Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
On page 168, "Cocao" should possibly be "Cacao."
On page 210, "zipp" should possibly be "zip."
On page 268, "baling" should possibly be "bailing."
On page 278, "1 o'clock P.M." should probably be "1 o'clock A.M."
THROUGH THE HEART
OF PATAGONIA
[Illustration: TEHUELCHE HUNTING SCENE]
THROUGH THE HEART
OF PATAGONIA
BY
H. HESKETH PRICHARD
F.R.G.S., F.Z.S.
FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE; AUTHOR OF
"WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE: A JOURNEY
ACROSS AND ABOUT HAYTI"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS IN COLOUR
AND BLACK AND WHITE BY
JOHN GUILLE MILLAIS, F.Z.S.
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1902
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
_This Edition is for sale in the United States of America
only, and is not to be imported into countries signatory to
the Berne Treaty_
TO
C. ARTHUR PEARSON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION xiii
I. PATAGONIA 1
II. SOUTHWARD HO! 15
III. THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES 33
IV. THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES (_continued_) 50
V. THE RIVER VALLEYS 67
VI. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE TEHUELCHES 85
VII. TEHUELCHE METHODS OF HUNTING 104
VIII. THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS 116
IX. ROUND AND ABOUT LAKE BUENOS AIRES 130
X. THE GORGE OF THE RIVER DE LOS ANTIGUOS 144
XI. SOME HUNTING CAMPS 156
XII. BACK TO CIVILISATION 167
XIII. JOURNEY TO LAKE ARGENTINO 181
XIV. THE DOWNSTREAM NAVIGATION OF THE RIVER LEONA 196
XV. A HARD STRUGGLE 211
XVI. WILD CATTLE 224
XVII. ON THE FIRST ATTITUDE OF WILD ANIMALS TOWARDS
MAN 235
XVIII. THE LARGER MAMMALS OF PATAGONIA 247
XIX. FIRST PASSING THROUGH HELLGATE 261
XX. DISCOVERY OF RIVER KATARINA AND LAKE PEARSON 277
XXI. HOMEWARD 287
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PATAGONIA 294
APPENDIX A 301
I. ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY. BY DR. MORENO 301
II. DESCRIPTION AND COMPARISON OF THE SPECIMEN. BY
DR. A. SMITH WOODWARD, F.R.S. 305
(a) DESCRIPTION
(b) COMPARISONS AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
III. DESCRIPTION OF ADDITIONAL DISCOVERIES. BY DR. A.
SMITH WOODWARD, F.R.S. 315
IV. DESCRIPTION OF PANGOLINS, ARMADILLOS AND SLOTHS.
BY H. HESKETH PRICHARD 330
APPENDIX B 334
ON A NEW FORM OF PUMA FROM PATAGONIA. BY OLDFIELD
THOMAS, F.R.S.
APPENDIX C 336
LIST OF PLANTS. BY JAMES BRITTEN, F.L.S., AND A. B.
RENDLE, M.A., D.SC.
GLOSSARY 341
INDEX 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
Tehuelche Hunting Scene (In Colour) Frontispiece
Facing page
Outfitting in a Patagonian Store 22
The first guanaco 26
A daughter of the Toldos 80
A New Cure for the Measles (In Colour) 86
A Tehuelche cacique 90
A Tehuelche matron, showing hare-lip 94
Children of the Toldos 98
Tehuelche matrons 100
A Tehuelche beauty 102
Boleadores 104
Sons of the Pampas 110
The Tehuelche Toldos 114
Onas stalking guanaco 120
Store-clad Indians 124
Tehuelche spying guanaco (In Colour) 132
Best head of Huemul (Xenelaphus bisulcus) Shot by the author 146
Rest-and-be-Thankful Camp 150
Huemul in summer coat (In Colour) 152
Descending the Barranca 158
Guanacos descending a hillside (Photogravure) 160
A Patagonian lagoon (In Colour) 168
The Italian engineers' waggon 174
Sierra Ventana 176
The drinking place (Photogravure) 186
Fiord of Lake Argentino, showing forest on Mt. Avellanada 190
End of Southern Fiord of Lake Argentino 192
The Wild Man (Photogravure) 194
The World of Ice 202
The fire 220
A glade in the Lake Rica Forest 226
The Leader of the Herd (Photogravure) 230
As it was in the beginning 232
Camp Thieves (In Colour) 244
Pearson's Puma " 252
The North Fiord 264
Our launch among the ice 270
Another view of the Glacier de los Tempanos 274
Eventide 278
The last reach 284
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
The pampas (showing first division) 1
One of our Gauchos 1
Among the Andes 3
A Tehuelche Cacique 7
Lakes and the distant Cordillera (showing second division) 8,9
A Patagonian Estancia 11
Argentine Gaucho 12
Half-breed Gaucho 13
J. B. Scrivenor 17
T. R. D. Burbury 20
Welsh Settlement of Trelew 21
Humphrey Jones, Jun. 23
The start on our long trek 27
Mr. Langley's Estancia on the road to Bahia Camerones 29
Frederick Barckhausen 31
A pampa round-up 34
J. B. Scrivenor (geologist) and mula 39
The big Overo, a buckjumper 41
The hunter's return 44
Felis concolor puma 45
Guanaco hounds (father and mother of the author's hound, Tom) 46
Ready to be cargoed 50
Mrs. Trelew 52
Yegua Rosada 53
The Asulejo 54
Cargoing-up 56, 57
The author's two best horses, the Cruzado and Alazan 59
Settlement of Colohuapi 64
Our brand 66
The Germans 69
River Senguerr, where disaster overtook us 71
The Old Zaino 72
The Guanaco (an intimate of the Old Zaino's) 73
The Alazan colt (nearly killed on the Senguerr) 74
Wildgoose Camp 77
Bad stalking (califate-bush on pampa) 78
Wati! Wati! (Tehuelche exclamation of surprise) 83
Indian Toldo 85
Arrowheads and knife, found near Colohuapi, Chubut (now in
collection of Mr. E. M. Sprot) 89
Beauties of Tierra del Fuego 108
Tehuelches visit Gallegos 113
On ahead 118
Horsham Base Camp 123
Lake Buenos Aires 126
Señor Hans P. Wagg, of the Argentine Boundary Commission 128
Inlet of Lake Buenos Aires 131
The horses retrieved 135
Sterile ground to north of Lake Buenos Aires 139
Lake Buenos Aires from the Cañadon of the River de los
Antiguos 145
Grassy camp 154
Young guanaco 156
First huemul camp 162
The off-saddle 165
Jones smokes the pipe of victory 166
The Indian trail 171
River Olin 172
River Belgrano 174
The home of the Indian who gave us mutton 176
La Gaviota 177
Santa Cruz 178
Residents of Santa Cruz 179
The main street, Santa Cruz 182
Ford on the River Santa Cruz 184
Estancia of Mr. E. Cattle 193
The launch, with Mr. Cattle and Bernardo on board 197
Bernardo Hähansen 207
Where the squalls came from 215
Forests under the snows where wild cattle breed 224
Edge of forest 233
Guanacos on sky-line 237
The huemul doe which touched the author. Photographed with
small camera as she retired 243
Best head of huemul (Xenelaphus bisulcus) shot by the author.
Side view 249
Head of guanaco 254
Guanaco chico (captured with lasso) 256
Red mountain wolf (Canis montanus) 260
Hellgate 262
Beyond man's footsteps 265
Glacier de los Tempanos 273
Glacier and glacial detritus 275
Cañadon of the River Katarina 281
River Katarina 283
Lake Pearson 285
Punta Arenas 292
The author 293
Skin of Grypotherium, outer view 306
Skin of Grypotherium, inner view 307
MAPS
Map showing route of Expedition through Patagonia 36
Map of the Eastern Portion of Lake Buenos Aires 172
Map of Lake Argentino and District (showing routes) 188
INTRODUCTION
Patagonia is a country about which little is known to the world in
general, books dealing with it being few and far between, while the
aspect of that quaint tail of South America and its wild denizens has
practically never before been pictorially brought under the eye of the
public. The following pages have been written with the idea of
familiarising my readers with the conditions of life in Patagonia, and
of reproducing as strongly as possible the impressions we gathered
during our journey through regions most interesting and varied, and,
as regards a certain portion of them, hitherto unvisited and
unexplored.
The original motive with which these travels were undertaken lay in a
suggestion that a couple of years ago created a considerable stir
amongst many besides scientific people, namely, that the prehistoric
Mylodon might possibly still survive hidden in the depths of the
forests of the Southern Andes. In a lecture delivered on June 21,
1900, before the Zoological Society, Professor E. Ray Lancaster, the
Director of the British Museum of Natural History, said: "It is quite
possible--I don't want to say more than that--that he (the Mylodon)
still exists in some of the mountainous regions of Patagonia." Mr.
Pearson, the proprietor of the _Daily Express_, most generously
financed the Expedition in the interests of science, and entrusted me
with the task of sifting all the evidence for or against the chances
of survival obtainable on the spot.
During the whole time I spent in Patagonia I came upon no single scrap
of evidence of any kind which would support the idea of the survival
of the Mylodon. I hoped to have found the Indian legends of some
interest in this connection, and I took the utmost pains to sift most
thoroughly all stories and rumours that could by any means be supposed
to refer to any unknown animal. Of this part of the subject I have
given a full account elsewhere.
There then remained to us but one thing more to do, and that was to
examine as far as we could--I will not say the forests of the Andes,
for they are primeval forests, dense and heavily grown, and, moreover,
cover hundreds of square miles of unexplored country--but the nature
of these forests, so as to be able to come to some conclusion on the
point under discussion. This we did, with the result that I personally
became convinced--and my opinion was shared by my companions--that the
Mylodon does not survive in the depths of the Andean forests. For
there is a singular absence of animal life in the forests. The deeper
we penetrated, the less we found. It is a well-known fact that, where
the larger forms of animal life exist, a number of the lesser
creatures are to be found co-existing with them, the conditions
favouring the life of the former equally conducing to the welfare of
the latter. Our observation of the forests therefore led us to
conclude that no animal such as the Mylodon is at all likely to be
existing among them. This is presumptive evidence, but it is strong,
being based on deductions not drawn from a single instance but from
general experience.
Still I would not offer my opinion as an ultimate answer to the
problem. In addition to the regions visited by our Expedition, there
are, as I have said, hundreds and hundreds of square miles about, and
on both sides of the Andes, still unpenetrated by man. A large portion
of this country is forested, and it would be presumptuous to say that
in some hidden valley far beyond the present ken of man some
prehistoric animal may not still exist. Patagonia is, however, not
only vast, but so full of natural difficulties, that I believe the
exhaustive penetration of its recesses will be the work not of one man
or of one party of men, but the result of the slow progress of human
advance into these regions.
I have recorded some of my observations upon the habits of Patagonian
game, and have written somewhat fully upon that most interesting
race, the Tehuelche Indians, but I have abstained from very lengthy
appendices, for these would be of purely scientific interest.
It is my hope to be able to return to Patagonia and to go further into
the many interesting subjects to which my attention was drawn. In any
book that may result from this second journey, I look forward to
including lists of various zoological, palæontological, and botanical
collections, all the materials for which have not at the moment of
writing arrived in England.
I would very cordially acknowledge the unfailing help which Dr. F. P.
Moreno has accorded to me in every way, and would specially thank him
for the photographs and maps he has allowed me to use in the following
pages. My thanks are also due to Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., for
his kind permission to reproduce his description of the Mylodon skin
and other remains discovered at Consuelo Cove by Dr. Moreno; to Dr.
Moreno for permitting me to reprint his account of that interesting
discovery, and to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, F.R.S., for allowing me to make
use of his description of _Felis concolor pearsoni_, the new
sub-species of puma which we brought back. I further offer my
acknowledgments to the Zoological Society, in whose "Proceedings" the
two first-mentioned papers originally appeared.
My best thanks are also due to the Royal Geographical Society, who
lent us instruments and gave us every aid in their power, and also to
Dr. Rendle and Mr. James Britten, of the Botanical Department of the
British Museum, for their kindness in preparing a botanical appendix.
I must record my indebtedness to Mr. John Guille Millais for the pains
he took with his illustrations for this book. Before I started, my
friend, Mr. Millais, drew me some sketches of huemul, guanaco, and
other Patagonian animals. These I showed to the Tehuelches, and was
once taken aback by being offered a commission to draw an Indian's
dogs. He offered me a trained horse as payment. The praise of the "man
who knows" is, after all, the great reward of art.
My thanks are also due to Mr. Edward Hawes, who kindly overlooked the
proofs of this book to correct the spelling of the Camp-Spanish. And
I would add the name of Mr. Frank A. Juckes, who saw to the outfitting
of a medicine-chest.
I would not omit grateful mention of Señor Garcia Merou, the late
Minister of Agriculture of the Argentine Republic, of the late Señor
Rivadavia, the then Minister of Marine, to Señor Josué Moreno, to
Messrs. Krabbé and Higgins; also to Mr. Ernest Cattle, Mr. Theobald,
of Trelew, and to the many kind friends who live in the Argentine
Republic.
I am indebted to my friend, Alfred James Jenkinson, Scholar of
Hertford College, Oxford, for his kindness in preparing photographs
for reproduction.
Most of all I owe a debt (a debt which runs yearly into compound
interest) to my mother, who is accountable for anything that is worth
while in this book, and who has collaborated in its production.
H. HESKETH PRICHARD.
[Illustration: THE PAMPAS (SHOWING FIRST DIVISION)]
CHAPTER I
PATAGONIA
Physical features of Patagonia -- The pampas -- Climate --
Discovery of Patagonia by Magellan -- Description of the
natives -- Sir Francis Drake -- Other travellers -- Dr.
Moreno -- Coast-towns -- Farms -- Gauchos -- Emptiness of
interior -- Route of expedition.
Patagonia forms the southern point or end of the South American
continent and extends, roughly speaking, from about parallel 40° to
the Straits of Magellan. Up to very recent times the geography of this
southern portion of the New World has been in a nebulous condition.
Vast tracts of the interior of Patagonia are as practically waste and
empty to-day as they were in the long-past ages. It is certainly
curious that this land should have been left so completely out of view
when the great overspill of European humanity looked overseas in
search of new homes where they might dwell and expand and find ample
means of livelihood.
[Illustration: ONE OF OUR GAUCHOS]
Perhaps the description of Patagonia given in the earlier part of the
last century by Darwin had something to do with this omission. He
spoke of it as a land having "the curse of sterility" upon it. He
dwelt on its desolate appearance, its "dreary landscape," and it would
seem that his undervaluing of the country of which, after all, he had
but a short and curtailed experience, influenced the whole circle of
the nations, with the result that only during the last thirty years or
so have the peoples who desire to colonise been discovering how
desirable and profitable is the great neglected land of the south.
Patagonia has grown to its present condition very rapidly. Not so long
ago it was almost entirely given up to Indians and the countless herds
of guanaco. Now there are farms upon the coast, and a few settlements,
such as Gallegos with its 3000 inhabitants, and Sandy Point or Punta
Arenas, still more populous with 11,000. Behind this narrow strip of
sparsely inhabited coast-land the immense extent of the interior lies
vacant.
Patagonia strikes the traveller as huge, elemental. Its natural
conformation is stamped with these characteristics. From the River
Negro on the north it tapers gradually to the Straits of Magellan on
the south. Three great parallel divisions, running north and south, of
plain, lake and mountain, each strongly marked, make up the face of
the country. From the shores of the Atlantic the pampas rise in gently
graduated terraces to the range of the Andes, while between them are
strung a mighty network of lakes and lagoons, some connected by
rivers, others by channels, many of which shift and alter under the
influence of climate and other local causes. From the sea to the
Sierra Nevada stretch the pampas, all tussocky grass, thorn, guanacos
and mirages. On the western rim of the pampas the Cordillera stand
against the sky, a tumult of mountains climbing upwards, their loftier
gorges choked with glaciers, their hollows holding great lakes,
ice-cold, ice-blue, and about their bases and their bastions thousands
of square miles of shaggy forests, of which but the mere edges have
yet been explored.
Within its 300,000 square miles of surface Patagonia offers the most
extreme and abrupt contrasts. Flat pampa with hardly a visible
undulation, mountains almost inaccessible in their steep escarpments.
Side by side they lie, crossing many degrees of latitude, the
contrast descending to the smallest particulars, mountain against
plain, forest as opposed to thorn-scrub, rain against sun. The wind
only is common to both more or less, though it is felt to a far
greater degree upon the pampa. The contrast extends to the coasts. The
eastern coast is a level treeless series of downs with few bays to
offer shelter to shipping; the western coast, on the contrary, is
grooved and notched with fjords, and the beetling headlands loom dark
with forests.
[Illustration: AMONG THE ANDES]
Roughly speaking, the country to the east of the Andes belongs to
Argentina, that on the west to Chili: between them lies a long strip
of disputed territory. From this great dividing-line rivers flow into
both oceans, into the Atlantic and into the Pacific. On the eastern
side of the range, where our travels took us, the rivers cut
transversely across the continent to the Atlantic. Such are the
Chubut, the Deseado, the southern Chico, which joins with the Santa
Cruz in a wide estuary before reaching the ocean, and the Gallegos. At
the mouth of each of these a settlement has sprung up.
On the western side the mountains approach more closely to the sea,
some of the glaciers on the heights of the Andes actually overhanging
the Pacific. The shore is there deeply indented with winding and
intricate fjords, and dense dripping forests grow rankly in the humid
climate, for the rainfall on the Chilian side of the Cordillera is
extraordinarily heavy.
Patagonia is the home of big distances. The Boer used to boast that he
could not see the smoke of his neighbour's chimney. On the Atlantic
coastland of Patagonia it is often three, four or five days' ride to
the nearest farm. The holdings are measured not by the acre or any
analogous standard but by the square league. One farm alone in Tierra
del Fuego is 400 square leagues in extent. The distances are at first
appalling. A man accustomed to cities would here feel forlorn indeed.
One stands face to face with the elemental. As you travel into the
interior, Nature, with her large loose grasp, enfolds you. There is no
possibility of being mentally propped up by one's fellow man. Empty
leagues upon leagues surround you on every side, "the inverted bowl we
call the sky" above.
Who, having once seen them, can forget the pampas? Evening, and the
sun sloping over the edge of the plain like an angry eye, an inky-blue
mirage half blotting it out, in the middle distance grass rolling like
an ocean to the horizon, lean thorn, and a mighty roaring wind.
Out there in the heart of the country you seem to stand alone, with
nothing nearer or more palpable than the wind, the fierce mirages and
the limitless distances.
This wild land, ribbed and spined by one of the greatest mountain
chains in the world, appears to have been the last habitation of the
greater beasts of the older ages. It is now the last country of all to
receive man, or rather its due share of human population.
It must not be forgotten that this is the nearest bulk of land to the
Antarctic continent. It thrusts forth its vast mass far into southern
waters, and beyond lie a covey of islands, small and large, upon the
outermost of which is situated the famous Cape Horn.
On the Antarctic continent there is no life to speak of. In Patagonia,
the nearest large land, the human race has been, through the
centuries, represented by a few thousand nomad Indians, who in their
long rovings followed certain well-known trails, from which only a
very rare and venturesome individual thought of deviating. Far outside
these paths dwelt, according to the native imagination, dangers and
terrors unknown. You can follow the same trails to-day. Picture to
yourself a dozen or twenty field-paths running side by side,
obliterated by the fingers of the spring, and invisible under your
feet, but strangely growing into distinctness half a mile ahead,
waving onward towards the pampas. Such is the Indian trail.
People in England, one finds, are divided into two groups as to their
opinions of the Patagonian climate. One group maintains that the
country must be tropical, since it is included in the continent of
South America; the other that it is an ice-bound region, for the good
reason that it lies close to Tierra del Fuego. Oddly enough, both are
in a degree justified, for the summers there are comparatively hot,
but the severity of the winter, when snow lies deep on the country,
and cutting winds blow down from the frozen heights during those
months that bring to us our long English evenings, is undeniable.
Some day, no doubt, the land will lose its untamed aspect; it will
become, as others are, moulded by the hand of man, and expectant of
him. But now the great words of one whose eyes never rested on Andean
loneliness marvellously describes it:
A land where no man comes nor hath come
Since the making of the world,
But ever the wind shrills.
The discovery of Patagonia dates from the early part of the year 1520,
when that most intrepid of explorers, Ferdinand Magellan, forced his
way doggedly down the east coast in the teeth of continuous storms.
With his little fleet of five vessels he pushed on in the hope, which
few if any of his companions shared, of finding a strait joining the
two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Upon what foundation
he based this belief cannot now be certainly told, but the analogy of
the Cape of Good Hope and rumours that obtained among the geographers
and seafaring captains of the day, helped, no doubt, to confirm his
own idea that some such outlet existed. As early as 1428, a map of
the world, described by one Antonio Galvao as "most rare and
excellent," showed the Straits of Magellan under the name of the
"Dragon's Tail." This map, being carefully kept in the treasuries of
Portugal, was, it may fairly be presumed, known to Magellan. Also
there were two globes, made in Nuremberg shortly before he sailed, in
which the channel between the great seas was clearly indicated.
For all that, the existence of a passage was far from being an
established fact, but Magellan undauntedly continued his voyage down
the Patagonian coast in search of it. He reached the harbour now known
as San Julian on March 31, 1520, and there proposed to winter.
Almost at once the famous mutiny against his authority broke out,
headed by those who desired to turn back, and who had no faith in the
existence of the strait. One of the rebel captains was stabbed upon
his own deck, a second executed ashore and a third marooned. The
commander of the fourth ship, the _Santiago_, was a friend of
Magellan's, who stood by his leader throughout the troubled time.
Weeks passed by, the winter settled down upon them with great
severity, and yet no sign of native inhabitants had been perceived
upon the shore. The Captain-General sent out an expedition to go
thirty leagues into the interior, but the men returned with a
disheartening account of the country, which they described as
impassable, barren of the necessities of life, and, as far as their
experience went, entirely devoid of inhabitants. But one day not long
after, a native appeared upon the beach who cut antics and sang while
he tossed sand upon his head. This man was successfully lured on board
of Magellan's ship. He was dressed in skins, with clumsy boots of the
same material, which last fact is supposed by some authorities to have
led Magellan to call the people the Patagaos, or big feet. Pigafetta,
an Italian who accompanied the exploring fleet, wrote an account of
this Patagonian's appearance. "So tall was this man that we came up to
the level of his waist-belt. He was well enough made, and had a broad
face, painted red, with yellow circles round his eyes, and two
heart-shaped spots on his cheeks." He further says the man was armed
with a bow and arrows, the bow being short and thick and the arrows
tipped with black and white flint heads. In another place Pigafetta
asserts that the least of the Patagonians was taller than the tallest
men in Castile.
[Illustration: A TEHUELCHECACIQUE]
Magellan treated the man with kindness, and soon other natives paid
the Spaniards visits. With them they appear to have brought a couple
of young guanacos, leashed together and led by a cord. They stated
that they kept these animals as decoys for the wild herds, who on
approaching the tethered guanacos fell an easy prey to the hunters
lying in ambush close at hand.
The Patagonians are said to have eaten rats, caught on the ship,
whole, without even removing the skins! However, they seem to have
been peaceably disposed towards the Spaniards, until Magellan, being
struck with their great height, resolved to take home some specimens
of the race as curiosities for the Emperor, and consequently he
entrapped two of the young men while on board his vessel. Seeing,
however, that one of these Patagonians grieved for his wife, Magellan
sent a party ashore with a couple of the natives to fetch the woman:
but on the road one of the natives was wounded, the result being that
the whole tribe took to flight after a slight skirmish with the
Spaniards, one of whom died almost instantly after being struck by an
arrow. From this event it would seem that the Patagonians of that
period used poisoned arrows, as do the Onas of Tierra del Fuego
to-day. These people do not employ vegetable poison, but leave their
arrows in a putrid carcase until they become infected.
The next navigator to visit the shores of Patagonia was Sir Francis
Drake in 1578. He also commanded a small squadron of five vessels,
and, curiously enough, had to cope with a plot against his life when
in the same harbour of Port San Julian. The story is well known. Mr.
Thomas Doughty, the chief mutineer, was given his choice of death, or
of marooning, or to be taken home for trial. He chose death, and was
accordingly executed. Drake speaks of the natives as being no taller
than some Englishmen.
[Illustration: LAKES AND THE DISTANT CORDILLERA (SHOWING SECOND
DIVISION)]
During the next hundred years various expeditions touched upon the
coasts, some captained by Englishmen, such as Narborough, Byron, and
Wallis. The two latter differ a good deal from each other with regard
to the stature of the Patagonians. Byron mentions a chief 7 ft. high,
and adds that few of the others were shorter. Wallis, on the other
hand, gives an average of from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft., the tallest man
measured by him being 6 ft. 7 in. At an earlier date than either of
these a Jesuit named Falkner, being in Patagonia, mentions a _cacique_
some inches over 7 ft.
In 1783 the traveller Viedma penetrated into the interior and
discovered one link of the long chain of lakes lying under the Andes,
which still bears his name. He gave the people an average of 6 ft. of
stature. Some fifty years after this, H.M.S. _Beagle_, with Darwin on
board, touched at many points of the coast, and short trips inland
were undertaken. Darwin's journals give the first detailed account of
the country. He agrees with Captain Fitzroy in describing the
Patagonians as the tallest of all peoples.
During the years 1869-70, Captain George Chaworth Musters, of the
Royal Navy, spent several months with the nomad Indians, traversing a
great distance in their company, and becoming acquainted with many
interesting facts concerning their habits and customs. Since the
publication of his book in 1871 practically nothing exhaustive has
been written about Southern Patagonia. One or two travellers have
given short accounts of visits there, but the serious opening up of
the country is due to the initiative and energy of Dr. Francisco P.
Moreno, whose first excursion to Patagonia was made in 1873. In the
following year he carried his investigations as far south as the River
Santa Cruz. In 1875 he crossed from Buenos Aires to Lake Nahuel-Huapi
and the Andean Cordillera, between parallels 39° 30´ and 42°. In 1876
he visited Chubut, and ascended the river Santa Cruz to its parent
lake, which he proved was not that discovered by Viedma in 1782, but
another lying farther south. To him is due the earliest suggestion of
the great system of lakes which are situated in the longitudinal
depression that runs parallel with the Cordillera.
Again, in 1879, Dr. Moreno crossed the country to the Cordillera on
parallel 44°. Up to that time surveying in those regions was by no
means exempt from danger, on account of the hostile attitude of the
tribes. The amount of valuable work done by Dr. Moreno did not end
with his personal expeditions. Each summer of late years the Argentine
and Chilian Boundary Commissions have been surveying and opening up
the country. First and last Dr. Moreno must always be regarded as the
great geographer of Patagonia.
Among the gentlemen engaged on the boundary work I should like to
mention the Norwegian Herr Hans P. Waag, who, on behalf of the
Argentine Commission, penetrated from the Pacific coast up the river
De las Heras to Lake Buenos Aires, and from thence overland to Trelew.
It would be difficult to overpraise the work of this traveller.
Others, who as pioneers, travellers, scientific men, or surveyors,
have taken a part in the good work of making the interior of Patagonia
known to the world are Baron Nordenskjöld, Mr. Hatcher, and the
members of the Chilian and Argentine Boundary Commissions. I think
that in any such list as the above mention should be made of those
who first settle in a district, and who realise in greater degree than
even the pioneer explorers the difficulties and drawbacks of a new
country, and undoubtedly their hardihood is of immense and enduring
value. I would, therefore, include the name of the Waldron family, who
have taken a large part in settling the southern districts of
Patagonia and also in the colonising of Tierra del Fuego.
[Illustration: A PATAGONIAN _ESTANCIA_]
With this brief reference to the more important journeys hitherto made
in Southern Patagonia, it may be well to give here some description of
the country as it appears to-day. There are upon the eastern coasts
some settlements, as I have mentioned, and also the Welsh colonies of
Trelew, Dawson, Gaimon, besides these a very small and recent one
exists at Colohaupi, near Lake Musters, and another, The 16th October,
far away in the Cordillera. This last is the single settlement of any
size south of parallel 40° in the central interior.
A fringe of farms runs along the coast, and at the mouths of the
rivers are situated little frontier towns, such as San Julian, Santa
Cruz and Gallegos. Towards the south and along the shores of the
Strait the fringe of farms has grown broader and the country is more
generally settled, the Chilian town of Punta Arenas being an important
port. The few vast straggling farms are given up chiefly to
sheep-breeding, the main export being wool. But cattle and horses are
also raised in large numbers, for the land has proved very suitable
for pasturage. The farm buildings vary, of course, in many ways: some
are large and comfortable homesteads, others mere squalid huts, but
one and all are almost invariably roofed in with the universal
galvanised iron.
The Welsh colonists have introduced a good strain to the growing
population, and there are constant wholesome as well as vicious
importations. In a country where shepherding of one sort or another is
the chief industry, it is inevitable that some equivalent of the
cowboy of the North must be developed. The Gaucho is the Patagonian
cowboy, and he is manly and picturesque enough to be very interesting.
[Illustration: ARGENTINE GAUCHO]
The Gauchos are picturesque both in their lives and in their
appearance: a pair of moleskin trousers, long boots, and a
handkerchief usually of a red pattern, a slouch hat of black felt, and
a gaudy poncho serve them for apparel. The poncho, which is merely a
rug with a hole in the middle for the head, makes a comfortable
great-coat by day and a blanket by night.
A Gaucho may be sprung from any nation on earth. Even as the shores of
Patagonia are washed by the farthest tides of ocean, so the same tides
have borne to people her solitude a singular horde of massed
nationalities. But it is the man born in the country of whatever stock
who becomes the true Gaucho. Infancy finds him in the saddle, and he
grows there. Other men can stick on a horse, but the Gaucho can ride.
Living as they do, they form a class alone. On horseback they are more
than men; on foot, I am half tempted to say, less, for they would
rather ride fifty miles than walk two. They are farm-hands, shepherds,
horse-breakers, occasionally good working vets, and when they prosper
they buy waggons and go into the carrying trade; in fact, they form
the foundation of Patagonian life.
The coast settlements are similar to such places all the world over:
storekeepers, men who run wine-shops, traders, and the usual sort of
folk who form the bulk of dwellers on the edge of civilisation.
In Patagonia it is not difficult to leave civilisation behind you, for
between lat. 43° and 50° S. the interior, save for a very few pioneers
and small tribes of wandering Tehuelche Indians, is at the present day
unpeopled. When the line of the Cordillera is reached, you come to a
region absolutely houseless, where no human inhabitant is to be found.
Comparatively speaking, but little animal life flourishes under the
unnumbered snow peaks, and in the unmeasured spaces of virgin forest,
which cover those valleys and in many places cloak the mountains from
base to shoulder. Hundreds of square miles of forest-land, gorges,
open slopes, and terraced hollows lie lost in the vast embrace of the
Patagonian Andes, on which the eye of man has never yet fallen.
[Illustration: HALF-BREED GAUCHO]
Our travels took us over a great part of the country. Starting in
September 1900, we zigzagged from Trelew by Bahia Camerones, to Lakes
Colhué and Musters and along the River Senguerr to Lake Buenos Aires.
After spending a time in the neighbourhood of that lake, we followed
the Indian trail for some distance, then touching the Southern Chico
we reached Santa Cruz on the east coast in January 1901. Leaving most
of the expedition there, I returned with two companions by the course
of the River Santa Cruz to the Cordillera, where I remained for some
months, and in May I once more crossed the continent to Gallegos to
take ship for Punta Arenas, the only port in Patagonia where a steamer
calls regularly. I left Patagonia in June 1901. I compute that the
whole distance covered by the journeyings of the expedition cannot
have fallen short of 2000 miles.
Of the zoology of Patagonia little is known. Of the fauna and flora of
the Cordillera of the southern central part it is not too much to say
that practically nothing is known. Patagonia thus offers one of the
most interesting fields in the world to the traveller and naturalist.
With these preliminary remarks, I will beg the reader to embark with
me upon the Argentine National transport the _Primero de Mayo_, bound
from the port of Buenos Aires for the south.