CHAPTER II

SOUTHWARD HO!

Leaving England -- Start -- _Primero de Mayo_ -- Port Belgrano -- Welsh colonists -- Story of Mafeking -- First sight of Patagonia -- Golfo Nuevo -- Port Madryn -- Landing -- Trelew -- A pocket Wales -- Difficulties of early colonists -- Other Welsh settlements -- Older and younger generations -- Welsh youths and Argentine maidens -- Language difficulty will arrange itself -- A plague of "lords" -- Lord Reed -- Trouble of following a lord -- Itinerary -- Travelling in Patagonia -- Few men, many horses -- Pack-horses -- Start for Bahia Camerones -- Foxes, ostriches, cavy -- On the pampas -- Guanaco -- First guanaco -- _Maté_ -- Dogs -- Farms -- Indians -- Landscape -- Mirages -- Vast empty land -- _Cañadones_ -- _Estancia_ Lochiel -- Seeking for puma -- Killing guanacos -- Many pumas killed during winter months--Gauchos.

We arrived at Buenos Aires early in September 1900, and on the 10th we embarked again on board the _Primero de Mayo_, one of the transports of the Argentine Government, by which my companions and myself had courteously been granted passages to Patagonia. The _Primero de Mayo_ is a boat of 650 tons. We carried an extraordinary amount of deck cargo, for there were a good many passengers on board, as these transports offered the sole means existing at that time[1] of communication by sea with Argentine Patagonia.

We started about one o'clock. Lieutenant Jurgensen, the _commandante_, was good enough to invite us to dine on that night with the officers in the deck-house. He subsequently extended his invitation to cover the entire voyage. After dinner we went out upon the deck. It was starlight, and the _Primero de Mayo_ was steaming down the brown estuary of the Plata.

First night out! What a penance it is! It is "good-bye" translated into heaviness of heart, and it knows for the time no future and no hope. You can only look back miserably and long for lost companionship and

All dear scenes to which the soul Turns, as the lodestone seeks the pole.

It is a time when romance fades out, and nothing is left save the grey fact of recent partings and the misery of unaccustomed quarters.

First night out--when one renews acquaintance with the thin cold sheets and those extraordinary coverlets whose single habitat in the world appears to be upon the bunks of steamers. Our fellow passengers also seemed very much under the same influence of greyness. They had packed themselves round the saloon-table, and were keeping the stewards busy with orders.

There were not only a good many people, but peoples, on board; all nations in ragged ponchos with round fur caps or those pointed sombreros that one associates with pictures of elves in a wood. As wild-looking a crew were gathered for'ard as ever sailed Southward Ho! Germans, Danes, Poles, and heaven knows what other races besides; each little party formed laagers of their possessions and resented intrusion with volley-firing of oaths. There was one laager in which I found myself taking a particular interest; it was made up of two men, a woman, and her brood of children. Their only belongings appeared to consist of four ponchos, a _maté_ pot and kettle, and a huge basket of cauliflowers. They crept in and entrenched themselves between the cauliflowers and the port bulwark in the waist of the ship. From there they did not move, but sat swaying their bodies during the entire voyage. Was Patagonia an Eldorado to which those people were journeying? On that dark night, as the ship slid groaning and creaking over the brown waters, the dark scene, lit by stray blurs of light, called up a memory of Leighton's picture, "The Sea shall give up its Dead."

Among the passengers was the Governor of Santa Cruz, Señor Don Matias McKinlay Tapiola, who speaks English very well. There were also one or two gentlemen interested in sheep-farming in Patagonia. Of these, Mr. Greenshields, whose _estancia_ or farm we visited later, owned the credit of having broken new ground in colonising a part of the country some one hundred and fifty miles south of the Welsh settlement of Trelew. The earlier sheep-farms lay about Punta Arenas, eight degrees to the southward, and there the men of the south swore by the south, and much difference of opinion existed as to how sheep would flourish in the more northerly region chosen by Mr. Greenshields. But it seemed that his daring was likely to be richly repaid, and that many, when they heard of his success, would follow his example.

At length it was bedtime, and we turned in with the comforting reflection that when we woke "first night out" would be over.

Next morning land had sunk from sight and there was a light ground-swell, but the _Primero de Mayo_ was rolling heavily, a trick that Government transports possess and seem to regard in the light of a privilege all the world over. The evenings and the mornings followed each other in grey but serene regularity, till on the 12th we turned coastwards, heading for Puerto Belgrano, and ran between low, green, hummocky banks up a stretch of shallow, mud-coloured water to our anchorage. It was a reddish sunset with lightning playing continuously upon the horizon, and while we were at dinner a thunderstorm broke with heavy rain. That night we were permitted the privilege and amusement of choosing the morrow's _menu_. We chose a truly British repast; roast beef, jam-roll and plum-pudding figuring amongst the items. There are no employments too trifling to help one to pass the time on board a ship doing service as a coaster. As to the arrangements made for our well-being on the transport, the Minister of Marine had, I was informed, kindly given most generous orders with regard to our treatment.

In the morning we disembarked forty-two sailors for the four men-of-war lying at anchor in the bay. Then we sailed away again for the south with a warm sun upon the crowded planking and a cold wind blowing aft. It was at this time that I altered my original plans and decided on landing at Puerto Madryn, our next stopping-place, instead of at Santa Cruz, which lies some seven degrees of latitude farther to the south. Upon hearing that winter had not yet relaxed its grip on the country south, it became clear that the horses down there would be thin and in poor condition, with the spring sickness upon them, and therefore quite unfitted to start upon such a journey as lay before us. The new scheme also promised a saving of time, as the _Primero de Mayo_, owing to the necessity of calling at various little places on the way down to Santa Cruz, would be a good deal delayed; besides, the horses we required could probably be got together more quickly at Puerto Madryn.

We had a number of Welsh with us on the transport, who were on their way home to the Welsh settlements of Trelew, Gaiman and Rawson. In the evenings of the voyage it was their custom to forgather and sing psalms in Welsh, psalms the sound of which took one's memory back to the Scottish hills and the yearly ante-communion preachings in the open-air. The surrounding greyness aided the idea--grey sea, grey sky, grey weather.

By the way, on board we learnt a fact, or so we were assured it was, about the South African War, which is certainly not well known even among those who love the Boer. One night at table, one of the diners solemnly declared that at Mafeking the English ate the flesh of the Kaffirs and were thereby enabled to hold out for so long. He was not attempting to hoax us, he really believed the fable himself, poor fellow! I did not gather the gentleman's name.

Coming on deck on the morning of the 15th, we saw, drawn across the western sea-rim, a low brown line. Above it a sky of steel-blue gleamed coldly and below a wash of grey sea. This was our first view of Patagonia. All day we crept along the grim, quiet, solitary-looking cliff, until at last the _Primero de Mayo_ was swallowed up in the vast embrace of the Golfo Nuevo. It was between evening and night when we approached our harbourage, Puerto Madryn. The half-lights were playing above it, and the afterglow of the sunset still shone feebly behind the land. We saw only raw cliff capped by dark verdure--the rim of the vast pampas which roll away in rising levels league upon league towards the Andes.

The sea was cold, the wind was cold, the land looked forlorn and a-cold. Presently from it a little boat put out containing a figure wrapped in a long military cloak. This was the sub-prefect, who thus welcomed us to these desolate shores, for Patagonia from the sea is a desolate prospect indeed. It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of the dismal aspect presented by Puerto Madryn upon that evening. Suffice it to say that the settlement consists of half a dozen houses and a flagstaff; the first crouch on the lip of the tide and the second shivers above on the bare pampa-rim.

There seals and divers haunt the sea, a few guanaco-herds live upon the coast-lands, and there, in inhospitable fashion, the little colony of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great primordial nature. In the evening lights the cliffs showed curiously pallid above a strip of dead sand and shingle, only the sky and the water seemed alive.

Next morning we hoped to get our baggage ashore and were moving early with that object in view. But the trend of public opinion in Puerto Madryn appears to be towards the conviction that there is no sort of reason for hurry under any circumstances. Hence the cargo disgorged itself slowly, and after interminable waiting we found our particular share of it would not be reached that night. It was, in fact, not till the afternoon of the second day that we achieved a partial recovery of our belongings from the holds and took the first consignment of it ashore. The morning had broken clear and fine, but mid-day brought a change. And by the time we had our boatload completed and rocketed away shorewards at the tail of the _Primero de Mayo's_ steam-launch, a beam sea was flying in spray high over us.

There was an anxious moment when the launch slipped the towing-cable and the sailor in the bows flung a rope, which dropped short of the black wooden jetty, and we were swept some boat-lengths away by a big broken sea. To be swamped at the moment of landing!--the thought was too disastrous to be dwelt on; half our rifles and a box of instruments were on board. It cost us a long hour and a half of hard work before everything was safe ashore. And while we toiled a dozen seals came and stared at us with their doglike faces, and lazy, solemn eyes.

When all our property had been brought to land, luckily without mishaps of any kind, I left Scrivenor with our _peones_ to bring up the heavy baggage and went on with Burbury to Trelew by the miniature train which plies to and fro between the Welsh colony and the coast. From Trelew a ten-days ride takes you beyond the farm of the last settler and into the waste places of the pampas.

Trelew is a new and pocket Wales, but very much Wales all the same. To prove the accuracy of this statement it is only necessary to say that the waggon which set us on the first leagues of our way belonged to a Jones, that another Jones accompanied the expedition to the Cordillera, that I negotiated with a third Jones for a supply of mutton to take with us for use on the first part of our journey, that I was introduced to several Williamses and did business with various Hugheses. And all this in a day and a half.

Trelew itself is a bare settlement of raw-looking houses and shanties, which has started up on the emptiness of the pampas. It cannot lay any claim to picturesqueness, and a pervading impression of being unfinished adds a suggestion of discomfort to the place. All round about the mud houses the pampa rolls away to the distances, harsh, stony, overgrown with little humpy bushes of thorn and dotted here and there with wheat-land. All through and over the settlement you are never out of hearing of three languages--English, Welsh and Spanish.

For thirty-five years the Welsh have lived in this little colony of their own founding. Exactly all the reasons which led them to forsake their far-off homes for Patagonia it would serve no purpose to set out in detail, but the root of the matter appears to have lain in the fact that they objected to the laws relating to the teaching of English in the schools; and, having the courage of their convictions, they came several thousand miles across the sea to escape the _régime_ they disliked. At present, however, they seem to have slipped from the frying-pan into the fire, for they like still less the Argentine code, by which every man born in the Republic is subject to conscription and Sunday drilling.

Some time ago the colonists of Trelew appealed to England to intercede for them with the Argentine Government with a view to obtaining release from these disabilities. But as the Welsh had of their own free will deliberately placed themselves under the Government of the Republic, it was impossible for England to interfere, and this fact was notified to the suppliants, much to their disappointment and disgust. Even when I was there they remained rather sore over the matter, complaining that England had taken all the money subscribed for the expenses of the appeal and given them no redress in return.

The difficulties and hardships which must inevitably have beset the commencement of their settling in Patagonia, contrasted with their present condition, show the Welsh to be splendid people. The resolute spirit that drove them to emigrate across the seas has served to make their township there, though perhaps not particularly inviting to look at, a flourishing one in its quiet pastoral way. They have laid a railway, as has been said, to the coast at Puerto Madryn and established a telephone. Spanish and Welsh live here as neighbours. The Spaniard keeps the store while the Welshman farms, growing a certain amount of grain, but his chief business lies in breeding horses, cattle and sheep.

The Welshmen are not wanting in keen business quality. Any one who has tried to buy horses in Trelew will bear me out in this statement. The mere fact that a stranger has arrived in their colony, who wants to invest in horseflesh, awakens all their commercial instincts, and they are not at all behind the rest of the world in knowing how to form a combine for the purpose of plundering the Philistines. Quite right too. A man who can resist making a bargain over a horse whenever he gets the chance is, like "the good young man who died," over-perfect for this corrupt old world.

From their first settlement the Welsh have spread south through the coast-towns of Patagonia, and six weeks' journey from Trelew they have formed another settlement in the Cordilleras to the north-west which they have called the "16th October Colony." Thither waggons are always trekking, and waggon-drivers and others who return bring with them glowing and rosy descriptions of the young settlement of the interior. The adaptability of the Welsh to the peculiar needs of colonisation is very remarkable. They have certainly stepped into the "larger life" with success.

The influence of the new conditions of existence, so different from that of the Welsh peasant in his own country, is very noticeable in several ways. The older and the younger generation are unlike each other now, and will probably continue to become more so as time goes on. Physically the younger people are far better developed than their elders, red-faced, open-eyed, straight-backed boys in big felt hats, each with a bright-coloured handkerchief knotted round his neck and the guanaco-wool poncho hanging from his shoulders. They are very picturesque and look their best on horseback. In this matter of riding also there is a wide difference between the styles of the old and the young men. The latter, who are Patagonian born, seem to be part of their horses, but the elders, however excellent long practice has made them, never attain to the proficiency of their sons.

Although the colony of Trelew is to-day in a more or less flourishing condition and very Welsh, a grave danger menaces it. In fifty years time how will it be with the racial element? Will there be as many Welsh then as now? I fear not, and the result is difficult to foresee. The danger takes the form of the dark-eyed Argentine maiden, who is rather apt to "make roast meat of the heart" of the Welsh youth. While the Welsh girls do not take very readily to Spanish-speaking husbands, the Welsh boys fall very much in love with the daughters of the South. So it is to be concluded that the language difficulty will settle itself, or, at any rate, become more easy of arrangement with each succeeding generation. If the girl you love speaks only Spanish, it is quite obvious you must learn Spanish in order to be able to talk to her, and, under the circumstances, you will not find the task a very hard one. Then children nearly always show a preference for the mother's tongue and speech in contradistinction to that of the father. Probably, if these prophecies were uttered in Trelew, the men of to-day would scoff at them. But onlookers often see most of the game. In 1865 the Welsh, in deep sorrow, left their own land to escape the tyranny of the English law, as they considered it, which sought to force upon them the English language. Their desire was to preserve their own tongue. And flying from Scylla they will fall (and to some degree have already fallen) a prey to Charybdis. But it is a very pleasant Charybdis, typified by a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lissom maiden, who will bear them sons no longer of the old pure-bred Welsh stock, but of a mixed race. And so the effort of the forefathers, who fared overseas to found a new home, shall be made null and void.

Now and again it is the fate of frontier towns to be stirred to their depths by some incursion from the old world they have left behind them. Trelew was still recovering from such an experience when we arrived there. The settlement, in short, had been suffering from a plague of lords. First appeared an aristocrat, who wished to travel in the interior, and he bought up horses with a lavish hand, and generally made preparations which, no doubt, filled the purses of the inhabitants. This gentleman's projected tour, however, fell through for some reason, and he departed whence he had come into the unknown world outside of Trelew's daily cognisance.

Presently after him followed a second "lord," who gave his name as Lord Reed, and who was received with open arms by an enthusiastic community. A run of lords appeared to be setting in, and was regarded by the Trelewians as a distinct dispensation in their favour, which it was their happy duty to work out thoroughly to their own advantage. By some mistake Lord Reed had left his ready money behind him, and, therefore, borrowed pretty extensively from the kind-hearted Welshmen. After a time Lord Reed vanished, and upon inquiry being made it was discovered that no such title as Lord Reed was to be found in the Peerage of Great Britain. When this fact became established, more than one Welshman is reported to have gone out after Lord Reed with the family gun, and, I believe, he was finally caught with a lasso! But the incident was not without its bearing on our personal affair, for the Bank of Trelew would have nothing whatever to say to my Cook's letter of credit. In vain I recited my credentials, and gave such proof of genuineness as was in my power to give. They would none of me. The bank evidently argued that it was easier to pretend that you were a _bona-fide_ traveller than that you were a lord. Lord Reed too; it was rather a taking title. I could not at first understand where the humour of the question, put to me by several people I met in Trelew, of "Are you not Lord Prichard?" came in. In fact, it was disconcerting; but later on, when I heard the above story, I did not grudge the colonists any fun that might be got out of the situation, for certainly Lord Reed, taken all in all, had been far from a subject of pure amusement to them.

We remained six days at Trelew making those last few purchases which were necessary with the small stock of extra money that I had left myself as a margin. It was directly owing to Lord Reed that I finally set forth into the interior with but thirty dollars in Argentine notes and large drafts on Cook and Son, which were quite useless. Although the wilderness does not seem a likely field for spending money, yet, before our travels were at an end, I was glad to sell horses to supply the needs of our party.

The journey which lay before us to Lake Buenos Aires was about six hundred miles in length, and this distance might be subdivided into three stages: the first, from Trelew to Bahia Camerones, where the expedition became complete; the second, from Bahia Camerones to the Lakes Musters and Colhué; and the third, to Lake Buenos Aires itself. My instructions gave me an entirely free hand, within reasonable limits, as to the number of men I might take with me.

I had from the first been convinced that the smallest number possible would also be, in our case, the wisest. The immense extent of the country to be traversed, and the difficulties which must inevitably lie in our way to hinder and delay us, as well as the practical emptiness of the country, which requires that an expedition shall be self-supporting, were salient facts; and our plans had to be made and modified in relation to these facts. The mobility of the party was the main point to aim at. Hence it was necessary to cut down the _personnel_ of the expedition to as low a number as possible, and it was further most important to have plenty of horses and to spare.

The difficulty of feeding several men when travelling through such a country was obvious, and therefore not to be thought of, as, besides the four horses each individual needed for riding, the extra animals for carrying provision and bedding, clothing, tents, &c. had to be taken into account. No pack-horse should be allowed to carry his load two days consecutively, and, in fact, one day's work in three is enough. If waggons are taken, each should be allowed three teams of six horses each.

With such ideas in view, those arrangements were made which, in fact, enabled us to cover the distances we achieved. Any expedition of this sort is killing work for the horses, and it stands greatly to Burbury's credit that we lost but one out of nearly sixty during the months we spent in Patagonia, and that one was a colt that died of eating poison-shrub.

There is not the slightest doubt that the policy that spells success in Patagonian travel is summed up in the words, "Cut down your men and your stores, and take enough horses to enable you to move lightly and rapidly."

On September 21 we left Trelew in the afternoon. The weather was magnificent. Our caravan at this period consisted of a couple of waggons as well as the horses. Two _estancieros_, Messrs. Greenshields and Haddock, accompanied us, as our way led past their farms. I sent the waggons ahead and rode on afterwards with Burbury and Humphrey Jones senior. When we came to the place fixed on for our first camp we found the men had gone on, for there was no water there. We pushed forward in the dark, and presently the fire of the encampment glimmered out in front of us; it seemed to be quite near, but it took a good while to reach. We heard an occasional fox, and as we sat round the fire a few birds passed in the dark, calling. The first night in camp is like the first night at sea, a gloomy time.

The next day we again had a bright sun with a strong west wind. We chased some pampa foxes and an ostrich (_Rhea darwini_) and killed two of the former. Jones and Burbury caught a cavy (_Dolichotis patagonica_). So we marched on over the rolling downs day after day, sometimes catching a glimpse of the sea, sometimes journeying across pampas where the far horizons met in pale blue sky and puffed white clouds above, and below grass and endless scrub. We saw Cayenne plover (_Vanellus cayennensis_) at an early stage of our travels.

I have already mentioned the herds of guanaco that roam the interior. This animal belongs distinctively to South America, and is to be found nowhere else in the world. Darwin writes of it as follows: "The guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia.... It is an elegant animal in a state of nature, with a long slender neck and fine legs." In colour the guanaco is of a golden-brown with white underparts, the hair upon the sides being somewhat long and fleecy. Enormous herds of from three to five hundred live upon the pampas, and we were aware that we should chiefly depend for meat on those we might chance to shoot during many months to come.

One evening, when I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I saw my first guanaco. Coming round a bend of the winding _cañadon_, I looked up and perceived him. The sight was highly picturesque. It was an old buck standing alone on the top of a cliff some two hundred feet high and looking down at me. He was posed against a background of pale green glinting sunset. I had hardly time to unsling my rifle before he bounded away. We saw many thousands afterwards, but somehow in the nature of things I shall never forget that first one.

On the coast-farms, which, it must be recollected, are many of them scores of square leagues in extent, the guanaco grows comparatively tame, becoming used to the passing of mounted shepherds; but in other parts of Patagonia, noticeably in the valley of the River Chico of Chubut, through which we passed later, they are very wild, allowing no human being to approach within half a mile. This is owing to the Indians, who hunt them perpetually in that district.

Once in camp in Patagonia life is very enjoyable, though perhaps the enjoyment varies with the amount of game to be seen. Up at sunrise, when the sun pokes its big bald lemon-coloured head out of the bed-clothes of the sky. Then some early camp-man stirs and rises, and waddles down to the wet grey ashes of yesternight's fire, and soon a weak trail of smoke goes rocketing away in the wind. The big pot is put on and breakfast is made and eaten. Then the cargo is packed, and the horses are rounded up by a Gaucho or two, riding bareback. We saddle up and the caravan moves off on its leagues-long march.

Marches vary from fifteen miles to forty, and when the afternoon sun waxes less strong the horses are off-saddled and turned loose, the waggons unpacked and the camp-fires lighted. _Maté_ eternally, a roast, tea afterwards and a pipe, and then the sleeping-bags. _Maté_ or _yerba_, I must explain, is the great drink of the pampas, and is most invigorating. A cup or tin is half filled with the yellow powdery leaves, to which is added a little cold water, followed by hot. It is drunk through a _bombilla_ or tube, the maker of the decoction taking the first pull, and afterwards it passes from hand to hand, and I must add from mouth to mouth, round the circle. It is the greatest insult to refuse to partake, and when the originator of the brew happens to be an old and rather unappetising Tehuelche lady, the effort to take your turn and look pleased is often something of an ordeal.

Day after day went by in much the same manner, but few remembrances remain with me more vividly than the pampa fox and cavy hunting which we enjoyed during those early times of our expedition. Four lurchers of sorts and my big greyhound, Tom, trotted behind our horses, and when game was sighted we went after it at full gallop. In that keen air nothing can be more exhilarating than such a chase over the broken ground of the pampa, where we were often successful, but among hummocks and hills the quarry frequently made good its escape.

On the 25th we passed a farm that was quite English in appearance--wire-fences enclosing sheep and lambs on downs that descended in undulations to the sea. By evening we were in broken country patched with red rock. The horses were rather troublesome; Hughes, one of the Gauchos, rode an untamed mare and gave a good exhibition of horsemanship. Among the sheep and the hills an Indian rode down from the high ground; he wore a poncho of red and black, tinted like autumn trees. His camp consisted of a little fire of three or four sticks, by which squatted his _china_. He took his place beside her, and watched our line of waggons and horses wind away out of sight.

From Trelew to Camerones the country was for the most part like the bare deer-forests of the Scottish Highlands, brown bracken being replaced by _espinilla_ (thorn, a general term) and the green shrub called by the Welshmen "poison-bush," the same blue sky above, the same occasional lochlike lagoons. For the first two days or more the pampas stretched to the rim of the horizon, empty and somewhat harsh even in the sunlight. Now and then mirages like squadrons of cavalry hovered along the edges of them. A few guanaco and ostriches, a sprinkling of cavy, and many pampa foxes seemed to eke out an existence there. It was a land of vast prospects, a scene laid forth with a sort of noble parsimony, which--as in the case of a miser so miserly that for the very exceedingness of his vice you respect him--was yet stupendous in its one or two grandly simple salient features, and drove the spectator to that admiration which verges upon fear. Picture one such characteristic vision of Patagonia. As far as eye could reach a spread of wind-weary grass, roofed by a wind-blown sky, an eagle poised far off, a dot in the upper air. Nothing more.

A man alone within this vast setting seemed puny. Lost here, without a horse, he would be the most helpless of things created. It was across this gigantic primordialism that our way led us. Three times we made our camp upon the bare pampas, three times in one or other of the many _cañadones_ before reaching Bahia Camerones. You may be voyaging at an easy jog over the pampa, seeing the land roll apparently quite level to the horizon, when suddenly you come upon a spatter of white sand, a track leading between the shoulders of the pampa, you dive down and are lost to sight in a moment; then, perhaps, for four miles or for fourteen you are riding a couple of hundred feet below the level spread of the pampa, and as you pass the guanaco on the cliff tops watch you uneasily. To be lost in such a land is the simplest possible matter.

On the 27th we arrived at the Estancia Lochiel, where Mr. Greenshields most kindly entertained us. This _estancia_ is situated at the head of a _cañadon_, which drops away to the sea eight leagues distant. It consists of a small colony of wooden houses with corrugated iron roofs. The Lochiel Sheep Farming Company, of which Mr. Greenshields is manager, have 15,000 sheep and forty square leagues of camp. "Camp," you must understand, in Patagonia means land.

The day after our arrival Scrivenor and Burbury accompanied Mr. Frederick Haddock to his farm, eight leagues away, in order to bring back the horses I had purchased by contract in Trelew. I remained behind as Mr. Greenshields' guest, for a puma was reported by the shepherd to have killed five sheep upon the edge of the farm during the previous night.

Macdonald, the Scotch shepherd, Barckhausen and I set out to see if we could find the puma. On my way to the spot I shot my first guanaco. He appeared upon the skyline doing sentinel, possibly against the very puma we were after. We rode under the hill on which the guanaco was watching, and he began to move uneasily. At the bend of the hill was a small hollow, and, as we rode through this, I told my companions to ride on and threw them my _cabresto_ (leading-rope of a horse). I slid off the horse and crawled up the hill. Upon the bare face of it was a thicket of poison-bush, and into this I ultimately made my way. The sentinel guanaco was there above me, stretching out his long neck, and every now and then giving his high neighing laugh. When one hundred and twenty yards off he saw me, and I had to snap him quickly. Swing went his neck, and away he galloped with his swift, uneven gait. I thought I had missed him, when, to my delight, he began to slacken speed, and finally lay down in an ungainly attitude, his long neck crooked in a curve in front of him. I crawled nearer, and up he got and was off again. I ran down to my horse and mounted, and Macdonald let Tom, my hound, loose. We galloped the guanaco up. He was very sick indeed, and inside of three hundred yards Tom pulled him down again. The Mauser bullet had hit him two inches behind the shoulder about half way down the body. It had not come out. How he managed to get so far I cannot understand. We then went onwards, and saw by the way several herds of guanaco. I did not shoot any more, however, as they were uncommonly tame, and there was, of course, mutton at the _estancia_. We reached the spot on the hills above the puma's kill, low thorn bushes, vast mountain and blue sea, but no sign of the puma was to be found. These animals will often travel four or five leagues after a kill.

By the way, when you fire at a guanaco they will sway their heads downwards with an odd sort of ducking motion. Not one individual but a whole herd will do this at any unaccustomed sound. The effect is most curious.

While at Bahia Camerones our party was completed. We took with us five Gauchos, who are active, handy men as a rule. The population of the country is largely composed of Gauchos; in fact, they form the foundation of Patagonian life.

They live by the horse, and the horse lives by them. They drive mobs of cattle or of horses for owners across three degrees of latitude to sell them. They have been born in the camp, live in the camp, and will very likely die there also. In Patagonia they treat their horses in a method very different to that which we employ in our crowded country. There nature gives grass, water, and the horse; man tames the animal as little as possible from his wild state, and forces an alliance with nature. At night the mares are hobbled and the horses turned loose; while the Gauchos light their camp-fire and drink _maté_ through the _bombilla_.

At the first light next morning they take it in turn to bring in the troop, which they do with an astonishing swiftness. Sometimes, of course, the horses "clear," and then it is that the Gauchos in charge find them by tracking.

In a country intersected by deep _cañadones_, which offer a secure hiding-place in their many hollows, this is a difficult matter. The tracks perhaps run easily through a belt of soft marsh, and then are invisible upon a pampa of shingle and thorn.

A true Gaucho must be able to do a number of things--to back an untamed colt, to lassoo, to use the _boleadores_, which are heavy stones attached together by a hide rope, and are to the Patagonian what the boomerang is to the Australian aborigine. He must be able to cook, to make horse-gear from the pelts of beasts, to find his way without a compass from point to point, by instinct as it were.

The Gaucho shares with the poet the honour of being born, not made. This proves that Gaucho work is Art, with a big A. Take, for instance, the power of driving single-handed a big mob of wild horses and keeping them compact. No one who has not tried it can imagine what heartbreaking work it is to a beginner. One learns to do it after a fashion in time, but never like the man who has been bred to the craft.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Since writing the above I learn that a German line has put steamers upon this route.