In Patagonia

Bruce Chatwin

Having read it

★★★★☆

An interesting read: the beginning was good, the middle a bit cumbersome but the latter stages had some good bits, particularly to do with the characters he had met – as well as the odd set of pre-historic bones! – on his journey.

A good passage

A hundred and fifty-three Welsh colonists landed here off the brig Mimosa in 1865. They were poor people in search of a New Wales, refugees from cramped coal-mining valleys, from a failed independence movement, and from Parliament’s ban on Welsh in schools. Their leaders had combed the earth for a stretch of open country in contaminated by Englishmen. They chose Patagonia for its absolute remoteness and foul climate; they did not want to get rich.

A second good passage

‘What can I pay for then? There’s only bread and coffee left. I can’t charge you for bread, but café au lait is a gringo drink and I shall make you pay.’