Chapter Twenty Three.
“Our Horses Stampeded”—“Poor Benighted Heathens!”—Jill’s Little Joke—Telling Jeeka the Story of the world—Adventure in the Haunted Wood.
When we looked out next morning we found, to our surprise, that the snow had all gone from the Pampas.
“Isn’t it strange?” I said to Castizo.
“No,” he answered—“at least I should say ‘yes, it is strange,’ but then one must never marvel at anything that happens on the Pampas. If I’m any judge of the weather, however, well have summer now.”
Travelling to-day was exceedingly difficult, the ground being so wet and sloppy. Peter only tumbled once. We came to a river, and had some trouble getting over it. There should be no river here, though on very rare occasions the rain from the mountains, and more particularly the melting snow, has been known to come down in an immense force and fill the cañon from bank to bank.
As the weather soon grew fine once more, with the exception of now and then a drizzling rain or thick fog, which, however, did little more than damp the surface and lay the dust, Castizo, our worthy cacique, determined to take things easy.
We therefore set about enjoying ourselves as much as we could. Our report was at all times excellent. I could not help saying to Peter that a sportsman in this country who was not afraid of roughing it a little, might actually accumulate wealth.
“And bumps,” said Peter, solemnly. “My dear Jack,” he added, “it’s the roughing it that is the great drawback. Now I can walk as well as anybody. Or if I ride and the nag goes at a nice swinging gallop, then I’m as jolly as if on the quarter-deck of an A1-er. But these beastly nags go hippity-skippity, skippity-nippity, till it’s perfectly sickening.”
“Well, but Peter, old man, you ought to be getting quite hard by this time.”
“No, Jack, it’s all the other way. Instead of the saddle hardening me, I’m hardening the saddle. There is where the grief comes in, and I’m afraid it is breaking down an otherwise splendid constitution.”
“Have an extra rug under you, then.”
“A feather pillow would suit him best,” said Jill, laughing.
“I’ll tell Mother Coates about you, Mr Greenie, soon’s we get home. That is if there be anything left of me to get home.”
“Well, Peter,” continued Jill, “it is partly my fault, after all—your being so sore, I mean.”
“How, Greenie?”
“Because I neglected to ask Mother Coates for the cold cream before the steamer left Sandy Point.”
At this moment a herd of guanacos was sighted. There was a shout from the Indians, who at once spread out to surround them.
“Hurrah!” cried Peter. “Here’s for off. Hoop!”
And away went our erratic messmate, helter-skelter over the plains, quite forgetting the hardness of the saddle in that wild gallop.
Peter had become quite an adept at throwing either lasso or bolas. The only drawback here again being that after “heaving,” as he called it, he was apt to follow them, and this resulted in more bumps. It is really surprising to me that Peter never smashed his neck, or at the very least his collar-bones. When we congratulated him on his good luck in this respect, he replied—
“Why, how can I break bones? There isn’t a bone in my body, I tell you. I’m all pulp.”
Peter certainly had plenty of pluck.
I never saw Peter happier than one morning when awaking, we found that all our horses had stampeded. Perhaps stampeded is too strong a word. It would be more correct to say they had silently disappeared. So we had to walk in search of them.
The trail was evident enough, and led us still farther to the west. There was no mistake about it. Peter could walk if he could not ride. He was constantly turning round to us and calling—
“Come on, you fellows. Haven’t you got any legs under you? Such old dawdlers I never did see!”
The Indians said that the Gualichu had lured the horses away—meaning the evil spirit whom they sometimes worship.
The Gualichu might have been an evil spirit, but if so he was a most handsome one, and shaped like a small-headed, fiery-eyed, arch-necked stallion, with marvellous mane and tail.
I was surprised to see Jeeka level his gun at the beautiful brute and fire. The stallion rolled down dead, and after that we had but little difficulty in bringing back our steeds.
We encamped that night by a very small stream, which meandered through a chaos of round stones and boulders. And here, for the first time since we set out, we succeeded in catching fish—a kind of grey mountain trout; they were of excellent flavour, but small in size.
We saw some commotion among the Indians this evening after dinner, and found they were muttering prayers or incantations, and making salaams to the new moon.
“Poor benighted heathens!” said Peter, glancing up at the lunar scimitar, which had just escaped from beneath a little cloud. “Poor heathens! I quite feel for them.”
“But what are you doing,” said Jill, “with your hands in your pockets?”
“Why, I’m turning my money of course. Don’t you always do that when you see the new moon?”
“Poor benighted heathen!” cried Jill.
Peter now saw what was meant, and laughed as heartily as any one.
Presently we entered the toldo, and Peter sat down as usual to smooth his bumps. I noticed Jill looking towards him with a half-subdued smile of mischief on his face. Soon he glanced towards me, and we went out together.
“I’ve thought of a little trick to play Peter,” said Jill.
“Well?” I said.
“Get Nadi to give him the baby again.”
“But how will you manage?”
“Come and see.”
Nadi’s innocent face always lighted up with smiles when Jill and I went near her. My brother addressed her in broken Patagonian. It was very much broken, but it suited the purpose. Nevertheless, Nadi understood English well, though too shy to talk it.
“Peter,” he said, pointing to little copper-face. “Peter ywotisk, Peter kekoosh, moyout win coquet talenque.” (Peter is weary and cold, and would like to have the baby for a little while.)
Up jumped Nadi, her eyes sparkling with delight, and went off to the tent. We followed. In she went, and without a word popped the baby down on Peter’s knee, then retired most gracefully.
Everybody laughed at Peter, but, like a sensible young man, he made the best of it; and when we entered, looking as innocent as sucking guanacos, there he was talking away to the child, and making it laugh and crow more than ever its mother did.
“You see what it is to be a good-natured fellow,” Peter said to me. “Now you’ll live a long time before you get baby to hold.”
Peter often got baby after this, and I really think he came to like it, only he told Jeeka to inform his wife, that the danger of handing him the child when on horseback was extreme. So this never occurred again.
I think, on the whole, then, that Peter had the best of Jill and his little joke.
The country now became changed in aspect, far more rugged and hilly and wild, but at times its beauty was almost awesome.
One day we came upon a patch of woodland, the first real trees we had seen. Then we knew we were within a measurable distance of Castizo’s romantic home in the Cordilleran forests.
We encamped this night close to the wood.
The Indians did not, according to Jeeka, quite relish the propinquity. The wood was haunted by evil spirits. There was a fox with two heads that had been frequently seen within its dark shades, and there was something in white which Jeeka could not well define. It might have two heads or it might have twenty, he could not say; but it was very terrible, and death soon visited the person whose track this something-in-white crossed.
There was no good could accrue from laughing at Jeeka. I could not help thinking, however, what a pity it was so noble a fellow—savage, if you choose to call him so—should remain in such mental darkness. Could we not do a little to help him, Jill and I?
We might try. One never does know what one can do till a trial is made.
“Jeeka,” I said that evening, “will you go for a walk with Jill and me, and bring Nadi?”
“So, so,” was the reply, meaning “yes.”
We would have led him towards the wood, but he shook his head, and spoke but one word in a very firm and decided tone—
“Gualichu!”
He led us down into a rocky ravine where grew many strange bushes we had never seen before, and in the more open places an abundance of wild flowers, many like our own pinks and primroses that grow among the dear Cornish hills. In this ravine was a streamlet which, however, had so worn away its rocky bed that we could hardly see it. We could hear it, however, and when we peeped over the cliffs that formed its banks, there it was foaming and tearing along, and leaping from shelf to shelf of its stony bed. Sometimes it formed great pools of dark brown water, in which fish were leaping after the swarming flies.
Not far from this wild stream, and within hearing of its ceaseless song, we all threw ourselves on the grass in a ring. Nadi, woman-like, had brought some sewing with her, some beautiful skunk skins from which—we afterwards discovered—she was making a little roba or poncho for her favourite Peter.
“You’re not afraid of the Gualichu?” I said.
Jeeka looked hastily round as if to make sure there was nothing very dreadful in sight, before he replied—
“I shoot he quick, suppose I can.”
“But you shot him before in the shape of a horse?” I said.
“So, so.”
“And he has come to life again?”
“He, everywhere.”
“You speak the truth, Jeeka: the spirit of evil, if not the evil spirit in person, is everywhere. Now who, think you, made these grand old hills, the mountains beyond? Who made trees and those sweet flowers? Who made the horses at first, the guanaco and the ostrich? Who made man? Not the Gualichu, surely?”
“N-no. He not make them good,” said Jeeka, thoughtfully.
It was an innocent, childlike answer, but yet it brought to my mind at once the words in the first chapter of Genesis, “And God saw that it was good.”
It brought me at once to my subject too. I had felt very shy in speaking at first, but I felt it my duty to speak, and I really think I waxed eloquent as I proceeded. Words seemed to come at all events, simple words and simple language, but they suited the occasion.
I told Nadi and Jeeka the story of the world, the story of its fall, and of its redemption through the mercy and loving-kindness of the Good Spirit who made it.
A story so simple that babes and sucklings can understand it, appealed to the very hearts of these poor handsome heathens.
Nadi dropped her skunk skins in her lap, and listened open-mouthed. Jeeka was cutting the root of a bush which he had plucked into chips with his dagger. He never once looked up, but I knew he was listening too.
There was silence for a time after I had finished. Then Jeeka rose, and grasped my hand.
“Brother,” he said, “you tell me this story again? So, so?”
“So, so,” repeated poor Nadi.
During all my story she looked as though she understood every word, and I have no doubt she did; but her husband frequently interrupted me by saying to her—
“Ma Onques?” (Do you understand?) on which Nadi would merely nod assent, without taking her eyes a moment from my face.
I have often thought since then what a blessing it is that all a poor human being needs for his soul’s salvation is so easily understood, that even the intellect of a savage can compass and comprehend it. What a hard road it would be to the New Jerusalem were the finger-posts that point the way written in a language few could understand, or the directions couched in technicalities only a limited few could fathom. But no, there it is in a nutshell. “Repent, love, believe and be forgiven.”
The truth had got firm hold of Jeeka, or Jeeka had got firm hold of the truth. I was soon sure of that. It was not so much that he tried to be a better man, as that he seemed ever afterwards to live as if he were only “down here”—the woods are his own for a brief time,—and that his real home was in the far beyond.
He used often now to make Jill or me repeat the story of the world to him, and especially the story of the Cross. He always brought Nadi with him when he desired to speak to me on such subjects. But he sometimes asked us strange questions. Such as about the grass: was it a good crop in heaven? Horses: were they well trained? etc, etc. Once Jill read to him from the Revelation a passage where white horses are mentioned in a vision.
Jeeka was delighted, and made him read it over and over again. He was also greatly pleased with descriptions of Bible battles.
One day Jill read to him the description of the great fight between the Israelites and the Canaanites, in which it is said that the Lord caused great stones to be rained from heaven upon the enemy.
Jeeka here grew quite excited.
“Hum-m-m. So. So. So!” he cried. “The same thing I have seen.”
“You, Jeeka?”
“So, so. Big stone. Terrible fire, much smoke and t’under. Big stone fall eberywhere. So, so.”
As he spoke Jeeka waved his arm away towards the west, and I at once understood him to refer to an eruption of some great volcano of the Cordilleras, for there are several such.
What pleased Nadi more than anything else was the singing of hymns. She used to join with us, but it was more of a child’s voice than anything else.
However, Nadi was very young, not more than sixteen perhaps, wife and mother though she was.
Our route lay even more to the north than the west now, and it was soon evident that we were on the great border-line betwixt the wild bleak Pampas and the forest-clad mountains, which are but a continuation of the great Andes chain.
The way was now a winding one, for we often had to make long détours to get round a lake or the spur of a mountain, although the lower hills we still continued to face and cross.
Sport, and plenty of it, still fell to our lot, though the gun and revolver and spear came in now more handy than the bolas and lasso.
Even here, however, in the midst of the wildest mountain and sylvan scenery, there were vast stretches of level valleys and plateaus between the hills. Most of these were the feeding-grounds for vast herds of guanacos and of wild horses.
Our camping grounds of a night were now generally in some grass-covered glade, and it was indeed a pleasure to fall asleep in our toldo with the sound of the wind whispering through the trees like the murmur of waves on a sandy beach.
There were many night sounds now, however, besides the whispering of the trees, and some of these, to say the least, were not over-pleasant to listen to. If, for instance, we were anywhere near to rocky ground, there was the mournful and weird yelling of wild cats. These were mingled at times with the “Yap-yap-yeow—ow” of the Patagonian fox. There were also many strange cries and sounds which we could not account for, so we were fain to put them all down to the birds.
It was not safe to enter the forests by night; sometimes even in daytime there was danger enough. I remember I went to bathe one day by myself in a bright clear pool formed by a mountain torrent. The water was delightfully cool, so I stopped for a full hour enjoying myself.
After lounging a little by the river’s bank, dressing leisurely and falling into a kind of day-dream, I prepared to return. No one knew where I was, and if I were missed, both Jill and Peter would be anxious. I commenced to retrace my steps up a little pathway through an entanglement of bush and thorn, but had only advanced a short way when from the scrub in front I heard a low growl, emitted evidently by a puma, and he could not be many yards away. To fly was to court pursuit, and that meant death, for I had no arms of any kind. I shaded my eyes with my hand, and looked cautiously under the bush. Yes, yonder was a pair of huge green fiend-like eyes glaring at me, watching me as a cat watches a mouse.
I drew cautiously back, glad to get away with my life, and re-crossed the stream. But here I was on another horn of the dilemma, for the only other way back to the camp would take me fully three miles about, with the probability, too, that I might lose myself and wander about all night long. No, this would not do; I must scare that puma. The little pathway, it just then occurred to me, must have been made by wild beasts—perhaps pumas.
“Whatever man dares, he can do,” I said to myself, as I gathered an armful of big round stones. Then I advanced once more towards the puma’s bush, and shouting, threw a stone I was answered by a snap and a growling roar. Another stone: result the same, only the snap more vicious and the growl more angry. I was in for it now, so I threw the third stone with all the force I could command, giving vent at the same time a yell that would have startled a Chak-Chak Indian.
This had an effect that I had hardly bargained for. I had counted upon the denizen of that incense bush going off in any direction rather than mine. Not so. With a spitting coughing roar, that went through my nerves like a shock from a powerful battery, the brute sprang out towards me. But a merciful Providence was surely protecting me, for at the very moment the huge extended talons were nearly in my neck, another and larger puma bounded from the bush, striking the first and sending it rolling down the little pathway. Then over and over they rolled like two huge overgrown kittens, until they finally disappeared. Indeed it is evident enough the two beasts had been all the time romping together, and that even my presence did not suffice to interfere with their sense of fun.
Peter laughed heartily when I told him of the occurrence; but Jill did not. He even scolded me. What right had I to go away into the bush without him? he inquired, and hoped it would be a warning to me.
Poor innocent Jill!
The Indians, and even Jeeka, were rather afraid of the wood in which this adventure had taken place. It was haunted.
Strange, I thought, that so many woods were haunted.
Yet one cannot wonder at these poor people being superstitious, wandering so much as they do in this wild lone land, seeing so many sights and hearing so many strange sounds for which they cannot account.
Chapter Twenty Four.
A Journey to the Country of the Gualichu—The Earthquake—a wondrous sight—“I will pray to the Great Good Spirit.”
“I feel unusually fresh this morning,” said Peter one day as we all squatted down to breakfast.
“Considering,” he added, “the roughish time we had yesterday, I’m a little astonished at my recuperative powers.”
“What ship did you say?” said Ritchie.
“Recuperative powers, Edward. That’s the ship. And I didn’t know I had any. Why, when I turned in last night I said to Jack there, ‘Jack,’ says I, ‘I’m feeling ninety years of age.’ But this morning I can hold my age like a young hawk.”
“And the bumps, Peter?” I said.
“Gone down beautifully, Jack. Hardly a bump visible to-day. Just a blueness on some of the bone ends. Greenie, I’ll trouble you for another slice of that ostrich gizzard.”
“Well,” said Castizo, “I’m glad to see you all looking so bright and jolly. ‘Jolly’ is English, is it not?”
“Oh, thorough English!”
“Because, my boys all, I want to make a détour to-day, and pay a visit to an old friend of mine, Kaiso to name—King Kaiso in full. Kaiso means big, and big he is.”
“A giant.”
“A giant among giants, for he has surrounded himself with the biggest fellows he could find anywhere. He’s a funny fellow himself. He has been far travelled too: been to Chili and Monte Video, where he went as a show on the boards of a small theatre or concert place. As soon as he made money, however, he bought all the pretty and useful things he could find, and so retired to the fastnesses of his mountains. His troops are a strange band, of northern and southern Indians. The wonder to me is how he manages to keep peace among them. He keeps a private witch, however, a tame puma, and a medicine man.”
“I don’t mind the witch much,” said Peter, “they are usually pretty tame; but the puma, mon ami, is it tame? Has he a dog licence? Does he keep it chained up?”
“Oh, no, but it is very affectionate. Don’t let it lick your hand, that is all, for its tongue is exceedingly rough, and if it tastes blood, it is like King Kaiso with rum, it wants more. Jill, my plate is empty.”
“And does this King Kaiso,” said Ritchie, “live far from here.”
“Yes, several days’ hard ride.”
Peter groaned.
“But we’ll have a good rest when we get there. Then a few days more will take us home.”
Peter smiled now, and passed his plate to Jill again.
“Last time, and the only time in fact,” continued our cacique, “that I visited Kaiso, he condemned me to death. But this was at night, and Kaiso had some rum. He told me he would himself do me the honour to cut my head off with one of his very best swords. I thanked him, of course, and appeared quite pleased about it. But lo! in the morning he had forgotten all about it. We were half-way through breakfast when he said, ‘Oh, by de way, I was goin’ to lop your head off dis mornin’. But I too tire. I much too tire. Some oder day p’r’aps.’ I assured him not to trouble about the matter; that I could afford to wait, and would wait to oblige him.”
“And there was no more about it?”
“Never a word. He had finished all the rum, you see. But Kaiso lives in a strange land. His home is in the country of the Gualichu.”
“Gualichu! That’s the evil spirit, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Jill. But the only evil spirit I ever saw there had been imported from Jamaica.”
“Rum?”
“Rum, yes, that’s the real Gualichu. Well, Jack, you have good influence with Jeeka; go and tell him where we mean going. He will demur; I had the greatest difficulty in getting him to go last time, and he said he never would return.”
So as soon as breakfast was finished I paid a visit to Jeeka’s toldo. He was waiting while his people, harnessed up and were ready for the road.
“Jeeka,” I said, coming to the point at once, “we are going to visit King Kaiso!”
Jeeka’s face assumed an aspect of almost terror.
“What!” he said. “Go to Kaiso. Kaiso bad man. Kaiso all same’s Gualichu. He live in Gualichu land. Hum-m-m. I will not go. Kaiso kill us all. Hum-m. He have snake to hiss and bite. He have puma to roar and tear. He keep Gualichu man and Gualichu karken. He have fire all round de forest. But the forest itself not burn!”
I sat with Jeeka and Nadi a whole hour, and it needed all my powers of persuasion to make them consent to lead the way to the Gualichu land.
They did so at last, however, and long before the sun was high in the north we were well on our road.
It would take the greater part of a goodly volume, to give anything like a correct description and history of our journey to the land of the Gualichu. We had hills to climb, mountain torrents to wade, long dreary plains to cross that seemed never-ending, and deep jungle-like forests to penetrate through. Sometimes these last were as dark as gloaming even under the midday sun. In their gloomy thickets we could hear the voices of angry pumas, and we saw and shot some of these of immense size.
We saw one immense snake of the boa description, and we also saw some deer.
Castizo marvelled much at this.
“I did not know,” he said, “there were deer so far south.”
“Strayed out of some gentleman’s park,” said Peter, quizzingly.
“And as for boas, if that was a boa, how on earth did it come there!” continued Castizo.
“Oh, I know,” said Peter.
“Do you?” said Ritchie; “tell us.”
“Why it has escaped from Wombell’s Menagerie, of course.”
The idea of gentleman’s parks or Wombell’s Menagerie being in this wilderness was ridiculous enough; but Peter was in one of his funny moods.
We did not stop anywhere for sport, only when any wild creature crossed our hawse, as Ritchie phrased it, we brought it down for sake of its flesh or skin.
Hawks and vultures we found very numerous in these regions, and many strange animals we had never seen before, some of the ant-eating fraternity, others like ermines, but brilliantly coloured, and others again that seemed partly rat and partly nondescript. There were otters in the mountain streams, and fish in such marvellous abundance that, in one hour, Jill and I caught nearly one hundred and fifty.
(This would, indeed, be a land of pleasure for the sportsman. And yet only a month ago, I heard a member of a West-End club assure a friend that sport was played out. He had been everywhere, he said, and shot everything, and there really wasn’t anything left worth pointing a gun at.)
One dark night, while encamped near the borders of a deep, dark wood, we were all awakened by a strange feeling of qualmishness.
“I dreamt,” said Jill, “I was at sea for the first time again.”
“Something we’ve all eaten,” said Peter, “that hasn’t agreed with us, though I had nothing for supper except about a pound of that puma steak, and a few handfuls of ba-ba roots.”
“Hark! Listen.”
“Hark! Listen,” from Jill and me.
There was a noise in the distance as of heavy waggons rolling over a metal road, then the earth trembled and shook with a strange heaving motion as if water were rushing beneath the surface. The same feeling of qualmishness shot over us, and we all pressed our hands to our heads.
It was an earthquake.
The vibration had no sooner ceased than we heard Castizo’s voice calling to us.
“Come out, boys, and you’ll see something.”
We hurried on our clothes. I felt more nervous and frightened than ever I had done in my life before. So were Jill and Peter.
“I hope,” said the latter, “the earth won’t open and swallow us up. Fancy being buried alive!”
“It would soon be all over, Peter,” said Jill.
Castizo, Lawlor and Ritchie were already out in the open and gazing westward. A fitful, changeful light was on their faces, such as I had never seen before. Sometimes it was a rosy glimmer, then it would change to pale yellow or blue.
The light came from the western horizon, and the appearance there was simply appalling. A great cone-shaped hill was vomiting forth columns of smoke alternating with fierce and terrible flames. In the midst of the fire we saw innumerable dark bodies which were undoubtedly rocks.
The night was very dark, so that the eruption was more fearful than it would otherwise have been.
All the Indians were out; most of them lying on their faces, and, I thought, praying.
I went to Jeeka, who sat beside his wife on the grass. Nadi was weeping and moaning.
“Jeeka,” I said, “do not pray to the Gualichu. Pray to Him who made everything, and who loves us—the Great Good Spirit.”
“Did He make that fiery hill?”
“He made and governs everything.”
“Does He govern the Gualichu?”
“He governs every one on earth, and all things on and under the earth.”
“I will pray to the Great Good Spirit.”
Towards morning the eruption died away as quickly as it had begun. Then we retired, and slept well and soundly for several hours.
But next day there was something very like mutiny in our camp. The Indians now refused point blank to go farther with us into the land of the Gualichu.
Jeeka would have braved everything to oblige us, but cacique though he was, he could not go entirely against the wishes of his people.
So it was determined to leave them here in camp till we returned. It was but one day’s journey now to King Kaiso’s country, and Jeeka gave us a solemn pledge that he would not let his people desert. He would shoot them first, he said.
Then we white men saddled our horses, the Indians loaded our pack mares, and off we started all alone to see the terrible king, who kept pet pumas and snakes, tame witches and medicine men.
Chapter Twenty Five.
King Kaiso’s Land—A Regiment of Giants—Kaiso’s Witch—Condemned to Death.
Our first intimation we received that we were close on King Kaiso’s country, we had this same evening from a lot of dogs that were ranging through the wood we were in. A wood, singular to say, with hardly any undergrowth, but bedded feet deep with the fallen leaves and nut husks that had fallen in previous years.
The dogs yelped and ran. Presently we came upon a bevy of children whom our sudden appearance seemed to scare out of their senses. I shall never forget their looks of terror, nor the speed with which they fled screaming and howling out of the woods.
Soon we heard drums beating and a trumpet braying. “Braying” is exactly the right word in the right place, but, a donkey with a bad attack of whooping cough would have brayed far more musically.
Nevertheless, that trumpet was a call to arms. And we were no sooner clear of the trees than we saw a troop of fully fifty spear-armed warriors riding boldly towards us, from a gipsy-like encampment in the centre of a plain.
This was the flower of King Kaiso’s army. And yonder was the king himself at the head of them.
We halted, and as they came rushing on towards us, I thought I had never seen finer men in my life. Not one of them could have been less than six feet high in his potro boots, while the muscles of their arms and naked chests were wondrous to behold. They were naked to the waist, and their black hair, adorned with ostrich feathers, floated over their brawny shoulders.
The king was a giant, pure and simple. A very Saul among his soldiers, towering a good head and shoulders over the biggest among them.
We had halted, and when within about fifty yards of us, at a word of command from Kaiso, the troop suddenly drew rein, and stood like statues, looking most delightfully picturesque.
Castizo waved a white handkerchief. That was all. But the effect was wonderful.
Without saying a word, Kaiso pointed back towards the encampment. Round went each horse and away went the troop thundering over the plain, and in a few minutes had entirely disappeared.
Then, and not till then, did Kaiso advance. His greeting was most cordial. No, there was no sham. It really was sincere. There were actually tears in the giant’s eyes.
After asking Castizo fifty questions at least, he turned to us and shook us cordially by the hand, calling us “brothers,” and bidding us welcome to the country of the Kaisos.
Chatting and laughing pleasantly now he led us towards the toldos, telling us all that he meant to do to entertain us, and what we should have to eat. The menu, I remember, included horse, puma, guanaco, skunk, armadillo, eggs, fish of every sort, and yerba maté. It was evident he did not mean to starve us.
Kaiso was a fine bold-looking man. Although a giant, there was nothing repulsive about him. His frame was everywhere well knit, and when he bent his naked arm, his biceps stuck out like Donald Dinnie’s—and this is paying the king a very high compliment indeed.
Jill and I dismounted.
Peter was more cautious.
“I say, your majesty,” said Peter, “how’s your puma? I hope it is lively. I’m extremely fond of pumas.”
Kaiso did not reply verbally; he put two fingers of his right hand into his mouth and the puma came in a series of bounds from the wood not far off, and, arching his back, rubbed himself against his master’s leg.
Then the beast marched up to Castizo and went through the same performance. He evidently knew our cacique. He smelt Jill’s legs and mine, but made no sign of friendliness.
“Delightful creature!” said Peter from his saddle. “Tame, I suppose? Looks like a huge cat. Pussy, pussy, pussy.”
“Tame,” said the king. “So, see what I do now.”
What he did do was rather startling, and at the same time proved the strength of this Herculean king.
“Gollie! Gollie! Gollie!” he cried, and Gollie followed him for some distance. Then, after stroking him, he seized the huge animal by the tail, and, turning on a pivot himself, he whirled the puma off the ground and round and round in a circle for fully a minute. When he let go the beast lay in a heap, dead to all appearance.
“Dead!” said Peter, dismounting. “Well, Kaiso, old chap, you needn’t have killed him. I’m so sorry I sha’n’t be able to have any fun with him. Poor Gollie!”
“Gollie not dead,” cried the king, laughing. “Gollie drunk. Dat is all. Byme-by he come sober, and den you hab fun plenty.”
Peter’s face fell.
“I’m sorry I spoke,” he said.
“Peter,” I said, “you’re a humbug.”
Meanwhile Kaiso’s wives had made us maté, and we all squatted down to drink it. It was extremely refreshing, and as the puma presently got up and slunk away to the woods, even Peter grew happy once more.
King Kaiso was as good as his word. He was hospitality personified. He seemed not to know how kind to be to us, and during the five days we sojourned with him the village was en gala, given up to games and festivities.
It was a strange country this, in which King Kaiso lived, close to the borders of a region of volcanoes, the fires of which we could see every night. But there was trace of volcanic action in the immediate vicinity. If ever there was a true oasis in the desert, this was one, and I could not help believing, with Castizo, that there were fires right beneath us, and that it was the heat from these which caused the luxuriant growth of tree and shrub and waving grass. The woods were, in some places, quite a sight to see, for not only did lovely ferns and the most charming of wild flowers grow everywhere, but even flowering creepers and climbers. Some of the latter were of the wistaria description, but in clusters of the deepest crimson, with a sweetness of odour that permeated the air in every direction.
Kaiso lived here in tents all summer, but his warriors and people went on frequent far-off hunting expeditions, and even visited Santa Cruz, bringing back many of the luxuries of civilisation.
Kaiso was never attacked. The Patagonian Indians are far too superstitious to venture anywhere near the Gualichu land. So Kaiso and his people, who numbered in all about three hundred souls, lived in peace. The king told us there was no Gualichu; his medicine man had driven him away, with the assistance of his witch.
We were introduced to this medicine man. He had a string of strange charms hanging round his neck, the fangs of wild beasts, curious coloured stones, and other trifles; and he carried attached to his spear a bunch of herbs. Otherwise there was nothing remarkable about him.
The witch we also saw. Instead of the old hag we imagined she would be, we were agreeably surprised to find a young girl of very prepossessing appearance, who smiled pleasantly on us, shook hands and made signs. She was deaf and dumb.
The bad spirit, the medicine man told us, had stolen her ears and tongue, but had given her much wisdom instead.
During the winter months Kaiso and his wives lived in caves.
We visited these caves, and found to our astonishment that they were completely lined with skins; all the walls, all the roofs, and all the floors were skin. The value of these skins must have been very great. Thousands of pounds would not purchase them in Europe.
Some of Kaiso’s customs were ridiculous enough. One was this: he insisted upon his wives having a Banian day, as we call it at sea, once a week. He not only insisted, but made sure of it; for the night before he clapped them all together in one of these hairy caves, and placed armed sentries before the door, and neither food nor drink was allowed to cross the threshold till they had fasted four and twenty hours.
“They get too fat,” Kaiso explained. “Suppose I not do that. Fat wife too slow. No good. No.”
Every day of our sojourn in the country of the Gualichu brought some new pleasure. As far as I can remember, the programme was somewhat as follows:—
First day. A grand hunt and battue in the forest, in which all hands engaged, even to the women and children. We killed many pumas, foxes as big as wolves, and other beasts and birds innumerable.
Second day. A great fishing expedition, with a feast of fish in the evening. We were more than astonished to-day to see little boys and girls leap from cliffs over a hundred feet high into deep pools in the river beneath. They also allowed themselves to be carried over a waterfall, and when we white folks thought we should never again behold them, lo! they bobbed up like seals close to our feet, smiling, and thinking it the best fun in the world.
Third day. A kind of circus. Marvellous display of horsemanship by Kaiso’s people. We tried to persuade Peter to display his prowess, but he begged to be excused owing to the bumps. Dance in the evening.
Fourth day. The marriage of a subordinate chief. This marriage was made on purpose to gratify us, for the chief had no particular desire to enter the holy bonds. Kaiso’s word was law, however. There was a grand procession to bring the bride home, and a wild ride all round the plain, with much clapping of hands, singing, and shouting.
Fifth day. This was our last, and I shall never forget it. It was to be devoted to harmless dancing and other frolics. But unfortunately some of Kaiso’s men who had been away at Santa Cruz arrived in the forenoon, bringing with them a large keg of rum.
“Now,” said Castizo to us, “the Gualichu has come in earnest.”
I am sorry to say that the rejoicing among the male portion of King Kaiso’s little community was universal, as soon as that keg of fire-water was broached. Even old quiet men, of whom there were several in camp, smacked their lips and grew garrulous in their glee.
To do him justice, Kaiso shared the poison liberally among his braves. After which, dancing and the wildest revelry became the order of the day. Everything, however, passed off pleasantly enough till near sunset, when some disagreement between two of the warriors was to be fought out with knives upon the spot. In this they were disappointed, however, for the women had taken the precaution to hide all warlike weapons. The warriors, however, were not to be entirely baulked in their designs. They commenced therefore to fight literally with teeth and nails, like wild beasts. The desire to tear each other spread through the camp like wild-fire. Donnybrook Fair was never anything to the scene we now witnessed.
We white folks stood aloof and simply looked on. It is dreadful to have to say that several men were killed with stones in this inhuman battle.
In the midst of it all up strode the giant Kaiso, with the keg of rum in his arms, and peace was immediately restored, and more rum distributed. The men who fought now commenced to sing and to hug each other, and vow eternal friendship; but in the midst of their ill-timed merriment it was heartrending to hear the wail of the women and children over dead husbands and fathers.
Kaiso had gradually changed during the afternoon from a fool to a raving maniac, rushing around with a bludgeon, felling his men and smashing the tents. He relapsed into idiocy again, but it was of a mischievous and fiendish kind.
Castizo tried to get him to eat. He would not; but he would drink maté mixed with rum. So our good cacique humoured him, hoping he would soon fall asleep.
Not so soon, however. He called his chiefs together, and waving an arm wildly in our direction, said briefly and fiercely,—
“Wirriow walloo! Eemook noosh. Lasso!”
His chiefs grinned and retired. But Castizo began to sing; but we could see it was but a ruse. Kaiso joined in with his deep bass voice, which was more like a lion’s roar than anything human. It was a song with a chorus, and a rattling one too, and this we all sang. We certainly were not very like men who were condemned to be strangled with the lasso early in the morning, but such had, indeed, been Kaiso’s command.
“More rum!” Kaiso would have it. But it told even on the brain of this giant before long, and he toppled back where he sat, and fell into a deep sleep.
What a sigh of relief Peter gave!
I was expecting that pet puma in every minute.
“D’ye think he’ll waken?”
“Oh no, he won’t wake to-night,” said Castizo.
“We’re going to be all hanged in the morning, aren’t we?” said Ritchie.
“Yes, that’s the order.”
“Well, if I had my way, I’d—”
“What?”
“Scupper the lot. Begin with Kaiso.”
“No, no, my friend; Kaiso is not a bad fellow when sober. I know a better plan than that Come with me. Lawlor, you’re a big fellow, carry the keg.”
Off we marched to the large toldo, where all who were awake of Kaiso’s warriors were still talking and shouting.
Seeing what we carried, they welcomed us with a shout and a yell.
Castizo was most liberal in his allowances. Nor did we leave the toldo till every warrior had succumbed.
“I pity their heads in the morning,” I said.
“So do I,” said Castizo, “for this is not rum, but the vilest arrack, brought to the country specially for these poor wretches.”
It is needless to say that there was no sleep for us that night.
Luckily it was fine, so about one o’clock in the morning we silently caught and saddled our horses, and rode away into the forest in the same way as we had come.
We had great difficulty in finding our way, and had to steer by our pocket-compasses. But we got through at last, and before the sun shone over the hills we were far beyond pursuit.
We arrived early in the afternoon, safe and sound, at our Indian camp, and were received with every sign of joy, no one having expected we would ever return from the land of Gualichu.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Castizo’s Idyllic Home in the Cordilleras—Preparing for winter—catching and Breaking Wild Horses.
So long had we lazed on the Pampas and on the borders of the Cordilleras, that summer had almost fled before we reached Castizo’s mountain home. It is probably doing ourselves injustice, however, to talk of lazing on the Pampas. The time was well spent, for if there be any happiness of a solid nature on earth, I think it had been ours during those all-too-short summer months. If you were to ask me for an analysis of this happiness, I think I should reply that it resulted from that perfect freedom from all care which only a true nomad ever enjoys, from the constant chain of adventures and incidents that surrounded us, from the strange scenery weird and wild, from the beauty of the sky night and morning, and, above all, from the perfect, the bounding health we enjoyed, health that made us laugh at danger and consider troubles, in whatever shape they came, trifles light as air.
Castizo had told us often about his estancia in the hills. For many years he had gone back and fore to it from Santa Cruz. It was simply a craze of his, he said; a mere whim or fad. He dearly loved loneliness, and in his own little Highlands he enjoyed it to the fullest extent. He was never afraid of the Indians. Not that he considered them immaculate as to virtue, and the soul of honour; but because his person, intact and safe and sound, represented to them so much property. He never paid them wholly until they had returned with him to the little station on the eastern coast, and then great indeed was their reward.
But all independently of this, I am convinced that these poor Indians dearly loved their white cacique, and that apart from any financial consideration, any one of them would have fought for him until he fell and died on the Pampa.
Yes, Castizo had spoken much to us of his life and adventures in the mountains, but he had not described his little village. Therefore we were not prepared for what we saw.
First, then, we had to cross a wide, extended, open plain or pampa, so great in extent indeed that we began to think the wilderness had commenced again.
In the very centre of this plain was a broad lagoon, but how fed or dried we could not tell, for no stream ran into nor out of it. There it was, nevertheless, and all round its borders bushes grew, and a rank, rushy kind of vegetation with tall flowers, crimson, blue, and bright yellow. We noticed with pleasure, too, that there were both ducks and geese on it. On the plain, moreover, we shot several birds of the grouse species, though quite different from any I had ever seen before.
After we had ridden about an hour longer, a purple mist that had hitherto hidden the hills was lifted up like a veil by some slight change of wind, and there revealed in all its beauty was one of the loveliest little glens ever met with in a long summer’s ramble. And near the top, closely shut in and sheltered from the cold west winds by wooded hills, was our mountain home. Primitive enough, in all conscience, was this estancia, consisting of a mere collection of log huts, well thatched and cosy enough in appearance, but only one having any pretension to display. This last was plastered as to its walls, had a little garden in front, and flowers growing up over it.
Before we reached this tiny village we came upon the Indian camp, and here children and women and old men ran out to meet us, with joyful shouts that were re-echoed from the hills and rocks on every side.
Even before the wives embraced their husbands or the children their fathers, they all gathered round Castizo, the welcome they gave him bringing tears to his eyes.
“Yank! Yank! Yank!” they shouted a hundred times o’er. (Father! father! father!) Had he possessed a score of hands they would have shaken them all, while the pretty children who could not reach high enough must catch and kiss the border of his guanaco robe.
They took away his horse. He must walk the rest of the way. He must be in their midst and tell them all his adventures. Their Yank must speak to his children, and tell them too what he had brought them.
The girls had culled wild flowers, and these they hung round the necks of all our horses, so that the welcome was a general one.
No, we had not expected this. Neither had we expected that the inside of the principal cottage would be so well furnished. Everything was rough and homely, to be sure, but everything was comfortable and cosy. Viewed externally, it was difficult at first to see whence the smoke could issue, but as soon as we entered we noticed a very ample fireplace indeed, the smoke being conveyed away by a copper chimney issuing from the back of the house, and thus protected from the baffling winds of winter and spring.
We admired all we saw, and Peter at once ensconced himself in one of the easy chairs, and confessed that he felt happier and hungrier than he had done for many a long day.
Pedro had the toldo erected at some distance from the house, and proceeded forthwith to cook dinner.
After this meal Castizo went down to the Indian camp, accompanied by Lawlor, carrying a huge bundle containing the presents and pretty things brought to the old men and women and children all the way from Valparaiso. There were pipes and cards (Spanish) and dice-boxes of curious shapes for the former, trinkets and dolls and toys and sweets for the children, and for the ladies strings of beads, necklaces, bracelets, and lockets that made them almost scream with delight and admiration. As gewgaw after gewgaw was taken out the constant shout by these impulsive young ladies was—
“Heen careechi? Heen careechi?” (Who gets that?) followed by a grateful—
“O nareemo nachee!” (Many thanks!) from the lucky recipient.
Only one old man asked for rum. But Castizo shook his head and replied in Spanish, which this Indian understood—
“Never more, Goonok, never again. When last I brought rum to the camp, thinking you would but taste and put it away, hé aqui! you and your people drank all. All at once! You quarrelled and fought. There was much bloodshed, Goonok. You know the green grave at the corner of the wood yonder. There your brave son sleeps. He was killed that night, Goonok, by his own cousin’s hand. Never more, Goonok, never again.”
“Maté yerba?”
“Yes, plenty of that. As much maté as will last the camp all the livelong winter.”
“Hé!” cried the old man. “Is, then, our white cacique to stay with us through the winter?”
“Yes.”
“And his young men and all his followers?”
“All, Goonok, every one of us.”
“Then is Goonok indeed happy, and to-night, old as he is, Goonok will dance.”
It was only natural that a ball should follow the home-coming of the white father, as Castizo was sometimes called.
A special toldo was erected for the purpose by the Indians by making three kaus into one, and to the music of horrid drums and still more horrid pipes, very pretty dances were gone through indeed. It seemed to me a pity, however, that the men daubed their faces with paint or clay, as it gave them a grotesque appearance which bordered on the hideous.
At a sign from Castizo, and during a lull in the proceedings, Peter brought out his clarionet. He had hardly played a note ere a silence deep as death fell upon the assembled Indians. At first some of them ran away, as if frightened, but all soon returned and stood or sat listening entranced. How very deeply the music had affected them was proved by the sighs they gave vent to immediately after Peter had finished. There must be something genuinely good in the heart of those wild Tehuelches, or they could not love music so much.
We all slept well and soundly that night, there being nothing to disturb us save the occasional shrill scream of the Indian on sentry. This startled Jill and I at first, but as the sound died away in mournful cadence, instinct told us what it meant, and we slept all the better after it.
Though it was yet early in autumn, we took the advice of our own cacique and set about at once preparing for the long winter that was before us. For storms in these regions come on suddenly, sometimes, long before autumn is over.
Our people were divided into two parties, one to hunt, another to work at home and in the woods.
The former brought in the flesh of the guanaco, the ostrich, the armadillo, and even the skunk. Skunk meat certainly sounds offensive, but it is very delicious eating, nevertheless. This meat was carefully salted and stored in huge earthenware jars.
One way of storing meat was very strange to me, but, as I afterwards discovered, most effectual. It was first salted with pampas salt from the Salinas, it was then buried in a grave lined with salt-sprinkled leaves, and well packed down. Meat was also sun-dried and partially smoked.
Fish were caught in abundance, especially a sort of perch, and these were smoked with a peculiar kind of wood and stored away for winter use.
Firewood was also to be had in abundance, simply for the gathering. Much of this was dug up out of the boggy land, and was found to be “as fat as fir,” to use an expression of Ritchie’s.
There were many kinds of fruit in the forests, principally of the hardier species, and bushels of these were dried in the sun or by fire, and during the winter they made a valuable adjunct to our diet. Nuts too were plentiful.
But, after all, the most important item of food, not only for ourselves but for our horses, was a kind of tuberous root, which grew in any quantity in the glens and even on the banks out in the open plain. For two whole weeks we had fully a score of Indians, to say nothing of their children, digging and storing these roots. The mice were in millions all round our estancia, so the only safe way of preserving our roots and thereby preventing a famine was to dig graves and bury them. Even these had to be watched, so numerous were the mice.
Hay we stored in large quantities in stacks; also the tender herbage of several trees of which, when green, the horses ate with great relish.
We soon discovered that the armadillos were on the scent of our buried flesh food. So stakes were driven in the ground, and to these dogs were fastened every night in the immediate vicinity of our buried treasure. We did not intend, however, that these poor animals should be on sentry all night long exposed to the wind and rain, the sleet or the snow. We therefore built them shelters, so that they were cosy and happy.
We had our reward, for even on the second night of his watch one dog made an immensely large armadillo prisoner. I happened to be first about that morning, and seeing how eagerly the faithful canine sentry looked towards me, I went up to pat him, when he pointed to a huge ball-looking thing.
“That’s the robber,” the dog seemed to say; “I can’t get him to unroll himself, or I should soon let the stuffing out of him. Will you oblige me?”
I did not oblige the dog, as I object to take life in a cold-blooded manner. But an Indian did, and we had the ’dillo for dinner. Though somewhat peculiar in flavour, the flesh was as tender as that of a stewed rabbit.
So much fodder had we collected, that we determined to add to our stock of horses, feeling sure that some accident would befall a few of them before the winter was over.
Jill and Ritchie joined the expedition to go over the plain in search of wild horses. Peter preferred to stay at home. He had no desire, he said, to raise his bumps again. I stayed with Peter to keep him company.
Jill and Ritchie were gone for three days, and I was getting uneasy when the whole cavalcade reappeared.
“Terribly wild work,” said Ritchie as he entered the log-house. “Ain’t I tired just?”
“Oh, I’m not a bit,” said Jill, coming in behind him.
Jill looked flushed and excited, and confessed to being delightfully hungry. He proved his words, too, when we all sat down to dinner.
The Indians had brought in with them five poor, dejected-looking animals that had been thrown with the lasso, and altogether used far more cruelly than I care to describe.
But these horses soon took to their food; then the breaking-in process was commenced. After being tormented until perfectly wild, and their strength almost quite expended with kicking and plunging, they were forcibly bitted and bridled. An Indian then waiting his chance would spring boldly on the bare-back of a steed, and the battle ’twixt man and beast commenced in downright earnest. The way the Indian breaker stuck to his horse, despite his rearing, plunging, and buck-jumping, was truly marvellous. If he was thrown, which he sometimes was, he sprang to his feet again, those around jeering and laughing at him, and though bruised and bleeding, vaulted once more on the horse’s back.
The battle had but one ending: total exhaustion of the horse, and victory of the Indian.
Only one poor animal escaped thorough subjection. This steed reared too far, fell backwards, and his skull coming against a piece of rock with a sickening thud, he never moved a leg again.
We had that horse for dinner.
Jeeka, seeing the accident, touched me on the shoulder.
“Poor horse!” he said, “good horse! He go there now. So, so?”
He pointed solemnly upwards with his whole arm as he spoke.
What could I answer? This was my convert to Christianity, the religion of love. I had read to him of horses in both the Bible and New Testament. Could I now say to him, “No, Jeeka, a horse has no hereafter?” Had I done so, I would not have been speaking my mind, as I do most sincerely believe that no creature God ever made is born to perish. So I nodded and smiled and said—
“So, so, Jeeka; so, so.”