Through the Heart of Patagonia

er 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-Travel

uma-Killing guanacos-Many pumas ki

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 c

t with the officers in the deck-house. He subsequently extended his invitation to cover the entire voyage. After dinne

to heaviness of heart, and it knows for the time no future and no hop

enes to whi

lodestone se

ing is left save the grey fact of recent part

bitat in the world appears to be upon the bunks of steamers. Our fellow passengers also seemed very much under the same

s 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

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 t

SCRI

n with the comforting reflection that whe

to 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 trul

lace, 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 star

venings 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 Scot

o 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 ena

ong 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

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

n, the little colony of human beings clings, as it were, upon the skirts of great primordial nature. In the evening li

sgorged 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 firs

at-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

D. B

up the heavy baggage and went on with Burbury to Trelew by the miniature train which plies to and fro between the Welsh colony

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 t

ng 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 li

TTLEMENT

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

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 an

migrate 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 Ma

y, 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

e 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

IN A PATA

ounger 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 hors

EY JON

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 We

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 whic

vered 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 evid

ly 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. A

first, from Trelew to Bahia Camerones, where the expedition became complete; the second, from Bahia Camerones to the Lakes Musters and Colhué; and the

inder 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. Th

idual 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

y expedition of this sort is killing work for the horses, and it stands greatly to Burbury's credit that we lost but on

atagonian travel is summed up in the words, "Cut down your men and your s

nt 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 encamp

IRST

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 f

T OF OUR

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 up

ghly 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 glint

ed 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 l

ed-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 po

s 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 fro

r 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

ANCIA ON THE ROAD

rses 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 an

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 ve

ny ca?adones 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 an

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

order to bring back the horses I had purchased by contract in Trelew. I remained behind as Mr. Greenshields' guest,

he 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 i

CK BARC

ards with an odd sort of ducking motion. Not one individual but a whole

s, who are active, handy men as a rule. The population of the country is larg

ery 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

which they do with an astonishing swiftness. Sometimes, of course, the hor

heir many hollows, this is a difficult matter. The tracks perhaps run easily throu

es attached together by a hide rope, and are to the Patagonian what the boomerang is to the Australian aborigine. He must be able t

e, 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 he