LIFE ON THE PAMPAS.
At sunrise on the day but one following that mentioned at the close of
the preceding chapter, I left the house of my hospitable friend, after
bidding farewell to my amiable hostess, and proceeded with Mr. G. to a
plaza on the outskirts of the town, from whence all troops of carts or
mules take their departure for the interior provinces of the country.
We entered the square in time to find Don José Leon Perera, the
_patron_ or owner of the caravan, who was reclining upon a skin beneath
the cart that contained his personal property, enjoying his cigarito,
and finishing his fifth _maté_. This gentleman received his visitors
with a pompous wave of the hand, and requested us to be seated,
pointing at the same time to an old wheel lying not far off upon the
ground.
Some minutes having passed in exchanging compliments, after the manner
of the country, Mr. G. informed the _patron_ that he had with him a
young man who had come from _El Norte_ with the intention of crossing
the pampas, and that he proposed accompanying the caravan on foot;
moreover, as he was inexperienced, it would be necessary to place him
beneath his (Don José’s) protecting care. At mention of my crossing
the plains on foot, Don José, with a stare of astonishment, declared it
could not be done. To the second proposition--that of his assuming my
guardianship--he acquiesced, however, and mentioned upon what terms I
could accompany him. For the use of a horse (in case I should need an
animal), and a place in a cart for my baggage, seventeen dollars would
be required of me--a sum sufficient to have purchased two ordinary
horses, at the prices which they then were sold at.
Four dollars were demanded for the supply of meat, of which I was to
have an ample allowance; and besides this sum, a fee of one dollar was
to be given to a native--a fellow of villanous appearance--who was to
be my _compañero_ (companion) and cook. It was to be his particular
duty to see that his _protégé_ was well attended, well fed, and guarded
from all harm if the Indians should attack the caravan. Of course I
was to believe that great valor would be exhibited, and much blood be
spilled, by the brave individual who was to be my protector. My new
guardian and the other drivers of the carts differed widely from the
inhabitants of the pampa provinces. They belonged in the northern part
of the republic, in the distant province of Santiago, and spoke the
ancient language of their fathers,--the Quichua,--while the _patron_
and two or three natives of the lower states conversed in the Spanish
or common language of the country. Knowing that I should be unable to
converse with Don José or his peons while upon the journey, I made a
number of inquiries in relation to the manner of living, and what I
might expect on the trip, all of which, with the assistance of Mr. G.,
were comprehended by the natives, and I was answered that luxurious
living, sympathizing friends, and unalloyed enjoyment were to be the
accompaniments of my journey across the pampas. The anxiety that had
caused me many sleepless nights previous to the interview with the
_patron_ and his Indian peons now disappeared, and I looked forward to
opportunities for gleaning, in a rich field, a harvest of information
and valuable facts not yet familiar to my adventurous countrymen.
Matters having been settled by my paying Don José in advance the full
demands he made, Mr. G. took me aside, and prayed God speed me on my
way. “If you have money with you,” said he, “by no means let it be
seen, as these drivers do not bear a good name, and they would not
scruple to rob you should opportunity offer. The _patron_ I believe to
be honest, and while he is with the troop you have nothing to fear.” He
then bade me farewell, pressed my hand cordially, and we parted.
Towards noon about one hundred oxen were driven into the plaza, when
each peon, having received his allotted six, conducted them to his
cart. A piece of tough wood, six or seven feet in length, five inches
in width, and three in thickness, served as a yoke; it was laid on the
neck, just back of the animal’s horns, and lashed securely to them by
a long strip of raw hide, thus causing the whole strain to come upon
the head and neck, instead of upon the shoulders, as is customary with
cattle that are yoked as in the United States.
The carts were most cumbrous affairs, and in appearance were not unlike
a _rancho_, or native hut, set upon wheels. The body consisted of a
framework of sticks covered upon the sides and back with small reeds,
and roofed with cattle hides, which rendered them secure against the
heaviest rain. The carts, which probably exceeded twelve feet in
length, were only four feet wide, and, being mounted upon two wheels
of extraordinary diameter, were sufficiently novel and striking to my
uneducated eyes. The only iron used in their construction consisted of
a few scraps used to strengthen the nave of the wheel; all the other
parts were fastened together by bands of hide, and wooden pins. The
heavy tongue rested upon the yoke of the first pair of oxen, and from
it ran long ropes of hide, which connected with the yokes of the second
pair and leaders.
The method of driving the oxen practised by these people is most
barbarous. There projects, a few feet from the roof, running forward
of the cart, a portion of the ridge-pole, from which is suspended, by
a piece of lasso, a becket that swings to and fro with the motion of
the cart. This becket supports a heavy cane, nearly thirty feet in
length, having at the end a sharp iron nail that serves to quicken
the movements of the leaders; above the second pair is another goad,
differing from the first by projecting from a wooden cone that hangs
beneath the cane-pole.
This instrument is called the _picano grande_, and it requires a
skilful hand in its guidance, in consequence of its weight and the
constant oscillatory motion when the wagon is moving. The driver holds
one end in his right hand, and, by constant thrusts, drives it into
the animals without mercy. By lifting the end of the _picano_, the
part outside the becket is lowered, and the perpendicular goad touches
the backs of the second pair, while in his left hand the driver holds
the _picano chico_ (little goad), and spurs the tongue oxen, or those
nearest the wagon, upon which the severest labor falls. The principle
upon which the cattle are guided is also peculiar. If the driver wishes
the ox to turn to the left, the goad is applied to that side, and the
animal follows the direction _pricked_ upon him; if to the right, the
_picano_ is applied to that side, with a similar result. I have seen
the unfortunate beasts goaded until the blood trickled from their
wounds; but still they followed the instrument, upon whichever side
they felt its sharp sting. With small carts, having but one pair of
oxen, the driver sits upon the yoke and tongue of the vehicle, _picano_
in hand, with his legs coiled beneath him _à la Turque_.
Everything was in readiness for the journey, but the butcher had not
arrived with the meat for provisions, a delay at which the _patron_
gave vent to many a _carramba_ of impatience. Shortly, however, a
little, ricketty, two-wheeled cart, lashed together with strips of
hide, was driven into the plaza, and its owner distributed the expected
meat among the different carts. While he was thus employed, some women,
carrying a little tinsel-covered _Santa_, passed around the caravan,
and each peon devoutly kissed the garments of the image, to insure, as
I supposed, a prosperous journey.
At last the caravan commenced its march, and we bade farewell to
Rosario and to civilization, Don José the _patron_ and Don Manuel the
_capataz_ leading the caravan, on horseback.
First following them were, creaking loudly, fourteen clumsy carts
loaded with _yerba_, sugar, iron, and other merchandise. Next came
fifteen or twenty spare oxen, as many horses, with about a dozen mules,
driven by an old guide, two youngsters, and the carpenter of the troop,
who also acted as assistant _capataz_. I walked in advance of the
_patron_, though he advised me to enter the cart, as walking, he said,
was injurious to the system.
Our course lay over a level country covered with fine grass, which,
having been pastured by cattle, was very short. After journeying four
miles, we came to a halt; the oxen were unlashed, and allowed to feed
by the roadside, while the men kindled a fire of thistles, roasted a
strip of meat, and took their gourds of Paraguay tea.
The manner of cooking meat on the pampas is worth a moment’s attention.
After an animal has been killed, the meat is cut into pieces, without
any regard to anatomy, or to the butcher’s “regular cuts,” and an iron
spit called the _asador_ is run longitudinally through each strip.
The _asador_ is stuck into the ground close by the fire, and, being
carefully watched, the steak is gradually cooked in a manner that would
gain no discredit in a well-regulated kitchen. The result of this
method of cooking is that none of the juices of the meat are lost.
When our _asados_ were sufficiently roasted, the chief took them from
the fire, and, driving the point of the spit into the ground, invited
me, with a profound salaam, to commence my repast. Cutting a small
piece from the roasted strip, and taking it upon the point of my
knife, I put it, as a matter of course, into my mouth. At this the
group around me broke into a boisterous laugh, and one swarthy fellow
volunteered his services in teaching me how to eat _à la gaucho_.
Drawing from his belt that inseparable companion which the gaucho never
parts with--a long knife--the fellow cut off a strip of meat, and,
holding one end with his fingers, dropped the other into his mouth;
then followed a quick upward stroke with the knife, so close to his
lips that I involuntarily started, severing the meat, and leaving a
huge piece between his teeth. This feat was accomplished so rapidly
that it astonished me; but as I found that it was the universal custom
among the peons, I attempted to imitate them. But on the first trial
the blade of my knife came in contact with the end of my nose, cutting
it enough to draw blood. At this a loud laugh went through the group,
at the expense of “Bostron the gringo,” which name they insisted upon
calling me, notwithstanding my efforts to show that Boston, and not
Bostron, was my native city.
After the usual _siesta_, we continued our journey. Nothing of
importance occurred until sunset, when, as I glanced across the
plain, it seemed to at once become endowed with life. As the sun
sank below the horizon, the owners of innumerable little burrows,
which I had noticed through the greater part of the afternoon all
over the plains, came out of the holes in such numbers as to astonish
the uninitiated. As I watched one of the holes, I saw first a little
round head, enlivened by a pair of black, twinkling eyes, peeping out;
then followed a dusky body, and, finally, the animal, having become
satisfied that our intentions were not unfriendly, sat by his doorway
with the greatest nonchalance imaginable; but in a moment, after
observing us curiously, he scampered off to join the hundreds, if not
thousands, that were playing about in the grass around us.
Sometimes we saw an old female trotting along with four or five young
ones on a visit to a neighbor; and frequently we saw some of these
_reunions_, in which, while the old people were exchanging compliments,
the juvenile members of the family chased each other merrily about the
mounds.
These animals, which bore some resemblance to the marmots, were
called by the natives _bizcacha_. The species is the _Lagostomas
trichodactylus_ of naturalists. Its habits are similar to those of the
proper marmots; in size it exceeds the opossum of North America.
About the entrance of the burrows I noticed that a quantity of rubbish
is usually collected, such as the bones of deceased relatives and of
other animals, mixed with thistles, roots, &c. These _bizcachas_ are
found all over the pampas, as far south as the confines of Patagonia,
beyond which, however, they have never been observed.
The singular habit of collecting all compact substances about their
burrows seems peculiar to these animals. A traveller’s watch, which had
been lost, was found at the entrance to one of their domiciles, the
animals having dragged it from the camp near by.
Darwin says the _bizcacha_ is found as far north as 30° south latitude,
and “abounds even to Mendoza, and is there replaced by an Alpine
species.”
It is not an inhabitant of the Banda Oriental, east of the Uruguay
River.
The following accounts of North American species will be interesting
to the reader, since they give a good idea of the habits of nearly
allied species. Audubon and Bachman, in their Quadrupeds of North
America, say of the prairie dog, “This noisy spermophile, or marmot,
is found in numbers, sometimes hundreds, of families together, living
in burrows on the prairies; and their galleries are so extensive as to
render riding among them quite unsafe in many places. Their habitations
are generally called dog towns, or villages, by the Indians and
trappers, and are described as being intersected by streets (pathways)
for their accommodation, and a degree of neatness and cleanliness
is preserved. These villages or communities are, however, sometimes
infested with rattlesnakes and other reptiles which feed upon these
animals. The burrowing owl (_Surnia cunicularia_) is also found among
them. Occasionally these marmots stood quite erect, and watched our
movements, and then leaped into the air, all the time keeping an eye on
us. Now and then, one of them, after coming out of his hole, issued a
long and somewhat whistling note, perhaps a call or invitation to his
neighbors, as several came out in a few moments. They are, as we think,
more in the habit of feeding by night than in the daytime.”
Lieutenant Abert, who observed the prairie dog in New Mexico, says
it does not hibernate, “but is out all winter, as lively and as
pert as on any summer day.” Another observer states that it “closes
accurately the mouth of its furrow, and constructs at the bottom of
it a neat globular cell of fine dry grass, having an aperture at the
top sufficiently large to admit a finger, and so compactly put together
that it might almost be rolled along the ground, uninjured.”
Perhaps different winter temperatures in different localities may
govern the habit of hibernation.
The following sketch, from Kendall’s narrative of the Texan expedition
to Santa Fé, is so interesting that I present it to the reader:--
“We sat down upon a bank, under the shade of a mesquit, and leisurely
surveyed the scene before us. Our approach had driven every one to his
home in our immediate vicinity, but at the distance of some hundred
yards the small mound of earth in front of each burrow was occupied by
a prairie dog, sitting erect on his hinder legs, and coolly looking
about for the cause of the recent commotion. Every now and then, some
citizen, more adventurous than his neighbor, would leave his lodgings,
on a flying visit to a friend, apparently exchange a few words, and
then scamper back as fast as his legs would carry him. By and by, as we
kept perfectly still, some of our near neighbors were seen cautiously
poking their heads from out their holes, looking craftily, and at the
same time inquisitively, about them. Gradually a citizen would emerge
from the entrance of his domicile, come out upon his observatory, peek
his head cunningly, and then commence yelping, somewhat after the
manner of a young puppy, a quick jerk of the tail accompanying each
yelp. It is this short bark alone that has given them the name of dogs,
as they bear no more resemblance to that animal, either in appearance,
action, or manner of living, than they do to the hyena.
“Prairie dogs are a wild, frolicsome, madcap set of fellows when
undisturbed, uneasy, and ever on the move, and appear to take especial
delight in chattering away the time, and visiting from hole to hole to
gossip and talk over each other’s affairs; at least, so their actions
would indicate. When they find a good location for a village, and
there is no water in the immediate vicinity, old hunters say they dig
a well to supply the wants of the community. On several occasions I
crept close to their villages without being observed, to watch their
movements. Directly in the centre of one of them I noticed a very
large dog, which, by his actions, and those of his neighbors, seemed
the chief or big dog of the village. For at least an hour I watched
this village; during this time the large dog received at least a dozen
visits from his fellow-dogs, who would stop and chat with him a few
minutes, and then run off to their holes. All this while he never
left his seat at the entrance to his home, and I thought that I could
perceive a gravity in his deportment not discernible in those by whom
he was surrounded. Far is it from me to say that the visits he received
were upon business, or had anything to do with the local government of
the village, but it certainly appeared so.”
The _bizcacha_ does not live alone, for in each burrow I found a pair
of small owls, of the species known by the name of the “Burrowing Owl
of South America” (_Athene cunicularia_, Molina). As these birds are
somewhat peculiar in their habits, and some few errors have crept
into the writings of various authors regarding them, I will, for the
information of those interested, present the following sketch of their
habits, the result of observations which I made during my long journey.
I first met with this owl on the banks of the River San Juan, in the
Banda Oriental, one hundred and twenty miles west of Montevideo,
where a few pairs were observed devouring mice and insects during the
daytime. From the river, travelling westward thirty miles, I did not
meet a single individual, but after crossing the Las Vacas, and coming
upon a sandy waste covered with scattered trees and low bushes, I again
met with several.
Upon the pampas of the Argentine Republic they are found in great
numbers, from a few miles west of Rosario, on the Paraná, latitude 32°
56′ south, to the vicinity of San Luis, where the pampas end, and a
travesia or saline desert commences.
On these immense plains of grass it lives in company with the
_bizcacha_. The habits of this bird are said to be the same as those of
the species that inhabits the holes of the marmots upon the prairies
of western North America. But this is not strictly correct, for one
writer says of the northern species, “we have no evidence that the
owl and marmot habitually resort to one burrow;” and Say remarks that
“they were either common, though unfriendly, residents of the same
habitation, or that our owl was the sole occupant of a burrow acquired
by the right of conquest.” In this respect they differ from their South
American relatives, who live in perfect harmony with the _bizcacha_,
and during the day, while the latter is sleeping, a pair of these birds
stand a few inches within the main entrance of the burrow, and at the
first strange sound, be it near or distant, they leave their station,
and remain outside the hole, or upon the mound which forms the roof of
the domicile. When man approaches, both birds mount above him in the
air, and keep uttering their alarm note, with irides dilated, until he
passes, when they quietly settle down in the grass, or return to their
former place.
While on the pampas, I did not observe these birds taking prey during
the daytime, but at sunset the _bizcachas_ and owls leave their holes,
and search for food, the young of the former playing about the birds
as they alighted near them. They do not associate in companies, there
being but one pair to each hole, and at night do not stray far from
their homes.
In describing the North American burrowing owl, a writer says that the
species “suddenly disappears in the early part of August,” and that
“the species is strictly diurnal.”
The _Athene cunicularia_ has not these habits. It does not disappear
during any part of the year, and it is both nocturnal and diurnal, for
though I did not observe it preying by day on the pampas, I noticed
that it fed at all hours of the day and night on the north shore of the
Plata, in the Banda Oriental.
At longitude 66° west our caravan struck the great saline desert that
stretches to the Andes, and during fourteen days’ travel on foot I did
not see a dozen of these birds; but while residing outside the town of
San Juan, at the eastern base of the Andes, I had an opportunity to
watch their habits in a locality differing materially from the pampas.
The months of September and October are the conjugal ones. During the
middle of the former month I obtained a male bird with a broken wing.
It lived in confinement two days, refusing to eat, and died from the
effects of the wound. A few days later a boy brought me a female owl,
with five eggs, that had been taken from her nest, five feet from the
mouth of a burrow that wound among the roots of a tree.
She was fierce in her cage, and fought with wings and beak, uttering
all the while a shrill, prolonged note, resembling the sound produced
by drawing a file across the teeth of a saw. I supplied her with eleven
full-grown mice, which were devoured during the first thirty-six hours
of confinement.
I endeavored to ascertain if this species burrows its own habitation,
but my observations of eight months failed to impress me with the
belief that it does. I have conversed with intelligent persons who
have been familiar with their habits, and never did I meet one that
believed this bird to be its own workman. It places a small nest of
feathers at the end of some occupied or deserted burrow, as necessity
demands, in which are deposited from two to five white eggs, which are
nearly spherical in form, and are a little larger than the eggs of the
domestic pigeon.
In the Banda Oriental, where the country is as fine, and the favorite
food of the owl more plentifully distributed than upon the pampas, this
bird is not common in comparison with the numbers found in the latter
locality. The reason is obvious. The _bizcacha_ does not exist in the
Banda Oriental, and consequently these birds have a poor chance for
finding habitations. On the pampas, where thousands upon thousands
of _bizcachas_ undermine the soil, there, in their true locality, the
traveller finds thousands of owls. Again, along the bases of the Andes,
where the _bizcacha_ is rarely met with, we find only a few pairs.
Does the hole, from which my bird was taken, appear to be the work
of a bird or quadruped? The several works that I have been able to
consult do not, in one instance, give personal observations relative
to the burrowing propensities of this owl; from which fact, it will be
inferred that it never has been caught in the act of burrowing.
We continued our journey while the sun left in the western heavens
beautiful clouds of purple and gray as souvenirs of his company through
the bright, warm day.
Around us on the plains were many animals in droves and herds, all
preparing for the night. Troops of wild colts galloped homeward past us
at the heels of their anxious mothers, who occasionally halted as if to
dispute our right of passage through their territory. Darkness now set
in, and soon the caravan halted for the night. I made my bed upon a raw
hide, spread upon the top of the cargo in the cart, and was soon fast
asleep; but I was shortly awakened by Don Facundo, who climbed into the
cart, coughing loudly, and saying, by dumb show, pointing towards the
south-west, that a _pampero_ had commenced blowing. The wind, which
was accompanied by rain and hail, violently shook the old cart, and
whistled dolefully through its reed-covered sides. The don’s cough had
increased alarmingly, and he shivered with cold. “_Compañero_,” he
continually called out, giving me a poke to signify something that his
ignorance of the Spanish language would not allow him to express more
intelligibly, for he spoke only the tongue of his native province--the
_Quichua_. I at last handed him my overcoat--an act of generosity
that I afterwards regretted, for, though I applied several times for
its restoration during the journey, he would not give it up, but ate,
slept, and worked in it until we had crossed the country, and it was no
longer serviceable.