I did not know of this when I started, and was surprised to observe how earnestly my guide watched a deer, which appeared to have been frightened from a distant quarter.
We found the "Beagle" had not arrived, and consequently set out on our return, but the horses soon tiring, we were obliged to bivouac on the plain.

In the morning we had caught an armadillo, which, although a most excellent dish when roasted in its shell, did not make a very substantial breakfast and dinner for two hungry men.
The ground at the place where we stopped for the night was incrusted with a layer of sulphate of soda, and hence, of course, was without water.

Yet many of the smaller rodents managed to exist even here, and the tucutuco was making its odd little grunt beneath my head, during half the night.

Our horses were very poor ones, and in the morning they were soon exhausted from not having had anything to drink, so that we were obliged to walk.

About noon the dogs killed a kid, which we roasted.