Patagonia Bookshelf

Soon after starting this morning we felt that we must unburden ourselves of some of our load, however necessary it might appear to be to retain it. We thought it possible we might have to go as far as Port Famine and escape thence by some vessel to Valparaiso. We therefore determined to hide our change of linen and flannel and leave everything we could possibly spare, even some of the memorandum books and take nothing scarcely but provisions and the gun, to enable us to shoot something if opportunity offered; we also left most of the shot behind and again set forward.

We soon saw what we thought was the smoke of the Patagonian encampment and, ascending a hill, Captain Gardiner first thought he saw a guanaco or ostrich, and finally determined that he saw three Patagonians. He was so impatient to be after them that he did not allow me to see the objects through the glass, so I formed no judgement about the real nature of them but determined to follow him as a dog would his master (although he was leading me quite out of our way). After a long walk we could find no traces of Patagonians or their horses but I observed three bushes in the locality he had pointed out as the position of the three people; though I was far from deciding that these had deceived him this time, yet he certainly made such mistakes after.

At night I shot a hawk, picked it, drew it and cooked it but ate the least bit possible, though it was not unpalatable. This night we lay down near a bush at the side of a marsh; it was cold, windy and wet, though the rain did not last long. The whole of this day having been spent in vain pursuit of people Captain Gardiner believed he had seen, we had lost a day, having come about at a right angle from the direction in which we had before advanced.