CHAPTER XII

BACK TO CIVILISATION

Christmas Day at Horsham Camp -- Horse races -- Menu of dinner -- Leave Horsham Camp -- Basalt plateaus -- Large herds of guanacos -- Sterile region -- Birth of filly -- Father of guanacos -- Search for Indian trail -- Pebble hills -- Finding of trail -- Filly's first march -- Hunting -- Mirages -- Rain -- Tent pleasures -- River Olin -- Meeting Mr. Waag's party -- News from outer world -- River Chico -- Sierra Ventana -- Indian _toldo_ -- Shepherd's hut -- Houses, sheep and cattle -- Night in huts -- Antennæ of civilisation -- _La Gaviota_ -- Santa Cruz.

"HORSHAM CAMP, _Christmas Day, 1900_.--Here the weather is warm; large, soft and poisonous flies haunt the marsh in the camp. The horses neigh. An ostrich, the greatest delicacy of wild game in Patagonia, hangs with three legs of guanaco on the meat gallows." So runs my diary.

We spent a very humble Christmas up there at Little Horsham Camp, and made what mild cheer we might. In the morning of Christmas Day we had horse races, a mile and a half-mile. We rode the best horses in our respective troops. Barckhausen, however, rode the Azulejo, which he decorated with a towel and a red handkerchief, to our great amusement. We were almost ready for the second race when he came in from the first, having had a difference of opinion on the way with his steed, which thought it would be much nicer to rejoin his friends and companions feeding on the green marsh than to run races.

The surprise of the day was the winning of the races by the Little Zaino, as we christened him. He was very timid and wild to saddle and mount, but once up he proved himself a treasure. In appearance he was a comely enough little horse, plump and well picked up, and had been used occasionally to carry a cargo on the way to the lake.

The day before Christmas I wanted to go for a bathe, so I caught our little friend, and, liking his pace, let him stretch himself a little on the way back over the edge of the marsh. He stretched himself to such good purpose that he was ridden in the next day's races and won the three events, although he was carrying a stone and a half more than the others! Our course lay through a belt of thick bushes, but, barring these, was good enough. At any rate, it turned out excellent fun, and we all enjoyed our races.

The only one of us who did not get a prize was riding a horse which came to us with rather a bad name, and which, immediately the others started, dashed back to the troop.

During the afternoon we made up our cargoes ready for the morrow's start, after our Christmas dinner, of which I print the menu:

LAGO BUENOS AIRES, 1900. CHRISTMAS DAY.

At 5 o'clock P.M.

NOTICE.--_Come early to get a good helping._

MENU.

Common or Garden Duff à la Azulejo. Condiment au lait Suisse.

GRAND DUFF à la H. Jones avec muscatelles.

Bœuf.

Ostrich à la Patagonie. (If you want it.)

Gigot de Guanaco. (Order beforehand.)

Cocao au lait} Suisse. Thé au lait }

Vieux Cognac avec vulcanite.

Plug Tobacco.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

In the evening after dinner we indulged in some shooting matches--with the damaged Colt--which Barckhausen won.

On December 26 we bade good-bye to Horsham Camp. After a long interval the _cargueros_ were once more loaded up, and the whole troop tailed away to the eastward. Is any sight sadder than a deserted camp? The dead or dying camp-fire, the broken remains of food surprised by the sun, the litter, the bare rubbed grass, and the occasional fox. We left some tins of corned beef behind us, as I hoped to travel very fast to Santa Cruz. That day we made anything from eight to ten leagues, and camped in Seven Ostriches _cañadon_, the spot that Barckhausen and I had previously visited and named after the birds we saw there.

The following day (27th) we made a good march and encamped by a lagoon, upon which I shot two yellow-billed teal, and Jones and Burbury four ducks, which were plucked before we came into camp. On the morning after a very difficult part of our journey commenced. All day we travelled over a pampa covered with basaltic fragments and thorny bushes; some of these bushes bore a red tulip-like flower.

Enormous numbers of guanaco haunt these grim plateaus. Jones and I galloped a half-grown one, and killed it with the help of a dog. The going was extremely bad, our path lying through gorges and up steep-sided ridges, rough with basaltic fragments and powdered with sharp clinkers of lava. It is not easy to describe the changing fortunes of such a day. For instance, we were turned again and again by gullies and rifts in the hollows of the hills, and, what with shifting cargoes on these cruel and almost perpendicular slopes, the difficulty of keeping the troop of horses straight and of taking care of one's own limbs, was extreme. Literally thousands of guanaco appeared on the summits of the surrounding barren ridges, and fled galloping down the rock-faces with jerking necks and flying hoofs. Sometimes the old bucks would come and look at us, running towards us and neighing and laughing, and then ducking their long necks and cantering off. What they lived on in so sterile a region still remains a mystery to me.

I saw one condor poised high.

Our Indian _baqueano_, Como No, had told us that we must strike "between two hills." Barckhausen asserted that he had indicated to him a couple of round peaks on the summit or rather forming the culminating-points of this high basalt range. We made our way up these monstrous steps, as it were, of rock, steering by the compass, and after some twenty miles of travelling found ourselves upon a bare black highland over which the wind was tearing in heavy gusts. No wood, no water, no grass. I was afraid we should have to remain there for the night, and also afraid that Mrs. Trelew, the _madrina_ of the Trelew troop, whose udder was big, might drop her foal in that sterile spot. Another danger which menaced us, was that the horses would certainly become lame if they had to travel far over these broken rocks. We therefore rode on perhaps another fourteen miles, and the dark was falling when we found a camp in a _cañadon_--a bad approach strewn with basalt fragments, but a fair camp at the end with a little stream and good grass.

On December 29 the Trelew mare dropped her foal, a little disproportionately-boned, huge-jointed _alazan_ filly. During the day Scrivenor and I explored the _cañadon_ and I shot a guanaco and an ostrich. The guanaco was a very father of guanacos, old, scarred, black-faced and war-worn. His meat was worse than that of a he-goat.

To all sides of us stretched the limitless expanses of basalt, and our outlook was not a cheerful one. An examination of the horses' hoofs convinced us that another day's marching such as the last would work great havoc amongst them. I did not know how far this wilderness of basalt might extend, so on December 30 set out with Burbury to attempt to find its boundary.

Our intention had been to strike the Indian trail under the Cordillera and follow it until we reached the neighbourhood of the River Belgrano, when we would keep the course of that river to its junction with the River Chico, which in its turn would lead us down to the settlement of Santa Cruz, our destination. When I left the Cordillera I had made up my mind to return to them farther south at the Lake Argentino near lat. 50°. To cover a large area of country, and at the same time to collect specimens, is a physical impossibility. I had therefore decided to leave Scrivenor at Santa Cruz to collect fossils in that vicinity, while I myself again crossed the continent to the Andes, some part of which I hoped to explore, and my dreams were not uninfluenced by the stories of the red puma, of the existence of which, however, Scrivenor was very dubious.

Such, then, were the reasons that were taking us to the eastern coast, and my desire was to arrive there as soon as possible in order to have plenty of time to carry out my projects before winter made travelling of any kind impossible. Once we reached the River Belgrano our difficulties would be over, that we knew; but in order to attain this end we had to pass through a region somewhat waterless and stony lying on the verge of the basalt wilderness, into which we had strayed.

To get away from this basalt region was, of course, our first desire. Could we but find the Indian trail, which we were sure must be at no great distance, and which stretches, leading one from camp to camp, all the way from Lake Buenos Aires to Punta Arenas, with a branch in the direction of Santa Cruz, our troubles would be at an end. Owing, however, to the lessening number of Indians, the track is now only clearly visible for half a mile at a time in the neighbourhood of fords and other difficult places.

To return to our search. Burbury and I had started early. The going at first was over basalt clinker, fearful for the horses' feet, but presently we came to a low round hillock of pebble--a hopeful sight, for I had been half afraid we might be deep in the basalt wilderness. Following on we discovered other pebbly hillocks, on one of which I found a single horse-track, stamped when the ground was soft some time previously. After a while, as we rounded a slope, we saw a bit of green camp. We were bearing a little west of south, and there we struck the full Indian trail--that wonderful trail, which runs league after league, worn by the footsteps of generations upon generations of Indians as they migrated up and down the length of the country with their women and children, their guanaco-skin tents and their few possessions.

The trail is much like a guanaco-track, or rather like several running side by side. So the Tehuelches leave their footmarks, which resemble those of the game they live by, and they leave little else to show to those who come after, that here hundreds of men have existed through the centuries, knowing such joys and sufferings as lie between birth and death, only a trodden line across the waste and a few burnt bushes by the wayside.

We rode back to the camp, and decided to try the little filly with a short march, as much delay was out of the question. The horses all appeared to be interested in the arrangement, and refused to be driven unless the filly led. This she did, making her first journey trotting beside her mother. We had to cross a ford, and Barckhausen brought the filly over gently by the ear, Mrs. Trelew objecting extremely to such treatment of her offspring. We are all very careful and tender over our loose-limbed baby. During the short march we saw many guanacos.

The duration of the expedition might be divided into periods: first, the biscuit period, when every one toasted biscuits, hard camp biscuits, shiny and of a great size; followed by the dumpling period. Now it was the damper period, which was the most appetising of them all.

On the last day of the year we managed seven leagues, and camped in a bare _cañadon_. New Year's Day we covered eight leagues of bare and arid steppes of pampa. At this time we had a great deal of hunting. A lame dog, left behind by our Argentine ostrich-hunter, turned out to be excellent for sport. We named him Chichi. We camped by a lagoon of muddy water with a thin strip of feed half encircling it, but the grass was rich with seed. Mirages haunted our marches through this desolate region. This chapter might be called "Through the Land of Distant Hills." There was a savage loneliness between those wide horizons that thrust itself upon you. One felt a mere atom, and the thought of finding oneself condemned to live there alone seemed too awful to face. The bare, round-headed hills looked old and bald, eternal winds (though not so strong as nearer to the lake) whistled sadly as before, and on all sides pampa pebbly and grassless, ridge on ridge, horizon on horizon, mirage on mirage.

Suddenly, during that night, the sky became black over the distant Cordillera and the rain began. Immediately we slung up the tents. Oh, those tents, what a comfort they were at the end of a weary march! We had no adequate poles and no bushes or pegs to hang them upon, but we got them up somehow and put the cargo round them. Then we crept inside and listened to the rain. The warm beds, the rugs, the candle and tobacco and books. It was homelike. And the dry shirt one could put on within that shelter, with the rain, rain outside! When you have slept out in all weathers you begin to understand the full luxury of a tent like ours, with its furs and warmth and a decent pipe out of the wind. It is a moving home. To be free of the weather, to let it rain if it wants to, to lie and listen to it, these are all thrilling pleasures, pleasures because of the contrast to the wet open camp where, in spite of the covered and sweating head and body, the pitiless rain trickles in pools into your bed. And the spell of reading at night inside the tent, the company of thoughts new and old of wise men, these are pleasures of which only the wanderer knows the true sweetness.

During the next day or two we continued to travel over the same waterless stony pampa; there were pigmy hillocks, many guanaco and a lagoon of wonderful shades of blue, also the wind ahead, and dust blowing back into our eyes. We crossed the River Olin and pushed on for the River Chico. One cold night as we sat round the fire some one suggested we should have an exhibition of our effects when we reached Santa Cruz. Beyond a broken cup or two, a _bombilla_, and a shattered kettle, we could produce little else. It was hinted that Barckhausen's trousers might figure in it, and I offered to contribute my old coat.

Before reaching the River Belgrano we came in sight of a troop of horses being driven across the pampa by a couple of Gauchos. At first sight we thought them a mirage. On inquiry I was told that my friend Señor Waag was in command, news at which I was naturally delighted. I had made Mr. Waag's acquaintance in Buenos Aires, and we had arranged to meet in Patagonia if possible. Mr. Waag was on the Argentine Boundary Commission, and has done more valuable geographical work in the Cordillera than any other man. Being told that he was only a couple of hours behind the troop, I galloped on to meet him, for I heard that his waggon had broken down, and so made sure of coming upon him. After a few hours going, I arrived at the camp of his assistants, where were two Italian engineers, and also some piratical-looking _peones_ in red caps making bread in an oven dug into the ground. But Mr. Waag himself was not there, having gone off the track to camp in a _cañadon_. I was greatly disappointed, for I had looked forward to this meeting.

However, we were greedy to hear news of the outer world, from which we had been cut off for four months. We were far behind the times. I think our first question was about the war and Kruger. We learned that he was in Europe and that guerilla warfare was still going on. The Italians' news only carried up to November.

We made our camp a little way from theirs, and our hounds strayed over to them and stayed with their waggons, deserting us altogether. As for ourselves, we were most kindly entertained by the Italian engineers, and enjoyed the luxuries of a tin of butter, biscuit, bread, tea, milk, sugar and some cognac. Flies abounded and bothered us as we ate our meal on a packing-case, an ostentatious comfort which made us feel very civilised.

We were now in the valley of the Chico, which is a large stream with a swift current, its _cañadon_ bordered with bare ridges. It felt like old times to be in a river valley once more, reminding us of those we had passed through on our way to Lake Buenos Aires. We saw geese again, of which I shot two, and also a pigeon. The valley here was very rich with red seed-bearing grass, and beyond, nearer to the water, a glorious green _pantano_, dotted with deep clear pools.

Before parting with the Italians they presented us with some sugar and I gave them some tea and tobacco. The valley through which we marched continued to be very fertile. The grass was like that of an English meadow with sweet far-off scents, but lacking the dewiness of our English scents of wood and wold.

On January 7 we travelled eleven leagues, taking a short cut through a bare _cañadon_ of dry mud-hills. Leaving this behind us we again came in sight of the River Chico and crossed a high pampa of yellow tussocks and gravel. The morning dawned hot with the usual accompaniment of mosquitoes and sand-flies. As we sighted the river this heat gave place to a fresh rain-smelling wind, inexpressibly grateful.

In the afternoon, as we rode along, there appeared against the sky a keen peak of rock--Sierra Ventana. We had long been looking forward to our first glimpse of it, knowing it would be a sign that we were nearing civilisation. Blue, distant, perhaps thirty miles away, behind the basalt hills, it raised its strange castle-like head, only the castle is of nature's building, not man's. I think we all welcomed this token of the old kindly inhabited world again, after our months spent on houseless plains and inhospitable mountains.

A herd of guanaco some twenty strong showed at almost the same moment. I galloped forward, feeling glad that our dinner no longer depended on my shot. I was a mere sportsman once more. The doe I shot had fat on her, the first we had seen during our wanderings, "just as we've got the chance of fat mutton, too," as someone remarked. Rain fell at night, and the wind blew, but with the razor-edge of cold off. We camped in some flowering grasses with the bare steppes of the pampa on one side and the dark hills on the other; behind these, among some bright streaks in the stormy billowy sky, the Sierra Ventana thrust up its crest.

Next day we came upon a hut of Indians, who gave me some mutton, for which they would accept no payment. Perhaps they did not like to take money from a man in so old a coat! I, however, gave them some tobacco.

Later we came upon a bush-shelter of some tender of sheep and cattle. It was a forlorn little place--just a hut of poles and bushes and skins by the river bank. It was doorless, and the dweller must have been a very small man, judging by his bed, which was a hole in the earth, pillowed with a broken wooden cargo-saddle. On one of the props was fastened a card with the word "_Salido_" (Gone out). A bag of canvas, old and stained, was tied up to the roof, a cracked tiny mirror hung from the central pole. He seemed to have no provisions, only a bag of _yerba_. He had recently killed a lion, for we found its skull. We saw some half-wild cattle near by. It was a grey evening, and, as always when out of the river valleys, the scene around was colourless basaltic desolation.

On the 9th we struck three habitations. Strong squalls with gusts of rain accompanied us on our way. Sheep and cattle could be seen in the valley below, and at last we stopped at an _estancia_, where we bought fariña, flour, biscuit, sugar, and mutton--luxuries to which we had for some time been strangers. The owner allowed us to sleep in some mud-houses by the river, and we enjoyed the shelter, partial as it was.

Our next day's march took us across four fords, and by evening we reached an _estancia_, where I was kindly received and given afternoon tea. _Estancia_ is a word with a fine sound. It may, however, mean anything from a real house, full of comfort, to a mud hut. This _estancia_ was a delightful change to us; we could sit on chairs and saw prints on the wall and a sideboard once more. The night fell very cold, with an empty heaven overhead, but its lower arcs set with slate-blue cloud.

On the 11th we hit civilisation after a march of over forty miles, the last part of which lay across a _travesia_. Civilisation took the form of an undersized drinking-shop perched on the rim of the bare pampa. How we had longed for civilisation--and now we had found it! I sat writing in a room with pink fly-blown walls and green fittings of the grimiest. Four Gauchos of the lower sort were playing cards for beans and shrieking over their game. The little innkeeper, a small, dark, aquiline, black-bearded Argentine, in a dirty white vest and a black neck-rag, held rule inside. Any camp is better than these antennæ of civilisation, that seem to have touched and always to bear onwards with them things unclean and repulsive. Jones' homely face was good to see, when he came in and said, "I should like to be away from here."

I realised suddenly how I loved the camp and the cold clean hills, when I heard the raucous music of that unlovely place. It was scarcely a pleasure to see cognac advertisements again, and to smell the dregs of yesterday yet awash on the greasy grey metal counter! A concertina was playing the old aching tunes that always seem to carry with them tags of vice and crime.

We pushed on for Santa Cruz, and on the way passed the house of another trader, who also sold liquor. It squatted beside the river, which here flowed blue and estuary-like between white-faced cliffs backed by bald hills. A board over the door of the shop bore the legend "_La Gaviota_," or Seagull. It was evidently part of the wreckage of some boat washed up on these beaches.

Santa Cruz town is situated on the banks of a large estuary formed by the junction of the rivers Santa Cruz and the Southern Chico before they fall into the Atlantic. It is a straggling place, a collection of wooden houses with roofs of corrugated iron. The chief export is wool, which in the season lies in long rows of bales upon the shore ready to be embarked. The town lies beyond sandhills, which separate it from the sea. Concertinas and jack-boots ring in its galvanised-iron huts; mules, horses, dogs, and cattle house in its formless _plazas_. It is a place which you hate and like at one and the same time. You long to get away from it while you are there, yet find yourself looking back sometimes and wishing to see again its vague streets and its drag-net agglomeration of humanity.