THE OLD ZAINO
He cannoned against a black horse carrying ammunition and oatmeal, and it began to slide down the cliff towards the river on its haunches. The remainder of the horses stampeded, some fell, some got into impossible positions.... For several minutes the big black horse hung within measurable distance of violent death upon the rocks below, but Barckhausen made a great effort to save him, and succeeded, though the cargo was kicked off in a most perilous place. Only a guanaco track led along the steep hillside, and over the edge of the slope our belongings dropped into the river a hundred feet below. Each lifted a small cloud of spray as it fell and floated serenely away on the current or sank from sight. The water was dotted with the various packages. All Burbury's clothes, some of mine, flour, oatmeal, a case of corned beef, six hundred rounds of ammunition, and the concertina—these were among our losses.
A salvage-party was at once despatched to attempt the rescue of such of our goods as were still swimming, while the rest of us collected the horses and returned with a sufficiency of ropes to enable us to get down the cliff, for upon the ragged edge left by the landslip and overhanging the river some of our things had lodged. We felt that we were for the time being out of luck. We had not long lost the waggon, and now followed the losing of important stores and the yet more important ammunition. We knotted together eight of the cargo-ropes, and while Scrivenor and I were doing this, Barckhausen retrieved one of the boxes of ammunition, and told us that there were a couple more farther down, and out of reach, he feared, which had stuck in the soft earth of the landslip. However, with the aid of the rope I managed to bring both up to safe ground.
THE GUANACO (AN INTIMATE OF THE OLD ZAINO'S)
"During this time we could see Burbury and Jones far away in the valley, where the river narrowed and the current swinging near the bank offered a hopeful chance of catching the floating articles. They succeeded in dragging ashore most of the packages, but Burbury's clothes, which were in a brown waterproof bag, sank, the bag, I fancy, having filled with water. Our total losses thus amounted to 200 12-bore cartridges, a tin of Mauser ammunition, a 25-kilo bag of oatmeal, and the clothes. On the whole we could not help thinking things might have been very much worse.
"The horses had meantime come to a standstill in a patch of high grass farther along beneath the barranca, and there we rounded them up and re-cargoed.
"When this was done it was found that we had another place, almost as difficult as that upon which we had come to grief, to surmount. This time, however, Burbury led a horse in front, and the others followed meekly in his track. We had wasted several hours in negotiating the first barranca, and it was soon time to camp. As we had no meat, I went to see if I could not kill some geese (Chloephaga magellanica), which I had observed upon a neck of land, that stretched out into the river. There were five geese, and I was lucky enough to kill two, both females, which are very much more tender than the males. On one side of the camp was a chain of small lagoons, evidently formed by the overflow of the river, and in one of these I saw a flock of brown pintails. These were easily stalked behind the rushes, and the discharge of two barrels of the 12-bore left five upon the water. At dark a storm of rain blew up.