Our plan was to descend the river stern-first with only enough steam to enable the boat to answer her tiller; for fuel we had no choice but to burn wood, and although califate made no bad firing, still the results to be expected were not by any means the same as if we had been able to put coal into the furnace.
In the evening the horses strayed, and I went to bring them in. The landscape on this side of Viedma is the most desolate imaginable, being made up chiefly of sand, sparse yellow grass, low thorn-bushes, and the skeletons of dead game. It is a place only fit to die in, a fact the guanacos seem to have grasped, for their bones lay all over the ground in far greater profusion even than upon the shores of Lake Buenos Aires. The mountains about Viedma differ in outline from most of the other ranges in Patagonia. The peaks are more pointed and rise against the cold sky in a line of pinnacles and minarets.
My way led me along the banks of the Leona. It was a grey and miserable afternoon verging towards evening, and the strong wind was sending a large volume of water racing and moaning between the bare and treeless banks of the river. I remember thinking with great longing of warm and comfortable England, of good friends and true, of home, and of all the many small things which make life worth having. I suppose every one is attacked with this kind of feeling sometimes. Not very often, luckily, nor when the sun is shining, but on these miserable, grey, whimpering evenings everything takes on a sombre shade.
I found the horses collected in a rincon, beneath the shelter of a few thorn-bushes; they were looking very forlorn, especially the Alazan, who was etched out darkly against the bleak sky. They seemed a bit tucked up too after the tiring marches of the previous days.
We hoped to start in the launch on the following morning. When we woke it was still blowing half a gale. I, however, told Bernardo to get up steam, and we put the baggage aboard, and as the boat had no name we christened her the Ariel. She was given other names before we were done with her!
Burbury was to take the horses by the banks of the river, while we steamed down the channel. It was blowing pretty strong when all was ready, and Bernardo, to inaugurate the start, raised a feeble whistle, thereby seriously diminishing the amount of steam in the boiler. The Ariel got under way with some wheezing and groaning, and soon we were heaving up and down, head to swell. The waves were all breaking, and the seas short, with the consequence that we had several duckings. Presently, however, the wind lulled and I thought all was about to go well with us.
But soon I noticed that the figure of Burbury, standing upon the shore, remained ominously stationary. The wind was rising again, two or three heavy seas broke over us, and the launch would not answer her tiller. Bernardo shouted that the boiler was leaking, and it looked as if we should soon be in trouble.
Ultimately we were obliged to put back into the bay, which we managed with difficulty, and there anchored.
We determined to try again to-morrow, and then got up the tent and turned in.
On the morrow the wind had dropped somewhat, though the lake was still white with breakers. We had a maté by the fire on the promontory and prepared to start again. It was 9.30 when all was ready, and by that time the Cordillera was shut out by a big purple rain-cloud. As the rain began to fall we took our places and heaved in the anchor.