"A windy night, the sand of the river-bed driving and filling everything. Presently we shall crawl into our sleeping-bags and, with our feet to the wind, bid any weather defiance. A pipe is a mighty ally. Here am I in the little 4 ft. tent which Burbury and Scrivenor have pitched to sleep in, wrapped in a poncho a-reek with the smoke of Indian camp-fires, enjoying a pipe and writing this, and as it grows too dark to write and the wind roars and bellows louder down the river-bed, I shall sit here watching the red glow of my pipe and dreaming.
"October 17, 9 o'clock.—A month hence from to-day will be my birthday. Where shall we be? At the Lake Buenos Aires, I hope. Several horses this morning have sore backs, and Burbury, excellent fellow, has been doctoring them.
"How the face of this country changes with the weather! Bleak and windy even in warm sunlight, though fine and bracing; in evil weather it wears an aspect of forlornness. The farther you penetrate into Patagonia the more its vast emptiness weighs on you and overwhelms you.
"Eleven o'clock.—Where shall we be a month hence? Where, indeed? To-day we had a great disappointment, and I hardly know how to write of it. The natural difficulties of the country are very great, but with care, in spite of boulders and hard-going, it seemed as if I could get my waggon up to the foothills, and I looked forward to bringing back many specimens in it. But after 300 and odd miles of travel a particularly hummocky valley proved too much for its endurance. When the horses tried to move it this morning it broke up altogether, and here it lies!
"Total day's march, 200 yards. Burbury and Jones have ridden on towards Colohuapi, where there are some pioneers' huts, to try and get wood and bolts. What is to be done? I do not know. Take to cargueros? We could bring back no specimens to speak of in that case. One must wait and see what Burbury can get from the people at Colohuapi. The camp is in a valley and is surrounded by bare mud cones 100 feet in height, a few bushes shiver in the throat of the upper end of the gorge. In the gorge and round our camp-fire spreads a growth of rank lean weed, full of yellow flowers, and a few small wind-polished stones lie at the base of one of the ant-heaplike hills.
"'Oh, the dreary, dreary moorland! Oh, the weary, weary shore' (of the Chico)! I took my gun down to the river and shot five widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix) and six martinetas (Calodromas elegans).
"Late in the evening Scrivenor and I went up over the ridge of bare hills rather with the idea of shooting, if possible, a condor we had seen poised high up. Sight at back came off Scrivenor's Mauser.[4] We went on and saw a herd of guanaco, one much nearer than the rest, and we crawled towards him. The stones were a penance. The only cover was thorn, and little of that up there on the high pampa above the valley where our camp is. At two hundred yards I shot and hit him, but he went on, and presently swayed his neck and lay down. I crawled up and had a shot at his neck. Thereafter followed periods of cantering in a rickety way, followed by periods of lying down, and at last we went round over a rise and crawled down on him. I thought he was dead but for the shadow of his neck, and I crawled on with but one cartridge left in my gun. As I neared him, up he got and I fired again and hit him. He was growing very weak. Scrivenor shouted that he had no revolver, and so here were we with only our knives. I followed the guanaco and Scrivenor went round. I was upon him first but my knife was weak. Scrivenor, startled from his usual calm, and with a shout, leaped at the guanaco and caught him round the neck. So we bore him to earth and slew him. I examined him for wounds and found four. Two of the shots were vital, yet he had led us a chase of two and a half miles, and we had to carry the meat back to camp. Arrived there, and preparing a meal by the fire, in came Burbury and Jones. They had met a Gaucho trekking to Colohuapi, who told them that Colohuapi was yet twenty-five leagues away and that there were no bolts or wood to be had there. I went to bed and smoked, feeling pretty sad. There is but one thing to do. We must jettison some of the cargo and sew up the rest in the skins of guanacos, and go forward with pack-horses."
CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES—(continued)
First march with pack-horses—Difficulties—Friendship among horses—The melancholy Zaino—Revolt of an old philosopher—Shifting cargoes—Reach River Chico—Guanaco-shooting—A glimpse of a puma—Pumas and sheep—Arrival at Colohuapi—Hospitality of pioneers—The value of horse-brands.