On the 3rd I discovered a scorpion in my bed in spite of the cold. By the 6th we reached the River Fenix, and, crossing to an island, camped in the sleet, the temperature reading that night being 30° F. From there we pushed on to the farther bank, and marched to the camping-ground of the Indians, which, though the nearest of their old camps to Lake Buenos Aires, was still a good distance from it. The Azulejo had been lost, but was brought in quite spent, by Barckhausen. Poor little beast! He lay down more dead than alive under a bush, a pathetic little figure enough. After reaching camp, Jones and I had to turn out again, pretty tired as we were, to look for food. We rode for hours, and saw only a herd of guanaco. At this season the country round about here is rather devoid of game, the ground is stony, with thorn and dry, blackened bushes. We were disappointed in our hunt again on the second day, seeing only two guanaco, lion-tracks, and a couple of pigeons, but we did not shoot them, and I am unable to speak with any certainty of the species to which they belonged. I have never seen a district so bare of life. We had come, as it were, to the world's end.
I sat in my tent-door and wrote my diary. Far away I could see the Cordillera, splendid giants, with the sun shining upon them; below, the lake that reminded me strongly of the picture in which Hiawatha sailed into "the kingdom of Ponemah, the Land of the Hereafter." That scene was just so wild, and so remote, with a great red sunset burning over it, and round about it rock and sand and marsh, with a pale wide rim of dead-wood, swept down by floods from the neighbouring forests.
On our way to the shores of the lake we had passed through a stretch of extraordinary aridity, a white and yellow spread of mud and stones that filled a valley between two scrub-covered hills. From far off it looked level, but in reality we found it to be intersected and veined with mighty gashes, which formed winding gorges. There the wind blew, and at times the sun beat down; very cold it was, and very hot by turns, but never temperate.
We had expected to find plenty of game in the vicinity of the lake, but in this, as I have said, we were disappointed, the consequence being that our supply of meat ran short. There was nothing for it but to kill the eighteen-months old colt of one of the madrinas. But before we did this we hunted for three days, during which time I shot a couple of upland geese, which made the sum total of our bag. In a new country one has always to buy experience. We were buying ours at this period. Owing to the wildness of our horses the journey from Trelew had been an especially trying one, although, under other circumstances, the difficulties need not be great.[18] The breakdown of the waggon at so early a stage had entailed a large amount of extra labour, and by the time we reached Lake Buenos Aires we were, both men and horses, pretty well done up.
On the third day of our hunting I took Barckhausen instead of Jones, who had been out with me on the two previous days. We passed along through the stony thorn-lean gorges towards the east. Here nothing lived save the strong birds of prey, and lions, whose tracks we observed leading to the rocks. Death lay nakedly there in all directions, skull and backbone, with rain-polish and snow-polish upon them, picked clean years ago by now-dead caranchos and chimangos.
During our ride we saw two monster owls, two condors, many caranchos, and so pushed on over hill rising behind hill, stony, dark, with wind-lifted wisps of sand turning and twisting upon them.
In the early afternoon we came upon a more pleasant land, and to a little marshy pool in a hollow of the hills, crowded round with forest-bushes, and upon this pool from far away I spied two upland geese. I dismounted, took my gun, and began a stalk. While I was still well out of range a bough broke under my foot, and the geese were away. We lay up for a time, but the birds did not return, so we took a turn westwards in the hope of getting some coots I had observed the day before upon another lagoon, close to Lake Buenos Aires. Upon the shore of the lake a smart shower of sleet, hail, and rain overtook us, and we had to lie down in the lee of a thorn-bush. I saw one golden guanaco racing along a hill-top against the sunset. Some coots were on the lake; I shot four, but contrary winds drove them out into the water too deep to venture after them, and we turned campwards empty-handed.
As we galloped over the hills the clouds broke on the western side of the lake, and made a scene ominously beautiful. The rifted dusky blue, the long pale gleam of water shining like an angel's sword, the white snow-peaks, the purple-black belly of the rain-storm, all cast together formed a picture that affected the senses strongly.
