Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

by Sir Woodbine Parish

After reaching their tracks, it was not long before the Spaniards fell in with a party of the Indians themselves, travelling by the river's side towards the Cordillera. Villariño, anxious to conciliate them in order to obtain their aid as he proceeded, was at first lavish in his presents to them, particularly of spirits and tobacco, which appeared to be the objects most in request among them. The more, however, they got, the more they wanted; and upon the first hesitation to comply with their unreasonable demands, they became as insolent as they were importunate. They conceived suspicions, too, of the real designs of the Spaniards in exploring those parts, and shrewdly enough guessed that some more permanent occupation of their country was projected—an idea in which they were confirmed by the lies of a vagabond who deserted to them from the boats, and whose first object, of course, was to sow the seeds of dissension between them and his countrymen, in order to facilitate his own escape.

Although they dared not openly attack the Spaniards, they soon gave manifest proof of their determination to thwart the progress of the expedition by every means in their power. Riding on in advance of the boats they destroyed the pasturage along shore, and, hovering just out of the reach of danger to themselves, annoyed the party by all kinds of petty hostilities, and kept Villariño in continual alarm for the safety of his peons and cattle.

This conduct on the part of the natives, added to the certainty now acquired, that the service would be one of much longer duration than had been contemplated, made Villariño pause before he proceeded farther, and finally, determined him to halt where he was till he could communicate with Carmen, and receive from thence such further supplies as would render him independent for the rest of the voyage.

In passing the Choleechel, he had been much struck with a little peninsula, covered with rich pasturage, and easily made defensible against the Indians; and thither he now returned to await the further assistance he had applied for to his superior.

By running a sort of palisade across the narrow isthmus which separated their position from the main, and landing their swivels from the boats, the Spaniards soon formed a little fortification[24], perfectly secure from any sudden attack on the part of the Indians, but of them they saw nothing more so long as they remained there.

Six weeks elapsed before Villariño received answers to his letters, conveying to him the orders of Don Francisco Viedma, to proceed with the expedition; but in the interval the river fell so considerably that Villariño became alarmed (and not, as it appeared, without good cause,) lest he should be driven into the season when the waters were at their lowest, which would greatly add to his difficulties as he advanced:—nor was this the worst:—though Don Francisco had sent him an ample supply of provisions and other necessaries for the prosecution of the enterprise, he had at the same time peremptorily ordered him to send back all the peons with their horses, under the idea that this would be the surest means of obviating any future disputes or collision with the Indians. Villariño, without time to remonstrate, had no option but to obey this order, though he saw at once that it deprived him of his main-stay, and would necessarily very much retard his future progress.

Under these circumstances, on the 20th of December, the boats once more got under sail to proceed up the river. Its winding course rendered the sails of little use, and it was hard work without the horses to make way against the force of the stream, the rapidity of which, as well as the difficulty of getting along, was much increased by innumerable small islands, which stud the river above Choleechel; indeed the men were nearly worn out, as might have been expected, with the toil of working at the towing-rope almost continually.

In ten days they only advanced twenty-four leagues; they were not then sorry to fall in again with some of their fellow-creatures, albeit they were Indians, from whom they procured some horses, which relieved them from this part of their labour at least. They too were journeying westward, and much information was obtained from them respecting the upper parts of the river which greatly encouraged them to proceed, for there seemed little doubt from their accounts, that it was navigable to the foot of the Cordillera, from whence they might easily communicate with Valdivia.

These Indians were returning to their ordinary haunts on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, over against that city, and they readily offered their assistance to the Spaniards to show them the way over, when they arrived at their lands, which they described as being near the Huechum-lavquen, or lake of the boundary spoken of by Falkner. They said it was not more than three days' journey from thence to Valdivia, with the people of which it appeared they were in the habits of intercourse, and among whom they found ready purchasers for all the cattle they could carry off from the Pampas. Thus it appeared that the people of Buenos Ayres might thank their countrymen on the shores of the Pacific for a great part of the depredations they were continually complaining of from the hostile incursions of these savages.