The next morning, having said good-bye to Isidoro, who was stopping
some days with the Indians before coming down to Santa Cruz to
accompany me to Sandy Point, we started off at a brisk gallop, which
in about three hours brought us to the broad valley down which the
Santa Cruz River rolls its rapid and tortuous course.
The weather was already sensibly colder than at St. Julian. On our
road we encountered several snow and hail-storms, and were therefore
not sorry when we at last arrived in front of Pavon Island, where
there is a small house, built many years ago by an Argentine, who
lived there for the purpose of trading with the Indians--a business
still carried on by its present inmate, Don Pedro Dufour.
On hearing our shouts, the inmates of the island, _i.e._, Don Pedro
and his peon, came over to us in a small boat, in which our effects
and persons were safely transported to the island. The horses and dogs
had to swim over as best they could, and a very hard and cold job they
must have found it, as the current of the river runs with extreme
velocity, something over six miles an hour.
The house into which Don Pedro gave us a hearty welcome, was built of
adobe and stones, and contained two dwelling-rooms, a kitchen, and a
store-room. There was another smaller house on the island, used as a
store-room for the sugar, biscuit, aguadiente, etc., which Don Pedro
barters with the Indians for guanaco capas and ostrich feathers.
In the long grass behind the house a troop of horses was grazing,
together with four or five fine sheep, with which, judging by their
splendid condition, the pasturage of Patagonia evidently agreed. A pig
was grunting and clamouring greedily for food in a pen hard by; ducks,
pigeons, and other poultry were pecking about the yard; a thrush was
singing in a cage hung up outside the house, and altogether there was
quite a homely, civilised look about the place which I should not have
expected to find, considering that it is the only fixed human
habitation in that immense desert, which extends for a distance of
some seven hundred miles, from Chubut to Sandy Point--a desert whose
area is twice that of Great Britain, and whose only inhabitants are a
few ostrich-hunters and Indians.
Pending Isidoro's arrival, I made several excursions in the
neighbourhood of the island, amongst others, one to the port of Santa
Cruz, where in the hollow of a sheltered ravine stands the settlement
of M. Rouquand. The houses, of which there are several, built of
timber brought from Buenos Ayres for the purpose, I found to be little
the worse for wear or weather.
The cañon where these houses stand is still called 'Les Misioneros,'
for it was there that some missionaries resided in 1863, who laboured
for a time at the attempted conversion of the Tehuelches to
Christianity, without, however, meeting with the success their
endeavours deserved.
It is a pity that M. Rouquand's courageous attempt at colonising that
desert place and founding an industry, whose success would have been
an incentive to further enterprise, should have been thwarted by
Chili's having taken umbrage at his occupying a miserable piece of
ground, of no possible value to anybody, without having previously
gone through the formality of asking their ratification of the
concession granted him by the Argentine Government.
The port of Santa Cruz is formed by the confluence of the river of
that name and its tributary, the Rio Chico, which at this point
expands into a broad bay, capable of affording shelter to a number of
ships, and of easy access from the ocean, there being about fifty feet
of water over the bar at high tide.
The river Santa Cruz varies in breadth from four hundred yards to
nearly a mile, and runs along a winding valley, which extends in a
direct line to the westward. In 1834 an expedition under Admiral
Fitzroy, composed of three light boats, manned by eighteen sailors,
started up the river, with the object of ascertaining its source; but
having ascended a distance of 140 miles from the sea, and 240 by the
course of the river, want of provisions obliged him to turn back,
especially as, finding no diminution in the volume of its waters, he
inferred that its upper course must be along the base of the Andes,
from north to south, and that its source must probably be near that of
the Rio Negro, in lat. 45° S.
In this conjecture he was at error, for in 1877 Dr. F. Moreno
successfully determined the source of the Santa Cruz as being taken
from a lake situated in lat. 50° 14' S., and long. 71° 59' W., some
miles from Lake Viedma, with which, however, it has no visible
communication. This fine sheet of water measures thirty miles from
east to west, and ten miles at its greatest breadth; its depth Dr.
Moreno was unable to ascertain--with a line of 120 feet he could find
no bottom at a short distance from the shore.
According to the same authority the greatest depth of the river is
seventy feet, but the rapidity of the current, in some places as much
as fifteen miles an hour, must have prevented reliable soundings being
taken.
Near Lake Viedma is a volcano, the Chalten, which, according to the
Indians, still throws out quantities of ashes. At the time Dr. Moreno
was there, a column of smoke was issuing from its crater.
The country around Santa Cruz River differs in no way from that I had
already traversed, one of the peculiarities of Patagonian landscape
being its complete sameness. The plains, which occupy the greater
portion of the country, extend along the Atlantic Ocean. The line
separating them from the fertile mountain regions is extremely sharply
defined. Beginning at Cape Negro, Magellan Straits, lat. 53° S. and
long. 75° 50' W., it runs thence west-north-west to the north-eastern
extremity of Otway Water, following the channels of Fitzroy Passage,
and the northern shores of Skyring Water to long. 72° W., and then
extends along the eastern shores of Obstruction Sound and Kirke Water,
running then due northward towards Lake Viedma. These plains rise
almost uniformly, 300 feet high, one above another, like terraces, and
are traversed occasionally by ravines and flat-bottomed depressions,
which latter frequently contain salt lakes. The formation of the
country is tertiary, resting on porphyry and quartz, ridges of which
often protrude through the surface. Near long. 70° W. the plains are
capped with a layer of lava, about a hundred miles in width.
Darwin accounts for the regularity with which the plains rise one over
the other by the supposition that the land has been raised in a mass
from under the sea, the upheaving movement having been interrupted by
at least eight long periods of rest, during which the sea ate deeply
back into the land, forming at successive levels the long lines of
escarpments which separate the different plains.
In that strange country the vegetable kingdom is as little varied as
the aspect of the landscape: from Chubut to Sandy Point, from the
sea-coast to the Cordilleras, one meets the same few species of
miserable stunted bushes and coarse grasses.
The following is a cut showing the formation of the country at Port
St. Julian:[A]
[Illustration:
{ 3 feet Sand.
{ 7 " Red clay, quantities of shells and
{ macranchenia bones.
{ 3½ " {
{ 3 " { Layers of porphyry pebbles, alternating
{ { with porous sandstone.
{ 3¾ " {
42½ feet. { 6½ " Fossil mass in three layers, consisting
{ chiefly of oysters and pecten.
{ 3 " Porous sandstone, numbers of scutella
{ shells.
{ 7¾ " Green sandy clay, containing broken
{ masses of chalk and quantities of
{ _Ostrea Patagonica_.
{ 1 " Sand.
{ ----- Level of the Sea.
{ 4 "]
[A] From a perforation made by E. de Ville Massot, C.E.
Of bushes, the most frequent are the jume (_Salicemia_) and the
calafaté (_Berberis axifolia_). The former plant is remarkably rich in
soda, as will be seen by the following analysis of its ash:
Chloride of sodium 19·38
Sulphate of lime 9·50
Carbonate of magnesia 1·94
Phosphate of potash 12·15
Carbonate of potash 7·50
Silicate of soda 7·80
Carbonate of soda 41·73
------
100·00
Though they are so little favoured by nature, still I must confess
that in the sober-hued Patagonian landscapes, with their grave breadth
and stern severity of outline, and in the grand monotony of solemn
silence and solitude pervading their barren plains, there is something
which has left a far deeper impression on my mind than has the
brightest and most varied tropical scenery. Standing in the midst of
one of those seemingly endless plains, one experiences an indefinable
feeling of awe, akin to that which the contemplation of the ocean
produces, only, perhaps, more impressively grand; for the ocean is
ever noisy and restless, the pampa eternally silent and still.
During my stay at Santa Cruz, nothing of importance occurred, if I may
except a ball given by the Indians at the Rio Chico, in honour of
somebody's marriage or funeral: I forget which. An Indian who came to
the island to get the rum, which is a _sine quâ non_ at all their
entertainments, invited us to assist at the ball--an offer which we
readily accepted.
On arriving at the camp, a very lively scene presented itself to our
eyes. As is customary on such occasions, several mares had been
killed, and roasting and boiling was going on at numerous fires.
Everyone was feasting in the greatest good-humour, which on our
approach was further heightened, scouts having already brought the
news that we were coming with the aguadiente.
The advent of the latter was greeted with loud acclamations; some of
the older men gathered round the cask, which was speedily tapped, and
then with great unction and solemnity they proceeded to taste the
liquor, in order to see whether it had been overwatered. Several
decided grunts of satisfaction, however, showed that these aged
fathers approved of its strength; whereupon a general and doubtless
equitable distribution of the spirit took place, and before long the
whole camp--men, women, and children--had ample opportunities for
judging of its merits for themselves.
Presently a dance was organised. The men who took part in it were all
specially painted for the occasion, and wore long feathers on their
heads. The dance itself was a monotonous jig, executed to the
excruciating music of various drums or tom-toms. The women, strange
to say, do not dance; at least, they did not as long as they were
sober.
As the evening wore on, after vast quantities of meat had been
consumed and innumerable dances had been performed, special attention
began to be paid to the aguadiente, and the fun consequently soon
began to get very fast and very furious.
Long before midnight everyone was more or less drunk, and the ball
which had commenced with becoming order and solemnity had now
degenerated into a wild orgie. The flames from the different fires,
strangely blended with the pale moonlight, cast a lurid glare on the
dusky bodies and painted faces of the revellers, who, mad with
excitement and drink, were dancing, singing, and whooping in deafening
concert. A more gruesome scene it was hard to imagine. It seemed as if
the imps of darkness were celebrating their unearthly rites in this
desert spot, and I half expected, at any moment, to see the whole crew
vanish, with a flash and a bang, into the bowels of the earth, leaving
the orthodox smell of sulphur behind them.
Nothing of the sort occurred, however, though I presently received a
shock almost as startling as any supernatural event could have been.
An old squaw, who was painfully of this world and the vanities
thereof, and who had previously been addressing me for some time in
the most eloquent of gutturals, finding that nothing could melt my icy
demeanour, as a last resource suddenly threw her arms round my
unsuspecting neck and hugged me in a greasy embrace.
With great difficulty I managed to free myself, whereupon I ran away
towards some other part of the camp, to escape further annoyance. Had
this old beldame been acquainted with woman's privileges on such
occasions, she would have known that, under the circumstances, the
correct thing to have done was to have fainted or become hysterical.
But nothing could have been further from the thoughts of this
unenlightened savage--the impulse of her untrained mind being to run
after me as hard as her legs could carry her. And the rest of the
Indians, with one of those sudden whims drunken people are liable to,
took it into their heads to join in the chase, and I soon had the
whole crowd shrieking and howling at my heels. What their intentions
were I don't know, nor did I feel inclined to discover; fortunately,
before they came up to me I reached my horse, which I had left ready
saddled, and galloping swiftly away, I soon left them behind me.
I was presently joined by Garcia and the others, who had taken the
same opportunity to escape in order to avoid the rows with which these
balls frequently wind up. They are not often attended by actual
bloodshed, however, as the squaws, with naïve foresight, generally
hide all weapons before the ceremonies commence. We reached Santa Cruz
shortly after daybreak, and so ended my first experience of a
Tehuelche merry-making.
I called at the camp the next day to pay my _visite de digestion_, and
made a point of going to the tent where the old squaw, who was so near
becoming _teterrima causa belli_, abode. She had a bad headache, and
looked very demure and penitent. I rallied her with smiles, and
attempted, by my assiduous attentions, to make up for my discourteous
behaviour of the previous evening. But she took no notice of me, and
received all my overtures with the utmost indifference. It was a case
of--
'The devil was sick; the devil a saint would be.'