"The two best of my horses have sore backs.
"We spent an hour trying to get the waggon up a steep ridge 100 feet high, and had to unload and all work at it. Made a long seven leagues and encamped at the foot of a ridge with 200 yards of dead bush between us and the yellow Chico. Going very pebbly, the ground here and there burnt up and arid. It is always in such places that the mirages are most common.
"_October 15._--Got off 8.40. At 11 unloaded waggon, which was in great danger of turning over. Scrivenor photoed it. At 2.20 waggon horses unfit to go farther. Camped by the Chico; shot a yellow-billed teal.
"_October 16._--Out of humour all day, first, because, I found one of the cameras put unprotected into the waggon among the tins of potted meat, &c. Wearily, wearily we wend our way towards the blue distant hills of our desires. Even as in life we wend towards distant ambitions, and, coming up to them, find new ones arise upon the horizon beyond, and so we travel all our days, looking longingly ahead. This valley of the Chico is a wild place, conical hillocks of sand have now taken the place of the bush-covered ones. The Chico remains yellow and winds greatly. Purple hills crown the distance. It is all high-coloured and clear-shaded as in a picture.
"To-day, coming round a bend of the Chico glen, I saw seven guanaco feeding in the valley. They had seen me and begun to move, so I galloped round the ridge, and as I jumped off my horse one passed and halted within seventy yards. The herd made a pretty picture standing on the bare, desert-brown hillside in the tearing wind. I clean missed the buck with the first shot, and only killed him as he ran off, hitting him low behind the shoulder. The wind was blowing hard to-day and full in our faces.
"A windy night, the sand of the river-bed driving and filling everything. Presently we shall crawl into our sleeping-bags and, with our feet to the wind, bid any weather defiance. A pipe is a mighty ally. Here am I in the little 4 ft. tent which Burbury and Scrivenor have pitched to sleep in, wrapped in a poncho a-reek with the smoke of Indian camp-fires, enjoying a pipe and writing this, and as it grows too dark to write and the wind roars and bellows louder down the river-bed, I shall sit here watching the red glow of my pipe and dreaming.