At the first farm-house we found a couple of Scotch shepherds who informed us that the main station of the farm was a few miles east, and to reach this they offered us horses. The Captain and I accepted and were soon mounted, but before we returned we had some regrets. The animals objected to their burdens from first to last, and I might add that we objected to their manners at once and for all times. Like all Patagonian horses, they are trained to take their direction by the throw of the reins, and not by the traction of the bit. If the rein is thrown against the left side of the neck, the horse goes to the right, and _vice versa_. It is hard to adopt the method at once without a certain amount of traction on the bit to which one is accustomed; but this lateral traction the pampa horses will not permit. If you will hold a tight rein you must hold it with equal tension on both sides, and hold it steadily, or the animal will stop at once, and perhaps with such suddenness as to make you test the hardness of the ground. The horse also has a motion and a gait which is absolutely peculiar to the pampas. These peculiarities soon drive chagrin to the heart of a northern horseman. We galloped eastward in a beaten path close to the placid waters of Magellan Strait. To our left were a low series of hills--the Gregory Range--and behind these the sun had fallen, throwing its parting rays on the shore-line of Tierra del Fuego opposite, and over the distant Fuegian mountains. The novelty of the ride and the fascination of the scenery helped us to forget the bruises and accumulating pain--of which, however, we were forcibly reminded later. In an hour we reached our destination and had an opportunity to see, for the first time, one of the end-of-the-century wonders,--the re-discovery of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego by the sheep farmers. Here were the men by whom, and the method by which, the hopeless sterility of the end of the continent has been turned into a field of industry with a farming profit perhaps equalled in no other part of the world.