“Buenos Senores! Me mucho Grande Americano capitan, mismo commodant mucho mass, mucha barca, mucha galeta, muchos soldados, muchos marinarios. Me tene mucho mucho big guns, bastante poquito mismo bastante, cutlass, pistols mucho bastante. Vuestros hombres buenos per me, mi marinarios, mi soldados, buenos per vos. Othro corso usted malo rumpe me,” &c. &c. &c. In such a jumble of Spanish, English and Indian, duly set off with grimace and gesture, I gave them to understand that they were dealing with no inferior personage, but with one who was at home as good as the president; one having at command abundance of steamships and sailing vessels of all sorts, with soldiers and mariners, big guns and little guns, pistols and cutlasses. That if they were good to me they would receive good from me and mine; but that, if they did me any harm, men would come from North America in numbers as incalculable as the hairs of their heads, and kill every mother’s son of them. Furthermore, if they would take me to some white settlement, whether American, English, French or Spanish, I would order the white people to give them rum, tobacco, flour, rice, sugar and tea. Of course the white men could do no less than obey, and they would thus be enabled to indulge themselves in luxuries almost without limit.
It was evident, at a glance, that my speech was seasonable, and took effect in the right quarter. Their eyes stood out with wonder, and the sternness of their countenances was relaxed. They acquiesced in the proposal to postpone final action for the present, and see what could be made out of me before doing their worst. In a few days, they said, they would take me to “Holland;” but, no matter what time was limited, that “undiscovered country” seemed continually further off,—“a name” without any “local habitation.” Their conduct in this was determined, as I was afterwards assured, by the fact that they were entirely undecided what to do with me. They longed for the good things I had told them of, and their greedy appetites could only be satisfied by taking me to a white settlement. On the other hand, they were painfully suspicious that I meant to give them the slip, and dreaded the result of bringing me into the vicinity of any settlement; while, at the same time, my grandiloquent assumptions and lofty threats made them shrink from the thought of doing me serious harm. The big guns and little guns greatly disturbed their imaginations. In short, I seemed to them an ugly customer—bad to keep, and bad to get rid of. They temporized, therefore, promised and hesitated, and postponed, and promised again. There was no use in trying to hurry their movements. So I gave them line upon line, seeking every opportunity to deepen the troublesome impression that they assumed a mighty responsibility when they made me a prisoner, and that their welfare depended greatly on the issue.
CHAPTER IV.
Corey Inlet—Another disappointment—A hunting frolic with an unpleasant termination—Moving of the camp—Aimless wanderings—Alarm—A marriage treaty and an unsuccessful suitor—Laws of marriage—Qualifications of a husband—Feminine quarrels—A marriage in high life—Dressing meat—Profaneness—Absence of religious ideas—Mysterious ceremony—Reasons for abstaining from religious instruction—The metals—State of the arts in Patagonia—Tailoring—Fashion.
The next move of the tribe brought us within about a mile of Corey Inlet. The day after we halted, in full view of the south Atlantic, on looking out upon the water, two masts were plainly descried, evidently those of some vessel running down to this inlet. On going up an elevation commanding a better view, it proved to be a topsail schooner. She had undoubtedly mistaken this false cape for Cape Virgin, at the entrance of the Straits of Magellan. I pointed out the vessel to the Indians, and requested them to take me to the shore, that I might, if possible, communicate with her and be ransomed. After some delay, they complied; but, as we approached the beach, she was seen suddenly to haul off the shore and stand down the coast, having probably found out her mistake. We made all possible haste to gain the beach before she could have time to pass out of sight. I mounted a tall cliff, where I could distinctly see the men on deck, and, standing on the horse’s back, waved my jacket, and made every possible demonstration to attract their notice. All in vain. The little vessel sailed steadily on, as if in mockery of my hopes. I watched her receding figure with an aching heart, till she vanished from sight. Thoughts of home and its familiar circle, of lost enjoyments, and of the suffering that must be a guest there, had long tantalized my sleeping and embittered my waking dreams. These were quickened and concentrated in a burning focus, by the light of such a vision from the world of my past existence, only to inflict the keener torture upon my sensibilities. My situation became more intolerable by every fresh disappointment. It was almost enough to drive me mad. Must I, then, give up all hope of rescue?
A few minutes passed, and the tempest of feeling passed with them. Reflection convinced me that the indulgence of such feelings was not only useless, but actually pernicious, as tending to unfit me for rational and successful contrivance. My condition, truly, was dreadful; so much the more necessary was it to exercise the most calm and patient and self-possessed prudence, in order to devise and execute any purpose of escape. Like the surgeon who looks with steady nerve on the quivering frame subjected to his knife, I must nerve myself to look the gloomy problem of my lot, without shrinking, fully in the face, and keep my emotions, in all circumstances, strictly under the control of the calculating judgment; a maxim, like many others, much easier uttered now than to be thought of then, and far easier asserted than exemplified. Fully bent on effecting my deliverance in some way, to the discovery of which all possible ingenuity was to be directed, my resolutions of self-control were heroic enough. But to fulfil them,—to repress and disregard all those sympathies to which my whole being was bound,—this was indeed labor, too great, I often feared, to be accomplished. When the stress of inward conflict oppressed me, I would spring from my crouching-place in the lodge, rush into the open air, and seize upon every object that could in any degree divert attention and divide my thoughts. These exertions, with God’s blessing, sufficed to restore, in some tolerable measure, the mental equilibrium, and to rescue me from the dominion of feelings the unrestrained action of which would have driven me to madness.
During our stay of three or four days at this encampment, I had become so wearied with the monotony of their idleness, broken only by their desperate gambling,—the only thing, besides the chase, with which the Indians occupied themselves,—that for variety’s sake, to divert my often-desponding moods, and to kill time, which hung heavily on my hands, I concluded to go out on a hunting frolic. Having procured a horse of the chief, and encased my lower extremities in a pair of native boots, much warmer than the ship shoes in which I had endured the cold, I set out with quite a party. We had gone six or eight miles, when I stopped for a short time, the rest of the troop riding off without regarding me. On remounting my charger, I put him to his utmost speed, in order to overtake them. While driving on at a furious rate, he stumbled and came to the ground, throwing his luckless rider over his head twenty feet or more, upon the hard, frozen ground. One ankle was severely sprained, and my whole body more or less bruised. So severe, indeed, was the shock, that I have occasional reminders of it to this day. No time was to be lost; and, with considerable effort, and no little pain, I succeeded in remounting. The swelling of my foot soon made my borrowed boots extremely uncomfortable, and I wished myself safely back at the lodge; but, at whatever expense of suffering, I had no resource but to follow the hunters till such time as they should see fit to return. The remembrance of that day’s torment will not soon be lost. We arrived at the camp late in the evening; and, having been unsuccessful in the chase, went supperless to bed. On crawling into the hut and removing my boots, a sad sight was disclosed; but there was no present remedy. Dragging myself wearily into my corner, I had just crouched upon the skin, which had served for a saddle during the day and was still reeking from the horse’s back, when a great dog came along, and threw his whole weight upon the lame foot, causing me to scream aloud for the pain. I drew back the serviceable foot, and gave him a kick that sent him through the fire and against the front of the lodge. Sleep kept at a distance till near morning, when I gained a brief oblivion of suffering.
Day at last dawned, and with the morning’s light came the busy note of preparation for removal. Down came the tents; the squaws packing up the furniture, and the Indians chasing and lassoing their horses. The noise and confusion, disagreeable enough under any circumstances, made the scene no inapt representative of chaos, from which I was glad to be delivered on the most expeditious terms possible; and I was easily persuaded to try my fortune again in the chase, more especially as we had nothing for breakfast. No words can do more than partial justice to one of these moving scenes. Not only the skin roofs of their wigwams, but the stakes and poles which constitute the frames, are carried along with them. Their furniture gives them little trouble, seldom consisting of more than the skins on which they sleep, an ox-horn tinder-box, a few sticks for roasting meat, and a leathern water-bucket. Tents and furniture are all packed together on their horses’ backs. The pappooses in travelling are lashed to a kind of wooden sledge, rounded at the ends like sleigh-runners, and crossed with narrow slats, that bind the parts strongly together. The little brats are bound upon these machines, which are so shaped that their heads and feet are much below the general level of their bodies,—a very uncomfortable position for the youngsters, if they have as much sensibility to pain as other children, of which I incline to doubt, as they are inured from birth to almost every species of hardship. The sledge, with its living burden, is thrown across the horse’s back, and made fast to the load. The mother mounts to the top of the pack, resting her feet on the horse’s neck, and armed with a cudgel, with which she vigorously belabors the beast, right and left. The pappooses, not liking the quarters assigned to them, set up a general squalling. Mothers and maiden aunts join in full chorus, drawling out, at the top of their voices, “Hōrī! mutty, mutty! Hōrī! mutty, mutty!” without the least change, to the thousandth repetition. All these arrangements are made with remarkable celerity—in thirty minutes not a tent is left standing, but the whole tribe, their tenements and chattels, wives and brats, are all packed upon horses, and the motley cavalcade moves off like an army of beggars on horseback.