HELLGATE
On March 11, having mended the launch to the best of our ability, we intended to make a start from Cow Monte Harbour. As we rode down from Cattle's, driving my troop of horses before us, the calm weather which had attended the period of repairs broke up and a strong wind began to blow out of the south-west. A start was, therefore, rendered impossible. We accordingly camped beside the launch, to be ready for an early departure. All night long the wind held, and the sheepskins in the after-hatch, where I was sleeping, took in water. It needed little waking, therefore, to get me out in the morning. The false dawn was still lingering in the sky when the wind fell and we were off in double quick time, heading in a northerly direction, and steering by a clump of Leña dura bushes on a promontory, behind which lay Hellgate.
The swell of the previous night was yet big upon the water, and the launch crawled over it at about three knots. The entrance to Hellgate is possibly one of the most menacing and sinister-looking spots in South America. The great grooved cliffs tower over the yeasty cauldron of water, and down the channel between them, as I have said, the wind hurtles as through a funnel. On this particular morning a squall had darkened the great and houseless unknown beyond. Several icebergs were huddled together, stranded upon the shallows of the eastern shore.
After running through the black throat of Hellgate we put in, beneath a big rock, in order to take shelter from the squall that was fast coming down upon us. We had started on a maté, and so, while we waited, a roast was got under way. As we were eating, the squall that had brooded so ominously in the west broke over the lake, and after raging for a few minutes passed with a shiver that you could follow with the eye, till it lost itself in the distance of the early morning waters. Then the sun glowed out suddenly, as if some gigantic power had lifted an extinguisher from its glory. The farther and middle distances were peopled with snow-peaks, rising in minarets above their girdles of dark forest, which last stretched downwards until they lipped the black water at the mountain bases. For a moment after the outburst of radiance the water alone remained black and angry, and then the squall flicked away its skirts and passed from view, leaving a picture of cold and austere purity extending to the rim of sight. In words I cannot give you any reflection of the scene, and no photograph could ever do more than reproduce its outlines, and yet I suppose few human eyes will ever look upon it.
To describe the kaleidoscope of colours and the scenery through which we passed in that north-west passage of Lake Argentino would merely leave me a beggar in adjectives. Suffice it to say that for that day at least the mist and gloom of the clouds shared short watches with the gold and white of flying sunshine. For the first time in our experience of her the launch played us no tricks, and our progress went on at a steady three knots. Soon a gigantic glacier showed in the channel, seeming to block all farther advance. The Fjord looked full of icebergs; there must have been three thousand of them lying, an inanimate fleet, in their mountain-bound harbour of wind and mist.
A nasty squall caught us as we dodged among the ice, the smallest ripple set us gripping our frail craft, and I am afraid that a moderate sea would have drowned her fires and sent us to explore downwards rather than onwards. Indeed, our entire life on the launch was one long history of danger-dodging. I do not give the details, because some of the same sort have already been written, and repetition is needless. I grant there was more risk in taking the launch and using her in such waters than, perhaps, wisdom would have approved. Without her, however, we could have had no chance of exploring the North Fjord and solving the mystery of the "river with clear waters." Moreover, those who accompanied me went of their own free will, and I must here record my gratitude to Mr. Cattle, who willingly risked his life on our voyages in the launch, and also to Burbury—who accompanied me on my first journey—as well as to Bernardo, who was with me throughout the whole of my Lake Argentino experiences. Wherever I may travel in the future, I can wish for no better companions.
THE NORTH FIORD
Bernardo, the most willing of men, kept our nerves in a state of less than pleasurable excitement. He drove the launch, when I took my eye off him, with 145 lb. of steam in her worn-out boiler—her safety-limit at the best of times had been 130 lb. On shore he succeeded in firing off my jungle-gun by mistake, narrowly missing killing himself at close quarters and myself at some few feet distance. But even after this involuntary attempt at manslaughter one could not be angry with him, he was so genuinely sorry, yet one could not help foreseeing that he was eminently likely to do something of the sort again. He was, to use slang, such a "decent chap," he never grumbled when he had nothing to eat, or a bout of bitter cold labour when we were obliged to turn out in the night to get up the anchor or do some other job. He was also a glutton of the first water for work, but we were all persuaded that he would end by slaying us, in which case I have not the slightest doubt he would have said to me as we were being ferried across the Styx, "By good, Mr. Preechard, I am sorry, the old launch she bust up!" From looking on the launch, as he did at first, with considerable awe and respect, familiarity with her bred contempt, and all her parts lost their novelty to him, save the whistle. When he blew that his face would betoken the intensest satisfaction. In many ways the placid Swede caused us much amusement.