CHAPTER XXIX.

STRAIT OF MAGELLAN.--FALKLAND ISLANDS.--A PENGUIN CITY.--SANDY POINT.--HUNTING THE OSTRICH AND GUANACO.--PATAGONIAN GIANTS.

The voyage southward from Buenos Ayres was uneventful, as the ocean was calm and the steamer kept well out to sea. There was an agreeable change in the temperature; it became delightfully cool on the day following their departure, and continued so until the coast of Patagonia was sighted, near the entrance of the Strait of Magellan.

Fred was disappointed with his first view of Patagonia. He knew it was a desolate region, but was hardly prepared for the total absence of all vegetation on the shore which he scanned through his glass. It was the shore of the Red Sea without its warmth of sunshine, and the rosy tints for which its name was given. Coming from the rich verdure of the Amazon and the Rio de La Plata, he found the gray, barren landscape of Patagonia doubly forbidding, and his desire for a journey through the country was by no means great.

The entrance to the Strait of Magellan is about twenty-two miles wide; the northerly, or, rather, the northeasterly, point around which the steamer took its course is called Cape Virgens, and the southeastern Cape Espiritu Santo. Almost due east, and about three hundred miles distant, are the Falkland Islands, which belong to Great Britain, and are of more political than practical value. There is excellent pasturage on the islands, and considerable numbers of cattle and sheep are raised there, but the climate is not favorable to agriculture.

Fred wanted to visit the Falklands, not so much to examine the country as to see the seals and penguins, which are killed there in great numbers. As he was unable to make the journey, he contented himself with a description given by a fellow-passenger.

"The penguin is a funny-looking bird," said the gentleman, "and his breeding-place is as funny as he is. In the first place, he can't fly; he has two wings, like any other bird, but they are very short, and only useful for helping him over the ground when on land, and for paddling him about in the water. He doesn't use his wings much, though, in the water, as his broad feet are webbed like a duck's, and propel him very rapidly.

"When I first came to this part of the world I was on a schooner in search of penguin oil. We went to one of the rocky islands where the birds make their home, and found a city of probably a hundred thousand penguins."

"A hundred thousand in one city!" exclaimed Fred, in astonishment.

"Yes, a hundred thousand at least," was the reply, "and I've seen a penguin city five times as large as that. There was a space of fifty or sixty acres covered with birds about as thick as they could sit together; it was laid off into squares by streets running at right angles, and a surveyor couldn't have made the lines straighter than they were.

"And not only do they lay the ground out into squares, but they level it off and pick up all the stones and shells lying around, so that it is as smooth as a lawn. Then the birds go in pairs, and each pair picks out a place for a nest; it isn't a nest at all, but simply a spot on the ground. The hen lays one egg, and only one; the male bird brings her food from the sea, or if she wishes occasionally to have a swim he sits on the egg during her absence. He takes such good care of her that she is always plump and fat, and for this reason the penguins are sought and killed during their breeding season.

"They walk up and down the streets like soldiers, standing erect all the time, and waddling along on their feet. The fun of the thing is that they divide themselves off into classes, according to their plumage and also according to the stages of their incubation; one class never disturbs another, but whether they keep order without the aid of a policeman or not I am unable to say."

Fred asked how large the ordinary penguin is.

"There are several varieties of these birds," said his informant, "the largest being the Emperor Penguin, which weighs twenty-five or thirty pounds, and I have known them to tip the scale at very nearly forty. The old birds are so tough and fishy that a dog won't touch them, but the chickens are good eating. I have tried the eggs, but didn't like 'em, as they resembled a hen's egg cooked in lamp-oil. Penguins only go on shore during the breeding season; for the rest of the time they live in the water, and some varieties of them are frequently found on or near cakes of ice two or three hundred miles from land."

While this strange bird of the southern hemisphere was under discussion the steamer passed between the two capes we have mentioned, and entered Possession Bay; then she passed through the First Narrows, where the cliffs are not more than two miles apart. On the right was Patagonia; on the left lay the island of Tierra del Fuego, 'Land of Fire,' presenting an aspect quite as forbidding as that of the mainland of the continent. Desolation everywhere, and a leaden sky that threatened wind and rain.

From the First Narrows, which are about nine miles long, they opened out into a broader stretch of water known as Philip's Bay, and then came to the Second Narrows and to Elisabeth Island. Wild birds were numerous, and in some places the shores were covered with them; in the narrows the water all around the steamer was alive with gulls, and a dozen other varieties of sea-fowl. Among them Fred recognized the shag, coot, and cormorant. The gentleman who had told him about the penguins pointed out a settlement of those birds on the shore, but too far away to enable them to see much of it.

From the Second Narrows the course of the steamer swept to the southward until she passed Cape Froward, the most southerly point of the continent; at Cape Froward there is a sudden bend to the northward, and this course is continued to the outlet of the strait into the Pacific Ocean, at Cape Pillars, three hundred and fifteen miles from Cape Virgens.

The navigation of the strait is easy enough for a steamer, but very difficult for a sailing-ship. The water is deep, and there is no danger of being left on sand-bars, but the tides make strong currents in various parts of the strait; several of the passages are tortuous, and require a quick change of helm even for a steamer; and the openings between the cliffs are liable to gusts of wind that make it dangerous for a vessel relying on her sails alone. The narrowest place is about one mile across, and is in "Crooked Reach." This point is the great terror of sailing captains, as a strong wind generally blows there, and changes its direction at frequent intervals.

"This strait bears the name of its discoverer," wrote Fred in his note-book, "or, at any rate, it is near enough to identify him. On the 21st of October, 1520, Fernando Magalhaens, a Portuguese navigator, entered the strait from the Atlantic, and on the 28th of November of the same year he emerged into the broad and peaceful ocean which he named 'Pacifico.' Thus the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific Ocean were first navigated by one and the same individual. He may also be called the first circumnavigator of the globe. He sailed over the Pacific Ocean to the Philippine Islands, where he was killed in a fight with the natives; on a previous voyage he had been eastward to the longitude of the Philippines, and thus had been completely around the world, though not in a continuous journey."

A hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean the steamer came in sight of Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point; it is best known to English-speaking people by the latter name, which is a translation of the former. The steamer was to remain here several hours, and our friends embraced the opportunity to go on shore.

Sandy Point was originally a convict settlement of the government of Chili, and was officially called "La Colonia de Magellanes." It was founded in 1851, and for some years contained only the convicts and the garrison that watched over them; when steamers began to navigate the strait the government, seeing that the place was destined to be of commercial importance, determined to establish a free colony there. Grants of land were given to German and Swiss settlers; several hundreds were brought there from the Old World; but the character of the country is unfavorable, and the colony has never prospered.

From Cape Froward to and beyond the neighborhood of Sandy Point there are forests of beeches and other foliferous trees, and the hills and level ground back of them are covered with grass. Agriculture is limited, and the colonists who went to the Strait of Magellan to make homes and become rich have been sorely disappointed.

The steamer anchored in front of the little town, and hardly had her anchor touched the bottom of the bay when a steam tender came alongside, bringing the captain of the port and the agent of the steamship company. Dr. Bronson and his nephew were invited to go ashore in the tender; they had made a bargain with a boatman, but, as the waves were dancing merrily in consequence of the brisk wind blowing down the strait, they accepted the invitation, and paid the owner of the boat for doing nothing. In a quarter of an hour they were landed at a little wooden pier, and had leisure to study the most southerly town of the western world.

"It didn't take us long to see the whole of Sandy Point," said Fred, in the account of their visit, "as the sights of the place can be exhausted in a very little while. There is a beach in front of a high ridge of hills, and some rising ground intervening between beach and hills. The town straggles along this beach, and back on the rising ground behind it; it consists of a fort, a church, some government barracks, a custom-house, and one or two other public buildings, together with a lot of one-story houses disposed in lines to form streets. It has a population of eight or nine hundred--possibly a thousand--and presents a woe-begone appearance, like that of a half-deserted village.

"There were Germans, Swiss, French, and Italians among the people we met in the streets; the rest were Chilians and Patagonians, together with some Fuegians who had paddled over the strait from their native shores. The Europeans were much like the same people elsewhere, and we paid no particular attention to them; we were more interested in the Patagonians and Fuegians, and I prevailed upon some of them to stand to be sketched under promise of half a dollar each for their trouble. Their countenances are not prepossessing, and by no stretch of the imagination could they be called handsome. In fact, I consider them about the ugliest people I ever saw.

"The Patagonian dress is a poncho or mantle of guanaco skins, which hangs from the shoulders and has a hole in the centre for the head; sometimes it is gathered at the waist by a belt, especially when the wearer is on horseback, and in cold weather those who can afford it have a smaller garment of nearly the same sort underneath a larger one. The men pluck out their beards when they have any, and as the dress is the same for both sexes it is next to impossible for a stranger to distinguish men from women in a group of natives. I made a sketch of a girl who was said to be about twenty years old; she was considered a belle, but I do not believe any belle of New York would be jealous of her good looks.

"This Antipodean Langtry wore a guanaco robe which was by no means new; her black hair was greasy and unkempt at the sides, but cut rather short on the top of the head; her nose was broad and flat; and her mouth extended almost from side to side of her face. Her eyes were black and piercing, and her self-satisfied smile as she stood for her picture told that she knew how handsome she was.

"I hear some one asking about the height of the Patagonians, and if they are really the giants they were represented in the school-books of forty years ago. They are not giants in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but are certainly above the ordinary height. The governor of Sandy Point personally measured the height of a great many Patagonian men, and his experiments covered several years of his residence there. He reports the average height as between five feet eleven inches and six feet.

"Mr. Beerbohm, the author of 'Wanderings in Patagonia,' says the Indians he travelled with possess extraordinary strength, and he tells the following story as an illustration of what they can do:

"'An Indian was leading a horse towards the camp by a lasso, when the animal for some reason or other stopped suddenly short, and obstinately refused to stir from the spot. After a few coaxing but ineffectual tugs at the lasso, the Indian gave a short grunt of impatience, and then taking the lasso over his shoulder, bent forward, seemingly without effort, and dragged the horse by main force about twenty yards, notwithstanding its determined attempts at resistance.'

"From the same writer and from other sources," continued Fred, "I learned a good deal about the country and the people of Patagonia, which consoled me for my inability to make a journey through it, and indulge in hunting the ostrich and the guanaco. Formerly hunting was possible within a few hours' ride of Sandy Point, but at present the game has been killed off or driven to the north, and those who would have sport cannot find it nearer than fifty or sixty miles away. This is too far to go when we wish to continue on our journey with a steamer that remains only a few hours in port.

"Patagonia is a desolate region, comprising an area of about three hundred and fifty thousand square miles; its northern boundary is the Rio Negro, and there have been disputes between Chili and the Argentine Republic concerning the right to the country. It has been finally agreed that Chili may have the west coast and the country along the strait, while the republic may possess the region bordering on the Atlantic. Several colonies have been made in Patagonia by the two claimants, but none of them have succeeded.

"The population is very small, considering the area; some authorities place it as low as three thousand, and none higher than ten thousand; the latter figure is probably excessive. The plains are covered with a few shrubs and scanty grass, or with nothing at all, and the valleys are the only places where cattle and horses can find sufficient grazing to keep them alive. Some of the northern tribes have herds of cattle and sheep, mostly stolen from the Argentine Republic, but the southern natives have no cattle and but few horses. Notwithstanding their desolate character, the plains support countless numbers of ostriches and guanacos; the feathers of the former and the skins of the latter are articles of commerce, and their flesh serves as food. When the Indians are unsuccessful in hunting these animals they live upon horse-flesh, and many of them prefer it to any other article of food.

"We met at Sandy Point a guacho from the Argentine Republic who had spent several years in Patagonia, and made a living by hunting. He had a troop of dogs which he used in the chase of the ostriches and guanaco, and he told us that it was his plan to start out with two or three Indian attendants, and be absent for weeks at a time. When he saw an ostrich he sent his dogs after it, and followed close behind on horseback; with dogs and bolas he rarely failed to bring down his game, and the same was the case with the guanaco. He had from six to a dozen horses; when one was wearied he quickly changed the saddle to another. When he had gathered a sufficient quantity of ostrich feathers and guanaco skins to pay for the journey, he came to Sandy Point, and he had arrived there only the day before we met him.

"He told us that his greatest annoyances came from the wild horses and the Indians. His own horses had been attacked by the wild ones on several occasions, and he once lost all except those that he and his attendants were riding at the time. He said the wild brutes display a great deal of intelligence in attacking a herd of tame ones; they form a circle about the latter, and attempt to drive them away, and if they are very numerous there is great danger of their success. He said the best way to defeat them was to single out the leader of the attacking force, and pay no attention to the rest. If you can kill the leader the rest can be driven off without much trouble, but as long as the head of the herd is unharmed there is no safety.

"The Indians are usually peaceable, but they had a habit of coming to his camp, and literally eating him out. They stayed as long as there was anything to eat, and had no modesty about asking for what they wanted. He always endeavored to keep as far from them as he could, partly because they 'ate him out of house and home,' and partly because game was always scarce and shy when they were about.

"In addition to ostriches and guanacos, there are plenty of armadillos, pumas, foxes, and skunks. Our guacho generally killed pumas when they came in his way, but did not go around in search of them. He said the flesh was good eating, and tasted like veal, but it varied somewhat in quality, according to the age and condition of the animal. The puma lives on the ostrich and guanaco; he is very powerful, and can kill a guanaco with a single blow of his huge paw. He is as cowardly as he is strong, and when attacked by a hunter he rarely resists unless slightly wounded and 'cornered.' The guacho said he had frequently ridden close up to a crouching puma and killed him with a blow from a bolas, or a shot from a revolver.

"I asked about the ostrich, and he said there were two kinds in Patagonia, that of the north being larger and darker than the one inhabiting the south. While he was talking I turned to Mr. Beerbohm's book and found the following:

"'The ostrich of southern Patagonia (_Rhea Darwinii_) is smaller than the "Avestruz Moro" (_Rhea Americana_), as the species which frequents the country near the River Negro is called by the natives. The color of its plumage is brown, the feathers being tipped with white, whereas the moro, as its name indicates, is uniformly gray. The _R. Darwinii_ are extremely shy birds, and as their vision is remarkably acute, it is by no means an easy matter to catch them unless one has very swift dogs to hunt with.'

"The guacho said the ostrich of America has the same peculiarities that he is credited with in Africa. He doubles on his pursuer, and sometimes he will drop flat on the ground, and endeavor to escape by lying perfectly motionless until the dogs have passed. In some conditions of the wind this trick succeeds, but if it is blowing the scent towards the dogs they find the unhappy bird and make short work of him.

"The ostrich makes his nest by scooping a hole in the ground under the shadow of a bush, and lining it with a few wisps of dry grass to make it soft for the chickens. There are from ten to forty eggs in a nest; they are laid by several hens and not by one, as with most other birds, and it is a curious fact that the male bird sits on the nest, hatches the eggs, and looks after the young. If the weather is fine he sometimes grazes an hour or two in the evening in the vicinity of the nest, but he never goes far away; when it rains he never leaves the nest, and he has been known to stay there six or seven days without feeding.

"After the hatching season the ostriches lay their eggs all over the plains without any regard to hatching them. These eggs are a prize for the hunters; many a meal has been made of them, and, as our guacho said, many a life had been saved by this habit of the great bird. They keep perfectly fresh for months; one ostrich egg contains as much as ten hen's eggs, so that it makes a good dinner for one person. This is the way to cook it:

"Break a small hole in the top of the egg and remove some of the white. Beat the rest of the contents up together, and when you have done this thoroughly, set the egg on its end in the ashes, a little way from the fire, so that it will roast. Stir the contents frequently to prevent burning, and turn the egg occasionally to keep the shell from cracking. Fifteen minutes will cook it thoroughly; add pepper and salt, if you have any, and your dinner is ready.

"I will close this bird talk by quoting a bill of fare given by Mr. Beerbohm, of a dinner on the plains:

"SOUP.--RICE AND OSTRICH. "BROILED OSTRICH WINGS. "OSTRICH STEAK. "ROAST OSTRICH GIZZARD. "OSTRICH EGGS. "CUSTARD.--OSTRICH EGGS AND SUGAR. "MORE OSTRICH, IF WANTED."