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Patagonia Bookshelf

Rev. Robert Hunt at San Gregorio, 1845
Diary kept by the missionary companion of Captain Allen Gardiner

December 1844

Dec. 10th

Outward Voyage

Ship's Log

January 1845

Jan. 2nd Jan. 31st

February 1845

Feb. 6th Feb. 17th Feb. 20th Feb. 21st Feb. 22nd Feb. 23rd Feb. 24th Feb. 25th Feb. 26th Feb. 27th Feb. 28th

March 1845

Mar. 1st Mar. 2nd Mar. 3rd Mar. 4th Mar. 5th Mar. 6th Mar. 7th Mar. 8th Mar. 9th Mar. 10th Mar. 11th Mar. 14th Mar. 15th Mar. 16th Mar. 17th Mar. 18th Mar. 19th Mar. 20th Mar. 21st

June 1845

Jun. 15th Jun. 21st Jun. 28th Jun. 29th Jun. 30th

July 1845

Jul. 1st

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Wednesday, March 5th, 1845

[morning] On the side of a hill near a bush on the bare ground we took a little sleep and rose to breakfast about seven o'clock, coarse hard biscuit a little cheese and water from [...] ditch furnished our lowly table. Thence we started over parched and thirsty country, blackened by the recent fires, glad occasionally to find a patch of unburnt grass on which to place our burdens and our weary bodies. After a few hours of this toil I became excessively thirsty from profuse perspiration and hard walking; for a long time we came to no water and all the relief I could get was from some insipid cranberries and these were very welcome. At length we came to a marshy place where Captain Gardiner succeeded in finding some water in a hole, for which we were both very thankful, having mentally compared our case to Hagar's.

At night we lay down among thick damp grass, beside a bush near a muddy duckpond, the best place and the best water we could find. Here I began to find that I could not eat enough of the dry biscuit to sustain my strength even when soaked in water, for as it contained the fine bran as well as the flour, it was not sufficiently nourishing; and when no water was to be had, my mouth was so parched that I could not moisten the biscuit sufficiently to enable me to swallow it. (I never enjoyed the hymn

Come let us join our cheerful songs
With angels round the throne

so much as I did while at prayer at the side of the bush by which I had lain down.)