All these difficulties of transit do not make for prosperity. I understand that of late a German line has undertaken to call at some of the ports, and if they carry out their contract it should help events in Patagonia to get into the stride of success.
On the coast-farms, where ships could and did occasionally put in, especially in the wool season, money was made and men began to see fortune ahead. But far away in the interior, where a very few pioneers have made their homes beside a lake here and there, the wide and uninhabited pampas lie between the producer and his market. Until railways open up the land the position of these people cannot much improve. They are too heavily handicapped in the race.
It is almost impossible to tell what enormous numbers of sheep and cattle Patagonia could produce for the providing of the world if capital and enterprise would but pave the way. In the meantime the country remains the paradise of the middleman. At present there is little money in hand, much of the trade is carried on by barter, and on this system there is always an evil tendency towards profits accruing mostly to the storekeepers, who gradually become more or less masters of the situation. Many of the small farmers are deeply in debt to this class. A hard winter—and there are often very hard winters—fills the pocket of the storekeeper, for they advance provisions, without which no man can continue to live, and they, of course, thus secure mortgages on the farms.
This same unfortunate liability is observable in other countries where similar conditions obtain, but the opening up of the interior of Patagonia and the introduction of capital in the hands of employers of labour would probably lessen the pressure of hard times on the poorer farmers.
Beyond the pampas again tower the unnumbered peaks of the Cordillera, and among them all things, minerally speaking, are possible. Perhaps the future of Patagonia is to be found there. In a few years the Patagonian Andes may be as commonly known a seeking-place for fortune as Klondyke is to-day. But concerning this part of the subject I have nothing to say, being no prophet of El Dorados.
Although during our travels we had little time to spare for prospecting, or searching for the mineral wealth which may lie hidden in the Cordillera, yet there was one obvious source of riches that was always before our eyes in those regions.
The coast-towns of Patagonia are supplied with wood by sea from the woodlands of Tierra del Fuego, and this while many square miles about the bases of the Andes are covered with dense forests of magnificent growth. Here are to be found beech, cypress and redwood, not to speak of other trees, but the absolute absence of any means of conveying logs to the coast has so far left this store of wealth untouched. Until better means of transport can be developed, there are certainly one or two rivers which might be made use of in this connection.
I can only insist upon the fact that Patagonia is a great though at present undeveloped land; that it cries aloud to railway enterprise to become its salvation. Nevertheless, it is even now a good country for the man ready and able to work. A capable man will make £6 a month and his keep, but he must know the work required of him; a considerable time has to be spent in learning the skilled labour of camp life, and very hard labour that sometimes is. An emigrant does not consequently find it so easy to get employment. But, given vigorous health, an aptitude for hard work, and a small sum in hand to keep him going until he is broken in to the necessities of the life, and I know of few countries more favourable to the unmarried working man.
There is something further which I should like to suggest to intending emigrants of my own nation.
The greatest of British exports is, one might contend, Britishers.