But this by no means ended the business. The Indians were excited and ripe for any amount of gambling, and being skilfully handled by the trader they did not leave the settlement until he had stripped them of all their possessions. The tall Indian, who had come in with eighty dollars and five horses, returned to his camp with a two-kilo bag of yerba and on a horse which he had been forced to buy for the return journey from the trader at, of course, the trader's own price.
There are many Indians who avoid the coast-towns, but although these do not go to the trader, the trader, as I have mentioned in another chapter, comes to them.
Throughout Patagonia, upon the rim of civilisation, are scattered boliches, or frontier drink-shops, whose liquor sales consist chiefly of "champagne cognac," whatever that potion may be. These establishments hold out a perpetual temptation to the passing Indians. The frequent presence of silver gear, such as the Tehuelches possess when fortune smiles upon them, that is almost always hanging from the ceiling of the neighbouring store, tells its own tale. An Indian has rarely enough money to "look upon the wine when it is red," or rather upon the unwholesome jaundice tinge of "champagne cognac," so he pays in kind; and when once the craving for drink grips him he will gamble away everything to satisfy it. This infatuation appears to lay a fatally strong hand upon the uncivilised peoples. They have no principles to stay them, no scruples to overcome, they have found a short cut to a wild species of happiness, and one cannot wonder that they seek its extraordinary pleasures as often as possible. So it is that liquor has destroyed whole races, wiped them clean off the face of the earth. Some one has written:
Oppression and the sword slay fast,
Thy breath kills slowly but at last,
and it is certainly a terrible truth in this connection.
I can call to mind two Indians, whom I saw ride up to a boliche near Santa Cruz. They offered a contrast to one another which it is not easy to forget. The first was an Indian with a close-shut mouth and the dark and ponderous dignity of the big Tehuelche. His gear was richly studded with silver, and his saddle covered with embroidered cloths. His head was bare, save that his brows were bound with a band of red finery. He made a picturesque and imposing figure as he cantered up on his white horse with its glinting eyes. Followed the second. He, too, was an Indian, but his gear was guiltless of silver, his bozal was worn and blackened with age. The best thing he possessed was his horse. He wore an ancient tail-coat, once black but now green, this in conjunction with a chiripa, or Indian loin-cloth, gave him an appearance sufficiently incongruous. Instead of the quiet dignity of the first man, his face expressed little save vacuity. He was a pitiful object in the strong pampa sunshine, his health evidently broken by frequent orgies. And no doubt he had been a self-respecting Indian enough—before the trader came within the province of his knowledge.
THE TEHUELCHE TOLDOS