We now reviewed our sleeping accommodation. The blankets were too wet to be of any service. Barckhausen luckily was in the habit of carrying a portion of his bedding upon his saddle, and this had escaped the water and was dry. I had a horse-rug and a small blanket. It came on a bone-wet night, the most miserable we had either of us spent.
Besides, I was very anxious about the possible condition of things at Horsham Camp, for the two smokes must have meant something serious, and yet we were unable to go to the help of our comrades. We made some thin porridge for supper and turned in. All night long the river continued to rise, we could hear it gulping and swallowing at the sand and shingle of the bank. I determined to try the higher ford, by which we had originally crossed, in the morning.
I find the following in my diary, written while the porridge was cooking:
"December 12.—Only a sportsman can realise my feelings. At one fell swoop both my guns, my old friends, gone! The more serious loss of the two is the Mauser. It has accompanied me upon my travels 10,000 miles, and was always to be relied on. And now to fancy it probably glimmering up through the deep waters of Buenos Aires Lake! Is there any use in saying more? When we get back to camp I shall have to fall back on the reserve Mauser, which has no back-sight, or I should say has a back-sight fastened on with a strip of raw hide. You arrange it before the shot, and when you have it balanced you loose off, and if the gun does not misfire you may hit something. How different to the rifle that is gone! And the shot-gun, which has also departed with the Mauser, was a gun with a history. Given to my uncle for gallant services in another part of the world—a Purdey double-hammerless 12-bore, I regarded it as an heirloom. Why did I ever bring it to Patagonia? Many a time have I, out of the shooting season, cuddled the stock and shot imaginary birds, and dreamed of the phalanx of geese bearing down on me in Scotland in the coming October! It is all over. His glittering locks "clutch the sand," or in fragments he shifts with the waters of the inhospitable torrent. Oh, my guns! my guns! Well, it was a congenial death to you, and I am glad to think the Mauser had killed a couple of Patagonian huemules before he came to his end. But, sentiment apart—and there is a great deal of it in this affair—the loss is very serious. True I have still at Horsham Camp four rifles and a shot-gun (two Colts, a Paradox, a 12-bore and the sick Mauser), but none of them are in the same class with the lost ones."
Before leaving the camp I went down again to the river brink to seek for wreckage. Nothing was to be seen save rock and stone, overturned trees and boulders. My regrets for the losses which had befallen us were, however, moderated by the reflection that I might well be thankful I was not personally keeping the two guns cold company in the bottom of the lake.
We were astir at four o'clock by moonlight, and started three-quarters of an hour later. To us, knocked about and dog-tired as we were, the going was difficult. The barrancas seemed endless. The river was now a yellow flood, crashing and rushing down the cañadon, bearing trees, bushes, and logs with its whirl and flurry. When we arrived at the upper ford it was only to find six feet of water there and a fall formed beyond it—quite impassable in fact.
Our position, in the face of this difficulty, was rather a serious one. We had food for three days, that is, porridge, and though "parritch is gran' food," it is not, alone, good to work very hard on. The snows were still melting in the hills, and, given a protracted period of warm weather, it might be days before the river would allow of our passing through it. I lit a signal-fire on the hills in the hope that my party at Horsham Camp would reply.
It was possible that our small Argentine friend had again been lost "running ostriches" and had again lit up half the countryside to call his companions' attention to that important fact. The only weapon left us was a broken Colt and the cartridges in it. But apart from our own position was the far more serious fact that our companions were signalling to us to "Come at once—something wrong."
All the day through we patrolled the river banks, riding up and down searching for a ford. About six in the evening we found a place where an island broke the force of the torrent, and we fancied the water was falling.
The river everywhere was shut in by high cliffs. At the foot of the cliff we descended the ground was so soft that the horses sank, and we had to haul them through. When we came down to the level of the river, it appeared very different, viewed close at hand, to the encouraging idea we had formed, even through the telescope, from the cliffs above. But the set of the current was for once towards the farther bank, where it culminated in rapids.
I decided to leave the three worst horses, and we found them a fine stretch of grass and water at Roblé Camp. There we left them. They fell to feeding very quietly, and we rode away to the barranca we had so often surmounted that at length we had formed a road through its bushes.
The river appeared to be still rising, and was at that spot sixty yards or so broad. Large trees went whirling by us as we waded down on our horses into the outer plash of the stream. The horses took it bravely and slowly, tired as they were. We now found there were two islands, a smaller and a larger one, on our line of crossing, upon which we rested, and soon nothing remained save a twenty-foot stream between us and the farther bank.
Once my horse fell but recovered himself. Small blame to him, brave beast, he had been carrying fourteen stone all day. At last, after a strenuous moment, the water grew shallower, and we came out on the farther side into a belt of green scrub.
Luck never comes alone. As we rode on three huemules dashed out of a glade and I broke the neck of an old buck with the damaged Colt. I had taken a careful sight for a shoulder-shot! We cut up the huemul, skinned the head and rode on, and soon were out of the cañadon of the de los Antiguos River and riding through the bushes towards our companions. The moon, on her rising, found us still going, and the camp we made was a dozen miles from the river.
That night we put the horses in splendid grass, and in the false dawn of the next morning were in the saddle again. We had about fifty miles to cover before reaching Horsham Camp, and never in my life have I so regretted my weight as on that day. About noon, as we were crossing a white dry lake-bed, a column of smoke went up on Fenix Ford; our comrades were then hurrying to us as we were to them. We answered at once, and a couple of hours later perceived two horsemen on a distant rise. Two! Nothing wrong in camp then! Hurrah! They turned out to be Scrivenor and Burbury.
At last the vega, two miles out of Horsham Camp, began. I had ridden so much off my horse that the cinch would not hold him. An awful wind arose and the country round—burned by those miserable Santa Cruz people—sent up dust in clouds and blinded us. At last the green tents came in sight, one of which held, I knew, a reindeer sleeping-bag, wherein was to be found warmth and sleep.
When we met my first question was, of course, to ask as to who might be the perpetrator of the two fires we had seen upon the previous day, and which were still burning.
"As to those," said Burbury, "they must have been lighted by the little man whom you entertained at the Fenix. He came into our camp after he left you, as also did his companions. We knew that you would wonder who had lit the smokes. When we saw yours, we at once came to meet you." As we rode along towards our base camp we passed through acres of fire-blackened land and cursed the small man (his name is still a mystery to us) by bell, book, and candle. I had carefully informed him that two fires was our "Come-at-once" signal, and can only suppose that the irresponsible little creature had forgotten. After all, our resentment against the author of our misfortunes was not uncalled for. He had given Scrivenor a fifty-mile ride, had been the direct cause of our losing two guns, had made us abandon three horses, and had given Barckhausen and myself eighty or ninety miles of extra marches, besides compelling us to cross the River de los Antiguos when in flood. We had also to thank him for our miserable night upon the shores of the river. Against all this he had left us a lame hound which we feared could travel no farther.
His companions had in my absence visited our camp and had conversed with Burbury. This conversation, however, left us a much more valuable legacy. One of these men, an Austrian, had informed Burbury that the Indians had told him of a puma which lived farther to the south among the foothills of the Cordillera, and which differed in some essential respects from the grey puma of the plains. He described it as being "of a reddish colour, more fierce than the silver puma, and much smaller!" This was the first time I heard of the animal now named Felis concolor pearsoni, of which I afterwards was fortunate enough to obtain a skin.
When we arrived in camp, which we did late upon that afternoon, we ourselves as well as our horses were pretty well tired out, but a couple of days in the tent, a tin of cocoa, and some ointment for the cuts received from the rocks in the river, soon reinvigorated us, and we were ready to start for the River de los Antiguos, the scene of our petty disasters, once more.
Second trip to De los Antiguos River—Pass Rosy Camp—Fenix flood gone down—Wounded guanaco takes to water—Mauser and shot-gun retrieved—Losing and seeking in Patagonia—Recover horses at Rest-and-be-Thankful Camp—Visit to River Jeinemeni—Trained horse for hunting—Shooting guanaco—Condors—Cañadon of Jeinemeni—Huemul hunting—Ostriches and their habits—Return to Horsham Camp—Night in camp.
On December 16, the interval having been taken out by me in sleeping off my chill and fatigue, Scrivenor, Jones and I made a start to retrieve the horses abandoned in the Los Antiguos cañadon by Barckhausen and myself. We each took a horse and a spare animal which carried the tent, for the weather was breaking to the westward. It was our intention to ride the fifty miles back on the horses which we had left behind in the Gorge.
On arriving at the Fenix we were delighted to find that its waters had fallen considerably, and that the pebbly bank in mid-stream, at the ford by Rosy Camp, was once more visible. Almost upon our old camping-ground we found, as we rode over the sand-hills by the lake, a pair of guanaco feeding. Jones dismounted and had a couple of shots, neither of which took effect. The animals had, however, not perceived Scrivenor and myself, and came past us upon the shores of the lake, and here Jones and I ran down and met the female, killing her after a long chase, which ended by her trying to swim out into the lake.
Upon the evening of the second day we saw again the ill-fated River de los Antiguos, and striking south we made a camp, as nearly as I could judge, opposite to where I had spent the night shivering in oilskins. Of course, at starting, the question had been mooted: Might we not, provided the river had fallen sufficiently, find the lost guns, and at any rate that treasure, the Mauser?
The probabilities were, of course, very much against such good fortune, and it was almost certain, that even did we find either of them, it would be useless after being knocked about by the violent handling of the river.
Immediately we arrived at the Gorge of the de los Antiguos, Jones and I rode down to the water's edge. I had small hope of success as regarded retrieving the guns, but the water had fallen as quickly as it had risen. We soon came upon my tracks going down to the stream, made during my last visit. We then rode along the bank. Trees, sand and débris filled the river-bed, and I had reached a spot some hundred yards below the place where I had been beached on the shingle island, and Jones was still engaged in searching another channel, when I saw something brown upon a sandbank.
There, half in and half out of the water, lay the Mauser, caked with rust, choked with sand and pebbles, but whole, unbent, though the stock was pitted with the battering of many stones. I picked it up, and there seemed but little hope of its ever becoming serviceable again. However, the sights, by a miracle, were intact, save the half of the bead of the foresight. After this we resumed our search, hoping with luck to come upon the shot-gun, and presently we discovered that also, lying half-buried among the wreckage at the lip of the flood. Being in a case, it was practically undamaged. We carried the two in triumph to the camp. Upon examination the Mauser bolt was found to be fixed and immovable, and we feared it would never fire again. For tools we had only an axe and a weak pocket-knife, but with the help of these two we took the Mauser to pieces, cleaned it, and fixed it together again, to find, however, that it would not stay on cock. As soon as we shut the bolt, the rifle went off. We examined it, but could discover nothing broken or bent, and, night falling, we went to bed.
I was awakened by Jones with the welcome news that breakfast was ready, and that he had got up early and been at work upon the Mauser, which he said had haunted his dreams. It was, he declared, as good as ever, and this proved to be the case. The trigger had been slightly bent, and a small stone lodged in the mechanism had been overlooked in the bad light of the previous evening. Altogether the affair stands out as one gigantic piece of luck.
It was not now at all a presentable weapon. It was, indeed, an object any gunmaker would have shied at, but it started business again by taking a particular stone out of the neighbouring cliff with all its old accuracy. To celebrate the event we made a plum duff of flour, which we ate with a tin of Swiss milk. Afterwards we made quite a bag of pigeons (Columba maculosa), which frequented the scrub of the river in great numbers.
Patagonia is a land so far from shops that one must not lose anything, and if you do lose anything, it is strange how persistent one becomes in looking for it. Scrivenor once rode twenty-five miles for a pipe; I have spent half a weary day following my old tracks for a similar purpose. I think the only article lost upon the expedition, and left lost, was Barker's large knife, and we had ridden fifty miles the day he dropped it. Jones lost a pair of pipes one day galloping, and after four days searching—at odd times—found them both again! Burbury lost a knife at the Fenix River—but I might go on multiplying instances for ever.
Well, now that we had found the guns, remained the horses, and after these we started next morning, moving our small camp up to where they had been abandoned.
I remember that day, for I was riding the roughest horse in all our troop, a stout little Zaino, which shook and vibrated like a miniature torpedo-boat. At length we came to the high barranca above the river, down which Mula had fallen and nearly immolated poor Barckhausen. We human beings toboganned down—the measured angle being 38°—and the horses slid down upon their haunches. Part of the cliff accompanied us in our descent. Then followed that nasty boulder-strewn piece of journeying I have before described, until at length we crossed the river and rode in among the trees towards Rest-and-be-thankful Camp.
That was one of the most picturesque camps which fell to our lot in Patagonia. The grass there, though coarse, was very good; deep green scrub and incensio bushes bounded it on three sides, the barranca leading up to the tableland being on the fourth. As we were riding through the trees we discovered the three horses, led by Fritz the Zaino, descending the barrancas to water. Truly our snakes were standing upright, as the Zulus say. Of course, immediately the horses under General Fritz perceived us, they stood still. Before that they were coming down the steep side of the cliff with the grace and swing of wild things, now they at once pretended that it was a very difficult business. We caught them, and found them to be in excellent condition, glossy, bright-eyed and fat. We at once put them upon sogas, lest their love of liberty might have been increased by the week-end they had spent alone. They were evidently in the habit of drinking each evening and feeding in the rich grass of the Gorge, and in the morning ascending to the tableland and enjoying themselves there.
After settling the camp, Jones and I saddled up Luna and General Fritz and went up to look for a guanaco. We found that the fire lit by Barckhausen and myself had burned over a largish area and driven the game backwards into the higher basaltic hills. Among these, and upon the western river, the Jeinemeni, we had a most lovely evening. Fresh horses, keen air, a soft wind out of the west, and the most glorious of views—the lake, placid for once, in its gigantic setting of peaked and pinnacled Cordillera, the tint of yellow marshes in the lowland, and the whole background of the picture painted with mist and distance in a dozen shades of dusky and far-off blue.
In the course of that day's wanderings we first reached the Jeinemeni, the more westerly river, which shut in the farther side of the tableland. The ravine through which it flowed down to the lake was magnificent, a wonderful vista of broken white cliffs. The conformation of its cañadon was very different to that of the de los Antiguos. Seen from a distance the valley appeared almost treeless, and upon its west bank rose the lower hills of the Cordillera into needles and peaks of red rock and virgin snow. The plateau between the rivers we found to be an excellent game country. Upon a fast horse the ground was good enough, though rather too broken to admit of "running" young guanaco, one of the finest and most exhilarating pastimes that I have ever enjoyed.
There is an element in Patagonian hunting quite unique: so much depends upon your horse. There were but two in all our forty-seven which could be trusted to stand and not gallop off when we fired. These two I trained myself on the way up from Trelew to Colohuapi, and they were a great ease and comfort to me. But to go shooting on a wild horse, then probably to find your game in a bushless country, where you are quite unable to shoot because you cannot tie up your mount, is a most disappointing affair. Also you have on many occasions to gallop down your game—if you hit it a little too far back, for instance. Wearier work than chasing a wounded guanaco afoot over the bald and endless ridges of the pampas, or up and down the steep unstable slides of a barranca, I do not know.
With my trained horse the Cruzado, and the Little Zaino, all that was necessary was just to drop to the ground—you could rein up in the middle of a fast canter and slip off—the horse would stand where you left him until you came for him again. There were others, of course, who, if you loosed the cabresto, were off to camp at a gallop, and where quickness is so important, they made sport a little of a penance.
But to return to our first visit to the Jeinemeni. In the cañadon we came upon a guanaco, and I stalked him. The bullet took effect, and the poor beast plunged into the abyss below. We followed him down a few hundred feet, but finding the way beset with loose stones, and, consequently, on the raw bare cliff, rather dangerous, we returned with much toil to our horses. It had taken us one and three-quarter hours to climb five hundred feet.
"Any horse, even that old Fritz, is better than a man's own legs," said Jones feelingly. Arrived in time—the fulness of time—at the top of the cliff, we sat down and rested. As we were doing so Jones perceived a cloud of dust uprising in the valley and drew my attention to it. It was coming towards us, but we were quite unable at that distance to make out the cause of it. We marked the place and I took a couple of bearings, and in the early dark we rode back into camp.
The next morning we sogaed up the horses and set out.
We wanted some meat, having only a little left of the last guanaco. We saw a number of guanacos on the hills and one half-grown one, which we attempted to gallop, but had to desist, as the ground was too false for the horses, and the basalt rocks and hills told in the guanaco's favour. At length, quite near the spot where I had shot one on the previous evening, we found a big old buck standing alone, and we speedily made a plan of campaign. I rode round and hid in the rocks far above him. Scrivenor tried stalking him and Jones headed him off from the north.
He went towards Jones, who sent a bullet through his heart at good range.
Immediately on our killing, the condors, caranchos, and chimangos began to gather and almost to drop upon the meat in our presence. I have before remarked on the number of these uncanny birds which haunted the Gorge. They were huge, black, ragged, bald, wrinkled, and offensive in odour, incarnations of lust and evil. The horrible flesh-colour of the bare skin on head and neck was glassy and livid. And how wonderful was their instinct! You shot your game, and within a few minutes a condor appeared far away in the heavens; then another and another! Perhaps they had some signal bidding to the feast.
Having cut up the guanaco, we descended into the cañadon of the Jeinemeni, where we had on the previous evening seen the rising dust—which meant the movement of living things. At first it was one of the nastiest of horseback climbs, all loose stones, and sand and sandstone chippings. The gorge below us was a chessboard of small-looking round folds set in the bases of the higher hills and hummocks. Among these were many boulders, with two or three deep black waterholes, eye-shaped; and, of course, there were condors. We arrived at the place where we had perceived the cloud of dust. A large herd of guanaco had passed at the gallop, as was evident from the tracks.
We rode on to the gorge of the Jeinemeni and made our camp by a little pool. Here we had a maté by the fire and gave our horses grass. Then came our climb up the ragged cliffs by which we had descended. They were very high, rising fold on fold, set as always with loose stones and shifting sand, a needle or two of black rock sticking out gauntly from their steep faces.
The next day Jones and I went hunting. We desired to secure a few heads and skins of the huemul and we determined to devote a day to that purpose. I will describe that excursion at full length, as it was one typical of Patagonian sport.
Of course we rode. You ride everywhere in Patagonia. I rode Luna, and Jones one of the Zainos—Fritz the younger, a very rough horse.
When we started a light rain was falling and the summits of the Cordillera were purple with threatening cloud. The rain gave the mountain wind the softness which the pampero lacks. We quickly crossed the lower hills and saw some guanacos in the valleys. We did not shoot any but rode on upwards until we came to the high ground, where bushes of maté negra and black fragments of basalt made a desolate picture with the low clouds rolling over the wet hills. Presently a cloud enveloped us and we took shelter beneath a rock. It looked as if we were in for a wet day, but to our delight, after an hour of waiting the wind blew away the clouds and showed the pale blue sky beyond, the weather turned colder and set in fine. We jumped on our horses and jogged on until the high ground was reached. Here we dismounted and spied the country with the telescope. We had come to the conclusion that nothing was in sight when, moving a little higher, I saw an ostrich in a marsh not more than two hundred yards away. The bird had not perceived us, and fortunately the ground was favourable for stalking. Under cover of a hummock, we advanced to within about seventy yards, when I shot the bird. As always happens, on receiving the shot it ran thirty yards forward and fell.
During the whole of our travels we observed but one kind of rhea (Rhea darwini). The remarks that Darwin makes concerning the habits of this bird have little to be added to them. The male bird, which hatches out the young, will, when approached, feign to be wounded in order to draw off the intruder from the nest of the chicks. I have never seen more than nineteen chicks with a single ostrich at any period within a month or two of the hatching, but I was informed by the Gauchos that this number is not an outside limit. When started, Rhea darwini does not usually open his wings, as does the Rhea americana. This fact has been noticed by Darwin. On one occasion, shortly after leaving Trelew, we chased an ostrich, which, having run a couple of hundred yards, opened its wings. We did not, however, secure the bird.
Only when with young will the ostrich, on starting, expand the wings, but, as I have said, this is a ruse; yet I have seen them proceed for a short distance with wings full open at times when hard pressed. In the present instance we cut up our ostrich, taking the stomach, which, cooked as an asado, or roast, is esteemed a luxury by the Gauchos. The stomach was full of the grass of the marsh. Up to the end of December we found eggs. When fresh they were of a transparent and pale green, which after some days merged into a pallid white.
While we were yet engaged in cutting up the bird, the neck-skin of which came in very usefully as a tobacco-pouch, we paused in the work and took a look round with the telescope. On the heights above us, two brown objects were to be descried, which on examination proved to be huemules. They had evidently seen us, and their curiosity had been excited by our movements. Hesitatingly they began to descend the hillside towards us. We cut some antics and so decoyed the unlucky animals within range. After killing them, we took the skins of both, as there is no example of this deer in summer coat in any of our British collections. They were still shedding their winter coat.
After riding on, our next spy showed us a young huemul buck beneath us, but as I had already secured a specimen I was only too glad to let him go in peace.
I am sorry that I cannot give my readers any interesting story of huemul-shooting; that will be reserved for the pen of some future traveller, who will find the animal wild, because used to man and his ways. As for our experience of them, the interest turns rather on their confidingness and their behaviour towards man as an unknown entity.
We were riding home, my desire to shoot huemul completely evaporated, when we perceived among the basalt fragments above us the black face of a really magnificent buck. In approaching him I purposely gave him the wind. He had not seen us, but immediately on getting our wind dashed away to a short distance. On my showing myself, he stood quite still, snorted twice or thrice, and was just bounding off when the crack of the Mauser cut short his career.
There were by this time thirty or forty condors already gathered upon the carcases of the two we had previously slain. Indeed in no part of Patagonia did we see such numbers of Sarcorhamphus gryphus as among these hills. I understand that there is in Paris a considerable demand for the feathers of the condor. Here is the place to find them. On our homeward way we saw two huemul does and a pricket. They stayed and stared at us as we rode down the lower levels. When nearing camp a couple of guanacos started over a cliff within ten yards of us, and descended the sheer hillside, giving me an excellent opportunity of observing their extraordinary movements. All the huemules we had shot were so lean as to be practically useless for the pot, so when later on we came in sight of a herd of guanaco, and Jones asked me if he might have a shot, I said yes. He picked out one and bowled it over at three hundred paces with my Mauser. He was very delighted with his success, and said that the Mauser was better than any of the guns in Chubut.
On the day after, the river, upon which we had been keeping a very careful watch, again began to rise. So we packed up and camped that night in the end of the cañadon near the spot where I had shot my first huemul. Although we hunted during the afternoon we saw nothing, but on the following day, when starting for our ride, we sighted three huemules, two does and a young buck, in the scrub of a stream which enters the lake some miles to the east of the River de los Antiguos. In the evening of that day, after fording the River Fenix, and about eight miles out of Horsham Camp, a huemul buck dashed across about a couple of hundred yards ahead of us, and I, taking a very hasty aim, was fortunate enough to bring him to the ground. We had difficulty for a few moments in finding him, as he had gone head over heels into some scrub in a fissure of the hillside.
During this hunting trip, which I have described, we neither desired nor endeavoured to make a large bag; in fact, I think that one could very easily over that ground shoot ten huemules and an indefinite number of guanaco in one day, but such a proceeding would be little short of a crime. Very different indeed were my experiences after wild cattle, which I followed steadily at a later date of the expedition, for eleven days before I had any chance of a shot.
Another good hour of the day during our expedition was that when, pretty tired, one rode into camp, and saw the little green tent pitched among the tussocks, the horses scattered round, the big black pot upon the fire. You drank your maté, smoked a pipe while the black pot boiled, and you talked over the day's doings. And so on until dark began to fall, and in the night you could hear the sounds of the open, the rush of some river, the moaning of wind across the plain or through the forests—when near the Cordillera—perhaps the cries of wildfowl, or the whistle of the Chiloe widgeon as the shadows closed down. Then came preparations for the morrow—the beans were cut, the meat put on, the fire raked up about to-morrow's breakfast; and presently you turned in, the shadows waxed and waned, and when you woke the stars were paling in the western sky.
Christmas Day at Horsham Camp—Horse races—Menu of dinner—Leave Horsham Camp—Basalt plateaus—Large herds of guanacos—Sterile region—Birth of filly—Father of guanacos—Search for Indian trail—Pebble hills—Finding of trail—Filly's first march—Hunting—Mirages—Rain—Tent pleasures—River Olin—Meeting Mr. Waag's party—News from outer world—River Chico—Sierra Ventana—Indian toldo—Shepherd's hut—Houses, sheep and cattle—Night in huts—Antennæ of civilisation—La Gaviota—Santa Cruz.
"Horsham Camp, Christmas Day, 1900.—Here the weather is warm; large, soft and poisonous flies haunt the marsh in the camp. The horses neigh. An ostrich, the greatest delicacy of wild game in Patagonia, hangs with three legs of guanaco on the meat gallows." So runs my diary.
We spent a very humble Christmas up there at Little Horsham Camp, and made what mild cheer we might. In the morning of Christmas Day we had horse races, a mile and a half-mile. We rode the best horses in our respective troops. Barckhausen, however, rode the Azulejo, which he decorated with a towel and a red handkerchief, to our great amusement. We were almost ready for the second race when he came in from the first, having had a difference of opinion on the way with his steed, which thought it would be much nicer to rejoin his friends and companions feeding on the green marsh than to run races.
The surprise of the day was the winning of the races by the Little Zaino, as we christened him. He was very timid and wild to saddle and mount, but once up he proved himself a treasure. In appearance he was a comely enough little horse, plump and well picked up, and had been used occasionally to carry a cargo on the way to the lake.
The day before Christmas I wanted to go for a bathe, so I caught our little friend, and, liking his pace, let him stretch himself a little on the way back over the edge of the marsh. He stretched himself to such good purpose that he was ridden in the next day's races and won the three events, although he was carrying a stone and a half more than the others! Our course lay through a belt of thick bushes, but, barring these, was good enough. At any rate, it turned out excellent fun, and we all enjoyed our races.
The only one of us who did not get a prize was riding a horse which came to us with rather a bad name, and which, immediately the others started, dashed back to the troop.
During the afternoon we made up our cargoes ready for the morrow's start, after our Christmas dinner, of which I print the menu:
| LAGO BUENOS AIRES, 1900. CHRISTMAS DAY. | |
| At 5 o'clock P.M. | |
| Notice.—Come early to get a good helping. | |
| Menu. | |
| Common or Garden Duff à la Azulejo. Condiment au lait Suisse. | |
| GRAND DUFF à la H. Jones avec muscatelles. | |
| Bœuf. | |
| Ostrich à la Patagonie. (If you want it.) |
|
| Gigot de Guanaco. (Order beforehand.) |
|
| Cocao au lait} | Suisse. |
| Thé au lait} | |
| Vieux Cognac avec vulcanite. | |
| Plug Tobacco. | |
| God Save the Queen. | |
In the evening after dinner we indulged in some shooting matches—with the damaged Colt—which Barckhausen won.
On December 26 we bade good-bye to Horsham Camp. After a long interval the cargueros were once more loaded up, and the whole troop tailed away to the eastward. Is any sight sadder than a deserted camp? The dead or dying camp-fire, the broken remains of food surprised by the sun, the litter, the bare rubbed grass, and the occasional fox. We left some tins of corned beef behind us, as I hoped to travel very fast to Santa Cruz. That day we made anything from eight to ten leagues, and camped in Seven Ostriches cañadon, the spot that Barckhausen and I had previously visited and named after the birds we saw there.
The following day (27th) we made a good march and encamped by a lagoon, upon which I shot two yellow-billed teal, and Jones and Burbury four ducks, which were plucked before we came into camp. On the morning after a very difficult part of our journey commenced. All day we travelled over a pampa covered with basaltic fragments and thorny bushes; some of these bushes bore a red tulip-like flower.
Enormous numbers of guanaco haunt these grim plateaus. Jones and I galloped a half-grown one, and killed it with the help of a dog. The going was extremely bad, our path lying through gorges and up steep-sided ridges, rough with basaltic fragments and powdered with sharp clinkers of lava. It is not easy to describe the changing fortunes of such a day. For instance, we were turned again and again by gullies and rifts in the hollows of the hills, and, what with shifting cargoes on these cruel and almost perpendicular slopes, the difficulty of keeping the troop of horses straight and of taking care of one's own limbs, was extreme. Literally thousands of guanaco appeared on the summits of the surrounding barren ridges, and fled galloping down the rock-faces with jerking necks and flying hoofs. Sometimes the old bucks would come and look at us, running towards us and neighing and laughing, and then ducking their long necks and cantering off. What they lived on in so sterile a region still remains a mystery to me.
I saw one condor poised high.
Our Indian baqueano, Como No, had told us that we must strike "between two hills." Barckhausen asserted that he had indicated to him a couple of round peaks on the summit or rather forming the culminating-points of this high basalt range. We made our way up these monstrous steps, as it were, of rock, steering by the compass, and after some twenty miles of travelling found ourselves upon a bare black highland over which the wind was tearing in heavy gusts. No wood, no water, no grass. I was afraid we should have to remain there for the night, and also afraid that Mrs. Trelew, the madrina of the Trelew troop, whose udder was big, might drop her foal in that sterile spot. Another danger which menaced us, was that the horses would certainly become lame if they had to travel far over these broken rocks. We therefore rode on perhaps another fourteen miles, and the dark was falling when we found a camp in a cañadon—a bad approach strewn with basalt fragments, but a fair camp at the end with a little stream and good grass.
On December 29 the Trelew mare dropped her foal, a little disproportionately-boned, huge-jointed alazan filly. During the day Scrivenor and I explored the cañadon and I shot a guanaco and an ostrich. The guanaco was a very father of guanacos, old, scarred, black-faced and war-worn. His meat was worse than that of a he-goat.
To all sides of us stretched the limitless expanses of basalt, and our outlook was not a cheerful one. An examination of the horses' hoofs convinced us that another day's marching such as the last would work great havoc amongst them. I did not know how far this wilderness of basalt might extend, so on December 30 set out with Burbury to attempt to find its boundary.
Our intention had been to strike the Indian trail under the Cordillera and follow it until we reached the neighbourhood of the River Belgrano, when we would keep the course of that river to its junction with the River Chico, which in its turn would lead us down to the settlement of Santa Cruz, our destination. When I left the Cordillera I had made up my mind to return to them farther south at the Lake Argentino near lat. 50°. To cover a large area of country, and at the same time to collect specimens, is a physical impossibility. I had therefore decided to leave Scrivenor at Santa Cruz to collect fossils in that vicinity, while I myself again crossed the continent to the Andes, some part of which I hoped to explore, and my dreams were not uninfluenced by the stories of the red puma, of the existence of which, however, Scrivenor was very dubious.
Such, then, were the reasons that were taking us to the eastern coast, and my desire was to arrive there as soon as possible in order to have plenty of time to carry out my projects before winter made travelling of any kind impossible. Once we reached the River Belgrano our difficulties would be over, that we knew; but in order to attain this end we had to pass through a region somewhat waterless and stony lying on the verge of the basalt wilderness, into which we had strayed.
To get away from this basalt region was, of course, our first desire. Could we but find the Indian trail, which we were sure must be at no great distance, and which stretches, leading one from camp to camp, all the way from Lake Buenos Aires to Punta Arenas, with a branch in the direction of Santa Cruz, our troubles would be at an end. Owing, however, to the lessening number of Indians, the track is now only clearly visible for half a mile at a time in the neighbourhood of fords and other difficult places.
To return to our search. Burbury and I had started early. The going at first was over basalt clinker, fearful for the horses' feet, but presently we came to a low round hillock of pebble—a hopeful sight, for I had been half afraid we might be deep in the basalt wilderness. Following on we discovered other pebbly hillocks, on one of which I found a single horse-track, stamped when the ground was soft some time previously. After a while, as we rounded a slope, we saw a bit of green camp. We were bearing a little west of south, and there we struck the full Indian trail—that wonderful trail, which runs league after league, worn by the footsteps of generations upon generations of Indians as they migrated up and down the length of the country with their women and children, their guanaco-skin tents and their few possessions.
The trail is much like a guanaco-track, or rather like several running side by side. So the Tehuelches leave their footmarks, which resemble those of the game they live by, and they leave little else to show to those who come after, that here hundreds of men have existed through the centuries, knowing such joys and sufferings as lie between birth and death, only a trodden line across the waste and a few burnt bushes by the wayside.
We rode back to the camp, and decided to try the little filly with a short march, as much delay was out of the question. The horses all appeared to be interested in the arrangement, and refused to be driven unless the filly led. This she did, making her first journey trotting beside her mother. We had to cross a ford, and Barckhausen brought the filly over gently by the ear, Mrs. Trelew objecting extremely to such treatment of her offspring. We are all very careful and tender over our loose-limbed baby. During the short march we saw many guanacos.
The duration of the expedition might be divided into periods: first, the biscuit period, when every one toasted biscuits, hard camp biscuits, shiny and of a great size; followed by the dumpling period. Now it was the damper period, which was the most appetising of them all.
On the last day of the year we managed seven leagues, and camped in a bare cañadon. New Year's Day we covered eight leagues of bare and arid steppes of pampa. At this time we had a great deal of hunting. A lame dog, left behind by our Argentine ostrich-hunter, turned out to be excellent for sport. We named him Chichi. We camped by a lagoon of muddy water with a thin strip of feed half encircling it, but the grass was rich with seed. Mirages haunted our marches through this desolate region. This chapter might be called "Through the Land of Distant Hills." There was a savage loneliness between those wide horizons that thrust itself upon you. One felt a mere atom, and the thought of finding oneself condemned to live there alone seemed too awful to face. The bare, round-headed hills looked old and bald, eternal winds (though not so strong as nearer to the lake) whistled sadly as before, and on all sides pampa pebbly and grassless, ridge on ridge, horizon on horizon, mirage on mirage.
Suddenly, during that night, the sky became black over the distant Cordillera and the rain began. Immediately we slung up the tents. Oh, those tents, what a comfort they were at the end of a weary march! We had no adequate poles and no bushes or pegs to hang them upon, but we got them up somehow and put the cargo round them. Then we crept inside and listened to the rain. The warm beds, the rugs, the candle and tobacco and books. It was homelike. And the dry shirt one could put on within that shelter, with the rain, rain outside! When you have slept out in all weathers you begin to understand the full luxury of a tent like ours, with its furs and warmth and a decent pipe out of the wind. It is a moving home. To be free of the weather, to let it rain if it wants to, to lie and listen to it, these are all thrilling pleasures, pleasures because of the contrast to the wet open camp where, in spite of the covered and sweating head and body, the pitiless rain trickles in pools into your bed. And the spell of reading at night inside the tent, the company of thoughts new and old of wise men, these are pleasures of which only the wanderer knows the true sweetness.
During the next day or two we continued to travel over the same waterless stony pampa; there were pigmy hillocks, many guanaco and a lagoon of wonderful shades of blue, also the wind ahead, and dust blowing back into our eyes. We crossed the River Olin and pushed on for the River Chico. One cold night as we sat round the fire some one suggested we should have an exhibition of our effects when we reached Santa Cruz. Beyond a broken cup or two, a bombilla, and a shattered kettle, we could produce little else. It was hinted that Barckhausen's trousers might figure in it, and I offered to contribute my old coat.
Before reaching the River Belgrano we came in sight of a troop of horses being driven across the pampa by a couple of Gauchos. At first sight we thought them a mirage. On inquiry I was told that my friend Señor Waag was in command, news at which I was naturally delighted. I had made Mr. Waag's acquaintance in Buenos Aires, and we had arranged to meet in Patagonia if possible. Mr. Waag was on the Argentine Boundary Commission, and has done more valuable geographical work in the Cordillera than any other man. Being told that he was only a couple of hours behind the troop, I galloped on to meet him, for I heard that his waggon had broken down, and so made sure of coming upon him. After a few hours going, I arrived at the camp of his assistants, where were two Italian engineers, and also some piratical-looking peones in red caps making bread in an oven dug into the ground. But Mr. Waag himself was not there, having gone off the track to camp in a cañadon. I was greatly disappointed, for I had looked forward to this meeting.