THE LAUNCH
WITH MR. CATTLE AND BERNARDO ON BOARD
However that might be, this launch appeared to be our only resource, and I was lucky indeed to have been given leave to use her if necessary. On my speaking to Cattle on the matter, he was kind enough to offer to accompany me. Burbury possessed a good knowledge of engineering, which would be of invaluable service to us, and, as it happened, Bernardo, in the course of his adventurous career, had had some experience in the engine-room of a Brazilian steamer.
So on February 15 we set out for Lake Viedma, with the idea of bringing the launch, if possible, down the River Leona, which is the connecting waterway between the Lakes Viedma and Argentino.
To travel from our starting point at the foot of Mount Buenos Aires to Lake Viedma it was necessary to skirt Lake Argentino until the southern outlet of the Leona was reached, and then to follow that river to its source in Lake Viedma. The distance was about eighty miles more or less, and included the fording of the River Santa Cruz.
Our party was made up of four men and twenty-one horses, and upon one of the packs we took a light canvas collapsible boat and a pair of oars with which to negotiate the Santa Cruz.
On the following evening we arrived on its southern bank. There we found an old Commission boat that was used as a ferry, but it was beached, with the usual contrariety of things, on the wrong side of the stream, which is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards wide at this spot and runs with a swift current. Many a Gaucho has lost his life in attempting to cross lower down.
Next morning it was still dark when the plume of smoke rose from our camp-fire of califate-wood, and as we sat round it waiting for the asado to cook, we smoked (a bad habit when indulged in before breakfast, against which one would warn everybody else) and drank maté. It was a cool dawn I remember that developed later into a hot day. We put the collapsible boat together, and Cattle, after a mishap with a rowlock, brought the old and leaky ford-boat across, as we needed her to transport our baggage. We piled the cargo into her, and such weak places as we could deal with we strengthened.
The theory was to take the filly through the river behind the boat, trusting that the old black bell-mare would follow her offspring, and the troop in its turn follow the mare, as had occurred on the occasion of our former crossing of the river near the settlement of Santa Cruz.
So we dragged the reluctant and much-protesting filly down to the riverside, conveyed the boat a few hundred yards up-stream, and then Bernardo and I got aboard and shoved off. I had put a collar round the filly's neck, and by this supported her in the wake of the boat. All would have gone well had not one of the rowlocks, worn by weather and worm-eaten, struck work and smashed. Left with but one oar the current took charge of us. Soon the unfortunate filly began to turn over in the water like a catherine-wheel, and I was unable to help her much, as I was holding a rowlock in place with one hand and supporting the filly with the other. Eventually we were obliged to put back, and were lucky enough to make the south bank just in time, for at that part of the shore there is but a small stretch upon which it is possible to land; immediately below high cliffs descend sheer to the water.
After this we resolved to drive the troop over before us, but although they had had a long-journey experience of river-crossing they did not care to face the Santa Cruz. In spite of our efforts they broke back five or six times. Once we nearly had them in the water, when the little Zaino got away and galloped up the bank. At last, however, by dint of bellowing and brandishing oars or anything that came handy, we succeeded in convincing them that the south shore of the Santa Cruz had become unhealthy to remain upon, and so they swam over. We started at once with a boatful of gear, and landed barely in time to defeat the ambitious intentions of the leading spirits of the troop, who on getting out of the water decided to make off and regain a life of freedom.