A HARD STRUGGLE
Running an ostrich with dogs -- Crossing Santa Cruz River
-- Horses troublesome -- Lose my way -- Launch refitted --
Diary of rough days -- Crossing the bar -- Nasty
predicament -- Wreck imminent -- Storm -- Ascensio's Bay
-- Changeable weather -- Dangerous lakes -- Squalls
rushing down from gorges of the Cordillera -- Icebergs --
Ashore for fuel -- Squall comes on -- Cut off from launch
-- Miserable night -- Wind lulls -- Aboard again --
Crossing Hell-gate -- Cow Monte harbour -- Bernardo's fire
-- Fighting the fire -- News of the world -- Rumours of
war -- Death of the Queen.
Late in the evening of the same day Burbury arrived with the horses,
and upon the following morning I rode on with him to pass the troop
over the Santa Cruz River. We took with us one of Cattle's hounds, and
sighting some ostriches on the way we gave chase. The dog had a rope
affixed to his collar, by which Burbury had been leading him, and I
had no time to take it off before letting him go. In spite of this
disability, with the rope trailing behind him, the big black hound
pulled down one of the birds. I did not then know how valuable that
ostrich was to be to us.
We reached the Santa Cruz about 7 A.M., and, after a considerable
amount of persuasion, we managed to induce the horses to enter the
water.
One of the great dangers of driving a _tropilla_ into a river is the
chance that, when they do take to the water, your own mount is very
likely to rush in after them, and, before you can free yourself, he
will have carried you into the pull of the current, and, of course,
beyond your depth. Therefore it is always well to do this kind of work
bare-back, with only a bridle in your horse's mouth, so that you can
fling yourself off at any moment. It is also well to unbuckle the loop
of the rein; the omission of the latter precaution has resulted in
the drowning of horses on many occasions.
After seeing Burbury safely across, I started on my tramp back to the
camp at the mouth of the Leona. Fortunately, I carried the whole
ostrich with me, as I thought it was quite possible we might be held
back by bad weather in our voyage up the lake.
Cattle and Bernardo had stayed with the launch to prepare her for
probable rough handling by the waters of Lake Argentino, and it was
lucky they did so, as events proved. Cattle lighted a smoke to give me
my direction, and I was tempted to try a short cut, which led me
across an interminable series of sandhills mottled with the tracks of
foxes and lions (pumas).
When I got into camp we held a small festival in honour of the
launch's good behaviour, and drank to her health and good luck in a
cup of tea sweetened with the last of our sugar. But it never does to
rejoice prematurely, and our way along the north shore of the lake
turned out to be a battle with adverse winds, rain, and vindictive bad
weather.
The launch presented quite a different appearance by the time I
returned. The engine-room hatch had been covered by a canvas hood, and
bulwarks formed by lashing oars to strengthen the wire railing which
ran round the deck. The wheel had been rigged up forward and protected
by a weather-dodger. The cargo had been carefully stowed, and, in
fact, every precaution taken to ensure the safety of the boat and to
make her seaworthy.
The following is taken from my diary, which carries us from hour to
hour of the next few troubled days:
"_February 21._--It blew pretty hard all through the morning, and the
bar of the Leona was quite impassable; but towards evening the wind
dropped slightly, so we got up steam and started. We ran out over the
bar, fighting our way by inches through the heavy surf, but just
beyond it the engine broke down, and we were at the mercy of the wind
and waves. It looked as if we were being driven back to certain
shipwreck, for the launch could not live in the seas that were
breaking on the bar. I cut loose one of the oars which formed our
bulwark, and both Cattle and I did what we could to prevent her
turning broadside on.
"I was engaged in this work at the stern when I heard Bernardo shout,
'Mr. Preechard! Mr. Preechard!'
"I lay my full length along the deck and looked down at Bernardo in
the engine-room. He was holding on to the pump, which was spouting
steam and water. There was no room for two people in the engine-room,
nor in that angry sea was there much possibility of my getting down
there. So I lay along the port decking, and slipped my feet under the
after-hatch, thanking Providence for my length, and so managed to hold
the pump down while Bernardo tried to repair the damage.
"Every now and then the seas caught us almost broadside on and broke
heavily, nearly sweeping me over with them. My head being outside, I
could see Cattle clinging on like a cat, and doing all that man could
do to keep us from swinging round. We were on the bar, and scarcely
twenty yards outside the fiercest of the breakers. As it was, big seas
kept sweeping over the launch and crashing on her plates, making her
roll appallingly.
"Between us and the shore was from one hundred to one hundred and
fifty yards of yeasty surge, dominated by a heavy current setting
south. The anchor continued to drag, and we hung on while Bernardo
fought with screws and nuts for our lives. While we drifted back over
the bar, nearly capsizing as we did so, it became obvious that our
only course lay in first getting in the anchor and then putting it out
again with a good length of chain. In spite of the almost
inconceivable rolling of our craft, Cattle was successful in his
attempt to do this, and the launch came prow on to the breakers, which
were losing something of their fury as they crashed across the bar,
twenty yards in front of us.
"Meantime, Bernardo did not relax his efforts to get the engines
working once more. We were, as I have explained, a couple of hundred
yards from the shore, towards which the full force of the wind, aided
by the current I have mentioned as setting south towards the mouth of
the Santa Cruz, was drifting us.
"The anchor dragged again, and we had to undertake the difficult
business of getting it in, and taking a second chance of dropping it
on better holding ground.
"We were tossing upon the bar for an hour and twenty minutes, during
which time poor Bernardo was violently seasick. It made us laugh to
hear him apostrophising the launch in the words, 'Be--she make me----'
I will not conclude his sentence.
"At length, however, the Swede coaxed the engines into once more
performing their appointed duties, and as putting back would have been
a more difficult business than going forward, we began to forge slowly
ahead. It was now between five and six o'clock, and there was a
freezing south-west wind booming out of the Cordillera, but when
darkness fell this lulled for a short time and we made the most of our
chances to push forward. But, later, it came on to blow heavily, the
seas rose high and short, and in the night-sky overhead only a few
stars were visible through the racing clouds. The wind veered to the
south-west, and we were off a lee shore set with rocks and icebergs,
and there was no anchorage for another twelve miles at least.
"The wind again veered a point to the southward after a time, and it
soon became evident that the launch, quivering and swept continually
by the waves, was making but little headway, while our stock of fuel
was growing low, and would not last us for the run to the anchorage.
"I shouted the facts to Cattle, who was steering at the time, and he
suggested that we should try to make Ascensio's Bay--the place where
the famous horse-stealer and Gaucho, Brunel, used to hide and slay the
_tropillas_ he robbed from the Indians. As Cattle and I were
discussing the question in shouts, a big sea swamped us, almost
carrying Cattle overboard with it and billowing along the deck and
nearly drowning out the engine-room.
"Cattle had made some trips about Lake Argentino in a canvas boat, but
had never been in Ascensio's Bay. But, as the night was growing darker
and the gale rising, we resolved to make for it. At last, through the
noise and battering of the grey-black water, we reached the shelter of
the promontory by the bay and succeeded in feeling our way in. There
we dropped anchors from both bow and stern, drew off some water from
the boiler to make a _maté_ which we drank, and afterwards lying down
in the after-hatch instantly fell asleep. Bernardo occupied the
fore-hatch. We were too tired to dream of eating anything, and, in
spite of our close quarters and the cold, we did not wake till
morning.
[Illustration: WHERE THE SQUALLS CAME FROM]
"The 23rd dawned calm and fine, and the first view of the spot in
which we were anchored made me think that something more than mere
luck had been with us during our entry upon the previous night. The
mouth of the bay was dotted with an outcrop of toothlike rocks.
"The dawn developed into a morning with strong sun, and we were off
early. For two hours all went well. Then came a shiver creeping across
the glassy surface of the lake, after that a swell, and in a matter of
twenty minutes the quiet lake had become as nasty and as angry a piece
of water as can be imagined. This change is eminently typical of the
temper of the Andean lakes; they cannot be depended upon from hour to
hour. In the present instance at 7.45 A.M. we were steaming, as I have
said, through calm water, yet at 8.15 one sea of every four was
dashing in a cloud of spray over the boat. The reason of these sudden
changes is not far to seek.[23]
"Here, encircled by snow-capped mountains and bounded by high cliffs,
the waters of Argentino are often struck by swift squalls descending
from the gorges. The voyager may be, as we were, many miles distant
from the actual spot where the storm first strikes, but the squall
rushes down the funnel-like openings, bringing a heavy sea with it.
The seas are also very short, which more than doubles the difficulty
of navigation.
"On this occasion the sun was obscured and the outlook to the westward
became more and more menacing. The launch began to creak and groan as
usual, and to make but slight headway. Far away glimmered an iceberg,
which lay at the entrance of the bay that marked our next harbourage.
Soon it became clear that we should never be able to reach its
friendly shelter without gathering a fresh supply of fuel. There was
only one alternative left to us, and that was to put in close to the
shore, and either wade or swim off to get more.
"The squall had now more or less spent itself, so we ran in close,
gaining some small shelter from a promontory which ended in a big
boulder.
"To attain such shelter as the promontory offered it was necessary to
make our way through a group of rocks. This we did, and the wind
sinking, Cattle and I scrambled ashore with the axes and fell to work
while Bernardo remained on board.
"Before, however, we had gathered half the required quantity of wood a
second squall, more heavy than the first, came screaming across the
lake, tearing the launch from her anchorage and almost driving her
upon the beach. We stripped off some of our clothes and waded down
into the water, and after a ten-minutes hard struggle we succeeded in
getting her back into deep water, where she again dropped anchor.
"We returned to our work ashore, and cut and piled a good store of
fuel, almost as much as we needed, on the shingle ready to carry
aboard, but the violence of the waves put all hope of embarkation out
of the question for the time. This was about 10 A.M., and all day the
wind increased in violence. A stately procession of icebergs began to
float down from the northerly arms of the lake and squall succeeded
squall. Soon it became evident that the launch was drifting again, and
I shouted to Bernardo, who was now within hearing distance of the
shore, to break up an oar and use it for fuel. Luckily he had kept up
fire in the furnace and steam in the boiler, and as the weather was
growing rapidly worse, I ordered him to steam up over the anchor, and
afterwards to take the boat a quarter of a mile out and there drop
anchor with all the length of chain out that we possessed.
"What followed gave to us, I think, perhaps the most heartbreaking
moments we experienced throughout the whole trip. While Bernardo was
getting up enough steam to carry out orders, the launch, still
drifting, swooped nearer and nearer a reef of submerged rocks. As she
was in deep water, Cattle and I could do nothing to help; we were
compelled to watch helplessly from the shore and rage at our own
impotence. We called to Bernardo to keep her off with an oar, and
while he was unlashing one the stern of the launch and, more than all,
her precious propeller barely escaped being smashed to pieces as she
rose and fell on the rollers. To us, looking from the shore, it seemed
as if her last hour was come, and it appeared hard indeed that she
should have run safely through so many perils only to end her
existence in the lake before we had had time to carry out any part of
the exploration on which we had set our hearts.
"At the crucial moment, however, Bernardo managed to pole her clear
and give her steam. She moved slowly out and anchored far off shore.
"Evening drew on, but the wind showed no signs of dropping, as it
usually did at the rising or setting of the sun. There was nothing for
it but to make up our minds to a night ashore. We found ourselves in a
dilemma, for we had our whole supply of food on shore, while, with the
exception of my poncho, which I brought with me to dry, Bernardo had
all the rugs and blankets in the launch. However, we made the best of
it by building up a big shelter of drift-wood and bushes. Then we lit
a huge fire, for our clothes were soaking, and essayed to dry them.
"Meantime the launch was riding out the storm as well as could be
expected, but taking a good deal of water aboard all the same. It grew
dark and the last we saw of her that night, her anchor was holding and
a big sea was racing aft. Bernardo had got on the hatches and gone to
bed, we supposed, for we did not see him the whole time save once, and
then he was bailing furiously."
The sky was black with the promise of rain, so we heaped up the big fire,
filled the cooking-pots with water, and spreading the poncho on the
ground took our places upon it. It was not such a very bad night after
all. Things rarely fulfil their promise of disagreeableness--things of
this kind anyway. We passed the night somehow with the help of our
pipes and an occasional brew of sugarless tea. I never desired sugar
so much as then. Sugarless tea is far less warming than sugared. Sleep
was well-nigh impossible. It was too cold for that, and, besides, one
or other of us was always up and trying to pick out the launch from
the surrounding mass of spindrift and tumbling black and grey waters.
In those latitudes the wind generally rises or falls, as the case may
be, with the setting or rising of the sun, and eagerly we waited to
see if the dawn would bring any change in our uncomfortable position.
But at dawn it was blowing, if anything, harder than ever. The launch,
however, was all right, although there was no sign of Bernardo. We
were driven to make a breakfast of berries from the califate-bushes,
of which a few mean specimens grew sparsely on the hillside. It is a
desolate place, that northern shore of Argentino.
When the sun came out we lay down and slept in its liquid rays. A
little after midday we cooked some _fariña_ with mutton fat and ate
it. The gale was still tearing across the water, and we began to count
over our resources. We still had the greater part of the ostrich which
the hound Moses had killed on the way to the River Santa Cruz, but it
was an immature bird, and would provide us with no more than three
meagre meals. A couple of handfuls of _fariña_ were yet in the bottom
of the bag, we had a half-tin of tea and three-parts of a plug of
tobacco.
As for Bernardo, he had now been nearly thirty hours without food;
indeed, to be accurate, he had been fifty hours without food, thirty
of them in the launch, for we had started work on a _maté_. If we
could have made him hear, he might have attached a line to the
life-buoy and floated her off, and we could have sent him back
supplies.
We had made certain of another night of discomfort, so we gathered
another big pile of firewood. Cattle's leg, that he had strained on
the previous day, was giving him much pain. But when the sun was
already dipping behind the summits of the Cordillera the storm began
to lull. We had little hope that Bernardo could stand out much longer
against starvation, so after half an hour, as the seas were going
down, we thought it well to try and get off to the launch.
We went down to the beach, and, after much hailing, roused the Swede.
By signs I told him to come in as close as he dared, which meant to
within twenty or twenty-five yards of the shingle. This time he got
her in a better position, and we stripped and waded in with the wood.
It took us about forty journeys, and the water was abominably cold. I
do not think two men ever worked much harder during the time we were
at it, so before very long we were on board with everything.
Fearing to remain near the shore we got up steam, and with exceeding
thankfulness bade good-bye to that inhospitable beach. I asked
Bernardo how much longer he thought he could have held out. He said
two days, and, in fact, appeared to think he had been better off with
the blankets and his pipe and the warmth of the fore-hatch than we
with food on shore. First and last he was a fine fellow, patient,
quiet and hard-working. As to his being better off than Cattle and
myself, that was a matter of individual taste, I suppose. As a rule,
indeed, the average man will, as far as my experience goes, sacrifice
his food to his bed nearly every time, especially when the wind is
blowing out of the snows.
Evening soon settled down into night, and we ran on by starlight to
our next anchorage, an almost land-locked bay, where we made merry on
the remains of the ostrich. I also discovered some flour in the
afterhold which had been overlooked, enough to make three small
dampers. We were uncommonly glad to resume our rugs that night.
On the 24th we gathered more wood and put to sea. We meant to reach
the southern shore of the lake on the Burmeister Peninsula, and there
put in to a good anchorage not far from Cattle's headquarters. But to
do this it was necessary to pass across Hell-gate, the opening to the
north arm or North Fjord of the lake, always a difficult stretch of
water owing to the fact that squalls perpetually blew down upon it
from the funnel formed by the winding gorges of the upper lake. We
soon saw the two dark bluffs beyond which the water wound away behind
the outlying buttresses of the mountains, whose snow-caps glimmered
against the wintry sky. We did not escape scot-free, for a squall duly
caught us, and the tossing sent everything in the launch adrift. We
ran by five icebergs and once the pump refused to act, and things
looked awkward, but in the end, to make a long story short, we steamed
into our shelter, which we called Cow Monte Harbour, and tied up the
launch with no small thankfulness, for she was leaking badly through
the cracked plate I have before referred to.
As the grass was dry we could not, with safety, make a fire
sufficiently large to signal Burbury to bring up the horses, as had
been arranged, so we sent on Bernardo with a message. He started off
in his big boots and we had no idea of the mischief he was to drop
into before we saw him again. He was accustomed to the pampas round
about the town of Santa Cruz, where you can light a fire with
impunity, but amongst the high grass growing in the valleys of the
foothills of the Cordillera a fire is certain to spread over an
immense area. Finding the way long, perhaps, Bernardo sent up a brace
of smokes as signals. We saw them, and knew at once what was likely to
happen.
[Illustration: THE FIRE]
When the horses arrived we bundled on to them and rode away to try and
stop the conflagration. There were two fires raging, and our only
chance lay in being able to arrest their spreading beyond the shores
of a dry lagoon, which mercifully extended between them and the
summer-dried, well-grassed marsh lying under Mount Buenos Aires and
Mount Frias, where Cattle's pioneer-farm was situated. It would have
been a distressing return for his co-operation and help had one of
my men raised a fire to sweep over his land and destroy his whole
stock of horses, sheep and cattle, a result that was for a time
imminent.
We all provided ourselves with sheepskins and began our attempt to
beat out the fire. It was raging in bone-dry grass and thorn and the
flames leaped up and scorched our faces. Every blow with the sheepskin
sent up a shower of sparks that got into one's eyes and ears, and it
appeared as if we should never make headway against the blaze. We
might clear ten feet for a moment, but as we turned away the flames
would eat their way back and, rekindling, flare up in waving tongues
and roar again. Of course we were to windward, on the lee side the
smoke rolled away in a solid cloud. I do not know how long we worked
on that upper ring of fire, but slowly we succeeded in beating it out
by sheer weight and repetition of blows.
The wind had by this time dropped a little, and the course of the main
blaze set downhill. At length we had beaten out a half-circle and came
to the crux of the affair. If we could but blot out the fire to the
south, where it was burning savagely among high bushes and dry thorn,
it was probable the situation would be saved.
We took a short rest of four or five minutes and began again. The
smoke was gathering and rolling in great gouts, and we could see
nothing save the flames on the one side of us and the black blinding
dust on the other. As for ourselves, we were as black and scorched as
singed rats. We knew that the next ten minutes would decide the
matter.
Beside the fire ran a meandering cow or game track, and it was at this
line that we meant to try and cut off the flames, which were rapidly
spreading and getting out of hand. One was conscious of nothing but
the thud of the sheepskins and the figures of the workers leaping in
and out of the smoke and flame. I have never witnessed a wilder scene.
The men shouted as they worked. It was like a battle-picture seen in a
dream. All along the cow-track, where the fire lipped it, the
sheepskins rose and fell. A dense dun-coloured cloud rolled out and
up, lit every moment by explosions of sparks.
Presently it became a race for a spot some 200 yards ahead, where a
line of green damp grass might stop the fire and force it in another
direction. To cut it off at this point would make the remainder of our
task more easy. But just on the nearer side of the grass line a number
of high bushes were growing, and their strong roots and lower branches
gave the flames a definite hold. Now and again, too, one had to run
back and stamp out some sudden recrudescence of the flame. There is no
need to describe the last half-hour; only, when the yellow circle of
fire had given place to a smouldering black ring, we were ready to lie
down on our blackened sheepskins and feel neither glad nor sorry but
only wearily tired.
To beat out a fire is about the hardest sort of effort a man can make,
for no spell of rest can be obtained without losing the results of
previous labour. Afterwards, when we made a round of the fires to make
sure of safety, we found them sinking sullenly into black deadness.
We were especially lucky in the direction taken by the fire, as, had
it burnt along any other line, it is almost certain that our camp and
all that we possessed would have been destroyed. Such a disaster
actually occurred to Cattle some years ago in the north of the
country. He was then journeying with two companions, when a half-breed
boy he had with him was foolish enough to allow a camp-fire to spread
among the surrounding grass. The pioneers were able to save nothing
but a pair of _boleadores_ and a Winchester rifle with the seven
cartridges that happened to be in it. The party fortunately possessed
several hounds, by whose efforts the stock of meat was kept up,
otherwise it is more than likely that their case would have been a
serious one.
The interval between the time of our starting for Lake Viedma and our
return was in all but eleven days. During those eleven days much
happened that brought back most vividly to me old boyish dreams of
travel and romance. I had realised some of them, but risk and
adventure, which enchant us in the glamour of far-off contemplation,
are apt on nearer view to lose in romance what they gain in reality.
On the same day of the fire, news, brought by some wandering Indian
or Gaucho, reached us; rumours passing from mouth to mouth as they
will in a wonderful manner over the most sparsely populated country.
The first we heard was a report of war, a real war-scare, such as
might have originated from the fertile imagination of a Haïtian
journalist. The Russians were said to be marching upon India, and
France had joined hands with them against England.
It was but the barest outline, yet it shook and excited us out there
in the ends of the earth just as if we had formed items of a crowd in
Fleet Street.
Following on this came that other heavy tidings indeed, the death of
the Queen. We took off our hats, and at first nothing was said. The
news struck each man of us. There was a sense of loss and of the
blankness of a personal calamity, which expressed themselves at last
in a few odd homely words.
There, 7000 miles away, the abstract idea of the nation became
concrete. One had no picture in one's mind of England that did not
bear in the foreground, filling the heart and eye, that gracious,
royal, simple, noble figure, which for so long had drawn out towards
itself the highest patriotism of the race. The tumult of a nation's
mourning was taken up and echoed feebly here as in other remote
corners of the earth. Thousands of pens have borne witness to the
world-wide sorrow. No need to say more, but while I write the scene
comes back, as some moments of one's life will and do come--the broad
blue heavens, the wide lake, the wind, the smell of grass and
califate-bushes, the grasping after shattered fancies, and the heavy
acceptance of the hour assigned.
FOOTNOTE:
[23] This we came to understand very thoroughly at a later date, when
we penetrated to the end of the long twisting arms of the lake.