FIRST PASSING THROUGH HELLGATE
Rumour of important undiscovered river -- Wish to settle
question -- Dr. Moreno's description of Lake Argentino --
Start for Hellgate -- Description of Hellgate -- Squall --
Sunshine -- Scenery -- Icebergs -- Danger-dodging --
Absence of life on banks -- West channel of North Fjord --
Events of voyage -- Giant's Glacier -- Camera -- Second
glacier -- Deep water -- End of west channel -- Return to
North Fjord -- Icebergs -- In difficulties with launch --
Escape from a reef -- Land on peninsula -- Guanaco -- Fish
-- Fish and fariña -- Heavy gales -- Photographs -- One
more attempt to go up North Fjord -- Driftwood -- Driven
back -- Return to Cow Monte Harbour -- South Fjord --
Storms -- Mount Avellaneda -- Small fjord -- Trouble with
launch -- Squalls -- Launch driven ashore -- On fire --
Fine weather -- Glacier calves -- Thousands of square
miles of forest unexplored.
"An important river flows into the end of the north fjord (of Lake
Argentino) with clear waters--a sure sign that it proceeds from
another great lake still unknown."
In these words, taken from the _Journal of the Royal Geographical
Society_ for September 1899, under the head of "Explorations in
Patagonia," by Dr. Moreno, you have the idea which was the spring of
all our efforts in bringing down the launch to Lake Argentino and the
aim of the subsequent voyages made in her.
The opening to the north passage or fjord is locally known as
Hellgate, so called on account of the rough weather which usually
prevails there. The spot is the opening of a long winding channel
that, running up between beetling cliffs and forested mountain-sides
as it were into the heart of the Andes, becomes simply a vast funnel
through which the winds and storms discharge themselves upon the lake
at all times and seasons. I cannot give a better description of Lake
Argentino than by using the following extract from Dr. Moreno's
account:
"Lake Argentino ... extends sixty miles to the west; and the fjords of
the extreme west divide into three arms, which receive the waters of
large glaciers from Mount Stokes up to the vicinity of Lake Viedma. An
important river flows into the end of the north fjord, with clear
waters--a sure sign that it proceeds from another great lake still
unknown. The western end is closed by the main chain of the Cordillera
with its glaciers, which cross to the Pacific fjords of Peel Inlet and
St. Andrew's Sound, and one can distinguish peaks more than 10,000
feet, as Mount Agassiz (10,597 feet)."
[Illustration: HELLGATE]
On March 11, having mended the launch to the best of our ability, we
intended to make a start from Cow Monte Harbour. As we rode down from
Cattle's, driving my troop of horses before us, the calm weather which
had attended the period of repairs broke up and a strong wind began to
blow out of the south-west. A start was, therefore, rendered
impossible. We accordingly camped beside the launch, to be ready for
an early departure. All night long the wind held, and the sheepskins
in the after-hatch, where I was sleeping, took in water. It needed
little waking, therefore, to get me out in the morning. The false
dawn was still lingering in the sky when the wind fell and we were off
in double quick time, heading in a northerly direction, and steering
by a clump of _Leña dura_ bushes on a promontory, behind which lay
Hellgate.
The swell of the previous night was yet big upon the water, and the
launch crawled over it at about three knots. The entrance to Hellgate
is possibly one of the most menacing and sinister-looking spots in
South America. The great grooved cliffs tower over the yeasty cauldron
of water, and down the channel between them, as I have said, the wind
hurtles as through a funnel. On this particular morning a squall had
darkened the great and houseless unknown beyond. Several icebergs were
huddled together, stranded upon the shallows of the eastern shore.
After running through the black throat of Hellgate we put in, beneath
a big rock, in order to take shelter from the squall that was fast
coming down upon us. We had started on a _maté_, and so, while we
waited, a roast was got under way. As we were eating, the squall that
had brooded so ominously in the west broke over the lake, and after
raging for a few minutes passed with a shiver that you could follow
with the eye, till it lost itself in the distance of the early morning
waters. Then the sun glowed out suddenly, as if some gigantic power
had lifted an extinguisher from its glory. The farther and middle
distances were peopled with snow-peaks, rising in minarets above their
girdles of dark forest, which last stretched downwards until they
lipped the black water at the mountain bases. For a moment after the
outburst of radiance the water alone remained black and angry, and
then the squall flicked away its skirts and passed from view, leaving
a picture of cold and austere purity extending to the rim of sight. In
words I cannot give you any reflection of the scene, and no photograph
could ever do more than reproduce its outlines, and yet I suppose few
human eyes will ever look upon it.
To describe the kaleidoscope of colours and the scenery through which
we passed in that north-west passage of Lake Argentino would merely
leave me a beggar in adjectives. Suffice it to say that for that day
at least the mist and gloom of the clouds shared short watches with
the gold and white of flying sunshine. For the first time in our
experience of her the launch played us no tricks, and our progress
went on at a steady three knots. Soon a gigantic glacier showed in the
channel, seeming to block all farther advance. The Fjord looked full
of icebergs; there must have been three thousand of them lying, an
inanimate fleet, in their mountain-bound harbour of wind and mist.
A nasty squall caught us as we dodged among the ice, the smallest
ripple set us gripping our frail craft, and I am afraid that a
moderate sea would have drowned her fires and sent us to explore
downwards rather than onwards. Indeed, our entire life on the launch
was one long history of danger-dodging. I do not give the details,
because some of the same sort have already been written, and
repetition is needless. I grant there was more risk in taking the
launch and using her in such waters than, perhaps, wisdom would have
approved. Without her, however, we could have had no chance of
exploring the North Fjord and solving the mystery of the "river with
clear waters." Moreover, those who accompanied me went of their own
free will, and I must here record my gratitude to Mr. Cattle, who
willingly risked his life on our voyages in the launch, and also to
Burbury--who accompanied me on my first journey--as well as to
Bernardo, who was with me throughout the whole of my Lake Argentino
experiences. Wherever I may travel in the future, I can wish for no
better companions.
[Illustration: THE NORTH FIORD]
Bernardo, the most willing of men, kept our nerves in a state of less
than pleasurable excitement. He drove the launch, when I took my eye
off him, with 145 lb. of steam in her worn-out boiler--her
safety-limit at the best of times had been 130 lb. On shore he
succeeded in firing off my jungle-gun by mistake, narrowly missing
killing himself at close quarters and myself at some few feet
distance. But even after this involuntary attempt at manslaughter one
could not be angry with him, he was so genuinely sorry, yet one could
not help foreseeing that he was eminently likely to do something of
the sort again. He was, to use slang, such a "decent chap," he never
grumbled when he had nothing to eat, or a bout of bitter cold labour
when we were obliged to turn out in the night to get up the anchor
or do some other job. He was also a glutton of the first water for
work, but we were all persuaded that he would end by slaying us, in
which case I have not the slightest doubt he would have said to me as
we were being ferried across the Styx, "By good, Mr. Preechard, I am
sorry, the old launch she bust up!" From looking on the launch, as he
did at first, with considerable awe and respect, familiarity with her
bred contempt, and all her parts lost their novelty to him, save the
whistle. When he blew that his face would betoken the intensest
satisfaction. In many ways the placid Swede caused us much amusement.
[Illustration: BEYOND MAN'S FOOTSTEPS]
One of the most singular things to be observed during that day was the
absence of life in the forest which bordered the shore. It was strange
to sail along under the vast masses of vegetation and rarely to see or
hear any sign of life. On March 12 we continued our advance, and
finding that the Fjord here split up into three or four channels, we
chose the most westward of them. Our progress was very slow owing to
the west wind having packed the ice. In the evening we made our camp
among some dead trees upon the margin of the water, and I wandered off
into the thickets, where I saw a Cordillera wolf. I picked up a stone
and threw it at him, but this had no effect until I hit him with a
small twig, which made him growl. Finally he took refuge in a bush.
It was while at this camp that we cut for the first time some _Leña
dura_ as firing for the launch. It proved better than califate and
gave at least three times the amount of heat to be had from
_roblé_-wood. Afterwards, whenever possible, we burned no other fuel
than _Leña dura_.
The following is from my diary:
"_March 21._--During this trip we have had a collapsible canvas boat
in tow of the launch, which boat has saved us many a wetting in
boarding and in leaving the launch. We go ashore in relays, one man
remaining on the launch. This evening, while Cattle, Burbury and I
were on the beach wood-cutting and tent-pitching, I heard Cattle
shout, and, looking round, saw, to my disgust, the canvas boat already
some twenty yards out and drifting quickly away from the beach. The
wind had caught her broadside on, and she was being blown out into the
current beyond the calm of our sheltering promontory. Cattle and I ran
down to the shingle, casting off our clothes as we went. I thought we
were in for a long swim, no pleasant prospect in that ice-cold water
among the floes. But, as luck would have it, there was a little point
of land projecting from the cliff of the promontory, and to this we
made our hurried way, leaving behind us a spoor of shed garments. We
arrived in the nick of time to secure the boat, and Cattle rowed her
round to the beach beyond the camp.
"There is one enormous glacier visible almost due north. It had
evidently been throwing many bergs of late. We called it the Giant's
Glacier. This glacier is marked with double lines of brown reaching
from the clouds right down to the margin of the water, for all the
world like the tracks of the chariot wheels of some giant. We are now
very much in the kingdom of the ice. Away beyond the immediate
foreground of the shores and forests is spread a panorama of unnamed
peaks. The silence is seldom broken save by the scream of the wind or
the crashing fall of some mass of ice from the glaciers.
"I find my camera has been damaged. This is unfortunate, but hardly to
be wondered at. It is a difficult matter to prevent mischief when the
launch rolls and everything gets adrift, and one's time is taken up
with keeping one's balance, steering, or in doing the myriad little
jobs that crowd one upon the other. Although the camera reposed in the
sheltering care of various rugs in the after-hatch, the heavy weather
defeated all our precautions. In this difficulty a novel of Miss Marie
Corelli's has been of the utmost assistance, and saved us from the
misfortune of being unable to take photographs. The colonial edition
of the 'Master Christian' has a thick red cover, and with the help of
some flour paste we have succeeded in making the camera light-proof.
Thus I owe a second debt of gratitude to Miss Marie Corelli, beside
the pleasure of reading her book."
The next day broke clear and still, raising our hopes as to our
progress through the ice. I must say that we took our fine blue
weather--little of it as we were blessed with--with a hearty pleasure,
and enjoyed it most thoroughly. We might be cold and wet an hour
later, but between the squalls it was not so disagreeable, and we made
the best of the breaks.
It was not long under these favourable circumstances before we reached
the last curve of the channel, and were confronted by another glacier
of considerable size, coming down through a depression in the midst of
a mountain. Below the glacier the shoulders and base of the mountain
were covered with dark forests. All round under the cliffs was, as I
have said, deep water, how deep I do not know, as we had no means of
taking soundings of such depth.
As there seemed little to be gained by landing at the foot of the
glacier we ran back to the camp of the previous night, where the
harbourage was at any rate somewhat better. While we were yet ashore,
a squall began to grow up in the sky to the west and came down upon
the water in an angry spatter of rain. It subsided, however, as
quickly as it had arisen, so we got afloat again. Running back through
the narrow throat of the channel, we found that the wind, which had
veered several points to the north, had almost blocked it with a fleet
of icebergs, that were grinding together on the swell of the water.
These we managed to make our way through, and it was with some
thankfulness that we presently reached the farther shore on the east
of the main Fjord. We had no sooner arrived than it began to blow in
heavy gusts, and five minutes after the first of them--so quickly do
the seas rise upon this lake--we had to shift our anchorage.
In an hour or two, having in the meantime laid in a good store of
firewood, and the heavy wind being succeeded by a series of cold
showers, we took advantage of the lull and headed up the main Fjord to
the north. But the wind, that had temporarily dropped, soon resumed
its fury, and the launch was hard put to it to keep her position, far
less to make any headway, and then, as was usual in moments of need,
the pumps ceased working altogether, and Burbury shouted that no more
than ten minutes' steam remained in the boiler. There was nothing for
it but to turn her and to run for the land. We found, however, small
hope of anchorage, for a bare fifty-foot cliff rose sheer out of the
water and so continued for a long distance ahead. Seeing we were
unlikely to discover a suitable position, we decided to cross the
lake, but we had not gone far when the propeller wheezed into silence.
Strong squalls caught us and made the launch roll and heave. Cattle
got into the canvas boat with the idea of trying to tow her, and I
forward, put out the long oar, which we generally used as one of the
bulwarks--and we both endeavoured to keep her from turning broadside
on to the waves, in which case she would have been swamped.
Cattle shortly gave up his attempt to tow her; in the sea then running
such an effort was hopeless. The wind increased. Cattle came aboard,
not without difficulty, and tried rowing with a short oar. Meantime
Burbury was baling water into the boiler with a cooking-pot. The
launch was rolling in a manner which made rowing a difficult matter.
Presently the oar I was using broke off short and the launch was
drifting ominously near to a reef. It was a race as to whether we
should get up steam before we were cast upon it. We watched the index
of the register slowly beginning to quiver, and when it marked 30 lb.
we were not much more than a score or so of yards from the rocks. This
was, however, enough to enable us to get way on and forge slowly out
of danger.
Our steam did not last much longer than to allow us to find shelter
under the lee of a line of low rocks, which thrust themselves out and
served as a little breakwater in the lake. We remained there while
Burbury again filled the boiler, and, having got up steam, we made the
mouth of a deep inlet which afforded us good harbourage. Here we
landed, and found ourselves upon a peninsula shaped like a spoon, the
handle that connected it with the land being very narrow. At its upper
end it joined the moraine of the great glacier which I had called
Giant's Glacier.
As we came in to the beach, three guanacos cantered down and stared
and neighed at us. The sight of these animals brightened the prospect,
as it was pleasant to see living creatures in what had hitherto seemed
to be an empty amphitheatre of hills. The bay where we had anchored
was a shallow lagoon, into which flowed a little stream that wound
away out of sight through a thin belt of forest over land
comparatively flat. This peninsula carried a light soil and good
grass, but bore the appearance of a spot that the winter would strike
with peculiar severity. The wood was all _roblé_ and _Leña dura_ and
the scrub included califate-bushes, from which last, however, the
purple berries had long since departed, much to our sorrow. Huemules,
guanacos, pumas, and the red fox gave evident signs of their presence.
I observed a pigmy owl (_Glaucidium nanum_) and several caranchos. In
the evening, when speaking upon the subject, Cattle informed me that
several kinds of fish were to be found in Lake Argentino. Often as we
used to make our meal of fish and fariña (a compound in the concoction
of which for good or evil Bernardo stood alone), I used to regret my
inability to bring back specimens of the fish from this lake, but I
had no means of preserving them.
"Fish and fariña," indeed, became a standing joke with us. We might
threaten to blow each other up by the agency of the launch's peculiar
engines, and the threats would pass as nothing; but the expressed
intention of any one of us who proposed to go and catch fish with a
view to preparing a meal of "fish and fariña" soon became too much for
the strongest and bravest among us. As a matter of fact, the fish was
far from tempting, having a muddy flavour and being full of small
bones, which mixed themselves up inextricably with the fariña.[28]
That night shut down with a gale and much rain. The trees groaned, and
one close to us was blown down. It was with a very thankful heart that
I woke up in the middle of the storm and reflected upon the glorious
safety of our new-found harbour. Next morning I was awakened sometime
in the dusky grey of dawn because a couple of Chiloe widgeon had come
in close to the launch, and roasted duck was voted good by the
wakeful Burbury. I sleepily thought the widgeon might have waited, and
after all something scared the ducks and they flew off to a distance
of a couple of hundred yards. My stalk only resulted in my securing
one of the birds.
The ice we had observed earlier in the mouth of the most westerly
channel had by this time completely blocked the opening. We spent the
day wandering about upon the peninsula, and I tried to get some
photographs, but the attempt was rather hopeless in the mist and rain.
Indeed, although advantage was taken of every lifting of the weather,
four pictures were all that this trip allowed of my completing.
The following day, in spite of bad weather, we made a third attempt to
head up the North Fjord, at the end of which we hoped to find the
"river with clear waters" mentioned by Dr. Moreno, and at the end of
that again the unknown lake. We made two hours very slow progress, the
north-west wind quickly beating up a troublesome sea. We observed bits
of wood travelling faster than is usual in cases of drift, and now
made sure that, could we but reach the end of the Fjord, we should
find the river whose current we believed to be responsible for the
comparatively rapid movement of the wood.
Our hopes were on this occasion destined to disappointment, for, in
spite of all our efforts, we were unable to go forward or to make head
against the bad weather, which continued for some days. Besides this,
the injector of the launch failed to perform its office, and as the
machinery was badly in need of repairs, and the cracked plate was
letting in water, I thought it better to run before the wind to Cow
Monte Harbour, which was, in fact, our headquarters, and where such
tools as we had were stored. One point that was always in our favour
while making these attempts to force our way up the North Fjord, lay
in the fact that the prevailing winds from north-west or south-west,
as the case might be, helped rather than hindered us on our return
passages.
[Illustration: OUR LAUNCH AMONG THE ICE]
During this interval, while waiting for a second opportunity of
attempting to gain the extreme end of the North Fjord of the lake, we
arranged to make a short voyage down the South Fjord, or, as it is
locally known, to Lake Rica. By doing this, moreover, we should
complete our circumnavigation of Lake Argentino. Before we left,
reliable news came up from the settlements with some belated Christmas
and other papers. We were very relieved to learn that the
Franco-Russian combination was no more than a camp-scare, nor was
Russia advancing on India, as the last rumours had told us. When one
has lost so large a slice of the general history of the world as we
did during the months passed on our expedition, it is hopeless to
imagine one can ever make up the loss. The events of that period must
always remain blurred and hazy in the mind, only a few ever attaining
an accurate outline. And then how greedy one becomes of news after an
abstinence so prolonged as ours from that daily mental excitement of
civilisation! It is difficult to describe how one grips the strayed
journal or periodical when one has been cut off for months from these
"curses of modern life."
On April 11 we left Cow Monte Harbour and steamed westwards down the
Punta Bandera Channel. In a short time the pump broke down and we had
some trouble in putting it right again. In defence of our engineering
skill I must say that we had against us the fact that a part of the
pump had been taken away for repairs to Buenos Aires by the
Commission. We camped at the mouth of a river coming down out of Mount
Avellaneda. Above us the bare volcanic summits of the mountains rose
starkly out of their circling forests, that were now turning crimson
with the brilliant colours of autumn. We could also see the great
glacier on the western side of the Canal de los Tempanos. Many
deer-tracks were visible, but we saw only one huemul buck in the edge
of the forest.
We made an early start next day, which luckily was calm, for the pump
gave us a good deal of bother. We proceeded down a smaller fjord lying
under Mount Avellaneda, which took us in a westerly direction, but
presently curved southwards and ended in a large mountain covered with
forest, which I named Mount Millais. The chief hindrances in these
winding passages were the constantly veering winds that we
encountered. Day and night we were obliged to keep up a constant
struggle against them. This was all very well during the daylight,
but to anchor the launch snugly and then to be waked by her bumping
and straining at her cable perhaps ten times in the night, and to have
to turn out in just what you happened to have on in the way of
sleeping apparel supplemented only by "the mantle of the night,"--for
there never was a moment to be lost at these junctures--was an
experience which quickly became monotonous and wearing to strength and
temper. During this South Fjord trip the launch certainly did herself
proud in this direction; she seldom gave us a couple of hours' quiet
rest, often forcing us to face the biting cold a dozen times between
dark and dawn.
The forests about this part of the lake were immense, and contained
trees and plants unknown in the outer Cordillera or, rather, I should
say, the foothills.[29] A bush resembling holly was conspicuous,
fuchsias also abounded.
I quote a short description of this region from my diary: "The
mountains go in and out of the mist, now seen, now lost. The mist
shrouds them at one moment, and the greyness reaches up to heaven and
down to earth--into a man's soul it often seems; the next instant
there may be gleams of a sad blue sky shining through the torn banners
of the haze, and glaciers assume a wonderful goblin hue, a pallid
violet." There was some sameness in our days, but the launch kept us
alive with anticipation. She seldom lacked the chance of giving us
some surprise. Often we asked each other, "Will she drown us after
all? And when and where?" A cold death and a deep grave she had it in
her power to give. The one good side to the situation was that when we
landed, as we often did, in a sleety drizzle on a swampy camp, we
forbore to grumble, but were, on the contrary, filled with a strong
thankfulness to have escaped from her even for a little time.
We had one particularly bad night, when a series of squalls came down
on us, and we spent the greater part of our sleeping-hours in poling
the launch off the shore, but at last the wind got the better of us
and literally hurled her on the beach.
How we managed to get her off it is impossible to describe; we did it
somehow. The next morning was still windy, but we steamed along the
Canal de los Tempanos under Mount Buenos Aires, and there it was that
a fire broke out on the launch. This was an accident we always
dreaded, for, having no room elsewhere, we were obliged to pile the
fuel round her engine, with the result that it occasionally became
dangerously heated.
[Illustration: GLACIER DE LOS TEMPANOS]
Landing at the end of the Canal de los Tempanos we found ourselves in
forests of magnificent timber. The vegetation was rank and luxuriant,
a mass of decay under a forest of life. From the swampy dank ground
tall stems sprang up straight and branchless as palms, while at their
feet grew a carpet of ferns.
We had some marvellous days of fine weather in the Cordillera, where
on the mountain slopes, as winter drew on, the crimson shades crept
deeper to mingle with and finally change the green. In due time we
reached the South Fjord by water. The account of a previous visit on
horseback has already been told. Then we turned homewards, and on the
way I secured some good photos of the great glacier of the Canal de
los Tempanos. As we passed down the canal, a big berg broke off from
the glacier ahead of us and plunged into the water, sending up a huge
wave, which luckily only touched us slightly. It was well we were no
nearer. We witnessed after this the fall of several lesser pieces of
ice, the noise of which resounded loudly among the gorges.
Our return voyage was eventless. While Bernardo was making our
camp-fire upon landing, he called to me to come with my rifle. He said
he had been attacked by a large Cordillera wolf, which snapped at his
legs. He retaliated with an axe, but it got away. Following in the
direction he indicated, I caught a glimpse of the animal crossing a
patch of moonlight, and fired, hitting it far back.
There are many thousands of square miles of unexplored forest in
Patagonia. It is a region unknown and mysterious, which has never been
deeply explored by man. As has been said, no man lives in them, and it
is a question whether man has ever lived there, for the one
all-sufficient reason--the practical absence of game on which he might
subsist.
I well remember my first sight of the forests, and the intense longing
that took hold upon me to make my way into their virgin fastnesses. It
is one of the traveller's most unquenchable desires, this hankering to
go where no other man has yet been. It springs, I suppose, from the
undefined thought that in the unknown everything is possible, though
few things perhaps come to pass.
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE GLACIER DE LOS TEMPANOS]
From afar the forests appear to rim the slopes and spurs of the
Cordillera with a seemingly impenetrable mass of blackness, reaching
towards and often running up into the snow-line; as you approach the
colour assumes its true hue, a deep dense green, a green that seems to
have the quality of absorbing light, so that, as you gaze upon the
expanse of foliage stretching back into the distances, fold beyond
fold, where the valleys and mountain-sides close in behind each other,
an impression of gloom and mystery lays hold upon your mind. Upon
still nearer inspection you find the trees ranked in heavy phalanxes,
while between their close-set trunks has grown up an under-tangle of
thorn. Old storms have overthrown many of the giants, so that they lie
in tens and twenties, or lean against their yet quick companions
awaiting the slow decay of things. But it is very hard to give any
adequate idea in words of these vast and nameless tree-kingdoms. Most
common among the trees was the antarctic beech. I observed also
redwood and cypress.
[Illustration: GLACIER AND GLACIAL DETRITUS]
There are some wild cattle and huemules to be found in the outskirts
of the woodlands; we also saw parrots, hawks and owls in some of our
wanderings, while in other spots there seemed no sign of life at all
save a few small rodents, and even those, as we pushed farther into
the thicker recesses, disappeared. And then we came under the sway of
that curious silence which broods among these forest depths.
The aspects of the various forests and the trees of which they were
composed varied greatly. Some were bare and devoid of undergrowth as a
northern forest; others were absolutely tropical in their heavy
luxuriance. In one, a majestic place, the tall antarctic beeches were
draped with long trailing Spanish moss, and on the carpet of moss
beneath them lay here and there a dead tree.
Few places are more mournful than this region when rain is falling.
After the rain ceases, mists arise and circle round you, shutting you
in, these in their turn often being dissipated by a sudden fierce
squall. In summer the climate is very humid, and many of the plants
have the fat damp aspect seldom observable save in the tropics. The
huge masses of rank vegetation seem to stifle you; once you have been
in that great black insatiable woodland you can never quite shake off
its influence.
In that particular forest was one glade by the outrunning of a little
brook where the ground was thick with orchids.[30]
One reads of "virgin forests," but one must behold them to comprehend
the reality that underlies the wording. For days you saw no living
thing, heard no human tones, nothing but the immense voices of the
thunder, the glacier and the everlasting wind. The solitude of
Patagonia, its peculiar characteristic of lack of human life in the
present and the past, was borne in upon one under that high dome of
foliage, and in those aisles abysmally vast, stretching north, south,
east and west. In any other country legends would have gathered round
these places, some touch of man's presence and adventure humanised
them, so to speak. In Patagonia the fancy had nothing to grip, to grow
upon, no story of joy or of sorrow. Solitude reigned alone, and nature
spoke only by the awful uninterpreted tongues of God's elements.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Two kinds of fish came under my observation, but I understood
there were four.
[29] I hope in a future volume to publish a list of the plants we
collected. At the moment of writing all have not reached England.
[30] There were also orchids growing about the foothills of the
Cordillera. Those I brought back are now under the care of the Curator
of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. They should flower before this
book is in print.