Through the Heart of Patagonia

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

Upon the evening of the second day we saw again the ill-fated River de los Antiguos, and striking south we made a camp, as nearly as I could judge, opposite to where I had spent the night shivering in oilskins. Of course, at starting, the question had been mooted: Might we not, provided the river had fallen sufficiently, find the lost guns, and at any rate that treasure, the Mauser?

The probabilities were, of course, very much against such good fortune, and it was almost certain, that even did we find either of them, it would be useless after being knocked about by the violent handling of the river.

Immediately we arrived at the Gorge of the de los Antiguos, Jones and I rode down to the water's edge. I had small hope of success as regarded retrieving the guns, but the water had fallen as quickly as it had risen. We soon came upon my tracks going down to the stream, made during my last visit. We then rode along the bank. Trees, sand and débris filled the river-bed, and I had reached a spot some hundred yards below the place where I had been beached on the shingle island, and Jones was still engaged in searching another channel, when I saw something brown upon a sandbank.

There, half in and half out of the water, lay the Mauser, caked with rust, choked with sand and pebbles, but whole, unbent, though the stock was pitted with the battering of many stones. I picked it up, and there seemed but little hope of its ever becoming serviceable again. However, the sights, by a miracle, were intact, save the half of the bead of the foresight. After this we resumed our search, hoping with luck to come upon the shot-gun, and presently we discovered that also, lying half-buried among the wreckage at the lip of the flood. Being in a case, it was practically undamaged. We carried the two in triumph to the camp. Upon examination the Mauser bolt was found to be fixed and immovable, and we feared it would never fire again. For tools we had only an axe and a weak pocket-knife, but with the help of these two we took the Mauser to pieces, cleaned it, and fixed it together again, to find, however, that it would not stay on cock. As soon as we shut the bolt, the rifle went off. We examined it, but could discover nothing broken or bent, and, night falling, we went to bed.

I was awakened by Jones with the welcome news that breakfast was ready, and that he had got up early and been at work upon the Mauser, which he said had haunted his dreams. It was, he declared, as good as ever, and this proved to be the case. The trigger had been slightly bent, and a small stone lodged in the mechanism had been overlooked in the bad light of the previous evening. Altogether the affair stands out as one gigantic piece of luck.

It was not now at all a presentable weapon. It was, indeed, an object any gunmaker would have shied at, but it started business again by taking a particular stone out of the neighbouring cliff with all its old accuracy. To celebrate the event we made a plum duff of flour, which we ate with a tin of Swiss milk. Afterwards we made quite a bag of pigeons (Columba maculosa), which frequented the scrub of the river in great numbers.

Patagonia is a land so far from shops that one must not lose anything, and if you do lose anything, it is strange how persistent one becomes in looking for it. Scrivenor once rode twenty-five miles for a pipe; I have spent half a weary day following my old tracks for a similar purpose. I think the only article lost upon the expedition, and left lost, was Barker's large knife, and we had ridden fifty miles the day he dropped it. Jones lost a pair of pipes one day galloping, and after four days searching—at odd times—found them both again! Burbury lost a knife at the Fenix River—but I might go on multiplying instances for ever.

Well, now that we had found the guns, remained the horses, and after these we started next morning, moving our small camp up to where they had been abandoned.

I remember that day, for I was riding the roughest horse in all our troop, a stout little Zaino, which shook and vibrated like a miniature torpedo-boat. At length we came to the high barranca above the river, down which Mula had fallen and nearly immolated poor Barckhausen. We human beings toboganned down—the measured angle being 38°—and the horses slid down upon their haunches. Part of the cliff accompanied us in our descent. Then followed that nasty boulder-strewn piece of journeying I have before described, until at length we crossed the river and rode in among the trees towards Rest-and-be-thankful Camp.