Our hopes were on this occasion destined to disappointment, for, in spite of all our efforts, we were unable to go forward or to make head against the bad weather, which continued for some days. Besides this, the injector of the launch failed to perform its office, and as the machinery was badly in need of repairs, and the cracked plate was letting in water, I thought it better to run before the wind to Cow Monte Harbour, which was, in fact, our headquarters, and where such tools as we had were stored. One point that was always in our favour while making these attempts to force our way up the North Fjord, lay in the fact that the prevailing winds from north-west or south-west, as the case might be, helped rather than hindered us on our return passages.
OUR LAUNCH AMONG THE ICE
(From a Photograph by the Author)
During this interval, while waiting for a second opportunity of attempting to gain the extreme end of the North Fjord of the lake, we arranged to make a short voyage down the South Fjord, or, as it is locally known, to Lake Rica. By doing this, moreover, we should complete our circumnavigation of Lake Argentino. Before we left, reliable news came up from the settlements with some belated Christmas and other papers. We were very relieved to learn that the Franco-Russian combination was no more than a camp-scare, nor was Russia advancing on India, as the last rumours had told us. When one has lost so large a slice of the general history of the world as we did during the months passed on our expedition, it is hopeless to imagine one can ever make up the loss. The events of that period must always remain blurred and hazy in the mind, only a few ever attaining an accurate outline. And then how greedy one becomes of news after an abstinence so prolonged as ours from that daily mental excitement of civilisation! It is difficult to describe how one grips the strayed journal or periodical when one has been cut off for months from these "curses of modern life."
On April 11 we left Cow Monte Harbour and steamed westwards down the Punta Bandera Channel. In a short time the pump broke down and we had some trouble in putting it right again. In defence of our engineering skill I must say that we had against us the fact that a part of the pump had been taken away for repairs to Buenos Aires by the Commission. We camped at the mouth of a river coming down out of Mount Avellaneda. Above us the bare volcanic summits of the mountains rose starkly out of their circling forests, that were now turning crimson with the brilliant colours of autumn. We could also see the great glacier on the western side of the Canal de los Tempanos. Many deer-tracks were visible, but we saw only one huemul buck in the edge of the forest.
We made an early start next day, which luckily was calm, for the pump gave us a good deal of bother. We proceeded down a smaller fjord lying under Mount Avellaneda, which took us in a westerly direction, but presently curved southwards and ended in a large mountain covered with forest, which I named Mount Millais. The chief hindrances in these winding passages were the constantly veering winds that we encountered. Day and night we were obliged to keep up a constant struggle against them. This was all very well during the daylight, but to anchor the launch snugly and then to be waked by her bumping and straining at her cable perhaps ten times in the night, and to have to turn out in just what you happened to have on in the way of sleeping apparel supplemented only by "the mantle of the night,"—for there never was a moment to be lost at these junctures—was an experience which quickly became monotonous and wearing to strength and temper. During this South Fjord trip the launch certainly did herself proud in this direction; she seldom gave us a couple of hours' quiet rest, often forcing us to face the biting cold a dozen times between dark and dawn.
The forests about this part of the lake were immense, and contained trees and plants unknown in the outer Cordillera or, rather, I should say, the foothills.[29] A bush resembling holly was conspicuous, fuchsias also abounded.
I quote a short description of this region from my diary: "The mountains go in and out of the mist, now seen, now lost. The mist shrouds them at one moment, and the greyness reaches up to heaven and down to earth—into a man's soul it often seems; the next instant there may be gleams of a sad blue sky shining through the torn banners of the haze, and glaciers assume a wonderful goblin hue, a pallid violet." There was some sameness in our days, but the launch kept us alive with anticipation. She seldom lacked the chance of giving us some surprise. Often we asked each other, "Will she drown us after all? And when and where?" A cold death and a deep grave she had it in her power to give. The one good side to the situation was that when we landed, as we often did, in a sleety drizzle on a swampy camp, we forbore to grumble, but were, on the contrary, filled with a strong thankfulness to have escaped from her even for a little time.
We had one particularly bad night, when a series of squalls came down on us, and we spent the greater part of our sleeping-hours in poling the launch off the shore, but at last the wind got the better of us and literally hurled her on the beach.