Patagonia is certainly a wonderful country for birds and beasts of prey. You may travel leagues upon leagues and see no sign of life save chimangos (Milvago chimango), caranchos (Polyborus thaurus), and condors (Sarcorhampus gryphus) in the air and upon the bushes, and at your feet the tracks of lion and of fox and of skunk. Sometimes this fact strikes you with peculiar force. The landscape made up of thorny bushes and spike grass jagged rocks, and white and grey slime, in which live the puma, the wild-cat, and the fox; the air inhabited by birds of prey. What do they live upon, these creatures, there are so many of them? How do they eke out existence? Sparse herds of guanaco (I am now alluding to the sterile portions of the country, such as lie about the north shore of Lake Buenos Aires and also part of the north shore of Lake Argentino), a few small birds, and abundant rodent life of the smaller species—that is all. Curiously enough, in the richer lands of Patagonia, it seemed to me that, though there was more game, there were fewer birds and beasts of prey.
In the winter and in the spring the country, as far as wild life is concerned, is but a thin and gaunt place. Nothing that wanders carries any fat, for the food has been reduced to a minimum. It is on this sterile battlefield of nature that living creatures enter into a death-grapple with the conditions of life, and swing to and fro in a contest whose outcome is only decided when the dark days of storm are over; for at this season the richer lands are often under snow, and it is about the bare margins of lakes and lagoons that the game gathers and remains.
All the way up the River Santa Cruz we were able to recognise the points marked and named by Darwin, until finally his party was forced through lack of provisions to turn back just when he had arrived within reasonable distance of the great lake. He named this last prospect he looked out over in Patagonia, "Mystery Plain." Now it no longer is mysterious, but Darwin's map remains to this day the best chart made of the river.
His description and his opinion of the country are sufficiently dismal, but he passed through a waste and empty land, before colonising on the coasts had reached its present state, or much of the country within reach of the sea had been partitioned, as it now is, into sheep farms. And it must be admitted that the neighbourhood of the Santa Cruz is somewhat sterile, and would be likely to give a false idea of Patagonia as a forbidding land to a stranger who knew no more of the country than the coast and this boulder and sand-strewn river valley. This cañadon is, in fact, covered with glacial detritus.
END OF SOUTHERN FIORD OF LAKE ARGENTINO
Leaving the shore of the lake well to our right we rode parallel with it for some miles, crossed the Rivers Calafate and de los Perros, and finally arrived upon a peninsula which culminates in Mount Buenos Aires. This peninsula is called the Burmeister Peninsula. Here, many days' ride into the interior, and under the very shadow of the Andes, lives an English pioneer, Mr. Cattle, whom we visited, and who was kind enough to help me in every way and to give us hospitality.
During the first night we spent upon the shores of Lake Argentino there was a heavy snowfall on the tops of the nearer mountains.