We were now in the valley of the Chico, which is a large stream with a swift current, its cañadon bordered with bare ridges. It felt like old times to be in a river valley once more, reminding us of those we had passed through on our way to Lake Buenos Aires. We saw geese again, of which I shot two, and also a pigeon. The valley here was very rich with red seed-bearing grass, and beyond, nearer to the water, a glorious green pantano, dotted with deep clear pools.
Before parting with the Italians they presented us with some sugar and I gave them some tea and tobacco. The valley through which we marched continued to be very fertile. The grass was like that of an English meadow with sweet far-off scents, but lacking the dewiness of our English scents of wood and wold.
On January 7 we travelled eleven leagues, taking a short cut through a bare cañadon of dry mud-hills. Leaving this behind us we again came in sight of the River Chico and crossed a high pampa of yellow tussocks and gravel. The morning dawned hot with the usual accompaniment of mosquitoes and sand-flies. As we sighted the river this heat gave place to a fresh rain-smelling wind, inexpressibly grateful.
In the afternoon, as we rode along, there appeared against the sky a keen peak of rock—Sierra Ventana. We had long been looking forward to our first glimpse of it, knowing it would be a sign that we were nearing civilisation. Blue, distant, perhaps thirty miles away, behind the basalt hills, it raised its strange castle-like head, only the castle is of nature's building, not man's. I think we all welcomed this token of the old kindly inhabited world again, after our months spent on houseless plains and inhospitable mountains.
A herd of guanaco some twenty strong showed at almost the same moment. I galloped forward, feeling glad that our dinner no longer depended on my shot. I was a mere sportsman once more. The doe I shot had fat on her, the first we had seen during our wanderings, "just as we've got the chance of fat mutton, too," as someone remarked. Rain fell at night, and the wind blew, but with the razor-edge of cold off. We camped in some flowering grasses with the bare steppes of the pampa on one side and the dark hills on the other; behind these, among some bright streaks in the stormy billowy sky, the Sierra Ventana thrust up its crest.
THE HOME OF THE INDIAN WHO GAVE US MUTTON
Next day we came upon a hut of Indians, who gave me some mutton, for which they would accept no payment. Perhaps they did not like to take money from a man in so old a coat! I, however, gave them some tobacco.