CHAPTER XI

SOME HUNTING CAMPS

Second trip to De los Antiguos River -- Pass Rosy Camp -- Fenix flood gone down -- Wounded guanaco takes to water -- Mauser and shot-gun retrieved -- Losing and seeking in Patagonia -- Recover horses at Rest-and-be-Thankful Camp -- Visit to River Jeinemeni -- Trained horse for hunting -- Shooting guanaco -- Condors -- _Cañadon_ of Jeinemeni -- Huemul hunting -- Ostriches and their habits -- Return to Horsham Camp -- Night in camp.

On December 16, the interval having been taken out by me in sleeping off my chill and fatigue, Scrivenor, Jones and I made a start to retrieve the horses abandoned in the Los Antiguos _cañadon_ by Barckhausen and myself. We each took a horse and a spare animal which carried the tent, for the weather was breaking to the westward. It was our intention to ride the fifty miles back on the horses which we had left behind in the Gorge.

On arriving at the Fenix we were delighted to find that its waters had fallen considerably, and that the pebbly bank in mid-stream, at the ford by Rosy Camp, was once more visible. Almost upon our old camping-ground we found, as we rode over the sand-hills by the lake, a pair of guanaco feeding. Jones dismounted and had a couple of shots, neither of which took effect. The animals had, however, not perceived Scrivenor and myself, and came past us upon the shores of the lake, and here Jones and I ran down and met the female, killing her after a long chase, which ended by her trying to swim out into the lake.

Upon the evening of the second day we saw again the ill-fated River de los Antiguos, and striking south we made a camp, as nearly as I could judge, opposite to where I had spent the night shivering in oilskins. Of course, at starting, the question had been mooted: Might we not, provided the river had fallen sufficiently, find the lost guns, and at any rate that treasure, the Mauser?

The probabilities were, of course, very much against such good fortune, and it was almost certain, that even did we find either of them, it would be useless after being knocked about by the violent handling of the river.

Immediately we arrived at the Gorge of the de los Antiguos, Jones and I rode down to the water's edge. I had small hope of success as regarded retrieving the guns, but the water had fallen as quickly as it had risen. We soon came upon my tracks going down to the stream, made during my last visit. We then rode along the bank. Trees, sand and _débris_ filled the river-bed, and I had reached a spot some hundred yards below the place where I had been beached on the shingle island, and Jones was still engaged in searching another channel, when I saw something brown upon a sandbank.

There, half in and half out of the water, lay the Mauser, caked with rust, choked with sand and pebbles, but whole, unbent, though the stock was pitted with the battering of many stones. I picked it up, and there seemed but little hope of its ever becoming serviceable again. However, the sights, by a miracle, were intact, save the half of the bead of the foresight. After this we resumed our search, hoping with luck to come upon the shot-gun, and presently we discovered that also, lying half-buried among the wreckage at the lip of the flood. Being in a case, it was practically undamaged. We carried the two in triumph to the camp. Upon examination the Mauser bolt was found to be fixed and immovable, and we feared it would never fire again. For tools we had only an axe and a weak pocket-knife, but with the help of these two we took the Mauser to pieces, cleaned it, and fixed it together again, to find, however, that it would not stay on cock. As soon as we shut the bolt, the rifle went off. We examined it, but could discover nothing broken or bent, and, night falling, we went to bed.

I was awakened by Jones with the welcome news that breakfast was ready, and that he had got up early and been at work upon the Mauser, which he said had haunted his dreams. It was, he declared, as good as ever, and this proved to be the case. The trigger had been slightly bent, and a small stone lodged in the mechanism had been overlooked in the bad light of the previous evening. Altogether the affair stands out as one gigantic piece of luck.

It was not now at all a presentable weapon. It was, indeed, an object any gunmaker would have shied at, but it started business again by taking a particular stone out of the neighbouring cliff with all its old accuracy. To celebrate the event we made a plum duff of flour, which we ate with a tin of Swiss milk. Afterwards we made quite a bag of pigeons (_Columba maculosa_), which frequented the scrub of the river in great numbers.

Patagonia is a land so far from shops that one must not lose anything, and if you do lose anything, it is strange how persistent one becomes in looking for it. Scrivenor once rode twenty-five miles for a pipe; I have spent half a weary day following my old tracks for a similar purpose. I think the only article lost upon the expedition, and left lost, was Barker's large knife, and we had ridden fifty miles the day he dropped it. Jones lost a pair of pipes one day galloping, and after four days searching--at odd times--found them both again! Burbury lost a knife at the Fenix River--but I might go on multiplying instances for ever.

Well, now that we had found the guns, remained the horses, and after these we started next morning, moving our small camp up to where they had been abandoned.

I remember that day, for I was riding the roughest horse in all our troop, a stout little Zaino, which shook and vibrated like a miniature torpedo-boat. At length we came to the high _barranca_ above the river, down which Mula had fallen and nearly immolated poor Barckhausen. We human beings toboganned down--the measured angle being 38°--and the horses slid down upon their haunches. Part of the cliff accompanied us in our descent. Then followed that nasty boulder-strewn piece of journeying I have before described, until at length we crossed the river and rode in among the trees towards Rest-and-be-thankful Camp.

That was one of the most picturesque camps which fell to our lot in Patagonia. The grass there, though coarse, was very good; deep green scrub and incensio bushes bounded it on three sides, the _barranca_ leading up to the tableland being on the fourth. As we were riding through the trees we discovered the three horses, led by Fritz the Zaino, descending the _barrancas_ to water. Truly our snakes were standing upright, as the Zulus say. Of course, immediately the horses under General Fritz perceived us, they stood still. Before that they were coming down the steep side of the cliff with the grace and swing of wild things, now they at once pretended that it was a very difficult business. We caught them, and found them to be in excellent condition, glossy, bright-eyed and fat. We at once put them upon _sogas_, lest their love of liberty might have been increased by the week-end they had spent alone. They were evidently in the habit of drinking each evening and feeding in the rich grass of the Gorge, and in the morning ascending to the tableland and enjoying themselves there.

After settling the camp, Jones and I saddled up Luna and General Fritz and went up to look for a guanaco. We found that the fire lit by Barckhausen and myself had burned over a largish area and driven the game backwards into the higher basaltic hills. Among these, and upon the western river, the Jeinemeni, we had a most lovely evening. Fresh horses, keen air, a soft wind out of the west, and the most glorious of views--the lake, placid for once, in its gigantic setting of peaked and pinnacled Cordillera, the tint of yellow marshes in the lowland, and the whole background of the picture painted with mist and distance in a dozen shades of dusky and far-off blue.

In the course of that day's wanderings we first reached the Jeinemeni, the more westerly river, which shut in the farther side of the tableland. The ravine through which it flowed down to the lake was magnificent, a wonderful vista of broken white cliffs. The conformation of its _cañadon_ was very different to that of the de los Antiguos. Seen from a distance the valley appeared almost treeless, and upon its west bank rose the lower hills of the Cordillera into needles and peaks of red rock and virgin snow. The plateau between the rivers we found to be an excellent game country. Upon a fast horse the ground was good enough, though rather too broken to admit of "running" young guanaco, one of the finest and most exhilarating pastimes that I have ever enjoyed.

There is an element in Patagonian hunting quite unique: so much depends upon your horse. There were but two in all our forty-seven which could be trusted to stand and not gallop off when we fired. These two I trained myself on the way up from Trelew to Colohuapi, and they were a great ease and comfort to me. But to go shooting on a wild horse, then probably to find your game in a bushless country, where you are quite unable to shoot because you cannot tie up your mount, is a most disappointing affair. Also you have on many occasions to gallop down your game--if you hit it a little too far back, for instance. Wearier work than chasing a wounded guanaco afoot over the bald and endless ridges of the pampas, or up and down the steep unstable slides of a _barranca_, I do not know.

With my trained horse the Cruzado, and the Little Zaino, all that was necessary was just to drop to the ground--you could rein up in the middle of a fast canter and slip off--the horse would stand where you left him until you came for him again. There were others, of course, who, if you loosed the _cabresto_, were off to camp at a gallop, and where quickness is so important, they made sport a little of a penance.

But to return to our first visit to the Jeinemeni. In the _cañadon_ we came upon a guanaco, and I stalked him. The bullet took effect, and the poor beast plunged into the abyss below. We followed him down a few hundred feet, but finding the way beset with loose stones, and, consequently, on the raw bare cliff, rather dangerous, we returned with much toil to our horses. It had taken us one and three-quarter hours to climb five hundred feet.

"Any horse, even that old Fritz, is better than a man's own legs," said Jones feelingly. Arrived in time--the fulness of time--at the top of the cliff, we sat down and rested. As we were doing so Jones perceived a cloud of dust uprising in the valley and drew my attention to it. It was coming towards us, but we were quite unable at that distance to make out the cause of it. We marked the place and I took a couple of bearings, and in the early dark we rode back into camp.

The next morning we _sogaed_ up the horses and set out.

We wanted some meat, having only a little left of the last guanaco. We saw a number of guanacos on the hills and one half-grown one, which we attempted to gallop, but had to desist, as the ground was too false for the horses, and the basalt rocks and hills told in the guanaco's favour. At length, quite near the spot where I had shot one on the previous evening, we found a big old buck standing alone, and we speedily made a plan of campaign. I rode round and hid in the rocks far above him. Scrivenor tried stalking him and Jones headed him off from the north.

He went towards Jones, who sent a bullet through his heart at good range.

Immediately on our killing, the condors, caranchos, and chimangos began to gather and almost to drop upon the meat in our presence. I have before remarked on the number of these uncanny birds which haunted the Gorge. They were huge, black, ragged, bald, wrinkled, and offensive in odour, incarnations of lust and evil. The horrible flesh-colour of the bare skin on head and neck was glassy and livid. And how wonderful was their instinct! You shot your game, and within a few minutes a condor appeared far away in the heavens; then another and another! Perhaps they had some signal bidding to the feast.

Having cut up the guanaco, we descended into the _cañadon_ of the Jeinemeni, where we had on the previous evening seen the rising dust--which meant the movement of living things. At first it was one of the nastiest of horseback climbs, all loose stones, and sand and sandstone chippings. The gorge below us was a chessboard of small-looking round folds set in the bases of the higher hills and hummocks. Among these were many boulders, with two or three deep black waterholes, eye-shaped; and, of course, there were condors. We arrived at the place where we had perceived the cloud of dust. A large herd of guanaco had passed at the gallop, as was evident from the tracks.

We rode on to the gorge of the Jeinemeni and made our camp by a little pool. Here we had a _maté_ by the fire and gave our horses grass. Then came our climb up the ragged cliffs by which we had descended. They were very high, rising fold on fold, set as always with loose stones and shifting sand, a needle or two of black rock sticking out gauntly from their steep faces.

The next day Jones and I went hunting. We desired to secure a few heads and skins of the huemul and we determined to devote a day to that purpose. I will describe that excursion at full length, as it was one typical of Patagonian sport.

Of course we rode. You ride everywhere in Patagonia. I rode Luna, and Jones one of the Zainos--Fritz the younger, a very rough horse.

When we started a light rain was falling and the summits of the Cordillera were purple with threatening cloud. The rain gave the mountain wind the softness which the _pampero_ lacks. We quickly crossed the lower hills and saw some guanacos in the valleys. We did not shoot any but rode on upwards until we came to the high ground, where bushes of _maté negra_ and black fragments of basalt made a desolate picture with the low clouds rolling over the wet hills. Presently a cloud enveloped us and we took shelter beneath a rock. It looked as if we were in for a wet day, but to our delight, after an hour of waiting the wind blew away the clouds and showed the pale blue sky beyond, the weather turned colder and set in fine. We jumped on our horses and jogged on until the high ground was reached. Here we dismounted and spied the country with the telescope. We had come to the conclusion that nothing was in sight when, moving a little higher, I saw an ostrich in a marsh not more than two hundred yards away. The bird had not perceived us, and fortunately the ground was favourable for stalking. Under cover of a hummock, we advanced to within about seventy yards, when I shot the bird. As always happens, on receiving the shot it ran thirty yards forward and fell.

During the whole of our travels we observed but one kind of rhea (_Rhea darwini_). The remarks that Darwin makes concerning the habits of this bird have little to be added to them. The male bird, which hatches out the young, will, when approached, feign to be wounded in order to draw off the intruder from the nest of the chicks. I have never seen more than nineteen chicks with a single ostrich at any period within a month or two of the hatching, but I was informed by the Gauchos that this number is not an outside limit. When started, _Rhea darwini_ does not usually open his wings, as does the _Rhea americana_. This fact has been noticed by Darwin. On one occasion, shortly after leaving Trelew, we chased an ostrich, which, having run a couple of hundred yards, opened its wings. We did not, however, secure the bird.

Only when with young will the ostrich, on starting, expand the wings, but, as I have said, this is a ruse; yet I have seen them proceed for a short distance with wings full open at times when hard pressed. In the present instance we cut up our ostrich, taking the stomach, which, cooked as an _asado_, or roast, is esteemed a luxury by the Gauchos. The stomach was full of the grass of the marsh. Up to the end of December we found eggs. When fresh they were of a transparent and pale green, which after some days merged into a pallid white.

While we were yet engaged in cutting up the bird, the neck-skin of which came in very usefully as a tobacco-pouch, we paused in the work and took a look round with the telescope. On the heights above us, two brown objects were to be descried, which on examination proved to be huemules. They had evidently seen us, and their curiosity had been excited by our movements. Hesitatingly they began to descend the hillside towards us. We cut some antics and so decoyed the unlucky animals within range. After killing them, we took the skins of both, as there is no example of this deer in summer coat in any of our British collections. They were still shedding their winter coat.

After riding on, our next spy showed us a young huemul buck beneath us, but as I had already secured a specimen I was only too glad to let him go in peace.

I am sorry that I cannot give my readers any interesting story of huemul-shooting; that will be reserved for the pen of some future traveller, who will find the animal wild, because used to man and his ways. As for our experience of them, the interest turns rather on their confidingness and their behaviour towards man as an unknown entity.

We were riding home, my desire to shoot huemul completely evaporated, when we perceived among the basalt fragments above us the black face of a really magnificent buck. In approaching him I purposely gave him the wind. He had not seen us, but immediately on getting our wind dashed away to a short distance. On my showing myself, he stood quite still, snorted twice or thrice, and was just bounding off when the crack of the Mauser cut short his career.

There were by this time thirty or forty condors already gathered upon the carcases of the two we had previously slain. Indeed in no part of Patagonia did we see such numbers of _Sarcorhamphus gryphus_ as among these hills. I understand that there is in Paris a considerable demand for the feathers of the condor. Here is the place to find them. On our homeward way we saw two huemul does and a pricket. They stayed and stared at us as we rode down the lower levels. When nearing camp a couple of guanacos started over a cliff within ten yards of us, and descended the sheer hillside, giving me an excellent opportunity of observing their extraordinary movements. All the huemules we had shot were so lean as to be practically useless for the pot, so when later on we came in sight of a herd of guanaco, and Jones asked me if he might have a shot, I said yes. He picked out one and bowled it over at three hundred paces with my Mauser. He was very delighted with his success, and said that the Mauser was better than any of the guns in Chubut.

On the day after, the river, upon which we had been keeping a very careful watch, again began to rise. So we packed up and camped that night in the end of the _cañadon_ near the spot where I had shot my first huemul. Although we hunted during the afternoon we saw nothing, but on the following day, when starting for our ride, we sighted three huemules, two does and a young buck, in the scrub of a stream which enters the lake some miles to the east of the River de los Antiguos. In the evening of that day, after fording the River Fenix, and about eight miles out of Horsham Camp, a huemul buck dashed across about a couple of hundred yards ahead of us, and I, taking a very hasty aim, was fortunate enough to bring him to the ground. We had difficulty for a few moments in finding him, as he had gone head over heels into some scrub in a fissure of the hillside.

During this hunting trip, which I have described, we neither desired nor endeavoured to make a large bag; in fact, I think that one could very easily over that ground shoot ten huemules and an indefinite number of guanaco in one day, but such a proceeding would be little short of a crime. Very different indeed were my experiences after wild cattle, which I followed steadily at a later date of the expedition, for eleven days before I had any chance of a shot.

Another good hour of the day during our expedition was that when, pretty tired, one rode into camp, and saw the little green tent pitched among the tussocks, the horses scattered round, the big black pot upon the fire. You drank your _maté_, smoked a pipe while the black pot boiled, and you talked over the day's doings. And so on until dark began to fall, and in the night you could hear the sounds of the open, the rush of some river, the moaning of wind across the plain or through the forests--when near the Cordillera--perhaps the cries of wildfowl, or the whistle of the Chiloe widgeon as the shadows closed down. Then came preparations for the morrow--the beans were cut, the meat put on, the fire raked up about to-morrow's breakfast; and presently you turned in, the shadows waxed and waned, and when you woke the stars were paling in the western sky.