Our station was just within the opening of the valley, which, being sheltered from the wind, is the favourite winter quarters of the Southern Tehuelches, whose encampment is usually pitched near Oazy Harbour, called by them ‘Ozay Saba.’
Westward the low flats which bordered the shores of the Cabecera del Mar terminated in irregular hills, beyond which higher peaks rose, and they in their turn were overlooked by distant snow-clad summits on the horizon. Among the blue hills of the middle distance floated wreaths of light haze so much resembling smoke that Gallegos, ever on the alert for signs of the deserters, proposed to deviate from our route to investigate, and only my strongly pronounced opinion in favour of haze versus smoke induced him to give up the idea. The Argentine Government formerly planned a settlement in this valley, which was not carried out, and the missionaries also proposed to fix a station hereabouts, with Oazy Harbour as a depôt, but the Chilians of Punta Arena set up their claims and compelled the missionaries to desist.
After camp was arranged, the weather, which since our start had been bright with cold winds and moderate frosts at night, changed to rain, and Gallegos proposed to me that, in the event of its continuing bad, we should remain under the shelter of the tent. However, though the night was rough and rainy, morning broke fair and the sun rose bright and warm, so we started, following a path along the base of the before-mentioned range of hills until about ten o’clock, when, just after passing a beautiful little stream where I noticed fish darting about in the pools, a herd of guanaco, hitherto concealed by a small eminence, came into view. Chase was immediately given, but most of our horses were soon blown, and Gallegos, the soldier, and myself having ascended the hills over which the herd had taken flight, as it appeared useless to continue the chase, stopped on the crest and watched the animals as they streamed up an opposite hill. One of the party was missing, and suddenly an exclamation from the Lieutenant ‘What is it?’ caused us to turn our eyes in the direction to which he pointed, where some fancied they descried a man. The idea of deserters immediately occurred to their minds, so they started off, asking me to tell J’aria (who had remained with the horses) to travel on to a given spot at the head of the valley. Having descended the hill, which was tunnelled with burrows of the Ctenomys Magellanicus,[1] the crowns of which, yielding to the horses’ tread, proved a series of dangerous traps, I rejoined J’aria and we pursued our way for a few miles until we reached a small lagoon at the head of the valley, covered with thousands of widgeon and duck. The sight suggested the thought that no man need starve in this country, so abundant seemed the supplies of animal life. Here we waited, and in the course of half-an-hour the remainder came up with their horses blown, one of the party having a piece of guanaco meat hanging to his saddle. This was José Marinero, one of the hybrids, who had succeeded in lazoing a guanaco, at which he appeared intensely delighted. The ‘man,’ as I had previously supposed, proved imaginary. I regretted not being up at the death, as it turned out that José had been close to us, but hidden from sight by a rise. After a pleasant and refreshing rest and a draught of café Quillota (parched corn meal and water), we resumed our route north. After leaving the lagoon, a scarcely perceptible slope ascended from the valley, and a more undulating course was traversed until we reached a small cañon, which, after a gradual descent, dipped down between walls a hundred feet high, sloping up at either hand, and finishing in a rounded summit leading to the high plain. ‘Here,’ said J’aria, ‘there is no firing, and those stupid Indian women actually carry loads of it from the next stage.’ But the event proved that the Indians were wiser than ourselves. Following this we arrived at another cañon running at right angles, east and west, on one of the grass-covered sides of which we observed a couple of horses feeding in a hollow which looked more verdant than the rest of the ground, but the animals being caught and examined proved unsound and useless. In the bottom of the cañon there flowed a small but deep stream spreading into lagoons in places. We crossed this and encamped on the northern side, and found J’aria’s words, as to no fuel to be found about this valley, verified, much to our discomfort. Towards evening we went out and shot some ducks, but having no fire to cook with, were content to turn in on meal and water. During the night the tent pole, having been first soaked with rain and then frozen, snapped in two, and down came the spread of wet canvas; and altogether we did not spend a very pleasant time.
Misfortunes never come single; at daylight no horses were to be seen, and we had to wait until near ten o’clock before they turned up. During this interval we burnt the tent pegs and some chips from the tent pole, and raised sufficient fire to make coffee. J’aria informed me that this cañon extends from the Cordillera to the sea, but runs in a tortuous manner, and we afterwards again struck either the main line or some cañon leading from it. Having scaled the precipitous banks, we headed towards a range of peaked hills, curiously resembling one another, and after passing down one or two more cañons, where we refreshed ourselves with the berries of a barberry (Berberis axifolia), called by the Chilians califate, and also saw plenty of the red and white tea-berries, so common in the Falklands, we entered a wide plain or valley, at the farther end of which rose a peculiar pointed hill, one of a range that stretched away east and west, pierced by a pass. In the midst of it a huge square flat rock shone white in the sunlight, forming a striking object: it looked like a megalith, deposited by giants to cover the grave of some deceased hero. Others of less dimensions lay strewn here and there, giving somewhat of a graveyard aspect to the scene. As we advanced the ground was encumbered with rocks and scoriæ, lying in heaps in all directions, making it very difficult travelling for the horses, and on arriving at the hills themselves their appearance was decidedly volcanic. The whole immediate vicinity of this range of hills presented a peculiarly wild, blasted, and weird appearance; nevertheless ostriches and guanaco were observable in great quantities. My first thought on passing one hill, where, among the other fantastic forms into which the rocks had been tossed, was a natural corral, or circle of huge fragments, built with apparent regularity, but of superhuman dimensions, was, ‘What a hell this must have been when the volcanoes were in an active state, belching out the streams of lava and showers of rock, and that perhaps at no distant period!’ While at Santa Cruz, Casimiro told me of an active volcano situated at a distance and in a direction which would fix it as belonging to this range. Formerly its neighbourhood had been frequented by the Indians, as the guanaco resorted thither in great numbers during the winter; but the Indians’ horses had most of them been poisoned by drinking the water of a stream close to the range, and soon after all the toldos were shaken down by an earthquake or the vibration of an explosion, and since then they had not ventured to go near the place. Casimiro and Gonzalez had, however, subsequently ascended the volcano, and had killed numbers of guanaco in the neighbourhood. It was also mentioned that when they were encamped on the Cuheyli, or Coy Inlet River, tremendous volumes of thick black smoke, rolling from the west, enveloped the Indians and terrified them exceedingly. No signs were afterwards found of burned pasture, and it was conjectured that the Canoe Indians of the Chonos Archipelago had fired the western forests, but it was much more likely to have been due to volcanic eruption. While trotting along the defile through these hills formed by a chasm, with perpendicular walls of rock rising on each hand, as evenly scarped as the sides of a railway cutting, I observed several caves, which J’aria had a tradition the Indians formerly used as dwelling places. This pass led into another valley still more rugged and strewn with sharp angular fragments of rock, amongst which stunted shrubs began to appear; and lagoons, some of which were encrusted round the edges with saltpetre, and contained brackish water, might be seen at intervals. Towards evening we encamped by the side of a small lagoon of circular form, with wall-like cliffs rising some 200 feet from its banks, and nearly surrounding it. I took a stroll, rifle in hand, whilst the men were getting firewood; and plenty of guanaco were visible, but I only succeeded in wounding one, which escaped on three legs. Traces of a puma, in the shape of carrion, were also there, but Leon himself was hidden. So I returned empty-handed to the fire, where I found a cheerful supper of wild duck and guanaco meat just ready. The moon was beautiful, and the air just frosty enough to be bracing and exhilarating, so some of us staid smoking and spinning yarns until the small hours. The stories were chiefly of adventures on the Pampas. José narrated how, when in pursuit of a party of runaways in the depth of winter, when the snow lay thick on the ground, he and his comrade rode into a valley where countless guanaco had taken refuge from the storm in the upper heights, and stood huddled together, too benumbed by the cold to attempt to escape, and were slaughtered like oxen in the shambles. In another hunt the party overtook the deserters, housed in the toldo of an Indian, and a fight ensued, ending in the death of one of the pursuers; the deserter who shot him was pistolled, and J’aria and José carried the dead body of their comrade on horseback to the settlement, sixty miles distant, proceeding without a halt all through the night, and accomplishing their ghastly journey by the next morning. J’aria related how he had been drifted in a launch among the ice in the Straits, and carried over to Tierra del Fuego, where they found rocks so magnetic that iron nails adhered to them. He further amused us by a short dissertation on his domestic arrangements; how, when his last wife died, he married a Chilote to be mother for his children and wife for him, and he always called her in conversation the ‘Madre Muger’—wife mother.
Next morning we started early, and varying our march with one or two races after foxes, which generally met their death in a very short time, and an engagement with a female puma, which one of the men despatched by a splendid revolver shot through the head, traversed some uneven Pampas, with occasional hills, and arrived at the descent of the valley of the Rio Gallegos, where the very remarkable bench formation, afterwards observed on a smaller or larger scale in other Patagonian rivers, first arrested my attention. To the west, some miles away, a high hill, apparently of basalt, the square summit of which with seemingly regular walls and towers mimicked the distant view of an extensive fortress, served as a landmark for the break in the barranca, which formed a natural road, by which we reached the first or upper bench, a mile and a half in width; from this a drop or scarped slope of 50 feet and upwards descended to another terrace or plain of equal extent, and terminating in another fall, at the bottom of which lay the bed of the river; it is fordable in the summer months, I believe, in many places, but when we crossed the water about reached where one’s saddle flaps would be if riding on an English saddle. After crossing the ford a halt took place to smoke a pipe, whilst doing which we watched the gyrations of a huge vulture of the condor species; he hovered for some time, and at length boldly settled on a point of rock about a hundred yards distant; so the soldier, whose carbine was always ready, took a shot, but missed, much to the grief of Gallegos, who asserted that the heart of the vulture is a good remedy for certain diseases. We then mounted, and riding about a mile halted for the night by a spring gushing out of a ravine in the slope between the upper and lower benches, where the pasture was good, as J’aria declared that water was scarce for some leagues farther on. The bivouac arranged, José and myself proceeded to try and shoot a guanaco, but the plain was too open, so, after lighting up a bed of dry grass to attract any neighbouring Indians, we very foolishly indulged in a bathe in the river. The water was intensely cold, and the ill effects of this ill-timed indulgence were felt for a long time after. The soldier meanwhile was away on horseback chasing a large herd, but he returned about dusk empty handed. Next morning we started about 9 o’clock, having been, as usual, delayed by the horses having strayed some distance. Ascending the slope we crossed the higher bench, a barren, dreary waste, for about a league, until we came to a lagoon covered with upland geese, and lying just below what may be termed the barranca of the Upper Pampa. Halting here for a smoke and warm to dispel the effects of the intensely cold wind, we were about resuming our route to ascend the steep slope of the upper plains, when large columns of smoke, in answer to the signal fire we had left behind us, rose up to the sky in a N.E. direction. We moved on, and arriving at the summit of the ascent, looked eagerly round for signs of the fire, but nothing was visible. The plains lay before us apparently destitute of life, excepting a stray guanaco here and there. J’aria then set light to a neighbouring bush, which gave out dense clouds of black smoke, and in a few minutes this was answered in the same direction as that previously observed. A horseman was at length espied galloping towards us, who proved to be an Indian named Sam, son of the chief Casimiro, who has been mentioned in the missionary reports. After conversing for a short time with J’aria and Gallegos, he turned to me and said, in English, ‘How do you do? I speak little Anglishe,’ which he had learned during a visit to the Falklands, where also he had acquired his sobriquet of Sam Slick. He then galloped away at full speed, and brought up his companions, who had been concealed from view in a neighbouring hollow; the party consisted of two men and a boy, and two women, all mounted, and apparently having just finished hunting, as they had plenty of fresh guanaco meat with them. We halted by a bush, and in a few minutes had a fire kindled, and the pipe being handed round, I had an opportunity of observing them closely. The men were fine muscular specimens. One, whom they called Henrique, was a Fuegian, formerly, I believe, a captive, but now doctor, or wizard. He travelled with this party separate from the remainder of the tribe on account of some suspicion of his having caused the death of a chief. One of the men, taller than the others, was a Tehuelche. The boy was bright looking and intelligent, and it afterwards appeared that Don Luiz Buena had kept him for some time, vainly endeavouring to teach him Spanish. They were very cordial, and especially forced on me more meat than I could carry; but there was a certain constraint visible in their manners, probably owing to their being conscious of some dealings with the deserters, whom J’aria counselled them to despatch whenever they might meet with them. The women carried bottles of water, which they readily gave us, to our great refreshment and relief, for we were all parched with thirst.
Gallegos asked Sam whether he was willing to guide us to Santa Cruz, J’aria not being over certain of the route. The tracks made by the guanacos are easily mistaken by almost anyone but an Indian for the trail of ‘chinas,’ or caravans of women and laden horses; and this, combined with the want of landmarks on the Pampas and the confusing succession of hills closely resembling each other, renders it only too easy to lose the right direction. As examples of this, out of ten deserters of whom the party was in search, six were never more heard of. Our guide J’aria himself, when travelling from Santa Cruz to the colony, lost his way, and would inevitably have starved had he not fortunately been fallen in with by a party of Indians. Sam having agreed to come with our party, we bid adieu to the Indians, who, in return for their presents of meat, were gratified with a little tobacco, and rode off. Suddenly a fox started up from a neighbouring bush. The soldier giving chase, Sam shouted, ‘Stop, I’ll show you:’ at the same time putting spurs to his horse, and cutting Reynard off, he put his hand to his waist-belt, drew out his bolas, gave them two turns round his head, and in another minute the fox was lying dead, with his ribs crushed completely in where the metal hall had struck him. Under the directions of our new guide, who rode ahead with me, we traversed a succession of high barren plains, sinking into frequent irregular hollows, without streams, but usually containing lagoons of salt or brackish water, until, about 4 P.M., we descended into the valley of Rio Cuheyli, or the river, which debouches at Coy Inlet. The bench formation, though noticeable, is not here so decidedly marked. For some time we pursued the trail in an orderly march; but an ostrich springing nearly under our horses’ feet, and escaping over some marshy swamp, where horses could not follow, roused Sam’s hunting propensities, and he proposed to myself, the soldier, and José to leave the path—which he said, with emphatic disdain, was good for women, not for men—and ride up the barranca to see him ball an ostrich; so having regained the Pampa, we formed into line, about two hundred yards apart, to drive a certain area of ground down to a point where there was a gentle slope to the valley, so as to meet the advancing cavalcade of the rest of our party. We saw nothing except one ostrich vanishing at great speed towards the valley at another point, and a pair of doves, which I remarked with interest; so we returned to the track, and as night was closing in, pushed on, wishing to cross the ford of the river and encamp on the other side. At seven o’clock, having reached a nice spring flowing from the barranca, where there was firewood in profusion, Gallegos ordered a halt, although Sam wished to proceed, observing that the moon was so bright it was ‘all the same as day.’ We accordingly encamped for the night, after making a good supper off guanaco meat, which was a pleasant change after our previous charqui. The valley of the Cuheyli slightly indicates the bench formation, though it does not present so distinctly marked terraces as those which border the Gallegos River; but the lowest or river plain, which is nearly two leagues wide in the neighbourhood of the ford, is of a more fertile character, the pasture being luxuriant and good. One or two of the springs—notably the one the water of which, contrary to our guide’s advice and example, we drank—had a strong taste of iron, which caused all the party to suffer from internal derangement; and Sam stated that near our encampment there was a deposit of the black earth with which the Indians paint their bodies. Starting early, after a night of severe frost, we soon struck the ford. Our guide had vanished; but while rearranging the packs, we saw a volume of black smoke rising to the east, caused by Sam, who, having thus signalled his countrymen, rejoined us on the march across the slightly ascending plain. We then observed numerous Indians galloping in our direction, and crossing the stream at various parts, as J’aria remarked, quite regardless of fords. We halted, and were soon surrounded by about forty or more, most of them riding useful-looking horses barebacked. As they appeared very friendly, Gallegos gave them some biscuit and charqui; their chiefs—the head cacique being a nephew of Casimiro—forming them into a semi-circle, in tolerably good order, to receive the present. There were undoubtedly some very tall men amongst them, but what struck me particularly was their splendid development of chest and arms. Although the wind was very sharp, many of them had their mantles thrown back in a careless way, leaving their naked chests exposed to the air, and appeared not the least incommoded. They readily recognised me for an Englishman, coming and examining me closely, and asking for tobacco with a broad grin on their faces, exposing a wonderfully clean and regular set of teeth. My gratifying their importunate requests for tobacco made Sam very jealous, and for some time he bothered me with remarks such as ‘Me very cold, no got poncho,’ ‘Me no got knife, me no got “pellon”’ (saddle-cloth), until, finding it useless to beg, he relapsed into sullen silence. A smoke of the pipe, however, brought him back to his usual cheerful temper, and as we galloped along he chanted an Indian song, which consisted of the words ‘Ah ge lay loo, Ah ge lay loo,’ expressed in various keys.
After a ride of some leagues in a rather more open but still undulating country, a break in the Pampas was reached. Hills of irregular and picturesque outlines, with labyrinthine valleys or ravines, not running in parallel order, but communicating with each other, occupied an extensive district, and though travelling was considerably more difficult, yet the change in the aspect of nature was grateful after the barren monotony of the plains.
We halted in an Indian encampment, situated in a valley underneath a peaked hill called ‘Otiti,’ where there were pools of fresh and salt water in close proximity. Amongst the incense and thorn bushes, which grow at intervals in these regions, we passed to-day another description of shrub with a thick rough bark, which is readily detached and leaves a long rattail-like sort of twig. From the Rio Gallegos the soil had become generally of a yellower colour than on the south side of that river, although in the valleys and hollows dark peaty earth was generally to be found, and the surface of the Pampas had assumed a more desolate appearance, being strewn with small pebbles, and studded with bushes—generally of a thorny species. Round clumps of prickly thistles, which burn like tinder on applying a lighted match—and a few stray tufts of withered grass, only made more desolate the hungry barrenness of the deserts, over which the wind blew with cutting violence, yet they are the home of large herds of guanaco, ostriches, puma, and armadillo, though the latter were at this period comfortably hybernating.
Next morning no horses were visible, and as time went on till ten o’clock without any appearance we all began to suspect Indian treachery. Sam volunteered the remark that if they (the Indians) had played us such a trick, he would go and clear all their animals out the following evening. This threat there was fortunately no occasion for him to put into execution, as the troop proved only to have strayed into another valley. As we were now nearing Santa Cruz, which the last of the Indians were just leaving, having completed their trade and finished all the grog, we saw numerous columns of smoke, caused by their hunting parties. After passing the broken ground and reaching the high Pampa, Sam and myself rode on ahead, amusing ourselves by fruitlessly chasing guanaco or ostrich, but Sam’s dexterity with the bolas was frustrated by his being mounted on a horse belonging to the expedition and unused to this work. Towards evening, after again passing numerous salt lagoons, we came to a descent of 300 or 400 feet leading to a valley containing a large salina, and halting, made our fire by the side of a spring, near which, Sam informed me, were the graves of two Indians, which he mentioned with the deepest respect and in an awe-stricken undertone.
Our signal smoke, which was as much to attract Indians as to give the direction of our route to Gallegos and J’aria, was soon responded to from the opposite hills on the northern side of the valley, and shortly a line of mounted women and children descended the slope in front, making for our fire, which Sam informed me was their intended camping place. We advanced to meet them, and Sam conversed in their tongue, interpreting to me that they had left Santa Cruz two days previously, and that Don Luiz P. B. had quitted his settlement on the island to sail in his schooner to Buenos Ayres; while the Northern Indians, encamped to the north of Santa Cruz, with whom I hoped to proceed to the Rio Negro, had no intention of marching until the ensuing spring. On leaving those ladies, amongst whom was a young and rather pretty girl, I lifted my cap in salute, which called forth a burst of laughter from the whole group and cries of ‘Anglish, Anglish!’ amidst which we rode off to join the remainder of our party, who were crossing the valley to the eastward, having intentionally deviated from the straight route; and although Sam used every effort to induce Gallegos to stop at the Indian encampment, the latter wisely determined to proceed about a league farther, knowing that a halt here would cause a considerable inroad to be made in the stock of provisions, which, in view of the return journey, with perhaps an increased party, it was desirable to avoid. We accordingly left the sheltered valley and encamped on the plateau in an exposed situation near a lagoon, the ice of which had to be broken to secure a supply of water. The frost was keen, and the tent afforded but a partial protection from the biting wind; so that the economical foresight of our leader resulted in all the party spending the coldest night hitherto experienced by us.