Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

On page 168, "Cocao" should possibly be "Cacao."

On page 210, "zipp" should possibly be "zip."

On page 268, "baling" should possibly be "bailing."

On page 278, "1 o'clock P.M." should probably be "1 o'clock A.M."

THROUGH THE HEART
OF PATAGONIA

Tehuelche Hunting Scene
Photochromogravure, Lyons & London.

THROUGH THE HEART
OF PATAGONIA

BY
H. HESKETH PRICHARD
F.R.G.S., F.Z.S.

FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE; AUTHOR OF
"WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE: A JOURNEY
ACROSS AND ABOUT HAYTI"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS IN COLOUR AND BLACK AND WHITE BY
JOHN GUILLE MILLAIS, F.Z.S.
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1902

PRINTED IN ENGLAND

This Edition is for sale in the United
States of America only, and is
not to be imported into countries
signatory to the Berne Treaty

TO
C. ARTHUR PEARSON

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Patagonia is a country about which little is known to the world in general, books dealing with it being few and far between, while the aspect of that quaint tail of South America and its wild denizens has practically never before been pictorially brought under the eye of the public. The following pages have been written with the idea of familiarising my readers with the conditions of life in Patagonia, and of reproducing as strongly as possible the impressions we gathered during our journey through regions most interesting and varied, and, as regards a certain portion of them, hitherto unvisited and unexplored.

The original motive with which these travels were undertaken lay in a suggestion that a couple of years ago created a considerable stir amongst many besides scientific people, namely, that the prehistoric Mylodon might possibly still survive hidden in the depths of the forests of the Southern Andes. In a lecture delivered on June 21, 1900, before the Zoological Society, Professor E. Ray Lancaster, the Director of the British Museum of Natural History, said: "It is quite possible—I don't want to say more than that—that he (the Mylodon) still exists in some of the mountainous regions of Patagonia." Mr. Pearson, the proprietor of the Daily Express, most generously financed the Expedition in the interests of science, and entrusted me with the task of sifting all the evidence for or against the chances of survival obtainable on the spot.

During the whole time I spent in Patagonia I came upon no single scrap of evidence of any kind which would support the idea of the survival of the Mylodon. I hoped to have found the Indian legends of some interest in this connection, and I took the utmost pains to sift most thoroughly all stories and rumours that could by any means be supposed to refer to any unknown animal. Of this part of the subject I have given a full account elsewhere.

There then remained to us but one thing more to do, and that was to examine as far as we could—I will not say the forests of the Andes, for they are primeval forests, dense and heavily grown, and, moreover, cover hundreds of square miles of unexplored country—but the nature of these forests, so as to be able to come to some conclusion on the point under discussion. This we did, with the result that I personally became convinced—and my opinion was shared by my companions—that the Mylodon does not survive in the depths of the Andean forests. For there is a singular absence of animal life in the forests. The deeper we penetrated, the less we found. It is a well-known fact that, where the larger forms of animal life exist, a number of the lesser creatures are to be found co-existing with them, the conditions favouring the life of the former equally conducing to the welfare of the latter. Our observation of the forests therefore led us to conclude that no animal such as the Mylodon is at all likely to be existing among them. This is presumptive evidence, but it is strong, being based on deductions not drawn from a single instance but from general experience.

Still I would not offer my opinion as an ultimate answer to the problem. In addition to the regions visited by our Expedition, there are, as I have said, hundreds and hundreds of square miles about, and on both sides of the Andes, still unpenetrated by man. A large portion of this country is forested, and it would be presumptuous to say that in some hidden valley far beyond the present ken of man some prehistoric animal may not still exist. Patagonia is, however, not only vast, but so full of natural difficulties, that I believe the exhaustive penetration of its recesses will be the work not of one man or of one party of men, but the result of the slow progress of human advance into these regions.

I have recorded some of my observations upon the habits of Patagonian game, and have written somewhat fully upon that most interesting race, the Tehuelche Indians, but I have abstained from very lengthy appendices, for these would be of purely scientific interest.

It is my hope to be able to return to Patagonia and to go further into the many interesting subjects to which my attention was drawn. In any book that may result from this second journey, I look forward to including lists of various zoological, palæontological, and botanical collections, all the materials for which have not at the moment of writing arrived in England.

I would very cordially acknowledge the unfailing help which Dr. F. P. Moreno has accorded to me in every way, and would specially thank him for the photographs and maps he has allowed me to use in the following pages. My thanks are also due to Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., for his kind permission to reproduce his description of the Mylodon skin and other remains discovered at Consuelo Cove by Dr. Moreno; to Dr. Moreno for permitting me to reprint his account of that interesting discovery, and to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, F.R.S., for allowing me to make use of his description of Felis concolor pearsoni, the new sub-species of puma which we brought back. I further offer my acknowledgments to the Zoological Society, in whose "Proceedings" the two first-mentioned papers originally appeared.

My best thanks are also due to the Royal Geographical Society, who lent us instruments and gave us every aid in their power, and also to Dr. Rendle and Mr. James Britten, of the Botanical Department of the British Museum, for their kindness in preparing a botanical appendix.

I must record my indebtedness to Mr. John Guille Millais for the pains he took with his illustrations for this book. Before I started, my friend, Mr. Millais, drew me some sketches of huemul, guanaco, and other Patagonian animals. These I showed to the Tehuelches, and was once taken aback by being offered a commission to draw an Indian's dogs. He offered me a trained horse as payment. The praise of the "man who knows" is, after all, the great reward of art.

My thanks are also due to Mr. Edward Hawes, who kindly overlooked the proofs of this book to correct the spelling of the Camp-Spanish. And I would add the name of Mr. Frank A. Juckes, who saw to the outfitting of a medicine-chest.

I would not omit grateful mention of Señor Garcia Merou, the late Minister of Agriculture of the Argentine Republic, of the late Señor Rivadavia, the then Minister of Marine, to Señor Josué Moreno, to Messrs. Krabbé and Higgins; also to Mr. Ernest Cattle, Mr. Theobald, of Trelew, and to the many kind friends who live in the Argentine Republic.

I am indebted to my friend, Alfred James Jenkinson, Scholar of Hertford College, Oxford, for his kindness in preparing photographs for reproduction.

Most of all I owe a debt (a debt which runs yearly into compound interest) to my mother, who is accountable for anything that is worth while in this book, and who has collaborated in its production.

H. HESKETH PRICHARD.

THE PAMPAS (SHOWING FIRST DIVISION)

CHAPTER I
PATAGONIA

Physical features of Patagonia—The pampas—Climate—Discovery of Patagonia by Magellan—Description of the natives—Sir Francis Drake—Other travellers—Dr. Moreno—Coast-towns—Farms—Gauchos—Emptiness of interior—Route of expedition.

Patagonia forms the southern point or end of the South American continent and extends, roughly speaking, from about parallel 40° to the Straits of Magellan. Up to very recent times the geography of this southern portion of the New World has been in a nebulous condition. Vast tracts of the interior of Patagonia are as practically waste and empty to-day as they were in the long-past ages. It is certainly curious that this land should have been left so completely out of view when the great overspill of European humanity looked overseas in search of new homes where they might dwell and expand and find ample means of livelihood.

ONE OF OUR GAUCHOS

Perhaps the description of Patagonia given in the earlier part of the last century by Darwin had something to do with this omission. He spoke of it as a land having "the curse of sterility" upon it. He dwelt on its desolate appearance, its "dreary landscape," and it would seem that his undervaluing of the country of which, after all, he had but a short and curtailed experience, influenced the whole circle of the nations, with the result that only during the last thirty years or so have the peoples who desire to colonise been discovering how desirable and profitable is the great neglected land of the south.

Patagonia has grown to its present condition very rapidly. Not so long ago it was almost entirely given up to Indians and the countless herds of guanaco. Now there are farms upon the coast, and a few settlements, such as Gallegos with its 3000 inhabitants, and Sandy Point or Punta Arenas, still more populous with 11,000. Behind this narrow strip of sparsely inhabited coast-land the immense extent of the interior lies vacant.

Patagonia strikes the traveller as huge, elemental. Its natural conformation is stamped with these characteristics. From the River Negro on the north it tapers gradually to the Straits of Magellan on the south. Three great parallel divisions, running north and south, of plain, lake and mountain, each strongly marked, make up the face of the country. From the shores of the Atlantic the pampas rise in gently graduated terraces to the range of the Andes, while between them are strung a mighty network of lakes and lagoons, some connected by rivers, others by channels, many of which shift and alter under the influence of climate and other local causes. From the sea to the Sierra Nevada stretch the pampas, all tussocky grass, thorn, guanacos and mirages. On the western rim of the pampas the Cordillera stand against the sky, a tumult of mountains climbing upwards, their loftier gorges choked with glaciers, their hollows holding great lakes, ice-cold, ice-blue, and about their bases and their bastions thousands of square miles of shaggy forests, of which but the mere edges have yet been explored.

Within its 300,000 square miles of surface Patagonia offers the most extreme and abrupt contrasts. Flat pampa with hardly a visible undulation, mountains almost inaccessible in their steep escarpments. Side by side they lie, crossing many degrees of latitude, the contrast descending to the smallest particulars, mountain against plain, forest as opposed to thorn-scrub, rain against sun. The wind only is common to both more or less, though it is felt to a far greater degree upon the pampa. The contrast extends to the coasts. The eastern coast is a level treeless series of downs with few bays to offer shelter to shipping; the western coast, on the contrary, is grooved and notched with fjords, and the beetling headlands loom dark with forests.

AMONG THE ANDES

Roughly speaking, the country to the east of the Andes belongs to Argentina, that on the west to Chili: between them lies a long strip of disputed territory. From this great dividing-line rivers flow into both oceans, into the Atlantic and into the Pacific. On the eastern side of the range, where our travels took us, the rivers cut transversely across the continent to the Atlantic. Such are the Chubut, the Deseado, the southern Chico, which joins with the Santa Cruz in a wide estuary before reaching the ocean, and the Gallegos. At the mouth of each of these a settlement has sprung up.

On the western side the mountains approach more closely to the sea, some of the glaciers on the heights of the Andes actually overhanging the Pacific. The shore is there deeply indented with winding and intricate fjords, and dense dripping forests grow rankly in the humid climate, for the rainfall on the Chilian side of the Cordillera is extraordinarily heavy.

Patagonia is the home of big distances. The Boer used to boast that he could not see the smoke of his neighbour's chimney. On the Atlantic coastland of Patagonia it is often three, four or five days' ride to the nearest farm. The holdings are measured not by the acre or any analogous standard but by the square league. One farm alone in Tierra del Fuego is 400 square leagues in extent. The distances are at first appalling. A man accustomed to cities would here feel forlorn indeed. One stands face to face with the elemental. As you travel into the interior, Nature, with her large loose grasp, enfolds you. There is no possibility of being mentally propped up by one's fellow man. Empty leagues upon leagues surround you on every side, "the inverted bowl we call the sky" above.

Who, having once seen them, can forget the pampas? Evening, and the sun sloping over the edge of the plain like an angry eye, an inky-blue mirage half blotting it out, in the middle distance grass rolling like an ocean to the horizon, lean thorn, and a mighty roaring wind.

Out there in the heart of the country you seem to stand alone, with nothing nearer or more palpable than the wind, the fierce mirages and the limitless distances.

This wild land, ribbed and spined by one of the greatest mountain chains in the world, appears to have been the last habitation of the greater beasts of the older ages. It is now the last country of all to receive man, or rather its due share of human population.

It must not be forgotten that this is the nearest bulk of land to the Antarctic continent. It thrusts forth its vast mass far into southern waters, and beyond lie a covey of islands, small and large, upon the outermost of which is situated the famous Cape Horn.

On the Antarctic continent there is no life to speak of. In Patagonia, the nearest large land, the human race has been, through the centuries, represented by a few thousand nomad Indians, who in their long rovings followed certain well-known trails, from which only a very rare and venturesome individual thought of deviating. Far outside these paths dwelt, according to the native imagination, dangers and terrors unknown. You can follow the same trails to-day. Picture to yourself a dozen or twenty field-paths running side by side, obliterated by the fingers of the spring, and invisible under your feet, but strangely growing into distinctness half a mile ahead, waving onward towards the pampas. Such is the Indian trail.

People in England, one finds, are divided into two groups as to their opinions of the Patagonian climate. One group maintains that the country must be tropical, since it is included in the continent of South America; the other that it is an ice-bound region, for the good reason that it lies close to Tierra del Fuego. Oddly enough, both are in a degree justified, for the summers there are comparatively hot, but the severity of the winter, when snow lies deep on the country, and cutting winds blow down from the frozen heights during those months that bring to us our long English evenings, is undeniable.

Some day, no doubt, the land will lose its untamed aspect; it will become, as others are, moulded by the hand of man, and expectant of him. But now the great words of one whose eyes never rested on Andean loneliness marvellously describes it:

A land where no man comes nor hath come

Since the making of the world,

But ever the wind shrills.

The discovery of Patagonia dates from the early part of the year 1520, when that most intrepid of explorers, Ferdinand Magellan, forced his way doggedly down the east coast in the teeth of continuous storms. With his little fleet of five vessels he pushed on in the hope, which few if any of his companions shared, of finding a strait joining the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Upon what foundation he based this belief cannot now be certainly told, but the analogy of the Cape of Good Hope and rumours that obtained among the geographers and seafaring captains of the day, helped, no doubt, to confirm his own idea that some such outlet existed. As early as 1428, a map of the world, described by one Antonio Galvao as "most rare and excellent," showed the Straits of Magellan under the name of the "Dragon's Tail." This map, being carefully kept in the treasuries of Portugal, was, it may fairly be presumed, known to Magellan. Also there were two globes, made in Nuremberg shortly before he sailed, in which the channel between the great seas was clearly indicated.

For all that, the existence of a passage was far from being an established fact, but Magellan undauntedly continued his voyage down the Patagonian coast in search of it. He reached the harbour now known as San Julian on March 31, 1520, and there proposed to winter.

Almost at once the famous mutiny against his authority broke out, headed by those who desired to turn back, and who had no faith in the existence of the strait. One of the rebel captains was stabbed upon his own deck, a second executed ashore and a third marooned. The commander of the fourth ship, the Santiago, was a friend of Magellan's, who stood by his leader throughout the troubled time.

Weeks passed by, the winter settled down upon them with great severity, and yet no sign of native inhabitants had been perceived upon the shore. The Captain-General sent out an expedition to go thirty leagues into the interior, but the men returned with a disheartening account of the country, which they described as impassable, barren of the necessities of life, and, as far as their experience went, entirely devoid of inhabitants. But one day not long after, a native appeared upon the beach who cut antics and sang while he tossed sand upon his head. This man was successfully lured on board of Magellan's ship. He was dressed in skins, with clumsy boots of the same material, which last fact is supposed by some authorities to have led Magellan to call the people the Patagaos, or big feet. Pigafetta, an Italian who accompanied the exploring fleet, wrote an account of this Patagonian's appearance. "So tall was this man that we came up to the level of his waist-belt. He was well enough made, and had a broad face, painted red, with yellow circles round his eyes, and two heart-shaped spots on his cheeks." He further says the man was armed with a bow and arrows, the bow being short and thick and the arrows tipped with black and white flint heads. In another place Pigafetta asserts that the least of the Patagonians was taller than the tallest men in Castile.

A TEHUELCHE CACIQUE

Magellan treated the man with kindness, and soon other natives paid the Spaniards visits. With them they appear to have brought a couple of young guanacos, leashed together and led by a cord. They stated that they kept these animals as decoys for the wild herds, who on approaching the tethered guanacos fell an easy prey to the hunters lying in ambush close at hand.

The Patagonians are said to have eaten rats, caught on the ship, whole, without even removing the skins! However, they seem to have been peaceably disposed towards the Spaniards, until Magellan, being struck with their great height, resolved to take home some specimens of the race as curiosities for the Emperor, and consequently he entrapped two of the young men while on board his vessel. Seeing, however, that one of these Patagonians grieved for his wife, Magellan sent a party ashore with a couple of the natives to fetch the woman: but on the road one of the natives was wounded, the result being that the whole tribe took to flight after a slight skirmish with the Spaniards, one of whom died almost instantly after being struck by an arrow. From this event it would seem that the Patagonians of that period used poisoned arrows, as do the Onas of Tierra del Fuego to-day. These people do not employ vegetable poison, but leave their arrows in a putrid carcase until they become infected.

The next navigator to visit the shores of Patagonia was Sir Francis Drake in 1578. He also commanded a small squadron of five vessels, and, curiously enough, had to cope with a plot against his life when in the same harbour of Port San Julian. The story is well known. Mr. Thomas Doughty, the chief mutineer, was given his choice of death, or of marooning, or to be taken home for trial. He chose death, and was accordingly executed. Drake speaks of the natives as being no taller than some Englishmen.

LAKES AND THE DISTANT CORDILLERA (SHOWING SECOND DIVISION)

During the next hundred years various expeditions touched upon the coasts, some captained by Englishmen, such as Narborough, Byron, and Wallis. The two latter differ a good deal from each other with regard to the stature of the Patagonians. Byron mentions a chief 7 ft. high, and adds that few of the others were shorter. Wallis, on the other hand, gives an average of from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft., the tallest man measured by him being 6 ft. 7 in. At an earlier date than either of these a Jesuit named Falkner, being in Patagonia, mentions a cacique some inches over 7 ft.

In 1783 the traveller Viedma penetrated into the interior and discovered one link of the long chain of lakes lying under the Andes, which still bears his name. He gave the people an average of 6 ft. of stature. Some fifty years after this, H.M.S. Beagle, with Darwin on board, touched at many points of the coast, and short trips inland were undertaken. Darwin's journals give the first detailed account of the country. He agrees with Captain Fitzroy in describing the Patagonians as the tallest of all peoples.

During the years 1869-70, Captain George Chaworth Musters, of the Royal Navy, spent several months with the nomad Indians, traversing a great distance in their company, and becoming acquainted with many interesting facts concerning their habits and customs. Since the publication of his book in 1871 practically nothing exhaustive has been written about Southern Patagonia. One or two travellers have given short accounts of visits there, but the serious opening up of the country is due to the initiative and energy of Dr. Francisco P. Moreno, whose first excursion to Patagonia was made in 1873. In the following year he carried his investigations as far south as the River Santa Cruz. In 1875 he crossed from Buenos Aires to Lake Nahuel-Huapi and the Andean Cordillera, between parallels 39° 30´ and 42°. In 1876 he visited Chubut, and ascended the river Santa Cruz to its parent lake, which he proved was not that discovered by Viedma in 1782, but another lying farther south. To him is due the earliest suggestion of the great system of lakes which are situated in the longitudinal depression that runs parallel with the Cordillera.

Again, in 1879, Dr. Moreno crossed the country to the Cordillera on parallel 44°. Up to that time surveying in those regions was by no means exempt from danger, on account of the hostile attitude of the tribes. The amount of valuable work done by Dr. Moreno did not end with his personal expeditions. Each summer of late years the Argentine and Chilian Boundary Commissions have been surveying and opening up the country. First and last Dr. Moreno must always be regarded as the great geographer of Patagonia.

Among the gentlemen engaged on the boundary work I should like to mention the Norwegian Herr Hans P. Waag, who, on behalf of the Argentine Commission, penetrated from the Pacific coast up the river De las Heras to Lake Buenos Aires, and from thence overland to Trelew. It would be difficult to overpraise the work of this traveller.

Others, who as pioneers, travellers, scientific men, or surveyors, have taken a part in the good work of making the interior of Patagonia known to the world are Baron Nordenskjöld, Mr. Hatcher, and the members of the Chilian and Argentine Boundary Commissions. I think that in any such list as the above mention should be made of those who first settle in a district, and who realise in greater degree than even the pioneer explorers the difficulties and drawbacks of a new country, and undoubtedly their hardihood is of immense and enduring value. I would, therefore, include the name of the Waldron family, who have taken a large part in settling the southern districts of Patagonia and also in the colonising of Tierra del Fuego.

A PATAGONIAN ESTANCIA

With this brief reference to the more important journeys hitherto made in Southern Patagonia, it may be well to give here some description of the country as it appears to-day. There are upon the eastern coasts some settlements, as I have mentioned, and also the Welsh colonies of Trelew, Dawson, Gaimon, besides these a very small and recent one exists at Colohaupi, near Lake Musters, and another, The 16th October, far away in the Cordillera. This last is the single settlement of any size south of parallel 40° in the central interior.

A fringe of farms runs along the coast, and at the mouths of the rivers are situated little frontier towns, such as San Julian, Santa Cruz and Gallegos. Towards the south and along the shores of the Strait the fringe of farms has grown broader and the country is more generally settled, the Chilian town of Punta Arenas being an important port. The few vast straggling farms are given up chiefly to sheep-breeding, the main export being wool. But cattle and horses are also raised in large numbers, for the land has proved very suitable for pasturage. The farm buildings vary, of course, in many ways: some are large and comfortable homesteads, others mere squalid huts, but one and all are almost invariably roofed in with the universal galvanised iron.

The Welsh colonists have introduced a good strain to the growing population, and there are constant wholesome as well as vicious importations. In a country where shepherding of one sort or another is the chief industry, it is inevitable that some equivalent of the cowboy of the North must be developed. The Gaucho is the Patagonian cowboy, and he is manly and picturesque enough to be very interesting.

ARGENTINE GAUCHO

The Gauchos are picturesque both in their lives and in their appearance: a pair of moleskin trousers, long boots, and a handkerchief usually of a red pattern, a slouch hat of black felt, and a gaudy poncho serve them for apparel. The poncho, which is merely a rug with a hole in the middle for the head, makes a comfortable great-coat by day and a blanket by night.

A Gaucho may be sprung from any nation on earth. Even as the shores of Patagonia are washed by the farthest tides of ocean, so the same tides have borne to people her solitude a singular horde of massed nationalities. But it is the man born in the country of whatever stock who becomes the true Gaucho. Infancy finds him in the saddle, and he grows there. Other men can stick on a horse, but the Gaucho can ride. Living as they do, they form a class alone. On horseback they are more than men; on foot, I am half tempted to say, less, for they would rather ride fifty miles than walk two. They are farm-hands, shepherds, horse-breakers, occasionally good working vets, and when they prosper they buy waggons and go into the carrying trade; in fact, they form the foundation of Patagonian life.

The coast settlements are similar to such places all the world over: storekeepers, men who run wine-shops, traders, and the usual sort of folk who form the bulk of dwellers on the edge of civilisation.

In Patagonia it is not difficult to leave civilisation behind you, for between lat. 43° and 50° S. the interior, save for a very few pioneers and small tribes of wandering Tehuelche Indians, is at the present day unpeopled. When the line of the Cordillera is reached, you come to a region absolutely houseless, where no human inhabitant is to be found. Comparatively speaking, but little animal life flourishes under the unnumbered snow peaks, and in the unmeasured spaces of virgin forest, which cover those valleys and in many places cloak the mountains from base to shoulder. Hundreds of square miles of forest-land, gorges, open slopes, and terraced hollows lie lost in the vast embrace of the Patagonian Andes, on which the eye of man has never yet fallen.

HALF-BREED GAUCHO

Our travels took us over a great part of the country. Starting in September 1900, we zigzagged from Trelew by Bahia Camerones, to Lakes Colhué and Musters and along the River Senguerr to Lake Buenos Aires. After spending a time in the neighbourhood of that lake, we followed the Indian trail for some distance, then touching the Southern Chico we reached Santa Cruz on the east coast in January 1901. Leaving most of the expedition there, I returned with two companions by the course of the River Santa Cruz to the Cordillera, where I remained for some months, and in May I once more crossed the continent to Gallegos to take ship for Punta Arenas, the only port in Patagonia where a steamer calls regularly. I left Patagonia in June 1901. I compute that the whole distance covered by the journeyings of the expedition cannot have fallen short of 2000 miles.

Of the zoology of Patagonia little is known. Of the fauna and flora of the Cordillera of the southern central part it is not too much to say that practically nothing is known. Patagonia thus offers one of the most interesting fields in the world to the traveller and naturalist.

With these preliminary remarks, I will beg the reader to embark with me upon the Argentine National transport the Primero de Mayo, bound from the port of Buenos Aires for the south.

CHAPTER II
SOUTHWARD HO!

Leaving England—Start—Primero de Mayo—Port Belgrano—Welsh colonists—Story of Mafeking—First sight of Patagonia—Golfo Nuevo—Port Madryn—Landing—Trelew—A pocket Wales—Difficulties of early colonists—Other Welsh settlements—Older and younger generations—Welsh youths and Argentine maidens—Language difficulty will arrange itself—A plague of "lords"—Lord Reed—Trouble of following a lord—Itinerary—Travelling in Patagonia—Few men, many horses—Pack-horses—Start for Bahia Camerones—Foxes, ostriches, cavy—On the pampas—Guanaco—First guanaco—Maté—Dogs—Farms—Indians—Landscape—Mirages—Vast empty land—Cañadones—Estancia Lochiel—Seeking for puma—Killing guanacos—Many pumas killed during winter months—Gauchos.

We arrived at Buenos Aires early in September 1900, and on the 10th we embarked again on board the Primero de Mayo, one of the transports of the Argentine Government, by which my companions and myself had courteously been granted passages to Patagonia. The Primero de Mayo is a boat of 650 tons. We carried an extraordinary amount of deck cargo, for there were a good many passengers on board, as these transports offered the sole means existing at that time[1] of communication by sea with Argentine Patagonia.

We started about one o'clock. Lieutenant Jurgensen, the commandante, was good enough to invite us to dine on that night with the officers in the deck-house. He subsequently extended his invitation to cover the entire voyage. After dinner we went out upon the deck. It was starlight, and the Primero de Mayo was steaming down the brown estuary of the Plata.

First night out! What a penance it is! It is "good-bye" translated into heaviness of heart, and it knows for the time no future and no hope. You can only look back miserably and long for lost companionship and

All dear scenes to which the soul

Turns, as the lodestone seeks the pole.

It is a time when romance fades out, and nothing is left save the grey fact of recent partings and the misery of unaccustomed quarters.

First night out—when one renews acquaintance with the thin cold sheets and those extraordinary coverlets whose single habitat in the world appears to be upon the bunks of steamers. Our fellow passengers also seemed very much under the same influence of greyness. They had packed themselves round the saloon-table, and were keeping the stewards busy with orders.

There were not only a good many people, but peoples, on board; all nations in ragged ponchos with round fur caps or those pointed sombreros that one associates with pictures of elves in a wood. As wild-looking a crew were gathered for'ard as ever sailed Southward Ho! Germans, Danes, Poles, and heaven knows what other races besides; each little party formed laagers of their possessions and resented intrusion with volley-firing of oaths. There was one laager in which I found myself taking a particular interest; it was made up of two men, a woman, and her brood of children. Their only belongings appeared to consist of four ponchos, a maté pot and kettle, and a huge basket of cauliflowers. They crept in and entrenched themselves between the cauliflowers and the port bulwark in the waist of the ship. From there they did not move, but sat swaying their bodies during the entire voyage. Was Patagonia an Eldorado to which those people were journeying? On that dark night, as the ship slid groaning and creaking over the brown waters, the dark scene, lit by stray blurs of light, called up a memory of Leighton's picture, "The Sea shall give up its Dead."

Among the passengers was the Governor of Santa Cruz, Señor Don Matias McKinlay Tapiola, who speaks English very well. There were also one or two gentlemen interested in sheep-farming in Patagonia. Of these, Mr. Greenshields, whose estancia or farm we visited later, owned the credit of having broken new ground in colonising a part of the country some one hundred and fifty miles south of the Welsh settlement of Trelew. The earlier sheep-farms lay about Punta Arenas, eight degrees to the southward, and there the men of the south swore by the south, and much difference of opinion existed as to how sheep would flourish in the more northerly region chosen by Mr. Greenshields. But it seemed that his daring was likely to be richly repaid, and that many, when they heard of his success, would follow his example.

J. B. SCRIVENOR

At length it was bedtime, and we turned in with the comforting reflection that when we woke "first night out" would be over.

Next morning land had sunk from sight and there was a light ground-swell, but the Primero de Mayo was rolling heavily, a trick that Government transports possess and seem to regard in the light of a privilege all the world over. The evenings and the mornings followed each other in grey but serene regularity, till on the 12th we turned coastwards, heading for Puerto Belgrano, and ran between low, green, hummocky banks up a stretch of shallow, mud-coloured water to our anchorage. It was a reddish sunset with lightning playing continuously upon the horizon, and while we were at dinner a thunderstorm broke with heavy rain. That night we were permitted the privilege and amusement of choosing the morrow's menu. We chose a truly British repast; roast beef, jam-roll and plum-pudding figuring amongst the items. There are no employments too trifling to help one to pass the time on board a ship doing service as a coaster. As to the arrangements made for our well-being on the transport, the Minister of Marine had, I was informed, kindly given most generous orders with regard to our treatment.

In the morning we disembarked forty-two sailors for the four men-of-war lying at anchor in the bay. Then we sailed away again for the south with a warm sun upon the crowded planking and a cold wind blowing aft. It was at this time that I altered my original plans and decided on landing at Puerto Madryn, our next stopping-place, instead of at Santa Cruz, which lies some seven degrees of latitude farther to the south. Upon hearing that winter had not yet relaxed its grip on the country south, it became clear that the horses down there would be thin and in poor condition, with the spring sickness upon them, and therefore quite unfitted to start upon such a journey as lay before us. The new scheme also promised a saving of time, as the Primero de Mayo, owing to the necessity of calling at various little places on the way down to Santa Cruz, would be a good deal delayed; besides, the horses we required could probably be got together more quickly at Puerto Madryn.

We had a number of Welsh with us on the transport, who were on their way home to the Welsh settlements of Trelew, Gaiman and Rawson. In the evenings of the voyage it was their custom to forgather and sing psalms in Welsh, psalms the sound of which took one's memory back to the Scottish hills and the yearly ante-communion preachings in the open-air. The surrounding greyness aided the idea—grey sea, grey sky, grey weather.

By the way, on board we learnt a fact, or so we were assured it was, about the South African War, which is certainly not well known even among those who love the Boer. One night at table, one of the diners solemnly declared that at Mafeking the English ate the flesh of the Kaffirs and were thereby enabled to hold out for so long. He was not attempting to hoax us, he really believed the fable himself, poor fellow! I did not gather the gentleman's name.

Coming on deck on the morning of the 15th, we saw, drawn across the western sea-rim, a low brown line. Above it a sky of steel-blue gleamed coldly and below a wash of grey sea. This was our first view of Patagonia. All day we crept along the grim, quiet, solitary-looking cliff, until at last the Primero de Mayo was swallowed up in the vast embrace of the Golfo Nuevo. It was between evening and night when we approached our harbourage, Puerto Madryn. The half-lights were playing above it, and the afterglow of the sunset still shone feebly behind the land. We saw only raw cliff capped by dark verdure—the rim of the vast pampas which roll away in rising levels league upon league towards the Andes.

The sea was cold, the wind was cold, the land looked forlorn and a-cold. Presently from it a little boat put out containing a figure wrapped in a long military cloak. This was the sub-prefect, who thus welcomed us to these desolate shores, for Patagonia from the sea is a desolate prospect indeed. It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of the dismal aspect presented by Puerto Madryn upon that evening. Suffice it to say that the settlement consists of half a dozen houses and a flagstaff; the first crouch on the lip of the tide and the second shivers above on the bare pampa-rim.

There seals and divers haunt the sea, a few guanaco-herds live upon the coast-lands, and there, in inhospitable fashion, the little colony of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great primordial nature. In the evening lights the cliffs showed curiously pallid above a strip of dead sand and shingle, only the sky and the water seemed alive.

Next morning we hoped to get our baggage ashore and were moving early with that object in view. But the trend of public opinion in Puerto Madryn appears to be towards the conviction that there is no sort of reason for hurry under any circumstances. Hence the cargo disgorged itself slowly, and after interminable waiting we found our particular share of it would not be reached that night. It was, in fact, not till the afternoon of the second day that we achieved a partial recovery of our belongings from the holds and took the first consignment of it ashore. The morning had broken clear and fine, but mid-day brought a change. And by the time we had our boatload completed and rocketed away shorewards at the tail of the Primero de Mayo's steam-launch, a beam sea was flying in spray high over us.

There was an anxious moment when the launch slipped the towing-cable and the sailor in the bows flung a rope, which dropped short of the black wooden jetty, and we were swept some boat-lengths away by a big broken sea. To be swamped at the moment of landing!—the thought was too disastrous to be dwelt on; half our rifles and a box of instruments were on board. It cost us a long hour and a half of hard work before everything was safe ashore. And while we toiled a dozen seals came and stared at us with their doglike faces, and lazy, solemn eyes.

T. R. D. BURBURY

When all our property had been brought to land, luckily without mishaps of any kind, I left Scrivenor with our peones to bring up the heavy baggage and went on with Burbury to Trelew by the miniature train which plies to and fro between the Welsh colony and the coast. From Trelew a ten-days ride takes you beyond the farm of the last settler and into the waste places of the pampas.

Trelew is a new and pocket Wales, but very much Wales all the same. To prove the accuracy of this statement it is only necessary to say that the waggon which set us on the first leagues of our way belonged to a Jones, that another Jones accompanied the expedition to the Cordillera, that I negotiated with a third Jones for a supply of mutton to take with us for use on the first part of our journey, that I was introduced to several Williamses and did business with various Hugheses. And all this in a day and a half.

Trelew itself is a bare settlement of raw-looking houses and shanties, which has started up on the emptiness of the pampas. It cannot lay any claim to picturesqueness, and a pervading impression of being unfinished adds a suggestion of discomfort to the place. All round about the mud houses the pampa rolls away to the distances, harsh, stony, overgrown with little humpy bushes of thorn and dotted here and there with wheat-land. All through and over the settlement you are never out of hearing of three languages—English, Welsh and Spanish.

WELSH SETTLEMENT OF TRELEW

For thirty-five years the Welsh have lived in this little colony of their own founding. Exactly all the reasons which led them to forsake their far-off homes for Patagonia it would serve no purpose to set out in detail, but the root of the matter appears to have lain in the fact that they objected to the laws relating to the teaching of English in the schools; and, having the courage of their convictions, they came several thousand miles across the sea to escape the régime they disliked. At present, however, they seem to have slipped from the frying-pan into the fire, for they like still less the Argentine code, by which every man born in the Republic is subject to conscription and Sunday drilling.

Some time ago the colonists of Trelew appealed to England to intercede for them with the Argentine Government with a view to obtaining release from these disabilities. But as the Welsh had of their own free will deliberately placed themselves under the Government of the Republic, it was impossible for England to interfere, and this fact was notified to the suppliants, much to their disappointment and disgust. Even when I was there they remained rather sore over the matter, complaining that England had taken all the money subscribed for the expenses of the appeal and given them no redress in return.

The difficulties and hardships which must inevitably have beset the commencement of their settling in Patagonia, contrasted with their present condition, show the Welsh to be splendid people. The resolute spirit that drove them to emigrate across the seas has served to make their township there, though perhaps not particularly inviting to look at, a flourishing one in its quiet pastoral way. They have laid a railway, as has been said, to the coast at Puerto Madryn and established a telephone. Spanish and Welsh live here as neighbours. The Spaniard keeps the store while the Welshman farms, growing a certain amount of grain, but his chief business lies in breeding horses, cattle and sheep.

The Welshmen are not wanting in keen business quality. Any one who has tried to buy horses in Trelew will bear me out in this statement. The mere fact that a stranger has arrived in their colony, who wants to invest in horseflesh, awakens all their commercial instincts, and they are not at all behind the rest of the world in knowing how to form a combine for the purpose of plundering the Philistines. Quite right too. A man who can resist making a bargain over a horse whenever he gets the chance is, like "the good young man who died," over-perfect for this corrupt old world.

From their first settlement the Welsh have spread south through the coast-towns of Patagonia, and six weeks' journey from Trelew they have formed another settlement in the Cordilleras to the north-west which they have called the "16th October Colony." Thither waggons are always trekking, and waggon-drivers and others who return bring with them glowing and rosy descriptions of the young settlement of the interior. The adaptability of the Welsh to the peculiar needs of colonisation is very remarkable. They have certainly stepped into the "larger life" with success.

OUTFITTING IN A PATAGONIAN STORE

The influence of the new conditions of existence, so different from that of the Welsh peasant in his own country, is very noticeable in several ways. The older and the younger generation are unlike each other now, and will probably continue to become more so as time goes on. Physically the younger people are far better developed than their elders, red-faced, open-eyed, straight-backed boys in big felt hats, each with a bright-coloured handkerchief knotted round his neck and the guanaco-wool poncho hanging from his shoulders. They are very picturesque and look their best on horseback. In this matter of riding also there is a wide difference between the styles of the old and the young men. The latter, who are Patagonian born, seem to be part of their horses, but the elders, however excellent long practice has made them, never attain to the proficiency of their sons.

HUMPHREY JONES, JUN.

Although the colony of Trelew is to-day in a more or less flourishing condition and very Welsh, a grave danger menaces it. In fifty years time how will it be with the racial element? Will there be as many Welsh then as now? I fear not, and the result is difficult to foresee. The danger takes the form of the dark-eyed Argentine maiden, who is rather apt to "make roast meat of the heart" of the Welsh youth. While the Welsh girls do not take very readily to Spanish-speaking husbands, the Welsh boys fall very much in love with the daughters of the South. So it is to be concluded that the language difficulty will settle itself, or, at any rate, become more easy of arrangement with each succeeding generation. If the girl you love speaks only Spanish, it is quite obvious you must learn Spanish in order to be able to talk to her, and, under the circumstances, you will not find the task a very hard one. Then children nearly always show a preference for the mother's tongue and speech in contradistinction to that of the father. Probably, if these prophecies were uttered in Trelew, the men of to-day would scoff at them. But onlookers often see most of the game. In 1865 the Welsh, in deep sorrow, left their own land to escape the tyranny of the English law, as they considered it, which sought to force upon them the English language. Their desire was to preserve their own tongue. And flying from Scylla they will fall (and to some degree have already fallen) a prey to Charybdis. But it is a very pleasant Charybdis, typified by a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lissom maiden, who will bear them sons no longer of the old pure-bred Welsh stock, but of a mixed race. And so the effort of the forefathers, who fared overseas to found a new home, shall be made null and void.

Now and again it is the fate of frontier towns to be stirred to their depths by some incursion from the old world they have left behind them. Trelew was still recovering from such an experience when we arrived there. The settlement, in short, had been suffering from a plague of lords. First appeared an aristocrat, who wished to travel in the interior, and he bought up horses with a lavish hand, and generally made preparations which, no doubt, filled the purses of the inhabitants. This gentleman's projected tour, however, fell through for some reason, and he departed whence he had come into the unknown world outside of Trelew's daily cognisance.

Presently after him followed a second "lord," who gave his name as Lord Reed, and who was received with open arms by an enthusiastic community. A run of lords appeared to be setting in, and was regarded by the Trelewians as a distinct dispensation in their favour, which it was their happy duty to work out thoroughly to their own advantage. By some mistake Lord Reed had left his ready money behind him, and, therefore, borrowed pretty extensively from the kind-hearted Welshmen. After a time Lord Reed vanished, and upon inquiry being made it was discovered that no such title as Lord Reed was to be found in the Peerage of Great Britain. When this fact became established, more than one Welshman is reported to have gone out after Lord Reed with the family gun, and, I believe, he was finally caught with a lasso! But the incident was not without its bearing on our personal affair, for the Bank of Trelew would have nothing whatever to say to my Cook's letter of credit. In vain I recited my credentials, and gave such proof of genuineness as was in my power to give. They would none of me. The bank evidently argued that it was easier to pretend that you were a bona-fide traveller than that you were a lord. Lord Reed too; it was rather a taking title. I could not at first understand where the humour of the question, put to me by several people I met in Trelew, of "Are you not Lord Prichard?" came in. In fact, it was disconcerting; but later on, when I heard the above story, I did not grudge the colonists any fun that might be got out of the situation, for certainly Lord Reed, taken all in all, had been far from a subject of pure amusement to them.

We remained six days at Trelew making those last few purchases which were necessary with the small stock of extra money that I had left myself as a margin. It was directly owing to Lord Reed that I finally set forth into the interior with but thirty dollars in Argentine notes and large drafts on Cook and Son, which were quite useless. Although the wilderness does not seem a likely field for spending money, yet, before our travels were at an end, I was glad to sell horses to supply the needs of our party.

The journey which lay before us to Lake Buenos Aires was about six hundred miles in length, and this distance might be subdivided into three stages: the first, from Trelew to Bahia Camerones, where the expedition became complete; the second, from Bahia Camerones to the Lakes Musters and Colhué; and the third, to Lake Buenos Aires itself. My instructions gave me an entirely free hand, within reasonable limits, as to the number of men I might take with me.

I had from the first been convinced that the smallest number possible would also be, in our case, the wisest. The immense extent of the country to be traversed, and the difficulties which must inevitably lie in our way to hinder and delay us, as well as the practical emptiness of the country, which requires that an expedition shall be self-supporting, were salient facts; and our plans had to be made and modified in relation to these facts. The mobility of the party was the main point to aim at. Hence it was necessary to cut down the personnel of the expedition to as low a number as possible, and it was further most important to have plenty of horses and to spare.

The difficulty of feeding several men when travelling through such a country was obvious, and therefore not to be thought of, as, besides the four horses each individual needed for riding, the extra animals for carrying provision and bedding, clothing, tents, &c. had to be taken into account. No pack-horse should be allowed to carry his load two days consecutively, and, in fact, one day's work in three is enough. If waggons are taken, each should be allowed three teams of six horses each.

With such ideas in view, those arrangements were made which, in fact, enabled us to cover the distances we achieved. Any expedition of this sort is killing work for the horses, and it stands greatly to Burbury's credit that we lost but one out of nearly sixty during the months we spent in Patagonia, and that one was a colt that died of eating poison-shrub.

There is not the slightest doubt that the policy that spells success in Patagonian travel is summed up in the words, "Cut down your men and your stores, and take enough horses to enable you to move lightly and rapidly."

On September 21 we left Trelew in the afternoon. The weather was magnificent. Our caravan at this period consisted of a couple of waggons as well as the horses. Two estancieros, Messrs. Greenshields and Haddock, accompanied us, as our way led past their farms. I sent the waggons ahead and rode on afterwards with Burbury and Humphrey Jones senior. When we came to the place fixed on for our first camp we found the men had gone on, for there was no water there. We pushed forward in the dark, and presently the fire of the encampment glimmered out in front of us; it seemed to be quite near, but it took a good while to reach. We heard an occasional fox, and as we sat round the fire a few birds passed in the dark, calling. The first night in camp is like the first night at sea, a gloomy time.

THE FIRST GUANACO

The next day we again had a bright sun with a strong west wind. We chased some pampa foxes and an ostrich (Rhea darwini) and killed two of the former. Jones and Burbury caught a cavy (Dolichotis patagonica). So we marched on over the rolling downs day after day, sometimes catching a glimpse of the sea, sometimes journeying across pampas where the far horizons met in pale blue sky and puffed white clouds above, and below grass and endless scrub. We saw Cayenne plover (Vanellus cayennensis) at an early stage of our travels.

THE START OF OUR LONG TREK

I have already mentioned the herds of guanaco that roam the interior. This animal belongs distinctively to South America, and is to be found nowhere else in the world. Darwin writes of it as follows: "The guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia.... It is an elegant animal in a state of nature, with a long slender neck and fine legs." In colour the guanaco is of a golden-brown with white underparts, the hair upon the sides being somewhat long and fleecy. Enormous herds of from three to five hundred live upon the pampas, and we were aware that we should chiefly depend for meat on those we might chance to shoot during many months to come.

One evening, when I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I saw my first guanaco. Coming round a bend of the winding cañadon, I looked up and perceived him. The sight was highly picturesque. It was an old buck standing alone on the top of a cliff some two hundred feet high and looking down at me. He was posed against a background of pale green glinting sunset. I had hardly time to unsling my rifle before he bounded away. We saw many thousands afterwards, but somehow in the nature of things I shall never forget that first one.

On the coast-farms, which, it must be recollected, are many of them scores of square leagues in extent, the guanaco grows comparatively tame, becoming used to the passing of mounted shepherds; but in other parts of Patagonia, noticeably in the valley of the River Chico of Chubut, through which we passed later, they are very wild, allowing no human being to approach within half a mile. This is owing to the Indians, who hunt them perpetually in that district.

Once in camp in Patagonia life is very enjoyable, though perhaps the enjoyment varies with the amount of game to be seen. Up at sunrise, when the sun pokes its big bald lemon-coloured head out of the bed-clothes of the sky. Then some early camp-man stirs and rises, and waddles down to the wet grey ashes of yesternight's fire, and soon a weak trail of smoke goes rocketing away in the wind. The big pot is put on and breakfast is made and eaten. Then the cargo is packed, and the horses are rounded up by a Gaucho or two, riding bareback. We saddle up and the caravan moves off on its leagues-long march.

Marches vary from fifteen miles to forty, and when the afternoon sun waxes less strong the horses are off-saddled and turned loose, the waggons unpacked and the camp-fires lighted. Maté eternally, a roast, tea afterwards and a pipe, and then the sleeping-bags. Maté or yerba, I must explain, is the great drink of the pampas, and is most invigorating. A cup or tin is half filled with the yellow powdery leaves, to which is added a little cold water, followed by hot. It is drunk through a bombilla or tube, the maker of the decoction taking the first pull, and afterwards it passes from hand to hand, and I must add from mouth to mouth, round the circle. It is the greatest insult to refuse to partake, and when the originator of the brew happens to be an old and rather unappetising Tehuelche lady, the effort to take your turn and look pleased is often something of an ordeal.

Day after day went by in much the same manner, but few remembrances remain with me more vividly than the pampa fox and cavy hunting which we enjoyed during those early times of our expedition. Four lurchers of sorts and my big greyhound, Tom, trotted behind our horses, and when game was sighted we went after it at full gallop. In that keen air nothing can be more exhilarating than such a chase over the broken ground of the pampa, where we were often successful, but among hummocks and hills the quarry frequently made good its escape.

MR. LANGLEY'S ESTANCIA ON THE ROAD TO BAHIA CAMERONES

On the 25th we passed a farm that was quite English in appearance—wire-fences enclosing sheep and lambs on downs that descended in undulations to the sea. By evening we were in broken country patched with red rock. The horses were rather troublesome; Hughes, one of the Gauchos, rode an untamed mare and gave a good exhibition of horsemanship. Among the sheep and the hills an Indian rode down from the high ground; he wore a poncho of red and black, tinted like autumn trees. His camp consisted of a little fire of three or four sticks, by which squatted his china. He took his place beside her, and watched our line of waggons and horses wind away out of sight.

From Trelew to Camerones the country was for the most part like the bare deer-forests of the Scottish Highlands, brown bracken being replaced by espinilla (thorn, a general term) and the green shrub called by the Welshmen "poison-bush," the same blue sky above, the same occasional lochlike lagoons. For the first two days or more the pampas stretched to the rim of the horizon, empty and somewhat harsh even in the sunlight. Now and then mirages like squadrons of cavalry hovered along the edges of them. A few guanaco and ostriches, a sprinkling of cavy, and many pampa foxes seemed to eke out an existence there. It was a land of vast prospects, a scene laid forth with a sort of noble parsimony, which—as in the case of a miser so miserly that for the very exceedingness of his vice you respect him—was yet stupendous in its one or two grandly simple salient features, and drove the spectator to that admiration which verges upon fear. Picture one such characteristic vision of Patagonia. As far as eye could reach a spread of wind-weary grass, roofed by a wind-blown sky, an eagle poised far off, a dot in the upper air. Nothing more.

A man alone within this vast setting seemed puny. Lost here, without a horse, he would be the most helpless of things created. It was across this gigantic primordialism that our way led us. Three times we made our camp upon the bare pampas, three times in one or other of the many cañadones before reaching Bahia Camerones. You may be voyaging at an easy jog over the pampa, seeing the land roll apparently quite level to the horizon, when suddenly you come upon a spatter of white sand, a track leading between the shoulders of the pampa, you dive down and are lost to sight in a moment; then, perhaps, for four miles or for fourteen you are riding a couple of hundred feet below the level spread of the pampa, and as you pass the guanaco on the cliff tops watch you uneasily. To be lost in such a land is the simplest possible matter.

On the 27th we arrived at the Estancia Lochiel, where Mr. Greenshields most kindly entertained us. This estancia is situated at the head of a cañadon, which drops away to the sea eight leagues distant. It consists of a small colony of wooden houses with corrugated iron roofs. The Lochiel Sheep Farming Company, of which Mr. Greenshields is manager, have 15,000 sheep and forty square leagues of camp. "Camp," you must understand, in Patagonia means land.

The day after our arrival Scrivenor and Burbury accompanied Mr. Frederick Haddock to his farm, eight leagues away, in order to bring back the horses I had purchased by contract in Trelew. I remained behind as Mr. Greenshields' guest, for a puma was reported by the shepherd to have killed five sheep upon the edge of the farm during the previous night.

Macdonald, the Scotch shepherd, Barckhausen and I set out to see if we could find the puma. On my way to the spot I shot my first guanaco. He appeared upon the skyline doing sentinel, possibly against the very puma we were after. We rode under the hill on which the guanaco was watching, and he began to move uneasily. At the bend of the hill was a small hollow, and, as we rode through this, I told my companions to ride on and threw them my cabresto (leading-rope of a horse). I slid off the horse and crawled up the hill. Upon the bare face of it was a thicket of poison-bush, and into this I ultimately made my way. The sentinel guanaco was there above me, stretching out his long neck, and every now and then giving his high neighing laugh. When one hundred and twenty yards off he saw me, and I had to snap him quickly. Swing went his neck, and away he galloped with his swift, uneven gait. I thought I had missed him, when, to my delight, he began to slacken speed, and finally lay down in an ungainly attitude, his long neck crooked in a curve in front of him. I crawled nearer, and up he got and was off again. I ran down to my horse and mounted, and Macdonald let Tom, my hound, loose. We galloped the guanaco up. He was very sick indeed, and inside of three hundred yards Tom pulled him down again. The Mauser bullet had hit him two inches behind the shoulder about half way down the body. It had not come out. How he managed to get so far I cannot understand. We then went onwards, and saw by the way several herds of guanaco. I did not shoot any more, however, as they were uncommonly tame, and there was, of course, mutton at the estancia. We reached the spot on the hills above the puma's kill, low thorn bushes, vast mountain and blue sea, but no sign of the puma was to be found. These animals will often travel four or five leagues after a kill.

FREDERICK BARCKHAUSEN

By the way, when you fire at a guanaco they will sway their heads downwards with an odd sort of ducking motion. Not one individual but a whole herd will do this at any unaccustomed sound. The effect is most curious.

While at Bahia Camerones our party was completed. We took with us five Gauchos, who are active, handy men as a rule. The population of the country is largely composed of Gauchos; in fact, they form the foundation of Patagonian life.

They live by the horse, and the horse lives by them. They drive mobs of cattle or of horses for owners across three degrees of latitude to sell them. They have been born in the camp, live in the camp, and will very likely die there also. In Patagonia they treat their horses in a method very different to that which we employ in our crowded country. There nature gives grass, water, and the horse; man tames the animal as little as possible from his wild state, and forces an alliance with nature. At night the mares are hobbled and the horses turned loose; while the Gauchos light their camp-fire and drink maté through the bombilla.

At the first light next morning they take it in turn to bring in the troop, which they do with an astonishing swiftness. Sometimes, of course, the horses "clear," and then it is that the Gauchos in charge find them by tracking.

In a country intersected by deep cañadones, which offer a secure hiding-place in their many hollows, this is a difficult matter. The tracks perhaps run easily through a belt of soft marsh, and then are invisible upon a pampa of shingle and thorn.

A true Gaucho must be able to do a number of things—to back an untamed colt, to lassoo, to use the boleadores, which are heavy stones attached together by a hide rope, and are to the Patagonian what the boomerang is to the Australian aborigine. He must be able to cook, to make horse-gear from the pelts of beasts, to find his way without a compass from point to point, by instinct as it were.

The Gaucho shares with the poet the honour of being born, not made. This proves that Gaucho work is Art, with a big A. Take, for instance, the power of driving single-handed a big mob of wild horses and keeping them compact. No one who has not tried it can imagine what heartbreaking work it is to a beginner. One learns to do it after a fashion in time, but never like the man who has been bred to the craft.

CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES

Leave Bahia Camerones—Horses wild—Decide on taking one waggon—Bell-mare—Names of horses—Breaking-in of horses—German peones—Horses stray—Gaucho trick—Watching troop at night—Four languages—Signalling by smokes—Searching for horses—Favourite words and phrases—Nag of the baleful eye—Cañadon of the dry river—Bad ground—Flies—Ostrich eggs—Shooting guanaco—River Chico of Chubut—Puma's visit at night—Condor—Lady killed—Singing in camp—Stormy night—Breakdown of waggon—Guanaco on stony ground—Long chase—Guanaco's death.

I will not bore my readers with all the technicalities of our preparations for the real start.

Suffice it to say that our total belongings were stowed upon a waggon and on the backs of four pack-horses. We had in all sixty horses, and eight men. About forty of these horses had been running wild upon the pampa for eight months previous to our acquiring them. During that time they had been lost and had only been recaptured shortly before our arrival in Trelew. The purchase of them was, however, the best speculation I could make under the circumstances, since all the animals were good and sound. Had I bought by small instalments in Trelew, not only would every man within journeying distance have very naturally attempted to palm off upon me the worst and most vicious animals he possessed, but the horses, not being used to one another's company, would have been impossible to keep together at night upon the pampas, as the various sections composing such a tropilla would inevitably have scattered to the four points of the compass.

Patagonian horses, which are descended from those brought over by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, are never stabled, but are turned out rain and snow in their troops. These troops or tropillas consist of any number from six animals to thirty, and to each is assigned a madrina, or bell-mare, which is never ridden, and which is trained to be caught easily. At night she is hobbled, and her troop remain round about her. Naturally a well-trained madrina is one affair, while a badly-trained one is quite another. In my mob of horses I had four troops, two good madrinas and one bad one, while the fourth was a rosada, whose sole object in life seemed to be to get away from her own troop and to kick any one who came within ten feet of her.

A PAMPA ROUND-UP

When you desire to put a strange horse or colt into a troop, it is necessary to couple him to the madrina for some days, after which he will remain with the troop. The madrina should never be driven in hobbles, a mistake that is often made when bringing in the horses of a morning. A horse used to hobbles can travel in them four or five leagues in a single night, so the reason why the mares should not be allowed ever to become used to travelling in hobbles is obvious. The madrina has a bell attached to her neck, and the last sound heard before you sleep is the soft tinkle of these bells and the comfortable sound of feeding horses, unless the troop happens to take it into their head to make off, in which case you will have a long ride upon their tracks in the morning.

The horses throughout the Argentine Republic are known by their colours (for which the Spanish language supplies an extraordinary variety of terms signifying every tint and shade), and to these names they answer. Some of the names are melodious and pretty—alazan, which means chestnut, cruzado, the name given to a horse that possesses alternate white feet, the off fore and the near hind foot, or the other way round. There is a theory among the Gauchos that a cruzado will never tire. I cannot do better than give a list of the names of the horses of my own tropilla, though, of course, there are many others:

• Alazan, chestnut.
• Asulejo, bluish-grey and white in patches.
• Bayo, fawn.
• Blanco, white.
• Cruzado, with crossed white feet.
• Gateado, yellow with black stripe down back.
• Horqueta, slit-eared.
• Moro, grey.
• Oscuro, black.
• Overo, piebald or skewbald.
• Pangaré, brown or bay with fawn muzzle.
• Picaso, black with white blaze and white legs.
• Rosado, red and white in patches, roan.
• Rosillo, strawberry.
• Tordillo, grey.
• Tostado, toast-coloured.
• Zaino, brown or dark bay.

The taming of these horses is a business of which an account may not be uninteresting. The methods used are of a very rough description. The colt is caught from the manada, or troop of mares in which he was born, with a lasso, a head-stall is put on him and he is tied up to the palenque, or centre-post of the corral. Here he is left for twelve hours or so, during which he generally expends his energies in trying to pull the palenque out of the ground. He is then saddled up, generally with an accompaniment of bucking, and the Gaucho who is to tame him climbs upon his back. Another mounted Gaucho is near by to "ride off," which he does by galloping between the colt and any dangerous ground or object. Probably the colt will begin by bucking, but if he does not do so during his first gallop it by no means follows that he will turn out to be free from the fault. Indeed it is quite probable that he may be soft and fat after his easy youth upon the pampas, and not till about the fifth or sixth gallop will he show such vices as are in him. At first he is ridden on the bocado, which is a soft strip of hide tied round the lower jaw. This answers to the heavy snaffle which is the first bit a colt has to submit to in England.

The Gauchos of Patagonia are not nearly patient enough with the mouths of their mounts, spoiling many by harsh treatment. Different colours in horses are supposed to indicate different temperaments; thus they say a Moro colt is generally docile, while a Picaso has the reputation of being very much the reverse.

The horses of Northern Patagonia—such as were ours, for they came from the banks of the Rio Negro—are reputed to be more spirited than those bred in the south. But this theory is possibly owing to the fact that the average Gaucho of the north is a better rider than his brother of the south. The horses are, I fancy, much the same.

Many Patagonian horses are what may be called "quick to mount," starting at a canter as soon as their rider's foot touches the stirrup. This also is the fault of the breakers-in. There are few tricks more annoying or, upon a hillside, more dangerous.

After this short description my readers will be able to understand more fully the happenings which I am about to describe.

On October 3 we set out from Mr. Greenshields', and at the moment of starting Fritz Gleditzsch, a German from Dresden, whom I had brought with me from Buenos Aires, and whom I had engaged on the best recommendations, came to me and told me that he could not go farther because he had had no meat to eat upon the previous night. As the meat-shed was situated about two hundred yards from where my men were encamped, and as he had free access to it, I began to understand that Fritz was something of an old soldier. Had I been able to get another man to replace him on the spot I should have done so, but with my large troop of horses I was more or less in the hands of my peones, a not uncommon difficulty to overtake the traveller in Patagonia, and one upon which many peones count.

MAP
Showing Route of Expedition through
PATAGONIA.

[View larger image]

The real reason for Fritz's recalcitrance turned out to be the arrival in my camp of a compatriot and erstwhile companion, Hans Hollesen, who had applied to join the expedition. I took them both along, for, having paid Master Fritz's way from Buenos Aires, I did not relish the notion of obtaining no return for the outlay, and I knew that, once we passed Colohuapi, I should be master of the situation.

I heard months afterwards from a New Zealander, who had been on board the Primero de Mayo with Fritz, that that gentleman was looking forward to a soft job, and had boasted that he would certainly desert us if we marched more than ten miles a day.

Our first march was about three leagues, and we made our camp beside a small shallow lagoon upon which a couple of ashy-headed geese (Bernicla poliocephala) were swimming. I shot them both for the pot.

It was about six o'clock when we camped, and Burbury, who was in charge of the horses, took every possible precaution to prevent their straying, a very likely contingency upon their first night in the open pampa. In spite of the fact that the horses were watched all night, morning found us with but thirty-seven out of the whole number. Soon after daylight Burbury, with some of the men, rode out to recover them. They returned unsuccessful. During the morning a wandering Gaucho came into camp and said he had seen some horses in a cañadon near by. The Welshmen rode out there but came back disappointed, as the horses were not ours. At eleven o'clock next morning I sent three of the men back to Mr. Haddock's, from whose estancia the lost troop had been acquired, the probabilities being that they had headed back for home. But shortly after Burbury and the Germans returned with the horses, which had travelled about nine miles, and were discovered calmly feeding in a cañadon. It was Burbury who discovered them by a smart piece of Gaucho work.

Next night, October 6, we watched the horses in turns. It was a cold night lit by a moon. We had some reason to believe that our Gaucho friend of the day before had not been altogether innocent in connection with the straying of the horses. Such a man will ride quietly through the scattered horses feeding in the gloom and stampede them. He will follow a small mob and drive them into some fold of the hills, such as, no doubt, he knows a dozen of, and hide them there until, after several days, a reward is offered by the owner. The Gaucho will then ride casually into the camp, drink a maté, hear the story, and remark that he is well acquainted with the country round. If asked whether he can give any opinion as to the whereabouts of the lost horses, he says, "Quien sabe?" but suggests they may be in a "cañadon muy limpio," to which horses often stray. In reply to any question as to where the cañadon may lie, he replies, "Over there," and waves his hand half round the compass. He may add that he is looking for seven mares of his own that strayed away last Friday week or he would himself undertake the office of guide. If any hint of payment be given, he goes on to say that, since his mares have been lost so long they may remain lost a little longer, while he guides and aids the travellers in their search, not, of course, for the money's worth, that will not recompense him for the mares, which may wander away altogether out of the province because of his delay in looking for them, but because he would do a kindness to persons for whom he has conceived a liking. So he acts as guide, and, after a decent interval, finds the horses and pouches his reward. It is an excellent trade, as there is no risk and plenty of emolument to recommend it, and, in fact, it is a common enough trick in Patagonia.

I sat most of the night by the fire—except when my turn came to ride round the horses, which we had placed in a small hollow—writing up my diary by the light of the fire, and watching the men ride in and out of the moonlight and the shadows. As the night advanced the cold increased. The moon left us about 3.30 A.M. and it became very dark. As I circled on my beat I passed by a wild cat. Morning found the horses all right. We had, however, to delay a little to allow of our men returning from Haddock's.

On October 7 we fared forth once more upon our way, and the ill-luck that had attended us at this first camp was with us up to the last moment of the three days we spent there, for as the waggon began to move off an alazan fell beneath the front wheel, which passed clean over his near fore leg. Strangely enough, owing to some inequality of the ground, the waggon, although very heavily laden, did not hurt the animal. He was not even cut, and when we got him up he resumed his journey as if nothing had happened, and eventually turned out one of our best horses.

J. B. SCRIVENOR (GEOLOGIST) AND MULA

We now made two or three good marches in succession, but on October 10, in spite of all precautions, the horses belonging to the black mare's troop deserted her.[2] Upon this, finding that until the horses of the different troops became more used to each other, it would be almost impossible to keep them together on the open pampas, where, as a further disadvantage, the grass was poor and sparse, and the horses had to scatter a great deal to feed, I decided to cut across to the Rio Chico of Chubut and march along the river valley, the tall cliffs of which would serve as a barrier to prevent the tropilla straying. Never was such an awful place as these pampas in which to lose anything, or, worse still, to get lost yourself. You ride a hundred yards or so and you are in some deep-mouthed cañadon, lying flush with the pampa, and out of sight of your companions in an instant.

On the expedition we spoke four languages—Spanish, English, German and Welsh, but English was more used than the others.

On one occasion we had to light a couple of fires to signal some of the men who were out looking for horses; one of these spread rather much, but was easily put out with a spade. It is strange how small an area burns in that part of the country, even with a high wind to help the flames. The weather was windy and bitterly cold.

I extract the following from my diary:

"October 10, evening.—I write this by the camp-fire. The men take it in turns to cook. Two armadillos (Dasypus minutus) have been caught by the Germans. They are strong little beasts; you can hardly pull one, which has half buried itself in the ground, out with both hands. We roast them whole with hot stones and they taste like chicken. Fritz and Hollesen went for the horses this morning and found three of the Trelew troop gone, the Tordillo, the Zaino, and the Blanco, and this although one was maneado and the other two tied together. This is a great hindrance. We got the waggon ready on the interminable pampa and decided to strike down at once for the Rio Chico by way of a large cañadon four and a half leagues long. This will add some days to our journey to Colohuapi. But if we continue losing and searching for horses, shall we ever get there? One day we cover twenty-one miles, the next nothing, because of strayed horses. Nor can you soga them up, for the grass is poor and they must have a large range. Here we are in this huge country looking for horses upon and about a pampa intersected by many cañadones, each of which would take an entire week to explore thoroughly. At breakfast I decided to march, sending Jones, who is a good tracker, off to see if he could find the horses where he found them yesterday.

"We have a big buck-jumper, a piebald, which is a strong horse suited to the waggon. It took an hour and a half to get him harnessed, and we started on the back track, for the cañadon we must strike lies a league behind us. Barckhausen was to ride an untamed black horse with the strangest light blue glimmering eyes, which for some reason makes me repeat over and over to myself the lines of Q.:

"His glittering eyes are the salt seas' prize,

And his fingers clutch the sand.

"Rather far fetched, but so it always is. One notices how much in camp-life a man gets into the habit of a 'Punch, brothers, punch'—a haunting phrase which he applies to everything. In one case it is some grim and grotesque oath that he mentally lives on, sometimes it is a line of a hymn, sometimes it is a bit of an advertisement. There are few books in the camp, and mine not out yet from the tin box. The Welshmen have a Bible in their own language; Hollesen has a paper of short stories about missing heirs and such like; Scrivenor has 'Pickwick.'

THE BIG OVERO, A BUCKJUMPER

"But to return to Barckhausen. The nag of the baleful eye would not be caught, and had to be chased about the pampa by Hughes and myself. Finally, Jones got a lasso on him, and he danced at the edge of the lagoon with four men at the other end of the lasso. We tied his legs in slip-knots and pulled him over, and when quieter saddled him. He bucked around with the saddle. At length Barckhausen got up and rode him the whole afternoon. It was a terrible job driving the horses, and that even though we were in the cañadon.

"On each side of us were bare, bald grass hills, rolling in hummocks and their sides sprinkled with thorn-scrub. In the centre, winding in sharp bends, a dry river bed. Towards evening, after travelling all the afternoon down the cañadon since one o'clock, I rode on and found the bed of the river held water in four places. Near the third of these we camped. Saw an ostrich and a few sentinel guanaco. Caught an armadillo. The scenery here consists of alternations of pampa and cañadon, cañadon and pampa, and over all the tearing wind, which seldom drops.

"I have given out two tins of jam and one of Swiss milk, one of coffee and milk and some vegetables. Sometimes we soak our biscuit and bake it. It is very good treated so. I am writing this by the fire at seven o'clock. Coldish.

"Jones has not turned up yet, and must have had to sleep out in nothing save a blanket, poor chap! He was to have cut our tracks and followed them up.

"October 11.—All our tropillas right this morning, and at 8.30 I rode out of the camp and met Jones, who had found the three strayed horses about a league from the old camp.

"We started and made our way down the empty river-bed, which now broadened and was pebbly, like a Scotch trout-stream. Before we left Mal Espina estancia the foreman told us the road down the cañadon was very clear—'muy limpio,' and only four and a half leagues in length, but we have been in it two days and are in it still. About 5, as I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I came upon the track of wheels in deep scrub. I went back to the waggon and found it on the left bank of the river-bed. Upon one side were thorn-bush and sand, and upon the other a swampy vega of wet grass. Through this the track led, and into this the waggon lumbered, then two of the horses foundered in the black mud and the waggon sank. Of course that put an end to our day's journey, and I sent on Jones to bring back Burbury and the troop. We were in a land of many flies, chiefly sand-flies, which buzzed and stung horribly. Jones had tied up the horses on the Rio Chico and we could not reach them to-night. Fritz found sixteen eggs in an ostrich's nest and Hollesen found one. The one was fine but the sixteen were chickenny.

"We all turned to, unloaded the waggon and pulled it out with some toil from the marsh, and before dinner loaded it up again.

"By evening we reached the cañadon of the Rio Chico and camped upon the banks.

"October 12.—With an effort got away by nine o'clock. I rode on down the cañadon, as we had no meat and some was wanted. We appear to be now entering a good game country. Saw five ostriches. I rode the big Tostado. He loped lazily across stony ridges, which crawl to the foot of the purple hills that are on the other side of the Chico. Two herds of guanaco fled while I was on the horizon. I cantered a long way, it seemed very far, over the rolling ridges of pebble and thorn-bush. Mirages smoked and danced on the horizon. I came at length to the waggon-track which runs through the wild gorge of the Chico, and is only used about once or twice a year. I rode down this track, and at the side found a single ostrich egg. Shortly after I sighted the horses, which Jones had tied up here and there. I left my belt and the egg, and went back into the scrub to seek for that game which I could not find. Saw one guanaco, but it had seen me first, and would not let me approach within a quarter of a mile. Sighted the horses and waggon far away on the high ground and rode to meet them. Put them in a new troop and got away again at one o'clock. Found that if I could not shoot a guanaco we must open our reserve of tinned meat, and I did not wish to begin upon it so soon. Rode on ahead of the troop revolving these matters. My horse was extra lazy. I was thinking of the ostriches I had observed when I saw over a ridge to the left the ears of a guanaco. There was a dry nullah-bed which curved in beneath the ridge. It was pebbly and sparsely set with thorn. I lay down and crawled until I came to some water, and then I looked again. I could see the first guanaco, an old buck, peering with his long neck swaying, and looking at the Tostado which I had tied up. To tie up your horse in view is the most successful thing you can do in this country of long-necked game, and of game which is so often pursued with dogs and on horseback. Sometimes the most ordinary game takes, from the circumstances surrounding its pursuit, a reflected interest not its own. So it was in this case; nor, indeed, is the guanaco always an easy quarry, in fact it is a shy animal in the districts where it is hunted by Indians.[3] I crawled along, just a thorn-bush, and that a lean one, between me and detection. I had set my hopes on a low green belt of poison-scrub, and this I attained at last. From it I saw a foot of the big buck's neck and the heads and ears of six more. I had made up my mind to take a fine bead shot, but he gave me no chance of doing so. I had only time to snap him as he saw me. The bullet smashed his neck. As the others ran away I put two shots out of four into one, and killed it as it entered the scrub of thick, thorny, califate bushes that lived hardily there in the valley. I went on after shooting the guanaco and left Fritz and Hughes to cut up the meat. We made a league and a half through the gorge of the Chico when up came Fritz and said the waggon was broken down by, so he explained, a "horse falling on the pole" within a hundred yards of where I had shot the guanaco. This was a disaster indeed. Here were we just doing a good march when this wretched breakdown occurred. We turned the troop and went back only to find the waggon, a league away, coming merrily towards us. They said it could go no farther, but after repairs it achieved a league and a half more.

THE HUNTER'S RETURN

"Passing along we agreed it was a good country for lions (F. c. puma, locally called lions). We encamped beneath a high cliff, sixty feet of moss-grown basaltic rock beside the muddy river, where it winds through the marshes. In the night the dogs began to bark, for a lion came into camp. We could hear it moving by the dead camp-fire among the pots and pans. Burbury fired his revolver in its direction; he was sleeping on the outside of the tent. This morning we have found the lion's lair, twenty yards up in the rock above our camp. Fritz said last night, 'And if you hear me cry out, it is the lion, he zomp on me.'

FELIS CONCOLOR PUMA

"Fritz is very jocular sometimes: 'Aha, my little horse, he zomp!' and 'Mine little bitch, you go and catch a guanaco.' To-night he was roasting an ostrich egg and it exploded and shot him all over with yellow yolk. He remarked, 'He is goot, this egg, but he smell a bit of skunk.'

"October 13.—Mending waggon, no wood. At ten o'clock waggon mended but needed a rest in the sun till the hide of guanaco we had bound it with should dry. So I decided to take to-day as our Sunday and march to-morrow. Burbury is making a plum-duff. Served out tobacco this morning.

"Mock Sunday and at rest, a time for dreaming. Away at home the trees are browning. How one's heart turns to them and dreams of them! The men born out here wonder how we can look forward to the happiness of going home, perhaps for the sight of some village church hidden in English lanes and fields. Half the charm of this life we are living out here lies in thinking of our return to the land that gives us all comfort and a silent welcome of green springs. Went out to-day after the lion and found tracks, but the ground was too hard for following them up. He lives in a valley of grey dead bush. As we went away from the dead guanaco yesterday, a condor (Sarcorhamphus gryphus) appeared and dropped on the carcase almost before we left it.

GUANACO HOUNDS. (FATHER AND MOTHER OF THE AUTHOR'S HOUND, TOM.)

"October 14, Sunday.—We got away at nine o'clock and came fast. The muddy narrow Chico flowing through a land which looks as if it led over the edge of the world. It reminds one of a flowering wilderness. Last night we tied up the dogs, and dear old Tom howled till I had to get up and correct him. When up I let poor little Lady loose, the last service I was ever destined to do for her, for to-day the waggon went over her belly, and she lies dead on the track a few leagues back. She was six months old, always cheerful, and wagging her whip of a tail, always up to the march. Half an hour before she died I saw her hunting a young fox, her first. She had brown eyes and I had got fonder of her than I knew. Tom used to drive her from her food, biting her, and from the softest bed, and I am now glad to think I sometimes made him give way to her. Just before Lady's death, I shot a cavy (Dolichotis patagonica) with the Mauser. He gave me a nice shot sitting up on his haunches, near the track on the skyline of a low bare ridge. Yesterday we had a very fine puchero or stew, pickled eggs given me by Pedro at Camerones and two plum-duffs made with waggon-grease by Burbury, who is quite a chef at plum-duff. After our meal we had out the concertina and found that Burbury knew 'The Church's One Foundation,' and Jones a melancholy Welsh hymn.

"The two best of my horses have sore backs.

"We spent an hour trying to get the waggon up a steep ridge 100 feet high, and had to unload and all work at it. Made a long seven leagues and encamped at the foot of a ridge with 200 yards of dead bush between us and the yellow Chico. Going very pebbly, the ground here and there burnt up and arid. It is always in such places that the mirages are most common.

"October 15.—Got off 8.40. At 11 unloaded waggon, which was in great danger of turning over. Scrivenor photoed it. At 2.20 waggon horses unfit to go farther. Camped by the Chico; shot a yellow-billed teal.

"October 16.—Out of humour all day, first, because, I found one of the cameras put unprotected into the waggon among the tins of potted meat, &c. Wearily, wearily we wend our way towards the blue distant hills of our desires. Even as in life we wend towards distant ambitions, and, coming up to them, find new ones arise upon the horizon beyond, and so we travel all our days, looking longingly ahead. This valley of the Chico is a wild place, conical hillocks of sand have now taken the place of the bush-covered ones. The Chico remains yellow and winds greatly. Purple hills crown the distance. It is all high-coloured and clear-shaded as in a picture.

"To-day, coming round a bend of the Chico glen, I saw seven guanaco feeding in the valley. They had seen me and begun to move, so I galloped round the ridge, and as I jumped off my horse one passed and halted within seventy yards. The herd made a pretty picture standing on the bare, desert-brown hillside in the tearing wind. I clean missed the buck with the first shot, and only killed him as he ran off, hitting him low behind the shoulder. The wind was blowing hard to-day and full in our faces.

"A windy night, the sand of the river-bed driving and filling everything. Presently we shall crawl into our sleeping-bags and, with our feet to the wind, bid any weather defiance. A pipe is a mighty ally. Here am I in the little 4 ft. tent which Burbury and Scrivenor have pitched to sleep in, wrapped in a poncho a-reek with the smoke of Indian camp-fires, enjoying a pipe and writing this, and as it grows too dark to write and the wind roars and bellows louder down the river-bed, I shall sit here watching the red glow of my pipe and dreaming.

"October 17, 9 o'clock.—A month hence from to-day will be my birthday. Where shall we be? At the Lake Buenos Aires, I hope. Several horses this morning have sore backs, and Burbury, excellent fellow, has been doctoring them.

"How the face of this country changes with the weather! Bleak and windy even in warm sunlight, though fine and bracing; in evil weather it wears an aspect of forlornness. The farther you penetrate into Patagonia the more its vast emptiness weighs on you and overwhelms you.

"Eleven o'clock.—Where shall we be a month hence? Where, indeed? To-day we had a great disappointment, and I hardly know how to write of it. The natural difficulties of the country are very great, but with care, in spite of boulders and hard-going, it seemed as if I could get my waggon up to the foothills, and I looked forward to bringing back many specimens in it. But after 300 and odd miles of travel a particularly hummocky valley proved too much for its endurance. When the horses tried to move it this morning it broke up altogether, and here it lies!

"Total day's march, 200 yards. Burbury and Jones have ridden on towards Colohuapi, where there are some pioneers' huts, to try and get wood and bolts. What is to be done? I do not know. Take to cargueros? We could bring back no specimens to speak of in that case. One must wait and see what Burbury can get from the people at Colohuapi. The camp is in a valley and is surrounded by bare mud cones 100 feet in height, a few bushes shiver in the throat of the upper end of the gorge. In the gorge and round our camp-fire spreads a growth of rank lean weed, full of yellow flowers, and a few small wind-polished stones lie at the base of one of the ant-heaplike hills.

"'Oh, the dreary, dreary moorland! Oh, the weary, weary shore' (of the Chico)! I took my gun down to the river and shot five widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix) and six martinetas (Calodromas elegans).

"Late in the evening Scrivenor and I went up over the ridge of bare hills rather with the idea of shooting, if possible, a condor we had seen poised high up. Sight at back came off Scrivenor's Mauser.[4] We went on and saw a herd of guanaco, one much nearer than the rest, and we crawled towards him. The stones were a penance. The only cover was thorn, and little of that up there on the high pampa above the valley where our camp is. At two hundred yards I shot and hit him, but he went on, and presently swayed his neck and lay down. I crawled up and had a shot at his neck. Thereafter followed periods of cantering in a rickety way, followed by periods of lying down, and at last we went round over a rise and crawled down on him. I thought he was dead but for the shadow of his neck, and I crawled on with but one cartridge left in my gun. As I neared him, up he got and I fired again and hit him. He was growing very weak. Scrivenor shouted that he had no revolver, and so here were we with only our knives. I followed the guanaco and Scrivenor went round. I was upon him first but my knife was weak. Scrivenor, startled from his usual calm, and with a shout, leaped at the guanaco and caught him round the neck. So we bore him to earth and slew him. I examined him for wounds and found four. Two of the shots were vital, yet he had led us a chase of two and a half miles, and we had to carry the meat back to camp. Arrived there, and preparing a meal by the fire, in came Burbury and Jones. They had met a Gaucho trekking to Colohuapi, who told them that Colohuapi was yet twenty-five leagues away and that there were no bolts or wood to be had there. I went to bed and smoked, feeling pretty sad. There is but one thing to do. We must jettison some of the cargo and sew up the rest in the skins of guanacos, and go forward with pack-horses."

CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES—(continued)

First march with pack-horses—Difficulties—Friendship among horses—The melancholy Zaino—Revolt of an old philosopher—Shifting cargoes—Reach River Chico—Guanaco-shooting—A glimpse of a puma—Pumas and sheep—Arrival at Colohuapi—Hospitality of pioneers—The value of horse-brands.

Morning (19th) came to us very grey with a pallid sun, and ushered in the first day of the new system. We found it necessary to use sixteen horses as cargueros or pack-horses. In the early dawn we caught the chosen animals, and tied them up to the smashed waggon. It is one of the inconveniences of pampa travel that bushes strong enough to hold a horse which is at all restive are few and far between. In that particular spot there was absolutely nothing in the way of a bush, however small, which could by any chance have borne the strain.

READY TO BE CARGOED

So we tied them up to the waggon and they immediately proceeded to tie themselves and their headropes into still more complicated knots: they made cats' cradles, reef-knots, sliding nooses, a dozen knots one knew and a dozen one had never dreamed of. Of the sixteen horses, half had never had a cargo on their backs until that day; we had meant to break them in, but the waggon succumbed too soon to the hardships of the way, and before we had had time to carry out our intentions.

During the three days we remained in camp among the strong-scented yellow flowers where the waggon lay, all hands had been hard at work sewing up stores into the skins of guanacos, which I had killed for food on the march. The proper arranging of packs for horses is a very difficult matter; shape, size and weight have all to be considered. Each cargo should be divided into three portions, the balance of the two sides being carefully adjusted, and the centre piece, that which surmounts the pack-saddle, should not be more than twelve inches high. There should be at least two rugs and a sheepskin underneath the saddle. As we had not enough sheepskins, the pelts of guanaco were in some cases made to serve our purpose. Several different forms of pack-saddle have each of them points to recommend them, but to my mind the form used on the cattle-plains of North America is preferable to any other, and is more easily loaded, as the horse can be led between the two side-packs, which are hung along upon hooks attached to the wooden frame of the saddle. The whole cargo is best kept in place by means of a couple of cinches or girths. This form of pack is, however, but little used in the Argentine Republic. With such pack-saddles Hähansen and I, at a later date, travelled one hundred and fifty miles, during which it was not necessary to stop more than once or twice to readjust the cargoes.

During the whole of our subsequent wanderings, the horses entered so much into our lives that some descriptive remarks having regard to the peculiarities of each will perhaps not be out of place. Any one who has been thrown very much into a close association with horses can hardly have failed to notice the extraordinary friendships which these animals not infrequently form between themselves.

Among our troop there was a pale bronze-coloured horse to which the Spanish language assigns the term Gateado. This creature's whole life was spent in close attendance upon the largest horse in the tropilla, a piebald, called by us the Big Overo. The Big Overo was a buck-jumper, and when we wanted to catch him, he and the Gateado, his intimate, were wont to evade us together. If we could catch the Big Overo by craft, the Gateado was as good as captured also; but if, unluckily, our first attempt upon the Big Overo failed, both animals made a point of charging about the camp and frightening all the other horses. On one occasion, when it was judged well to give the Big Overo a lesson, Hughes bolassed him and after a gallop of a couple of hundred yards he came to the ground in an inextricable tangle.[5] The Gateado remained by his side and allowed himself to be caught without any struggle. After a time the intimacy between these horses grew to such a pitch that we gradually dispensed with a rope for the Gateado, knowing that if the Big Overo was once tied up his friend would stand beside him and allow us to put on his cargo quietly. This odd friendship finally reached such an extreme that when the Big Overo was sogaed out for the night, the Gateado was in the habit of giving up his hours of feeding in order to satisfy the claims of friendship. The feeling was mutual, for the Big Overo manifested almost as many proofs of his preference.

MRS TRELEW

Another case of friendship was struck up between two of the madrinas, but this was an essentially feminine affection, all upon one side. The Rosada would follow the Trelew mare, who was in foal, and would hardly allow her to feed in peace. Mrs. Trelew, as the men nicknamed the round-barrelled old black mare, objected very strongly to the advances of her admirer, and once they had a regular quarrel owing to Mrs. Trelew kicking the Rosada with such force as to nearly break her ribs, which the latter rather resented. The Rosada was a vicious unbacked brute within five yards of whose heels it was unsafe to approach, and she, in common with the long-maned Little Zaino, acquired the execrable habit of attempting to kick any one who on horseback ventured to come near. This is a trick that is very rare even among the most untamable and vicious horses, which, although they will kick a man on foot, will seldom do so when he is mounted.

YEGUA ROSADA

Then there was the Old Zaino, a melancholy animal of the sardonic school. He was the worst of all the horses. I remember once Burbury making me laugh very much by saying in a moment of indignation: "You haven't been a colt these thirty years, you evergreen son of a buckjumper!" This horse had a way of coming to standstill in the very centre of the troop on the march, and, after regarding us with a patient but baleful eye, he would solemnly buck all his cargo off and attempt to kick it to pieces. At one time he was used as a riding-horse, having, indeed, a turn for speed, but his paces were so rough and his trick of rearing as one was mounting so uncomfortable that we were compelled to make him one of the cargueros.

But perhaps the horse that caused us the most amusement was the Asulejo. He was a sort of uncertain dapple-grey in colour, and to look at him you would say that a more quiet, lazy, say-nothing-to-anybody little bit of old age did not crop the grass in Patagonia. Often and often did we feel sorry for that little animal and lighten his load. One afternoon, as we came along with the waggon, he seemed to be thinking more and more of the past, of the time when he had the power to make his riders sit tight and used to be a creature of some truculence. He had upon his back a light cargo of cooking-pots, and it took the undivided attention of one man to keep him at a walk. We fixed our camp upon an open plateau of coarse grass and thorn beside a lagoon in a shallow hollow. The cargoes were pulled off and the cook of the night made a grateful smoke ascend. I took a shot-gun and went after some geese for the morrow's breakfast. It was, perhaps, an hour and a half later, and a good league from camp, that I heard the neighing of horses, and was surprised to see seventeen of our troop hurrying off, as it were, upon some unknown errand. And well in front of them—could I believe my eyes?—was the horse we knew as the Asulejo, but his eye was brighter and he neighed in the joy of his heart as he trotted friskily along! He was the obvious leader of the revolt. No sooner did he see me than he fell behind, trying to look as though one of the younger animals had lured him from the path of duty, but that pretence did not serve, and after driving him back into camp we put maneas on him, upon which he recognised with the philosophy of age that he could not fight against the inevitable, and so retired into the lee of a thorn-bush, where he lay down to dream, no doubt, of the days when things were different and he had been a scampering three-year-old on the banks of the River Negro.

THE ASULEJO