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The Pampas and Andes: A Thousand Miles' Walk Across South America

Chapter 3: INTRODUCTION.
By Nathaniel H. Bishop
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About This Book

The narrative recounts a teenage American's long mid-19th-century voyage and thousand-mile overland journey across the Río de la Plata basin and the Andes. It mixes shipboard passage and city impressions with prolonged episodes on the pampas, describing estancia life, gaucho customs, cattle work, and caravan travel, and scenes in Buenos Aires, the Tigre, and provincial towns. Natural history observations, practical hardships, local commerce, and political and social remarks are interwoven with vivid travel incidents and reflections on landscapes, climate, and rural labor.

INTRODUCTION.

In placing this little volume before the public, a few words, regarding the manner in which the incidents and material composing it were acquired, may be of interest to the reader.

The young gentleman who made the pedestrian trip, of which this forms the narrative, was a native of Massachusetts. I had missed him from his accustomed place for some time, but was ignorant of his contemplated journey, or even that he had gone away, until my attention was called to the following paragraph in the columns of the Boston Daily Advertiser of January 12, 1856, from its Chilian correspondent:—

“Valparaiso, November 27, 1855.

“There arrived here, a few days since, a young man belonging to Medford, Mass., who has walked across the Pampas and Cordilleras, more than a thousand miles, unable to speak the language, and with an astonishingly small amount of money.

“So much for a Yankee.”

My friend was but seventeen years of age when he entered upon his difficult undertaking; but by dint of perseverance, backed by an enthusiastic love for nature, he accomplished a task that would have seemed insurmountable to many older and more experienced than himself. To use the language of Dr. Brewer, the able author of the Oölogy of North America, he was “a young and enthusiastic naturalist, whose zeal in the study of Natural History prompted him, alone, unaided, and at the risk of his life, to explore the arid plains of South America, while yet a mere lad in years and stature, though his observations there exhibit the close and careful study of maturer years.”

The young traveller started on his journey of upwards of twelve thousand miles, by sea and land, with a cash capital of forty-five dollars, and returned home with fifty; thus proving to those who wish to see the world that energy, industry, and economy are as potent to assist them in their efforts as unlimited wealth.

On his return, I requested him to furnish me with an account of his journey; this he has been unable to do, from press of business, until recently, when he gave me a copy of his journal, which, in a slightly revised form, is now published.

Edward A. Samuels.