Across Patagonia

by Lady Florence Dixie

For once they drove the troop along without enlivening their work with the customary cheery cries of "Iegua! Iegua! Mula! Mula!" etc., and the very bells of the Madrinas seemed to have a muffled, solemn sound, very unlike their usual lively jingle.

A single incident occurred during that day's march. A little guanaco, which had lost its mother somehow, seeing us coming, instead of running away, trotted trustingly towards us. Unfortunately our bloodthirsty dogs dashed out and threw it before we could get up to stop them. The poor thing got up again, however, and at first did not seem much hurt. It was the sweetest little creature imaginable, with soft silky fur, and bright, gentle eyes, and it thrust its nose against my cheek in a caressing manner, without the least sign of fear. I determined to carry it with me, in hopes that as it got bigger it would learn to keep with our troop, especially as the mare who had lost her filly at Laguna Blanca would have made an excellent foster-mother for it. But I hardly formed the idea when the little guanaco began to stagger about, and it became evident that it must have received some bite from the dogs which we had not noticed. On examining it this proved to be the case; indeed, in a few minutes its eyes glazed, and to my grief in a very short time it died, apparently without suffering. I would have given anything that it could have lived, as I am sure it would have become attached to me, and finally have found its way to England with us. Tame guanacos are often kept at Sandy Point, and their gentle ways and amiable dispositions make them charming pets.

We were thoroughly tired of our dull march when we at last arrived at a ravine where there were a few pools of water, and where we camped for the night. As we were on short fuel rations, the fire was allowed to go out directly after dinner, and we went to bed, now the only warm place.

Off again the next day, the clump of peaks mentioned above growing more distinct, but still terribly far, and no wood to be got till we reached them. Plains as usual studded with guanacos, but having no time to go out with our rifles, we had to confine ourselves to ostrich meat. Of these birds there was an abundance, and many an exciting run we had pursuing them. Wild-fowl were numerous too, but having eaten every imaginable species—geese, duck, teal, widgeon, snipe, Barbary duck, we were quite tired of them.

After another long march we camped in an open shelterless ravine, and then again pushed hurriedly on, our stock of fuel getting ominously low, towards the tantalising clump of peaks, which at the end of a long day's ride scarcely seemed to come any nearer. They were now beginning to disappear, as we descended into an immense basin which lay between us and them, and whose farther end was bound by a succession of plateaus, rising abruptly one over the other as it appeared to us, though, when we ultimately came up to them, we found the graduating ascent almost imperceptible.

After camping one night in a most disagreeable sandy region, where our food and clothes and furs all got impregnated with grit and dust, and where we burned our last stick, we again pushed on, with the unpleasant knowledge that that night we should possibly have to camp without a fire to warm ourselves and cook our food. The basin we were now crossing seemed interminable. We were to camp that night at the foot of the escarpment which bound its farther end, whence to the mountains was only one day's march. We were now out of sight of the latter again, but we were cheered by the comforting consciousness that each step was bringing us nearer to them.

Just as it was getting dark, after a weary day's ride, we reached a brawling mountain-stream, which swept along the base of an escarpment, and which we hailed as the first sign that we were at last approaching the Cordilleras. Fording it we pitched our camp in the long green grass, just under shelter of the escarpment. But before unsaddling, eager to see how near we had come to the clump of peaks which had so long been before our eyes, we rode up the escarpment, from the top of which we hoped to get a good view of the country westward.

Our expectations were not disappointed. There, seemingly not a mile away, rose up, compact and dark, not the huddled clump of peaks we had seen two days ago, but a mighty mountain chain, which lost itself westward in the gathering dusk of evening—standing like a mysterious barrier between the strange country we had just crossed and a possibly still stranger country beyond. The sun had long set, and the base of the mountains was wrapped in darkness, but their jagged fantastically-shaped crests stood clearly defined against the light which still glimmered in the sky, and here and there a snow-covered peak, higher than its comrades, still retained a faint roseate glow, which contrasted strangely with the gray gloom of all below.

For a long time after complete darkness had fallen over everything, I stood alone, giving myself up to the influence of the emotions the scene described awoke in me, and endeavouring, though vainly, to analyse the feeling which the majestic loneliness of Patagonian scenery always produced in my mind—a feeling which I can only compare—for it would be impossible for me to seize on any definite feature of the many vague sensations which compose it—to those called up by one of Beethoven's grand, severe, yet mysteriously soft sonatas.

I was awakened from my reverie by Francisco, who was wandering about trying to gather a few dry sticks for the fire. Fortunately he managed to collect enough to enable us to cook a tolerable dinner with; having eaten which, as usual, when we were fireless, we sought our couches as speedily as possible.