ROUND AND ABOUT LAKE BUENOS AIRES
Chain of lakes -- Size of lake -- Sterility and fertility
-- Trips to Cordillera -- Bones of dead game -- Shores of
lake -- Western shore -- Tracks in marshes -- Northern
shore -- Rosy camp by Fenix -- Guanaco hunt -- Horses
stray -- Cordillera wolf -- Vain search for huemul --
Return to Horsham Camp -- Trip to River Deseado --
Paradise of wildfowl -- Shooting ostriches -- Long-necked
game of Patagonia -- No ruins or vestiges of older
civilisation in Patagonia -- Hunting mornings -- Wounded
guanaco -- Indian trail -- Trip to River de los Antiguos
-- Meet ostrich-hunter -- Wandering Gauchos -- Wanton
burning of grass -- Second visit to Rosy Camp --
Flamingoes -- Danger-signals -- Scrivenor returns to
Horsham Camp -- River de los Antiguos.
At last we had arrived at Lake Buenos Aires, a time long looked
forward to. The pampas were crossed and left behind, and the lower
line of the Andes was reached, the foothills of the great range whose
upper summits we had watched for weeks lying high on the sky-line,
blue and white and cold, sending the message of a great wind from them
to us. We were now upon the shores of the largest of the wonderful
network of lakes and lagoons which stretches parallel with the
Cordillera hundreds of miles to the southward, ending not far from the
Straits of Magellan.
There was to me something infinitely romantic about Lake Buenos Aires.
Its aspect was ever changing, and so often you came on a scene
supremely beautiful. The wild light of sunset upon the snow-peaks, the
grey turbulent water of the lake, and the bull-like wind charging down
at us day after day--all these things gave the place an individuality
of its own.
The lake is of considerable extent, measuring seventy-five miles in
length from S.S.W. to N.N.E., and its waters wage a continual war upon
the thorns and scrub growing upon the margin. Vast masses of
milk-white timber, blanched by the influences of sun and water and
eloquent of the mountain-land of forest whence they have been washed
down, lie at the lip of the flood level. When I was there in the dry
season the upper rim of timber was about 200 yards distant from the
edge of the water.
[Illustration: INLET OF LAKE BUENOS AIRES]
The sharp contrast of fertility and sterility that one meets with in
Patagonia is remarkable, the more so as they often lie in close
proximity the one to the other. I have mentioned an arid spread of
yellow mud and stones cut up by deep gorges which we crossed before
reaching the lake. I do not think that any painter desiring to picture
desolation could do better than descend the central gorge and there
paint its gaunt and rugged outlines, tumbled together in a horror of
barrenness that the eyes ached to look upon. Yet close to this place,
within ten yards of it, a neck of land displayed green scrub, ay, and
flowers--beautiful purple sweet-pea-like flowers in profusion! And on
the farther side was a green gully with two blue peaty waterholes.
Near by, as I have said, we established a base camp, from which we
made four expeditions towards the Cordillera, which lie on the
westward of the lake, while, singularly enough, the continental divide
appears to be to the eastward of it. On our trips we took with us
merely a horse apiece, and carried provisions on our saddles. Meantime
the remainder of the troop, which had suffered somewhat on our journey
from Bahia Camerones, were turned out to rest and luxuriate upon the
marsh grass, that extended in a broad strip for a couple of miles
under the ridge, while downhill from the camp towards the south this
rich _pantano_ spread still farther.
Around the lake lay piled the skulls and bones of dead game, guanaco
and a few huemules. These animals come down to live on the lower
ground and near unfrozen water during the cold season, and there, when
the weather is particularly severe, they die in crowds. We saw their
skeletons, in one or two places literally heaped one upon the other.
During our stay in this neighbourhood I took the opportunity of
examining most thoroughly the shores of the lake. The ground which
descended to them was cut and intersected by _pantanos_ of wet or
drying mud and sand. Upon the eastern shore rose dunes, covered with
dense low strips of scrub. In the _pantanos_ the tracks made in the
end of the winter, when the snow has melted and the ground is soft,
remain visible for five or six months. And thus these hardened marshes
offer a study of considerable interest.
Although the Indians declared that guanaco rarely visited the lake,
this proved to be incorrect. In the winter a considerable number must
live upon and about the shores, for their unmistakable tracks were
always to be found. Towards Mount Pyramide on the western side, the
number of these tracks was distinctly less--rheas, pumas, the animal
known locally as the red fox or Cordillera wolf (_Canis
magellanicus_).
A few huemules (_Xenelaphus bisulcus_) exist upon the northern shore.
In the winter upland geese seem also to favour this spot in large
numbers. So strongly does the mud retain the impression of tracks that
I was able to follow the trail of a horse, which must have been ridden
by one of Mr. Waag's party six months before, for a distance of a
couple of miles.
[Illustration: TEHUELCHE SPYING GUANACO
NOTE.--THE TEHUELCHES PROBABLY COPIED THIS METHOD FROM THE
ARAUCANIANS. AS A RULE THE INDIAN STANDS OR KNEELS ON HIS SHEEPSKIN
SADDLE. HERE IS DEPICTED THE EXTREME POSITION WHICH WOULD BE ASSUMED
TO SHOW OFF. I HAVE SEEN GAUCHOS DO A SIMILAR TRICK, THOUGH FEW
PATAGONIAN HORSES WILL PERMIT SUCH LIBERTIES.]
In summer the north shore of Lake Buenos Aires is one of the poorest
game centres in Patagonia. During the first fortnight of our stay
there we shot but two guanacos. Sometimes for a week one would see
nothing save an old ostrich, which was often observed at the far end
of the marsh where the horses fed, but he was a wary bird with an
experience of human methods, and he would never allow us to approach
within shot.
It seemed probable, from the evidence of the tracks, that at the
beginning of the hard weather the guanaco trekked down to the level of
the lake. For one track made in November there were twenty made in
July. The foregoing remarks only refer to the northern shore of the
lake; on the eastern and southern sides things were very different,
and about them we enjoyed good sport.
On November 21, Scrivenor, Jones and I made a little expedition to the
River Fenix where it enters the lake, and there we came upon the most
favourable camping-ground we had yet seen in the whole country. We
pitched our camp--afterwards called Rosy Camp--in the midst of high
yellow grass beside the narrow river that wound between banks, on
which green low scrub ran riot, and enormous califate-bushes made
impenetrable patches of thicket. Jones and I, on our arrival, went to
examine the mouth of the river. Our camp was quite drowsy with the
humming of insects, for, sheltered as it was from the wind by trees
and by the cliffs of a lonely hummock, it gave us a delightful feeling
of comfort and well-being after our many very different experiences of
camps among the high dunes and rocks over which the wind whistled.
On the way Jones shot a Chiloe widgeon and I an upland goose. We found
many tracks of puma and some of guanaco and huemul. As we walked
towards the lake, I saw upon the outermost promontory of land a
guanaco outlined against the evening sky. Hurrying on as fast as we
could, which was not very fast, as I had poisoned my knee and was
lame, we found the herd on a neck of land, to escape from which they
would be obliged to pass within a hundred yards of us provided they
did not take to the water. So we decided not to stalk them, but simply
showed ourselves; as we expected, they broke landwards, passing
within about seventy yards with their ears laid back, swaying their
long necks and leaping and jinking among the stones. I pulled one over
as she ranged up the side of the cliff. She turned out to be heavy
with young, and the buck with her stopped at the top of the hill, but
when I went towards him he fled. We were delighted at thus getting
meat, especially as this guanaco was the fattest we had yet shot. Her
flesh was, however, very strong.
When we were returning Jones, who was in front, suddenly said, "There
go the horses!" It was so. They had stampeded, leaving us to get home
as best we could. We threw off our coats, laid down our rifles
carefully, and ran. Jones' horse was in hobbles, but being used to
them kept up with his companions; we were, however, lucky enough to
catch them after a couple of miles, and making bridles out of our
waist-scarves rode them into camp. Scrivenor said the horses had
suddenly started madly, broken their _cabrestos_, dashed together and
then made off. We thought at the time they must have winded a puma,
but this proved to be a mistake, for in the night two of them again
escaped, and Jones retrieved them when the first streaks of dawn were
etching the landscape in black and white. He woke me and we discovered
that a wolf must have come into camp and stolen our duck and goose.
This wolf had also eaten both my rifle-slings within three yards of
where we were sleeping. While we were discussing our ill luck and
lamenting the fact that we had carefully plucked the duck and goose
upon the preceding evening, I observed the author of our misfortunes
calmly watching us from under a bush. Revenge was, of course,
uppermost in my thoughts. I killed her with a Mauser. She proved to be
an old female 3 ft. 8 in. from the top of her teeth to the end of her
tail.
It was beautifully warm all day in Rosy Camp, as we had named it, and
we lay on the ground after making much-needed toilettes in the river.
The next night we had a visit from the mate of the wolf we had killed.
It is a singular fact that the horses were at the least as much afraid
of these wolves as they were of the pumas. While I was writing my
diary and nursing my knee, which had swollen to a great size, the
wolf crept within ten yards and had a look at me. I got up and limped
across for my gun, but my movements did not in the least seem to
discompose his serenity. He even advanced nearer, and showed not the
smallest fear of me. This quality of fearlessness is very marked in
the Cordillera wolves, which possess it in a greater degree than the
pampa foxes. On one occasion when a wolf thus came to investigate our
camp, my large deerhound, Tom, ran at him, and was met with a
devastating bite. Indeed, I had to go to Tom's help. In the present
instance I took up the shot-gun and gave the brute a charge of No. 4.
He leaped straight upwards into the air, howling and snarling, and
sank down quite dead.
These wolves kill young guanaco, and I have observed them pursuing a
huemul. They kill sheep when a flock is brought into the neighbourhood
of the Cordillera, generally remaining by their quarry after daylight.
I have never observed them farther from the Cordillera than the
northern shores of Lake Buenos Aires.
On November 24, Scrivenor went back to the base camp, as he had
toothache. Jones and I rode south across the Fenix. Although we saw
the track of a huemul in the sand we failed to catch any glimpse of
the animals themselves on that day, but shot four bandurias, locally
called by the Welshmen "land-ducks." This is the black-faced ibis
(_Theristicus caudatus_). I was very eager to secure a specimen of the
huemul in his summer coat, and to observe as much as possible of this
beautiful deer, but no luck attended us then in that particular.
Finally, we went back to Horsham Camp still unsuccessful. During our
absence Burbury had killed a large Cordillera wolf near Horsham Camp.
[Illustration: THE HORSES RETRIEVED]
On November 28, Barckhausen and I camped in the _cañadon_ or valley of
River Deseado, a swampy, reedy spot, tenanted by great numbers of
upland geese, flocks of Chiloe widgeon (_Mareca sibilatrix_) and brown
pintails. I also observed here the rosy-billed duck (_Metopiana
peposaca_), the blue-winged teal (_Querquedula cyanoptera_), and what
I took to be the red shoveller (_Spatula platalea_). But this
last-named bird I did not shoot, and so I cannot speak with absolute
certainty upon the point. Besides these, I saw flamingoes
(_Phœnicopterus ignipalliatus_) and the black-necked swan (_Cygnis
nigricollis_). A flock of parrots were flying about the heights, but
of these I was unable to procure a specimen. The reedy pools and
backwaters in this _cañadon_ were, without exception, the most
glorious paradise of wildfowl that I have ever seen.
On our way back from the River Deseado I secured the first _Rhea
darwini_ shot during the expedition. With the exception of wild
cattle, the ostrich is the most difficult to procure of Patagonian
game. These birds are always on the alert, and generally make off when
you are still a mile away. They never pause save upon commanding
ground. The most usual method of obtaining them is to run them down
with dogs or to _bolas_ them after the manner of the Indians and
Gauchos on horseback. They are indeed a quarry well worthy of the
attention of the still-hunter. The male is sometimes killed with a
rifle when attending to the chickens, towards whom--with the exception
of laying the eggs--he stands in place of a mother. At such times he
will, when approached, pretend to be wounded and limp away with wings
outspread to attract the hunters after him. An ostrich when shot
through the body will always run from thirty to forty yards before
dropping. This first ostrich, which I shot, was about four hundred
yards away, and I should not have secured him had he not allowed me to
get my range with a couple of preliminary shots. Down he went at last,
and, immediately afterwards, as I was congratulating myself, appeared
an ostrich running low through the grass. I thought it was the one I
had shot and struck back for my horse. While I was galloping after the
fast-disappearing bird, I rode right on to the first bird, which had
been shot through the lungs. On measurement I found him to be five
feet in height and three feet high at the shoulder.
The greatest number of adult ostriches I ever saw together was seven.
This in a _cañadon_ off the River Deseado. At a later date I saw
forty-two together, but this included many small and immature birds.
The long-necked game of Patagonia is difficult to stalk owing to their
having such a field of vision. The ruse of tying up one's horse in
full view gained me many a guanaco, but was quite a useless trick in
the case of ostriches. The Cruzado was by this time an A1
shooting-horse. He would stand anywhere and wait my return, he would
also allow me to fire quite close to him, but he would never allow any
white object to be put upon his back. If this was done, he would at
once rear and throw himself back.
There is one thing which strikes me forcibly with regard to Patagonia.
Here is small vestige of the elder peoples, and little of any older
civilisations.[19] Even in the hearts of deserts in the old world are
to be found traces of ancient cities, where men lived long ages ago.
But nothing that bears farthest resemblance to a ruin, to the "one
stone laid upon another" that tells of man's settled home, exists in
Patagonia. Yet though the ruined cities of other countries are old,
Patagonia is older yet. The nomad tribes have roamed here through the
centuries, leaving the grass to grow-over their old camp-fires, but
never altering or marking with any permanent mark the face of this old
land. No, though Patagonia is in a sense the oldest of all, for here
we come face to face with prehistoric times--the skeletons of the
greater beasts, the flint weapons of primitive man with practically
nothing save the years to intervene. A lean humanity, untouched by
aught save nature, has run out its appointed course until very recent
years; and there is little to testify to its wanderings but the brown
trail of generations of footsteps, which ten years of disuse would
blot out for ever. You cannot there gaze over the ruins of a once
populous city and say, "Here lived a dead people." No, you can but
think by lonely river or lagoon, "The bygone Indians may here have had
their camp, or the greater beasts their lair." The netted lakes, the
gaunt Cordillera, the limitless pampa and the unceasing wind--that is
all. _Cañadon_ follows _cañadon_, pampa succeeds pampa, you have the
Atlantic to the east of you and the Andes to the west of you, and
between, in all the vast country, beside the Indian trail, the only
paths are game-tracks!
On December 2 we were again short of meat, therefore Jones and I went
hunting. These early mornings upon the high ground above the lake will
never, I think, be forgotten by any of us who shared them. It was a
vivid and pulsating life, and the hunting was carried on under
conditions unique to Patagonia.
In the slight depression through which the River Fenix winds, herds of
guanaco were to be found, each point containing any number between
half a dozen to forty head. On the morning I write of we were not long
in finding our game. A large herd, including several guanaco _chicos_,
were to be seen from the heights dotted about upon the faded greenish
grass of the valley beneath us. The sun, newly risen, had just begun
to suck up the balls of white mist that rolled up and down the cuplike
hollows, and as the light strengthened it brought out the gold and
white colouring of the guanacos feeding in the valley. The horse I was
riding had done no work for three weeks, and was fit to gallop for his
life.
The herds were in a place quite inaccessible to stalking, but it was
certain that they would break for the hills to the south. Immediately
they saw us they took to flight in the direction we expected, and we
dashed away to cut them off. The Patagonian horse soon begins to take
an interest of his own in galloping game. We arrived within two
hundred yards of where the herds had begun to straggle in a long line
up the bare side of a range of round bald-headed hummocks, but we were
not in time to get a shot before they disappeared over the sky-line.
When we reached the top of the hills the guanacos were, of course,
nowhere to be seen, but after an hour's tracking we again located them
among the hummocks in a depression filled with dry thorn. This time we
separated and Jones showed himself at the far end of the gorge, while
I made a circuit and lay down upon the top of a hill towards which I
thought they were likely to break. This they did the instant they saw
Jones, who got a shot, breaking the leg of one. I killed another as
they passed. We jumped upon our horses to overtake Jones' wounded
guanaco, that was keeping up with the herd.
[Illustration: STERILE GROUND TO NORTH OF LAKE BUENOS AIRES]
My horse, the Alazan, had recently received some jumping lessons, and
being an animal with no sense of proportion, had been seized with a
mania for jumping everything. Jones nearly fell off his horse with
laughing when the Alazan valiantly charged a califate-bush, eight feet
high and full of thorns, through which he dashed in one jump and two
supplementary bucks. Emerging upon the other side we set off after our
guanaco and enjoyed one of the most glorious gallops that ever fell to
the lot of man. I could not help admiring the way in which Jones, who
was a born rider, and, like most Gauchos, had lived all his life on
the outside of a horse, picked his way among the great fragments of
rock that filled the hollows. The Alazan jumped them, and proceeded
upon his appointed path to his own evident satisfaction, the infinite
amusement of Jones, and the terror of myself. However, though one
might take exception to his methods, the Alazan had a turn for speed
and bore my fourteen stone nobly to the front.
Presently the guanaco we were pursuing dashed across a shallow lagoon
and fell upon the farther side of it. As we dismounted we observed
fresh tracks of a wild bull, which was heading north-west towards the
Cordillera. Although we followed these tracks for twenty miles and
came upon ample evidence of their being quite recently made, evening
fell upon us and we were obliged to turn campwards.
On our arrival we had a look at the horses and sat up late expecting
the return of Barckhausen and Burbury, who had gone to look for the
Indian trail, which the Indians told us led under the foothills of the
Cordillera to the end of the continent. I have given a description of
the trail in another place. It is in its way as remarkable a highroad
as the Grand Trunk Road in India. Were it not for the tracks of
horses, and the occasional dead camp-fire to which it leads you, it
would be impossible to distinguish it from a series of guanaco-tracks
running parallel. Nevertheless, many an ostrich-hunter has by its aid
found his way into the settlements, when without it he would have
wandered far and wide upon the pampas.
It was not before the next day, however, that Burbury and Barckhausen
returned with the news that they had found the trail some twenty
leagues away near the _cañadon_ of the River Deseado.
I have mentioned my great desire to shoot a huemul (_Xenelaphus
bisulcus_), and, as we had been disappointed in this respect in our
former expeditions, I decided to penetrate into the gorge of the River
de los Antiguos. We made arrangements for an absence of some duration
from the base camp, leaving Jones and Burbury in charge.
On the 5th we started, and, while riding to Rosy Camp, saw columns of
smoke arising from amongst the hills on the other side of the Fenix.
We thought they were signals of Indians and answered them. By here and
there burning a bush we signalled to the unknown, and in this way
drew together. It was upon the yellow shores of a dry lagoon that we
met with the first white man we had seen since leaving Colohuapi. This
man and his errand were so typical of the country and its methods of
life that I do not apologise for sketching his portrait at full
length.
As he came riding towards us we perceived that he was seated upon a
saddle of sheepskins, and rode a yellow horse, whose condition told
its own story. In Patagonia one gets into the habit of noticing the
horse before the rider. The practised eye can learn from its
appearance and condition the answers to at least three questions. The
rider was a very small Argentine, and he had, he informed us, come up
from San Julian. You who do not know Patagonia may think it strange
that one should meet with one's fellow creatures miles from anywhere,
but the Patagonian Gaucho is in his way unique. He is as much a
pioneer of civilisation as were the fur-clad hunters of the Bad Lands
of North America. By habit and by choice the Gaucho is a nomad. It is
not too much to say that, grumbler as he is when upon the pampas,
there is a deep-seated instinct in his heart ever leading him back to
that peculiar mode of life which has become second nature to him.
There is an idea in England that Patagonia is as untrodden as the
Polar regions. But this is a fallacy. The tides of civilisation are
moving slowly westwards, and will so continue to move until they are
thrown back by the great natural barrier of the Andes. But as the tide
will often fling a little wreath of foam far ahead of its advance--a
wreath that disappears for the moment perhaps, but yet its fall has
marked a spot that in course of time will be swept over by the rising
water; so in Patagonia these few wanderers break away from the
settlements upon the coast, and set out with their little store of
flour, _fariña_, and _maté_, their troop of horses, and their
half-dozen hounds. They say that they are looking for good ground or,
as they call it, good camp to settle upon, but few of them actually
carry out this final intention. It is the free life that they love,
the wild gallops after the ostriches and the guanacos, the sound
slumbers under the stars, and the absence of all control.
Such a wanderer was our small friend. He had, he said, two
companions, whom he had lost when running ostriches. As we sat there
upon our horses and looked from the man to the great clouds of smoke
which were arising from the direction of the Fenix, of which he was
the miserable author, one felt inclined to throw him in his own fire.
For whereas, whenever I or my men lit a smoke, we were careful that it
should burn but one bush, and not spread to scar and disfigure the
face of the country, this irresponsible little being, who had, as it
were, ridden to meet us out of the nowhere, persistently lit his
reckless fires among the best grass, so that they burnt huge areas. It
was a remarkable, and in its way a painful, reflection that this puny
bit of humanity with his box of cheap matches could do more harm in
half an hour than he would be likely to be able to repair during a
lifetime. The fact is, a fire will burn a very small area upon the
pampas near the coast, where there is little for the flames to take
hold upon, while here in the high grass, near the Cordillera, it may
rage for two or three days, devastating and blackening the landscape.
Rather annoyed with the small man, I directed Barckhausen to ask him
why he had lighted so many smokes. He replied that he had done so in
order to recall his companions. As the man was, after the fashion of
the pampa, our guest, there was nothing more to be said on the matter,
but had I foreseen how much trouble his mania for raising smokes was
yet to cause us, I should probably have remonstrated with him.
That evening, as we rode into Rosy Camp, we saw a number of flamingos
upon the lagoon, and shot an upland goose. The following morning I
woke up in the grey of the dawn to see a Cordillera wolf nosing among
the ashes of our camp-fire. I shot it, to the great delight of the
small man, from whom after breakfast we parted. We had not advanced a
mile before the little demon was again sending up a smoke to heaven.
Burbury, who met him afterwards, said he believed that he carried a
cargo of nothing but matches in order to be able to indulge to the
utmost his passion for destroying the country through which he
happened to be passing.
On December 7 we arrived above the River de los Antiguos, and, as we
were about to descend the _barranca_, saw two columns of smoke rising
some two miles off. Two columns of smoke close together were our
danger-signal, and meant "Something very wrong, come at once." I was
morally certain that they were the work of the small man, whom we had
nicknamed "the Snipe," especially as the smokes were lit at a distance
from the position of Horsham Camp, and if anything serious had
happened, it seemed most probable that the two men left in charge
there would have lit their signal-fires on the hill close behind the
camp, instead of riding to some distance for that purpose. However,
there was nothing for it but to send Scrivenor back, with instructions
to show a smoke upon the shore of the lake behind an island in our
view if my presence were really required.
While he returned to Horsham Camp, Barckhausen and I rode on towards
the _cañadon_ of the River de los Antiguos.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] I believe, as does Dr. Moreno, that a race of Indians, now
extinct, once dwelled among the foothills of the Cordillera.