During the night of the 10th, half a gale of wind blew up with an extraordinary rancour of coldness. I lay in my tent and heard the sides of it flapping like some great wounded bird. Sleep was put off till far into the small hours. Through the open tent-door I could look at the bushes writhing in the gale, the long black back of the ridge and the glint of stars. How often one sees in half-sleep the scenes of home and of the past! I seemed again to be watching the boats coming in and the tides rising with the well-known ripple and pouring rush of water on a shallow beach, tides that in boyish days held so infinite a romance. Where did the storms that broke there come from? whither went the dark hulls after they sank below the blue edge of sea? Or where did the fishermen sail their boats to—lonely rocks from which they brought back parrot-beaked, jelly-armed pieuvres? And yet, having drifted into some long wanderings, and now into that wilderness, no scene that I have ever looked upon, however wild or lonely, has touched me in any way that could compare with the thrill of those early dreams. Romance lies always a little too far away; only in childhood is the gate of that wonderful garden open to us, and we gaze and long for the fruit we are never to handle.
Our tents at Horsham Camp—so we named it—were the only green things in the landscape. They happened to be of a pale green. Riding out from the camp in most directions you found yourself amongst a bare and wind-swept series of ridges two or three hundred feet in height, which appeared to roll away across the wide continent. Sunday was welcome. It was noticeable how Sunday abroad always affected men, some of whom at home spared small attention for the day. Life went evenly. The others took it in turn to cook. I generally rode out early. The troop were rounded up and our first meal came about 7 o'clock. After that I used to go to my tent and write while the men busied themselves with any job on hand. Cocoa at two on Sundays, and about six a meal of meat and beans. And so to bed. The day before the colt was killed, Tom, my hound, stole a dumpling from the plate of one of the party as he sat eating. The loser at once pursued the thief, retrieved the dumpling and ate it, so you will understand that there was no wastefulness among us!
By November 12 I was tired of inaction, tired of the tent, tired of the camp. The wind continued. Surely in all his writings R. L. Stevenson never made a more perfect phrase than the "incommunicable thrill of things." A wood-scent in the morning, the sound of the wind at night, the clear cinders of the fire or a whiff of burning wood—one receives the spark that fires the train of thought and leads us far away. No indolence of the soul this, but the fulfilling of some beautiful law at the junction of the spiritual and the natural, infused through a thousand tissues and welded by a thousand heredities.... One writes much of this kind of thing, for, afar from all books or chance of interchanging ideas, one falls back upon oneself, and one's pen is a safe outlet for superfluous imaginings.
On that afternoon I caught a horse and went down to the long point that stretches out into the lake. Although this was a ride of upwards of twenty miles, I saw no living thing upon the land, and on the water only a couple of grebes and three upland geese. My way lay through dense thickets of low growth, the going very sandy and treacherous. The high-water mark, or, as I should rather say, the flood-mark of the lake was outlined by piles and piles of driftwood of milk-toothlike whiteness. Some of the trunks were as large in girth as my body. All this comes down from the mountain forests, carried by torrents from the melting snows. The vegetation on that side of the lake was the most florid and sizeable that I had so far seen in Patagonia. High flowering grass, thorn-bush thickets almost impenetrable, and between these and the margin of the water a wide strewing of rotten trunks of antarctic beech and poles of an arborescent grass-like bamboo. On my way back I made a short cut through the edge of the lake, of which the bed was shingly.
November 13.—I went to the River Fenix and shot a guanaco. Afterwards I took a six-mile walk and shot two snipe. Lake Buenos Aires was certainly the very heart of the wind's domain. While we were there the wind never died down, it blew all the time, often lifting sand and gravel, and sometimes a great piece of our camp-fire, sheltered as that was. It raged on most days, blowing so hard that some people in England would not have cared to venture out of doors.
I have so far given no description of our tents, which were probably the nearest approach to comfort within many hundred miles of Horsham Camp. Mine was small, seven feet by a short six, and four feet high, sustained by four ropes and a pole, the place of the second pole—which we lost—being taken by a bow-legged slip of califate-wood. The tent contained two beds made up of skins and ponchos laid on the green canvas floor, a soldered tin of plug tobacco served by way of a candlestick and upheld a candle-end. Round and about the tent and on its excrescent flooring were heaped our boxes, otherwise the wind would have blown it over. It was a mere bag of a place, with an exit like an animal's hole; but at night, when the storm howled without, our dim light looked homely, the tobacco-scented air was grateful, and a bit of camphor lent its aroma to the place. And there one could lie at ease and read or think at pleasure.
On the 14th I shot another guanaco; it was curious that we were always rich in meat or else in absolute want of it. I had gone out on Jones' black horse for a little exercise towards the River Deseado, and there I surprised the guanaco. He was an old buck and solitary. He gave me a nice shot, then walked a step or two and fell dead. At Horsham Camp we lived in some dread of scorpions; Jones found one on his saddle, Burbury another in the flour or the cooking-pot, and some roosted in our bedding. By the way, our kitchen arrangements were becoming very scanty at that period; we had but two cooking-pots left and one kettle, thanks to the energetic treatment they had received at the heels of the cargueros. It was fervently hoped by all the party that nothing would go wrong with any of these, or we should have been most uncomfortably situated.
On the 15th I started with Burbury and Scrivenor to make an expedition towards Mount Pyramide. Upon our way we were astonished to see three herds of guanaco—fourteen, and ten, and then twenty-one—at different times. Although I was well within shot I did not try to kill any, as we had meat enough.
On this day the first huemul seen on our expedition was observed by Burbury. First he saw a buck, afterwards two does, but, owing to the nature of the ground, he was unable to get a shot. We were naturally very anxious to secure a specimen of this very interesting and little known deer, but it was not until we made our trip round the south side of the lake that we were successful.
We made our way across an abomination of desolation, a grey old desert; then crossing a marsh, we descended by a white cliff to the margin of a deep brown lagoon. Of many colours were these lagoons. Burbury said that region was more dismal than Tierra del Fuego—old deserts, varied by marshes and califate-bush, stone and boulder, thorn and sand. After a rest in the afternoon we rode on, and presently struck a deserted camp of the Argentine Boundary Commission, near which the steam-launch, which had been brought across the pampas for the exploration of Lake Buenos Aires, was secreted.
Nothing in the world looks more forlorn than a deserted camp. But we were far from being depressed on this occasion, for in this old camp of Mr. Hans Waag's we made a find which we looked upon as a great slice of luck.
On November 2nd I find in my diary: "More accidents to the cooking-pots, this time at the hoofs of Horqueta. The flat-bottomed pot still survives, but the round one and the kettle are more damaged than whole. One more such accident will mean that the corned-beef tins must be called into requisition."
In this camp we found sundry boxes, old iron-bound packing-cases, and while I was engaged in lighting the fire I heard an exclamation behind me, and Burbury sang out:
"Here's a big enamelled saucepan, nearly new!" It was so, and then again, "And here's another. What luck!"
Of course, if those saucepans had not been shut up in cases, they might have been considered treasure-trove. As it was, one did not need the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the travellers who had hidden these pots away so carefully meant to return, find, and once again use them. They belonged, as I knew, to Mr. Waag's Commission of Limits, as they call the Boundary Commission out there. When I met that gentleman in Buenos Aires I never dreamt that I should yet be reduced to stealing his cooking utensils. But we did not "steal" them, we only "availed" ourselves of them. I hope my readers see the difference as plainly as we saw it. And what do you think our companions said when they heard the story? Did they urge us to make restitution? What they said referred to the finding of some empty bottles among the rubbish, "A pity there was no whisky in them!" If there had been, of course we should not ... well, who knows?
Chain of lakes—Size of lake—Sterility and fertility—Trips to Cordillera—Bones of dead game—Shores of lake—Western shore—Tracks in marshes—Northern shore—Rosy camp by Fenix—Guanaco hunt—Horses stray—Cordillera wolf—Vain search for huemul—Return to Horsham Camp—Trip to River Deseado—Paradise of wildfowl—Shooting ostriches—Long-necked game of Patagonia—No ruins or vestiges of older civilisation in Patagonia—Hunting mornings—Wounded guanaco—Indian trail—Trip to River de los Antiguos—Meet ostrich-hunter—Wandering Gauchos—Wanton burning of grass—Second visit to Rosy Camp—Flamingoes—Danger-signals—Scrivenor returns to Horsham Camp—River de los Antiguos.
At last we had arrived at Lake Buenos Aires, a time long looked forward to. The pampas were crossed and left behind, and the lower line of the Andes was reached, the foothills of the great range whose upper summits we had watched for weeks lying high on the sky-line, blue and white and cold, sending the message of a great wind from them to us. We were now upon the shores of the largest of the wonderful network of lakes and lagoons which stretches parallel with the Cordillera hundreds of miles to the southward, ending not far from the Straits of Magellan.
There was to me something infinitely romantic about Lake Buenos Aires. Its aspect was ever changing, and so often you came on a scene supremely beautiful. The wild light of sunset upon the snow-peaks, the grey turbulent water of the lake, and the bull-like wind charging down at us day after day—all these things gave the place an individuality of its own.
The lake is of considerable extent, measuring seventy-five miles in length from S.S.W. to N.N.E., and its waters wage a continual war upon the thorns and scrub growing upon the margin. Vast masses of milk-white timber, blanched by the influences of sun and water and eloquent of the mountain-land of forest whence they have been washed down, lie at the lip of the flood level. When I was there in the dry season the upper rim of timber was about 200 yards distant from the edge of the water.
The sharp contrast of fertility and sterility that one meets with in Patagonia is remarkable, the more so as they often lie in close proximity the one to the other. I have mentioned an arid spread of yellow mud and stones cut up by deep gorges which we crossed before reaching the lake. I do not think that any painter desiring to picture desolation could do better than descend the central gorge and there paint its gaunt and rugged outlines, tumbled together in a horror of barrenness that the eyes ached to look upon. Yet close to this place, within ten yards of it, a neck of land displayed green scrub, ay, and flowers—beautiful purple sweet-pea-like flowers in profusion! And on the farther side was a green gully with two blue peaty waterholes.
Near by, as I have said, we established a base camp, from which we made four expeditions towards the Cordillera, which lie on the westward of the lake, while, singularly enough, the continental divide appears to be to the eastward of it. On our trips we took with us merely a horse apiece, and carried provisions on our saddles. Meantime the remainder of the troop, which had suffered somewhat on our journey from Bahia Camerones, were turned out to rest and luxuriate upon the marsh grass, that extended in a broad strip for a couple of miles under the ridge, while downhill from the camp towards the south this rich pantano spread still farther.
Around the lake lay piled the skulls and bones of dead game, guanaco and a few huemules. These animals come down to live on the lower ground and near unfrozen water during the cold season, and there, when the weather is particularly severe, they die in crowds. We saw their skeletons, in one or two places literally heaped one upon the other.
During our stay in this neighbourhood I took the opportunity of examining most thoroughly the shores of the lake. The ground which descended to them was cut and intersected by pantanos of wet or drying mud and sand. Upon the eastern shore rose dunes, covered with dense low strips of scrub. In the pantanos the tracks made in the end of the winter, when the snow has melted and the ground is soft, remain visible for five or six months. And thus these hardened marshes offer a study of considerable interest.
Although the Indians declared that guanaco rarely visited the lake, this proved to be incorrect. In the winter a considerable number must live upon and about the shores, for their unmistakable tracks were always to be found. Towards Mount Pyramide on the western side, the number of these tracks was distinctly less—rheas, pumas, the animal known locally as the red fox or Cordillera wolf (Canis magellanicus).
A few huemules (Xenelaphus bisulcus) exist upon the northern shore. In the winter upland geese seem also to favour this spot in large numbers. So strongly does the mud retain the impression of tracks that I was able to follow the trail of a horse, which must have been ridden by one of Mr. Waag's party six months before, for a distance of a couple of miles.
Tehuelche Spying Guanaco
Photochromogravure, Lyons & London
Note.—The Tehuelches probably copied this method from the Araucanians. As a rule the Indian stands or kneels on his sheepskin saddle. Here is depicted the extreme position which would be assumed to show off. I have seen gauchos do a similar trick, though few Patagonian horses will permit such liberties.
In summer the north shore of Lake Buenos Aires is one of the poorest game centres in Patagonia. During the first fortnight of our stay there we shot but two guanacos. Sometimes for a week one would see nothing save an old ostrich, which was often observed at the far end of the marsh where the horses fed, but he was a wary bird with an experience of human methods, and he would never allow us to approach within shot.
It seemed probable, from the evidence of the tracks, that at the beginning of the hard weather the guanaco trekked down to the level of the lake. For one track made in November there were twenty made in July. The foregoing remarks only refer to the northern shore of the lake; on the eastern and southern sides things were very different, and about them we enjoyed good sport.
On November 21, Scrivenor, Jones and I made a little expedition to the River Fenix where it enters the lake, and there we came upon the most favourable camping-ground we had yet seen in the whole country. We pitched our camp—afterwards called Rosy Camp—in the midst of high yellow grass beside the narrow river that wound between banks, on which green low scrub ran riot, and enormous califate-bushes made impenetrable patches of thicket. Jones and I, on our arrival, went to examine the mouth of the river. Our camp was quite drowsy with the humming of insects, for, sheltered as it was from the wind by trees and by the cliffs of a lonely hummock, it gave us a delightful feeling of comfort and well-being after our many very different experiences of camps among the high dunes and rocks over which the wind whistled.
On the way Jones shot a Chiloe widgeon and I an upland goose. We found many tracks of puma and some of guanaco and huemul. As we walked towards the lake, I saw upon the outermost promontory of land a guanaco outlined against the evening sky. Hurrying on as fast as we could, which was not very fast, as I had poisoned my knee and was lame, we found the herd on a neck of land, to escape from which they would be obliged to pass within a hundred yards of us provided they did not take to the water. So we decided not to stalk them, but simply showed ourselves; as we expected, they broke landwards, passing within about seventy yards with their ears laid back, swaying their long necks and leaping and jinking among the stones. I pulled one over as she ranged up the side of the cliff. She turned out to be heavy with young, and the buck with her stopped at the top of the hill, but when I went towards him he fled. We were delighted at thus getting meat, especially as this guanaco was the fattest we had yet shot. Her flesh was, however, very strong.
When we were returning Jones, who was in front, suddenly said, "There go the horses!" It was so. They had stampeded, leaving us to get home as best we could. We threw off our coats, laid down our rifles carefully, and ran. Jones' horse was in hobbles, but being used to them kept up with his companions; we were, however, lucky enough to catch them after a couple of miles, and making bridles out of our waist-scarves rode them into camp. Scrivenor said the horses had suddenly started madly, broken their cabrestos, dashed together and then made off. We thought at the time they must have winded a puma, but this proved to be a mistake, for in the night two of them again escaped, and Jones retrieved them when the first streaks of dawn were etching the landscape in black and white. He woke me and we discovered that a wolf must have come into camp and stolen our duck and goose. This wolf had also eaten both my rifle-slings within three yards of where we were sleeping. While we were discussing our ill luck and lamenting the fact that we had carefully plucked the duck and goose upon the preceding evening, I observed the author of our misfortunes calmly watching us from under a bush. Revenge was, of course, uppermost in my thoughts. I killed her with a Mauser. She proved to be an old female 3 ft. 8 in. from the top of her teeth to the end of her tail.
It was beautifully warm all day in Rosy Camp, as we had named it, and we lay on the ground after making much-needed toilettes in the river.
The next night we had a visit from the mate of the wolf we had killed. It is a singular fact that the horses were at the least as much afraid of these wolves as they were of the pumas. While I was writing my diary and nursing my knee, which had swollen to a great size, the wolf crept within ten yards and had a look at me. I got up and limped across for my gun, but my movements did not in the least seem to discompose his serenity. He even advanced nearer, and showed not the smallest fear of me. This quality of fearlessness is very marked in the Cordillera wolves, which possess it in a greater degree than the pampa foxes. On one occasion when a wolf thus came to investigate our camp, my large deerhound, Tom, ran at him, and was met with a devastating bite. Indeed, I had to go to Tom's help. In the present instance I took up the shot-gun and gave the brute a charge of No. 4. He leaped straight upwards into the air, howling and snarling, and sank down quite dead.
These wolves kill young guanaco, and I have observed them pursuing a huemul. They kill sheep when a flock is brought into the neighbourhood of the Cordillera, generally remaining by their quarry after daylight. I have never observed them farther from the Cordillera than the northern shores of Lake Buenos Aires.
On November 24, Scrivenor went back to the base camp, as he had toothache. Jones and I rode south across the Fenix. Although we saw the track of a huemul in the sand we failed to catch any glimpse of the animals themselves on that day, but shot four bandurias, locally called by the Welshmen "land-ducks." This is the black-faced ibis (Theristicus caudatus). I was very eager to secure a specimen of the huemul in his summer coat, and to observe as much as possible of this beautiful deer, but no luck attended us then in that particular. Finally, we went back to Horsham Camp still unsuccessful. During our absence Burbury had killed a large Cordillera wolf near Horsham Camp.
On November 28, Barckhausen and I camped in the cañadon or valley of River Deseado, a swampy, reedy spot, tenanted by great numbers of upland geese, flocks of Chiloe widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix) and brown pintails. I also observed here the rosy-billed duck (Metopiana peposaca), the blue-winged teal (Querquedula cyanoptera), and what I took to be the red shoveller (Spatula platalea). But this last-named bird I did not shoot, and so I cannot speak with absolute certainty upon the point. Besides these, I saw flamingoes (Phœnicopterus ignipalliatus) and the black-necked swan (Cygnis nigricollis). A flock of parrots were flying about the heights, but of these I was unable to procure a specimen. The reedy pools and backwaters in this cañadon were, without exception, the most glorious paradise of wildfowl that I have ever seen.
On our way back from the River Deseado I secured the first Rhea darwini shot during the expedition. With the exception of wild cattle, the ostrich is the most difficult to procure of Patagonian game. These birds are always on the alert, and generally make off when you are still a mile away. They never pause save upon commanding ground. The most usual method of obtaining them is to run them down with dogs or to bolas them after the manner of the Indians and Gauchos on horseback. They are indeed a quarry well worthy of the attention of the still-hunter. The male is sometimes killed with a rifle when attending to the chickens, towards whom—with the exception of laying the eggs—he stands in place of a mother. At such times he will, when approached, pretend to be wounded and limp away with wings outspread to attract the hunters after him. An ostrich when shot through the body will always run from thirty to forty yards before dropping. This first ostrich, which I shot, was about four hundred yards away, and I should not have secured him had he not allowed me to get my range with a couple of preliminary shots. Down he went at last, and, immediately afterwards, as I was congratulating myself, appeared an ostrich running low through the grass. I thought it was the one I had shot and struck back for my horse. While I was galloping after the fast-disappearing bird, I rode right on to the first bird, which had been shot through the lungs. On measurement I found him to be five feet in height and three feet high at the shoulder.
The greatest number of adult ostriches I ever saw together was seven. This in a cañadon off the River Deseado. At a later date I saw forty-two together, but this included many small and immature birds.
The long-necked game of Patagonia is difficult to stalk owing to their having such a field of vision. The ruse of tying up one's horse in full view gained me many a guanaco, but was quite a useless trick in the case of ostriches. The Cruzado was by this time an A1 shooting-horse. He would stand anywhere and wait my return, he would also allow me to fire quite close to him, but he would never allow any white object to be put upon his back. If this was done, he would at once rear and throw himself back.
There is one thing which strikes me forcibly with regard to Patagonia. Here is small vestige of the elder peoples, and little of any older civilisations.[19] Even in the hearts of deserts in the old world are to be found traces of ancient cities, where men lived long ages ago. But nothing that bears farthest resemblance to a ruin, to the "one stone laid upon another" that tells of man's settled home, exists in Patagonia. Yet though the ruined cities of other countries are old, Patagonia is older yet. The nomad tribes have roamed here through the centuries, leaving the grass to grow-over their old camp-fires, but never altering or marking with any permanent mark the face of this old land. No, though Patagonia is in a sense the oldest of all, for here we come face to face with prehistoric times—the skeletons of the greater beasts, the flint weapons of primitive man with practically nothing save the years to intervene. A lean humanity, untouched by aught save nature, has run out its appointed course until very recent years; and there is little to testify to its wanderings but the brown trail of generations of footsteps, which ten years of disuse would blot out for ever. You cannot there gaze over the ruins of a once populous city and say, "Here lived a dead people." No, you can but think by lonely river or lagoon, "The bygone Indians may here have had their camp, or the greater beasts their lair." The netted lakes, the gaunt Cordillera, the limitless pampa and the unceasing wind—that is all. Cañadon follows cañadon, pampa succeeds pampa, you have the Atlantic to the east of you and the Andes to the west of you, and between, in all the vast country, beside the Indian trail, the only paths are game-tracks!
On December 2 we were again short of meat, therefore Jones and I went hunting. These early mornings upon the high ground above the lake will never, I think, be forgotten by any of us who shared them. It was a vivid and pulsating life, and the hunting was carried on under conditions unique to Patagonia.
In the slight depression through which the River Fenix winds, herds of guanaco were to be found, each point containing any number between half a dozen to forty head. On the morning I write of we were not long in finding our game. A large herd, including several guanaco chicos, were to be seen from the heights dotted about upon the faded greenish grass of the valley beneath us. The sun, newly risen, had just begun to suck up the balls of white mist that rolled up and down the cuplike hollows, and as the light strengthened it brought out the gold and white colouring of the guanacos feeding in the valley. The horse I was riding had done no work for three weeks, and was fit to gallop for his life.
The herds were in a place quite inaccessible to stalking, but it was certain that they would break for the hills to the south. Immediately they saw us they took to flight in the direction we expected, and we dashed away to cut them off. The Patagonian horse soon begins to take an interest of his own in galloping game. We arrived within two hundred yards of where the herds had begun to straggle in a long line up the bare side of a range of round bald-headed hummocks, but we were not in time to get a shot before they disappeared over the sky-line. When we reached the top of the hills the guanacos were, of course, nowhere to be seen, but after an hour's tracking we again located them among the hummocks in a depression filled with dry thorn. This time we separated and Jones showed himself at the far end of the gorge, while I made a circuit and lay down upon the top of a hill towards which I thought they were likely to break. This they did the instant they saw Jones, who got a shot, breaking the leg of one. I killed another as they passed. We jumped upon our horses to overtake Jones' wounded guanaco, that was keeping up with the herd.
My horse, the Alazan, had recently received some jumping lessons, and being an animal with no sense of proportion, had been seized with a mania for jumping everything. Jones nearly fell off his horse with laughing when the Alazan valiantly charged a califate-bush, eight feet high and full of thorns, through which he dashed in one jump and two supplementary bucks. Emerging upon the other side we set off after our guanaco and enjoyed one of the most glorious gallops that ever fell to the lot of man. I could not help admiring the way in which Jones, who was a born rider, and, like most Gauchos, had lived all his life on the outside of a horse, picked his way among the great fragments of rock that filled the hollows. The Alazan jumped them, and proceeded upon his appointed path to his own evident satisfaction, the infinite amusement of Jones, and the terror of myself. However, though one might take exception to his methods, the Alazan had a turn for speed and bore my fourteen stone nobly to the front.
Presently the guanaco we were pursuing dashed across a shallow lagoon and fell upon the farther side of it. As we dismounted we observed fresh tracks of a wild bull, which was heading north-west towards the Cordillera. Although we followed these tracks for twenty miles and came upon ample evidence of their being quite recently made, evening fell upon us and we were obliged to turn campwards.
On our arrival we had a look at the horses and sat up late expecting the return of Barckhausen and Burbury, who had gone to look for the Indian trail, which the Indians told us led under the foothills of the Cordillera to the end of the continent. I have given a description of the trail in another place. It is in its way as remarkable a highroad as the Grand Trunk Road in India. Were it not for the tracks of horses, and the occasional dead camp-fire to which it leads you, it would be impossible to distinguish it from a series of guanaco-tracks running parallel. Nevertheless, many an ostrich-hunter has by its aid found his way into the settlements, when without it he would have wandered far and wide upon the pampas.
It was not before the next day, however, that Burbury and Barckhausen returned with the news that they had found the trail some twenty leagues away near the cañadon of the River Deseado.
I have mentioned my great desire to shoot a huemul (Xenelaphus bisulcus), and, as we had been disappointed in this respect in our former expeditions, I decided to penetrate into the gorge of the River de los Antiguos. We made arrangements for an absence of some duration from the base camp, leaving Jones and Burbury in charge.
On the 5th we started, and, while riding to Rosy Camp, saw columns of smoke arising from amongst the hills on the other side of the Fenix. We thought they were signals of Indians and answered them. By here and there burning a bush we signalled to the unknown, and in this way drew together. It was upon the yellow shores of a dry lagoon that we met with the first white man we had seen since leaving Colohuapi. This man and his errand were so typical of the country and its methods of life that I do not apologise for sketching his portrait at full length.
As he came riding towards us we perceived that he was seated upon a saddle of sheepskins, and rode a yellow horse, whose condition told its own story. In Patagonia one gets into the habit of noticing the horse before the rider. The practised eye can learn from its appearance and condition the answers to at least three questions. The rider was a very small Argentine, and he had, he informed us, come up from San Julian. You who do not know Patagonia may think it strange that one should meet with one's fellow creatures miles from anywhere, but the Patagonian Gaucho is in his way unique. He is as much a pioneer of civilisation as were the fur-clad hunters of the Bad Lands of North America. By habit and by choice the Gaucho is a nomad. It is not too much to say that, grumbler as he is when upon the pampas, there is a deep-seated instinct in his heart ever leading him back to that peculiar mode of life which has become second nature to him. There is an idea in England that Patagonia is as untrodden as the Polar regions. But this is a fallacy. The tides of civilisation are moving slowly westwards, and will so continue to move until they are thrown back by the great natural barrier of the Andes. But as the tide will often fling a little wreath of foam far ahead of its advance—a wreath that disappears for the moment perhaps, but yet its fall has marked a spot that in course of time will be swept over by the rising water; so in Patagonia these few wanderers break away from the settlements upon the coast, and set out with their little store of flour, fariña, and maté, their troop of horses, and their half-dozen hounds. They say that they are looking for good ground or, as they call it, good camp to settle upon, but few of them actually carry out this final intention. It is the free life that they love, the wild gallops after the ostriches and the guanacos, the sound slumbers under the stars, and the absence of all control.
Such a wanderer was our small friend. He had, he said, two companions, whom he had lost when running ostriches. As we sat there upon our horses and looked from the man to the great clouds of smoke which were arising from the direction of the Fenix, of which he was the miserable author, one felt inclined to throw him in his own fire. For whereas, whenever I or my men lit a smoke, we were careful that it should burn but one bush, and not spread to scar and disfigure the face of the country, this irresponsible little being, who had, as it were, ridden to meet us out of the nowhere, persistently lit his reckless fires among the best grass, so that they burnt huge areas. It was a remarkable, and in its way a painful, reflection that this puny bit of humanity with his box of cheap matches could do more harm in half an hour than he would be likely to be able to repair during a lifetime. The fact is, a fire will burn a very small area upon the pampas near the coast, where there is little for the flames to take hold upon, while here in the high grass, near the Cordillera, it may rage for two or three days, devastating and blackening the landscape.
Rather annoyed with the small man, I directed Barckhausen to ask him why he had lighted so many smokes. He replied that he had done so in order to recall his companions. As the man was, after the fashion of the pampa, our guest, there was nothing more to be said on the matter, but had I foreseen how much trouble his mania for raising smokes was yet to cause us, I should probably have remonstrated with him.
That evening, as we rode into Rosy Camp, we saw a number of flamingos upon the lagoon, and shot an upland goose. The following morning I woke up in the grey of the dawn to see a Cordillera wolf nosing among the ashes of our camp-fire. I shot it, to the great delight of the small man, from whom after breakfast we parted. We had not advanced a mile before the little demon was again sending up a smoke to heaven. Burbury, who met him afterwards, said he believed that he carried a cargo of nothing but matches in order to be able to indulge to the utmost his passion for destroying the country through which he happened to be passing.
On December 7 we arrived above the River de los Antiguos, and, as we were about to descend the barranca, saw two columns of smoke rising some two miles off. Two columns of smoke close together were our danger-signal, and meant "Something very wrong, come at once." I was morally certain that they were the work of the small man, whom we had nicknamed "the Snipe," especially as the smokes were lit at a distance from the position of Horsham Camp, and if anything serious had happened, it seemed most probable that the two men left in charge there would have lit their signal-fires on the hill close behind the camp, instead of riding to some distance for that purpose. However, there was nothing for it but to send Scrivenor back, with instructions to show a smoke upon the shore of the lake behind an island in our view if my presence were really required.
While he returned to Horsham Camp, Barckhausen and I rode on towards the cañadon of the River de los Antiguos.
Descent into Gorge of the River de los Antiguos—Rest-and-be-Thankful Camp—First huemul—Greed of condors—Aspect of Gorge—Tameness of guanaco—Join Van Plaaten's route—Stinging flies—Signal-smokes—De los Antiguos in flood—Difficulty of crossing—Attempt to swim over—Washed away—Loss of rifle and gun—Return to western bank—Cold night—Start next morning—Upper ford impassable—Scanty diet—Fording torrent—Long ride to Horsham Camp—Fire-blackened landscape—News of red puma.
Barckhausen and I continued along the south shore of the lake until we struck the River de los Antiguos, a small but rapid torrent flowing through a huge frowning gorge, between very steep barrancas. Farther to the west a second river, the River Jeinemeni, runs for some distance almost parallel with it and discharges itself into the lake some little distance beyond the mouth of the Antiguos. Between these two rivers lies a tableland, which I was anxious to visit. We, therefore, looked for a favourable place to descend into the valley of the River de los Antiguos, and presently discovered a spot where the cliffs were rather less perpendicular. The barranca, which was about one hundred and fifty feet in height, being composed of sliding sand and stones, covered with a high growth of bushes, presented a troublesome route for the horses. They had been tied together by their headstalls, the only way in which it was possible to drive them. It was now necessary to dismount and take them down singly. Two of them, Mula and Luna, refused to face the slope, and had to be urged on by persuasions from behind. When Mula at last consented to begin the descent, he lost his head and slid down the barranca, almost carrying Barckhausen, who was pulling at his cabresto from below, with him.
When we all arrived safely at the bottom, we found the bed of the river was formed of large boulders, and progress was consequently very slow. After a time we forded across, the water barely reaching to the horses' knees, but flowing so rapidly as to bring down good-sized tree-trunks with it. We made a camp in a bare place backed by a deep green forest. After our meal, which consisted of half an emergency ration each, a couple of two-ounce dumplings and some tea, we climbed the western barranca, and discovered an open space in the forest, where the grass rose to our middles, and we were greeted by the wet smell of earth, to which we had long been strangers on the dry stretches of the pampas. We called the spot Rest-and-be-thankful Camp, and at once moved the horses up to it, and on the way Fritz, who happened to be in an obstinate mood, lay down among the stones. Little did we think at the time how often we were destined to climb up and down that weary barranca.
A number of animals live in the Gorge of the River de los Antiguos. Quite close to the camp I found tracks of wolves, guanaco, huemul, a wild cat, and the smaller rodents. There was a little story to be read on the wet sand. A huemul had come down to drink the preceding evening, and had been stalked by a puma and her cub. The puma must have been giving her offspring a lesson in killing. You could see that the puma had leaped upon the huemul from a neighbouring thicket, and there had been a struggle. The huemul, however, managed to dash back into the trees and finally made his escape upon the other side of the patch of forest.
After resting the night we rode up the Gorge, where we saw some guanaco and found an ostrich egg. We left the three extra horses tethered in the camp, and rode along the heights above the river. The going was bad all the time. Stones, cliffs and rifts hindered our advance, but presently we began to leave the bush behind and entered into a bare tract of iron-grey hillsides and black boulders. Here we stopped for a meal, for which we made an omelette of the ostrich egg, and ate it powdered with chocolate. We cooked it in a tin plate with a little mutton-fat, and uncommonly good we found it.
About two leagues farther on I shot a guanaco, but my desire was to see a huemul. Every new variety of game was of interest to us, not only from the zoological point of view, but also from that of the hungry man, for we had had a very long spell of guanaco meat. We spent the night in a spot where the horses fed on some fair grass.
We climbed the highest eminence at dawn and looked out for a smoke behind the island, but seeing none we pushed on. I was riding far ahead along the tableland above the river valley when I saw a huemul. It sprang out from some rocks ahead of me. It was a young buck, and when he caught sight of me he stood at gaze. The huemul is one of the most beautiful deer in the world, although he only carries small spiked horns of no great size. His summer coat is of a rich reddish-brown, which, when examined closely, is found to be thickly mingled with white hairs. In shape huemules are rather strongly built, being about the size of fallow-deer. I have given a detailed account of the habits of the huemul, of which no other record exists, in a later chapter, so will say no more upon that subject here. I was most unwillingly obliged to shoot the buck, for we were in need of food. Leaving the meat, after tying a handkerchief above it to scare away the condors, we hastened back to fetch the extra horses. We had had scanty diet for some days, and the thought of a full meal put strength into us. We were not long in bringing up the remainder of our troop, but when returning we saw three condors drop suspiciously near the dead huemul. By the time we arrived there was hardly an ounce of meat left on the bones, and only the quarter, which we had hidden in the bushes, remained, even that being a good deal torn and mangled.
Such as it was, however, we made the best of it, and after cutting away the damaged parts, found enough for a meal. It turned out to be the driest, stringiest, worst meat I have ever for my sins been forced to eat.[20]
As night fell, the Gorge—it became the Gorge to us—assumed a more and more sinister aspect. Of all the scenes I had up to that time beheld in Patagonia, this was the most repellent and inhospitable. The little torrent (which was destined to play us such a trick), the high iron-grey bluffs and escarpments, the soaring condors, the scavenger caranchos, and the black shadows of the Cordillera, made up a picture that was both grand and menacing.
Next day I shot a guanaco. Very much easier work than it had been on the pampas. A guanaco would remain lying down until you were within a long shot, and one actually watched us and neighed while we discussed our porridge. Man had never, I fancy, molested them before.
We advanced for a good distance up the river over terribly bad ground, all boulders and steep cliffs, and then we attempted to ford to the other side. The two black horses, however, seemed to have conceived a horror of the river and could not be induced to cross. They simply made us very wet, and we had to go forward on foot. We were now within easy distance of the end of the Gorge, and had joined the route of Von Plaaten[21] from the south.
On December 10 I went out in the evening to shoot something for the pot. On the first ridge I came to I stalked and killed a big guanaco buck, putting a bullet into his lungs. Then I signalled to Barckhausen to come and help to cut him up. As I waited there in the fading light, wondering at the desolation of the place, a little huemul buck came bounding along and "paid the penalty," as the cricket reporters say. I had some trouble to keep off the condors while I went to some distance to call Barckhausen.
Altogether the Gorge was not an inviting spot with its hot marshy valleys and fat stinging flies. After sweating among the boulders in the lower ground, if we climbed the barranca, the chill wind from the Cordillera nipped our very bones.
As I sat writing my diary during those days, diabolical-looking insects with upturned tails used to crawl across the page.
My desire to penetrate farther at that time seemed likely to be fulfilled, as so far we had seen no warning smoke from the lake direction. The chief difficulties hindering our advance were the treacherous footing on the barrancas, which we were obliged to scale very frequently, and the trouble with the horses both on them and at the fords.
Finally I decided to leave Barckhausen with the horses and to walk on as long as food held out, for the boulders made riding impossible. But next morning, just as I had fixed up my kit preparatory to starting, a column of smoke began to arise somewhere in the direction of the lake. We fancied at first it was Scrivenor, who had come back to rejoin us, and we hastened up the cliff. But in that clear air distances are very deceptive, and the smoke, which from the depth of the Gorge had looked so near, turned out to be on the farther shore of Lake Buenos Aires. Then we perceived there were two fires throwing up their smoke in the morning sun—the "Come-at-once" signal.
We did not loiter, but in a quarter of an hour were climbing the barranca from our camp. The old game with the horses had to be gone through again. We made our way straight down the strip of tableland towards the lake, along the high sliding cliffs of the river's cañadon. It was a long ride, and as we went along the fact became obvious that the river had risen during the night and was still rising. The waters had grown earth-coloured and large trees were being hurtled down-stream.
The warm weather which we had been experiencing must have melted the snows which feed the torrents of the Cordillera. Rivers inside and in the neighbourhood of the Cordillera vary during the spring very much in volume, changing in a single day or night from a mere trickle of water to a torrent 100 yards in width. In the present instance the River de los Antiguos had begun to rise in the day while we were hunting. At length we saw a place where a big shelf of stone and shingle rising in the middle of the river divided it into two streams. To reach the bank nearest to this island of shingle it was necessary to climb down some two hundred feet of an uncommonly nasty slope. On the way the horses struck a bed of rolling stones and arrived very suddenly. The gut of the Gorge was choked with green forest and decaying vegetation; large dead trees, mostly trunks of antarctic beech, were jammed together, intersected by a dozen miniature torrents all sluicing down full of water since the melting of the snows.
Arrived at the river, my horse took the ford at once and went in straightly to his shoulders. The current was running like a mill-race—overstrong for us, but fortunately we had not plunged in too deeply, and so got back to the shore.
Had it not been for the two smokes, which we had arranged were not to be used save in the greatest extremity, I should have made a camp and waited to see if the river would fall. As things were, it seemed absolutely necessary to cross at once.
We now went a little up-stream, and I stripped off some of my clothes and waded down into the river. It was so cold that it took away all feeling from my feet. I had my precious rifle with me as well as a dear old shot-gun. The strip of water I was about to cross was quite narrow. I thought of leaving the guns behind me, but that would have meant another crossing of the river, which was so cold that it seemed to burn like fire.
I had not reached the middle when my left foot went into a hole, the current caught me, and the banks began to run backwards. As long as the water was deep I stuck to the two guns, but a little down-stream the river ran through boulders just awash, and among these I got rather knocked about. I dropped the shot-gun and clung to the Mauser, which was to us the more valuable of the two. Lower down the river was a shallow waterfall, studded with rocks and boulders. My knee caught between two rocks, and as I was afraid of having my leg broken, and had sustained rather a bad knock on the back of the head, I let the rifle go, and, with the help of my hands, got clear. I was washed down the fall into deeper water, where swimming was possible. The current carried me a yard down-stream for every inch I made across it, but in time I reached the end of the bank of shingle before mentioned.
After all, disappointment awaited me, for I found the second branch of the river, beyond the shingle bank, was running so furiously that, unless I had the help of a rope, crossing it would be too dangerous. Barckhausen could not follow me in any case, as he was unable to swim, so that eventually I was obliged to cross back again and rejoin him. On regaining the shore my plight was sufficiently miserable. I had kept on my shirt and jersey to save me from the stones, but of course they were soaking. It was six o'clock in the evening, the sun had lost its power, a cold wind was blowing, and I had nothing to pass the night in save some oilskins and my wet clothes; besides, I was rather badly cut about the head and knees.
I must explain that during my swim Barckhausen had succeeded in driving the horses into the river, and they were come to anchor on the shingle island in mid-stream. Our bedding was upon the back of one of them, and the river was still rising rapidly. We therefore decided to return to the camp, as being more sheltered. Barckhausen kindly lent me his shirt, as he had his vest, coat and great-coat, which were dry. We started once more to climb that weary two hundred feet of barranca, and were much beset by rolling stones and sliding sand. Scarcely had we reached the top when the horses, after standing for an hour and a half on their mid-stream island, took it into their heads to turn about and swim back, so we scrambled down our cliff-side again and made a camp amongst the sand and bushes. Here I saw a wild cat with young, the only one I met with in Patagonia.