THE GORGE OF THE RIVER DE LOS ANTIGUOS
Descent into Gorge of the River de los Antiguos --
Rest-and-be-Thankful Camp -- First huemul -- Greed of
condors -- Aspect of Gorge -- Tameness of guanaco -- Join
Van Plaaten's route -- Stinging flies -- Signal-smokes --
De los Antiguos in flood -- Difficulty of crossing --
Attempt to swim over -- Washed away -- Loss of rifle and
gun -- Return to western bank -- Cold night -- Start next
morning -- Upper ford impassable -- Scanty diet -- Fording
torrent -- Long ride to Horsham Camp -- Fire-blackened
landscape -- News of red puma.
Barckhausen and I continued along the south shore of the lake until we
struck the River de los Antiguos, a small but rapid torrent flowing
through a huge frowning gorge, between very steep _barrancas_. Farther
to the west a second river, the River Jeinemeni, runs for some
distance almost parallel with it and discharges itself into the lake
some little distance beyond the mouth of the Antiguos. Between these
two rivers lies a tableland, which I was anxious to visit. We,
therefore, looked for a favourable place to descend into the valley of
the River de los Antiguos, and presently discovered a spot where the
cliffs were rather less perpendicular. The _barranca_, which was about
one hundred and fifty feet in height, being composed of sliding sand
and stones, covered with a high growth of bushes, presented a
troublesome route for the horses. They had been tied together by their
headstalls, the only way in which it was possible to drive them. It
was now necessary to dismount and take them down singly. Two of them,
Mula and Luna, refused to face the slope, and had to be urged on by
persuasions from behind. When Mula at last consented to begin the
descent, he lost his head and slid down the _barranca_, almost
carrying Barckhausen, who was pulling at his _cabresto_ from below,
with him.
When we all arrived safely at the bottom, we found the bed of the
river was formed of large boulders, and progress was consequently very
slow. After a time we forded across, the water barely reaching to the
horses' knees, but flowing so rapidly as to bring down good-sized
tree-trunks with it. We made a camp in a bare place backed by a deep
green forest. After our meal, which consisted of half an emergency
ration each, a couple of two-ounce dumplings and some tea, we climbed
the western _barranca_, and discovered an open space in the forest,
where the grass rose to our middles, and we were greeted by the wet
smell of earth, to which we had long been strangers on the dry
stretches of the pampas. We called the spot Rest-and-be-thankful Camp,
and at once moved the horses up to it, and on the way Fritz, who
happened to be in an obstinate mood, lay down among the stones. Little
did we think at the time how often we were destined to climb up and
down that weary _barranca_.
[Illustration: LAKE BUENOS AIRES FROM THE _CAÑADON_ OF THE RIVER DE
LOS ANTIGUOS]
A number of animals live in the Gorge of the River de los Antiguos.
Quite close to the camp I found tracks of wolves, guanaco, huemul, a
wild cat, and the smaller rodents. There was a little story to be
read on the wet sand. A huemul had come down to drink the preceding
evening, and had been stalked by a puma and her cub. The puma must
have been giving her offspring a lesson in killing. You could see that
the puma had leaped upon the huemul from a neighbouring thicket, and
there had been a struggle. The huemul, however, managed to dash back
into the trees and finally made his escape upon the other side of the
patch of forest.
After resting the night we rode up the Gorge, where we saw some
guanaco and found an ostrich egg. We left the three extra horses
tethered in the camp, and rode along the heights above the river. The
going was bad all the time. Stones, cliffs and rifts hindered our
advance, but presently we began to leave the bush behind and entered
into a bare tract of iron-grey hillsides and black boulders. Here we
stopped for a meal, for which we made an omelette of the ostrich egg,
and ate it powdered with chocolate. We cooked it in a tin plate with a
little mutton-fat, and uncommonly good we found it.
About two leagues farther on I shot a guanaco, but my desire was to
see a huemul. Every new variety of game was of interest to us, not
only from the zoological point of view, but also from that of the
hungry man, for we had had a very long spell of guanaco meat. We spent
the night in a spot where the horses fed on some fair grass.
We climbed the highest eminence at dawn and looked out for a smoke
behind the island, but seeing none we pushed on. I was riding far
ahead along the tableland above the river valley when I saw a huemul.
It sprang out from some rocks ahead of me. It was a young buck, and
when he caught sight of me he stood at gaze. The huemul is one of the
most beautiful deer in the world, although he only carries small
spiked horns of no great size. His summer coat is of a rich
reddish-brown, which, when examined closely, is found to be thickly
mingled with white hairs. In shape huemules are rather strongly built,
being about the size of fallow-deer. I have given a detailed account
of the habits of the huemul, of which no other record exists, in a
later chapter, so will say no more upon that subject here. I was most
unwillingly obliged to shoot the buck, for we were in need of food.
Leaving the meat, after tying a handkerchief above it to scare away
the condors, we hastened back to fetch the extra horses. We had had
scanty diet for some days, and the thought of a full meal put strength
into us. We were not long in bringing up the remainder of our troop,
but when returning we saw three condors drop suspiciously near the
dead huemul. By the time we arrived there was hardly an ounce of meat
left on the bones, and only the quarter, which we had hidden in the
bushes, remained, even that being a good deal torn and mangled.
[Illustration: BEST HEAD OF HUEMUL (_XENELAPHUS BISULCUS_)
SHOT BY THE AUTHOR]
Such as it was, however, we made the best of it, and after cutting
away the damaged parts, found enough for a meal. It turned out to be
the driest, stringiest, worst meat I have ever for my sins been forced
to eat.[20]
As night fell, the Gorge--it became _the_ Gorge to us--assumed a more
and more sinister aspect. Of all the scenes I had up to that time
beheld in Patagonia, this was the most repellent and inhospitable. The
little torrent (which was destined to play us such a trick), the high
iron-grey bluffs and escarpments, the soaring condors, the scavenger
caranchos, and the black shadows of the Cordillera, made up a picture
that was both grand and menacing.
Next day I shot a guanaco. Very much easier work than it had been on
the pampas. A guanaco would remain lying down until you were within a
long shot, and one actually watched us and neighed while we discussed
our porridge. Man had never, I fancy, molested them before.
We advanced for a good distance up the river over terribly bad ground,
all boulders and steep cliffs, and then we attempted to ford to the
other side. The two black horses, however, seemed to have conceived a
horror of the river and could not be induced to cross. They simply
made us very wet, and we had to go forward on foot. We were now within
easy distance of the end of the Gorge, and had joined the route of Von
Plaaten[21] from the south.
On December 10 I went out in the evening to shoot something for the
pot. On the first ridge I came to I stalked and killed a big guanaco
buck, putting a bullet into his lungs. Then I signalled to Barckhausen
to come and help to cut him up. As I waited there in the fading light,
wondering at the desolation of the place, a little huemul buck came
bounding along and "paid the penalty," as the cricket reporters say. I
had some trouble to keep off the condors while I went to some distance
to call Barckhausen.
Altogether the Gorge was not an inviting spot with its hot marshy
valleys and fat stinging flies. After sweating among the boulders in
the lower ground, if we climbed the _barranca_, the chill wind from
the Cordillera nipped our very bones.
As I sat writing my diary during those days, diabolical-looking
insects with upturned tails used to crawl across the page.
My desire to penetrate farther at that time seemed likely to be
fulfilled, as so far we had seen no warning smoke from the lake
direction. The chief difficulties hindering our advance were the
treacherous footing on the _barrancas_, which we were obliged to scale
very frequently, and the trouble with the horses both on them and at
the fords.
Finally I decided to leave Barckhausen with the horses and to walk on
as long as food held out, for the boulders made riding impossible. But
next morning, just as I had fixed up my kit preparatory to starting, a
column of smoke began to arise somewhere in the direction of the lake.
We fancied at first it was Scrivenor, who had come back to rejoin us,
and we hastened up the cliff. But in that clear air distances are very
deceptive, and the smoke, which from the depth of the Gorge had looked
so near, turned out to be on the farther shore of Lake Buenos Aires.
Then we perceived there were two fires throwing up their smoke in the
morning sun--the "Come-at-once" signal.
We did not loiter, but in a quarter of an hour were climbing the
_barranca_ from our camp. The old game with the horses had to be gone
through again. We made our way straight down the strip of tableland
towards the lake, along the high sliding cliffs of the river's
_cañadon_. It was a long ride, and as we went along the fact became
obvious that the river had risen during the night and was still
rising. The waters had grown earth-coloured and large trees were being
hurtled down-stream.
The warm weather which we had been experiencing must have melted the
snows which feed the torrents of the Cordillera. Rivers inside and in
the neighbourhood of the Cordillera vary during the spring very much
in volume, changing in a single day or night from a mere trickle of
water to a torrent 100 yards in width. In the present instance the
River de los Antiguos had begun to rise in the day while we were
hunting. At length we saw a place where a big shelf of stone and
shingle rising in the middle of the river divided it into two streams.
To reach the bank nearest to this island of shingle it was necessary
to climb down some two hundred feet of an uncommonly nasty slope. On
the way the horses struck a bed of rolling stones and arrived very
suddenly. The gut of the Gorge was choked with green forest and
decaying vegetation; large dead trees, mostly trunks of antarctic
beech, were jammed together, intersected by a dozen miniature torrents
all sluicing down full of water since the melting of the snows.
Arrived at the river, my horse took the ford at once and went in
straightly to his shoulders. The current was running like a
mill-race--overstrong for us, but fortunately we had not plunged in
too deeply, and so got back to the shore.
Had it not been for the two smokes, which we had arranged were not to
be used save in the greatest extremity, I should have made a camp and
waited to see if the river would fall. As things were, it seemed
absolutely necessary to cross at once.
We now went a little up-stream, and I stripped off some of my clothes
and waded down into the river. It was so cold that it took away all
feeling from my feet. I had my precious rifle with me as well as a
dear old shot-gun. The strip of water I was about to cross was quite
narrow. I thought of leaving the guns behind me, but that would have
meant another crossing of the river, which was so cold that it seemed
to burn like fire.
I had not reached the middle when my left foot went into a hole, the
current caught me, and the banks began to run backwards. As long as
the water was deep I stuck to the two guns, but a little down-stream
the river ran through boulders just awash, and among these I got
rather knocked about. I dropped the shot-gun and clung to the Mauser,
which was to us the more valuable of the two. Lower down the river was
a shallow waterfall, studded with rocks and boulders. My knee caught
between two rocks, and as I was afraid of having my leg broken, and
had sustained rather a bad knock on the back of the head, I let the
rifle go, and, with the help of my hands, got clear. I was washed down
the fall into deeper water, where swimming was possible. The current
carried me a yard down-stream for every inch I made across it, but in
time I reached the end of the bank of shingle before mentioned.
After all, disappointment awaited me, for I found the second branch of
the river, beyond the shingle bank, was running so furiously that,
unless I had the help of a rope, crossing it would be too dangerous.
Barckhausen could not follow me in any case, as he was unable to swim,
so that eventually I was obliged to cross back again and rejoin him.
On regaining the shore my plight was sufficiently miserable. I had
kept on my shirt and jersey to save me from the stones, but of course
they were soaking. It was six o'clock in the evening, the sun had lost
its power, a cold wind was blowing, and I had nothing to pass the
night in save some oilskins and my wet clothes; besides, I was rather
badly cut about the head and knees.
I must explain that during my swim Barckhausen had succeeded in
driving the horses into the river, and they were come to anchor on the
shingle island in mid-stream. Our bedding was upon the back of one of
them, and the river was still rising rapidly. We therefore decided to
return to the camp, as being more sheltered. Barckhausen kindly lent
me his shirt, as he had his vest, coat and great-coat, which were dry.
We started once more to climb that weary two hundred feet of
_barranca_, and were much beset by rolling stones and sliding sand.
Scarcely had we reached the top when the horses, after standing for an
hour and a half on their mid-stream island, took it into their heads
to turn about and swim back, so we scrambled down our cliff-side
again and made a camp amongst the sand and bushes. Here I saw a wild
cat with young, the only one I met with in Patagonia.
[Illustration: REST-AND-BE-THANKFUL CAMP]
We now reviewed our sleeping accommodation. The blankets were too wet
to be of any service. Barckhausen luckily was in the habit of carrying
a portion of his bedding upon his saddle, and this had escaped the
water and was dry. I had a horse-rug and a small blanket. It came on a
bone-wet night, the most miserable we had either of us spent.
Besides, I was very anxious about the possible condition of things at
Horsham Camp, for the two smokes must have meant something serious,
and yet we were unable to go to the help of our comrades. We made some
thin porridge for supper and turned in. All night long the river
continued to rise, we could hear it gulping and swallowing at the sand
and shingle of the bank. I determined to try the higher ford, by which
we had originally crossed, in the morning.
I find the following in my diary, written while the porridge was
cooking:
"_December 12._--Only a sportsman can realise my feelings. At one fell
swoop both my guns, my old friends, gone! The more serious loss of the
two is the Mauser. It has accompanied me upon my travels 10,000 miles,
and was always to be relied on. And now to fancy it probably
glimmering up through the deep waters of Buenos Aires Lake! Is there
any use in saying more? When we get back to camp I shall have to fall
back on the reserve Mauser, which has no back-sight, or I should say
has a back-sight fastened on with a strip of raw hide. You arrange it
before the shot, and when you have it balanced you loose off, and if
the gun does not misfire you may hit something. How different to the
rifle that is gone! And the shot-gun, which has also departed with the
Mauser, was a gun with a history. Given to my uncle for gallant
services in another part of the world--a Purdey double-hammerless
12-bore, I regarded it as an heirloom. Why did I ever bring it to
Patagonia? Many a time have I, out of the shooting season, cuddled the
stock and shot imaginary birds, and dreamed of the phalanx of geese
bearing down on me in Scotland in the coming October! It is all over.
His glittering locks "clutch the sand," or in fragments he shifts with
the waters of the inhospitable torrent. Oh, my guns! my guns! Well, it
was a congenial death to you, and I am glad to think the Mauser had
killed a couple of Patagonian huemules before he came to his end. But,
sentiment apart--and there is a great deal of it in this affair--the
loss is very serious. True I have still at Horsham Camp four rifles
and a shot-gun (two Colts, a Paradox, a 12-bore and the sick Mauser),
but none of them are in the same class with the lost ones."
Before leaving the camp I went down again to the river brink to seek
for wreckage. Nothing was to be seen save rock and stone, overturned
trees and boulders. My regrets for the losses which had befallen us
were, however, moderated by the reflection that I might well be
thankful I was not personally keeping the two guns cold company in the
bottom of the lake.
We were astir at four o'clock by moonlight, and started three-quarters
of an hour later. To us, knocked about and dog-tired as we were, the
going was difficult. The _barrancas_ seemed endless. The river was now
a yellow flood, crashing and rushing down the _cañadon_, bearing
trees, bushes, and logs with its whirl and flurry. When we arrived at
the upper ford it was only to find six feet of water there and a fall
formed beyond it--quite impassable in fact.
Our position, in the face of this difficulty, was rather a serious
one. We had food for three days, that is, porridge, and though
"parritch is gran' food," it is not, alone, good to work very hard on.
The snows were still melting in the hills, and, given a protracted
period of warm weather, it might be days before the river would allow
of our passing through it. I lit a signal-fire on the hills in the
hope that my party at Horsham Camp would reply.
[Illustration: HUEMUL (_XENELAPHUS BISULCUS_) IN SUMMER COAT]
It was possible that our small Argentine friend had again been lost
"running ostriches" and had again lit up half the countryside to call
his companions' attention to that important fact. The only weapon left
us was a broken Colt and the cartridges in it. But apart from our own
position was the far more serious fact that our companions were
signalling to us to "Come at once--something wrong."
All the day through we patrolled the river banks, riding up and down
searching for a ford. About six in the evening we found a place where
an island broke the force of the torrent, and we fancied the water was
falling.
The river everywhere was shut in by high cliffs. At the foot of the
cliff we descended the ground was so soft that the horses sank, and we
had to haul them through. When we came down to the level of the river,
it appeared very different, viewed close at hand, to the encouraging
idea we had formed, even through the telescope, from the cliffs above.
But the set of the current was for once towards the farther bank,
where it culminated in rapids.
I decided to leave the three worst horses, and we found them a fine
stretch of grass and water at Roblé Camp. There we left them. They
fell to feeding very quietly, and we rode away to the _barranca_ we
had so often surmounted that at length we had formed a road through
its bushes.
The river appeared to be still rising, and was at that spot sixty
yards or so broad. Large trees went whirling by us as we waded down on
our horses into the outer plash of the stream. The horses took it
bravely and slowly, tired as they were. We now found there were two
islands, a smaller and a larger one, on our line of crossing, upon
which we rested, and soon nothing remained save a twenty-foot stream
between us and the farther bank.
Once my horse fell but recovered himself. Small blame to him, brave
beast, he had been carrying fourteen stone all day. At last, after a
strenuous moment, the water grew shallower, and we came out on the
farther side into a belt of green scrub.
Luck never comes alone. As we rode on three huemules dashed out of a
glade and I broke the neck of an old buck with the damaged Colt. I had
taken a careful sight for a shoulder-shot! We cut up the huemul,
skinned the head and rode on, and soon were out of the _cañadon_ of
the de los Antiguos River and riding through the bushes towards our
companions. The moon, on her rising, found us still going, and the
camp we made was a dozen miles from the river.
That night we put the horses in splendid grass, and in the false dawn
of the next morning were in the saddle again. We had about fifty miles
to cover before reaching Horsham Camp, and never in my life have I so
regretted my weight as on that day. About noon, as we were crossing a
white dry lake-bed, a column of smoke went up on Fenix Ford; our
comrades were then hurrying to us as we were to them. We answered at
once, and a couple of hours later perceived two horsemen on a distant
rise. Two! Nothing wrong in camp then! Hurrah! They turned out to be
Scrivenor and Burbury.
[Illustration: GRASSY CAMP]
At last the _vega_, two miles out of Horsham Camp, began. I had ridden
so much off my horse that the _cinch_ would not hold him. An awful
wind arose and the country round--burned by those miserable Santa Cruz
people--sent up dust in clouds and blinded us. At last the green tents
came in sight, one of which held, I knew, a reindeer sleeping-bag,
wherein was to be found warmth and sleep.
When we met my first question was, of course, to ask as to who might
be the perpetrator of the two fires we had seen upon the previous day,
and which were still burning.
"As to those," said Burbury, "they must have been lighted by the
little man whom you entertained at the Fenix. He came into our camp
after he left you, as also did his companions. We knew that you would
wonder who had lit the smokes. When we saw yours, we at once came to
meet you." As we rode along towards our base camp we passed through
acres of fire-blackened land and cursed the small man (his name is
still a mystery to us) by bell, book, and candle. I had carefully
informed him that two fires was our "Come-at-once" signal, and can
only suppose that the irresponsible little creature had forgotten.
After all, our resentment against the author of our misfortunes was
not uncalled for. He had given Scrivenor a fifty-mile ride, had been
the direct cause of our losing two guns, had made us abandon three
horses, and had given Barckhausen and myself eighty or ninety miles of
extra marches, besides compelling us to cross the River de los
Antiguos when in flood. We had also to thank him for our miserable
night upon the shores of the river. Against all this he had left us a
lame hound which we feared could travel no farther.
His companions had in my absence visited our camp and had conversed
with Burbury. This conversation, however, left us a much more valuable
legacy. One of these men, an Austrian, had informed Burbury that the
Indians had told him of a puma which lived farther to the south among
the foothills of the Cordillera, and which differed in some essential
respects from the grey puma of the plains. He described it as being
"of a reddish colour, more fierce than the silver puma, and much
smaller!" This was the first time I heard of the animal now named
_Felis concolor pearsoni_, of which I afterwards was fortunate enough
to obtain a skin.
When we arrived in camp, which we did late upon that afternoon, we
ourselves as well as our horses were pretty well tired out, but a
couple of days in the tent, a tin of cocoa, and some ointment for the
cuts received from the rocks in the river, soon reinvigorated us, and
we were ready to start for the River de los Antiguos, the scene of our
petty disasters, once more.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] This was a very lean buck; a fat doe is excellent.
[21] Louis von Plaaten Hallermund, of the Argentine Boundary
Commission, almost reached Lake Buenos Aires from Lake Puerrydon about
two years previously. Mr. Waag had completed the journey, but we did
not know this.
[Illustration: YOUNG GUANACO]