Chapter Eighteen.
Part VII—The Pampas.
Swallowed up in the Forest—Buenos Ayres—Away to the Wilds—A Colony of Highlanders—Frank to the fore.
There is no word in the world your true British sailor better knows the meaning of than that little noun duty. Lyell’s time was up; he must hurry back to Sydney, and thence to England, by very quickest boat; and so he did, and his last words to our heroes were these:—
“Don’t think of returning without having a look at the Pampas; to be sure you might go straight to San Francisco and away home by train and steamer. That would be going round the world in one sense—a landsman’s not a sailor’s sense. Whenever I meet a man who says he has been round the world, I just pull him up sharp by asking him some such question as, ‘Did you ever drink tea in Pay-San-Du?’ That usually settles him. By-bye. We’ll meet again.”
And away went merry-hearted Lyell, leaving sadder hearts behind him. Yes, but sad only for a time. There was a deal to be seen in Australia yet, and Chisholm was not sorry to spend a few months longer in this queer country, where everything seems topsy-turvy. But their last day in the kind and hospitable home of the Thompsons came round, and all too soon to one at least; and so adieus were spoken and whispered, hands were pressed, ay, and foolish tears were shed by pretty eyes, and handkerchiefs waved; then the great forest seemed to swallow them up.
The great green and gloomy forest has swallowed our heroes up; but, hey presto! what is this we see? A blue, blue sea in which a brave ship has just dropped anchor—a bluer sky that makes the eyes ache to behold; other ships at anchor and boats coming and going from a distant town, only the spires and steeples of which can be seen with the naked eye. On the deck of this ship stand Chisholm, Fred, and Frank, and beside them a smart naval officer in blue and gold and white.
Yes, you have guessed right. Lyell was the first to greet them when the anchor rattled down into the shallow waters off Buenos Ayres. He had been appointed to a South American station, and here he was, looking as happy and jolly and red as ever.
“And at present,” said Lyell, “I am my own master; so for six weeks I’m at your service.”
There was little encouragement for stopping in this city of straight streets and tame houses, and heat and dust, so they jumped at Lyell’s suggestion to get on land as soon as possible. Lyell knew some folks, he said, that would “show them a thing or two.”
A long journey first in a comfortless train, through a country as level and lonesome as mid-ocean itself. Hot! it was indeed hot, and they were glad when the sun went down; for the carriages in which they rode were over-upholstered, and the paint stood up in soft boiling blisters on the wood-work.
Now the journey is changed to one by river. Not much of a boat, to be sure; but then it is comparatively cool, and the scenery is sylvan and delightful. On once more next day, this time by diligence. This conveyance had none of the comfort of the Hyde Park canoe-landau. It was just what Lyell called it in pardonable slang, “a rubbly old concern—a sort of breed betwixt an orange-box, a leathern portmanteau, and a venerable clothes-basket. They paid a hawser out from its bows, and bent the nags on to that.” Frank thought of his elephant ride.
But the country grew more hilly and romantic as they proceeded, and the inns, sad to say, worse and worse. Their beds were inhabited—strangely so; our heroes did not turn in to study natural history, or they might have done so. Indeed they had to rough it. The country grew wilder still; they had left the diligence with nearly broken bones; bought hones, hired guides, and now they found themselves on the very boundaries of a savage land. Ha! the fort at last, where Lyell’s friends lived. Their welcome was a regal one. Half a dozen Scotchmen lived here, four of them married and with grown-up families—quite a little colony.
They shook hands with Lyell a dozen times. “Oh, man!” they cried, “but you’re welcome.” Then they killed the fatted calf.
These good people were farmers; their houses all rough, but well furnished; their flocks and herds numerous as the sands by the sea-shore. A wild, lonely kind of a life they led with their wives and their little ones, but they were content. There were fish in the streams and deer in the forest. You had but to tickle the earth with a toasting-fork, and it smilingly yielded up pommes de terre which would grace the table of a prince.
Every soul in the colony was a McSomebody or other; so no wonder Chisholm was in his glory, no wonder—
“The nicht drive on wi’ sangs and clatter.”
When our heroes heard their principal host call out, “Send auld Lawrie McMillan here (his real name was Lorenzo Maximilian) to give us a tune,” they had expected to see some tall old Highlander stride in with the bagpipes, not an ancient, wiry Spaniard, guitar-armed. Is it any wonder Chisholm burst out laughing when this venerable ghost began to sing—
“Come under my plaidie, the night’s gaun to fa’.”
Well, getting such a welcome as this in the midst of a wilderness was enough to make our heroes forget all former hardships. The dinner was a banquet. There were many dishes that were new to them; but had Frank, who was fastidious as regards eating, known that lagarto soup was made from the iguana lizard, a perfect dragon; that curried potro was horse, and that peludo-pie was made of armadillo, I don’t think he would have sent his plate twice for either.
Frank trod on the tail of an iguana next day. The dragon, seven feet long, and fearful to behold, turned and snapped. Frank, armed with a stick, would not fly, but fought. The Scotchmen were delighted. They tossed their bonnets in the air, and shouted “Saint George for merrie England!” Never mind, they might laugh as they pleased; but Frank killed the dragon.
Saint George, as Chisholm now dubbed him, quite won the affection of the llama hunters next day; he was the only one of our heroes who kept alongside the Indians in their furious gallop at the heels of the fleet pacos.
(The lama pacos, hunted for its wool, chiefly used in rope and cloth-making.)
All day long Frank was well to the fore, and how he was wishing he could throw the lassoo or bolas.
Sweet Lizzie McDonald was the prettiest girl in the fort; she was the wildest huntress as well. She and her brothers “rigged out,” as Lyell called it, young Frank in native dress; and he rode by her side to the hills next day, presumably in the capacity of cavalier, but really as pupil. And Frank was an apt pupil; he didn’t think the time long.
“Lucky dog you,” said Lyell, “if I wasn’t a sailor, I’d throw myself at Lizzie’s feet. I wouldn’t mind being lassooed by a girl like her. Heigho!”