Idle days in Patagonia

Abstract

At last, Patagonia !Rhinocrypta lanceolata Our Captain Chaiiar trees Serpent with a Cross Swallows congregating An Indian burial-place The river by moonlight Black vulture .Cow and pigs Major and the flamingo Upland geese Damian gives himself up .Damian's wife .Snow at El Carmen .A milky sea Ctenomys magellanica Calodromus elegans .Dolichotes patagonica Calandria mocking-bird Cyphorhinus cantans Gaucho with spectacles Viewing a distant object ' At Last, Patagonia / 15desert.This early morning singer is a charming grey and white finch, the Diuca minor, very common in Patagonia, and the finest voiced of all the fringilline birds found there; and that is saying a great deal.The diucas were sure prophets:before long the first pale streaks of light appeared in the east, but when the light grew we looked in vain for the long-wished river.The sun rose on the same great undulating plain, with its scattered sombre bushes and carpet of sere grass-that ragged carpet showing beneath it the barren sand and gravelly soil from which it draws its scanty subsistence.For upwards of six hours we trudged doggedly on over this desert plain, suffering much from thirst and fatigue, but not daring to give ourselves rest.At length the aspect of the country began to change : we were approaching the river settlement.How T became an Idler.19 migration.These other problems, too, were in many ways like the flies that shared my apartment, and yet always remained strangers to me, as I to them, since between their minds and mine a great gulf was fixed.Small unpainful riddles of the earth; flitting, sylph-like things, that began life as abstractions, and developed, like imago from maggot, into entities: I always flitting among them, as they performed their mazy dance, whirling in circles, falling and rising, poised motionless, then suddenly cannoning against me for an instant, mocking my power to grasp them, and darting off again at a tangent.Baffled I would drop out of the game, like a tired fly that goes back to his perch, but like the resting, restive fly I would soon turn towards them again ; perhaps to see them all wheeling in a closer order, describing new fantastic figures, with swifter motions, their forms turned to thin black lines, crossing and recrossing in every direction, as if they had all combined to write a series of strange characters in the air, all forming a strange sentence -the secret of secrets!Happily for the progress of knowledge only a very few of these fascinating elusive insects of the brain can appear before us at the same time: as a rule we fix our attention on a single individual, like a falcon amid a flight of pigeons or a countless army of small field finches ; or a dragon-fly in the thick of a cloud of mosquitoes, or infinitesimal sand-flies.Hawk and dragon-fly would starve if they tried to capture, or even regarded, more than one at a time.c 2 20 Idle Days tn Patagonia.I caught nothing, and found out nothing; nevertheless, these days of enforced idleness were not unhappy.And after leaving my room, hobblinground with the aid of a stout stick, and sitting in houses, I consorted with men and women, and listened day by day to the story of their small un-avian affairs, until it began to interest me.But not too keenly.I could always quit them without regret to lie on the green sward, to gaze up into the trees or the blue sky, and speculate on all imaginable things.The result was that when no longer any excuse for inaction existed use had bred a habit in me-the habit of indolence, which was quite common among the people of Patagonia, and appeared to suit the genial climate; and this habit and temper of mind I retained, with occasional slight relapses, during the whole period of my stay.Our waking life is sometimes like a dream, which proceeds logically enough until the stimulus of some new sensation, from without or within, throws it into temporary confusion, or suspends its action; after which it goes on again, but with fresh characters, passions, and motives, and a changed argument.After feasting on cherries, and resting at the estaucia, or farm, where we first touched the shore, we went on to the small town of El Carmen, which has existed since the last century, and is built on the side of a hill, or bluff, facing the river.On the flow T became an Idler.23 it went with a terrible bang and sent a conical buliet into my left knee, an inch or so beneath the knee-cap.The pain was not much, the sensation resembling that caused by a smart blow on the knee; but on attempting to get up I fell back.I could not stand.Then the blood began to flow in a thin but continuous stream from the round symmetrical bore which seemed to go straight into the bone of the joint, and nothing that we could do would serve to stop it.Here we were in a pretty fix! Thirty-six miles from the settlement, and with no conveyance that my friend could think of except a cart at a house several miles up the river, but on the wrong side!He, however, in his anxiety to do something, imagined, or hoped, that by some means the cart might be got over the river, and so, after thoughtfully putting a can of water by my side, he left me lying on my saddle-rugs, and, after fastening the door on the outside to prevent the intrusion of unwelcome prowlers, he mounted his horse and rode away.He had promised that, with or without some wheeled thing, he would be back not long after dark.Buthe did not return all night ; he had found a boat and boatman to transport him to the other side only to learn that his plan was impracticable, and then returning with the disappointing tidings, found no boat to recross, and so in the end was obliged to tie his horse to a bush and lie down to wait for morning.For me night came only too soon.I had no candle, and the closed, windowless cabin was in-Beyond that fact I could not go: all efforts to know more, or to imagine more, ended in failure, As required for the Matriculation Examination of the University of London. MECHANICS.With numerous Woodcuts.Crown 8vo, 6s.Key to Problems in ditto, crown 8vo, 3s.6d.CHEMISTRY.With numerous Woodcuts.Crown 8vo, 6s.

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