Before the snow, which has given rise to so long a digression, had quite ceased falling the blue sky was smiling again, and I set forth on my muddy walk home. Under the brilliant sun the white mantle very soon began to exhibit broad black lines and rents, and in a brief space of time the earth had recovered its wonted appearance — the cheerful greenish-bluish-grey, which is Nature’s livery at all times in this part of Patagonia; while from the dripping thorn bushes the birds resumed their singing.

If the birds of this region do not excel those of other lands in sweetness, compass, and variety (and I am not sure that they do not), for constancy in singing they indubitably carry the palm. In spring and early summer their notes are incessant; and the choir is then led by that incomparable melodist, the white-banded mocking-bird, a summer visitor. Even in the coldest months of winter, June and July, when the sun shines, the hoarse crooning of the spotted ‘Columba’, resembling that of the wood-pigeon of Europe, and the softer, more sigh-like lamentations of the ‘Zenaida maculata’, so replete with wild pathos, are heard from the leafless willows fringing the river. Meanwhile, in the bosky uplands, one hears the songs of many passerine species; and always amongst them, with lively hurried notes, the black-headed Magellanic siskin. The scarlet-breasted or military starling sings on the coldest days and during the most boisterous weather: nor can the rainiest sky cheat the grey finches, ‘Diuca minor’, of their morning and evening hymns, sung by many individuals in joyous concert. The common mocking-bird is still more indefatigable, and sheltering himself from the cold blast continues till after dark warbling out snatches of song from his inexhaustible repertory; his own music being apparently necessary as food and air to his existence.

Warm lovely days succeeded the snowfall. Rising each morning I could reverently exclaim with the human singer,

O gift of God! O perfect Day!

Whereon should no man work but play.

Days windless and serene to their very end, bright with a cloudless sky, and sunshine sweet and pleasant to behold, making the grey solitudes smile as if conscious of the heavenly influence. It is a common saying in this country that “once in a hundred years, a man dies in Patagonia.” I do not think any other region of the globe can boast of a saying to equal that; though it has been ill-naturedly suggested that the proverb might owe its origin to the fact that most people in Patagonia meet with some violent end. I do not myself believe there is any climate in the world to compare with the winter of the east coast of Patagonia; and although its summer might seem disagreeable to some persons on account of the violent winds that prevail at that season, the atmosphere at all times is so dry and pure as to make pulmonary complaints unknown. A wealthy tradesman of the town told me that from boyhood he suffered from weak lungs and asthma; in search of health he left his country, Spain, and settled in Buenos Ayres, where he formed ties and entered into business. But his old enemy found him there; his asthma became worse and worse, and at last, on his doctor’s recommendation, he went on a visit to Patagonia, where in a short time he was restored to complete health — such health as he had never previously known. He went back rejoicing to Buenos Ayres, only to fall ill again and to find his life growing a burden to him. Finally, in desperation, he sold his business and went back to the only country where existence was possible; and when I knew him he had been permanently settled there for about fourteen years, during which time he had enjoyed the most perfect health.

But he was not happy. He confided to me that he had purchased health at a very heavy cost, since he found it impossible ever to accommodate himself to such a rude existence; that he was essentially a child of civilisation, a man of the pavement, whose pleasure was in society, in newspapers, the play, and in the café where one meets one’s friends of an evening and has a pleasant game of dominoes. As these things which he valued were merely dust and ashes to me, I did not sympathise deeply with his discontent, nor consider that it mattered much which portion of the globe he made choice of for a residence. But the facts of his case interested me; and if I should have a reader who has other ideals, who has felt the mystery and glory of life overcoming his soul with wonder and desire, and who bears in his system the canker of consumption which threatens to darken the vision prematurely — to such a one I would say, TRY PATAGONIA. It is far to travel, and in place of the smoothness of Madeira there would be roughness; but how far men go, into what rough places, in search of rubies and ingots of gold; and life is more than these.

During this beautiful weather merely to exist has seemed to me a sufficient pleasure: sometimes rowing on the river, which is here about nine hundred feet wide — going up to the town with the tide and returning with the current when only a slight exertion suffices to keep the boat swiftly gliding over the pure green water. At other times I amuse myself by seeking for the resinous gum, known here by its Indian name ‘maken’. The scraggy wide-spreading bush, a kind of juniper, it is found on, repays me with many a scratch and rent for all the amber tears I steal. The gum is found in little lumps on the underside of the lower branches, and is, when fresh, semi-transparent and sticky as bird-lime. To fit it for use the natives make it into pellets, and hold it on the point of a stick over a basin of cold water; a coal of fire is then approached to it, causing it to melt and trickle down by drops into the basin. The drops, hardened by the process, are then kneaded with the fingers, cold water being added occasionally, till the gum becomes thick and opaque like putty. To chew it properly requires a great deal of practice, and when this indigenous art has been acquired a small ball of maken may be kept in the mouth two or three hours every day, and used for a week or longer without losing its agreeable resinous flavour or diminishing in bulk, so firmly does it hold together. The maken-chewer, on taking the ball or quid from his mouth, washes it and puts it by for future use, just as one does with a tooth-brush. Chewing gum is not merely an idle habit, and the least that can be said in its favour is that it allays the desire for excessive smoking — no small advantage to the idle dwellers, white or red, in this desert land; it also preserves the teeth by keeping them free from extraneous matter, and gives them such a pearly lustre as I have never seen outside of this region.

My own attempts at chewing maken have, so far, proved signal failures. Somehow the gum invariably spreads itself in a thin coat over the interior of my mouth, covering the palate like a sticking-plaster and enclosing the teeth in a stubborn rubber case. Nothing will serve to remove it when it comes to this pass but raw suet, vigorously chewed for half an hour, with occasional sips of cold water to harden the delightful mixture and induce it to come away. The culmination of the mess is when the gum spreads over the lips and becomes entangled in the hairs that overshadow them; and when the closed mouth has to be carefully opened with the fingers, until these also become sticky and hold together firmly as if united by a membrane. All this comes about through the neglect of a simple precaution, and never happens to the accomplished masticator, who is to the manner born. When the gum is still fresh occasionally it loses the quality of stiffness artificially imparted to it, and suddenly, without rhyme or reason, retransforms itself into the raw material as it came from the tree. The adept, knowing by certain indications when this is about to happen, takes a mouthful of cold water at the critical moment, and so averts a result so discouraging to the novice. Maken-chewing is a habit common to everybody throughout the entire territory of Patagonia, and for this reason I have described the delightful practice at some length.

When disinclined for gum-chewing I ramble for hours through the bushes to listen to the birds, learning their language and making myself familiar with their habits. How coy are some species whose instincts ever impel them to concealment! What vigilance, keen and never relaxed, is theirs! Difficult even to catch a passing glimpse of them as they skulk from notice, how much more so to observe them disporting themselves without fear or restraint, unconscious of any intrusive presence! Yet such observation only satisfies the naturalist, and when obtained it amply repays the silence, the watching, and the waiting it costs. In some cases the opportunities are so rare that whilst they are being sought, and without ever actually occurring, the observer day by day grows more familiar with the manners of the wild creatures that still succeed in eluding his sight.

Now the little cock (‘Rhinocrypta lanceolata’), an amusing bird that lives on the ground, carries its tail erect and looks wonderfully like a very small bantam, has spied me, and full of alarm, utters his loud chirrup from an adjacent bush. Gently I steal towards him, careful to tread on the sand, then peer cautiously into the foliage. For a few moments he scolds me with loud, emphatic tones, and then is silent. Fancying him still in the same place, I walk about the bush many times, striving to catch sight of him. Suddenly the loud chirrup is resumed in a bush a stone’s-throw away; and soon, getting tired of this game of hide-and-seek, in which the bird has all the fun and I all the seeking, I give it up and ramble on.

Then, perhaps, the measured, deep, percussive tones of the subterranean ‘Ctenomys’, well named ‘oculto’ in the vernacular, resound within a dozen yards of my feet. So near and loud do they sound, I am convinced the shy little rodent has ventured for a moment to visit the sunshine. I might possibly even catch a momentary glimpse of him, sitting, trembling at the slightest sound, turning his restless bright black eyes this way and that to make sure that no insidious foe is lurking near. For while the mole’s eyes have dwindled to mere specks, a dark subterranean life has had a contrary effect on the ‘oculto’s’ orbs, and made them large, although not so large as in some cave-rodents. On tiptoe, scarcely breathing, I approach the intervening bush and peep round it, only to find that he has already vanished! A hillock of damp, fresh sand, bearing the impress of a tail and a pair of little feet, show that he has been busy there, and had sat only a moment ago swelling the silky fur of his bosom with those deep, mysterious sounds. Cautiously, silently, I had approached him, but the subtle fox and the velvet-footed cat would have drawn near with still greater silence and caution, yet he would have baffled them both. Of all shy mammals he is the shyest; in him fear is never overcome by curiosity, and days, even weeks, may now elapse before I come so near seeing the ‘Ctenomys magellanica’ again.

It is near sunset, and, hark! as I ramble on I hear in the low scrub before me the crested tinamous (‘Calodromus elegans’), the wild fowl of this region, and in size like the English pheasant, just beginning their evening call. It is a long, sweetly-modulated note, somewhat flute-like, and sounding clear and far in the quiet evening air. The covey is a large one, I conjecture, for many voices are joined in the concert. I mark the spot and walk on; but at my approach, however quiet and masked with bushes it may be, one by one the shy vocalists drop their parts. The last to cease repeats his note half a dozen times, then the contagion reaches him and he too becomes silent. I whistle and he answers; for a few minutes we keep up the duet, then, aware of the deception, he is silent again. I resume my walk and pass and repass fifty times through the scattered scrub, knowing all the time that I am walking about amongst the birds, as they sit turning their furtive eyes to watch my movements, yet concealed from me by that wonderful adaptive resemblance in the colour of their plumage to the sere grass and foliage around them, and by that correlated instinct which bids them sit still in their places. I find many evidences of their presence — prettily-mottled feathers dropped when they preened their wings, also a dozen or twenty neat circular hollows scooped in the sand in which they recently dusted themselves. There are also little chains of footprints running from one hollow to the other; for these pulverising pits serve the same birds every day, and, there being more birds in the covey than there are pits, the bird that does not quickly secure a place doubtless runs from pit to pit in search of one unoccupied. Doubtless there are many pretty quarrels too; and the older, stronger bird, regular in the observance of this cleanly luxurious habit, must, ‘per fas et nefas’, find accommodation somewhere.

I leave the favoured haunt, but when hardly a hundred yards away the birds resume their call in the precise spot I have just quitted; first one and then two are heard, then twenty voices join in the pleasing concert. Already fear, an emotion strong but transitory in all wild creatures, has passed from them, and they are free and happy as if my wandering shadow had never fallen across them.