Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

“And supper’s all ready,” I added.

“Ah, that’s the way. I confess I’m hungry. I gave you two days’ start from Santa Cruz station, and so you see I’ve overtaken you, and I only slept one night on the Pampas.”

“Weren’t you afraid, sir, the pumas would eat you?”

“No, they don’t like live meat; but now, young fellows, I’m not going to be ‘sir’-ed. We can’t live together free and easy if we stand on ceremony. We are all equal on the Pampas.”

“But there is a cacique or chief among the Ishmaelites?”

“Yes; but a cacique holds a kind of sinecure office. He is partly chief and partly magistrate, gives himself a great many airs; and the women often laugh at him behind his back. I’ll be cacique if you like, but not ‘Sir.’”

“Well,” said Peter, “I’ll be bound we won’t laugh at you behind your back.”

As he spoke, Peter divested the horse of saddle and bridle, as nimbly as if he had been brought up in a stable all his life. It quite took me by surprise.

The saddle is a mere bundle of wood and skins, covered with rugs and gear. It is not uncomfortable to ride on once you are acquainted with it; but although we had been a few days on the Pampas, and had ridden as neatly as we could, we were still tired and exceedingly sore. The bridle is also of guanaco skin, and the bit of wood and thong. Nevertheless these hardy horses of the plains are well used to such primitive harness.

There is one fault with the saddle, which we soon found out: unless it be particularly well girt it has a disagreeable habit of wheeling to one side just when you are at a pleasant canter, or gallop perhaps, and so emptying you out.

“Here,” cried Peter, stuffing the gear into my arms, “take hold of that, Greenie, and look lively; the cacique is hungry.”

“I’m not Greenie,” I said; “if I was, Peter, old man, I’d pull your ears.”

“Oh, you’re not Greenie! Well, Jack, then, you shouldn’t be so like him in the moonlight. I’m going to put a black spot on one of your noses, so that I can tell t’other from which. Then I suppose I’d forget which I put the black spot on.”

“Better not try it on me,” I said.

The horse was loose now and free, and with a happy nicker he went trotting off to quench his thirst in the stream, previously to having his supper.

“Come on, boys, I’m starving. Good Ossian. Ah! you can be friendly enough now. Where is your kau (tent), Peter?”

“My cow, mon ami?”

“Yes, your kau.”

“We haven’t got a cow. We have some condensed milk.”

Castizo laughed.

“Why,” he explained, “a kau is a toldo, or tent.”

“Well, Cacique, I’ve heard of people, when overtaken by a blizzard on the North American prairies, killing a horse, disembowelling it, then getting inside and hauling the hole in after them; but it’s the first time I ever heard of a cow being used as a tent. We live to learn. Here’s the cow, mon ami. Will you walk inside, Señor Cacique?”

“Ah!” cried Castizo, rubbing his hands gleefully.

“Here’s a blaze of light and glory! Here’s comfort; here’s luxury!”

Then, even before he shook hands with Jill and Ritchie, Castizo must elevate his palms like a Spanish girl dancing, cock his head a little on one side, and smilingly sing a verse of a song which caused his eyes to sparkle with merriment, and made those laugh who listened to him.

“We’re glad to see you,” said Jill.

“Right glad to see you,” said Ritchie.

“I know you all are, boys. Thought I would lose myself, I suppose. Ah, no! I have been too long on the plains, and in forests, mountains, and wildernesses, to do that. My good Pedro here knows me.”

“Master likes to be alone – much,” said Pedro, a dark-haired, black-eyed, black-bearded, sturdy little Chilian.

This man’s face was preternaturally white. No sunshine ever scorched him brown, or even red; but perhaps the darkness of his hair brought out the pallor more. He had a pleasant smile, and two rows of teeth as white as a young puppy’s.

Lawlor was not far away; and with him also Castizo shook hands. So equality was established.

Our tent was not of guanaco skins, like that of the Indians who accompanied us on this expedition. We had a canvas marquee of small dimensions, but most comfortable, and so neatly made that it could pack together into a load for one horse, poles and all.

Castizo had been a Patagonian traveller for years. At first, he told us, he “herded” with the Indians under their tents of skin, and lived quite as they did, with the exception of the drinking of rum; but he soon found it better to import a little civilisation into his mode of life. So he did; and I advise any one who meditates going to the Patagonian Pampas to do the same.

Here we were in our handsome tent, with every comfort before and around us which it is capable of transporting into the wilderness.

The table was a piece of canvas spread on the ground in the middle of the tent. Candles – real candles – burned in the centre, stuck in a rudely formed sconce of wood, which in its turn was stuck through the canvas into the ground. Our seats were our huge, gown-like guanaco mantles, which by and by would serve us for blankets, when we lay down to sleep on our couches of withered grass.

Our dishes and plates were all of tin, easily packed and easily carried, and we had knives and forks. Had our table been a raised wooden one, it would have groaned, not so much with the variety of good things, but with their solidness and substantiality. Here were steak of guanaco, and stew of horseflesh – one of our pack animals had broken a leg the day before, and we were wise to make use of him – and here were roast ducks. Cakes we had, too, made of flour which had been half-roasted before it left Valparaiso. These cakes were made by Pedro, who was our very excellent cook. I think there must have been something else in them as well as flour. However they were very nice, and tasted and looked somewhat like a happy combination of Scotch haggis, Australian damper, and Irish scone.

We had no beer to drink; we had no wine; but we had yerba maté, which combines the invigorating qualities of both, with all the soothing, calming influence of a cup of good coffee or tea.

It is a kind of tea made of the dried leaves of the Paraguayan ilex, and is infused and drunk just as tea is; though the Patagonian Indians and hunters usually drink it through tubes pierced with little holes, so that they can have the infusion without the powder or leaves.

“Well, boys,” said Castizo, whose English, by the way, was irreproachable, “we’ve made a fairly good start. And your captain, with his adorable little wife – what an amiable creature she is – will be nearly half-way home by this time. Are you sorry you haven’t gone with them to see the mother?”

“Ah!” I said, “I know mother well: she will be pleased to hear we are enjoying ourselves, and learning something at the same time. Won’t she, Jill?”

“Assuredly; and so will aunt.”

“Well,” said Castizo, with a laugh, “as to learning something, there is no doubt about that. You will learn to be men. The Pampas is the best school in the world.”

“Whose sentry-go is it to-night?” said Peter.

“Mine, I believe,” said Jill, looking at his watch; “I go on in half an hour. Then Lawlor.”

“That’s right,” said Lawlor.

In less than an hour, we were all curled up in our toldo or kau, wrapped in our good guanaco robes, and fast asleep.

Out in the moonlight, however, Jill, with his rifle at the shoulder, paced steadily to and fro on sentry, and not very far off, leaning against one of the posts of the great skin tent, stood a Patagonian, also on duty. He looked a noble savage, erect and stately, and tall enough in his robe of skin to have passed for a veritable giant. Lying carelessly across his left arm, its point upwards, and gaily decorated with ostrich feathers, was his spear. A formidable weapon is this Patagonian spear, of immense length and strength, and tipped with a knife of stoutest steel. A swordsman has little chance against so terrible an instrument of warfare, for your giant antagonist can strike home long before you can get near enough to do execution. If very active and you can succeed in parrying one blow, you may seize the instrument, and rush in and slay your man; but, as the Scotch put it, “What would he be doing all this time?” He will not wait till you get quietly up to him, depend upon it. So I say that the best fencer that ever switched a foil is not a match for a Patagonian spearsman.

The Patagonians who formed part of our present camp were good fellows all. They were hired by Castizo, some at Puento Arenas, and some from a tribe stationed at or near Santa Cruz. Those from the former place, our cacique – as we may as well now call Castizo – had taken north with him in his yacht to Santa Cruz, and altogether our Indians numbered twenty-four souls. No women, no children, save those of the chief and his second in command. Our cacique knew better than to encumber himself with many of these on the march.

That these Patagonians would remain faithful to us, we had little doubt. For, first and foremost, they are, on the whole, good-natured and friendly to white men; secondly, they had only been paid in part, and would not get the remainder of their stores till we returned to Santa Cruz.

A glance at the map will show where this last place lies. But do not think it is a town. At the time of which I speak, it consisted indeed of but one estancia, on an island. It has an excellent harbour, however, and ships in distress often come here. Others, again, come regularly to meet the Indian tribes, and purchase from them skins, ostrich feathers, and curios.