While I was travelling on the railway between Mendoza and Buenos Aires there was a serious strike of railway employés. The railway had been attacked at many different points. Amateur engineers and attendants ran the trains. We were only two hours from Buenos Aires. The heat and dust were intense as we crossed the great pampas. The shaking of the train had tired me to such an extent that I placed a pillow on the ledge of the open window, and was fast asleep with my head half outside the carriage, when I woke up startled by the sound of an explosion. I found myself covered with quantities of débris of rock. A huge stone, as big as a man's head or bigger, had been thrown with great force at the passing train by the strikers, and had hit the side of my window only about three inches above my head, smashing the woodwork and tearing off the metal frame of the window. Had it struck a little lower it would have certainly ended my journey for good.
Llamas in Bolivia.
Borax Deposits, Bolivia.
As it was I arrived in Buenos Aires safely. A few days later I was on my way to Rio de Janeiro, by the excellent steamer Aragon. Shortly after, by the equally good vessel Araguaya, of the Royal Mail Steamship Company, I returned to England, where I arrived in broken health on April 20th, 1912. It was a relief to me to land at Southampton, with all my notes, the eight hundred photographs I had taken, and the maps which I had made of the regions traversed.
