Wanderings in Patagonia; Or, Life Among the Ostrich-Hunters

by Julius Beerbohm

Famished as I was after my long fast, I lost no time in spitting some meat and setting it to roast, busying myself whilst it was cooking with the preparation of an ostrich's egg à la Patagonienne. The process is as follows: You break a small round hole in the top of the egg, and after having removed some of the white, which is rather heavy for the stomach, and having thoroughly beaten up the yolk, you set the egg on its end in the ashes, at a little distance from the fire, carefully turning it now and then to prevent the shell from cracking. Whilst cooking, it must occasionally be removed from the fire, and the batter must be stirred well, or else it will stick to the sides of the shell and burn. In a quarter of an hour it will be well roasted; add pepper and salt, if you have any, and serve. Our stock of these useful condiments had unfortunately long been exhausted. Cooked in this way, ostriches' eggs are excellent, and far better than when boiled. The act of removing and placing them near the fire whilst roasting requires great nimbleness of finger. I had, during my noviciate, two standing sores or burns on forefinger and thumb, as I would sometimes cook as many as three or four eggs a day. They are held to be very indigestible, two eggs eaten in a day being said to endanger a man's life; but the foregoing is a proof to the contrary. I have known Guillaume to eat six eggs in the space of eight hours, independent of his ordinary meals. It is true his powers were beyond the usual run, even of those of his own habits and profession.

In the conversation which ensued, when I had in some degree allayed the pangs of hunger, Guillaume told me that on his way down he had paid a flying visit to the Middle Pass, the result of which was that he considered it the best place to cross over, in case, contrary to our present expectations, we should again be obliged to swim for it. The banks on the other side were all low-lying, and there would consequently be no danger of a repetition of the accident which had prevented us from crossing over at the pass we were now at. In return for this information, I told him of my discovery of a road to the island; and, eggs being almost indispensable to us for keeping up our failing strength, for which the meat alone was quite inadequate, we resolved to make a raid on the nests the following morning.

Shortly after daybreak, therefore, we set out towards the island, each of us armed with a stick and a revolver in case the birds, which are said to be very savage, should think fit to resent our seizure of their eggs. The road to the island was not as favourable as it had appeared to me the day before, and we got soaked up to the waist in crossing over; but, in the excitement of the chase, we took little notice of that. Long before we arrived, a commotion was visible amongst the inmates of the island; several male swans, and crowds of wild geese and other fowl, flew up and hovered over us, watching our onward course with signs of marked disapproval. The female birds, however, kept their seats till we were within ten yards of them, and then rose with a hissing cry and much flapping of wings, circling over our heads, and occasionally gliding close to us, whilst we were despoiling their nests, though without making any attempt at attacking us. We found eight swans' nests, containing each four eggs, besides some forty wild geese's eggs. To mitigate the distress of the birds, we left one egg in each nest, and with the rest of our booty returned to the camp in triumph. Whilst our wet clothes were drying by the fire, wrapped in our capas, we set to and commenced roasting some swans' eggs. They are about half the size of ostriches' eggs, and of a similar taste. Amongst the other eggs were some of a species of duck, which to my taste seemed incomparably finer than the best bantam's, and, as may be imagined, we were not slow in doing full justice to them.

At five o'clock I mounted my horse, and rode leisurely towards the river, as was my habit, in order to watch the progress of its gradual decrease, which, as I have already said, had been very satisfactory lately. But to-night, already from afar I was startled by the appearance of the banks, which seemed to me lower than usual. The mark confirmed my fears. The water had risen more than two inches. In deep dismay I galloped back to the camp, and told Guillaume the bad news. For a moment the blow left us bewildered. Experience had taught us that one night would suffice to flood the river as high as it had been before. It seemed as if we were again to be thrown back a fortnight. It was time to adopt some decisive measures. Late as it was, I suggested that we should ride off that very night to the Middle Pass, and swim across at daybreak, be the river as it might. There was no time to lose in indecision, and half an hour after I proposed this plan, we had packed up our things, saddled the horses, and were once more on the march. The sun was setting as we emerged from Gallegos valley into the plain, and before long it was quite dark. It was midnight when we arrived at the old camp at the Middle Pass, cold and blue, after a long buffeting with our old enemy, the wind. Tired as we were, we had to collect wood to make a fire with, in order to warm ourselves by, before we could get to sleep.

CHAPTER XII.

The morning broke, as it always did whenever we tried to cross the river, bleakly and coldly. The river had risen considerably during the night, and was still rising rapidly. Previous to our other arrangements, we fixed on a site from which to start ourselves, after the horses should once be safely across.

The chief danger in passing the river lay in the possibility of the middle current being too strong for us to stem, in which case we should of necessity be swept along with it, without being able to reach either bank, until, our strength giving way under the combined influence of the cold and our exertions, we should ultimately perish. The spot we chose seemed to obviate this danger, as a little way down the opposite bank made a broad curve, forming a point which shot for a long way into the river. I could see that the current followed the curve, running inside the point. By committing ourselves, therefore, to the current at some distance above the point, we must of necessity, I argued, bring up in the little bay formed by the curve above-mentioned, in which case the point would act as an effectual bar to our being swept down the centre of the river. All this seemed plausible enough; but we were reckoning without our host, however, as I presently discovered, and in ignorance of the course taken by the current, which did not, as we supposed, always follow the bend of the banks or keep in the centre of the river, where the water was deepest, but darted about capriciously, without apparently depending on any topographical influences, though no doubt it did.

We first made a large fire near the river, to warm ourselves by whilst packing and saddling the horses, so that the caloric of our bodies should not be all exhausted, as on the last occasion, before we had to make the final struggle, when we should have most need of it. It proved a most providential act; this same fire subsequently saved my life. We made our preparations in deep silence, being both too busy with our own thoughts to say much. We were firmly resolved that, coûte que coûte, this was to be our last effort. We had the usual difficulty to induce the horses to enter the water. Once in, however, they were soon seized by the current and swept down the river. We watched their course with the most intense anxiety. At first it seemed that they could not stem the current, which was evidently stronger than it had been at our last attempt. For a moment we held our breath in painful suspense, but gradually they began to gain towards the opposite bank, and presently we saw them emerge safe and sound from the water, though the distance they had been carried down showed what the strength of the current must be.

Everything now depended on ourselves. The supreme moment had come, and not a second was to be lost, for already I began to feel numb with the cold. On the other side were our clothes, our furs, our matches—our existence, in fact. Between us lay the river. We must cross it; there was no alternative. I ran as quickly as possible towards the place we had chosen for starting from, not daring to look at the river on the way, lest my courage should fail me now that I most required its aid. I had to wade for some distance through a sheet of shallow water before reaching the river itself. It only came up to my waist, which made it colder than if I had been completely immersed, and the wind was piercing all the time to the very marrow of my bones. Suddenly I fell into a hole, sousing head over ears into the water. Chilled and breathless with the shock, I emerged after a short swim, and hurried on my way, anxious to get it all over. At last I came to the river. Without pausing a moment, I jumped in, with a feeling of relief that the worst would now soon be passed. I struck out with the current, and, as I had foreseen, it swept me rapidly towards the point. In a few seconds I was close to the bank. I stretched out my hands to clutch at the grass, when, to my horror, the land seemed suddenly to recede from me again. The current had swerved off before actually reaching land, and I was being hurried with fearful swiftness into the middle of the river. I tried to make for land, but my legs and arms stiffened, and I seemed to be dragged under the water. A desperate struggle brought me once more to the surface. I remember catching a glimpse of the blue sky, and feeling with sickening terror that I was lost, and again I sank under.

For a second or two I think I must have been unconscious; when I came to myself again, I felt I was in warmer water. My strength revived a little, and I struck out several times towards a bank, close along which I was being hurried in the direction of another point a little further down. At times I came so near the bank that I could actually stretch out my hands and reach the long grass growing on it, but my fingers, stiffened with the cold, refused to close on what alone could save me from being swept away again. It was a horrible moment, for if I passed the next point, I was indeed lost. I shouted for help, but no one answered; it almost seemed that I was to be drowned with one foot on land, so to speak.