OUR HUNTING EXPEDITION.
If not quite so exuberant as the welcome that awaited us on our arrival in the valley, Archie's was a right hearty one, and assuredly left our cousin nothing to complain of.
He had come by diligence from Villa Mercedes, accomplishing the journey, therefore, in a few days, which had occupied us in our caravan about as many weeks.
We were delighted to see him looking so well. Why, he had even already commenced to get brown, and was altogether hardy and hearty and manlike.
We were old estancieros, however, and it gave us unalloyed delight to show him round our place and put him up to all the outs and ins of a settler's life.
Dugald even took him away to the hills with him, and the two of them did not get home until dinner was on the table.
Archie, however, although not without plenty of pluck and willingness to develop into an estanciero pure and simple, had not the stamina my brothers and I possessed, but this only made us all the more kind to him. In time, we told him, he would be quite as strong and wiry as any of us.
'There is one thing I don't think I shall ever be able to 186 get over,' said Archie one day. It may be observed that he did not now talk with the London drawl; he had left both his cockney tongue and his tall hat at home.
'What is it you do not think you will ever get over, Arch?' I asked.
'Why, the abominable creepies,' he answered, looking almost miserable.
'Why,' he continued, 'it isn't so much that I mind being bitten by mosquitoes—of which it seems you have brutes that fly by day, and gangs that go on regular duty at night—but it is the other abominations that make my blood run positively cold. Now your cockroaches are all very well down in the coal-cellar, and centipedes are interesting creatures in glass cases with pins stuck through them; but to find cockroaches in your boots and centipedes in your bed is rather too much of a good thing.'
'Well,' said Dugald, laughing, 'you'll get used to even that. I don't really mind now what bites me or what crawls over me. Besides, you know all those creepie-creepies, as you call them, afford one so excellent an opportunity of studying natural history from the life.'
'Oh, bother such life, Dugald! My dear cousin, I would rather remain in blissful ignorance of natural history all my life than have even an earwig reposing under my pillow. Besides, I notice that even your Yahoo servants—'
'I beg your pardon, cousin; Gaucho, not Yahoo.'
'Well, well, Gaucho servants shudder, and even run from our common bedroom creepies.'
'Oh! they are nothing at all to go by, Archie. They think because a thing is not very pretty it is bound to be venomous.'
'But does not the bite of a centipede mean death?'
'Oh dear no. It isn't half as bad as London vermin.'
'Then there are scorpions. Do they kill you? Is not their bite highly dangerous?'
'Not so bad as a bee's sting.' 187
'Then there are so many flying beetles.'
'Beauties, Archie, beauties. Why, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like some of these.'
'Perhaps not. But then, Solomon or not Solomon, how am I to know which sting and which don't?'
'Experientia docet, Archie.'
Archie shuddered.
'Again, there are spiders. Oh, they do frighten me. They're as big as lobsters. Ugh!'
'Well, they won't hurt. They help to catch the other things!'
'Yes, and that's just the worst of it. First a lot of creepies come in to suck your blood and inject poison into your veins, to say nothing of half scaring a fellow to death; and then a whole lot of flying creepies, much worse than the former, come in to hunt them up; and bats come next, to say nothing of lizards; and what with the buzzing and singing and hopping and flapping and beating and thumping, poor me has to lie awake half the night, falling asleep towards morning to dream I'm in purgatory.'
'Poor you indeed!' said Dugald.
'You have told me, too, I must sleep in the dark, but I want to know what is the good of that when about one half of those flying creepies carry a lamp each, and some of them two. Only the night before last I awoke in a fright. I had been dreaming about the great sea-serpent, and the first thing I saw was a huge creature about as long as a yard stick wriggling along my mosquito curtains.'
'Ah! How could you see it in the dark?'
'Why, the beggar carried two lamps ahead of him, and he had a smaller chap with a light. Ugh!'
'These were some good specimens of the Lampyridæ, no doubt.'
'Well, perhaps; but having such a nice long name doesn't make them a bit less hideous to me. Then in the morning when I looked into the glass I didn't know myself from Adam. I had a black eye that some bug or other 188 had given me—I dare say he also had a nice long name. I had a lump on my brow as large as a Spanish onion, and my nose was swollen and as big as a bladder of lard. From top to toe I was covered with hard knots, as if I'd been to Donnybrook Fair, and what with aching and itching it would have been a comfort to me to have jumped out of my skin.'
'Was that all?' I said, laughing.
'Not quite. I went to take up a book to fling at a monster spider in the corner, and put my hand on a scorpion. I cracked him and crushed the spider, and went to have my bath, only to find I had to fish out about twenty long-named indescribables that had committed suicide during the night. Other creepies had been drowned in the ewer. I found earwigs in my towels, grasshoppers in my clothes, and wicked-looking little beetles even in my hairbrushes. This may be a land flowing with milk and honey and all the rest of it, Murdoch, but it is also a land crawling with creepie-creepies.'
'Well, anyhow,' said Dugald, 'here comes your mule. Mount and have a ride, and we'll forget everything but the pleasures of the chase. Come, I think I know where there is a jaguar—an immense great brute. I saw him killing geese not three days ago.'
'Oh, that will be grand!' cried Archie, now all excitement.
And five minutes afterwards Dugald and he were off to the hills.
But in two days more we would be off to the hills in earnest.
For this tour we would not of our own free-will have made half the preparations Moncrieff insisted on, and perhaps would hardly have provided ourselves with tents. However, we gave in to his arrangements in every way, and certainly we had no cause to repent it.
The guide—he was to be called our cacique for the time being—that Moncrieff appointed had been a Gaucho malo, 189 a pampas Cain. No one ever knew half the crimes the fellow had committed, and I suppose he himself had forgotten. But he was a reformed man and really a Christian, and it is difficult to find such an anomaly among Gauchos. He knew the pampas well, and the Andes too, and was far more at home in the wilds than at the estancia. A man like this, Moncrieff told us, was worth ten times his weight in gold.
And so it turned out.
The summer had well-nigh gone when our caravan at length left Moncrieff's beautiful valley. The words 'caravan at length' in the last sentence may be understood in two ways, either as regards space or time. Ours was no caravan on wheels. Not a single wheeled waggon accompanied us, for we should cross deserts, and pass through glens where there would be no road, perhaps hardly even a bridle-path. So the word caravan is to be understood in the Arab sense of the word. And it certainly was a lengthy one. For we had a pack mule for every two men, including our five Gauchos.
Putting it in another way, there were five of us Europeans—Donald, Dugald, Archie Bateman, Sandie Donaldson, and myself; each European had a horse and a Gaucho servant, and each Gaucho had a mule.
Bombazo meant to have come; he said so to the very last, at all events, but an unfortunate attack of toothache confined him to bed. Archie, who had no very exalted idea of the little Spanish captain's courage, was rude enough to tell us in his hearing that he was 'foxing.' I do not pretend to understand what Archie meant, but I feel certain it was nothing very complimentary to Bombazo's bravery.
'Dear laddies,' old Jenny had said, 'if you think you want onybody to darn your hose on the road, I'll gang wi' ye mysel'. As for that feckless loon Bombazo, the peer[13] body is best in bed.' 190
Our arms consisted of rifles, shot-guns, the bolas, and lasso. Each man carried a revolver as well, and we had also abundance of fishing tackle. Our tents were only three in all, but they were strong and waterproof, a great consideration when traversing a country like this.
We were certainly prepared to rough it, but had the good sense to take with us every contrivance which might add to our comfort, so long as it was fairly portable.
Archie had one particular valise of his own that he declared contained only a few nicknacks which no one ought to travel without. He would not gratify us by even a peep inside, however, so for a time we had to be content with guessing what the nicknacks were. Archie got pretty well chaffed about his Gladstone bag, as he called it.
'You surely haven't got the tall hat in it,' said Dugald.
'Of course you haven't forgotten your nightcap,' said Donald.
'Nor your slippers, Archie?' I added.
'And a dressing-gown would be indispensable in the desert,' said Sandie Donaldson.
Archie only smiled to himself, but kept his secret.
What a lovely morning it was when we set out! So blue was the sky, so green the fields of waving lucerne, so dense the foliage and flowers and hedgerows and trees, it really seemed that summer would last for many and many a month to come.
We were all fresh and happy, and full of buoyant anticipation of pleasures to come. Our very dogs went scampering on ahead, barking for very joy. Of these we had quite a pack—three pure Scotch collies, two huge bloodhound-mastiffs, and at least half a dozen animals belonging to our Gauchos, which really were nondescripts but probably stood by greyhounds. These dogs were on exceedingly good terms with themselves and with each other—the collies jumping up to kiss the horses every minute by way of encouragement, the mastiffs trotting 191 steadily on ahead cheek-by-jowl, and the hounds everywhere—everywhere at once, so it appeared.
Being all so fresh, we determined to make a thorough long day's journey of it. So, as soon as we had left the glen entirely and disappeared among the sand dunes, we let our horses have their heads, the capataz Gaucho riding on ahead on a splendid mule as strong as a stallion and as lithe as a Scottish deerhound.
Not long before our start for the hunting grounds men had arrived from the Chilian markets to purchase cattle. The greatest dainty to my mind they had brought with them was a quantity of Yerba maté, as it is called. It is the dried leaves of a species of Patagonian ilex, which is used in this country as tea, and very delightful and soothing it is. This was to be our drink during all our tour. More refreshing than tea, less exciting than wine, it not only seems to calm the mind but to invigorate the body. Drunk warm, with or without sugar, all feeling of tiredness passes away, and one is disposed to look at the bright side of life, and that alone.
We camped the first night on high ground nearly forty miles from our own estancia. It was a long day's journey in so rough a country, but we had a difficulty earlier in the afternoon in finding water. Here, however, was a stream as clear as crystal, that doubtless made its way from springs in the sierras that lay to the west of us at no very great distance. Behind these jagged hills the sun was slowly setting when we erected our tents. The ground chosen was at some little distance from the stream, and on the bare gravel. The cacti that grew on two sides of us were of gigantic height, and ribboned or edged with the most beautiful flowers. Our horses and mules were hobbled and led to the stream, then turned on to the grass which grew green and plentiful all along its banks.
A fire was quickly built and our great stewpan put on. We had already killed our dinner in the shape of a small deer or fawn which had crossed our path on the plains 192 lower down. With biscuits, of which we had a store, some curry, roots, which the Gauchos had found, and a handful or two of rice, we soon had a dinner ready, the very flavour of which would have been enough to make a dying man eat.
The dogs sat around us and around the Gauchos as we dined, and, it must be allowed, behaved in a most mannerly way; only the collies and mastiffs kept together. They must have felt their superiority to those mongrel greyhounds, and desired to show it in as calm and dignified a manner as possible.
After dinner sentries were set, one being mounted to watch the horses and mules. We were in no great fear of their stampeding, but we had promised Moncrieff to run as little risk of any kind as possible on this journey, and therefore commenced even on this our first night to be as good as our word.
The best Gauchos had been chosen for us, and every one of them could talk English after a fashion, especially our bold but not handsome capataz, or cacique Yambo. About an hour after dinner the latter began serving out the maté. This put us all in excellent humour and the best of spirits. As we felt therefore as happy as one could wish to be, we were not surprised when the capataz proposed a little music.
'It is the pampas fashion, señor,' he said to me.
'Will you play and sing?' I said.
'Play and sing?' he replied, at once producing his guitar, which lay in a bag not far off. 'Si, señor, I will play and sing for you. If you bid me, I will dance; every day and night I shall cook for you; when de opportunity come I will fight for you. I am your servant, your slave, and delighted to be so.'
'Thank you, my capataz; I have no doubt you are a very excellent fellow.'
'Oh, señor, do not flatter yourself too mooch, too very mooch. It is not for the sake of you young señors I care, but for the sake of the dear master.'
'Sing, capataz,' I said, 'and talk after.' 193
To our surprise, not one but three guitars were handed out, and the songs and melodies were very delightful to listen to.
Then our Sandie Donaldson, after handing his cup to be replenished, sang, Ye banks and braes with much feeling and in fine manly tenor. We all joined in each second verse, while the guitars gave excellent accompaniment. One song suggested another, and from singing to conversational story-telling the transition was easy. To be sure, neither my brothers nor I nor Archie had much to tell, but some of the experiences of the Gauchos, and especially those of our capataz, were thrilling in the extreme, and we never doubted their truth.
But now it was time for bed, and we returned to the tents and lit our lamps.
Our beds were the hard ground, with a rug and guanaco robe, our saddles turned upside down making as good a pillow as any one could wish.
We had now the satisfaction of knowing something concerning the contents of that mysterious grip-sack of Archie's. So judge of our surprise when this wonderful London cousin of ours first produced a large jar of what he called mosquito cream, and proceeded to smear his face and hands with the odorous compound.
'This cream,' he said, 'I bought at Buenos Ayres, and it is warranted to keep all pampas creepies away, or anything with two wings or four, six legs or sixty. Have a rub, Dugald?'
'Not I,' cried Dugald. 'Why, man, the smell is enough to kill bees.'
Archie proceeded with his preparations. Before enshrouding himself in his guanaco mantle he drew on a huge waterproof canvas sack and fastened it tightly round his chest. He next produced a hooped head-dress. I know no other name for it.
'It is an invention of my own,' said Archie, proudly, 'and is, as you see, composed of hoops of wire—' 194
'Like a lady's crinoline,' said Dugald.
'Well, yes, if you choose to call it so, and is covered with mosquito muslin. This is how it goes on, and I'm sure it will form a perfect protection.'
He then inserted his head into the wondrous muslin bladder, and the appearance he now presented was comical in the extreme. His body in a sack, his head in a white muslin bag, nothing human-looking about him except his arms, that, encased in huge leather gloves, dangled from his shoulders like an immense pair of flippers.
We three brothers looked at him just for a moment, then simultaneously exploded into a perfect roar of laughter. Sandie Donaldson, who with the capataz occupied the next tent, came rushing in, then all the Gauchos and even the dogs. The latter bolted barking when they saw the apparition, but the rest joined the laughing chorus.
And the more we looked at Archie the more we laughed, till the very sand dunes near us must have been shaken to their foundations by the manifestation of our mirth.
'Laugh away, boys,' said our cousin. 'Laugh and grow fat. I don't care how I look, so long as my dress and my cream keep the creepies away.' 195
Peer = poor.
