 31, 1520, and there proposed to winter.

Almost at once the famous mutiny against his authority broke out, headed by those who desired to turn back, and who had no faith in the existence of the strait. One of the rebel captains was stabbed upon his own deck, a second executed ashore and a third marooned. The commander of the fourth ship, the Santiago, was a friend of Magellan's, who stood by his leader throughout the troubled time.

Weeks passed by, the winter settled down upon them with great severity, and yet no sign of native inhabitants had been perceived upon the shore. The Captain-General sent out an expedition to go thirty leagues into the interior, but the men returned with a disheartening account of the country, which they described as impassable, barren of the necessities of life, and, as far as their experience went, entirely devoid of inhabitants. But one day not long after, a native appeared upon the beach who cut antics and sang while he tossed sand upon his head. This man was successfully lured on board of Magellan's ship. He was dressed in skins, with clumsy boots of the same material, which last fact is supposed by some authorities to have led Magellan to call the people the Patagaos, or big feet. Pigafetta, an Italian who accompanied the exploring fleet, wrote an account of this Patagonian's appearance. "So tall was this man that we came up to the level of his waist-belt. He was well enough made, and had a broad face, painted red, with yellow circles round his eyes, and two heart-shaped spots on his cheeks." He further says the man was armed with a bow and arrows, the bow being short and thick and the arrows tipped with black and white flint heads. In another place Pigafetta asserts that the least of the Patagonians was taller than the tallest men in Castile.

The next navigator to visit the shores of Patagonia was Sir Francis Drake in 1578. He also commanded a small squadron of five vessels, and, curiously enough, had to cope with a plot against his life when in the same harbour of Port San Julian. The story is well known. Mr. Thomas Doughty, the chief mutineer, was given his choice of death, or of marooning, or to be taken home for trial. He chose death, and was accordingly executed. Drake speaks of the natives as being no taller than some Englishmen.

During the next hundred years various expeditions touched upon the coasts, some captained by Englishmen, such as Narborough, Byron, and Wallis. The two latter differ a good deal from each other with regard to the stature of the Patagonians. Byron mentions a chief 7 ft. high, and adds that few of the others were shorter. Wallis, on the other hand, gives an average of from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft., the tallest man measured by him being 6 ft. 7 in. At an earlier date than either of these a Jesuit named Falkner, being in Patagonia, mentions a cacique some inches over 7 ft.

In 1783 the traveller Viedma penetrated into the interior and discovered one link of the long chain of lakes lying under the Andes, which still bears his name. He gave the people an average of 6 ft. of stature. Some fifty years after this, H.M.S. Beagle, with Darwin on board, touched at many points of the coast, and short trips inland were undertaken. Darwin's journals give the first detailed account of the country. He agrees with Captain Fitzroy in describing the Patagonians as the tallest of all peoples.

During the years 1869-70, Captain George Chaworth Musters, of the Royal Navy, spent several months with the nomad Indians, traversing a great distance in their company, and becoming acquainted with many interesting facts concerning their habits and customs. Since the publication of his book in 1871 practically nothing exhaustive has been written about Southern Patagonia. One or two travellers have given short accounts of visits there, but the serious opening up of the country is due to the initiative and energy of Dr. Francisco P. Moreno, whose first excursion to Patagonia was made in 1873. In the following year he carried his investigations as far south as the River Santa Cruz. In 1875 he crossed from Buenos Aires to Lake Nahuel-Huapi and the Andean Cordillera, between parallels 39° 30´ and 42°. In 1876 he visited Chubut, and ascended the river Santa Cruz to its parent lake, which he proved was not that discovered by Viedma in 1782, but another lying farther south. To him is due the earliest suggestion of the great system of lakes which are situated in the longitudinal depression that runs parallel with the Cordillera.

Again, in 1879, Dr. Moreno crossed the country to the Cordillera on parallel 44°. Up to that time surveying in those regions was by no means exempt from danger, on account of the hostile attitude of the tribes. The amount of valuable work done by Dr. Moreno did not end with his personal expeditions. Each summer of late years the Argentine and Chilian Boundary Commissions have been surveying and opening up the country. First and last Dr. Moreno must always be regarded as the great geographer of Patagonia.

Among the gentlemen engaged on the boundary work I should like to mention the Norwegian Herr Hans P. Waag, who, on behalf of the Argentine Commission, penetrated from the Pacific coast up the river De las Heras to Lake Buenos Aires, and from thence overland to Trelew. It would be difficult to overpraise the work of this traveller.

Others, who as pioneers, travellers, scientific men, or surveyors, have taken a part in the good work of making the interior of Patagonia known to the world are Baron Nordenskjöld, Mr. Hatcher, and the members of the Chilian and Argentine Boundary Commissions. I think that in any such list as the above mention should be made of those who first settle in a district, and who realise in greater degree than even the pioneer explorers the difficulties and drawbacks of a new country, and undoubtedly their hardihood is of immense and enduring value. I would, therefore, include the name of the Waldron family, who have taken a large part in settling the southern districts of Patagonia and also in the colonising of Tierra del Fuego.

A fringe of farms runs along the coast, and at the mouths of the rivers are situated little frontier towns, such as San Julian, Santa Cruz and Gallegos. Towards the south and along the shores of the Strait the fringe of farms has grown broader and the country is more generally settled, the Chilian town of Punta Arenas being an important port. The few vast straggling farms are given up chiefly to sheep-breeding, the main export being wool. But cattle and horses are also raised in large numbers, for the land has proved very suitable for pasturage. The farm buildings vary, of course, in many ways: some are large and comfortable homesteads, others mere squalid huts, but one and all are almost invariably roofed in with the universal galvanised iron.

The Welsh colonists have introduced a good strain to the growing population, and there are constant wholesome as well as vicious importations. In a country where shepherding of one sort or another is the chief industry, it is inevitable that some equivalent of the cowboy of the North must be developed. The Gaucho is the Patagonian cowboy, and he is manly and picturesque enough to be very interesting.

The coast settlements are similar to such places all the world over: storekeepers, men who run wine-shops, traders, and the usual sort of folk who form the bulk of dwellers on the edge of civilisation.

In Patagonia it is not difficult to leave civilisation behind you, for between lat. 43° and 50° S. the interior, save for a very few pioneers and small tribes of wandering Tehuelche Indians, is at the present day unpeopled. When the line of the Cordillera is reached, you come to a region absolutely houseless, where no human inhabitant is to be found. Comparatively speaking, but little animal life flourishes under the unnumbered snow peaks, and in the unmeasured spaces of virgin forest, which cover those valleys and in many places cloak the mountains from base to shoulder. Hundreds of square miles of forest-land, gorges, open slopes, and terraced hollows lie lost in the vast embrace of the Patagonian Andes, on which the eye of man has never yet fallen.

Our travels took us over a great part of the country. Starting in September 1900, we zigzagged from Trelew by Bahia Camerones, to Lakes Colhué and Musters and along the River Senguerr to Lake Buenos Aires. After spending a time in the neighbourhood of that lake, we followed the Indian trail for some distance, then touching the Southern Chico we reached Santa Cruz on the east coast in January 1901. Leaving most of the expedition there, I returned with two companions by the course of the River Santa Cruz to the Cordillera, where I remained for some months, and in May I once more crossed the continent to Gallegos to take ship for Punta Arenas, the only port in Patagonia where a steamer calls regularly. I left Patagonia in June 1901. I compute that the whole distance covered by the journeyings of the expedition cannot have fallen short of 2000 miles.

Of the zoology of Patagonia little is known. Of the fauna and flora of the Cordillera of the southern central part it is not too much to say that practically nothing is known. Patagonia thus offers one of the most interesting fields in the world to the traveller and naturalist.

With these preliminary remarks, I will beg the reader to embark with me upon the Argentine National transport the Primero de Mayo, bound from the port of Buenos Aires for the south.

CHAPTER II
SOUTHWARD HO!

Leaving England—Start—Primero de Mayo—Port Belgrano—Welsh colonists—Story of Mafeking—First sight of Patagonia—Golfo Nuevo—Port Madryn—Landing—Trelew—A pocket Wales—Difficulties of early colonists—Other Welsh settlements—Older and younger generations—Welsh youths and Argentine maidens—Language difficulty will arrange itself—A plague of "lords"—Lord Reed—Trouble of following a lord—Itinerary—Travelling in Patagonia—Few men, many horses—Pack-horses—Start for Bahia Camerones—Foxes, ostriches, cavy—On the pampas—Guanaco—First guanaco—Maté—Dogs—Farms—Indians—Landscape—Mirages—Vast empty land—Cañadones—Estancia Lochiel—Seeking for puma—Killing guanacos—Many pumas killed during winter months—Gauchos.

We arrived at Buenos Aires early in September 1900, and on the 10th we embarked again on board the Primero de Mayo, one of the transports of the Argentine Government, by which my companions and myself had courteously been granted passages to Patagonia. The Primero de Mayo is a boat of 650 tons. We carried an extraordinary amount of deck cargo, for there were a good many passengers on board, as these transports offered the sole means existing at that time[1] of communication by sea with Argentine Patagonia.

We started about one o'clock. Lieutenant Jurgensen, the commandante, was good enough to invite us to dine on that night with the officers in the deck-house. He subsequently extended his invitation to cover the entire voyage. After dinner we went out upon the deck. It was starlight, and the Primero de Mayo was steaming down the brown estuary of the Plata.

First night out! What a penance it is! It is "good-bye" translated into heaviness of heart, and it knows for the time no future and no hope. You can only look back miserably and long for lost companionship and

It is a time when romance fades out, and nothing is left save the grey fact of recent partings and the misery of unaccustomed quarters.

First night out—when one renews acquaintance with the thin cold sheets and those extraordinary coverlets whose single habitat in the world appears to be upon the bunks of steamers. Our fellow passengers also seemed very much under the same influence of greyness. They had packed themselves round the saloon-table, and were keeping the stewards busy with orders.

There were not only a good many people, but peoples, on board; all nations in ragged ponchos with round fur caps or those pointed sombreros that one associates with pictures of elves in a wood. As wild-looking a crew were gathered for'ard as ever sailed Southward Ho! Germans, Danes, Poles, and heaven knows what other races besides; each little party formed laagers of their possessions and resented intrusion with volley-firing of oaths. There was one laager in which I found myself taking a particular interest; it was made up of two men, a woman, and her brood of children. Their only belongings appeared to consist of four ponchos, a maté pot and kettle, and a huge basket of cauliflowers. They crept in and entrenched themselves between the cauliflowers and the port bulwark in the waist of the ship. From there they did not move, but sat swaying their bodies during the entire voyage. Was Patagonia an Eldorado to which those people were journeying? On that dark night, as the ship slid groaning and creaking over the brown waters, the dark scene, lit by stray blurs of light, called up a memory of Leighton's picture, "The Sea shall give up its Dead."

Among the passengers was the Governor of Santa Cruz, Señor Don Matias McKinlay Tapiola, who speaks English very well. There were also one or two gentlemen interested in sheep-farming in Patagonia. Of these, Mr. Greenshields, whose estancia or farm we visited later, owned the credit of having broken new ground in colonising a part of the country some one hundred and fifty miles south of the Welsh settlement of Trelew. The earlier sheep-farms lay about Punta Arenas, eight degrees to the southward, and there the men of the south swore by the south, and much difference of opinion existed as to how sheep would flourish in the more northerly region chosen by Mr. Greenshields. But it seemed that his daring was likely to be richly repaid, and that many, when they heard of his success, would follow his example.

Next morning land had sunk from sight and there was a light ground-swell, but the Primero de Mayo was rolling heavily, a trick that Government transports possess and seem to regard in the light of a privilege all the world over. The evenings and the mornings followed each other in grey but serene regularity, till on the 12th we turned coastwards, heading for Puerto Belgrano, and ran between low, green, hummocky banks up a stretch of shallow, mud-coloured water to our anchorage. It was a reddish sunset with lightning playing continuously upon the horizon, and while we were at dinner a thunderstorm broke with heavy rain. That night we were permitted the privilege and amusement of choosing the morrow's menu. We chose a truly British repast; roast beef, jam-roll and plum-pudding figuring amongst the items. There are no employments too trifling to help one to pass the time on board a ship doing service as a coaster. As to the arrangements made for our well-being on the transport, the Minister of Marine had, I was informed, kindly given most generous orders with regard to our treatment.

In the morning we disembarked forty-two sailors for the four men-of-war lying at anchor in the bay. Then we sailed away again for the south with a warm sun upon the crowded planking and a cold wind blowing aft. It was at this time that I altered my original plans and decided on landing at Puerto Madryn, our next stopping-place, instead of at Santa Cruz, which lies some seven degrees of latitude farther to the south. Upon hearing that winter had not yet relaxed its grip on the country south, it became clear that the horses down there would be thin and in poor condition, with the spring sickness upon them, and therefore quite unfitted to start upon such a journey as lay before us. The new scheme also promised a saving of time, as the Primero de Mayo, owing to the necessity of calling at various little places on the way down to Santa Cruz, would be a good deal delayed; besides, the horses we required could probably be got together more quickly at Puerto Madryn.

We had a number of Welsh with us on the transport, who were on their way home to the Welsh settlements of Trelew, Gaiman and Rawson. In the evenings of the voyage it was their custom to forgather and sing psalms in Welsh, psalms the sound of which took one's memory back to the Scottish hills and the yearly ante-communion preachings in the open-air. The surrounding greyness aided the idea—grey sea, grey sky, grey weather.

By the way, on board we learnt a fact, or so we were assured it was, about the South African War, which is certainly not well known even among those who love the Boer. One night at table, one of the diners solemnly declared that at Mafeking the English ate the flesh of the Kaffirs and were thereby enabled to hold out for so long. He was not attempting to hoax us, he really believed the fable himself, poor fellow! I did not gather the gentleman's name.

Coming on deck on the morning of the 15th, we saw, drawn across the western sea-rim, a low brown line. Above it a sky of steel-blue gleamed coldly and below a wash of grey sea. This was our first view of Patagonia. All day we crept along the grim, quiet, solitary-looking cliff, until at last the Primero de Mayo was swallowed up in the vast embrace of the Golfo Nuevo. It was between evening and night when we approached our harbourage, Puerto Madryn. The half-lights were playing above it, and the afterglow of the sunset still shone feebly behind the land. We saw only raw cliff capped by dark verdure—the rim of the vast pampas which roll away in rising levels league upon league towards the Andes.

The sea was cold, the wind was cold, the land looked forlorn and a-cold. Presently from it a little boat put out containing a figure wrapped in a long military cloak. This was the sub-prefect, who thus welcomed us to these desolate shores, for Patagonia from the sea is a desolate prospect indeed. It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of the dismal aspect presented by Puerto Madryn upon that evening. Suffice it to say that the settlement consists of half a dozen houses and a flagstaff; the first crouch on the lip of the tide and the second shivers above on the bare pampa-rim.

There seals and divers haunt the sea, a few guanaco-herds live upon the coast-lands, and there, in inhospitable fashion, the little colony of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great primordial nature. In the evening lights the cliffs showed curiously pallid above a strip of dead sand and shingle, only the sky and the water seemed alive.

Next morning we hoped to get our baggage ashore and were moving early with that object in view. But the trend of public opinion in Puerto Madryn appears to be towards the conviction that there is no sort of reason for hurry under any circumstances. Hence the cargo disgorged itself slowly, and after interminable waiting we found our particular share of it would not be reached that night. It was, in fact, not till the afternoon of the second day that we achieved a partial recovery of our belongings from the holds and took the first consignment of it ashore. The morning had broken clear and fine, but mid-day brought a change. And by the time we had our boatload completed and rocketed away shorewards at the tail of the Primero de Mayo's steam-launch, a beam sea was flying in spray high over us.

There was an anxious moment when the launch slipped the towing-cable and the sailor in the bows flung a rope, which dropped short of the black wooden jetty, and we were swept some boat-lengths away by a big broken sea. To be swamped at the moment of landing!—the thought was too disastrous to be dwelt on; half our rifles and a box of instruments were on board. It cost us a long hour and a half of hard work before everything was safe ashore. And while we toiled a dozen seals came and stared at us with their doglike faces, and lazy, solemn eyes.

Trelew is a new and pocket Wales, but very much Wales all the same. To prove the accuracy of this statement it is only necessary to say that the waggon which set us on the first leagues of our way belonged to a Jones, that another Jones accompanied the expedition to the Cordillera, that I negotiated with a third Jones for a supply of mutton to take with us for use on the first part of our journey, that I was introduced to several Williamses and did business with various Hugheses. And all this in a day and a half.

Trelew itself is a bare settlement of raw-looking houses and shanties, which has started up on the emptiness of the pampas. It cannot lay any claim to picturesqueness, and a pervading impression of being unfinished adds a suggestion of discomfort to the place. All round about the mud houses the pampa rolls away to the distances, harsh, stony, overgrown with little humpy bushes of thorn and dotted here and there with wheat-land. All through and over the settlement you are never out of hearing of three languages—English, Welsh and Spanish.

Some time ago the colonists of Trelew appealed to England to intercede for them with the Argentine Government with a view to obtaining release from these disabilities. But as the Welsh had of their own free will deliberately placed themselves under the Government of the Republic, it was impossible for England to interfere, and this fact was notified to the suppliants, much to their disappointment and disgust. Even when I was there they remained rather sore over the matter, complaining that England had taken all the money subscribed for the expenses of the appeal and given them no redress in return.

The difficulties and hardships which must inevitably have beset the commencement of their settling in Patagonia, contrasted with their present condition, show the Welsh to be splendid people. The resolute spirit that drove them to emigrate across the seas has served to make their township there, though perhaps not particularly inviting to look at, a flourishing one in its quiet pastoral way. They have laid a railway, as has been said, to the coast at Puerto Madryn and established a telephone. Spanish and Welsh live here as neighbours. The Spaniard keeps the store while the Welshman farms, growing a certain amount of grain, but his chief business lies in breeding horses, cattle and sheep.

The Welshmen are not wanting in keen business quality. Any one who has tried to buy horses in Trelew will bear me out in this statement. The mere fact that a stranger has arrived in their colony, who wants to invest in horseflesh, awakens all their commercial instincts, and they are not at all behind the rest of the world in knowing how to form a combine for the purpose of plundering the Philistines. Quite right too. A man who can resist making a bargain over a horse whenever he gets the chance is, like "the good young man who died," over-perfect for this corrupt old world.

From their first settlement the Welsh have spread south through the coast-towns of Patagonia, and six weeks' journey from Trelew they have formed another settlement in the Cordilleras to the north-west which they have called the "16th October Colony." Thither waggons are always trekking, and waggon-drivers and others who return bring with them glowing and rosy descriptions of the young settlement of the interior. The adaptability of the Welsh to the peculiar needs of colonisation is very remarkable. They have certainly stepped into the "larger life" with success.

The influence of the new conditions of existence, so different from that of the Welsh peasant in his own country, is very noticeable in several ways. The older and the younger generation are unlike each other now, and will probably continue to become more so as time goes on. Physically the younger people are far better developed than their elders, red-faced, open-eyed, straight-backed boys in big felt hats, each with a bright-coloured handkerchief knotted round his neck and the guanaco-wool poncho hanging from his shoulders. They are very picturesque and look their best on horseback. In this matter of riding also there is a wide difference between the styles of the old and the young men. The latter, who are Patagonian born, seem to be part of their horses, but the elders, however excellent long practice has made them, never attain to the proficiency of their sons.

Although the colony of Trelew is to-day in a more or less flourishing condition and very Welsh, a grave danger menaces it. In fifty years time how will it be with the racial element? Will there be as many Welsh then as now? I fear not, and the result is difficult to foresee. The danger takes the form of the dark-eyed Argentine maiden, who is rather apt to "make roast meat of the heart" of the Welsh youth. While the Welsh girls do not take very readily to Spanish-speaking husbands, the Welsh boys fall very much in love with the daughters of the South. So it is to be concluded that the language difficulty will settle itself, or, at any rate, become more easy of arrangement with each succeeding generation. If the girl you love speaks only Spanish, it is quite obvious you must learn Spanish in order to be able to talk to her, and, under the circumstances, you will not find the task a very hard one. Then children nearly always show a preference for the mother's tongue and speech in contradistinction to that of the father. Probably, if these prophecies were uttered in Trelew, the men of to-day would scoff at them. But onlookers often see most of the game. In 1865 the Welsh, in deep sorrow, left their own land to escape the tyranny of the English law, as they considered it, which sought to force upon them the English language. Their desire was to preserve their own tongue. And flying from Scylla they will fall (and to some degree have already fallen) a prey to Charybdis. But it is a very pleasant Charybdis, typified by a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lissom maiden, who will bear them sons no longer of the old pure-bred Welsh stock, but of a mixed race. And so the effort of the forefathers, who fared overseas to found a new home, shall be made null and void.

Now and again it is the fate of frontier towns to be stirred to their depths by some incursion from the old world they have left behind them. Trelew was still recovering from such an experience when we arrived there. The settlement, in short, had been suffering from a plague of lords. First appeared an aristocrat, who wished to travel in the interior, and he bought up horses with a lavish hand, and generally made preparations which, no doubt, filled the purses of the inhabitants. This gentleman's projected tour, however, fell through for some reason, and he departed whence he had come into the unknown world outside of Trelew's daily cognisance.

Presently after him followed a second "lord," who gave his name as Lord Reed, and who was received with open arms by an enthusiastic community. A run of lords appeared to be setting in, and was regarded by the Trelewians as a distinct dispensation in their favour, which it was their happy duty to work out thoroughly to their own advantage. By some mistake Lord Reed had left his ready money behind him, and, therefore, borrowed pretty extensively from the kind-hearted Welshmen. After a time Lord Reed vanished, and upon inquiry being made it was discovered that no such title as Lord Reed was to be found in the Peerage of Great Britain. When this fact became established, more than one Welshman is reported to have gone out after Lord Reed with the family gun, and, I believe, he was finally caught with a lasso! But the incident was not without its bearing on our personal affair, for the Bank of Trelew would have nothing whatever to say to my Cook's letter of credit. In vain I recited my credentials, and gave such proof of genuineness as was in my power to give. They would none of me. The bank evidently argued that it was easier to pretend that you were a bona-fide traveller than that you were a lord. Lord Reed too; it was rather a taking title. I could not at first understand where the humour of the question, put to me by several people I met in Trelew, of "Are you not Lord Prichard?" came in. In fact, it was disconcerting; but later on, when I heard the above story, I did not grudge the colonists any fun that might be got out of the situation, for certainly Lord Reed, taken all in all, had been far from a subject of pure amusement to them.

We remained six days at Trelew making those last few purchases which were necessary with the small stock of extra money that I had left myself as a margin. It was directly owing to Lord Reed that I finally set forth into the interior with but thirty dollars in Argentine notes and large drafts on Cook and Son, which were quite useless. Although the wilderness does not seem a likely field for spending money, yet, before our travels were at an end, I was glad to sell horses to supply the needs of our party.

The journey which lay before us to Lake Buenos Aires was about six hundred miles in length, and this distance might be subdivided into three stages: the first, from Trelew to Bahia Camerones, where the expedition became complete; the second, from Bahia Camerones to the Lakes Musters and Colhué; and the third, to Lake Buenos Aires itself. My instructions gave me an entirely free hand, within reasonable limits, as to the number of men I might take with me.

I had from the first been convinced that the smallest number possible would also be, in our case, the wisest. The immense extent of the country to be traversed, and the difficulties which must inevitably lie in our way to hinder and delay us, as well as the practical emptiness of the country, which requires that an expedition shall be self-supporting, were salient facts; and our plans had to be made and modified in relation to these facts. The mobility of the party was the main point to aim at. Hence it was necessary to cut down the personnel of the expedition to as low a number as possible, and it was further most important to have plenty of horses and to spare.

The difficulty of feeding several men when travelling through such a country was obvious, and therefore not to be thought of, as, besides the four horses each individual needed for riding, the extra animals for carrying provision and bedding, clothing, tents, &c. had to be taken into account. No pack-horse should be allowed to carry his load two days consecutively, and, in fact, one day's work in three is enough. If waggons are taken, each should be allowed three teams of six horses each.

With such ideas in view, those arrangements were made which, in fact, enabled us to cover the distances we achieved. Any expedition of this sort is killing work for the horses, and it stands greatly to Burbury's credit that we lost but one out of nearly sixty during the months we spent in Patagonia, and that one was a colt that died of eating poison-shrub.

There is not the slightest doubt that the policy that spells success in Patagonian travel is summed up in the words, "Cut down your men and your stores, and take enough horses to enable you to move lightly and rapidly."

On September 21 we left Trelew in the afternoon. The weather was magnificent. Our caravan at this period consisted of a couple of waggons as well as the horses. Two estancieros, Messrs. Greenshields and Haddock, accompanied us, as our way led past their farms. I sent the waggons ahead and rode on afterwards with Burbury and Humphrey Jones senior. When we came to the place fixed on for our first camp we found the men had gone on, for there was no water there. We pushed forward in the dark, and presently the fire of the encampment glimmered out in front of us; it seemed to be quite near, but it took a good while to reach. We heard an occasional fox, and as we sat round the fire a few birds passed in the dark, calling. The first night in camp is like the first night at sea, a gloomy time.

The next day we again had a bright sun with a strong west wind. We chased some pampa foxes and an ostrich (Rhea darwini) and killed two of the former. Jones and Burbury caught a cavy (Dolichotis patagonica). So we marched on over the rolling downs day after day, sometimes catching a glimpse of the sea, sometimes journeying across pampas where the far horizons met in pale blue sky and puffed white clouds above, and below grass and endless scrub. We saw Cayenne plover (Vanellus cayennensis) at an early stage of our travels.

On the coast-farms, which, it must be recollected, are many of them scores of square leagues in extent, the guanaco grows comparatively tame, becoming used to the passing of mounted shepherds; but in other parts of Patagonia, noticeably in the valley of the River Chico of Chubut, through which we passed later, they are very wild, allowing no human being to approach within half a mile. This is owing to the Indians, who hunt them perpetually in that district.

Once in camp in Patagonia life is very enjoyable, though perhaps the enjoyment varies with the amount of game to be seen. Up at sunrise, when the sun pokes its big bald lemon-coloured head out of the bed-clothes of the sky. Then some early camp-man stirs and rises, and waddles down to the wet grey ashes of yesternight's fire, and soon a weak trail of smoke goes rocketing away in the wind. The big pot is put on and breakfast is made and eaten. Then the cargo is packed, and the horses are rounded up by a Gaucho or two, riding bareback. We saddle up and the caravan moves off on its leagues-long march.

Marches vary from fifteen miles to forty, and when the afternoon sun waxes less strong the horses are off-saddled and turned loose, the waggons unpacked and the camp-fires lighted. Maté eternally, a roast, tea afterwards and a pipe, and then the sleeping-bags. Maté or yerba, I must explain, is the great drink of the pampas, and is most invigorating. A cup or tin is half filled with the yellow powdery leaves, to which is added a little cold water, followed by hot. It is drunk through a bombilla or tube, the maker of the decoction taking the first pull, and afterwards it passes from hand to hand, and I must add from mouth to mouth, round the circle. It is the greatest insult to refuse to partake, and when the originator of the brew happens to be an old and rather unappetising Tehuelche lady, the effort to take your turn and look pleased is often something of an ordeal.

Day after day went by in much the same manner, but few remembrances remain with me more vividly than the pampa fox and cavy hunting which we enjoyed during those early times of our expedition. Four lurchers of sorts and my big greyhound, Tom, trotted behind our horses, and when game was sighted we went after it at full gallop. In that keen air nothing can be more exhilarating than such a chase over the broken ground of the pampa, where we were often successful, but among hummocks and hills the quarry frequently made good its escape.