THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS
Como No -- Wind and driven sand -- Laguna La Cancha --
Como No's dogs -- Cold winds -- Lake Buenos Aires and
Sierra Nevada -- Cross River Fenix -- Stony ground --
Skeletons of guanaco -- Fine scenery -- Short rest -- Colt
killed -- Base camp made -- Boyish dreams -- Sunday --
Routine at Horsham Camp -- Driftwood round lake --
Constant wind -- My tent-home -- Scorpions -- Guanacos --
Engineers' camp -- Cooking-pots -- First huemul.
We now set forth upon the last stage of our journey to Lake Buenos
Aires. I had hired one of the Indians to guide us across the high
pampa. He was, although dwelling in the tents of the Tehuelches, not a
Tehuelche. He called himself a _Patagonero_, and belonged to one of
the tribes of Pampa Indians of the north. His tribe, he told me, were
Christians. Before we left the Indian encampment, one of the older
ladies belonging to it began to paint her face in horizontal lines of
black, whether with a view to capturing our hearts or not I cannot
say.
We left on November 3, and accomplished a very long march in the face
of somewhat trying conditions. The Indian rode ahead with his dogs on
the look-out for ostriches. A mighty wind from the west, cold with the
snow of the Cordillera, blew in our faces, bringing with it showers of
sand that stung us sharply. We could hardly persuade the horses to
meet the wind, and their hoofs kicked up still more sand for our
benefit. We were off shortly after nine o'clock, and about noon I
would have given much to say "Camp." When fighting with the elements
one goes through three distinct stages. First, there is the stage
exultant, during which you feel the joy of battle, and struggle
rejoicingly. The second comes when the irresistible tires you down,
however strong you are, and forces the sense of your puniness so
plainly upon you that you feel a sort of hurt despair, and a half
impulse to give in before a force so far beyond you. Last of all, you
go on enduring until you become, as it were, acclimatised, and
inclined to laugh at the despair you experienced a while previously.
So it was on this day's march. About noon I said to myself as we were
crossing the high pampa above the _barranca_ of the River Chalia--a
desolate spot, rough and tussocky, and gambolled over by Titanic
winds--"We will camp at four sharp." The decision at the moment was a
comfort, but in the end we did not camp until close upon seven
o'clock, blind with sand, and our hands bleeding from the cold and the
harsh friction of the cargo ropes.
It was as we approached this camp that I saw beside a lagoon of
snow-water two American oyster-catchers (_Hæmatopus palliatus_) which,
no doubt, had nested in the vicinity, as, on my going closer, they
rose and circled with their darting flight above my head, but I failed
to find the nest. There were many guanacos about, and I was not
surprised to hear that this lagoon, Laguna La Cancha, was a very
favourite encampment of the Indians. The scenery surrounding the pool
is peculiarly inhospitable. Some one remarked that it reminded him of
Doré's illustrations to the Inferno, adding, "If you were to put heat
to it, it would be Hell." Huge rolling downs, bare hills, and no
vegetation save a few tussocks and scattered meagre shrubs. The Indian
said the winter hits this land very hard, and the whole district is
buried under snow, only the high, bald tops of the hills being
visible.
The next day was Sunday, but not on this occasion a day of rest. One
thought of the bells ringing far away at home and the concourse of
people moving along the winter roads. Here was wind, cold, and a
march, cargo to be fixed and refixed to the day's end, then a windy
camp-fire, and after a short sleep till dawn. Hitherto the toil had
been hard, but we were nearing the lake, and looked forward to a time
of rest and hunting.
We were rich in meat with the cow, sheep, a Darwin's rhea caught by
the Indian's dogs, and three geese. The hounds of the Indian proved
themselves to be troublesome thieves. Burbury and I were obliged to
sleep beside the meat. Besides being cunning thieves the dogs were
cowards. They were to all intents and purposes wild as regarded their
habits. Yet good guanaco-hounds represent very sterling value to
their owners, whose livelihood they procure. The best at the work I
met with in Patagonia were those which belonged to this Indian guide.
We called the man Como No because, whatever question was put to him,
his invariable reply took the form of "_Como no?_" or "Why not?" You
said perhaps, "It is not far to the next camping-ground, is it?"
"_Como no?_" he would answer. After some three hours at an amble, you
would repeat your inquiry. "Is it much farther?" "_Como no?_" The most
impossible queries met with precisely the same response.
[Illustration: ON AHEAD]
However indeterminate Como No may have been in his mental attitude,
his dogs were definitely good ones. He owned a big brindled dog, a
small black one and a couple of yellow pups. Como No had a habit of
riding far ahead of the general troop of men and horses, his figure
making a far-off outline etched in black against the cold blue horizon
of the pampa. Sometimes, when he lost sight of us for any length of
time, he would burn a bush to give us our direction by the smoke, and
we would follow on, driving the pack-horses and those free ones which
were not being used either for riding or cargo at the time. Presently,
perhaps, when rounding a low thicket, we would come suddenly upon him,
squatted on his haunches beside a dead ostrich, from which he had
stripped the feathers. These feathers, though far inferior to those of
the African ostrich, or of _Rhea americana_, are worth anything from
two to four dollars.
As he rode forward again, his dogs would range on either side of him.
By-and-by they would again start an ostrich or a guanaco, and pull it
down within 500 or 600 yards. Whereupon Como No would ride up, drive
them off, kill and cut up the quarry, giving the hounds the liver,
strip the feathers if it happened to be an ostrich, and then mount and
ride on once more. This performance would be repeated over and over
again during the course of the march, until, before we saw the last of
him, his saddle had become an enormous bunch of feathers, from out of
which his body and shoulders protruded in a quaint manner.
At night these dogs, however, were a terrible nuisance. They would
forage about the camp for food, and pull down the meat we had placed
on bushes and devour it. Such was eventually the fate of the last
remnants of the mutton we had with us, and the loss was all the harder
as we knew that the stolen mutton was the last we were destined to
taste for months. After that we lived on lean guanaco.
By this date we had gradually climbed to some 1200 feet above the
sea-level, and the temperature was extremely cold. Our reindeer-beds
became a great comfort.
The 5th began with an hour of welcome sun, but it passed only too
soon, and the wind rose more piercingly cold than ever. It penetrated
to one's very bones. We, however, made seven leagues, and reached the
River Genguel, which here makes a great curve. We camped in a narrow
shute, strewn with big stones and giving upon the river, the _cañadon_
being very wide and devoid of shelter. The water was broken into small
sharp waves by the wind, and we were glad to collect what firewood was
obtainable--bushes being scarce at that spot--and make a fire. The
Indian burned a bush and warmed himself. His dogs had, unaided by him,
killed a small guanaco and a fox (_Canis griseus_). We lay by the fire
and the wind came down bitterly chill from the Sierra Nevada, while
Jones cooked, and we learnt the delights which, in a cold climate, are
to be found in mutton fat! After food to bed, and then a cold sleet
set in. It was a nasty night, but in our reindeer bags we were, of
course, untouched by the cold.
Next day nine leagues were achieved. Very long marches these, but we
were pressing on to reach Lake Buenos Aires. _Cañadon_ and pampa and
high ground succeeded each other as we rode along, sometimes bare,
sometimes sandy, sometimes thorn-covered, often stony and strewn with
fragments of basalt. Generally overhead a pallid blue sky, and below
wind, wind, perpetual wind. So we toiled on past little chill lagoons,
ruffled with the keen breeze, until in the afternoon I came up with
Burbury and the Indian on a rise, and there lay our goal before us--a
great stretch of water wonderfully blue and cold-looking beneath the
Sierra Nevada, whose summits were crowned with snow above their dusky
purple.
The Tostado kicked off his cargo during the day, and among the
scattered contents of Jones' kit I picked up a broken looking-glass. I
had not seen myself since leaving Colohuapi, and confess I found no
cause for vanity in the sight of a distinctly dirty-looking pirate
with smoke-reddened eyes, a peeling face and nose, and with enough
beard to put a finishing-touch to the horrid spectacle.
[Illustration: ONAS STALKING GUANACO]
On the 3rd I discovered a scorpion in my bed in spite of the cold. By
the 6th we reached the River Fenix, and, crossing to an island, camped
in the sleet, the temperature reading that night being 30° F. From
there we pushed on to the farther bank, and marched to the
camping-ground of the Indians, which, though the nearest of their old
camps to Lake Buenos Aires, was still a good distance from it. The
Azulejo had been lost, but was brought in quite spent, by Barckhausen.
Poor little beast! He lay down more dead than alive under a bush, a
pathetic little figure enough. After reaching camp, Jones and I had to
turn out again, pretty tired as we were, to look for food. We rode for
hours, and saw only a herd of guanaco. At this season the country
round about here is rather devoid of game, the ground is stony, with
thorn and dry, blackened bushes. We were disappointed in our hunt
again on the second day, seeing only two guanaco, lion-tracks, and a
couple of pigeons, but we did not shoot them, and I am unable to speak
with any certainty of the species to which they belonged. I have never
seen a district so bare of life. We had come, as it were, to the
world's end.
I sat in my tent-door and wrote my diary. Far away I could see the
Cordillera, splendid giants, with the sun shining upon them; below,
the lake that reminded me strongly of the picture in which Hiawatha
sailed into "the kingdom of Ponemah, the Land of the Hereafter." That
scene was just so wild, and so remote, with a great red sunset burning
over it, and round about it rock and sand and marsh, with a pale wide
rim of dead-wood, swept down by floods from the neighbouring forests.
On our way to the shores of the lake we had passed through a stretch
of extraordinary aridity, a white and yellow spread of mud and stones
that filled a valley between two scrub-covered hills. From far off it
looked level, but in reality we found it to be intersected and veined
with mighty gashes, which formed winding gorges. There the wind blew,
and at times the sun beat down; very cold it was, and very hot by
turns, but never temperate.
We had expected to find plenty of game in the vicinity of the lake,
but in this, as I have said, we were disappointed, the consequence
being that our supply of meat ran short. There was nothing for it but
to kill the eighteen-months old colt of one of the _madrinas_. But
before we did this we hunted for three days, during which time I shot
a couple of upland geese, which made the sum total of our bag. In a
new country one has always to buy experience. We were buying ours at
this period. Owing to the wildness of our horses the journey from
Trelew had been an especially trying one, although, under other
circumstances, the difficulties need not be great.[18] The breakdown
of the waggon at so early a stage had entailed a large amount of extra
labour, and by the time we reached Lake Buenos Aires we were, both men
and horses, pretty well done up.
On the third day of our hunting I took Barckhausen instead of Jones,
who had been out with me on the two previous days. We passed along
through the stony thorn-lean gorges towards the east. Here nothing
lived save the strong birds of prey, and lions, whose tracks we
observed leading to the rocks. Death lay nakedly there in all
directions, skull and backbone, with rain-polish and snow-polish upon
them, picked clean years ago by now-dead caranchos and chimangos.
During our ride we saw two monster owls, two condors, many caranchos,
and so pushed on over hill rising behind hill, stony, dark, with
wind-lifted wisps of sand turning and twisting upon them.
In the early afternoon we came upon a more pleasant land, and to a
little marshy pool in a hollow of the hills, crowded round with
forest-bushes, and upon this pool from far away I spied two upland
geese. I dismounted, took my gun, and began a stalk. While I was still
well out of range a bough broke under my foot, and the geese were
away. We lay up for a time, but the birds did not return, so we took a
turn westwards in the hope of getting some coots I had observed the
day before upon another lagoon, close to Lake Buenos Aires. Upon the
shore of the lake a smart shower of sleet, hail, and rain overtook us,
and we had to lie down in the lee of a thorn-bush. I saw one golden
guanaco racing along a hill-top against the sunset. Some coots were on
the lake; I shot four, but contrary winds drove them out into the
water too deep to venture after them, and we turned campwards
empty-handed.
As we galloped over the hills the clouds broke on the western side of
the lake, and made a scene ominously beautiful. The rifted dusky blue,
the long pale gleam of water shining like an angel's sword, the white
snow-peaks, the purple-black belly of the rain-storm, all cast
together formed a picture that affected the senses strongly.
[Illustration: HORSHAM BASE CAMP]
As we neared camp, I saw something gleam white behind a bush. An
upland goose! I crawled up and found two. With what care I managed
that stalk! I killed the female with one barrel on the ground and
pulled over the male as he swung upwards. After riding seven leagues,
we got our small results of the day's seeking within a mile of the
camp! One or other of us had seen far-off guanaco flying out of sight,
and I decided to start next day for the River Fenix to try for some,
camping there the night and returning next day to begin our
long-needed rest.
Yet the next day (November 9) none of us went a-hunting after all. We
were fairly played out. Personally I had had not one day's rest since
starting two months before, as upon me principally fell the duty of
providing for the pot, so that upon coming in of an evening on the
close of a long march it was usually necessary to saddle a fresh horse
and ride a further distance from five to fifteen miles in search of
game.
So we killed the colt to provide for our wants while men and horses
enjoyed well-earned repose. I had formed a base-camp about five miles
from the shores of the lake, intending to make short expeditions,
lightly equipped, round and about the vicinity. As for the camp, three
large thorn-bushes were Nature's contribution towards it, and what a
relief even the shelter of a thorn-bush can be in the Kingdom of the
Winds, you could only learn by an experience such as was ours. Below
the camp, which stood on a ridge, the ground fell away in a three-mile
slope to the usually angry water; eastwards was a _pantano_ or swamp
of yellow reeds, which ran a long way below the scrub-grown ridge. The
tents huddled back-to-wind, as much under the lee of the bushes as
possible. We made an oven, but it turned out a failure, the earth
being too soft for our purpose. Round the fire was a hedge of thorn
hung with horse-blankets, red, yellow and black, which gave a rather
festive air to the camp. The only sounds were the neigh of a horse,
the hooting of night-birds, and the never-silent wind.
[Illustration: STORE-CLAD INDIANS]
During the night of the 10th, half a gale of wind blew up with an
extraordinary rancour of coldness. I lay in my tent and heard the
sides of it flapping like some great wounded bird. Sleep was put off
till far into the small hours. Through the open tent-door I could look
at the bushes writhing in the gale, the long black back of the ridge
and the glint of stars. How often one sees in half-sleep the scenes of
home and of the past! I seemed again to be watching the boats coming
in and the tides rising with the well-known ripple and pouring rush of
water on a shallow beach, tides that in boyish days held so infinite a
romance. Where did the storms that broke there come from? whither went
the dark hulls after they sank below the blue edge of sea? Or where
did the fishermen sail their boats to--lonely rocks from which they
brought back parrot-beaked, jelly-armed _pieuvres_? And yet, having
drifted into some long wanderings, and now into that wilderness, no
scene that I have ever looked upon, however wild or lonely, has
touched me in any way that could compare with the thrill of those
early dreams. Romance lies always a little too far away; only in
childhood is the gate of that wonderful garden open to us, and we gaze
and long for the fruit we are never to handle.
Our tents at Horsham Camp--so we named it--were the only green things
in the landscape. They happened to be of a pale green. Riding out from
the camp in most directions you found yourself amongst a bare and
wind-swept series of ridges two or three hundred feet in height, which
appeared to roll away across the wide continent. Sunday was welcome.
It was noticeable how Sunday abroad always affected men, some of whom
at home spared small attention for the day. Life went evenly. The
others took it in turn to cook. I generally rode out early. The troop
were rounded up and our first meal came about 7 o'clock. After that I
used to go to my tent and write while the men busied themselves with
any job on hand. Cocoa at two on Sundays, and about six a meal of meat
and beans. And so to bed. The day before the colt was killed, Tom, my
hound, stole a dumpling from the plate of one of the party as he sat
eating. The loser at once pursued the thief, retrieved the dumpling
and ate it, so you will understand that there was no wastefulness
among us!
By November 12 I was tired of inaction, tired of the tent, tired of
the camp. The wind continued. Surely in all his writings R. L.
Stevenson never made a more perfect phrase than the "incommunicable
thrill of things." A wood-scent in the morning, the sound of the wind
at night, the clear cinders of the fire or a whiff of burning
wood--one receives the spark that fires the train of thought and leads
us far away. No indolence of the soul this, but the fulfilling of some
beautiful law at the junction of the spiritual and the natural,
infused through a thousand tissues and welded by a thousand
heredities.... One writes much of this kind of thing, for, afar from
all books or chance of interchanging ideas, one falls back upon
oneself, and one's pen is a safe outlet for superfluous imaginings.
On that afternoon I caught a horse and went down to the long point
that stretches out into the lake. Although this was a ride of upwards
of twenty miles, I saw no living thing upon the land, and on the water
only a couple of grebes and three upland geese. My way lay through
dense thickets of low growth, the going very sandy and treacherous.
The high-water mark, or, as I should rather say, the flood-mark of the
lake was outlined by piles and piles of driftwood of milk-toothlike
whiteness. Some of the trunks were as large in girth as my body. All
this comes down from the mountain forests, carried by torrents from
the melting snows. The vegetation on that side of the lake was the
most florid and sizeable that I had so far seen in Patagonia. High
flowering grass, thorn-bush thickets almost impenetrable, and between
these and the margin of the water a wide strewing of rotten trunks of
antarctic beech and poles of an arborescent grass-like bamboo. On my
way back I made a short cut through the edge of the lake, of which the
bed was shingly.
[Illustration: LAKE BUENOS AIRES]
_November 13._--I went to the River Fenix and shot a guanaco.
Afterwards I took a six-mile walk and shot two snipe. Lake Buenos
Aires was certainly the very heart of the wind's domain. While we were
there the wind never died down, it blew all the time, often lifting
sand and gravel, and sometimes a great piece of our camp-fire,
sheltered as that was. It raged on most days, blowing so hard that
some people in England would not have cared to venture out of doors.
I have so far given no description of our tents, which were probably
the nearest approach to comfort within many hundred miles of Horsham
Camp. Mine was small, seven feet by a short six, and four feet high,
sustained by four ropes and a pole, the place of the second
pole--which we lost--being taken by a bow-legged slip of
califate-wood. The tent contained two beds made up of skins and
ponchos laid on the green canvas floor, a soldered tin of plug tobacco
served by way of a candlestick and upheld a candle-end. Round and
about the tent and on its excrescent flooring were heaped our boxes,
otherwise the wind would have blown it over. It was a mere bag of a
place, with an exit like an animal's hole; but at night, when the
storm howled without, our dim light looked homely, the tobacco-scented
air was grateful, and a bit of camphor lent its aroma to the place.
And there one could lie at ease and read or think at pleasure.
On the 14th I shot another guanaco; it was curious that we were always
rich in meat or else in absolute want of it. I had gone out on Jones'
black horse for a little exercise towards the River Deseado, and there
I surprised the guanaco. He was an old buck and solitary. He gave me a
nice shot, then walked a step or two and fell dead. At Horsham Camp we
lived in some dread of scorpions; Jones found one on his saddle,
Burbury another in the flour or the cooking-pot, and some roosted in
our bedding. By the way, our kitchen arrangements were becoming very
scanty at that period; we had but two cooking-pots left and one
kettle, thanks to the energetic treatment they had received at the
heels of the _cargueros_. It was fervently hoped by all the party that
nothing would go wrong with any of these, or we should have been most
uncomfortably situated.
On the 15th I started with Burbury and Scrivenor to make an expedition
towards Mount Pyramide. Upon our way we were astonished to see three
herds of guanaco--fourteen, and ten, and then twenty-one--at different
times. Although I was well within shot I did not try to kill any, as
we had meat enough.
[Illustration: SEÑOR HANS P. WAAG, OF THE ARGENTINE BOUNDARY
COMMISSION]
On this day the first huemul seen on our expedition was observed by
Burbury. First he saw a buck, afterwards two does, but, owing to the
nature of the ground, he was unable to get a shot. We were naturally
very anxious to secure a specimen of this very interesting and little
known deer, but it was not until we made our trip round the south side
of the lake that we were successful.
We made our way across an abomination of desolation, a grey old
desert; then crossing a marsh, we descended by a white cliff to the
margin of a deep brown lagoon. Of many colours were these lagoons.
Burbury said that region was more dismal than Tierra del Fuego--old
deserts, varied by marshes and califate-bush, stone and boulder, thorn
and sand. After a rest in the afternoon we rode on, and presently
struck a deserted camp of the Argentine Boundary Commission, near
which the steam-launch, which had been brought across the pampas for
the exploration of Lake Buenos Aires, was secreted.
Nothing in the world looks more forlorn than a deserted camp. But we
were far from being depressed on this occasion, for in this old camp
of Mr. Hans Waag's we made a find which we looked upon as a great
slice of luck.
On November 2nd I find in my diary: "More accidents to the
cooking-pots, this time at the hoofs of Horqueta. The flat-bottomed
pot still survives, but the round one and the kettle are more damaged
than whole. One more such accident will mean that the corned-beef tins
must be called into requisition."
In this camp we found sundry boxes, old iron-bound packing-cases, and
while I was engaged in lighting the fire I heard an exclamation behind
me, and Burbury sang out:
"Here's a big enamelled saucepan, nearly new!" It was so, and then
again, "And here's another. What luck!"
Of course, if those saucepans had not been shut up in cases, they
might have been considered treasure-trove. As it was, one did not need
the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the
travellers who had hidden these pots away so carefully meant to
return, find, and once again use them. They belonged, as I knew, to
Mr. Waag's Commission of Limits, as they call the Boundary Commission
out there. When I met that gentleman in Buenos Aires I never dreamt
that I should yet be reduced to stealing his cooking utensils. But we
did not "steal" them, we only "availed" ourselves of them. I hope my
readers see the difference as plainly as we saw it. And what do you
think our companions said when they heard the story? Did they urge us
to make restitution? What they said referred to the finding of some
empty bottles among the rubbish, "A pity there was no whisky in them!"
If there had been, of course we should not ... well, who knows?
FOOTNOTE:
[18] Pampa travel is like cricket in that it defies forecast.
Sometimes everything falls in right, at other times nothing comes
opportunely to hand.