The Flying Horseman

by Gustave Aimard

This immense plain, the natural frontiers of which extend very far from Brazil and the old Spanish colonies, is considered by the greater part of the Indian nations who live in the chaco as a neutral territory where each has the right of trying his fortune—from the hunter's point of view, of course—without anyone contesting his right.

The principal tribes who traverse this desert, or who have temporary habitations there, are the Lengoas, the Zamercose, the Chiriguanos, the Payagoas, and the Guaycurus, the most renowned of all—those to whom the Portuguese, to distinguish them from the other tribes, have given the characteristic name of Indian cabalheiros (cavaliers or gentlemen); not only because their life is passed, so to say, on horseback, but especially on account of their remarkable intelligence, and their manners, which bear testimony to a former civilisation—almost, lest it is true, but which must have been very advanced.

The whites, we repeat, were alone excluded from this sacred territory, where their presence entailed death, with all the refinements invented by Indian imagination.

The war detachment of the Guaycurus—which we have seen at the commencement of this work, set out from the Rincón del Bosquecillo, to fight for the Brazilians in the old Spanish colonies, now completely emancipated—was at last on its return to the territories of its tribe after having traversed enormous distances, penetrated a long way into the Chilian Cordilleras, braved for several months all sorts of perils, and enraged in skirmishes without number.

The joy of the Indians was great; it almost amounted to delirium, for many of them had given up the hope of again seeing those fertile regions where they had been born, and had often shuddered at the thought of dying ingloriously in the midst of the snows of the Cordilleras.

On the preceding evening they had at last reached the goal towards which their desires had so long tended. The llano had appeared to them in its grandiose majesty, and a cry of delight had burst from breasts so long oppressed by fear. The camp had been established in a vast glade, in the midst of an immense forest, the most mysterious recesses of which were well known to the warriors, who often ventured there in pursuit of wild animals.

As soon as the camp bad been installed, and watch fires had been lighted—for the position was so well chosen that it was impossible that the light should be perceived from the plain, so thick was the foliage which surrounded the glade—the Cougar had immediately sent as emissary to Tarou Niom, the first chief of the tribe, who lived in a village about thirty leagues, as the crow flies—a very short distance for the Indians.

The emissary having set off, the captains occupied themselves in obtaining a large supply of dry wood, as producing less smoke, to keep up the fires; and some forty warriors, under the orders of the Gueyma, had started off as a hunting party for two or three days, while the Indians who remained at the camp employed themselves in constructing enramadas, to shelter the warriors, and corals to enclose the horses.

All these labours showed that the detachment, instead of continuing the journey as far as the villages of its tribe, intended to make a pretty long stay in the glade; for, ordinarily, encampments for two or three days do not necessitate any precautions. All that is thought of is to light fires to roast the meat and to keep off the wild beasts during the night.

This new delay to their return had caused the Indians a somewhat acute disappointment, and much diminished their joy, for nearly all had wives and children that they longed to see; but they were constrained to obey, and we may add that they did this with a good grace, convinced that their chiefs wished as much as themselves to see their homes again, and that if they stopped at the moment when they were just at the end of their journey there were probably grave reasons for acting thus.