Through the Heart of Patagonia

Patagonia is a country about which little is known to the world in general, books dealing with it being few and far between, while the aspect of that quaint tail of South America and its wild denizens has practically never before been pictorially brought under the eye of the public. The following pages have been written with the idea of familiarising my readers with the conditions of life in Patagonia, and of reproducing as strongly as possible the impressions we gathered during our...
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Patagonia is a country about which little is known to the world in general, books dealing with it being few and far between, while the aspect of that quaint tail of South America and its wild denizens has practically never before been pictorially brought under the eye of the public. The following pages have been written with the idea of familiarising my readers with the conditions of life in Patagonia, and of reproducing as strongly as possible the impressions we gathered during our journey through regions most interesting and varied, and, as regards a certain portion of them, hitherto unvisited and unexplored.The original motive with which these travels were undertaken lay in a suggestion that a couple of years ago created a considerable stir amongst many besides scientific people, namely, that the prehistoric Mylodon might possibly still survive hidden in the depths of the forests of the Southern Andes. In a lecture delivered on June 21, 1900, before the Zoological Society, Professor E. Ray Lancaster, the Director of the British Museum of Natural History, said: "It is quite possible-I don't want to say more than that-that he (the Mylodon) still exists in some of the mountainous regions of Patagonia." Mr. Pearson, the proprietor of the Daily Express, most generously financed the Expedition in the interests of science, and entrusted me with the task of sifting all the evidence for or against the chances of survival obtainable on the spot.