By the middle of the next day (January 28) we reached a lagoon with a threshold of green meadowy marsh, a relief after a long pull over a waterless and bare stretch of country, and there took a needed half-hour of rest. On our second starting we managed to wander into a desert of basalt or lava, and could only advance very slowly and with difficulty.[22] Nor could we find water for a long time; at length we came in sight of a big pool lying ruffled in the saffron lights of the sunset. Upon its margin or in the water were flamingos (Phoenicopterus ignipalliatus), upland geese (Chloephaga magellanica), thirty-four bandurias (Theristicus caudatus). There were also guanaco within sight. Here we camped, and found yet another deep and rocky lagoon, on which were many divers which I could not identify. A heavy wind was blowing, which died down at night and gave occasion for hundreds of sandflies to rise and worry us. Each day, as we marched on, the Cordillera seemed to be advancing, as it were, towards us.

We woke to find the next day pale with thin sunlight glinting across the prospect of basalt, low bushes and far horizons. We were now well beyond Mystery Plain, which formed the limit of Darwin's expeditions up the river, and which he named with a strong desire to push on and find out what lay on its farther side.

On the 29th we made a long march. After some couple of hours' going we saw ahead of us clear pampa instead of the rocky stone-strewn surface of the region we had been passing through of late. Over this pampa, though it was tussocky and uneven, we were able to advance at a good rate towards a line of hills that rose in the west. As we approached we saw that they stood up ridge behind ridge, and over these we rode, passing many good camping-grounds and seeing herds of guanaco, but no wood or bush for fire. At last we got to the top of the last ridge of all, and there, standing in the teeth of a strong wind, we looked down upon Lake Argentino lying below us, and backed by the peaks and snow summits of the Cordillera.

Although there were many cañadones and grass of the richest, we could find no water, and so went on and on.

Presently, as we were descending towards the lake, we reached a lagoon, but found no feed there for the horses, so we were forced to leave it behind, although the troop was tired and we had been for several hours in the saddle. I perceived traces of horses at some distance, and we therefore left the bank of the lagoon and cut across the pampa heading for them. We wandered on through bare hills, which fell in perplexing folds, curve within curve, and at last we reached the River del Bote, which has but one ford by which we could cross. This we found, worked the troop over, and then encamped.

MAP
OF
LAKE ARGENTINO
AND DISTRICT.
Showing routes.

[View larger image]

Day by day we had been leaving behind us the seemingly limitless pampas and were now drawing close to the full blue range of minaret-shaped mountains. Each march was adding to their height and making clearer the details hidden in the hedge-sparrow-egg hue of their distances. First we came in sight of Mount Viscachas one morning when, bearing a little too far out upon the pampa, we struck a tract of very bad going. The ground was covered with thorny bushes and basalt fragments, and here and there harsh tussocks of grass sprouted from the blackened wilderness of stones. The night we passed beside the lagoon on the high pampa left an impression on my mind as one of the most desolate and forbidding of camps. Flocks of flamingos were standing in the upland pool, and round about upon the little promontories that thrust out into the wind-whipped water bandurias were huddled in close order, while as the evening began to fall a wisp of snipe flew over, wailing most mournfully. Few things, indeed, seem to me to bring out into keener prominence the loneliness of a place than the cry of snipe heard in the windy gloaming. There is some suggestion of human sorrow in the sound.