SOUTHWARD HO!
Leaving England -- Start -- _Primero de Mayo_ -- Port
Belgrano -- Welsh colonists -- Story of Mafeking -- First
sight of Patagonia -- Golfo Nuevo -- Port Madryn --
Landing -- Trelew -- A pocket Wales -- Difficulties of
early colonists -- Other Welsh settlements -- Older and
younger generations -- Welsh youths and Argentine maidens
-- Language difficulty will arrange itself -- A plague of
"lords" -- Lord Reed -- Trouble of following a lord --
Itinerary -- Travelling in Patagonia -- Few men, many
horses -- Pack-horses -- Start for Bahia Camerones --
Foxes, ostriches, cavy -- On the pampas -- Guanaco --
First guanaco -- _Maté_ -- Dogs -- Farms -- Indians --
Landscape -- Mirages -- Vast empty land -- _Cañadones_ --
_Estancia_ Lochiel -- Seeking for puma -- Killing guanacos
-- Many pumas killed during winter months--Gauchos.
We arrived at Buenos Aires early in September 1900, and on the 10th we
embarked again on board the _Primero de Mayo_, one of the transports
of the Argentine Government, by which my companions and myself had
courteously been granted passages to Patagonia. The _Primero de Mayo_
is a boat of 650 tons. We carried an extraordinary amount of deck
cargo, for there were a good many passengers on board, as these
transports offered the sole means existing at that time[1] of
communication by sea with Argentine Patagonia.
We started about one o'clock. Lieutenant Jurgensen, the _commandante_,
was good enough to invite us to dine on that night with the officers
in the deck-house. He subsequently extended his invitation to cover
the entire voyage. After dinner we went out upon the deck. It was
starlight, and the _Primero de Mayo_ was steaming down the brown
estuary of the Plata.
First night out! What a penance it is! It is "good-bye" translated
into heaviness of heart, and it knows for the time no future and no
hope. You can only look back miserably and long for lost companionship
and
All dear scenes to which the soul
Turns, as the lodestone seeks the pole.
It is a time when romance fades out, and nothing is left save the grey
fact of recent partings and the misery of unaccustomed quarters.
First night out--when one renews acquaintance with the thin cold
sheets and those extraordinary coverlets whose single habitat in the
world appears to be upon the bunks of steamers. Our fellow passengers
also seemed very much under the same influence of greyness. They had
packed themselves round the saloon-table, and were keeping the
stewards busy with orders.
There were not only a good many people, but peoples, on board; all
nations in ragged ponchos with round fur caps or those pointed
sombreros that one associates with pictures of elves in a wood. As
wild-looking a crew were gathered for'ard as ever sailed Southward Ho!
Germans, Danes, Poles, and heaven knows what other races besides; each
little party formed laagers of their possessions and resented
intrusion with volley-firing of oaths. There was one laager in which I
found myself taking a particular interest; it was made up of two men,
a woman, and her brood of children. Their only belongings appeared to
consist of four ponchos, a _maté_ pot and kettle, and a huge basket of
cauliflowers. They crept in and entrenched themselves between the
cauliflowers and the port bulwark in the waist of the ship. From there
they did not move, but sat swaying their bodies during the entire
voyage. Was Patagonia an Eldorado to which those people were
journeying? On that dark night, as the ship slid groaning and creaking
over the brown waters, the dark scene, lit by stray blurs of light,
called up a memory of Leighton's picture, "The Sea shall give up its
Dead."
Among the passengers was the Governor of Santa Cruz, Señor Don Matias
McKinlay Tapiola, who speaks English very well. There were also one or
two gentlemen interested in sheep-farming in Patagonia. Of these, Mr.
Greenshields, whose _estancia_ or farm we visited later, owned the
credit of having broken new ground in colonising a part of the country
some one hundred and fifty miles south of the Welsh settlement of
Trelew. The earlier sheep-farms lay about Punta Arenas, eight degrees
to the southward, and there the men of the south swore by the south,
and much difference of opinion existed as to how sheep would flourish
in the more northerly region chosen by Mr. Greenshields. But it seemed
that his daring was likely to be richly repaid, and that many, when
they heard of his success, would follow his example.
[Illustration: J. B. SCRIVENOR]
At length it was bedtime, and we turned in with the comforting
reflection that when we woke "first night out" would be over.
Next morning land had sunk from sight and there was a light
ground-swell, but the _Primero de Mayo_ was rolling heavily, a trick
that Government transports possess and seem to regard in the light of
a privilege all the world over. The evenings and the mornings followed
each other in grey but serene regularity, till on the 12th we turned
coastwards, heading for Puerto Belgrano, and ran between low, green,
hummocky banks up a stretch of shallow, mud-coloured water to our
anchorage. It was a reddish sunset with lightning playing continuously
upon the horizon, and while we were at dinner a thunderstorm broke
with heavy rain. That night we were permitted the privilege and
amusement of choosing the morrow's _menu_. We chose a truly British
repast; roast beef, jam-roll and plum-pudding figuring amongst the
items. There are no employments too trifling to help one to pass the
time on board a ship doing service as a coaster. As to the
arrangements made for our well-being on the transport, the Minister of
Marine had, I was informed, kindly given most generous orders with
regard to our treatment.
In the morning we disembarked forty-two sailors for the four
men-of-war lying at anchor in the bay. Then we sailed away again for
the south with a warm sun upon the crowded planking and a cold wind
blowing aft. It was at this time that I altered my original plans and
decided on landing at Puerto Madryn, our next stopping-place, instead
of at Santa Cruz, which lies some seven degrees of latitude farther to
the south. Upon hearing that winter had not yet relaxed its grip on
the country south, it became clear that the horses down there would be
thin and in poor condition, with the spring sickness upon them, and
therefore quite unfitted to start upon such a journey as lay before
us. The new scheme also promised a saving of time, as the _Primero de
Mayo_, owing to the necessity of calling at various little places on
the way down to Santa Cruz, would be a good deal delayed; besides, the
horses we required could probably be got together more quickly at
Puerto Madryn.
We had a number of Welsh with us on the transport, who were on their
way home to the Welsh settlements of Trelew, Gaiman and Rawson. In the
evenings of the voyage it was their custom to forgather and sing
psalms in Welsh, psalms the sound of which took one's memory back to
the Scottish hills and the yearly ante-communion preachings in the
open-air. The surrounding greyness aided the idea--grey sea, grey sky,
grey weather.
By the way, on board we learnt a fact, or so we were assured it was,
about the South African War, which is certainly not well known even
among those who love the Boer. One night at table, one of the diners
solemnly declared that at Mafeking the English ate the flesh of the
Kaffirs and were thereby enabled to hold out for so long. He was not
attempting to hoax us, he really believed the fable himself, poor
fellow! I did not gather the gentleman's name.
Coming on deck on the morning of the 15th, we saw, drawn across the
western sea-rim, a low brown line. Above it a sky of steel-blue
gleamed coldly and below a wash of grey sea. This was our first view
of Patagonia. All day we crept along the grim, quiet, solitary-looking
cliff, until at last the _Primero de Mayo_ was swallowed up in the
vast embrace of the Golfo Nuevo. It was between evening and night when
we approached our harbourage, Puerto Madryn. The half-lights were
playing above it, and the afterglow of the sunset still shone feebly
behind the land. We saw only raw cliff capped by dark verdure--the rim
of the vast pampas which roll away in rising levels league upon league
towards the Andes.
The sea was cold, the wind was cold, the land looked forlorn and
a-cold. Presently from it a little boat put out containing a figure
wrapped in a long military cloak. This was the sub-prefect, who thus
welcomed us to these desolate shores, for Patagonia from the sea is a
desolate prospect indeed. It would be difficult to give an adequate
idea of the dismal aspect presented by Puerto Madryn upon that
evening. Suffice it to say that the settlement consists of half a
dozen houses and a flagstaff; the first crouch on the lip of the tide
and the second shivers above on the bare pampa-rim.
There seals and divers haunt the sea, a few guanaco-herds live upon
the coast-lands, and there, in inhospitable fashion, the little colony
of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great
primordial nature. In the evening lights the cliffs showed curiously
pallid above a strip of dead sand and shingle, only the sky and the
water seemed alive.
Next morning we hoped to get our baggage ashore and were moving early
with that object in view. But the trend of public opinion in Puerto
Madryn appears to be towards the conviction that there is no sort of
reason for hurry under any circumstances. Hence the cargo disgorged
itself slowly, and after interminable waiting we found our particular
share of it would not be reached that night. It was, in fact, not till
the afternoon of the second day that we achieved a partial recovery of
our belongings from the holds and took the first consignment of it
ashore. The morning had broken clear and fine, but mid-day brought a
change. And by the time we had our boatload completed and rocketed
away shorewards at the tail of the _Primero de Mayo's_ steam-launch, a
beam sea was flying in spray high over us.
There was an anxious moment when the launch slipped the towing-cable
and the sailor in the bows flung a rope, which dropped short of the
black wooden jetty, and we were swept some boat-lengths away by a big
broken sea. To be swamped at the moment of landing!--the thought was
too disastrous to be dwelt on; half our rifles and a box of
instruments were on board. It cost us a long hour and a half of hard
work before everything was safe ashore. And while we toiled a dozen
seals came and stared at us with their doglike faces, and lazy, solemn
eyes.
[Illustration: T. R. D. BURBURY]
When all our property had been brought to land, luckily without
mishaps of any kind, I left Scrivenor with our _peones_ to bring up
the heavy baggage and went on with Burbury to Trelew by the miniature
train which plies to and fro between the Welsh colony and the coast.
From Trelew a ten-days ride takes you beyond the farm of the last
settler and into the waste places of the pampas.
Trelew is a new and pocket Wales, but very much Wales all the same. To
prove the accuracy of this statement it is only necessary to say that
the waggon which set us on the first leagues of our way belonged to a
Jones, that another Jones accompanied the expedition to the
Cordillera, that I negotiated with a third Jones for a supply of
mutton to take with us for use on the first part of our journey, that
I was introduced to several Williamses and did business with various
Hugheses. And all this in a day and a half.
Trelew itself is a bare settlement of raw-looking houses and shanties,
which has started up on the emptiness of the pampas. It cannot lay any
claim to picturesqueness, and a pervading impression of being
unfinished adds a suggestion of discomfort to the place. All round
about the mud houses the pampa rolls away to the distances, harsh,
stony, overgrown with little humpy bushes of thorn and dotted here and
there with wheat-land. All through and over the settlement you are
never out of hearing of three languages--English, Welsh and Spanish.
[Illustration: WELSH SETTLEMENT OF TRELEW]
For thirty-five years the Welsh have lived in this little colony of
their own founding. Exactly all the reasons which led them to forsake
their far-off homes for Patagonia it would serve no purpose to set out
in detail, but the root of the matter appears to have lain in the fact
that they objected to the laws relating to the teaching of English in
the schools; and, having the courage of their convictions, they came
several thousand miles across the sea to escape the _régime_ they
disliked. At present, however, they seem to have slipped from the
frying-pan into the fire, for they like still less the Argentine code,
by which every man born in the Republic is subject to conscription and
Sunday drilling.
Some time ago the colonists of Trelew appealed to England to intercede
for them with the Argentine Government with a view to obtaining
release from these disabilities. But as the Welsh had of their own
free will deliberately placed themselves under the Government of the
Republic, it was impossible for England to interfere, and this fact
was notified to the suppliants, much to their disappointment and
disgust. Even when I was there they remained rather sore over the
matter, complaining that England had taken all the money subscribed
for the expenses of the appeal and given them no redress in return.
The difficulties and hardships which must inevitably have beset the
commencement of their settling in Patagonia, contrasted with their
present condition, show the Welsh to be splendid people. The resolute
spirit that drove them to emigrate across the seas has served to make
their township there, though perhaps not particularly inviting to look
at, a flourishing one in its quiet pastoral way. They have laid a
railway, as has been said, to the coast at Puerto Madryn and
established a telephone. Spanish and Welsh live here as neighbours.
The Spaniard keeps the store while the Welshman farms, growing a
certain amount of grain, but his chief business lies in breeding
horses, cattle and sheep.
The Welshmen are not wanting in keen business quality. Any one who has
tried to buy horses in Trelew will bear me out in this statement. The
mere fact that a stranger has arrived in their colony, who wants to
invest in horseflesh, awakens all their commercial instincts, and they
are not at all behind the rest of the world in knowing how to form a
combine for the purpose of plundering the Philistines. Quite right
too. A man who can resist making a bargain over a horse whenever he
gets the chance is, like "the good young man who died," over-perfect
for this corrupt old world.
From their first settlement the Welsh have spread south through the
coast-towns of Patagonia, and six weeks' journey from Trelew they have
formed another settlement in the Cordilleras to the north-west which
they have called the "16th October Colony." Thither waggons are always
trekking, and waggon-drivers and others who return bring with them
glowing and rosy descriptions of the young settlement of the interior.
The adaptability of the Welsh to the peculiar needs of colonisation is
very remarkable. They have certainly stepped into the "larger life"
with success.
[Illustration: OUTFITTING IN A PATAGONIAN STORE]
The influence of the new conditions of existence, so different from
that of the Welsh peasant in his own country, is very noticeable in
several ways. The older and the younger generation are unlike each
other now, and will probably continue to become more so as time
goes on. Physically the younger people are far better developed than
their elders, red-faced, open-eyed, straight-backed boys in big felt
hats, each with a bright-coloured handkerchief knotted round his neck
and the guanaco-wool poncho hanging from his shoulders. They are very
picturesque and look their best on horseback. In this matter of riding
also there is a wide difference between the styles of the old and the
young men. The latter, who are Patagonian born, seem to be part of
their horses, but the elders, however excellent long practice has made
them, never attain to the proficiency of their sons.
[Illustration: HUMPHREY JONES, JUN.]
Although the colony of Trelew is to-day in a more or less flourishing
condition and very Welsh, a grave danger menaces it. In fifty years
time how will it be with the racial element? Will there be as many
Welsh then as now? I fear not, and the result is difficult to foresee.
The danger takes the form of the dark-eyed Argentine maiden, who is
rather apt to "make roast meat of the heart" of the Welsh youth. While
the Welsh girls do not take very readily to Spanish-speaking husbands,
the Welsh boys fall very much in love with the daughters of the South.
So it is to be concluded that the language difficulty will settle
itself, or, at any rate, become more easy of arrangement with each
succeeding generation. If the girl you love speaks only Spanish, it is
quite obvious you must learn Spanish in order to be able to talk to
her, and, under the circumstances, you will not find the task a very
hard one. Then children nearly always show a preference for the
mother's tongue and speech in contradistinction to that of the father.
Probably, if these prophecies were uttered in Trelew, the men of
to-day would scoff at them. But onlookers often see most of the game.
In 1865 the Welsh, in deep sorrow, left their own land to escape the
tyranny of the English law, as they considered it, which sought to
force upon them the English language. Their desire was to preserve
their own tongue. And flying from Scylla they will fall (and to some
degree have already fallen) a prey to Charybdis. But it is a very
pleasant Charybdis, typified by a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lissom
maiden, who will bear them sons no longer of the old pure-bred Welsh
stock, but of a mixed race. And so the effort of the forefathers, who
fared overseas to found a new home, shall be made null and void.
Now and again it is the fate of frontier towns to be stirred to their
depths by some incursion from the old world they have left behind
them. Trelew was still recovering from such an experience when we
arrived there. The settlement, in short, had been suffering from a
plague of lords. First appeared an aristocrat, who wished to travel in
the interior, and he bought up horses with a lavish hand, and
generally made preparations which, no doubt, filled the purses of the
inhabitants. This gentleman's projected tour, however, fell through
for some reason, and he departed whence he had come into the unknown
world outside of Trelew's daily cognisance.
Presently after him followed a second "lord," who gave his name as
Lord Reed, and who was received with open arms by an enthusiastic
community. A run of lords appeared to be setting in, and was regarded
by the Trelewians as a distinct dispensation in their favour, which it
was their happy duty to work out thoroughly to their own advantage. By
some mistake Lord Reed had left his ready money behind him, and,
therefore, borrowed pretty extensively from the kind-hearted Welshmen.
After a time Lord Reed vanished, and upon inquiry being made it was
discovered that no such title as Lord Reed was to be found in the
Peerage of Great Britain. When this fact became established, more than
one Welshman is reported to have gone out after Lord Reed with the
family gun, and, I believe, he was finally caught with a lasso! But
the incident was not without its bearing on our personal affair, for
the Bank of Trelew would have nothing whatever to say to my Cook's
letter of credit. In vain I recited my credentials, and gave such
proof of genuineness as was in my power to give. They would none of
me. The bank evidently argued that it was easier to pretend that you
were a _bona-fide_ traveller than that you were a lord. Lord Reed too;
it was rather a taking title. I could not at first understand where
the humour of the question, put to me by several people I met in
Trelew, of "Are you not Lord Prichard?" came in. In fact, it was
disconcerting; but later on, when I heard the above story, I did not
grudge the colonists any fun that might be got out of the situation,
for certainly Lord Reed, taken all in all, had been far from a subject
of pure amusement to them.
We remained six days at Trelew making those last few purchases which
were necessary with the small stock of extra money that I had left
myself as a margin. It was directly owing to Lord Reed that I finally
set forth into the interior with but thirty dollars in Argentine notes
and large drafts on Cook and Son, which were quite useless. Although
the wilderness does not seem a likely field for spending money, yet,
before our travels were at an end, I was glad to sell horses to supply
the needs of our party.
The journey which lay before us to Lake Buenos Aires was about six
hundred miles in length, and this distance might be subdivided into
three stages: the first, from Trelew to Bahia Camerones, where the
expedition became complete; the second, from Bahia Camerones to the
Lakes Musters and Colhué; and the third, to Lake Buenos Aires itself.
My instructions gave me an entirely free hand, within reasonable
limits, as to the number of men I might take with me.
I had from the first been convinced that the smallest number possible
would also be, in our case, the wisest. The immense extent of the
country to be traversed, and the difficulties which must inevitably
lie in our way to hinder and delay us, as well as the practical
emptiness of the country, which requires that an expedition shall be
self-supporting, were salient facts; and our plans had to be made and
modified in relation to these facts. The mobility of the party was the
main point to aim at. Hence it was necessary to cut down the
_personnel_ of the expedition to as low a number as possible, and it
was further most important to have plenty of horses and to spare.
The difficulty of feeding several men when travelling through such a
country was obvious, and therefore not to be thought of, as, besides
the four horses each individual needed for riding, the extra animals
for carrying provision and bedding, clothing, tents, &c. had to be
taken into account. No pack-horse should be allowed to carry his load
two days consecutively, and, in fact, one day's work in three is
enough. If waggons are taken, each should be allowed three teams of
six horses each.
With such ideas in view, those arrangements were made which, in fact,
enabled us to cover the distances we achieved. Any expedition of this
sort is killing work for the horses, and it stands greatly to
Burbury's credit that we lost but one out of nearly sixty during the
months we spent in Patagonia, and that one was a colt that died of
eating poison-shrub.
There is not the slightest doubt that the policy that spells success
in Patagonian travel is summed up in the words, "Cut down your men and
your stores, and take enough horses to enable you to move lightly and
rapidly."
On September 21 we left Trelew in the afternoon. The weather was
magnificent. Our caravan at this period consisted of a couple of
waggons as well as the horses. Two _estancieros_, Messrs. Greenshields
and Haddock, accompanied us, as our way led past their farms. I sent
the waggons ahead and rode on afterwards with Burbury and Humphrey
Jones senior. When we came to the place fixed on for our first camp we
found the men had gone on, for there was no water there. We pushed
forward in the dark, and presently the fire of the encampment
glimmered out in front of us; it seemed to be quite near, but it took
a good while to reach. We heard an occasional fox, and as we sat round
the fire a few birds passed in the dark, calling. The first night in
camp is like the first night at sea, a gloomy time.
[Illustration: THE FIRST GUANACO]
The next day we again had a bright sun with a strong west wind. We
chased some pampa foxes and an ostrich (_Rhea darwini_) and killed two
of the former. Jones and Burbury caught a cavy (_Dolichotis
patagonica_). So we marched on over the rolling downs day after day,
sometimes catching a glimpse of the sea, sometimes journeying across
pampas where the far horizons met in pale blue sky and puffed white
clouds above, and below grass and endless scrub. We saw Cayenne plover
(_Vanellus cayennensis_) at an early stage of our travels.
[Illustration: THE START OF OUR LONG TREK]
I have already mentioned the herds of guanaco that roam the interior.
This animal belongs distinctively to South America, and is to be found
nowhere else in the world. Darwin writes of it as follows: "The
guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains
of Patagonia.... It is an elegant animal in a state of nature, with a
long slender neck and fine legs." In colour the guanaco is of a
golden-brown with white underparts, the hair upon the sides being
somewhat long and fleecy. Enormous herds of from three to five hundred
live upon the pampas, and we were aware that we should chiefly depend
for meat on those we might chance to shoot during many months to come.
One evening, when I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I saw
my first guanaco. Coming round a bend of the winding _cañadon_, I
looked up and perceived him. The sight was highly picturesque. It was
an old buck standing alone on the top of a cliff some two hundred feet
high and looking down at me. He was posed against a background of pale
green glinting sunset. I had hardly time to unsling my rifle before he
bounded away. We saw many thousands afterwards, but somehow in the
nature of things I shall never forget that first one.
On the coast-farms, which, it must be recollected, are many of them
scores of square leagues in extent, the guanaco grows comparatively
tame, becoming used to the passing of mounted shepherds; but in other
parts of Patagonia, noticeably in the valley of the River Chico of
Chubut, through which we passed later, they are very wild, allowing no
human being to approach within half a mile. This is owing to the
Indians, who hunt them perpetually in that district.
Once in camp in Patagonia life is very enjoyable, though perhaps the
enjoyment varies with the amount of game to be seen. Up at sunrise,
when the sun pokes its big bald lemon-coloured head out of the
bed-clothes of the sky. Then some early camp-man stirs and rises, and
waddles down to the wet grey ashes of yesternight's fire, and soon a
weak trail of smoke goes rocketing away in the wind. The big pot is
put on and breakfast is made and eaten. Then the cargo is packed, and
the horses are rounded up by a Gaucho or two, riding bareback. We
saddle up and the caravan moves off on its leagues-long march.
Marches vary from fifteen miles to forty, and when the afternoon sun
waxes less strong the horses are off-saddled and turned loose, the
waggons unpacked and the camp-fires lighted. _Maté_ eternally, a
roast, tea afterwards and a pipe, and then the sleeping-bags. _Maté_
or _yerba_, I must explain, is the great drink of the pampas, and is
most invigorating. A cup or tin is half filled with the yellow powdery
leaves, to which is added a little cold water, followed by hot. It is
drunk through a _bombilla_ or tube, the maker of the decoction taking
the first pull, and afterwards it passes from hand to hand, and I must
add from mouth to mouth, round the circle. It is the greatest insult
to refuse to partake, and when the originator of the brew happens to
be an old and rather unappetising Tehuelche lady, the effort to take
your turn and look pleased is often something of an ordeal.
Day after day went by in much the same manner, but few remembrances
remain with me more vividly than the pampa fox and cavy hunting which
we enjoyed during those early times of our expedition. Four lurchers
of sorts and my big greyhound, Tom, trotted behind our horses, and
when game was sighted we went after it at full gallop. In that keen
air nothing can be more exhilarating than such a chase over the
broken ground of the pampa, where we were often successful, but among
hummocks and hills the quarry frequently made good its escape.
[Illustration: MR. LANGLEY'S _ESTANCIA_ ON THE ROAD TO BAHIA
CAMERONES]
On the 25th we passed a farm that was quite English in
appearance--wire-fences enclosing sheep and lambs on downs that
descended in undulations to the sea. By evening we were in broken
country patched with red rock. The horses were rather troublesome;
Hughes, one of the Gauchos, rode an untamed mare and gave a good
exhibition of horsemanship. Among the sheep and the hills an Indian
rode down from the high ground; he wore a poncho of red and black,
tinted like autumn trees. His camp consisted of a little fire of three
or four sticks, by which squatted his _china_. He took his place
beside her, and watched our line of waggons and horses wind away out
of sight.
From Trelew to Camerones the country was for the most part like the
bare deer-forests of the Scottish Highlands, brown bracken being
replaced by _espinilla_ (thorn, a general term) and the green shrub
called by the Welshmen "poison-bush," the same blue sky above, the
same occasional lochlike lagoons. For the first two days or more the
pampas stretched to the rim of the horizon, empty and somewhat harsh
even in the sunlight. Now and then mirages like squadrons of cavalry
hovered along the edges of them. A few guanaco and ostriches, a
sprinkling of cavy, and many pampa foxes seemed to eke out an
existence there. It was a land of vast prospects, a scene laid forth
with a sort of noble parsimony, which--as in the case of a miser so
miserly that for the very exceedingness of his vice you respect
him--was yet stupendous in its one or two grandly simple salient
features, and drove the spectator to that admiration which verges
upon fear. Picture one such characteristic vision of Patagonia. As far
as eye could reach a spread of wind-weary grass, roofed by a
wind-blown sky, an eagle poised far off, a dot in the upper air.
Nothing more.
A man alone within this vast setting seemed puny. Lost here, without a
horse, he would be the most helpless of things created. It was across
this gigantic primordialism that our way led us. Three times we made
our camp upon the bare pampas, three times in one or other of the many
_cañadones_ before reaching Bahia Camerones. You may be voyaging at an
easy jog over the pampa, seeing the land roll apparently quite level
to the horizon, when suddenly you come upon a spatter of white sand, a
track leading between the shoulders of the pampa, you dive down and
are lost to sight in a moment; then, perhaps, for four miles or for
fourteen you are riding a couple of hundred feet below the level
spread of the pampa, and as you pass the guanaco on the cliff tops
watch you uneasily. To be lost in such a land is the simplest possible
matter.
On the 27th we arrived at the Estancia Lochiel, where Mr. Greenshields
most kindly entertained us. This _estancia_ is situated at the head of
a _cañadon_, which drops away to the sea eight leagues distant. It
consists of a small colony of wooden houses with corrugated iron
roofs. The Lochiel Sheep Farming Company, of which Mr. Greenshields is
manager, have 15,000 sheep and forty square leagues of camp. "Camp,"
you must understand, in Patagonia means land.
The day after our arrival Scrivenor and Burbury accompanied Mr.
Frederick Haddock to his farm, eight leagues away, in order to bring
back the horses I had purchased by contract in Trelew. I remained
behind as Mr. Greenshields' guest, for a puma was reported by the
shepherd to have killed five sheep upon the edge of the farm during
the previous night.
Macdonald, the Scotch shepherd, Barckhausen and I set out to see if we
could find the puma. On my way to the spot I shot my first guanaco. He
appeared upon the skyline doing sentinel, possibly against the very
puma we were after. We rode under the hill on which the guanaco was
watching, and he began to move uneasily. At the bend of the hill was a
small hollow, and, as we rode through this, I told my companions to
ride on and threw them my _cabresto_ (leading-rope of a horse). I slid
off the horse and crawled up the hill. Upon the bare face of it was a
thicket of poison-bush, and into this I ultimately made my way. The
sentinel guanaco was there above me, stretching out his long neck, and
every now and then giving his high neighing laugh. When one hundred
and twenty yards off he saw me, and I had to snap him quickly. Swing
went his neck, and away he galloped with his swift, uneven gait. I
thought I had missed him, when, to my delight, he began to slacken
speed, and finally lay down in an ungainly attitude, his long neck
crooked in a curve in front of him. I crawled nearer, and up he got
and was off again. I ran down to my horse and mounted, and Macdonald
let Tom, my hound, loose. We galloped the guanaco up. He was very sick
indeed, and inside of three hundred yards Tom pulled him down again.
The Mauser bullet had hit him two inches behind the shoulder about
half way down the body. It had not come out. How he managed to get so
far I cannot understand. We then went onwards, and saw by the way
several herds of guanaco. I did not shoot any more, however, as they
were uncommonly tame, and there was, of course, mutton at the
_estancia_. We reached the spot on the hills above the puma's kill,
low thorn bushes, vast mountain and blue sea, but no sign of the puma
was to be found. These animals will often travel four or five leagues
after a kill.
[Illustration: FREDERICK BARCKHAUSEN]
By the way, when you fire at a guanaco they will sway their heads
downwards with an odd sort of ducking motion. Not one individual but a
whole herd will do this at any unaccustomed sound. The effect is most
curious.
While at Bahia Camerones our party was completed. We took with us
five Gauchos, who are active, handy men as a rule. The population of
the country is largely composed of Gauchos; in fact, they form the
foundation of Patagonian life.
They live by the horse, and the horse lives by them. They drive mobs
of cattle or of horses for owners across three degrees of latitude to
sell them. They have been born in the camp, live in the camp, and will
very likely die there also. In Patagonia they treat their horses in a
method very different to that which we employ in our crowded country.
There nature gives grass, water, and the horse; man tames the animal
as little as possible from his wild state, and forces an alliance with
nature. At night the mares are hobbled and the horses turned loose;
while the Gauchos light their camp-fire and drink _maté_ through the
_bombilla_.
At the first light next morning they take it in turn to bring in the
troop, which they do with an astonishing swiftness. Sometimes, of
course, the horses "clear," and then it is that the Gauchos in charge
find them by tracking.
In a country intersected by deep _cañadones_, which offer a secure
hiding-place in their many hollows, this is a difficult matter. The
tracks perhaps run easily through a belt of soft marsh, and then are
invisible upon a pampa of shingle and thorn.
A true Gaucho must be able to do a number of things--to back an
untamed colt, to lassoo, to use the _boleadores_, which are heavy
stones attached together by a hide rope, and are to the Patagonian
what the boomerang is to the Australian aborigine. He must be able to
cook, to make horse-gear from the pelts of beasts, to find his way
without a compass from point to point, by instinct as it were.
The Gaucho shares with the poet the honour of being born, not made.
This proves that Gaucho work is Art, with a big A. Take, for instance,
the power of driving single-handed a big mob of wild horses and
keeping them compact. No one who has not tried it can imagine what
heartbreaking work it is to a beginner. One learns to do it after a
fashion in time, but never like the man who has been bred to the
craft.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Since writing the above I learn that a German line has put
steamers upon this route.