The wilds of Patagonia

THE PATAGONIAN CHANNELS

The scheme proposed for the next excursion was a cruise in the Patagonian Channels between the Magellan Straits and the Penas Gulf, during which we wanted to pay more particular attention to the natives. As Halle could expect little if any result from a trip in these parts, it was resolved that he should take up his work elsewhere and meet us in Ancud, on Chiloé, in the beginning of July. On May 9 he departed for Rio Grande, in Tierra del Fuego, whence he brought back fine collections of tertiary fossils. After his return to Punta Arenas he travelled on horseback along the Brunswick Peninsula to the place where Darwin long ago collected the first specimens of Magellan fossils.

Our expedition, however, got another member. On several occasions I had discussed the Channel trip with one of our new friends, Captain José Bordes, piloto mayor in the Chilean navy, and intimately acquainted with those parts and their population. He very much wanted to go with us, but could not, of course, simply leave his service, and he proposed that I should ask permission for him from the senior in command of the navy, Vice-Admiral Montt, in Valparaiso. The latter readily granted my request, and Bordes got a telegraphic order to take part in the expedition.

But at first it seemed difficult to get a suitable vessel. Admiral Rojas declared with a smile that the expedition had already accounted for one ship, viz., the Huemul, and besides she would have been too small and uncomfortable for an extended journey. Of the two other vessels stationed at Punta Arenas, one was of no use to us, but the other, the Meteoro, a twin-screw steamer of 650 tons, very well fulfilled our requirements. Unfortunately, she was bound for a run to San Felix Lighthouse, taking with her an engineer, sent by the Government to effect the preparatory work for the proposed Marconi installation between Valparaiso and Punta Arenas. All telegrams between the Magellan territories and the rest of Chile have to pass Argentina, an ordinary overland wire being an impossibility and a submarine cable being considered too expensive. After her return to Punta Arenas, the Meteoro had to visit the Evangelistas lighthouse, and thus it would be a long time before she could be at our disposal. Through the kindness of the authorities the difficulties were surmounted; I proposed that we should take part of the expedition to the Evangelistas rocks, and from there proceed directly to the Channels, and the Admiral assented. This was rather an advantage, for we won another station which we had never hoped for. Still one small difficulty remained: we wanted to get an interpreter, a Spanish-speaking Indian, but could not get one in Punta Arenas. We had to put off this quest, and Bordes told us he would try to persuade one or other of his Indian acquaintances in the Straits to come with us.

On May 21 we left the sunshine behind and once more disappeared in the rainy west. We anchored in Port Gallant, where Indians used to pass, selling their otter-skins to an Austrian, who lives there, and has done so for many years, with a native woman. Few Indians were there now, but amongst them was a middle-aged woman, who knew Bordes very well and had great confidence in him. At first she had strong apprehensions about coming with us, and it required all Bordes’ eloquence to persuade her to take the decisive step on to the deck of the Meteoro. I now have the honour of introducing to my reader Mrs. Akichakwarrakwiltee—thus she calls herself. Her mission name, Emilia, is more handy, though not so euphonious. She became quite an indispensable assistant; she persuaded her countrymen to come on board, explaining that the instruments were not to torture them with, that we were no “Cristianos malos”—evil Christians—which words are inseparably associated in the mouth of a Channel Indian. Every evening I sat with her in the laboratory, she always crouching on one of the plant-presses, trying to teach me a little of her marvellous language, compared with which both Irish and Scotch appear quite civilized tongues. Unfortunately, her knowledge of Spanish was too superficial for grammatical studies, and I had to be very patient to make her understand. A great drawback was that in Spanish she always spoke of herself in the third person, as children often do.

It was funny enough to study her in her new surroundings. She came on board dressed in some queer rags and with naked legs, and we could not help laughing when she walked about like a fine lady in a grey gown trimmed with red velvet, and a green cape, over which her black hair fell thick and wild. And in this dress she became a member of the Swedish Magellan Expedition. At first she did not seem very pleased with her new life, walked alone, silent, and almost ill-humoured, but we soon gained her confidence, and she gradually became more communicative. One night when, as usual, we were sitting up talking I wormed some of her story out of her. She had been caught by the missionaries and was brought to Dawson Island with her husband and children. She had three of them, one so big, one so big, and the third so—she measured with her hand above the deck—and “she was such a nice little girl,” she added. But they lived in a “bad house”; all fell ill and died, and she was left alone. How she managed to get away from Dawson Island I do not know; anyhow I congratulated her. She did not want to go back.

The Meteoro heads west. More and more barren grows the landscape, more and more dwarfed the forest, colder the storm and fog. We have left the continuous coast and steam through the archipelago. Home, sweet home! Hundreds and thousands of islands, skerries, rocks, with a cluster of stunted trees on the lee side, smooth rocks with some grass where only sea-birds breed. We have left the untidy slate and have reached the granite zone, where the glacial epoch has created the same skerry-nature as in Sweden. The more we look the stronger grows the likeness; we dream ourselves far away, the beeches become Scotch firs, the foreign sea-birds our common eiders and gulls....

We made for a harbour in the offing. With Bordes on board we could make short cuts not marked in the charts, through interesting passages and narrow channels not exceeding 300 feet broad, and in some places so narrow that we almost touched the fringe of giant kelp (Macrocystis) on each side, and anchored in Puerto Cuarenta Dias, the Forty Days’ Harbour—a name that holds a story: here a vessel is said to have waited forty days before it could approach the Evangelistas rocks. This perhaps is somewhat exaggerated—I dare not dispute it; anyhow, a week’s waiting is not a rare occurrence. For us it was of the utmost importance to land on the rock without delay, otherwise the whole voyage through the channels might be a failure. No wonder that we watched the daybreak on May 26 with great anxiety. We had enjoyed light breezes from north and east, rare but all the more welcome for that, and calculated that subsequently the regular westerly swell—nothing less than the whole Pacific Ocean!—would have died down enough to make landing possible.

Rain and a grey, thick sky and a water like lead met us as we swung out through the last skerries and made for some black spots on the horizon. These are the famous Evangelistas rocks. Through the glasses the lighthouse can be seen. The motion of the sea is comparatively gentle, and the occasion seems to be favourable; however, it is no child’s play to land there. We pass the black Pan de Azucar (Sugar-loaf), and the Meteoro anchors in deep water between two high, black slate rocks, one of them crowned by a small lighthouse. We went with the first boat, steered by the steady hands of the boatswain over the soft switchback of swell towards the point of the rock that is honoured by the name of landing-place; were it not for the name nobody would suspect it. The sea does not break there, but only plays with the boat. One moment we are lifted high up, the gunwale scratching the rock, the next the retiring wave bears the boat back deep down among the giant kelp-masses, now for a second laid bare like innumerable slimy serpents, that the capricious surf winds into graceful patterns. Eight above our head rises a rough slate wall about 30 or 40 feet high, and some men stand on the top of it, waving their hands—presumably they are glad to see us. A rope hangs down in a long loop, by which means the boat is kept in place, and we are told to use it as we climb. Bordes is the first to try, old and used to it as he is. The main thing is to mind one’s p’s and q’s: when a wave lifts the boat up to the cliff one must jump, without losing a second, on to a shelf two or three inches wide, slippery with green algæ—without the rope one could hardly keep one’s footing. If you do not want the next wave to attack you in the rear you had better look lively, climbing and crawling with the assistance of projections and the rope: finally you are on safe ground and have “gone on shore” on Evangelistas. We had but one adventure. A young officer got a cold bath when he jumped, that was all.

The three lighthouse-keepers gave us a hearty welcome. No wonder; a worse prison than theirs it is difficult to conceive. Even on a short visit like ours one feels a certain oppression, as of a prisoner behind a curtain waved by storm and rain. A high, for the most part quite barren, rock, steep on all sides; the vegetation a swampy moss-peat, giving way to the pressure of your feet; a small lighthouse, trembling in the frightful gales which give these parts of the world their bad reputation; day after day drowned in floods of rain mingled with the sprinkle of the breakers; many miles from the nearest shore, hundreds from civilization, from which a message is sent some few times every year, when (always with difficulties and often with dangers) provisions are landed—that is what life on Evangelistas is like! I should not advise anybody with a melancholy turn of mind to settle there.

It was interesting to find the slates again so far west—on very few places do they appear outside the granite zone. We had soon collected specimens of the poor, miserable, and scanty plants and animals, but it was long before all the stores had been landed. They were hoisted up with a derrick, worked by hand, and consequently so slow that people prefer the more hazardous ascent on their hands and knees. It is curious to think how the iron supports, not to speak of all the materials for the lighthouse, were ever landed. The story of the lighthouse would be worth a special chapter.

Sitting on a bag, we allowed ourselves to be lowered by the tiny wire down into the boat, that with great care was kept beneath us, 60 feet below—a quick as well as a comfortable manner of getting away from the island. On board the captain was more anxious than ever. The winter days are short, the mist was not far off, and we must reach Cuarenta Dias before nightfall. When at 3 P.M. we weighed anchor the fog was already so dense that the islands were lost to sight within a few minutes. The water here in the offing is very dirty; we tried to make Cape King, but the current played us a trick and suddenly some nasty black needles loomed out of the thick veil on the port side; we were amidst the reefs—within the “danger-line.” The course was changed; Bordes was persistent and we tried again; but night came on, and we were forced to spend it running to and fro in the entrance of the Magellan Straits, guided by the flashes from the wee lighthouse, that has saved more than one Vessel from making nearer acquaintance with the ill-famed Cape Pillar.

The next day we could start our work in the Queen Adelaide group, where many detailed geographical observations are still waiting to be made. We visited Pacheco Island and went out by Anita Channel—just at the most difficult spot—when a fog, so thick and white that we could not see the rocks close at hand, descended over the water. Of course there is no danger of collision; nevertheless it caused some anxiety among the officers. The fog vanished as quickly as it had come, and we proceeded to Viel Channel, where for the first time we met the Indians in their natural state. They were very shy, and refused to come on board. We continued east, crossed Smyth Channel, and anchored in a harbour called Puerto Ramirez, on the Muñoz Gamero Peninsula, the only spot inhabited by white men between the Straits and the Gulf of Penas. Several years ago, when Chile and Argentina were at odds with each other, the former country made a coaling-station here, and some sheds with coal are still left, guarded by two watchmen. Later on we had good reason to bless this coal-store.

By the last day of May we were again under way, steaming northward through the Channels. Few places in Patagonia are so famous as these Channels, where the steamer plunges between black, steep walls, crowned by snowy peaks reflected in the usually smooth water, where the open sea is never sighted, where one need not be afraid of storm or fog, when one has only to seek one of the numerous, charming little harbours. One can travel from 53° to 48°, a distance of 5°, without seeing the ocean! Where in the world is there anything like it? What a pity that sunshine and a clear sky are of rare occurrence; for days and weeks the rain does not cease, and a cold, wet fog rests over the water. The Channels have been compared with the Norwegian fiords. As far as the numerous inlets running east from the Channels into the mountains are concerned, I think that this comparison is obvious, even if we treat them from a geographical point of view. But in the outer appearance there is a big difference. In Patagonia Death seems to reign. The Channels are so silent; most of the sea-birds, such as gulls, Cape pigeons, albatrosses, and others that give life to the picture in the open sea have disappeared; so have the porpoises which play merrily round the bows; only some kelp-geese, ducks, or patovapores are still to be seen. But the forest is magnificent, in spite of the utter silence prevailing there. My work took me there every day, and every night I returned on board with a fresh stock of experience and collections. Sometimes the beech—naturally always the evergreen one—leaves room for yellow and reddish swamps, where the only needle-tree of South Patagonia, Libocedrus tetragona, grows. People here call it the cypress. Large ferns with arboreous growth (Blechnum magellanicum) are noteworthy. As usual, flowers are rare, but there is one, the southern “copihue,” Philesia buxifolia, which flowers also during midwinter, that with its large pink bells is almost unrivalled. To one thing the botanist has to accustom himself: to return every day as soaked as is the forest itself.

In the Sarmiento Channel, the continuation of Smyth Channel, we met several Indians; two canoes with their crews we took on board and brought to Puerto Bueno, where we stayed two days. Between Chatham and Hanover Islands, in a narrow place called Guia Narrows, we met another canoe; a naked girl angrily repeated “Cristiano malo,” and the crew could not be persuaded to come on board. Probably they had been badly treated by some passing sailors.

The traffic in the Channels is very small nowadays. Almost all ships prefer to take the open sea, where they may steam day and night, which is hardly possible in the Channels, but one of the greatest pleasures on a cruise round South America is lost thereby.

At about 51° we noticed a certain change in the vegetation. New trees and bushes appeared, especially a curious needle-tree called mañiú (in this case Podocarpus nubigena), and beautiful climbing plants covered the trunks.

When passing Inocentes Channel one comes out into more open water, but only for a very short distance; soon the high walls close in on both sides again. Penguin Inlet was full of ice, and in Icy Reach we met innumerable small ice-floes, probably from Eyre Inlet, one of the unknown inlets on this coast. Not far from there, in Port Grappler, we came across the largest party of Indians we saw. They had probably had disagreeable experiences with white people—it is not uncommon for unscrupulous people to try to obtain their only valuable possession, the otter-skins, without giving them anything useful in return; they sometimes ill-treat them, seduce their women, or rob them of their children—but thanks to the energetic efforts of Emilia we got on rather friendly terms with them, giving them what we had of spare clothes, biscuits, tobacco, knives, matches, and other things highly appreciated by them. On June 7 we reached the English Narrows, a very narrow, S-shaped passage, where more than one vessel has struck. The masts of one were still to be seen. In the eighties a German expedition tried to find another passage—at that time the Kosmos steamers used to frequent the Channels—and discovered quite a system of channels west of the main track, but unfortunately they are interrupted by a place much worse still, where the open sea rolls in, and which is so shallow that breakers are often experienced, and one may have to wait several days for a chance of crossing. We intended to run this way on our return; now we proceeded further along the Messier Channel, and thus reached our destination, the Gulf of Penas. Towards the east a large system of inlets, Baker Inlet with its branches, penetrating far into the mountains, opened, and there we turned in. For several days we had discussed the coal question, and as the captain argued that we should be unable to reach Punta Arenas we gave up the idea of going to the mouth of Rio Baker, with the greater regret as we were not far from it.

In terrible squalls we passed Troya Channel and turned westward, when we suddenly caught sight of a sailing-boat. We guessed it to be people from the Baker Company, a Chilean enterprise, which has the leasehold of large stretches round the river from the inlet to the Argentina frontier. Of course we stopped at once, took the crew on board, and towed their boat to a harbour.

Baker Inlet is a very wild-looking place. In consequence of its west-easterly direction the gales rush through it with unrestrained force, and the forest has been driven back into sheltered places, where the company has cut down the big trees. In the coves one can find scenery of charming beauty, where the slopes with woods, cascades, and snow-patches are reflected in the smooth, icy-green water. When one enters such a cove, coming from the windy barrenness of the channel, one gets the same feeling as coming into a warm, comfortable room from the snowstorm outside.

As we very much wanted to visit some of the channels outside the Wellington Islands, we crossed Messier Channel on June 12 and passed into Albatross Channel. Here every name on the chart indicates that it was given by sons of das grosse Vaterland. The weather was terrible, and we walked about wet and cold all day long, but otherwise contented, as every day brought new features under our observation. On account of the poor store of coal we had to abandon our plan of going round Wellington Islands, but followed Fallos Channel only to the mouth of Adalbert Channel, through which we came to the Messier again. Again we passed the Narrows and took the shortest road through Chasm Reach, where the echo plays at ball between precipitous walls with the sound-waves from our whistle. One must not forget to look astern before the steamer changes its course, for high up the ice-clad summits on Wellington Island may be seen for a moment.

Still we had an important item of our programme left—the survey of Peel Inlet; and as I strongly insisted on it the captain had to yield, and promised to take some tons of coal on board in Muñoz Gamero, which he had refused to do before. But the probable reason was that he was in dread of every place not completely known, and walked about always suspecting danger. Had we not had Bordes with us, who was the real commander as soon as it was a question of some difficult enterprise, it is more than uncertain whether we should have been able to do much work. Certainly I could not force the commander to do anything he declared dangerous to the safety of the vessel he was in charge of, and as, unlike most naval officers, he did not take the slightest interest in scientific work, he took refuge behind his responsibility as often as he could.

Through Andrew Sound we went towards Pitt Channel. No harbour is known here, and on the chart one anchorage is marked, in eleven fathoms of water at the most easterly of the Kentish Islands. In vain we looked for that anchorage; it was deep all round; and in spite of the approaching darkness we had to continue our course. We sounded close to the shore—sixty, forty, thirty fathoms; at last we anchored in nineteen fathoms, but then the distance to the rocks was only a hundred feet. We were completely without shelter, the anchorage was bad, and a squall would result in our dragging our anchors. Before daybreak we weighed and steamed through Pitt Channel into Peel Inlet. The Huemul, which was here once, had indicated a sandbank on the place where the inlet branches. We passed with plenty of water. As we slowly glided into Peel Inlet and the last hiding-point lay behind us, we became silent, struck dumb by the scenery. Perhaps we never saw any more grand; it was quite wonderful. Furthest off, but nevertheless not very far, rise the high crests of the Andes, with fantastic needles and sharp-cut peaks, round which the continuous sheet of inland ice has folded its dazzling mantle. Four broad streams of ice emerge from it, embracing the violet-brown nunataks and joining in a gigantic glacier with a front nearly two miles broad, one single expanse of blue crevices and white crests. This all in a frame of evergreen forest and reflected in transparent, glossy water where the image now and then is blotted out by the ice-floes driven to and fro by the currents. Inland ice, Alps with eternal snow, all the details of a glacier, slopes and shores clad with a primeval forest, the crystalline fiord-water, the drifting ice, and all this embraced in one single glance! That is wonderful, I think.

We could the more enjoy the sight as we had discovered an unknown harbour not far off, suitable in every way. Quensel and I pulled through the ice, densely packed in certain places, to the glacier, and the officers started to make a map of the harbour, which we named Puerto Témpanos, i.e., the Port of Icefloes, as owing to the tide the cove is filled with small pieces of ice twice a day.

We found ourselves in a world of ice, moraines, and muddy rivers, where we got on capitally, and did not return before dark, very pleased with the results, which included, amongst others, important observations of the geology in the High Cordillera. The next day broke calm and fine, but with a fog so thick that we could not see even the shore of our little cove. In the afternoon work could be continued round the harbour, which is fringed by a swampy forest of deciduous beech (Nothofagus antarctica). Fortunately we got another clear day. The last thing we did was to erect a tablet at the entrance of the harbour, with this inscription: “Meteoro. Comisión sueco-chilena. 16 . VI . 1908.” I suppose it will be long before anybody finds it. As we came out, the old Channel weather met us again with rain and a gale of wind—but what did it matter? We had been successful with Peel Inlet and our spirits were high!

Silence now reigned in Puerto Bueno. The huts stood empty like grinning skeletons, their inhabitants gone on their everlasting wanderings. Further south we came across some more families, and the last were seen at Muñoz Gamero, where we made a short stay to take fresh supplies of coal on board. In Smyth Channel we met two steamers, one of them evoking great excitement—the Norwegian ship Alm, chartered by a Punta Arenas firm to run between this place and Valparaiso. Halle was on board on his way to Chiloé, and we waved a farewell to each other.

Fresh wind and a heavy sea, Cape pigeons and stormy petrels met us when we came out into the Straits. Behind us lay the labyrinth, the wonderland where we should never return.

We had some places left to visit before we could consider the excursion finished. The lighthouse on Felix Island we visited on our way out, but stopped once more to bring the mail to Punta Arenas. From there we went to Woodsworth Bay to find a harbour. This place has been famous for its waterfall ever since the time of the Beagle. There is no lack of waterfalls in the Channels, as the rivers have no other resource but to flow vertically, but this was beyond all we had seen. Dancing from one narrow shelf to the next, from a height of nearly a thousand feet, the water hurls itself into the sea, and the whole length of the jet is visible at one time.

In Port Gallant we said good-bye to Emilia. I daresay she left us under the impression that not all “cristianos” are “malos.” On a midwinter night the Meteoro anchored in the roads of Punta Arenas. We had no time to spare there; on the 29th we went on board a Kosmos steamer that took us to Corral, and there we immediately found another vessel bound for Ancud, the capital of Chiloé.