Through the Heart of Patagonia

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

When the horses arrived we bundled on to them and rode away to try and stop the conflagration. There were two fires raging, and our only chance lay in being able to arrest their spreading beyond the shores of a dry lagoon, which mercifully extended between them and the summer-dried, well-grassed marsh lying under Mount Buenos Aires and Mount Frias, where Cattle's pioneer-farm was situated. It would have been a distressing return for his co-operation and help had one of my men raised a fire to sweep over his land and destroy his whole stock of horses, sheep and cattle, a result that was for a time imminent.

We all provided ourselves with sheepskins and began our attempt to beat out the fire. It was raging in bone-dry grass and thorn and the flames leaped up and scorched our faces. Every blow with the sheepskin sent up a shower of sparks that got into one's eyes and ears, and it appeared as if we should never make headway against the blaze. We might clear ten feet for a moment, but as we turned away the flames would eat their way back and, rekindling, flare up in waving tongues and roar again. Of course we were to windward, on the lee side the smoke rolled away in a solid cloud. I do not know how long we worked on that upper ring of fire, but slowly we succeeded in beating it out by sheer weight and repetition of blows.

The wind had by this time dropped a little, and the course of the main blaze set downhill. At length we had beaten out a half-circle and came to the crux of the affair. If we could but blot out the fire to the south, where it was burning savagely among high bushes and dry thorn, it was probable the situation would be saved.

We took a short rest of four or five minutes and began again. The smoke was gathering and rolling in great gouts, and we could see nothing save the flames on the one side of us and the black blinding dust on the other. As for ourselves, we were as black and scorched as singed rats. We knew that the next ten minutes would decide the matter.

Beside the fire ran a meandering cow or game track, and it was at this line that we meant to try and cut off the flames, which were rapidly spreading and getting out of hand. One was conscious of nothing but the thud of the sheepskins and the figures of the workers leaping in and out of the smoke and flame. I have never witnessed a wilder scene. The men shouted as they worked. It was like a battle-picture seen in a dream. All along the cow-track, where the fire lipped it, the sheepskins rose and fell. A dense dun-coloured cloud rolled out and up, lit every moment by explosions of sparks.

Presently it became a race for a spot some 200 yards ahead, where a line of green damp grass might stop the fire and force it in another direction. To cut it off at this point would make the remainder of our task more easy. But just on the nearer side of the grass line a number of high bushes were growing, and their strong roots and lower branches gave the flames a definite hold. Now and again, too, one had to run back and stamp out some sudden recrudescence of the flame. There is no need to describe the last half-hour; only, when the yellow circle of fire had given place to a smouldering black ring, we were ready to lie down on our blackened sheepskins and feel neither glad nor sorry but only wearily tired.

To beat out a fire is about the hardest sort of effort a man can make, for no spell of rest can be obtained without losing the results of previous labour. Afterwards, when we made a round of the fires to make sure of safety, we found them sinking sullenly into black deadness.

We were especially lucky in the direction taken by the fire, as, had it burnt along any other line, it is almost certain that our camp and all that we possessed would have been destroyed. Such a disaster actually occurred to Cattle some years ago in the north of the country. He was then journeying with two companions, when a half-breed boy he had with him was foolish enough to allow a camp-fire to spread among the surrounding grass. The pioneers were able to save nothing but a pair of boleadores and a Winchester rifle with the seven cartridges that happened to be in it. The party fortunately possessed several hounds, by whose efforts the stock of meat was kept up, otherwise it is more than likely that their case would have been a serious one.

The interval between the time of our starting for Lake Viedma and our return was in all but eleven days. During those eleven days much happened that brought back most vividly to me old boyish dreams of travel and romance. I had realised some of them, but risk and adventure, which enchant us in the glamour of far-off contemplation, are apt on nearer view to lose in romance what they gain in reality.

On the same day of the fire, news, brought by some wandering Indian or Gaucho, reached us; rumours passing from mouth to mouth as they will in a wonderful manner over the most sparsely populated country. The first we heard was a report of war, a real war-scare, such as might have originated from the fertile imagination of a Haïtian journalist. The Russians were said to be marching upon India, and France had joined hands with them against England.