In Patagonia, even on the borders of the salinas, where a drop of fresh water can never be found, excepting dew, these little animals swarm.

Next to lizards, mice appear to be able to support existence on the smallest and driest portions of the earth--even on islets in the midst of great oceans.
The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened and made palpable by a clear, unclouded sky.

For a time such scenery is sublime, but this feeling cannot last, and then it becomes uninteresting.

We bivouacked at the foot of the "primera linea," or the first line of the partition of the waters.

The streams, however, on the east side do not flow to the Atlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of which there is a large salina, or salt lake;--thus forming a little Caspian Sea at the height, perhaps, of ten thousand feet.