CHAPTER VIII

THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS

Como No -- Wind and driven sand -- Laguna La Cancha -- Como No's dogs -- Cold winds -- Lake Buenos Aires and Sierra Nevada -- Cross River Fenix -- Stony ground -- Skeletons of guanaco -- Fine scenery -- Short rest -- Colt killed -- Base camp made -- Boyish dreams -- Sunday -- Routine at Horsham Camp -- Driftwood round lake -- Constant wind -- My tent-home -- Scorpions -- Guanacos -- Engineers' camp -- Cooking-pots -- First huemul.

We now set forth upon the last stage of our journey to Lake Buenos Aires. I had hired one of the Indians to guide us across the high pampa. He was, although dwelling in the tents of the Tehuelches, not a Tehuelche. He called himself a _Patagonero_, and belonged to one of the tribes of Pampa Indians of the north. His tribe, he told me, were Christians. Before we left the Indian encampment, one of the older ladies belonging to it began to paint her face in horizontal lines of black, whether with a view to capturing our hearts or not I cannot say.

We left on November 3, and accomplished a very long march in the face of somewhat trying conditions. The Indian rode ahead with his dogs on the look-out for ostriches. A mighty wind from the west, cold with the snow of the Cordillera, blew in our faces, bringing with it showers of sand that stung us sharply. We could hardly persuade the horses to meet the wind, and their hoofs kicked up still more sand for our benefit. We were off shortly after nine o'clock, and about noon I would have given much to say "Camp." When fighting with the elements one goes through three distinct stages. First, there is the stage exultant, during which you feel the joy of battle, and struggle rejoicingly. The second comes when the irresistible tires you down, however strong you are, and forces the sense of your puniness so plainly upon you that you feel a sort of hurt despair, and a half impulse to give in before a force so far beyond you. Last of all, you go on enduring until you become, as it were, acclimatised, and inclined to laugh at the despair you experienced a while previously. So it was on this day's march. About noon I said to myself as we were crossing the high pampa above the _barranca_ of the River Chalia--a desolate spot, rough and tussocky, and gambolled over by Titanic winds--"We will camp at four sharp." The decision at the moment was a comfort, but in the end we did not camp until close upon seven o'clock, blind with sand, and our hands bleeding from the cold and the harsh friction of the cargo ropes.

It was as we approached this camp that I saw beside a lagoon of snow-water two American oyster-catchers (_Hæmatopus palliatus_) which, no doubt, had nested in the vicinity, as, on my going closer, they rose and circled with their darting flight above my head, but I failed to find the nest. There were many guanacos about, and I was not surprised to hear that this lagoon, Laguna La Cancha, was a very favourite encampment of the Indians. The scenery surrounding the pool is peculiarly inhospitable. Some one remarked that it reminded him of Doré's illustrations to the Inferno, adding, "If you were to put heat to it, it would be Hell." Huge rolling downs, bare hills, and no vegetation save a few tussocks and scattered meagre shrubs. The Indian said the winter hits this land very hard, and the whole district is buried under snow, only the high, bald tops of the hills being visible.

The next day was Sunday, but not on this occasion a day of rest. One thought of the bells ringing far away at home and the concourse of people moving along the winter roads. Here was wind, cold, and a march, cargo to be fixed and refixed to the day's end, then a windy camp-fire, and after a short sleep till dawn. Hitherto the toil had been hard, but we were nearing the lake, and looked forward to a time of rest and hunting.

We were rich in meat with the cow, sheep, a Darwin's rhea caught by the Indian's dogs, and three geese. The hounds of the Indian proved themselves to be troublesome thieves. Burbury and I were obliged to sleep beside the meat. Besides being cunning thieves the dogs were cowards. They were to all intents and purposes wild as regarded their habits. Yet good guanaco-hounds represent very sterling value to their owners, whose livelihood they procure. The best at the work I met with in Patagonia were those which belonged to this Indian guide. We called the man Como No because, whatever question was put to him, his invariable reply took the form of "_Como no?_" or "Why not?" You said perhaps, "It is not far to the next camping-ground, is it?" "_Como no?_" he would answer. After some three hours at an amble, you would repeat your inquiry. "Is it much farther?" "_Como no?_" The most impossible queries met with precisely the same response.

However indeterminate Como No may have been in his mental attitude, his dogs were definitely good ones. He owned a big brindled dog, a small black one and a couple of yellow pups. Como No had a habit of riding far ahead of the general troop of men and horses, his figure making a far-off outline etched in black against the cold blue horizon of the pampa. Sometimes, when he lost sight of us for any length of time, he would burn a bush to give us our direction by the smoke, and we would follow on, driving the pack-horses and those free ones which were not being used either for riding or cargo at the time. Presently, perhaps, when rounding a low thicket, we would come suddenly upon him, squatted on his haunches beside a dead ostrich, from which he had stripped the feathers. These feathers, though far inferior to those of the African ostrich, or of _Rhea americana_, are worth anything from two to four dollars.

As he rode forward again, his dogs would range on either side of him. By-and-by they would again start an ostrich or a guanaco, and pull it down within 500 or 600 yards. Whereupon Como No would ride up, drive them off, kill and cut up the quarry, giving the hounds the liver, strip the feathers if it happened to be an ostrich, and then mount and ride on once more. This performance would be repeated over and over again during the course of the march, until, before we saw the last of him, his saddle had become an enormous bunch of feathers, from out of which his body and shoulders protruded in a quaint manner.

At night these dogs, however, were a terrible nuisance. They would forage about the camp for food, and pull down the meat we had placed on bushes and devour it. Such was eventually the fate of the last remnants of the mutton we had with us, and the loss was all the harder as we knew that the stolen mutton was the last we were destined to taste for months. After that we lived on lean guanaco.

By this date we had gradually climbed to some 1200 feet above the sea-level, and the temperature was extremely cold. Our reindeer-beds became a great comfort.

The 5th began with an hour of welcome sun, but it passed only too soon, and the wind rose more piercingly cold than ever. It penetrated to one's very bones. We, however, made seven leagues, and reached the River Genguel, which here makes a great curve. We camped in a narrow shute, strewn with big stones and giving upon the river, the _cañadon_ being very wide and devoid of shelter. The water was broken into small sharp waves by the wind, and we were glad to collect what firewood was obtainable--bushes being scarce at that spot--and make a fire. The Indian burned a bush and warmed himself. His dogs had, unaided by him, killed a small guanaco and a fox (_Canis griseus_). We lay by the fire and the wind came down bitterly chill from the Sierra Nevada, while Jones cooked, and we learnt the delights which, in a cold climate, are to be found in mutton fat! After food to bed, and then a cold sleet set in. It was a nasty night, but in our reindeer bags we were, of course, untouched by the cold.

Next day nine leagues were achieved. Very long marches these, but we were pressing on to reach Lake Buenos Aires. _Cañadon_ and pampa and high ground succeeded each other as we rode along, sometimes bare, sometimes sandy, sometimes thorn-covered, often stony and strewn with fragments of basalt. Generally overhead a pallid blue sky, and below wind, wind, perpetual wind. So we toiled on past little chill lagoons, ruffled with the keen breeze, until in the afternoon I came up with Burbury and the Indian on a rise, and there lay our goal before us--a great stretch of water wonderfully blue and cold-looking beneath the Sierra Nevada, whose summits were crowned with snow above their dusky purple.

The Tostado kicked off his cargo during the day, and among the scattered contents of Jones' kit I picked up a broken looking-glass. I had not seen myself since leaving Colohuapi, and confess I found no cause for vanity in the sight of a distinctly dirty-looking pirate with smoke-reddened eyes, a peeling face and nose, and with enough beard to put a finishing-touch to the horrid spectacle.

On the 3rd I discovered a scorpion in my bed in spite of the cold. By the 6th we reached the River Fenix, and, crossing to an island, camped in the sleet, the temperature reading that night being 30° F. From there we pushed on to the farther bank, and marched to the camping-ground of the Indians, which, though the nearest of their old camps to Lake Buenos Aires, was still a good distance from it. The Azulejo had been lost, but was brought in quite spent, by Barckhausen. Poor little beast! He lay down more dead than alive under a bush, a pathetic little figure enough. After reaching camp, Jones and I had to turn out again, pretty tired as we were, to look for food. We rode for hours, and saw only a herd of guanaco. At this season the country round about here is rather devoid of game, the ground is stony, with thorn and dry, blackened bushes. We were disappointed in our hunt again on the second day, seeing only two guanaco, lion-tracks, and a couple of pigeons, but we did not shoot them, and I am unable to speak with any certainty of the species to which they belonged. I have never seen a district so bare of life. We had come, as it were, to the world's end.

I sat in my tent-door and wrote my diary. Far away I could see the Cordillera, splendid giants, with the sun shining upon them; below, the lake that reminded me strongly of the picture in which Hiawatha sailed into "the kingdom of Ponemah, the Land of the Hereafter." That scene was just so wild, and so remote, with a great red sunset burning over it, and round about it rock and sand and marsh, with a pale wide rim of dead-wood, swept down by floods from the neighbouring forests.

On our way to the shores of the lake we had passed through a stretch of extraordinary aridity, a white and yellow spread of mud and stones that filled a valley between two scrub-covered hills. From far off it looked level, but in reality we found it to be intersected and veined with mighty gashes, which formed winding gorges. There the wind blew, and at times the sun beat down; very cold it was, and very hot by turns, but never temperate.

We had expected to find plenty of game in the vicinity of the lake, but in this, as I have said, we were disappointed, the consequence being that our supply of meat ran short. There was nothing for it but to kill the eighteen-months old colt of one of the _madrinas_. But before we did this we hunted for three days, during which time I shot a couple of upland geese, which made the sum total of our bag. In a new country one has always to buy experience. We were buying ours at this period. Owing to the wildness of our horses the journey from Trelew had been an especially trying one, although, under other circumstances, the difficulties need not be great.[18] The breakdown of the waggon at so early a stage had entailed a large amount of extra labour, and by the time we reached Lake Buenos Aires we were, both men and horses, pretty well done up.

On the third day of our hunting I took Barckhausen instead of Jones, who had been out with me on the two previous days. We passed along through the stony thorn-lean gorges towards the east. Here nothing lived save the strong birds of prey, and lions, whose tracks we observed leading to the rocks. Death lay nakedly there in all directions, skull and backbone, with rain-polish and snow-polish upon them, picked clean years ago by now-dead caranchos and chimangos.

During our ride we saw two monster owls, two condors, many caranchos, and so pushed on over hill rising behind hill, stony, dark, with wind-lifted wisps of sand turning and twisting upon them.

In the early afternoon we came upon a more pleasant land, and to a little marshy pool in a hollow of the hills, crowded round with forest-bushes, and upon this pool from far away I spied two upland geese. I dismounted, took my gun, and began a stalk. While I was still well out of range a bough broke under my foot, and the geese were away. We lay up for a time, but the birds did not return, so we took a turn westwards in the hope of getting some coots I had observed the day before upon another lagoon, close to Lake Buenos Aires. Upon the shore of the lake a smart shower of sleet, hail, and rain overtook us, and we had to lie down in the lee of a thorn-bush. I saw one golden guanaco racing along a hill-top against the sunset. Some coots were on the lake; I shot four, but contrary winds drove them out into the water too deep to venture after them, and we turned campwards empty-handed.

As we galloped over the hills the clouds broke on the western side of the lake, and made a scene ominously beautiful. The rifted dusky blue, the long pale gleam of water shining like an angel's sword, the white snow-peaks, the purple-black belly of the rain-storm, all cast together formed a picture that affected the senses strongly.

As we neared camp, I saw something gleam white behind a bush. An upland goose! I crawled up and found two. With what care I managed that stalk! I killed the female with one barrel on the ground and pulled over the male as he swung upwards. After riding seven leagues, we got our small results of the day's seeking within a mile of the camp! One or other of us had seen far-off guanaco flying out of sight, and I decided to start next day for the River Fenix to try for some, camping there the night and returning next day to begin our long-needed rest.

Yet the next day (November 9) none of us went a-hunting after all. We were fairly played out. Personally I had had not one day's rest since starting two months before, as upon me principally fell the duty of providing for the pot, so that upon coming in of an evening on the close of a long march it was usually necessary to saddle a fresh horse and ride a further distance from five to fifteen miles in search of game.

So we killed the colt to provide for our wants while men and horses enjoyed well-earned repose. I had formed a base-camp about five miles from the shores of the lake, intending to make short expeditions, lightly equipped, round and about the vicinity. As for the camp, three large thorn-bushes were Nature's contribution towards it, and what a relief even the shelter of a thorn-bush can be in the Kingdom of the Winds, you could only learn by an experience such as was ours. Below the camp, which stood on a ridge, the ground fell away in a three-mile slope to the usually angry water; eastwards was a _pantano_ or swamp of yellow reeds, which ran a long way below the scrub-grown ridge. The tents huddled back-to-wind, as much under the lee of the bushes as possible. We made an oven, but it turned out a failure, the earth being too soft for our purpose. Round the fire was a hedge of thorn hung with horse-blankets, red, yellow and black, which gave a rather festive air to the camp. The only sounds were the neigh of a horse, the hooting of night-birds, and the never-silent wind.

During the night of the 10th, half a gale of wind blew up with an extraordinary rancour of coldness. I lay in my tent and heard the sides of it flapping like some great wounded bird. Sleep was put off till far into the small hours. Through the open tent-door I could look at the bushes writhing in the gale, the long black back of the ridge and the glint of stars. How often one sees in half-sleep the scenes of home and of the past! I seemed again to be watching the boats coming in and the tides rising with the well-known ripple and pouring rush of water on a shallow beach, tides that in boyish days held so infinite a romance. Where did the storms that broke there come from? whither went the dark hulls after they sank below the blue edge of sea? Or where did the fishermen sail their boats to--lonely rocks from which they brought back parrot-beaked, jelly-armed _pieuvres_? And yet, having drifted into some long wanderings, and now into that wilderness, no scene that I have ever looked upon, however wild or lonely, has touched me in any way that could compare with the thrill of those early dreams. Romance lies always a little too far away; only in childhood is the gate of that wonderful garden open to us, and we gaze and long for the fruit we are never to handle.

Our tents at Horsham Camp--so we named it--were the only green things in the landscape. They happened to be of a pale green. Riding out from the camp in most directions you found yourself amongst a bare and wind-swept series of ridges two or three hundred feet in height, which appeared to roll away across the wide continent. Sunday was welcome. It was noticeable how Sunday abroad always affected men, some of whom at home spared small attention for the day. Life went evenly. The others took it in turn to cook. I generally rode out early. The troop were rounded up and our first meal came about 7 o'clock. After that I used to go to my tent and write while the men busied themselves with any job on hand. Cocoa at two on Sundays, and about six a meal of meat and beans. And so to bed. The day before the colt was killed, Tom, my hound, stole a dumpling from the plate of one of the party as he sat eating. The loser at once pursued the thief, retrieved the dumpling and ate it, so you will understand that there was no wastefulness among us!

By November 12 I was tired of inaction, tired of the tent, tired of the camp. The wind continued. Surely in all his writings R. L. Stevenson never made a more perfect phrase than the "incommunicable thrill of things." A wood-scent in the morning, the sound of the wind at night, the clear cinders of the fire or a whiff of burning wood--one receives the spark that fires the train of thought and leads us far away. No indolence of the soul this, but the fulfilling of some beautiful law at the junction of the spiritual and the natural, infused through a thousand tissues and welded by a thousand heredities.... One writes much of this kind of thing, for, afar from all books or chance of interchanging ideas, one falls back upon oneself, and one's pen is a safe outlet for superfluous imaginings.

On that afternoon I caught a horse and went down to the long point that stretches out into the lake. Although this was a ride of upwards of twenty miles, I saw no living thing upon the land, and on the water only a couple of grebes and three upland geese. My way lay through dense thickets of low growth, the going very sandy and treacherous. The high-water mark, or, as I should rather say, the flood-mark of the lake was outlined by piles and piles of driftwood of milk-toothlike whiteness. Some of the trunks were as large in girth as my body. All this comes down from the mountain forests, carried by torrents from the melting snows. The vegetation on that side of the lake was the most florid and sizeable that I had so far seen in Patagonia. High flowering grass, thorn-bush thickets almost impenetrable, and between these and the margin of the water a wide strewing of rotten trunks of antarctic beech and poles of an arborescent grass-like bamboo. On my way back I made a short cut through the edge of the lake, of which the bed was shingly.

_November 13._--I went to the River Fenix and shot a guanaco. Afterwards I took a six-mile walk and shot two snipe. Lake Buenos Aires was certainly the very heart of the wind's domain. While we were there the wind never died down, it blew all the time, often lifting sand and gravel, and sometimes a great piece of our camp-fire, sheltered as that was. It raged on most days, blowing so hard that some people in England would not have cared to venture out of doors.

I have so far given no description of our tents, which were probably the nearest approach to comfort within many hundred miles of Horsham Camp. Mine was small, seven feet by a short six, and four feet high, sustained by four ropes and a pole, the place of the second pole--which we lost--being taken by a bow-legged slip of califate-wood. The tent contained two beds made up of skins and ponchos laid on the green canvas floor, a soldered tin of plug tobacco served by way of a candlestick and upheld a candle-end. Round and about the tent and on its excrescent flooring were heaped our boxes, otherwise the wind would have blown it over. It was a mere bag of a place, with an exit like an animal's hole; but at night, when the storm howled without, our dim light looked homely, the tobacco-scented air was grateful, and a bit of camphor lent its aroma to the place. And there one could lie at ease and read or think at pleasure.

On the 14th I shot another guanaco; it was curious that we were always rich in meat or else in absolute want of it. I had gone out on Jones' black horse for a little exercise towards the River Deseado, and there I surprised the guanaco. He was an old buck and solitary. He gave me a nice shot, then walked a step or two and fell dead. At Horsham Camp we lived in some dread of scorpions; Jones found one on his saddle, Burbury another in the flour or the cooking-pot, and some roosted in our bedding. By the way, our kitchen arrangements were becoming very scanty at that period; we had but two cooking-pots left and one kettle, thanks to the energetic treatment they had received at the heels of the _cargueros_. It was fervently hoped by all the party that nothing would go wrong with any of these, or we should have been most uncomfortably situated.

On the 15th I started with Burbury and Scrivenor to make an expedition towards Mount Pyramide. Upon our way we were astonished to see three herds of guanaco--fourteen, and ten, and then twenty-one--at different times. Although I was well within shot I did not try to kill any, as we had meat enough.

On this day the first huemul seen on our expedition was observed by Burbury. First he saw a buck, afterwards two does, but, owing to the nature of the ground, he was unable to get a shot. We were naturally very anxious to secure a specimen of this very interesting and little known deer, but it was not until we made our trip round the south side of the lake that we were successful.

We made our way across an abomination of desolation, a grey old desert; then crossing a marsh, we descended by a white cliff to the margin of a deep brown lagoon. Of many colours were these lagoons. Burbury said that region was more dismal than Tierra del Fuego--old deserts, varied by marshes and califate-bush, stone and boulder, thorn and sand. After a rest in the afternoon we rode on, and presently struck a deserted camp of the Argentine Boundary Commission, near which the steam-launch, which had been brought across the pampas for the exploration of Lake Buenos Aires, was secreted.

Nothing in the world looks more forlorn than a deserted camp. But we were far from being depressed on this occasion, for in this old camp of Mr. Hans Waag's we made a find which we looked upon as a great slice of luck.

On November 2nd I find in my diary: "More accidents to the cooking-pots, this time at the hoofs of Horqueta. The flat-bottomed pot still survives, but the round one and the kettle are more damaged than whole. One more such accident will mean that the corned-beef tins must be called into requisition."

In this camp we found sundry boxes, old iron-bound packing-cases, and while I was engaged in lighting the fire I heard an exclamation behind me, and Burbury sang out:

"Here's a big enamelled saucepan, nearly new!" It was so, and then again, "And here's another. What luck!"

Of course, if those saucepans had not been shut up in cases, they might have been considered treasure-trove. As it was, one did not need the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the travellers who had hidden these pots away so carefully meant to return, find, and once again use them. They belonged, as I knew, to Mr. Waag's Commission of Limits, as they call the Boundary Commission out there. When I met that gentleman in Buenos Aires I never dreamt that I should yet be reduced to stealing his cooking utensils. But we did not "steal" them, we only "availed" ourselves of them. I hope my readers see the difference as plainly as we saw it. And what do you think our companions said when they heard the story? Did they urge us to make restitution? What they said referred to the finding of some empty bottles among the rubbish, "A pity there was no whisky in them!" If there had been, of course we should not ... well, who knows?

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Pampa travel is like cricket in that it defies forecast. Sometimes everything falls in right, at other times nothing comes opportunely to hand.