The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wanderings in Patagonia, by Julius Beerbohm

WANDERINGS IN PATAGONIA.

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Wanderings in Patagonia: or, Life among the Ostrich-Hunters. By Julius Beerbohm. Illustrated.

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CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W.

AN INDIAN CAMP.
[p. 96.]

Wanderings in Patagonia

OR

LIFE AMONG THE OSTRICH-HUNTERS

By JULIUS BEERBOHM

A NEW EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1881

Wanderings in Patagonia.

CHAPTER I.

In the month of August, 1877, I found myself on board ship, bound from Buenos Ayres for the coast of Patagonia, in company with a party of engineers, who were going to survey that portion of the country which lies between Port Desire and Santa Cruz.

After leaving the River Plate we encountered adverse winds and heavy weather, which kept us tossing about for three weeks, without making any material progress on our course. At last we got a fair wind, however, which soon brought us close to our destination, the port of St. Julian (lat. 49° 20′ S.); and one morning, together with my five o'clock coffee, the cabin-boy brought me the welcome news that land was in sight. I jumped out of bed and ran on deck, careless of the hail and rain which were falling in blinding showers, and of the wind which blew off the land, far colder and sharper than we had hitherto experienced. On looking to leeward, I could at first see nothing but a thick bank of clouds; but presently the horizon got clearer, and I descried a dark, lowering line of coast, of fierce and inhospitable aspect, rising abruptly from the sea to a considerable height.

I had not long to examine it, for a sudden shift of the wind shrouded the whole coast in mist, and it did not become visible again till the afternoon, when the weather cleared up, and the sun shone out brightly. The wind, however, slowly increased in violence; by the time St. Julian came in sight we were plunging along under reefed topsails, and the captain began to think that we should have to stand off the port till the force of the storm had abated—a prospect which threw us all into dismay, as we had already been looking forward with vivid expectations to the pleasure of stretching our legs on terra firma the next morning—a luxury which those who have made a long sea voyage can fully appreciate.

While the captain was yet doubtful what course to take, the matter was summarily decided by the weather itself. The wind, which had hitherto been blowing from the north-east, shifted to the south-east, and redoubled its fury; and rather than run the risk of standing off the port for the night, under a lee shore and with a strong current setting in to the land, the captain elected to face the lesser danger, and enter the port.

The necessary orders were accordingly given; a man was sent aloft to look out for banks or rocks, and all preparations were made for any emergency. An anxious time ensued for all on board, as we steered slowly in under the northern headland of St. Julian, menaced on either side by steep and rugged cliffs, falling vertically down to the water's edge; the sea dashing at their base with an angry roar, and hurling the white spray almost to their very summits. The gale howled through the rigging, and a thousand sea-birds, startled at such an unusual apparition, circled round the ship, white and silent, seeming to eye us with an unpleasant curiosity.

Suddenly we heard a shout, "Breakers ahead!" and everyone turned pale and looked anxiously forward. Right in front of us, and forming a belt across the entrance of the port, stretched a line of breakers, boiling and foaming like a cauldron; while to the left a long ledge of black, jagged rocks pierced through the waters, promising certain destruction, should we drift upon them. For a moment the captain was irresolute; but it was too late to go back; in any attempt to put the ship round we should have gone on the rocks, and there was, therefore, no alternative but to continue our course and dash through the breakers, leaving the rest to fate. On we went, with beating hearts and strained nerves, as the threatening roar of the foaming rollers became louder and louder. In another second we were in their midst, and everyone held his breath in suspense. Suddenly there was a shock; the ship quivered, and I was thrown violently on my face. By the time I got to my feet again, all danger was over. We had crossed the harbour bar, and were now sailing slowly up the bay, in comparatively smooth water, and congratulating ourselves on our escape from what had looked a most serious peril. The wind, too, had lulled, and by the time we let go the anchor all was still and calm. The sun was just setting; one by one the gulls, albatrosses, and other sea-birds, which had hitherto been continuously sweeping round the ship, disappeared; and not a sound was heard from either side of the broad bay.

On arriving in port, after a long sea voyage, the sudden change of scene and associations, the bustle and the noise of commercial activity—the steamers, lighters, and other small craft, plying from shore to shore; the ships moored alongside the wharves, taking in or discharging cargo, the busy hum arising from the distant town, the sight of new faces, and the sound of strange voices—all combine to excite and bewilder one, contrasting forcibly with the dull, quiet, and drowsy sameness of the life one has just been leading during several weeks of dreary navigation.

But none of these accustomed sights and sounds gladdened our hearts in the desert harbour where we had just safely come to anchor, after our stormy passage. The silence of death reigned everywhere, and its mysterious effect, joined to the wild character of the surrounding country, whose bold, bare hills were now looming gigantic and black in the gathering dusk, impressed me with a vague sense of awe and wonder.

And not out of harmony with the gloomy spirit of solitude which broods over St. Julian, are the tragic memories connected with the three famous nautical expeditions which have visited its inhospitable shores.

We were anchored between two islands—Justice and Execution Islands. These names were given to them by Sir Francis Drake, who visited St. Julian in 1578. On the former he caused one of his party, a Master Doughty, to be put to death for alleged insubordination. Sir Francis found a gibbet already erected on one of these islands, which had been left there by Magellan, who passed the winter of 1520 at St. Julian, and who, during his stay, had also to quell a formidable mutiny which broke out amongst his little fleet; and which, but for his timely energy, foresight, and courage, might have ended fatally for him. The ringleaders were executed. In more modern times, another fatality occurred during the expedition of the Adventure and Beagle, 1832. A Lieutenant Sholl, a young officer of much promise, died there, and was buried on a point overlooking the bay which now bears his name. The spot is marked by a small cairn, bearing an inscription recording the date, etc.

As I looked over the bay, for all the change that has happened there since, either in the rugged outlines of its shores or in the spirit of silence and desolation that hangs over them, it seemed that it might have been but yesterday that Magellan dropped anchor there, with his quaint, high-pooped craft:

'The first who ever burst into that silent sea.'

Peering into the darkness till a mist rose into my eyes, I gradually fell into a half-dreaming, half-waking state, and presently I seemed to behold some strangely rigged vessels lying close to me in the bay. Magellan's own ships! There was the tall, spare figure of the intrepid commander himself, standing on the poop of the largest vessel, dressed in a brown leather jerkin, the cross-hilted sword at his side; and I could plainly mark the expression of dauntless enterprise on his weather-worn brow, and the determined gleam of his sharp grey eyes, whose glance now wandered over the far shore and now rested reverentially on the high cross fixed on the poop. I could see the quaintly-costumed sailors busy at work on deck, repairing rigging, mending boats, or making sails, talking and shouting the while in a strange tongue. Hardy, noble figures these men, who, in the frailest of craft, braved a thousand dangers in the wildest countries, and fearlessly carried the symbol of their religion to lands which mariners of today with all the advantages of modern instruments and superior vessels, approach with the utmost mistrust and dread. Soon a bell rang, and all was silence; the men left their work and gathered round the commander, who, I thought, seemed to be addressing them. And then floating over the waters came the sound of the 'Ave Maria!' weirdly sweet and plaintive.

But at this juncture somebody shook me, and I woke up, to find it was all a dream, and to remember that Magellan had been dead and buried for centuries, and that I, a son of the nineteenth century, had come to that spot, not to plant the true Cross, but to find what the country was capable of—and that, finally, it was time for supper.

CHAPTER II.

The next morning we were up betimes. The weather was fine, and, as there was no wind, not too cold, though the taller hills were covered with snow, and the thermometer stood considerably below zero. Plenty of sea-birds were flying round the ship, or disporting themselves in the water, heedless of our presence; but on shore there were no signs of animal life stirring anywhere. Preparations were made for getting the horses on shore as quickly as possible, as their long confinement was beginning to tell injuriously upon them. In the meantime a boat was lowered, and, taking our guns, a few of us started off for the shore, to find some suitable spot to land the horses, and to have a general look round.

A short pull brought us in sight of a little cove, with a strip of sandy beach leading up to the mainland, which fell steeply down on all sides, so as to form a kind of natural corral, where the horses would be quite safe and conveniently sheltered from the wind. There we accordingly landed, roughly waking the echoes, which had doubtless been comfortably sleeping for many a long day, with a loud hurrah, as we jumped on shore and climbed up the bluff which shut in the cove. There the first object which met our sight was the little cairn, already mentioned, commemorative of Lieutenant Sholl. It was standing, probably, just as it had been left by the hands which reared it, as the Indians seldom, if ever, come so near to the port. The letters of the inscription were still tolerably visible, for the stones suffer little from the action of the atmosphere, and gather but few mosses or lichens in that dry climate, where, during nine months of the year, hardly any rain falls, and where all vegetation is stunted and scanty.

The view we obtained from our present standpoint was very limited, the horizon being bounded by a chain of conically shaped hills, flattened at the top, and generally similar in outline and height. The country which they enclosed appeared to consist of a series of irregular plains, broken up by glens, or 'cañons,' as they are aptly called in Spanish, with here and there an isolated hill and an occasional plain of short extent. There were plenty of bushes of a thorny species scattered everywhere, and in the glens the grass seemed to flourish in tolerable luxuriance, though on the higher-lying land it was less plentiful, the ground there being covered with pebbles of porphyry, worn round and smooth by the action of water at some remote period.

After our long cooping-up on board, we were not equal to any prolonged exertion, and soon got tired of climbing up the steep hills and escarpments, especially as there was no employment for our guns, either in the shape of beast or fowl. We therefore went back to our boat, to get at which, as the tide had already fallen considerably, we had to wade knee-deep through a long tract of black, slimy mud. As there is a tide-range at St. Julian of from thirty to forty feet, the ebb and flood tides rush in and out with great rapidity, and we often had great difficulty in pulling back to the ship, even with four oars, when the wind and tide happened to be against us.

The rest of that day was employed in getting the horses on shore, a task which was successfully accomplished before the tide commenced to rise again, so that they had comparatively little distance to swim to the cove. The poor animals seemed as glad as we had been to find themselves on land once more, and testified their satisfaction by neighing and frisking about with great vigour. In the evening we made a short excursion to Justice Island, close alongside of which we were anchored. Whilst exploring it we startled a large covey of shag, numbering quite a thousand, which, to judge by the accumulation of guano, appeared to roost there habitually. They did not fly up immediately at our approach, but waddled clumsily down to the beach, holding their bodies quite erect, and flapping their wings in a ludicrous manner. The sailors killed several with sticks, and subsequently cooked and ate them, notwithstanding the strong fishy taste of the flesh.

Early the next morning, together with two of my companions, I started on an expedition towards the interior, with a view to discover what kind of country lay beyond the range of hills which bordered the horizon. We took some provisions with us, as we did not expect to be home till the evening, thinking it prudent not to rely on our guns for our dinner, after the experience of the previous day of the absolute absence of game; indeed, we left them behind us, as being rather irksome on horseback.

Mounting the three freshest horses we could find amongst our stock, we struck off at an inspiriting gallop. We had not gone far, however, before it came to an abrupt ending. The plain over which we were riding suddenly terminated, descending into a deep ravine, which seemed to wind from the hills down to the port. The descent was rather steep, but we got down somehow; and then our horses had a hard climb up the opposite side, rendered still more arduous by the loose nature of the pebbly soil, which afforded no reliable hold, giving way under their feet. On reaching the top, we found ourselves on another plain, intersected a little further on by a ravine similar to the one we had just crossed and so we continued, now scrambling up and down these cañons, now leisurely trotting over short plains, whose level surfaces gave our horses time to get breath and to prepare for tackling the next ravine, until gradually we got nearer to the hills, beyond which we hoped to meet some more pleasant variety of landscape.

Presently we came to a very broad cañon, on the surface of which we observed some irregularities, which, on inspection, proved to be the remains of some human habitation. Portions of wall, about three feet high, were still standing, and here and there lay several pieces of timber; but, excepting a millstone, half embedded in the soil, there were no other vestiges of those who had once attempted to create a homestead in this lone spot.

The colony, on the site of which we were now standing, was founded in 1780 by Antonio Viedma, under commission from the Viceroy of the River Plate Provinces, and was abandoned in 1784, in accordance with a royal order, chiefly on account of the sterility of the soil, which rendered agriculture impossible. The colonists also suffered severely from scurvy, and were further troubled by the Indians, whose hostility they seem to have incurred. The Spaniards, whatever grave faults they may have committed in the administration of their South American possessions, developed great energy and spared no expense in their endeavours to colonise Patagonia, and numerous expeditions were despatched from Buenos Ayres with this object. Settlements were established at Port Desire and other spots on the coast, all of which, sooner or later, came to share the fate of the colony of St. Julian.

And indeed it is not to be wondered at. Unless some very cheap manure be discovered, by means of which sand may be profitably fertilised, or unless some new source of riches at present hidden be discovered there, it is much to be apprehended that Southern Patagonia is destined to remain almost entirely unpopulated and uncultivated till the end of time. In the cañons, where there is a little alluvial soil, some scanty crops might be harvested, or a patch of potatoes might be cultivated; but the spring and summer months are so dry, that even these limited attempts at husbandry might not always be attended with favourable results. Sheep might be reared in the valley of the Santa Cruz River, though not in great numbers, as the pasturage there is rather limited, and the grass itself is coarse and long, and not particularly adapted for sheep, for which it is preferable that it should be short and fine.

The coast is extremely rich in fish, however, and a dried-fish trade might, perhaps, be successfully carried on with the Brazils, where a good market exists for this article, which forms the staple diet of the poorer classes in that country. An attempt to start an industry of this kind was made by a Frenchman, M. E. Rouquand, who established himself, in 1872, at Santa Cruz, with all the machinery, boats, etc., necessary for such an undertaking, under a concession granted to him by the Argentine Government. He built several houses and sheds there, the materials for which were conveyed at great expense from Buenos Ayres; and when everything was ready, and he was about to go practically to work, a Chilian man-of-war steamed into Santa Cruz one day and signified to him that he was trespassing on Chilian territory, and would be required to leave immediately. Chili, it appears, claims jurisdiction over Patagonia as far as Santa Cruz River, and could therefore not permit anyone to attempt to benefit that country whose authorisation to do so came from the Argentine Government. The latter country does not admit Chili's claims to possession over the territory in question, but contented itself in this case with a diplomatic protest against the act of violence committed in defiance of the Argentine flag, under whose protection M. Rouquand had laid out his capital and his energies. In the meantime, M. Rouquand is of course ruined, as neither Government has granted him any compensation for the losses he has sustained by his arbitrary ejection. After such an example, and as the settlement of the territory dispute seems to have been indefinitely shelved by the easy-going countries concerned, it is easy to understand why no one has hitherto been found disposed to risk his time and capital in an endeavour to establish any industry on the Patagonian coast.

Turning our backs on the 'Glen of the Spaniards,' as it is still called in Indian traditional nomenclature, we again continued our journey towards the hills, which were in reality much further than they had appeared at first sight, being, by the rather roundabout road by which we had come, about fifteen miles from the port. Another hour's ride brought us to their base, and as the keen morning air had made us all rather hungry, before going any further we dismounted, and having made a good fire with the branches of some of the thorny bushes which abounded everywhere, and which proved an excellent combustible, we discussed a hearty breakfast of cold meat and biscuit.

After a short rest we remounted and rode slowly up a glen which led between the hills, craning our necks expectantly as we climbed the escarpment which bounded its further end, from the top of which we should have a good view of the surrounding country. We emerged on the summit, and behold, there was nothing but an immense plain, stretching away in dreary uniformity to the far horizon. The scene was not a cheerful one. Down in the cañons the grass is long and green, and clumps of underwood, growing at intervals, lend a pleasant variety to the landscape. But on the plains, which often extend uninterruptedly for thirty or forty miles, all is different, and nothing more dull and dreary can be imagined than the view presented by these immense tracts of land, where, by reason of the sterility of the soil and the fierce winds which sweep continuously over them, no vegetation can possibly flourish. The soil is sandy and covered with stones, with here and there an isolated tuft of grass, withered and grey, whilst a peculiar gloom is further added to the melancholy of the scene by the sombre, melancholy hue of a straggling, stunted bush, the jume, which grows there in considerable quantities—in its blackness and ugliness, the fit offspring of such an uncongenial soil.

The plain we were now standing on was no exception to the general rule, and we found but little inducement to remain immersed in a long contemplation of its charms; so, turning our horses' heads, we followed the course of the hill range, which trended in a semicircle towards the port. After having ridden for some distance, the plain terminated, and we descended into a broken country again, marked with the usual peculiarities of glen and plateau. We presently came in sight of a large lake, which we thought might contain fresh water, but on coming closer we found that the shores were covered with salt crystals, and that the soil in the vicinity was impregnated with salt too. The lake measured about two leagues long, by a league and a half broad at the widest part, but the water was very shallow everywhere. We could see a herd of guanacos standing in the centre, and the water did not reach to above their knees. I have frequently observed these animals standing in the salt lakes which abound everywhere in Patagonia, but whether they actually go to drink I am not prepared to say, though it is hard to account in any other way for their presence there. We looked with some curiosity at these guanacos, as they were the first animals we had met with as yet on the mainland, but they were too far off for us to be able to observe them with accuracy. I shall describe the species at another opportunity.

In the meantime it was getting late, and our horses, which had been severely tried by the nature of the ground we had gone over that day, were beginning to show signs of fatigue. My horse, in particular, was completely done up, and it was with great difficulty that I managed to keep up with my companions.

At sunset we were still a long way from the ship. Dusk came on apace; the hills around us first grew indistinct and hazy, and then gradually settled down into a dark, solid mass, blackly defined upon the lighter background of the sky, over which the stars were now glittering in the frosty air. It was getting cold, too, and I began heartily to wish myself on board, especially as every moment it became more apparent that my horse was in imminent peril of collapsing altogether.

Still he stumbled on, occasionally shying wildly at the glimmering whiteness of some heap of bleached guanaco bones, or startled at the fanciful shapes assumed by the bushes in the deepening shadows of night.

Presently, as I was riding up a rather steep escarpment, my horse's saddle-girths slipped back, the saddle rolled over, and I fell with a heavy thud to the ground. The moment he felt relieved of my weight, and before I could jump up and seize the reins, the horse turned round and leisurely trotted back to a glen we had just left, where there was some fine grass, which had evidently taken his fancy in passing. I ran after him as fast as I could, but he gently, though firmly, refused to be caught, pausing now and then, whenever he had distanced me, to snatch a few mouthfuls of grass, and then starting off again as soon as I came near to him. This kind of thing went on for a long time, and when I had at last caught him, and had picked up the various saddle-belongings, I was completely done up. Not more so, however, than the horse, for when I remounted him he refused to budge an inch, and at the first touch of the whip, quietly lay down. I was now in a pleasant plight. I shouted, in the hope that my companions would hear me, but no answer came. They had evidently not noticed my mishap, and had continued their route, thinking I was coming up behind.

Reluctantly I had to make up my mind to stop where I was till the morning, though the prospect was anything but cheerful. I was too tired to go on on foot, and no persuasion would induce my horse to stir. I was very hungry, and, unfortunately, one of my companions carried what remained of the meat and biscuit; and though it was extremely cold, I had no other coverings for the night but my saddle-cloths, having neglected to bring my fur robes with me. Luckily, I had a box of matches; and having broken off a sufficient quantity of dry branches from the bushes, I soon managed to have a good fire burning, whose warm glow afforded me no little comfort. As a substitute for supper, though it was not a satisfactory equivalent, I smoked a pipe, and then, wrapping myself up as well as I could in the saddle-cloths, I lay down by the fire and tried to go to sleep. This I could not accomplish; for although I fell into a half-doze at first, as soon as the fire got low, the cold thoroughly woke me again, and I had to set off and look for a fresh supply of firewood—by no means a plentiful article. I soon made the fire burn up again; but, do what I would, I could not get to sleep, and finally had to abandon the attempt as hopeless.

The night seemed interminable. Occasionally I would get up, and walk to and fro to pass away the time quicker, but the cold soon drove me back to the fire. I confess I should have liked some companion to enliven my weary vigil. All alone in the wild desert, surrounded by the dark night, I felt quite an uncanny feeling come over me as I listened to the strange whisperings which seemed to creep through the grass and hover in the air, as the wind rose and swept down the narrow glen where I was camping. The more I listened the more these noises seemed to multiply, till at last there was quite a Babel of confused sounds and vague murmurings. Now and then I would start to my feet, fancying I heard voices close to me, or something would rustle mysteriously past, and a sound as of faint laughter would seem to ring from out the depths of the darkness around me. For a time I was kept in quite a state of nervous agitation; but it gradually wore off, and soon I became stolidly indifferent to everything except the fire, to replenish which from time to time I had to make an excursion in search of wood.

The hours went slowly by, as I sat watching the stars creeping over the heavens, longing wearily for daybreak. At last, worn out with fatigue, I fell into a troubled slumber, and when I opened my eyes again the sky was already grey with dawn. My fire had gone out, and my limbs were stiff with cold. On a bush near where I was lying four carranchos, a kind of hawk, were perched, eyeing me with a complacent, watchful look, as if they expected shortly to make a meal of me. Feeling quite uncomfortable under their unholy gaze, I flung a stone at them; but they merely flew up a little, circled once or twice round me, and then lighted again on another bush, as much as to say, 'Never mind; we can wait.' They abound in the pampas, and assemble in great numbers whenever a puma slays a guanaco, as the former often contents itself with merely sucking the blood of its victim, leaving the rest to these birds and the vultures, who soon pick the bones clean.

I rekindled the fire, and after I had warmed my stiffened fingers, I saddled the horse, which I had tethered to a bush during the night, and rode off towards the port. I arrived at the cove after about an hour's sharp riding, and found that my companions had also been obliged to pass the night in the open air, as their horses had eventually succumbed, under the fatigue consequent on their hard day's work.

CHAPTER III.

During the next few weeks we were busy examining the country in the vicinity of St. Julian, without finding anything of special interest to reward our pains. Near the salt lake alluded to in the last chapter we discovered some extensive deposits of phosphate of lime, but as they are very far from the port, they must be considered to have practically no commercial value. Perhaps, however, when all the guanos and nitrates of more accessible regions have been exhausted, the phosphates of Patagonia may be utilised for manuring purposes, but in the interests of agriculture it is to be hoped that that day is as yet far distant.

St. Julian is a far superior harbour to either Chubut or Port Desire, but there is a dearth of fresh water in its vicinity during the months from October to June, which is of course a great drawback, and neutralises its other advantages. Indeed, the whole country is but sparsely watered. South of the Rio Negro, which must be considered as the dividing line between Patagonia and the Argentine Provinces, there are only small rivers, the Chubut, the Desire, and the Santa Cruz. Coy Inlet and Gallegos rivers during nine months of the year are unimportant streams, and the former at certain periods frequently dries up altogether.

The river Chubut has never been followed to its source by any trustworthy traveller, but Dr. Moreno, an Argentine explorer, from personal observations and from information obtained from the natives, is inclined to place its source as taken from a lake, called Coluguapé by the Indians, which lies somewhere between lat. 44° to 45° S., and long. 68° to 69° W., Greenwich. Thence it flows in a north-north-easterly direction till within about sixty miles from its mouth, and then, having received near this point the waters of several small streams from the Cordilleras, it flows from west to east, and finally empties itself into the Atlantic in lat. 42° 20′ S. The depth of the river at forty miles from its mouth varies from five to eight feet, according to the time of the year. Its current is not so rapid as that of most Patagonian rivers, but its extremely tortuous course makes it difficult to navigate. Its estuary forms a tolerably safe harbour for craft of light draught.

The Welsh Colony at Chubut, which numbers at present about 700 souls, was founded by the Argentine Government in 1865. It is not, and never has been, in a flourishing state; but this is due not so much to the unfertility of the Chubut valley as to the fact that most of the people sent out from Wales by the Government agent to form the proposed agricultural colony were miners, who of course knew nothing about farming matters. For a great many years the colonists were supported entirely by the Government, and on several occasions when accidents had happened to the vessels which were bringing stores for them from Buenos Ayres, they were saved from starvation by the Indians, who supplied them with guanaco and ostrich meat. At present the prospects of the colony are rather more hopeful: about 15,000 bushels of wheat were harvested last year; but even now the colony is not self-supporting, and costs the Argentine Government large sums annually for provisions and other assistance afforded the colonists.

South of Chubut lies Port Desire, formed by the estuary of the river, or rather stream, of that name. The Desire does not rise in spring and summer, like Gallegos and the other Patagonian rivers, to any great extent—a circumstance which makes it probable that it does not take its source in the Cordilleras, but rather from a chain of hills, which, according to Dr. Moreno, traverses the centre of Patagonia, running south-southwest from the Sierra de San Antonio, near the Gulf of San Matias. The Spaniards formed a colony at Port Desire, which, after having existed for a few years, was officially abandoned in 1807. The remains of a fort and some houses are still standing near the port, as well as some apple and cherry trees, with which the climate of Patagonia seems to agree very well.

I pass over the incidents of the rest of my sojourn at St. Julian, as having no relevancy to the object of this work. Suffice it to say that by the little Government schooner which makes two or three voyages annually from Buenos Ayres to the Rio Negro and Santa Cruz, and which on this occasion put into St. Julian to bring us our correspondence, I received some letters, conveying important news, which made my speedy return to Buenos Ayres imperative. About the same time a party of ostrich-hunters, attracted by the smoke of our fires, came to St. Julian from Santa Cruz, partly out of curiosity to see the unusual visitors, and partly to trade for biscuits and tobacco. They did not stop long; and as they were going back to Santa Cruz, and from there to Sandy Point in the Straits of Magellan, where I should be able to take a steamer for Buenos Ayres, I embraced this favourable opportunity, and packing up a few things, started off with my new acquaintances.

We had not gone far, however, when it commenced to rain; and there being no particular object in getting wet, we halted for the day, and took shelter under our tent, hoping that by the next morning it would be fine again. In this hope we were disappointed; it rained incessantly for about four days, during which we of course remained where we were, and very tired I soon got of it. The ground was as damp as could be, and so loosened by the moisture that the stakes of our tent gradually gave, and the slack canvas being no longer water-tight, little pools of water gathered round the furs and saddle-cloths which served us in lieu of bedding, permeating them with a general dampness, which made our nightly slumbers rather uncomfortable. The daytime we passed cowering round the fire, with some covering thrown over our backs to keep off the rain, the front part of the body requiring no extra covering, for as fast as it was wetted it dried by the fire, which for this purpose was allowed to assume formidable dimensions. Under such unfavourable circumstances, conversation rather flagged, as may be imagined, being limited to occasional prophecies and conjectures as to when the weather might be expected to change for the better. But in revenge, the tobacco-pipe and the maté-pot went round the circle without any intermission, and during the days of forced inaction consequent on the rain, we consumed startling quantities of those two almost indispensable commodities of pampa life.

Yerba-maté is a kind of tea in great repute throughout South America, especially amongst the country people, who drink it at all their meals, and whenever they have nothing particular to do, which is very often. It is the leaf of a shrub (Ilex Paraguanensis) extensively cultivated in Paraguay and the Brazils, constituting, in fact, the chief article of commerce of the former country. The powdered leaf is steeped in boiling water, and imbibed through a thin pipe (bombilla), perforated with holes, so as to prevent the fine herb from being sucked up with the fluid. It has a bitter, aromatic flavour, and though usually taken with sugar, many find it equally palatable without the latter adjunct. Its restorative powers are marvellous, and frequently, when thoroughly exhausted after a hard day's ride, I have taken a cup or two of maté, and found myself immediately revived and invigorated. It is decidedly a better stimulant than either tea or coffee, and as it does not seem to lose its flavour by exposure to the air and damp as quickly as those articles do, it is naturally preferred by those whose profession forces them to take these qualities into account in the selection of their victuals. Maté, as I have already said, is indispensable to the hunter in Patagonia. For months it is often the only addition he can make to his otherwise exclusively meat diet. In fact he is never without it, except when in the saddest plight, and for its sake he would forego any other luxury, such as sugar, biscuit, or rice.

It is surprising that hitherto no attempt has been made to introduce yerba-maté into Europe as an article of domestic consumption. It has only to be known to be appreciated, and as it could be imported pure, far cheaper than tea or coffee, it might in time prove a formidable rival to those beverages, especially among the working classes, to whom its invigorating qualities would particularly recommend it.

Whilst the rain is pouring down upon us, I may as well take the opportunity of introducing my four companions to the reader. But first a few words as to their common profession, that of the ostrich-hunter.

In the plains that stretch from lat. 40° to 53° S., and from the sea-coast to the Cordilleras, the ostrich and the guanaco roam in immense numbers, their procreativeness being such as to more than neutralise the ravages caused among them by their numerous enemies, such as the Indians, the pumas, and the foxes. The Patagonian ostrich is much smaller than his African cousin, and the feathers are not nearly so valuable, the price usually paid for them at Sandy Point being from $1 to $2 per lb. The trade of the ostrich-hunter is not, therefore, very lucrative; but his wants, on the other hand, are very modest. Besides, he follows his profession more from a love of the wild pampa life, with its freedom from irksome restraint and awkward social obligations, than from any desire to amass wealth; more from a necessity to satisfy his vagabond instincts, than from any impulse derived from some definite aim in life. His hunting-ground extends as far as he chooses to gallop. His stock-in-trade consists of ten or twelve hardy horses, five or six dogs of a mongrel greyhound species, a lasso, a pair of bolas, a knife, a revolver, and a long steel; besides, of course, all the necessary accoutrements for his horse, which, together with the indispensable capa, form his bed at night.

The capa is a long robe of guanaco furs, about five and a half feet long, by four and a half broad. They are made by the Indian women, who are very clever at sewing, notwithstanding the primitive clumsiness of their rude tools. Their needles consist of pieces of bone sharpened to the requisite point, and the thread they use is made from guanaco sinews. The skins are of the young guanacos before they are three weeks old, as after that time the fur becomes coarse and woolly. These capas are extremely warm, and effectually protect one from the cold winds that blow over the pampas, when almost any other garment would prove insufficient. A novice experiences considerable difficulty in the management of their somewhat awkward folds, especially on horseback; but the Indians wear them with infinite ease and grace.

The bolas, or balls, are of two kinds, being either two round stones or pieces of lead, covered with leather and joined by a thong of from six to eight feet long; or three balls, united by thongs to a common centre. The latter are used chiefly for guanaco-hunting, and not a little skill is required to handle them efficiently. After having been swung round the head till the requisite pitch of velocity has been attained, the balls are hurled at the animal pursued, and becoming firmly twisted round whatever part of its body they may fall on, they effectually hamper its speed, and enable the hunter to come up to it and give the coup de grace with his long knife.

With no other impedimenta than the above-mentioned, the ostrich-hunter roams at will over the vast pampas. At night-time he makes himself at home under shelter of some thick bush, which, if such be his caprice, may become his head-quarters for weeks, and even months, especially if the game in the vicinity be abundant. His movements are altogether uncertain, and by no means regulated by any reference to time, to the course of which he is sublimely indifferent. The chase supplies all his wants. With the hide of the guanaco he makes his lasso, reins, bolas, and even shoes; whilst its flesh, varied by that of the ostrich, forms his staple article of diet. When he has collected a sufficient quantity of feathers, he pays a flying visit to Sandy Point, sells them, and with the produce lays in a new stock of tobacco and maté, renews his wardrobe, i.e., say a shirt, a poncho, a jacket, and a chiripà; and if there still remains anything over, he may buy another horse, or some dog which may have taken his fancy.

For the rest, he is a careless, easy-going vagabond, always cheerful, whatever plight he may be in, and submitting with calm philosophy to any of the many hardships the inclemency of the climate may entail upon him. There are, however, few Ostrich-hunters pur sang in Southern Patagonia, though up near the Rio Negro they are more numerous; but those one does meet with are all distinguished by the characteristics I have described.

I will now attempt a sketch of my four companions, beginning with the most striking among them, Isidoro, who is several times mentioned in Captain Musters' interesting book, 'At Home with the Patagonians.' He was an Argentine Gaucho, with a dash of Indian blood in his veins, who had come down to Patagonia many years ago from the Rio Negro. He was a slender, well-built man, with a pleasant, swarthy face, of a warm, earth-brown complexion, set in by a profusion of long black hair, which he carefully groomed every morning with a comb, whose teeth, being old, were decayed and few and far between, kept for the purpose in the recesses of a rather greasy cap. Broad and shaggy eyebrows, meeting over a bold Roman nose and shading a pair of bright, restless eyes, habitually veiled by half-closed lids and the longest of lashes; slightly high cheekbones, full thick lips, and a shaggy beard and moustache, completed the tout ensemble of his really striking face, the general expression of which was one of intelligence and good humour.

His dress, which combined materials of Indian as well as European manufacture, was not unpicturesque, and consisted of a woollen shirt and a 'chiripà'—a covering for the lower limbs something like a kilt, secured by a strap at the waist, into which were stuck the inevitable hunting-knife, revolver, pipe, and tobacco-pouch—while his feet were encased in potro boots, tied at the knees with Indian-worked garters; and over all hung the long capa.

The recipe for making a pair of potro boots is very simple, and the operation requires no previous knowledge of the cobbler's art. Having killed your horse, you make an incision with a sharp knife round the hide above the hock, say at the commencement of the lower thigh, and another a couple of inches below the curb-place, and then proceed to draw the hide off the legs. Each leg will thus supply a comfortable Wellington, in which the point of the hock has become the heel. Of course, before fit for wear, the hide must be well softened by hand—a task which requires no little patience; for if not thoroughly done, the boots after a time will become quite hard and useless. As soon as they have been worn long enough to have taken the shape of the foot, the toe-ends are sewn up, and the transformation of your horse's hocks into easy-fitting boots is an accomplished feat.

When hunting, the belt and bolas are strapped outside the capa, so that the upper part of the latter may fly loose whenever any exertion requires that the arms should be free, as when lassoing or throwing the bolas.

Isidoro was one of the best riders I have ever seen, and even amongst the Indians he was allowed to have no equal. The most unruly colt became quiet in his hands, and after a few ineffectual attempts to dislodge its rider, would sullenly acknowledge the mastery of his firm hand and easy seat. All his horses were wonders of tameness and careful and intelligent teaching. His method of taming them I subsequently had an opportunity of studying, and in due course will revert to it. He was equally proficient in the use of the lasso and bolas, seldom, if ever, missing his aim. One of his peculiarities was his extreme watchfulness; not the slightest detail could escape his vigilance; and when anyone, as often happened, would mislay a knife or some such object, to save further trouble, Isidoro was always appealed to as to its whereabouts, which he would invariably point out immediately—the missing article often lying under a bush or saddle-cloth, where it had been thrown by its careless owner perhaps a day or two ago. It seemed as if Isidoro made it his special duty to look after everyone's things, though, to judge by appearances, he never paid particular attention to anything except his pipe, which seldom left his mouth. His sharpness of vision was intense, and he could detect guanacos and ostriches on the far horizon, when I could see nothing but bushes or clouds. Another distinguishing feature was his taciturnity. Only on very rare occasions have I heard him utter more than three or four words at a breath, and often he would sit for hours with the rest of us round the fire, listening attentively to all that was said, without breathing a syllable the whole evening. As the owner of some thirty fine horses, he was considered quite a rich man amongst the Indians and ostrich-hunters; and, on account of his honesty, good-nature, and quiet, unassuming bearing, he was a favourite with everyone.

We will pass on to Garcia, who, in appearance at least, formed a striking contrast to Isidoro. His yellow beard, brown hair, and blue eyes seemed to betoken a Saxon rather than a Spanish descent. However, be that as it may, he was a true Gaucho, and but slightly inferior to Isidoro in horsemanship and general address as a hunter. He had formerly been a soldier on the Argentine frontiers, and in that capacity had had many a fight with the Indians, thrilling accounts of which he would often favour us with over the evening's fire. Subsequently he had worked as 'tropero' (cattle-driver) on the Rio Negro, a profession which in due course he had relinquished in order to become an ostrich-hunter. Having lived more amongst civilised people, his manners were less abrupt than Isidoro's, and he was rather more talkative and genial than the latter.

Next comes Guillaume, who was by birth a Frenchman, and who had originally been a blacksmith; but some chance having wafted him to Patagonia, he had taken a fancy to the country and remained there, and was now fast becoming naturalised. He was an active, intelligent fellow, and equal to any amount of hard work. One of his most striking features was his enormous appetite, the amount he could devour at one meal being simply astounding. It is on record amongst his companions that he demolished a whole side of a young guanaco at a sitting. But notwithstanding this extraordinary faculty for eating, he was as thin as could be, and always had a hungry, half-starved look.

His very antithesis was Maximo, the last of the group, who in size and corpulence might have competed with the most Herculean Patagonian Indian. He was an Austrian, age twenty, I think, and had formerly been a sailor, but having been wrecked on the syren shores of Patagonia, like Guillaume, he had been unable to withstand its subtle attractions, and having embraced the profession of ostrich-hunting, with the natural aptness of sailors, he had soon mastered the mysteries of his craft, and was already an adept in the use of lasso and bolas. His strength was such as his burly dimensions warranted, and he would often surprise us by the ease with which he would tear up firmly-seated roots, and stout underwood for firing purposes. He was, moreover, as I was surprised to find, an accomplished linguist, and spoke Spanish, Italian, French, German, and English with tolerable fluency, though I think he could neither read nor write. His appetite, like Guillaume's, was Homeric, the two being a host in themselves.

Maximo was not so rich as his companions; indeed, his whole property consisted in a horse and a dog. The former was a wiry little animal, and apparently impervious to fatigue; for its owner was by no means a featherweight, and it was a matter of continued astonishment to me, how it managed to carry him along, day after day, over tiring hilly country, with occasional fierce gallops after ostriches, without ever showing signs of distress. Neither was his attire so elegant or so comfortable as that of his companions. It consisted, on my first becoming acquainted with him, of a shirt and a pair of trousers; boots he had none, but would now and then wear a pair of sabots, made with the skin of the hind-legs of the guanaco. However, the capa made up for all defects in dress, and Maximo was perfectly content with things as they were. Withal he was the best-tempered fellow imaginable, and the stoic indifference he showed to the discomforts of rain and cold, and his equanimity under all circumstances, were simply heroic.

As these four men, who by various strange chances had been thrown together on this desert spot, from such different parts of the world, were to become my companions during a long period of hardship and adventure, I have described them at some length, especially as I feel sure that their peculiar and utterly unconventional mode of life, so different from that of the ordinary people one meets in everyday intercourse with the world, will invest them, in the eyes of my readers, with the same romantic interest with which I regarded them.

CHAPTER IV.

The rain continued to pour down almost without interruption for four days, till one afternoon a shift of the wind brought a definite change for the better; the clouds cleared off, the sun shone out brightly, and we were cheered by the sight of blue sky again.

We hastened to spread our furs, sheepskins, and general clothing on the bushes to dry, as everything had got more or less damp during the recent downpour, and, thanks to the wind and sun, by supper-time we were able to indulge in dry shirts and stockings again, which, with the luxury of having dry beds to creep into that night, in perspective, sent up our spirits a hundred degrees, and made the conversation over that evening's supper as lively as it had hitherto been dull.

Maximo told the story of the shipwreck which had first thrown him on Patagonian shores; Garcia related some exciting incident of his frontier warfare experience; Guillaume recounted the hardships and dangers he had undergone during the siege of Belfort in 1870, having belonged to the brave garrison which defended that fortress; and even Isidoro, yielding to the genial influence of the moment, so far abandoned his accustomed silence as to tell us how, when a soldier in the Argentine service at Rio Negro, he had deserted and run away with a tribe of Tehuelche Indians, who were going south, with whom he lived for a long time, and from amongst whose brown-skinned daughters he had eventually taken unto him a wife. He admitted, however, that his matrimonial existence had not been a happy one. Mrs. Isidoro, it appears, took to drinking, and became too noisy and violent for her husband, who of all things loved quiet; so without any further fuss, and without many words, as was his custom, he led her back to her father's tent, where, with a short explanation, he left her, thus consummating his divorce a mensâ et thoro with expeditious ease, and securing for himself the blessing of undisturbed peace for the future.

We rose at daybreak the next morning, and commenced preparations for starting. The horses, some fifty in number, were driven together; those selected for the day's work were severally lassoed, and this being done, the others were allowed to disperse again and return to their grazing, whilst we got ready.

Although as tame as cats in every other respect, very few of these Indian-tamed horses allow one to approach them on foot; as a rule they can only be caught with the lasso. When a horse observes that it has been singled out from the herd for capture, it does its utmost to evade the flying noose, and often gives a great deal of trouble before it can be finally caught; but the moment it feels the lasso alight round its neck, it will stop short in the fiercest gallop, and immediately gives up any attempt at resistance, which it knows would be useless; and when once it is bridled, the lasso may be removed, and it will stand in the same spot for hours, without attempting even to graze.

Our stock of provisions, viz. some rice, biscuit, farina, sugar, maté, and a stone bottle of gin, were carefully packed up, and together with the tent and cooking utensils, an iron pot, a saucepan, and a tin kettle, were placed on the pack-horse, a sturdy animal, who trotted away under his load as if it had been a feather-weight.

We then commenced saddling our own horses—a somewhat lengthy operation. The articles which constitute the saddle-gear of a horse in the pampas are rather numerous, and at night-time serve, with the aid of the capa, as mattress, bed-clothes, and bedstead. First one lays two or three blankets or cloths, folded square, on the horse's back, taking care that they lie smooth and form no creases; over these comes a covering of leather, called a 'carona,' which consists of two thick pieces of leather sewn together, and which is very useful at night-time, as it forms a damp-proof foundation for one's bed. On the carona the saddle is placed, and firmly secured to the horse by means of a broad leather girth, and over the saddle again are laid the sheepskins, furs, or whatever coverings one may possess. All being ready for starting, we strapped our capas well around us, a few logs were heaped on the smouldering fire, we warmed our hands, which had got stiffened with the cold whilst saddling, smoked a last pipe, and after a look round to see if anything had been forgotten, jumped into the saddle, whistled to the dogs, and we were off, en route for Santa Cruz.

It was a bright morning. The wind was just cold enough to make one feel grateful for the warm sunshine, and to give that exciting tingle to the blood which influences one's spirits like a subtle wine. I felt its power, and a strange elation made my pulse beat quicker, as I rode gaily along, inspirited by the strong, springy step of the good horse I bestrode, and inhaling deep draughts of the pure clear air, which seemed to sweep the cobwebs of care from my brain, and to blow all unpleasant thoughts far from me, making me feel gloriously happy in the mere consciousness of the fact that I breathed and had being.

I seemed to be leaving the old world I had hitherto known behind me, with its turmoils and cares and weary sameness, and to be riding merrily into some new sphere of free, fresh existence. I felt that without a pang I could break with old associations, renounce old ties, the pomps and the pleasures, the comforts, the bothers, the annoyances of civilisation, and become as those with whom I was now travelling—beings with no thought for the morrow, and therefore with no uneasiness for it either, living the life of our nomadic ancestors, in continual and intimate contact with nature—an unchequered, untroubled existence, as wild, simple, and free as that of the deer that browse on the plains.

We were riding along a broad glen, down the middle of which a rapid stream was flowing. Guillaume and Maximo were busy driving the horses before them—no easy matter, as, now and then, one or two would lag behind to crop up a mouthful of grass, or the whole troop would make a dash in the wrong direction, only to be got together again after much galloping and shouting.

The neighing of the horses, the continual cries of 'Jegua! Jegua!' with which they were urged along, and the tinkling of the bells on the 'madrinas' (bell-mares), broke cheerfully on the silence of the glen, and startled many a flock of wild geese, who were disporting themselves there in numbers; and occasionally a guanaco or two, who had been grazing in the young grass, would gaze at us in a momentary fit of curiosity, and then bound away with their graceful, springy gallop, neighing defiance at us as they glided swiftly up the far ravine.

After we had gone some way, Isidoro and Garcia and myself rode ahead of the horses, in order to look out for ostriches, Isidoro taking one side of the cañada, which was about a mile and a half broad, and Garcia and myself the other. I felt very excited, as it was my first hunt after this kind of game. The dogs, with erect and quivering tails, and noses down, were eagerly running this way and that, scenting the ground, or snuffing the wind which came in light puffs down the cañada.

Presently they made a simultaneous dash forward, and started off after something, and my horse, evidently an old hunter, with a sudden start that almost threw me out of the saddle, dashed after them, ventre à terre, like wild-fire, side by side with Garcia, who was already loosening the bolas to prepare for action.

I soon descried the ostrich, which was hurrying along as fast as its legs would carry it, wings drooping and neck outstretched, with the whole covey of dogs close on its heels. The race was at first doubtful, but a moment of indecision brought the ostrich into difficulties, and the dogs slowly gained on their prey. Already the foremost one was up to it, when the ostrich suddenly darted sideways, whilst the hounds, unable to stop their impetuous speed, shot forward a long way before they could recover themselves. By that time the bird was half-way up the side of the glen, and out of danger; and Garcia whistled to the dogs, who came back slowly and sulkily, with their tails between their legs, looking wistfully over their shoulders at the retreating bird, which was already a mere speck on the summit of the ravine.

Garcia told me that the ostrich, like the hare, often resorts to this trick of 'doubling' when hard pressed. It is not always as successful as it had been in the present case, as the dogs generally know the exact moment and in what direction the ostrich is going to double, and are prepared accordingly.

We were riding slowly along, talking about our late disappointment, when another ostrich started up almost from under our very feet. With a wild shout we dashed after it, Garcia getting ready with the bolas, now our sole means of capturing the bird, as the dogs had lagged far behind us on some wrong scent. The horses were on their mettle, and in headlong chase we tore after the distressed quarry; but though we strained every nerve, we could not gain an inch of ground, and in another second we should have lost the ostrich, who was making for the steep ravine-side, when Garcia swinging the bolas two or three times round his head flung them with strong hand at the retreating bird. Luckily lighting on its neck, they entangled its legs and it fell to the ground kicking desperately. An instant after and we were up to it, and Garcia ended its struggles by breaking its neck, and then proceeded to disembowel it—a process watched with peculiar interest by the dogs, the offal, etc., being their share of the spoils.

OSTRICH HUNTING.
[p. 50].

The trophy was then hung to Garcia's saddle, and we went back on our tracks to look for the nest; for, from the bird having started up so close to us, Garcia surmised that it must have been sitting, as during that period they are loth to leave their nests, at the approach of danger, till the very last moment. Garcia proved to be right, for, after a short search, we came upon the nest, which contained fourteen eggs—a prize we were not long in securing to our saddles.

I found the nest to be of the roughest description, being simply a hole scooped in the ground, under shelter of a bush, and made soft for the young chicks by a few wisps of grass.

The number of eggs found in a nest varies from ten to forty, being usually about twenty. In size the Patagonian ostrich's egg is equal to about eight hen's eggs. It is the male bird that hatches the eggs and looks after the young—being, I believe, the only male among birds which does so. The period of incubation is from twenty to twenty-four days. During rainy weather he never leaves the nest, but will sit for six or seven days without feeding. In fine weather he grazes for an hour or two in the evening, but never strays far from the nest, as Master Reynard, who is always prowling near, would soon make a raid on the eggs. It is said that if one egg is broken or abstracted from the nest during the absence of the male bird, on returning he will immediately detect the theft, and become so furious that he will dash the remaining eggs to pieces, and dance round the nest as if frantic.

After the hatching period, the birds lay their eggs promiscuously about the plains. These eggs are called 'huatchos' by the natives. They keep for a long time, and I have frequently met with huatchos in April, which, although they must have been laid more than six months at that time, were still fairly eatable.

The ostrich of Southern Patagonia (Rhea Darwinii) is smaller than the 'Avestruz moro' (Rhea Americana), as the species which frequents the country near the River Negro is called by the natives. The colour of its plumage is brown, the feathers being tipped with white, whereas the moro, as its name indicates, is uniformly grey. The R. Darwinii are extremely shy birds, and as their vision is remarkably acute, it is by no means an easy matter to catch them, unless one has very swift dogs to hunt with.

At the approach of danger the ostrich often crouches flat on the ground, with its neck stretched out under the grass, remaining motionless in this position till the dogs have gone past. This stratagem is successful when the wind is blowing against the scent; but when the contrary is the case, the dogs soon discover the hiding bird, which, doubtless too bewildered by the sudden failure of its naïvely artless ruse, makes no attempt to escape.

Our companions by this time were a long way ahead of us, so we started after them at a brisk gallop. On the way we met Isidoro, who had also been fortunate, as two ostriches dangling from each side of his saddle evinced.

We continued our journey along the winding ravine, all helping now to drive the horses and keep them well together—an essential matter when rapid progress is desirable, for if the troop once gets broken up and scattered, one may spend no end of time in galloping about and herding the horses together again.

At about five o'clock we passed a fine thick bush, of considerable height, which appeared so well adapted for affording shelter, that we resolved to camp under it for the night, especially as I, not being accustomed lately to such long rides, already began to feel rather tired and shaken.

In a few minutes after we had made this decision our horses were unsaddled, the saddle-gear, packs, ostriches, etc., thrown higgledy-piggledy in a heap, and everyone lay down in the grass to stretch his limbs and smoke a pipe—a simple indulgence which, under such circumstances, becomes an absolutely priceless luxury.

A small fire was then made, the kettle filled from the rivulet which ran down the centre of the ravine, and as soon as the water boiled, maté was prepared, and we sat for some time silently imbibing that stimulating concoction, whose wonderful powers of banishing fatigue I have already alluded to.

Presently Maximo and Guillaume went off to collect firewood, whilst Isidoro and Garcia busied themselves with plucking the ostriches and laying the feathers in bundles, in which form they enter the market. I stretched myself out on my furs and awaited the dinner-hour with eager expectation, as my ride and that sharp, dry air peculiar to Patagonia had given me the real pampa appetite, under the influence of which one becomes so inordinately and irksomely ravenous, and experiences such an unnatural craving for food, as quite to justify one in considering one's self attacked by some transitory, but acute disease which has to be undergone by the stranger in Patagonia, like those acclimatising fevers peculiar to some tropical countries.

In an hour or so Guillaume and Maximo returned, bringing a huge bundle of dry wood between them, and the kitchen being Maximo's special department, he immediately set about getting dinner ready. Thanks to his efforts, a fine fire was soon blazing; the big iron pot was filled with water, ostrich meat, and rice, and set to boil, and several other dainties were set to roast on wooden spits or broiled in the ashes, emitting odours of grateful promise as they sputtered and browned under Maximo's delicate handling.

Meanwhile, we sharpened our knives, took up comfortable positions round the fire, and the chêf having declared everything ready, the onslaught commenced.

I append the carte for the benefit of those curious in such matters:

Pot-au-feu (rice, ostrich meat, etc.).

Broiled ostrich wings.

Ostrich steak.

Cold guanaco head.

Roast ostrich gizzard, à l'Indienne.

Ostrich eggs.

Custard (ostrich eggs, sugar, gin).

A glance at the above will show that a pampa dinner may be pleasantly varied. Of the items mentioned, I think the ostrich wings are the greatest delicacy, tasting something like turkey, and, as I then thought at least, perhaps even finer. The ostrich gizzard, too, was worthy of note, being broiled Indian fashion, with hot stones—a task which, as requiring great care, was superintended by Isidoro himself, who in his way was a remarkable cook. The flavour of ostrich meat generally is not unpleasant, especially when fat. It varies greatly, according to what part of the bird it is from. The wings, breast, and extremity of the back are the tit-bits. The thighs are coarser, and bear a close resemblance to horseflesh.

When all the meat was consumed, Isidoro, who, by-the-bye, seemed to be able to produce anything that was required from somewhere or other (generally from his cap, which was quite a storehouse for all kinds of extraneous articles), now turned up with a small soup-plate and a dilapidated spoon, and I was requested to help myself to the broth and rice in the pot, handing the plate back to Isidoro when I had finished, who in his turn passed it to Garcia, and so on till it had gone round the circle.

We then lay back to smoke and recover from our exertions, whilst the dogs cleared up whatever fragments remained from the feast.

Here I may say a few words about the dogs, of which there were in all about eighteen with us. Most of them were greyhounds, of more or less pure breeds, imported by the Welsh settlers at Chubut; the others being nondescript curs of heavier build, which were useful for pulling down the guanacos brought to bay by the fleeter but less powerful greyhounds. Their various merits and failings formed the usual topic of an evening's conversation, their owners comparing notes as to their respective achievements during the day's hunting, or recalling previous wonderful performances worthy of remembrance.

We were quite overrun by such a number of dogs, and often they became a nuisance only to be borne when we remembered that after all they were the meat-givers, without whom we should find ourselves in a very unpleasant plight. They had a peculiarly happy knack, when wet, of creeping into one's furs, and making one's bed damp for the night; and often I have been awakened by one of them trying to go comfortably to sleep on the pillow beside me, and thrusting its cold nose into my face as a preliminary. When eating, if I happened to lay down a piece of meat for a moment, it was sure to be immediately snapped up by one of them, and they would even snatch away the morsel held in my hand, if I did not take care to keep them at a safe distance. All provisions had to be put on the top of a bush, well out of their reach, as neglect in this particular might bring on the unpleasant alternative of going supperless to bed.

We sat for some time round the fire, chatting and smoking, and then each looked out for his furs and bed-gear, arranged his couch, and before long we were all fast asleep.

I woke once, roused by some horse which had strayed from its companions, and which was snuffing at me curiously, till on my starting up it bounded away, snorting with terror.

Before going to sleep again I looked around me. There was a faint scent of fresh earth on the cold night air, and a slight frost had fallen over bush and grass, which told that dawn was not far distant. The moon was shining full over the valley, bathing it in hazy light. I could see the horses standing about in black knots of twos and threes, some dozing, some grazing, the bells of the madrinas occasionally breaking the deep silence with a soft tinkle. Round the fire, some logs of which still smouldered redly, my companions lay motionless, sleeping soundly under cover of their warm furs.

Fascinated by the strange novelty of the scene and the calm silence of the hour, I lay for a long time gazing about me. I watched the soft charm of silvery indistinctness, lent to the landscape by the moon's rays glittering on the frosty crystals, gradually fade away, as the moon's splendour paled before the new light which sprang up in the east. Soon the bushes, the grass, and the winding ravine stood out sharply defined, looking grey and bleak in the sober light of dawn. The face of nature seemed blank and wan, like the face of a man on whom the morning light streams after a night of vigil. With a shiver I drew my head under my capa, and fell into a sound sleep again.

CHAPTER V.

When I awoke there was a good fire crackling and blazing cheerfully, and I lost no time in getting up and joining my companions, who had already risen, and were taking maté and enjoying the warm glow of the fire, which at that damp, chilly hour was indeed welcome.

As we were not going far that day, we were in no hurry to start off, preferring to wait till the sun should get high enough to dispel the cold mist which hung over the country.

We took our ease over breakfast, therefore, and it was already nearly midday when Maximo rode down the ravine to collect the horses. We waited for a long time, but, to our surprise, he did not reappear, and presently Garcia went after him to see what was the matter. After a time they both returned, driving the horses before them, but reporting Isidoro's stallion and several of his mares missing. From the appearance of the tracks, Garcia seemed to think that some wild stallion had made a raid on the mares and driven them off—a piece of news which filled Isidoro with consternation, as he feared that by that time the missing animals might be forty or fifty miles away, beyond any hope of recapture. Without losing any time, therefore, we all saddled; and leaving some of our gear and packages under the bush where we had been camping, we started off on the trail.

Some way down the cañon we came to a place where there had evidently been a fierce struggle. The ground was torn up in all directions, and Isidoro's sharp eye was not long in detecting some tufts of hair lying in the grass, which he declared came from the coat of his own bay stallion. Some of the hoof-marks were very large—larger than could have been made by any of his horses—and he quite confirmed Garcia's surmise, that some 'bagual' (wild horse) had carried off the mares, after having previously fought and vanquished his own stallion. We had no difficulty in following the trail, as the recent rain had made the ground quite soft. The tracks went along the cañon for some distance, and then suddenly turned and went up the cañon-side on to the plain. We had not gone far over the latter when our horses pricked up their ears and began to sniff the air in a nervous manner. A few strides more brought us to the edge of the plain, and in the cañon at our feet we discovered Isidoro's bay stallion, looking very crestfallen and wobegone. At our approach he gave a faint neigh of satisfaction; but he had hardly done so, when it was answered by a triumphant pæan from another quarter, and from behind a bend in the cañon, meekly followed by Isidoro's mares, issued a magnificent black stallion. Undeterred by our presence, he made straight for his but recently vanquished rival, with head erect nostrils distended, and his long mane and tail streaming in the wind. As for the bay,

'Not a moment stopped or stayed he;'

but ignominiously took to his heels, and started up the cañon at full speed.

Isidoro, who was some way ahead of us, galloped to the rescue. The bagual, strange to say, however, suddenly rushed at him, standing upon its hind-legs, and beating the air with its fore-feet in a threatening manner. Taken by surprise, Isidoro had hardly time to loosen his bolas when the furious brute was upon him, and for a moment I thought it was a bad case. But Isidoro was as cool as he was adroit, and in another second the bagual dropped on its knees, half stunned, struck full in the forehead by a well-aimed blow of the balls. Before it could recover, Garcia's lasso whizzed through the air and lighted on its neck, and then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped away at full speed in an opposite direction. The shock, as the lasso tautened, threw his horse on its haunches, but the stallion lay half strangled and powerless. To finish matters, Maximo whipped his lasso over its fore-feet, and drew them tight together, and the poor brute was thus reduced to utter helplessness.

We could now contemplate it at our ease. It was a splendidly-made animal, and far larger than any of the horses of our troop. I was very much astonished at the way it had shown fight, as I had imagined that, being wild, it would have fled at the sight of man. I pleaded strongly that its life might be spared, but the fact that it was in very good condition weakened the force of any argument I might bring in support of my plea, fat meat in spring being a luxury which my companions did not feel justified in depriving themselves of, if fate chanced to throw it in their way. The poor bagual was accordingly despatched, skinned, and cut up; but eventually none of the meat was eaten, for, much to everyone's disappointment, it proved so strong that even the dogs did not care to touch it.

We now returned towards our camp. The bay stallion, his wrongs avenged and his abducted wives restored to his affectionate keeping, kept neighing and tossing up his heels in a state of high glee, without, to all appearance, being troubled by any misgivings as to whether his recent ignominious defeat had caused him to forfeit the esteem of his family circle.

On our way back, Isidoro told me that he had frequently seen troops of wild horses near St. Julian, and that at times the Indians make excursions to those regions on purpose to catch them. At the foot of the Cordilleras there is a smaller, and in every way inferior, breed of baguals, several tame specimens of which I subsequently saw amongst the horses of the Southern Tehuelches.

Having reached the camp, we loaded the pack-horse, and resumed our journey southwards. We continued to follow the windings of the ravine for some distance, and then, turning abruptly, we rode up one of its steep sides, and found ourselves on a broad plain, which seemed to stretch away interminably, presenting the characteristics of dreary gloom and hopeless sterility I have already described.

The wind, which down in the ravine we had scarcely felt, blew with astonishing violence upon the plain; the gusts were so strong occasionally that we could hardly keep our saddles, and at intervals we encountered squalls of hailstones of unusual size, which, coming full in our faces, caused us no little annoyance. It was bitterly cold, too, and I was thankful for my capa, which kept me tolerably warm, though I had great difficulty in keeping it tightly folded round me, for if the wind could but find hold in the smallest crevice, it would blow the capa right off me. In fact, it requires a peculiar knack, only to be attained by long experience, to enable one to wear a capa on horseback with ease and comfort.

Conversation under these adverse circumstances was not very practicable, and we rode on for the most part in silence. It was altogether a miserable day, and that tedious plain seemed as if it were never going to end.

We reached its limit rather suddenly, however. I had been holding my head down for some time, to avoid a passing squall of hailstones, and so had fallen insensibly to the rear of my companions. On looking up presently, I found, to my astonishment, that they had vanished as if by magic, and I was apparently alone in the plain.

I galloped forward, and their sudden disappearance was soon explained, for in a couple of minutes I found myself at the edge of the plain, which terminated abruptly, descending almost vertically into another plateau, which lay some two hundred feet below, down towards which my companions were slowly winding their way in a zigzag line, as the descent was too sharp for them to ride straight down. I had considerable difficulty in following them, as the violence of the wind seemed doubled at this spot, and it was only by clinging firmly to the neck of my horse that I prevented myself being blown from the saddle. In a measure as I descended, however, the wind grew less boisterous, and on arriving below it entirely ceased. I soon rejoined my companions, and presently, on coming to a spring of fresh water, with some good pasture near it for the horses, we resolved to go no further that day.

We accordingly unsaddled and made the usual arrangements for the night, which, as the sky looked rather threatening, on this occasion included setting up the tent. This precautionary measure was a wise one, as towards morning there was a slight fall of snow, and when I woke up I found the whole landscape whitened over.

Garcia and the others were of opinion that we had better remain where we were for the day, as they considered that travelling through the snow might be bad for the horses; so, there being nothing better for us to do, we crept under our furs and went to sleep again till about midday, by which time the snow had nearly all melted away under the influence of the sun, which shone out brightly. Isidoro and Garcia then rode off hunting. Maximo, Guillaume, and I, being lazily inclined, remained by the fire, and beguiled an hour or so with breakfast.

Afterwards they went to fetch firewood, whilst I amused myself by practising with the bolas. I found it very difficult to use them with any precision; in fact, they always took exactly the opposite direction to that in which I wished to throw them, and finally, in an attempt to 'bolear' a bush, I very narrowly missed poor Maximo, who was just coming up behind me.

As an instance of the skill which may be acquired in the use of the bolas, I have several times seen Isidoro throw them at some refractory colt at full gallop, with such true aim as to make them alight round its hind legs, and effectually pinion them, without doing the animal any harm whatever—a feat which requires immense confidence and nerve, as the bolas, which are very heavy, being generally made of stone or lead, have to be flung with considerable velocity.

The first hunter to return was Garcia. He had killed a female puma, a great prize, as the meat is excellent, and especially esteemed during the winter and spring months, when it is always fat, whereas the ostriches and guanacos are at that time generally miserably lean. The brute looked very fierce and dangerous; the half-opened jaws displayed a row of cruel white teeth, which gave its face an uncomfortable expression of rage and spite. The fur was of a yellowish-grey; and the length of the animal from tip to tail was about nine feet.

The puma abounds in the pampas, where it preys on the guanacos and ostriches, lying in ambush for them in the ravines near where they are in the habit of going to drink. With one blow of its huge paw, it can kill a full-sized guanaco; but, notwithstanding its great strength, the Patagonian puma is of very cowardly instincts, and if attacked by man, quietly receives its death-blow from the balls without any attempt at self-defence. If taken young they can be easily tamed, and in that state their manners closely resemble those of the domestic cat. They are very fond of being taken notice of, and will purr and stretch themselves under a caressing hand, like any old tabby. They are extremely playful and good tempered, attaching themselves with docility to those with whom they are familiar.

I was travelling in a steamer once, on board of which there was a young puma about two months old, which was being sent to the Zoological Gardens. It was a graceful, affectionate little animal, and became a great favourite during the voyage, relieving many a tedious hour with its playful gambols. Its great delight was to lie hidden behind a spar, and then suddenly spring out on some unwary passer-by, to whose leg it would tenaciously cling, until some other object attracted its attention. Its inseparable companion was a little Scotch terrier, with which it would play for hours together, rather roughly sometimes, it is true, but still without ever showing any traces of a treacherous or spiteful disposition, though occasionally its temper must have been severely tried, as the dog would often seize and carry away its dinner—a fighting matter with much better-disposed animals than pumas.

At dinner that evening we ate a side of the puma Garcia had killed. After I had overcome the repugnance I at first felt at eating the flesh of a beast of prey, I found the meat excellent, tasting, as I thought, something like veal.

We started early the next morning, as we had a long journey before us, being anxious to reach the Rio Chico, a tributary of the Santa Cruz River before night-time.

At every step the country across which we were now travelling grew more sterile, and after about an hour's ride, we found ourselves in a region of extraordinary barrenness. Not a blade of grass was to be seen anywhere, and even the miserable scrub of the plains could find no nourishment in that bleak tract of salt sand and broken scoriæ. Traces of volcanic action were everywhere apparent. Immense boulders of solid rock were scattered here and there in chaotic confusion, and on some spots sharp ridges of dark porphyry pierced through the soil, towering up in fantastic shapes, gloomy and bare. It seemed like an unfinished portion of the globe, the very skeleton of a landscape. The outlines were there, indeed, the framework of the intended structure. There were bold hills, sheltered valleys, isolated peaks, deep basins; but over all was silence and desolation, all was empty and void. The finishing-touch had been withheld—the last touch which was to have softened and modulated those rugged contours, clothing their barrenness with verdure, filling the dry basins with clear water, and bringing life and gladness to what was now lying in sad and eternal deathliness.

Nature must have made Patagonia last of all her works, and the horn of Plenty, from which an abundance of rich gifts had been poured over the rest of the world, was well-nigh exhausted when that country's turn to be endowed came round. There still remained a little grass seed, however, and this was carefully scattered over the length and breadth of the land. But little alighted on the hills and plains, for the strong pampa winds swept it down into the ravines and gulches, under the shelter of which it took root and flourished, affording nourishment to the ostrich and guanaco, and preserving the springs of fresh water from the scorching rays of the summer's sun.

But one nook had been altogether forgotten during the distribution of the scanty remains of Nature's gifts, and accordingly had been doomed to remain desolate and barren to the end of time, sustaining no vegetable life, and shunned by all living creatures. And through that unfortunate region I was now riding, gloomily oppressed by the spirit of mournful silence and wild solitude which hung over it, whilst my weary gaze sought in vain some token of organic existence to relieve the monotony of lifeless stone and bare sand-hillocks.

We rode swiftly, for we all felt the same desire to escape as quickly as possible to more cheering scenes, but several hours elapsed before the sight of an occasional stunted bush or tuft of grey grass showed us we were nearing a less inhospitable region.

Presently we rode past a long chain of salinas, which glittered and sparkled whitely in the sun. They were now partially covered with water, but in summer it evaporates altogether, leaving a crust of salt on the surface of the lake of from two to four inches thick. These salinas are met with all over the pampas, and from afar often deceive the thirsty hunter, in search of fresh water, by the similarity they present to a sheet of the latter, when the sun shines on their white surfaces. In the depression over which we were now riding, I counted a succession of more than fifty salinas, which stretched away as far as I could see towards St. Julian.

I passed one salina which, at a distance, appeared to be covered with rose-coloured plants. On riding nearer, I found this delusion to be occasioned by a flock of flamingoes, which were collected there in great numbers, to all appearance in solemn conclave, after the fashion of storks—a bird which they also resemble in their general build. They let me come close up to them, and then, stretching out their long necks, slowly glided away, alighting again on another salina a little further off. As they flew up, I observed that the wings were black underneath, in fine contrast to the brilliant hues of the rest of their plumage, which is of a bright crimson colour, and very beautiful. One fine, long feather floated through the air to my feet, and I picked it up, intending to keep it, along with other similar trifles, as a relic of my journey. Isidoro, half in joke, half in earnest, said the occurrence might possibly be an omen of ill luck and bloodshed—a prediction which was subsequently strangely verified, though I laughed at it at the time, and, of course, thought no more about it.

By this time we had got into the ordinary style of country again—short, undulating plains, and ravines with plenty of grass and underwood. Several ostriches were caught there, and three nests were pillaged, yielding in all some forty eggs, which we secured to our saddles and bodies in various ways.

We now approached the limits of the deep basin or depression across which we had been travelling all day, and were faced by an acclivity, similar in height and steepness to the one we had descended the day previous. In scaling this wall I had a slight mishap; the prolonged strain on my saddle caused it to slip back, the girths loosened, the saddle rolled round, and, hampered by my capa, I was thrown violently to the ground, breaking in my fall four eggs which I had previously somewhat imprudently secured inside my shirt. Maximo came to my rescue, and helped me to my feet again. My ribs felt very sore, and I was severely bruised on the head; but I was glad to come off so cheaply, for if the horse had taken fright and run away, entangled as I was in the saddle-gear, and with my limbs imprisoned in the folds of the capa, I might have incurred considerable risk of being dragged over the pampa. We readjusted the saddle, I remounted, and we started off again, reaching the summit of the escarpment, without further mishap.

There we found ourselves on another plain, across which we journeyed for some time, but finding that it was too late to reach the Rio Chico that day, we halted for the night, under shelter of a stout bush of unusual size.

We had a novel dish that evening, in the shape of a pair of armadilloes, which some one had caught during the day, and which Isidoro had artistically roasted with hot stones.

The species of armadillo which inhabits Patagonia (Dasypus minutus) is much smaller than any of the other varieties known in the Brazils, Paraguay, and the northern provinces of Buenos Ayres. It is found in great numbers throughout the pampas north of the Santa Cruz, though south of that river, according to the testimony of the Indians, it has never been met with. Why the limit of their range is thus sharply defined, I am not prepared to say, though the phenomenon may possibly be accounted for by the fact that the temperature on the plains a short distance south of the Santa Cruz River is surprisingly lower than that of the northern plains, the change being far greater than the mere difference in latitude would warrant. The 'mulitos,' as the Spanish call them, are remarkably good eating, and even in the towns they are considered great delicacies. In autumn they have a layer of fat on their backs of from two to three inches, on which they have to draw in winter, as they pass that season in a state of torpor, which relieves them of the trouble of looking for food.

Those that we ate on this occasion were rather thin, as in that month, September, they commence to leave their holes; but otherwise the flesh was succulent and tender, and tasted very much like sucking-pig.

The next morning we set out for the Rio Chico. On the way we passed several herds of guanacos, some of which must have numbered more than two hundred head. They seemed very shy, and disappeared at our approach with great rapidity, though now and then one or two, more courageous than the rest, would hang around us almost within reach of the bolas, frisking about and executing the most comical antics, as if to show their contempt for us and their confidence in their own superior speed.

This self-reliance is not altogether unjustified; the guanacos which roam about singly, and which show such impertinent audacity, are generally tough old males of immense endurance and speed, and to overtake them the swiftest greyhound would have to do its utmost.

It is different when a herd is being chased, as then each animal tries to push into the middle of the flock, and a general scuffle takes place, which of course considerably lessens the speed of the mass—a fact of which the dogs are perfectly aware, inasmuch as they will hardly ever take the trouble to chase a single guanaco, unless specially ordered to do so by their masters, whereas if a herd comes in sight, it is difficult to keep them from immediately dashing off after them.

The guanaco has been well described by Captain Musters as having the head of a camel, the body of a deer, the wool of a sheep, and the neigh of a horse. The wool is of a reddish-yellow, intermixed with white in certain parts of the body. They are scattered in immense numbers all over Patagonia, and one can never ride far without hearing the shrill neighing of the sentinels, which always outflank the main flock to give warning of the approach of danger. The flesh, when fat, is excellent, and closely resembles beef; but at the season I am writing of it is terribly lean and insipid, and affords very little nourishment, the only palatable part being the head, which we generally roasted under the embers, eating it cold.

We travelled along over the usual succession of shingly plain and grassy ravine for some time, without anything occurring to break the tedium of the ride. Presently, however, a little off the direction in which we were going, I noticed a guanaco lying dead, with fifty or more carranchos hovering expectantly over it; and as the most commonplace incident becomes of deep interest to the traveller on the pampas as to the passenger on board a ship, I rode up to have a glance at the dead animal. It must have been just then killed, for I found the body still warm, and the blood was trickling from a deep gash in its neck. I looked round, but I could not see the author of the deed anywhere, though I did not doubt but that he was prowling near, or else the carranchos would already have settled on the carcase. We had plenty of other meat, so I merely cut off its head, tied it to the saddle, and then rode after my companions.

I had not gone far, however, when my horse suddenly stopped, snorting wildly and quivering in every limb. I soon discovered the cause of its terror. Crouching under a bush, about twenty paces ahead of me, was a large puma, glaring sullenly at me, with its ugly cat-like head resting between its outstretched paws. I urged my horse closer towards it, but the frightened animal would not budge an inch, and, as I was not within range, I was obliged to dismount.

Drawing my revolver, I cautiously approached the puma, till I was within easy distance. I then hesitated, not knowing exactly whether to fire or not. I had heard a great deal of the cowardice of these animals, how you may go close up to them, and strike them dead with the bolas, without their offering any resistance; but still, this particular puma, I reflected, might happen to be an exception to the general rule, and turn out to be an unpleasantly brave animal, which might possibly resent being fired at, especially if not dealt a wound instantaneously fatal.

However, I finally plucked up my courage, took steady aim at the head of the motionless beast, and fired. It did not stir; I had missed. I went nearer, and fired again; same result. I began to get excited, and went still nearer to the unaggressive puma, which was now hardly ten paces distant, its eyes gleaming at me with a fixed and stolid stare. I fired once more, and this time I thought the head twitched. At that moment Isidoro, who had heard my shots, came up to see what was the matter, and with him, of course, came his dogs. They no sooner saw the puma than they flew at it, and dragged it from under the bush. The reason it had remained so immovable was immediately explained; the brute was stone dead. On examining it, I found that two of my bullets had lodged in its skull, and another had penetrated its chest, my first shot having probably caused instantaneous death. With the help of Isidoro, I took off the skin, which was a very fine one; and leaving the carcase to the carranchos, we galloped off after the rest of the party.

We reached the Rio Chico at about twelve o'clock. The exact site of its source is not known, but according to Indian testimony it comes from an insignificant stream at a very short distance from the spot we were now at. Like all rivers in Patagonia, it flows down a broad valley, which seems to have been in former times the bed of a much broader river than that which at present flows through it. Thus the valley of the Rio Chico is about three miles broad, whilst the river, at the time I am speaking of, rather swollen by recent rains, was only some two hundred yards in width. The valley of the Rio Gallegos is much broader even than that of the Rio Chico, while one can almost jump over the river itself in summer.

On account of the fine pasturage they afford for horses, these valleys are the usual camping-places of the Indians, and we were therefore not surprised to see several of their tents pitched on the other side of the river. I was extremely glad of the opportunity thus afforded me of making the acquaintance of these wandering tribes, for whom, having read Captain Musters' 'At Home with the Patagonians,' I had always felt a peculiar interest. Captain Musters adopted the only plan by which it is possible to obtain a thorough insight into the peculiarities of the morality and customs of such people, and to discover the principles which guide their dealings amongst each other and towards strangers. For the nonce he forgot that he had ever belonged to civilisation, and became to all intents and purposes a Patagonian Indian, living amongst them as one of them, sharing their pleasures and hardships, and doing his duty in the hunting-field or in the ball-room with as much zest and earnestness as if he intended passing his whole existence among them, and finally becoming a candidate for some vacant caciqueship.

By these means he became intimately acquainted with their habits and ways, their domestic life, their virtues and failings, their loves and their hatreds; and was thus enabled thoroughly to understand them, and appreciate many interesting traits in their character which would have escaped a less attentive and less conscientious observer.

When we reached the ford, some doubts were expressed as to whether it was practicable, the river being swollen far beyond its ordinary level. Garcia rode cautiously over first, therefore; and on his arriving safely on the opposite side, none the worse for a little splashing, the rest of us followed, driving the horses in before us. The dogs remained behind, setting up a most dismal yell as they watched us making our way through the water; but finding no one offered to carry them over, they at last took heart and swam after us.

Leaving our horses to graze with those of the Indians, which were scattered about in knots all over the valley, we set off at a gallop towards the encampment, on arriving at which we were soon surrounded by a crowd of dusky aborigines, who, to judge by their incessant smiles and laughter, must have been exceedingly glad to see us.

Our first care was to set up our tent and carefully stow all our traps and saddle-gear away under it, as there are some amongst the Indians whose curiosity prompts them to minutely inspect any article one might be careless enough to leave within their reach, and whose absence of mind is so extreme as to frequently make them forget to restore such articles to their rightful owners.

I was then at liberty to examine the chattering groups which had gathered round us, watching all our doings with the greatest interest, and probably criticising my civilised appearance with a freedom which, had I understood their language, I might perhaps have thought the reverse of complimentary.

CHAPTER VI.

The plains of Patagonia, barren as they are, afford sustenance to a marvellous profusion of animal life, and swarm with countless numbers of ostriches, guanacos, armadilloes, pumas, foxes, and skunks. But they are but sparsely peopled by the human race. It may be estimated that the native population of that vast territory which lies between the Rio Negro and the Straits of Magellan barely numbers three thousand souls, and if the mortality among them continues on the same scale as hitherto, it is to be feared that in a comparatively short period they will have disappeared altogether from off the face of the earth, and survive only in memory as a sad illustration of the remorseless law of the non-survival of the unfitted.

But at no period of its existence as a habitable country can Patagonia have been well populated; no people would voluntarily choose it for a permanent abode, as long as they could range unmolested in the more hospitable regions of the north, and such tribes as have from time to time elected to brave its inclement climate have in so doing doubtless only yielded to dire necessity, finding the elements, less formidable to encounter than the unceasing hostilities of more powerful tribes. Thus the Tehuelches, as the Indians who at present inhabit the southern plains are called, have in all probability gradually been driven to this extreme corner of their continent by the more warlike but intellectually inferior races of the north, such as the Araucanians, the Pampas, and others, who in their turn, as civilisation advances, may perhaps be forced to quit their present rich pasture-grounds and moderate climate, and fly to the bare plains of Santa Cruz and St. Julian, eventually to encounter the same fate of extermination as that which now hangs over the doomed Tehuelche race.

The Tehuelches are divided into two tribes, the Northern and the Southern. The Northerners are the least numerous, but, on the other hand, they have the advantage of being less 'civilised' than their Southern kindred, who, being frequently in contact with the settlers of Sandy Point, have assimilated not a few of the pleasant vices of 'los Christianos,' as all white men are called by them. The Northerners generally pass the winter at Santa Cruz, and move as summer comes on towards the Cordilleras. The Southerners range over the country between Coy Inlet and the straits, and now and then pay a visit to the settlement at Sandy Point. In customs and language there is no difference between these two tribes, and in speaking of the Tehuelches, I must be understood to be referring indiscriminately to the Northerners and Southerners.

Notwithstanding that the exaggerated accounts of early travellers as to the stature of the Patagonians have frequently been contradicted and disproved, a great many people seem still to be firmly impressed with the idea that the race of giants is not yet extinct, and that it has for its abode that favoured portion of South America which the Spaniards christened Patagonia. The truth is that, as regards height, all that can be said of the Tehuelches is that they are on the average a tall race, varying in stature from say five feet ten inches to six feet. Their muscular development and consequent strength, however, are decidedly abnormal, and in that sense, at all events, they cannot be denied to possess one of the most important attributes of giants.

I once witnessed a remarkable feat of strength performed by a Northern Tehuelche of the name of Koloby. He was leading a horse towards the camp by a lasso, when the animal for some reason or other suddenly stopped short, and obstinately refused to stir from the spot. After a few coaxing, but ineffectual tugs at the lasso, Koloby gave a short grunt of impatience, and then, taking the lasso over his shoulder, bent forward, seemingly without effort, and dragged the horse by main force for about twenty yards, notwithstanding its determined attempts at resistance.

The Tehuelches are on the whole rather good-looking than otherwise, and the usual expression on their faces is bright and friendly. Their foreheads are rather low, but not receding, their noses aquiline, their mouths large and coarse, but their teeth are extremely regular and dazzlingly white. Their hair, which is long and black, is kept from falling over their faces by a fillet tied round the head. They have little hair on the face or body, and even that they eradicate as much as possible, including the eyebrows, an operation which must cause no little pain. Why they do this I don't know, except it may be that they consider it improves their appearance, in which case it seems that in its application to the 'poor Indian,' the saying 'Il faut souffrir pour être beau' loses none of its truth or point. In addition to this embellishment, some tattoo their arms or chest, but it does not seem to be the general custom.

Their eyes are small and deeply set; the prominence of the cheekbones gives great breadth to their faces. The colour of their skin seems to vary according to the individual, or rather according to the individual's cleanliness; but as far as I could ascertain, it is of a reddish-brown, running in some cases more into a yellowish tinge. Their general carriage is extremely graceful and dignified, and their manners towards strangers and one another are polite and deferential, without a trace of servility; in fact, they have a certain well-bred air of restraint, which is quite impressive, and one never feels inclined to treat them with that familiarity which is bred of contempt, or that convenient assumption of superiority which the white man is so apt to display towards 'niggers.'

I do not wish to incur the charge of attempting to revive the exploded legend of the 'noble savage' in favour of the Tehuelche race, but I must say that in general intelligence, gentleness of temper, chastity of conduct, and conscientious behaviour in their social and domestic relations, they are immeasurably superior not only to the other South American indigenous tribes, but also, all their disadvantages being taken into consideration, to the general run of civilised white men. Their natural talents are displayed in a marked manner by the rapidity with which they pick up a new language, and the ease with which they grasp the totally new ideas which the acquiring of a complex foreign tongue must necessarily entail on a race whose original range of thought is of a most limited nature. Amongst the Southern Tehuelches I met several who spoke Spanish with ready ease, notwithstanding that they seldom had opportunities of practising it. There was one Indian, who called himself Captain Johnson, who surprised me very much when I first met him by asking me, with a round British oath, for 'a plug of tobacco.' Further conversation brought out that many years before he had lived for a few weeks on board an English schooner, and hence his knowledge of the language, which he spoke extremely well, considering that he had of course never had occasion to keep it up since. Guillaume told me several instances of the ease with which the Indians picked up and retained French phrases, which at their request he had repeated to them. To their many other praiseworthy characteristics I shall presently revert.

The dress of the men consists of a chiripà, fastened at the waist by a belt, which is frequently richly embossed with silver. The capa, or mantle of guanaco furs, already described, completes their attire. When on horseback their feet are encased in botas de potro; but for reasons of economy they do not wear them at ordinary times. The women wear a long calico robe beneath the capa, which is fastened at the throat with a silver brooch, or a simple wooden skewer, according to the circumstances of the individual. Potro boots are a luxury reserved for the men. The children, on whom most of the silver ornaments of the family are lavished, wear a capa like their elders, and on attaining the age of four or five are invested with the dignity of a chiripà.

When the women grow old they become repulsively ugly, but the young girls are by no means ill-favoured, and the looks of even the plainest among them are invariably redeemed by the bright, smiling expression habitual to them. Their hair is worn in plaits, artificially lengthened by means of horsehair; their complexion, when free from paint, is of a ruddy healthy colour, and their eyes, which are shaded with long black lashes, are soft and clear.

Without going so far as to assert that the affaires de cœur of the Tehuelche maidens are always strictly platonic, I must say that, according to my own observations, and the confirming statements of others, the relations between the sexes are uniformly characterised by a strong sense of decency and unimpeachable propriety. Polygamy is admitted on principle; but no man may marry more wives than he can afford to maintain, and there is, therefore, seldom more than one mistress to each household. Marriages de convenance are very rare; but, as a matter of form, the bride is purchased from her parents for a certain number of mares, or whatever objects her lover can afford to give. But as the dowry of the girl generally quite compensates for the expense her lover has incurred in obtaining her, the transaction must be considered rather as an exchange of presents than as a mere unsentimental bargain. Out of mere curiosity to learn the technical details of Tehuelche marriage-settlements, I once entered into negotiations with a rich old squaw, for the purpose of contracting matrimony with her daughter who was a charming girl of about fifteen. The price we finally agreed upon was eight mares; a bag of biscuits, and some sugar, which I was to procure from Sandy Point. The dowry of the daughter consisted in four new guanaco mantles. I held out for five, and on my remaining inflexible on this point, the negotiations fell through.

Husband and wife seem always to get on very well together; indeed, one of the pleasantest traits in the Tehuelche character is the affection with which relations regard one another. The love of the parents towards their offspring is almost morbid in its intensity. Their grief at the decease of an only child frequently manifests itself in the most exaggerated manner. It is not unusual in such cases for the parents to burn all their belongings, kill all their horses, and reduce themselves to a state of utter poverty—a touching proof of the sincerity and depth of their sorrow, if not of the soundness of their views on practical economy.

Their indulgence towards their children is unlimited. I have never seen a child chidden or remonstrated with, whatever mischievous pranks it may have been up to, and in all their internal arrangements the interest of the baby portion of the community seems to be the first which is consulted. For my part, I must say I by no means shared in the feelings of the elders with regard to their youthful progeny; on the contrary, I always considered the latter as a most unmitigated nuisance. They are dirty and vicious, as mischievous as monkeys, and as thievish as magpies. The 'Artful Dodger' would have had to look to his laurels if he had had to enter into competition with a young Tehuelche. Their deftness of hand, as I have many a time experienced to my cost, is remarkable. On one occasion, I rode over to their camp from Santa Cruz, on an English saddle, and as I knew that the stirrup-leathers, which are in great demand for belts on account of the buckles, would prove too great a temptation, I took care not to leave the saddle at all during my short stay, thinking by that means to obviate any danger of losing my cherished stirrup-leathers. But even this precaution proved insufficient. In an unguarded moment, whilst bending over my horse's neck in conversation with an Indian who was sitting on the ground below me, by way of resting myself a little, I incautiously slipped one foot out of its stirrup, and lay at my full length along the horse's back. I was hardly two minutes in that position, but I was two minutes too long. On resuming my seat in the saddle, my foot sought in vain for the stirrup, and on looking down I discovered, to my wrath, that during my momentary inattention the stirrup-leather had quietly been slipped off and made away with. Of course, I immediately dismounted in a great rage, and set to to find the thief. After a fruitless search, I returned to my horse, and, lo and behold, in the meanwhile, the other stirrup-leather had disappeared! In my precipitate haste, I had quite forgotten that whilst I was looking for its fellow, it might be abstracted as well; and the upshot of the whole affair was that, with many a strong interjectional reference to my own stupidity, I had to ride stirrupless back to Santa Cruz, some fifteen miles away. I had no doubt at the time, and indeed I subsequently discovered, that two youngsters had been the perpetrators of the neat theft.

One would think that under such training, as they grew older, their faults would increase; but just the contrary is the case, and by the time they attain their fifteenth or sixteenth year they abandon their brattish ways, and become 'respectable,' steady-going members of their community.

The division of labour in a Tehuelche ménage is perhaps not strictly equitable, for by far the greater part of the day's work falls on the fair sex. The men go hunting when the larder is low, and occasionally, in a dawdling kind of way, they mend their riding-gear, or make bolas, lassoes, etc.; but they have an insurmountable aversion to anything that looks like hard work. The squaws, on the other hand, are busy from morning till night. They are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, and all the onus of housekeeping, breaking up the camp, arranging the tents—including, of course, the care of the children, the cuisine, and so forth—is delegated to them. When not otherwise employed, they sew guanaco capas or weave fillets, and their fingers, at all kinds of work, are as nimble as their tongues, with which latter they keep up an incessant chatter, which, however, does not prevent them from getting through an astonishing amount of work.

Of their origin little is to be said. They recognise a good spirit and a bad spirit (Gualichu); but there is little sincerity or earnestness either in their reverence for the one, or in their fear of the other. According to the caprice of the moment, either of these spirits is most cavalierly treated by them, and the respect they occasionally profess towards them gives way as often as not to indifference, contempt, or anger. The fact is, that with the Tehuelches the prime rule in life is to take everything as easily as possible, to the exclusion of all other considerations; and, acting on the doctrine of the Epicureans, that it is a man's duty to endeavour to increase to the utmost his pleasures and diminish to the utmost his pains, they are careful not to admit any theories which might possibly disturb their peace of mind. Thus they are strongly averse to the idea of vesting in a supernatural agent the power of interfering in their affairs to any great extent, arguing that such power having once been vested, it might on a contingency be used detrimentally to their own comfort and interests. On the other hand, it could not escape them that very often a most convenient excuse for their peccadilloes was to be found in attributing them to the evil influence of some bad spirit. To avoid the dilemma occasioned by the above conflicting considerations, they accordingly created the Gualichu, a most accommodating devil, who allows himself to be ignored or brought forward, as may best suit the momentary purpose of his clients. The good spirit, for obvious reasons, one hears very little about; the Tehuelche is quite willing to take the credit of his good actions on himself alone.

The office of chief or cacique among them is not altogether a sinecure; but its authority is extremely limited, being exercised merely in such slight matters as the choice of the spot where the tribe is to camp, the route to be followed, and so forth. The Tehuelches are very jealous of their personal liberty; and complete individual equality is the recognised basis of their social and political system. Paraphrasing Wordsworth, I may say in prose, 'A rich man is a rich man to them, and he is nothing more,' In other words, the fact of one of their number possessing forty or fifty horses more than his fellows, seems to be accepted by them as a simple fact, which excites neither respect for the possessor nor envy of his good fortune. Nor would it for a moment occur to the owner of the forty or fifty horses to fancy himself in any way superior to his poorer brethren. The little credit which wealth, per se, commands, saves the Indians from a great many of the repugnant vices of white men, such as avarice, jealousy, servility, etc., and keeps up a healthy, independent feeling among them, which is pleasantly manifested in the politeness and kindliness of their personal intercourse.

They have a peculiar custom, moreover, which is well calculated to preserve the existing state of things. When an Indian dies, however many horses he may possess, they are all killed, and his other belongings are scrupulously burned. Thus, no family can acquire such a preponderance of wealth as would enable it, in time, to obtain an ascendant influence over and curtail the liberties of the rest of the tribe. Whatever the defects of this system may be, from the political economist's point of view, it seems to be very well adapted to the desires and circumstances of the Tehuelches; and as an instance of how socialistic tendencies may be practically modified to suit certain exceptional conditions of existence, it is, perhaps, not without some interest.

If required to distinguish the Tehuelche by a single characteristic epithet, I should call him, not the noble, but the happy savage. Far from being saturnine or grave, he is as light-hearted as a child, all mirth and contentment, and wonderfully easily moved to laughter. Life is, indeed, a very pleasant matter for him. Without any exertion on his part being necessary, all his wants are supplied in abundance. He has no onerous daily drudgery to undergo; he has no enemies to fear; he is not driven from his hunting-grounds to starvation and death, like his North American cousins, by the ever-advancing white man. He is seldom visited by sickness, and his life is unusually prolonged. That he has absolutely no troubles I will not affirm, but if he has any he certainly takes them very lightly.

To conclude these few remarks on the Tehuelche race in reviewing their characteristics it is impossible not to award them a high rank in the list of uncivilised nationalities. To admit that they have many faults, is, after all, merely saying that they are human; but these faults are redeemed by many unusual excellences. They are good-natured, hospitable, and affectionate; their instincts are gentle; violence and ferocity are foreign to their nature; and though not invariably veracious nor strictly honest, if they think you trust them, they will take care not to deceive you. Their one great failing is their addiction to rum, to whose fatal agency the rapid decrease in their numbers, and the consequent fast-approaching extinction of their race, must be ascribed.

But to return to my narrative. Our tent having been set up, and all our saddle-gear stowed away, I strolled into the Indian camp, followed by the chattering crowd which had come out to meet us. My curious glances at these children of the desert were certainly repaid with interest; and they subjected my person and belongings to the closest scrutiny. The texture of my coat was carefully examined, and appeared to give rise to a lengthy discussion, which was carried on with more zeal and earnestness than the merits of the subject would seem to warrant, and nothing but a good stare of several minutes' duration at my face seemed to satisfy even the least curious among them.

The camp was composed of five toldos, or tents, each tent containing on the average about twenty-five souls. These toldos are very practically constructed, and, notwithstanding their formidable size, they are set up or taken down by the squaws in a surprisingly short space of time. A covering made of guanaco skins is drawn over a rough framework of wood, consisting of a double row of stakes and cross-beams, lashed together with thongs of guanaco hide. The front of the tent is generally open, but it can be closed whenever occasion requires. The interior is divided into partitions, each inmate having his own bunk, where he sleeps and where his gear and chattels are stowed away when not in use.

I entered one of these tents, and looked about me. In the front part there were three or four small fires, round each of which sat a circle of Indians, who were warming their toes, and smoking or taking maté. The squaws were all hard at work, sewing capas, weaving fillets, or tying up bundles of ostrich feathers. At my approach they stopped working, and broke into a chorus of guttural commentaries on my appearance, interspersed with a great deal of noisy laughter, which they kept up till I left the tent. Little children and dogs were sprawling about the place in all directions, apparently on very good terms with each other—a dog not unfrequently gnawing at one end of a piece of meat, off the other end of which a young Tehuelche hopeful was making his dinner. In another corner was a group deeply immersed in the chances and changes of a game of cards. Some of the Indians are inveterate gamblers, and play for very high stakes indeed. It is not an uncommon thing for a 'plunger' to risk all his horses and his saddle-gear, knife and bolas to boot, on the chances of a single game.

We visited all the tents, and then went back to enjoy a pipe by our own fireside. We had not been long seated when quite a deputation of pretty young squaws arrived, to interview us. They bashfully sat down at some distance from our fire, and for a time did nothing but giggle and look shy. At last one of them, the prettiest (artful daughters of Eve!), after a great deal of argument and some persuasive pushing, seemed to consent to become the spokeswoman of the party, and taking courage, came boldly up to us, and producing a plate from under her capa, with a very engaging smile she held it out to me, repeating the word 'Azucar' several times in a pleading, coaxing tone, which it was impossible to resist. I gave her some sugar and biscuit, with which she returned to her companions, seemingly very much pleased. After having sat for a few minutes longer, just for politeness' sake, as it were, they got up and went back to their homes. They must have reported favourably on the results of their expedition, for they had not been gone long when another lot arrived, who also wanted azucar. We had just doled out a small portion to them, when still another crowd came down upon us, composed chiefly of elderly squaws, each with a plate, and such a cheerful desire to see it filled with sugar, that it became necessary to restrain our generous instincts, and stow away the sugar bags in the depths of our tent. Finding us inexorable, the elders soon took their departure, in great good-humour, and seemingly as happy as if they had got all they wanted.

We were favoured with a great many visits during dinner, and at one time we were the centre of a circle of men, women, and children, two rows deep, who were incessant in their demands for biscuit, sugar, or something, but so calmly indifferent under the inevitable refusal with which, in self-defence, we were obliged to meet all their supplications, that it seemed they really did not care whether they got anything given to them or not. Post-prandially I mused whether, after all, they had not the advantage over me. It is true I had 'the cakes and ale;' but then, on the other hand, to make matters even, they had the finely-balanced temperament which enabled them to bear the want of those luxuries with the most perfect equanimity.

After dinner, Garcia sat down to play cards with an Indian. I watched him lose successively his bolas, his lasso, his knife, and his saddle, and when I went to bed he was just commencing another game, for which the stakes were a horse a side. I fully expected to wake up the next morning and find that he had lost his whole troop; but he was not so unfortunate, and when they finally left off playing he was only a pair of bolas to the bad.

CHAPTER VII.

The next morning, having said good-bye to Isidoro, who was stopping some days with the Indians before coming down to Santa Cruz to accompany me to Sandy Point, we started off at a brisk gallop, which in about three hours brought us to the broad valley down which the Santa Cruz River rolls its rapid and tortuous course.

The weather was already sensibly colder than at St. Julian. On our road we encountered several snow and hail-storms, and were therefore not sorry when we at last arrived in front of Pavon Island, where there is a small house, built many years ago by an Argentine, who lived there for the purpose of trading with the Indians—a business still carried on by its present inmate, Don Pedro Dufour.

On hearing our shouts, the inmates of the island, i.e., Don Pedro and his peon, came over to us in a small boat, in which our effects and persons were safely transported to the island. The horses and dogs had to swim over as best they could, and a very hard and cold job they must have found it, as the current of the river runs with extreme velocity, something over six miles an hour.

The house into which Don Pedro gave us a hearty welcome, was built of adobe and stones, and contained two dwelling-rooms, a kitchen, and a store-room. There was another smaller house on the island, used as a store-room for the sugar, biscuit, aguadiente, etc., which Don Pedro barters with the Indians for guanaco capas and ostrich feathers.

In the long grass behind the house a troop of horses was grazing, together with four or five fine sheep, with which, judging by their splendid condition, the pasturage of Patagonia evidently agreed. A pig was grunting and clamouring greedily for food in a pen hard by; ducks, pigeons, and other poultry were pecking about the yard; a thrush was singing in a cage hung up outside the house, and altogether there was quite a homely, civilised look about the place which I should not have expected to find, considering that it is the only fixed human habitation in that immense desert, which extends for a distance of some seven hundred miles, from Chubut to Sandy Point—a desert whose area is twice that of Great Britain, and whose only inhabitants are a few ostrich-hunters and Indians.

Pending Isidoro's arrival, I made several excursions in the neighbourhood of the island, amongst others, one to the port of Santa Cruz, where in the hollow of a sheltered ravine stands the settlement of M. Rouquand. The houses, of which there are several, built of timber brought from Buenos Ayres for the purpose, I found to be little the worse for wear or weather.

The cañon where these houses stand is still called 'Les Misioneros,' for it was there that some missionaries resided in 1863, who laboured for a time at the attempted conversion of the Tehuelches to Christianity, without, however, meeting with the success their endeavours deserved.

It is a pity that M. Rouquand's courageous attempt at colonising that desert place and founding an industry, whose success would have been an incentive to further enterprise, should have been thwarted by Chili's having taken umbrage at his occupying a miserable piece of ground, of no possible value to anybody, without having previously gone through the formality of asking their ratification of the concession granted him by the Argentine Government.

The port of Santa Cruz is formed by the confluence of the river of that name and its tributary, the Rio Chico, which at this point expands into a broad bay, capable of affording shelter to a number of ships, and of easy access from the ocean, there being about fifty feet of water over the bar at high tide.

The river Santa Cruz varies in breadth from four hundred yards to nearly a mile, and runs along a winding valley, which extends in a direct line to the westward. In 1834 an expedition under Admiral Fitzroy, composed of three light boats, manned by eighteen sailors, started up the river, with the object of ascertaining its source; but having ascended a distance of 140 miles from the sea, and 240 by the course of the river, want of provisions obliged him to turn back, especially as, finding no diminution in the volume of its waters, he inferred that its upper course must be along the base of the Andes, from north to south, and that its source must probably be near that of the Rio Negro, in lat. 45° S.

In this conjecture he was at error, for in 1877 Dr. F. Moreno successfully determined the source of the Santa Cruz as being taken from a lake situated in lat. 50° 14′ S., and long. 71° 59′ W., some miles from Lake Viedma, with which, however, it has no visible communication. This fine sheet of water measures thirty miles from east to west, and ten miles at its greatest breadth; its depth Dr. Moreno was unable to ascertain—with a line of 120 feet he could find no bottom at a short distance from the shore.

According to the same authority the greatest depth of the river is seventy feet, but the rapidity of the current, in some places as much as fifteen miles an hour, must have prevented reliable soundings being taken.

Near Lake Viedma is a volcano, the Chalten, which, according to the Indians, still throws out quantities of ashes. At the time Dr. Moreno was there, a column of smoke was issuing from its crater.

The country around Santa Cruz River differs in no way from that I had already traversed, one of the peculiarities of Patagonian landscape being its complete sameness. The plains, which occupy the greater portion of the country, extend along the Atlantic Ocean. The line separating them from the fertile mountain regions is extremely sharply defined. Beginning at Cape Negro, Magellan Straits, lat. 53° S. and long. 75° 50′ W., it runs thence west-north-west to the north-eastern extremity of Otway Water, following the channels of Fitzroy Passage, and the northern shores of Skyring Water to long. 72° W., and then extends along the eastern shores of Obstruction Sound and Kirke Water, running then due northward towards Lake Viedma. These plains rise almost uniformly, 300 feet high, one above another, like terraces, and are traversed occasionally by ravines and flat-bottomed depressions, which latter frequently contain salt lakes. The formation of the country is tertiary, resting on porphyry and quartz, ridges of which often protrude through the surface. Near long. 70° W. the plains are capped with a layer of lava, about a hundred miles in width.

Darwin accounts for the regularity with which the plains rise one over the other by the supposition that the land has been raised in a mass from under the sea, the upheaving movement having been interrupted by at least eight long periods of rest, during which the sea ate deeply back into the land, forming at successive levels the long lines of escarpments which separate the different plains.

In that strange country the vegetable kingdom is as little varied as the aspect of the landscape: from Chubut to Sandy Point, from the sea-coast to the Cordilleras, one meets the same few species of miserable stunted bushes and coarse grasses.

The following is a cut showing the formation of the country at Port St. Julian:*

* From a perforation made by E. de Ville Massot, C.E.

Of bushes, the most frequent are the jume (Salicemia) and the calafaté (Berberis axifolia). The former plant is remarkably rich in soda, as will be seen by the following analysis of its ash:

Though they are so little favoured by nature, still I must confess that in the sober-hued Patagonian landscapes, with their grave breadth and stern severity of outline, and in the grand monotony of solemn silence and solitude pervading their barren plains, there is something which has left a far deeper impression on my mind than has the brightest and most varied tropical scenery. Standing in the midst of one of those seemingly endless plains, one experiences an indefinable feeling of awe, akin to that which the contemplation of the ocean produces, only, perhaps, more impressively grand; for the ocean is ever noisy and restless, the pampa eternally silent and still.

During my stay at Santa Cruz, nothing of importance occurred, if I may except a ball given by the Indians at the Rio Chico, in honour of somebody's marriage or funeral: I forget which. An Indian who came to the island to get the rum, which is a sine quâ non at all their entertainments, invited us to assist at the ball—an offer which we readily accepted.

On arriving at the camp, a very lively scene presented itself to our eyes. As is customary on such occasions, several mares had been killed, and roasting and boiling was going on at numerous fires. Everyone was feasting in the greatest good-humour, which on our approach was further heightened, scouts having already brought the news that we were coming with the aguadiente.

The advent of the latter was greeted with loud acclamations; some of the older men gathered round the cask, which was speedily tapped, and then with great unction and solemnity they proceeded to taste the liquor, in order to see whether it had been overwatered. Several decided grunts of satisfaction, however, showed that these aged fathers approved of its strength; whereupon a general and doubtless equitable distribution of the spirit took place, and before long the whole camp—men, women, and children—had ample opportunities for judging of its merits for themselves.

Presently a dance was organised. The men who took part in it were all specially painted for the occasion, and wore long feathers on their heads. The dance itself was a monotonous jig, executed to the excruciating music of various drums or tom-toms. The women, strange to say, do not dance; at least, they did not as long as they were sober.

As the evening wore on, after vast quantities of meat had been consumed and innumerable dances had been performed, special attention began to be paid to the aguadiente, and the fun consequently soon began to get very fast and very furious.

Long before midnight everyone was more or less drunk, and the ball which had commenced with becoming order and solemnity had now degenerated into a wild orgie. The flames from the different fires, strangely blended with the pale moonlight, cast a lurid glare on the dusky bodies and painted faces of the revellers, who, mad with excitement and drink, were dancing, singing, and whooping in deafening concert. A more gruesome scene it was hard to imagine. It seemed as if the imps of darkness were celebrating their unearthly rites in this desert spot, and I half expected, at any moment, to see the whole crew vanish, with a flash and a bang, into the bowels of the earth, leaving the orthodox smell of sulphur behind them.

Nothing of the sort occurred, however, though I presently received a shock almost as startling as any supernatural event could have been. An old squaw, who was painfully of this world and the vanities thereof, and who had previously been addressing me for some time in the most eloquent of gutturals, finding that nothing could melt my icy demeanour, as a last resource suddenly threw her arms round my unsuspecting neck and hugged me in a greasy embrace.

With great difficulty I managed to free myself, whereupon I ran away towards some other part of the camp, to escape further annoyance. Had this old beldame been acquainted with woman's privileges on such occasions, she would have known that, under the circumstances, the correct thing to have done was to have fainted or become hysterical. But nothing could have been further from the thoughts of this unenlightened savage—the impulse of her untrained mind being to run after me as hard as her legs could carry her. And the rest of the Indians, with one of those sudden whims drunken people are liable to, took it into their heads to join in the chase, and I soon had the whole crowd shrieking and howling at my heels. What their intentions were I don't know, nor did I feel inclined to discover; fortunately, before they came up to me I reached my horse, which I had left ready saddled, and galloping swiftly away, I soon left them behind me.

I was presently joined by Garcia and the others, who had taken the same opportunity to escape in order to avoid the rows with which these balls frequently wind up. They are not often attended by actual bloodshed, however, as the squaws, with naïve foresight, generally hide all weapons before the ceremonies commence. We reached Santa Cruz shortly after daybreak, and so ended my first experience of a Tehuelche merry-making.

I called at the camp the next day to pay my visite de digestion, and made a point of going to the tent where the old squaw, who was so near becoming teterrima causa belli, abode. She had a bad headache, and looked very demure and penitent. I rallied her with smiles, and attempted, by my assiduous attentions, to make up for my discourteous behaviour of the previous evening. But she took no notice of me, and received all my overtures with the utmost indifference. It was a case of—

'The devil was sick; the devil a saint would be.'

CHAPTER VIII.

Shortly after, on the 2nd of October, Isidoro came over to Pavon Island, with his horses and some 250 lb. of ostrich feathers sewn up in hides, which he was going to take down to Sandy Point to barter, and I accordingly made the necessary arrangements for accompanying him.

Never was a more unlucky trip commenced under more unfavourable auspices.

I was extremely unwell, and my indisposition increased with every hour. Isidoro, in crossing over to the island, had lost his whip in the river, and he seemed to consider this a sure omen of misfortune. The mishap threw quite a gloom over his mind, and he almost decided on giving up the journey altogether. With great difficulty I persuaded him to relinquish this intention, though I little thought as I did so that I was indirectly drawing him to his ruin.

The weather, too, was unpropitious. Twice heavy showers of rain made us turn back when on the point of starting. We had already unsaddled our horses and put off our departure till the next day; but towards midday the sun again shone out, and that finally decided us to make a definite start.

As we calculated that our journey to Sandy Point would last about eight days, we took but few provisions; and in order to spare the pack-horse as much as possible, we left our tent behind, trusting to the weather not to be too severe upon us. The cavalcade consisted of Isidoro, Guillaume, and myself, twenty-eight horses, and five dogs.

Having said good-bye to Don Pedro, Garcia, and Maximo, who were remaining at Santa Cruz, we mounted our horses, forded the river, and got under route.

We had not gone far when the weather again changed for the worse. A drizzling sleet—half rain, half snow—began to fall, and a thick mist settled down on the hills, giving an indescribably mournful appearance to the at all times gloomy country.

We rode along in the lowest of spirits and in the midst of a cheerless silence, broken only by the patter of the rain or the splashing of our horses' hoofs over the marshy ground. As we went on, my headache grew more and more violent, and every movement of the horse made me wince with pain; but not wishing to turn back now that we were once off, I bore up as well as I could for several hours, till at last, burning with fever and thoroughly exhausted with the efforts I had made to subdue my sufferings, I fairly began to reel in my saddle, and, finding it impossible to continue any longer on horseback, I called out to my companions to halt.

Although we were just in the middle of a bare plain, there was fortunately a little grass growing round the borders of a small sheet of water near where I dismounted, or otherwise, on account of the horses, we should have been obliged to continue till we got to the next ravine, which was still a considerable distance off.

They made a bed for me under a low bush, and I was glad to be able to lie down. I suffered intensely all through the night, tossing sleeplessly about, and longing for dawn to appear.

The morning found me in such a state that, much to my own and my companions' regret, it was quite impossible to continue the journey, though, had I foreseen the consequences of that one day's delay, I would have gone on, even if I had had to be lashed to the saddle.

It was altogether a very miserable time. It is pleasant enough to roam over the pampa when you are strong and well, and can enjoy a good gallop after an ostrich in that pure, inspiriting air, when the coarsest food seems delicious, and you can sleep as soundly on the hardest couch as on the softest feather-bed; but it is another thing when you are sick and in pain, and miss the darkened room, the tempting viands, the cooling drinks, and the thousand devices which make sickness less trying. When, instead, you have to face the weary pangs of illness, exposed alternately to the glaring sunshine and the cold rain showers, stretched on the bare ground, a hard saddle for your pillow, a miserable bush your sole shelter against the cutting wind. Then, like me, you will probably lose a little of your enthusiasm for the romantic life of the pampa, and sigh for the comforts of humdrum civilisation.

The next day my anxiety to reach Sandy Point as early as possible, urged me to declare that I felt well enough to continue the journey, and enabled me to support the unintermitting pains the movement of the horse inflicted on my sore body, which, without the assistance of so strong a motive, I should hardly have been able to do.

However, I gradually got better, and by the time we reached Coy Inlet, which was on the fourth day after leaving Santa Cruz, I felt all right again. We found Coy Inlet River rather swollen, but the ford was still quite passable, from which circumstance we concluded that that of the river Gallegos would be equally so—a matter of congratulation for us, as at that time of the year the snows melt in the Cordilleras, and the rivers are frequently impassable for several days together.

We were in high spirits over that evening's supper, and already began calculating how many nights we had yet to pass before we should be able to go to sleep, heedless of wind or rain, under roof in Sandy Point. It was the last cheerful evening we were to pass for a long time to come, though we little dreamt it.

The following morning we started for our next stage, Rio Gallegos, which is about fifty miles from Coy Inlet.

The pace we travelled at was a kind of amble, half trot, half canter, though occasionally, when the nature of the ground we were riding over permitted, we would break into an easy gallop. The horses of Patagonia are remarkable for their endurance; seventy or eighty miles a day over that most trying country, with its rapid succession of steep escarpments, seems nothing to them, and if at the end of the day's journey an ostrich starts up, they will answer to the spur and dash away after it as fresh and as gamely as if they had just been saddled.

The guanacos seemed more numerous than ever in the plains we were now crossing; some herds which swept past us, I think, must have numbered quite six or seven hundred head. They gave us far more trouble than we gave them, for every now and then the dogs, who with difficulty could keep cool in the presence of such abundance of game, would make a dash at some peculiarly tempting quarry, only to be brought back to their masters' heels, after much whistling and shouting, thereby causing considerable delay in our onward progress.

On this day I was particularly struck with the change in the temperature, which had been gradually growing colder since we left Santa Cruz, and which was now already unpleasantly raw and severe. Over the plain, too, there was a keen wind blowing, which seemed to go right through one, and we were glad when we at last reached a long ravine called the Ravine of the Squaws, which leads down from the plains into Gallegos valley. It bears this name because, when coming from Coy Inlet, the Indian women always enter the valley by that route. As they then form in single file, the hoofs of so many horses following in each other's wake have gradually worn several deep but narrow trails into the soil. The men ride down anywhere, without reference to the movements of the squaws, who always approach their camps from exactly the same points. The Indians change their camps with tolerable regularity according to the time of the year. They generally pass the winter together in Coy Inlet or Gallegos valley, and in spring, after the young guanaco hunting is over, they break up and disperse; some going to the Cordilleras, others to Santa Cruz, and others again to Sandy Point, though the latter settlement is never honoured with their presence long, as there is not sufficient pasturage for the horses in that region, and the dogs, too, have to subsist on very short rations, as ostriches are rather scarce in the vicinity of Sandy Point, and guanacos do not range so far south.

Presently a turn of the ravine brought us in full view of the valley, though the river itself was as yet invisible. A few minutes would now settle all doubts as to the state of the ford. We broke into a gallop, craning our necks anxiously to get a glimpse of the water, in rather dubious suspense. It was of material importance for me to take the steamer of the 15th of that month, and if the river was unfordable I knew we might have to wait for at least eight days before the waters would subside, and that delay would cause me to lose my steamer.

Suddenly Isidoro, who was some way ahead, drew in his reins and stopped short, turning round with a look of blank dismay on his brown face, which told but too plainly that our worst fears were realised. With drooping reins we rode slowly on till we got to the river, now no longer the shallow stream which in summer one can wade over knee-deep, but a broad torrent, which eddied, swirled, and foamed, as it dashed rapidly over its stormy bed through banks which were already growing too narrow for its swollen waters. In the middle we could still see a single tuft of long grass, which was bending with the current, and this, Isidoro told me, grew on a little island, which when the river is fordable, is several feet above the water's level. Twenty-four hours ago it had doubtless been high and dry. We had arrived just a day too late—the day lost on account of my illness!

We stood for some time in silence, staring blankly at the obstacle which had suddenly sprung up to bar our progress, with a feeling of utter disgust and helplessness; and then, the first shock of the disappointment over, we began to discuss the chances in favour of a speedy fall of the water. Isidoro was of opinion, from previous acquaintance with the river at that season, that in eight days at the most, it would have sunk to its ordinary level, two or three consecutive days of frost being quite sufficient to arrest the thawing of the snows on the Cordilleras, and to cause the river to fall as rapidly as it had risen.

But even eight days seemed a long time to look forward to; eight days to be passed in tiresome inaction and constant exposure to the weather, and we now bitterly regretted not having brought the tent with us. Our provisions, too, had only been calculated for a ten-days' trip, and were already almost exhausted. Though, of course, we need never want for meat, still lean meat, without salt or any farinaceous adjunct, is not the kind of diet to keep up one's strength in cold weather, and under all sorts of exertions and hardships. All these disagreeables, however, seemed slight ones, compared with the misfortune of having lost the steamer of the 15th, by which, for pressing reasons, I ought to have immediately proceeded to Buenos Ayres. There was now no other chance of leaving Sandy Point till the 30th. Isidoro, too, had some reason to be concerned at the delay, for if he did not reach the settlement soon, he knew the price of feathers would have fallen considerably, and he would make but a bad bargain. Altogether, it was with heavy hearts that we slowly turned from the river, in search of some suitable spot for camping at. In that respect we were unfortunate also, not being able to find a sheltering bush anywhere. Gallegos is the favourite camping-place of the Indians during several months of the year, and consequently any bushes which may formerly have existed in the immediate neighbourhood of the valley, had long been broken up by the squaws for firewood. Finally, we had to camp on the open, about three miles from the river, sheltered slightly on one side by the tall escarpment which bounds one side of the valley, but exposed on all others to whatever wind might choose to blow, and if it should happen to rain we had of course no means of keeping anything dry.

Another inconvenience of not having some bush to camp under was that the fire was completely at the mercy of the wind, and flared away without emitting any warmth, blinding those who sat round it with smoke, and making it very difficult to cook anything properly. With the packages containing Isidoro's feathers we managed to rig up a kind of makeshift to obviate this difficulty, and then we all three set about looking for firewood, to collect which we had to wander about for a long time, as the whole country round seemed to have been swept bare of that necessary by the Indians.

We were not very cheerful over our dinner that evening, as may be imagined. The fire burned badly, the air was cold and damp, and soon after our meal we rolled ourselves in our furs, and prepared to pass the first of the many nights we were fated to sleep through on the banks of the river Gallegos.

CHAPTER IX.

My first thought on waking the next morning was, of course, the river. During the night, in a moment of wakefulness, a steady rumbling noise, the rush of distant water, had struck on my listening ear, and I was accordingly prepared to find a further rise in the river at daylight. But the sight which now met my gaze took me by surprise notwithstanding. The whole of the lower-lying portion of the valley, as far as the eye could reach, was one sheet of water, and the flood was almost visibly rising towards those parts which yet remained dry. The river itself was no longer distinguishable, being confounded with the general mass of water, but we could plainly hear the dull roar of its mighty current, which was still sweeping down with unabated force, bearing on its curling waters huge trunks of trees, which, perhaps, but the day before had been torn from the distant Cordilleras.

On account of the high position of our camp, we were as yet far from the flood, though if it continued to rise as rapidly as hitherto, we might soon have to move further on.

Isidoro, too, was quite aghast at the dimensions the inundation was assuming. He had never seen the river so swollen before, and began seriously to doubt whether, in a fortnight even, we should be able to cross over, as there was no knowing how long the rise would continue. The snowfall of the past winter had been heavier than any of the oldest Indians could remember, and it might reasonably be supposed that the spring-floods would be proportionately unusual in volume and duration.

We passed all that day in gloomy forebodings, watching the progress of the water. At night-time it was still steadily rising. The following morning we found the flood had risen to within fifteen feet of our camp; but we had the satisfaction of finding that it was already abating, for during the night it had been several feet higher, as evinced by the marks left on the grass. Indeed, all day it kept on falling, and so rapidly that we commenced to speculate on whether the river might not eventually subside as quickly as it had risen, and allow us to cross over, after all, within the eight days we had from the first considered as the probable duration of our enforced stay at Gallegos.

The next day again brought despondency. The water seemed to have remained stationary during the night, and there was a change for the worse in the weather. The thick mist which had accompanied daybreak resolved itself, as the morning wore on, into a steady heavy rainfall, which seemed grimly resolved to reduce us to the last stage of misery and discomfort.

We covered up our furs with the packages of feathers, so as, if possible, to have something dry for bedtime; and then cowered round the drooping fire in resigned helplessness, whilst it rained and rained down upon us with merciless pertinacity.

There is nothing so trying as having to sit hour after hour in dejected silence, exposed to a cold rain-storm, which you know may possibly last for days, and from which you have absolutely no shelter, feeling, as time goes on, the damp gradually creeping through your clothes, till it at last reaches the skin and chills you to the bone, while occasional rills of water run off your back hair and trickle icily down your shivering neck, till you are thoroughly drenched and numbed and cramped with cold.

We passively sat shivering in this wretched plight till long after noon, getting up now and then to have a look at the weather or to stretch our stiffened limbs. At last the clouds began to break up, the storm collected its dying force in one last fierce downpour, and then ceased altogether, giving us just time to dry our clothes and bodies with the aid of a good fire before night came on.