Through the Heart of Patagonia

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

The Cruzado seemed to enter into the spirit of the chase, and in the present instance went off at a fast canter towards the hills. The guanaco had moved from his point of vantage upon the top of a conical hill of mud, and had probably, according to the custom of these animals, sought another eminence. I thought he had seen me, in which case he would at once have made for the highest point within reach, but, as I came into the throat of the gorge where there were some mud hills, I saw him again upon the side of a large hummock one hundred feet or so in height. I immediately tied up my horse.

The guanacos of the valley of the Chico were very wild owing to the fact that the Tehuelche Indians hunt them there during the months of October and November. This valley was once celebrated for the abundance of its game, but of recent years the herds seem to have moved westwards and northwards. This guanaco was the first we had seen that day.

I crawled up the hill, sinking to my knees at every step into the dry mud. When half-way up I saw the ears of the guanaco appear against the sky-line. I lay down, and he remained still and utterly unconscious of my presence for some minutes. He was watching my companions, who, with the horses, were moving off into dimness down the valley. Presently he ran forward one or two steps and gave out his high-pitched neighing laugh in a sort of strange defiance at our retreating troop. He was a very old buck with dark markings on his face. He was about fifty yards away, and when I fired he reared and fell backwards. I threw out the cartridge, and at the same instant seven guanacos, startled by the report, dashed across the valley and galloped along parallel to me on the other side of the cañadon at about one hundred yards distance. I fired at the second one because it looked fat, and brought it to the ground. The guanacos now turned in great affright and raced past me again, when I dropped two more. This brought them to a standstill, as they had not yet made out where the shots were coming from, and no doubt I might have been able to shoot the entire herd, but we had now enough skins. When I rose the remaining four sprang down into the valley and disappeared up the opposite barranca.

I now went to the top of the hill, where I had fired at the old buck, and found that the bullet had broken his neck. He was, as I had surmised, a very old animal, and bore upon him traces of an encounter with a puma. The skin of his neck was immensely thick and his teeth were worn down. One of the other guanacos, which had fallen upon the far side of the valley, proved to be a year-old doe, so it was unnecessary to take any of the meat of the buck. I now signalled, and Burbury soon joined me to help in cutting up.

When we overtook the horses we found that the hounds, Tom and Bian had killed a cavy (Dolichotis patagonica), so that we had a good stock of meat. The cavy is excellent eating, resembling English hare. I was told that Tom had not covered himself with glory, for, although he proved himself very fast, and turned the hare, it was Bian that killed it. Bian was a rough, yellow lurcher, who stood the rough ground and hard experiences of our journey very much better than Tom, although the latter was a well-bred hound with a pedigree to back his pretensions. Bian belonged to young Jones.

During the day we observed enormous flocks of Chilian widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix) as well as some grey teal (Querquedula versicolor).

On October 22, as we had expected, we arrived at Colohuapi, the farthest settlement in the heart of Patagonia. Near by lie twin lakes Colhué and Musters. About one o'clock, coming over a rise, we saw the Lake. As the sun was shining it was very blue, and upon the far side rose the hills. The mournful whistle of waterfowl in countless flocks was to be heard. A breeze from the north-west was blowing across the lake, and there was that peculiar wet smell in the wind which can only be derived from a passage across wide waters.

This day the Gateado bucked off his cargo of tinned meats and was unfortunate enough to give himself a deep wound in the pastern. Jones tied it up with his handkerchief, and the horse was so lame that we thought it would be necessary to leave him behind at Colohuapi. As it turned out, however, being of a very strong constitution, he improved rapidly, and was with us to the very end of our journeyings.

Our march on this occasion was upwards of twenty-seven miles, and at the end of it I rode ahead to choose a place for a camp. Earlier in the day Burbury, who was riding the Colorado, a half-broken colt that had had only a few gallops, got into difficulties, and I relieved him of a bag which he was carrying. I had tied this bag to my saddle, but just before we camped it came loose, and, thinking I was not going to have any other chance of shooting, I slung it over my rifle, which I was carrying across my shoulder as usual in a sling. I had chosen a valley to camp in and turned round to jog quietly back to meet the troop, when with the tail of my eye I caught sight of an animal which I thought was Tom, but it looked too large, and I turned my head to see it more fully. There, fifteen yards behind my horse, staring at me, switching its tail slowly from side to side, and standing full up, was a fine male puma (F. concolor). I rolled off my horse, which, fortunately, had neither seen nor winded the puma, and began to unsling my rifle. In the middle of the operation, when I already had the hindering bag upon the ground, the puma, which up to that moment had continued to lash its tail and stare at me, turned round and loped off at the cumbrous and uncouth canter habitual to these animals. At one hundred and fifty yards it stopped for an instant, but was off again at once. I attempted to mount my horse with the idea of galloping down the puma, an easy thing to do, as these animals never run far, and are readily blown, but the horse, which happened to be a mule-footed oscuro, known as Mula, became quite unmanageable. I at once coo-ed and was joined by young Humphrey Jones, who in eighteen years' residence in Patagonia had never seen a puma, and as he had strong sporting instincts, was extremely anxious to encounter one. We followed the track of the lion—as the puma is locally called—but after topping the hill it led along a bare slope and was lost in a clump of high dry bush, where it was quite hopeless to find the creature. We rode back into camp very disappointed.

Just as Mr. Selous remarks that hunters sometimes spend years in Africa before they come upon their first lion, so many a man is as long in Patagonia before he comes across his first puma. The puma is a very furtive and cowardly animal, and though we saw so few during our months of travel, I have no doubt that many a puma watched our troop passing across the pampa from the safe cover of rocks and bushes. Seeing or not seeing pumas is purely a matter of luck, and the tales concerning pumas having attacked men, which abound in the country, are generally fabrications. A puma with young will attack man if he stumbles upon her and her family, and my friend Mr. Waag told me that on one occasion a puma in the Cordillera had shown evident signs of attack. In the majority of cases, even when wounded, the puma will only snarl and spit, and the Indians, as well as the Gauchos, despatch it with the bolas.