Viewing page 30 of 40

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-30-

that it was useless to expect to go after any sort of game with lances in a country as dense as this. "The only way you could get room to lance a boar would be to kill him first, and drag him out in the open." Eventually they discovered the impracticality of their scheme, and turned the wild boars loose.  They have been increasing in the forest in great numbers, and do a lot of damage to young lambs. Jones himself loses as many as 300 lambs a year. However, he and his sons go out on horseback, ride the boars down, and shoot them at close range with pistols, and he allows as how that is good sport and worth paying 300 lambs a year for! The boars run as high as 300 pounds apiece, and getting them at close range, dodging their dangerous tusks - dangerous for both man and horse, is a thrilling game.

[[underline]] May 29 - Bariloche [[/underline]]

     We were supposed to go over to Isla Victoria today, but when we woke, rain was falling, and we supposed the excursion was off. About ten o'clock it cleared, however, and the park superintendent, Mr. Christenson, said it was all right for us to go. Taking a basket lunch theMays had prepared, we set out in a launch across the lake, and spent most of the time in open-mouthed admiration of the spectacular cloud effects over the mountain tops.

     It was nearly a three-hour run, and when we drew up to the landing we were met by Dr. Francke and his two pet guanacos.

     Never have I seen a more picturesque setting for a picturesque character. Isla Victoria is a heavily wooded island in the middle of the lake, about 16 miles long by 6 wide. Here the government wants to establish a game refuge, and they have put Dr. Francke, an enthusiastic young German naturalist, in charge. He has curly red hair and a red beard, wears a monocle, has lived in Argentina for fifteen years, and speaks good English as well as Spanish and German. He was dressed in a wide-brimmed brown felt hat, gaucho trousers, with brown jacket and wool shirt to match, a scarf around his neck, a sash around his waist, and over that a leather belt with a silver buckle and a revolver thrust into it, his flowing trousers were gathered into half-boots. The two guanacos are his pets, having been brought by him from babyhood, and he had not realized until this morning quite how strong they have grown. The guanacos were excited at having so many visitors, and did their best to climb on our backs to kiss our noses. We, not being used to such greetings, tried to dodge, and Francke had his arms full of long camel-like necks until his assistant came and took the beasts away.

     Francke has cleared the forest between his comfortable log house and the lake, so that from the windows one has a spectacular view of the lake and the snow-covered mountains. A big black

[[end page]]