SANTA CRUZ
I realised suddenly how I loved the camp and the cold clean hills, when I heard the raucous music of that unlovely place. It was scarcely a pleasure to see cognac advertisements again, and to smell the dregs of yesterday yet awash on the greasy grey metal counter! A concertina was playing the old aching tunes that always seem to carry with them tags of vice and crime.
RESIDENTS OF SANTA CRUZ
We pushed on for Santa Cruz, and on the way passed the house of another trader, who also sold liquor. It squatted beside the river, which here flowed blue and estuary-like between white-faced cliffs backed by bald hills. A board over the door of the shop bore the legend "La Gaviota," or Seagull. It was evidently part of the wreckage of some boat washed up on these beaches.
Santa Cruz town is situated on the banks of a large estuary formed by the junction of the rivers Santa Cruz and the Southern Chico before they fall into the Atlantic. It is a straggling place, a collection of wooden houses with roofs of corrugated iron. The chief export is wool, which in the season lies in long rows of bales upon the shore ready to be embarked. The town lies beyond sandhills, which separate it from the sea. Concertinas and jack-boots ring in its galvanised-iron huts; mules, horses, dogs, and cattle house in its formless plazas. It is a place which you hate and like at one and the same time. You long to get away from it while you are there, yet find yourself looking back sometimes and wishing to see again its vague streets and its drag-net agglomeration of humanity.
CHAPTER XIII
JOURNEY TO LAKE ARGENTINO
Dividing expedition—Darwin's trip up the Santa Cruz—Provisions—Shoeing horses—Pampa grass and marsh grass—Start for Lake Argentino—Burbury and Bernardo—Visit various estancias—Negro—Suspicious wayfarers—Hospitality—Cañadon of the Santa Cruz—Dry pampa—Sunsets—Game and wildfowl—Flamingos—Sandflies—Mystery Plain—Lake Argentino—River del Bote—Mount Viscachas—Lonely lagoon—Death-place of guanaco—Neigh of guanaco—Large herds—Thorny grass—Description of Lake Argentino—A tragedy of wild life—Condors—Numerous birds and beasts of prey—Severities of winters—Snowfall—Burmeister Peninsula—Lake Rica or South Fjord—Bad weather—The Wild Man of Santa Cruz.