No mistake had been made; the simple—but teachable—Indian was the man who was wanted; and a most respectable barrister of the Inner Temple had spent a whole day chatting affably with a notorious criminal, who would assuredly have robbed him of his gun and money had the opportunity arisen.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE EXPLORATION OF THE SALADO VALLEY
When poor Charles Mansfield made his journey up to the unknown Chaco, he passed, on his way, a district equally unknown at that time: the valley of the Salado River, which remained unexplored till 1863, when Hutchinson, the African traveller, traced the river to its source. Thomas Hutchinson, F.R.S., had been appointed British Consul at Rosario in 1862, and, before leaving England, had been instructed by the Foreign Secretary (Earl Russell) to take the first opportunity of exploring the Salado and its basin, and to test the truth of the report that the Indian territory there abounded in wild cotton.
It was not till the following year that he could spare time for a task which might occupy an indefinite period; and then he ascended the Parana by steamer as far as Parana City, rode across to Santa Fé, which is on the Salado River, and there began to make inquiries. Generally, a man on such an errand finds plenty of people ready to pour cold water on his schemes and to draw his attention to innumerable obstacles; but this time the reverse was the case. Though he could find none of the inhabitants who had 329 ever been more than a few miles higher up than Santa Fé, when he returned to his hotel that evening, the landlord informed him that a gentleman who was now in the smoking-room had just arrived by private steamer from Buenos Ayres, and had been asking the same question as himself: did anyone know anything of the upper part of the Salado?
The stranger was one, Don Ruberta, a young Argentino engineer who had studied in London; he had been making a survey of the Colorado and Rio Negro, and aspired to do the same on the Salado. He proposed starting on the following morning, and at once begged the Consul to accept the hospitality of his little launch; and so it came about that outlying Guaranis, Quiteños, and Chiquitos were enabled to behold a steam vessel—and probably an Englishman—for the first time.
The crew, which consisted of a Portuguese engineer and three Zambos, were as ignorant of the neighbourhood as their employer; but the main charm in river exploration lies in the fact that, so long as rapids, or dilemma-like forks, or mud-banks do not intervene, you have but to follow your nose. On the first day they passed sundry Indians in canoes, but these evinced no excitement or curiosity. Don Ruberta had divided his coal into two parts, and meant, if necessary, to steam for as long as the first half held out. At night the vessel stopped from dark till dawn, to avoid mud-banks, and in order that the explorers might miss nothing that could be of importance. By the middle of the second day they came to a rancheria, or collection of Gaucho huts, standing about a mile back from the 330 left bank; and, as it looked as if some valuable information might be obtained here, the two men landed and strolled up the hill.
The place was a very large horse-farm, but the Gauchos could tell them little or nothing of what they wanted to know, for their trade was all with Santiago or Cordoba, and they never had occasion to use the river. But one of the employés, a Quiteño Indian who hailed from the Bolivian frontier, said modestly that he could tell the señors all they needed to know about the river.