Through the Heart of Patagonia

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

FIRST HUEMUL CAMP

The next day Jones and I went hunting. We desired to secure a few heads and skins of the huemul and we determined to devote a day to that purpose. I will describe that excursion at full length, as it was one typical of Patagonian sport.

Of course we rode. You ride everywhere in Patagonia. I rode Luna, and Jones one of the Zainos—Fritz the younger, a very rough horse.

When we started a light rain was falling and the summits of the Cordillera were purple with threatening cloud. The rain gave the mountain wind the softness which the pampero lacks. We quickly crossed the lower hills and saw some guanacos in the valleys. We did not shoot any but rode on upwards until we came to the high ground, where bushes of maté negra and black fragments of basalt made a desolate picture with the low clouds rolling over the wet hills. Presently a cloud enveloped us and we took shelter beneath a rock. It looked as if we were in for a wet day, but to our delight, after an hour of waiting the wind blew away the clouds and showed the pale blue sky beyond, the weather turned colder and set in fine. We jumped on our horses and jogged on until the high ground was reached. Here we dismounted and spied the country with the telescope. We had come to the conclusion that nothing was in sight when, moving a little higher, I saw an ostrich in a marsh not more than two hundred yards away. The bird had not perceived us, and fortunately the ground was favourable for stalking. Under cover of a hummock, we advanced to within about seventy yards, when I shot the bird. As always happens, on receiving the shot it ran thirty yards forward and fell.

During the whole of our travels we observed but one kind of rhea (Rhea darwini). The remarks that Darwin makes concerning the habits of this bird have little to be added to them. The male bird, which hatches out the young, will, when approached, feign to be wounded in order to draw off the intruder from the nest of the chicks. I have never seen more than nineteen chicks with a single ostrich at any period within a month or two of the hatching, but I was informed by the Gauchos that this number is not an outside limit. When started, Rhea darwini does not usually open his wings, as does the Rhea americana. This fact has been noticed by Darwin. On one occasion, shortly after leaving Trelew, we chased an ostrich, which, having run a couple of hundred yards, opened its wings. We did not, however, secure the bird.

Only when with young will the ostrich, on starting, expand the wings, but, as I have said, this is a ruse; yet I have seen them proceed for a short distance with wings full open at times when hard pressed. In the present instance we cut up our ostrich, taking the stomach, which, cooked as an asado, or roast, is esteemed a luxury by the Gauchos. The stomach was full of the grass of the marsh. Up to the end of December we found eggs. When fresh they were of a transparent and pale green, which after some days merged into a pallid white.

While we were yet engaged in cutting up the bird, the neck-skin of which came in very usefully as a tobacco-pouch, we paused in the work and took a look round with the telescope. On the heights above us, two brown objects were to be descried, which on examination proved to be huemules. They had evidently seen us, and their curiosity had been excited by our movements. Hesitatingly they began to descend the hillside towards us. We cut some antics and so decoyed the unlucky animals within range. After killing them, we took the skins of both, as there is no example of this deer in summer coat in any of our British collections. They were still shedding their winter coat.

After riding on, our next spy showed us a young huemul buck beneath us, but as I had already secured a specimen I was only too glad to let him go in peace.

I am sorry that I cannot give my readers any interesting story of huemul-shooting; that will be reserved for the pen of some future traveller, who will find the animal wild, because used to man and his ways. As for our experience of them, the interest turns rather on their confidingness and their behaviour towards man as an unknown entity.

We were riding home, my desire to shoot huemul completely evaporated, when we perceived among the basalt fragments above us the black face of a really magnificent buck. In approaching him I purposely gave him the wind. He had not seen us, but immediately on getting our wind dashed away to a short distance. On my showing myself, he stood quite still, snorted twice or thrice, and was just bounding off when the crack of the Mauser cut short his career.