Of the zoology of Patagonia little is known. Of the fauna and flora of the Cordillera of the southern central part it is not too much to say that practically nothing is known. Patagonia thus offers one of the most interesting fields in the world to the traveller and naturalist.
With these preliminary remarks, I will beg the reader to embark with me upon the Argentine National transport the Primero de Mayo, bound from the port of Buenos Aires for the south.
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.
J. B. SCRIVENOR
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