Chapter XXI: Homeward

Winter comes on -- Departure from Lake Argentino --
Changed aspect of country -- Snow-clouds -- Indian
encampment -- Race with the snow -- River Coyly -- River
Gallegos -- Ford -- Signs of civilisation -- Gallegos --
Taking passage in steamer -- Lighted street -- Good-bye to
Bernardo -- Meeting with Mr. Waag and Mr. Von Plaaten
Hallermund on the _Elena_ -- What Patagonia taught me.

A fortnight before we started there was a couple of feet of snow on the high pampa. Beside the lake it had been blowing heavily, and storms of sleet followed each other in dreary succession. Every morning we saw the white cloak of winter throwing its snowy folds lower and lower upon the mountains. The severe season of the Cordillera and Southern Patagonia was fast shutting us in; already the Pass to Punta Arenas was closed feet deep in snow, and our only outlet for the south lay towards Gallegos. It had been my wish to remain as long as possible in the neighbourhood of the Andes, but I had overstayed the utmost limit I originally set myself, and now there was nothing for it but to make a rush for the coast while the journey could still be made.

On May 15 we started in heavy rain. The horses were in excellent condition; indeed, they were too fat, for of late they had not had enough exercise to prepare them for a very trying journey. We took three _cargueros_ besides the horses for riding, and the party consisted of Mr. Cattle's shepherd, George Gregory, Bernardo and myself. At the second camp Gregory was obliged to turn back, as his horses--a troop of colts--had wandered during the night. This was at the River del Bote; from there Bernardo and I went on alone. We found the aspect of the country much changed since we had crossed it three and a half months previously. The green grass had grown yellow, the streams and the lagoons were drying up, numbers of guanaco had descended to the lower grounds. An Indian trader, accompanied by a few tents of Indians, had taken up quarters near the River Califate, a spot formerly inhabited by wildfowl only. For three days we followed the shore of the lake, but then our way led us up on to the high pampa, where we made our camp in a bushless _cañadon_ beside a rocky pool. By this time the horses were beginning to lose their tricks, but at the outset they would hardly allow themselves to be caught, and they wandered every night. The _cañadon_ was clear of snow, but the sky was heavy with the promise of it. We hoped most heartily that it would give us two more days' grace before it fell.

The next day we followed the _cañadon_, which was a shallow depression running south-west. There was no fuel to be found but the thin roots of the dark bush known as _maté negra_. The early frosts made travelling difficult, as it was necessary to off-saddle early, that the horses might not be turned out sweating into the cold. We covered sixty miles, changing horses three times, for it was quite clear that we must push on if we hoped to escape the snow. That was one of the most fatiguing marches we had during the whole expedition. About three o'clock I espied some herds of tame cattle in the distance by the side of a lagoon. These proved to belong to some tents of Indians. The men were absent hunting and the camp was given over to the women and decrepit dogs. An enormous _china_ sat in the opening of the largest _toldo_; she must have weighed twenty odd stone! We learned from her that the season had been a good one for guanaco _chicos_.

In reply to our question as to how far we might be from the nearest white man's habitation on the next stage of our journey, the fat lady waved her hand picturesquely and vaguely towards the eastern sky but did not commit herself to figures.

The Indian encampment made a singular picture against a somewhat striking background. The western sky was piling up and bulged with snow-clouds, while the sinking sun glowed like a red-hot cannon ball on the rim of the pampa. Against this curtain of colour were set the brown tents of guanaco-skin. In one of these a small fire was burning with little flames about an old meat tin in which water was being boiled for _maté_. Around the women sat in silence--saving only the fat spokeswoman--inert and apparently content; occasionally one would grunt or shift the child at her breast, but otherwise one heard scarce a sound but the whimpering of the wind from the Cordillera or the plashing of the wildfowl in the swampy margin of the lagoon.

I need not describe at length the days which followed. In due time we came upon a wheeltrack and sighted the first fence. This was in the valley of the River Coyly, a good place for pasturing sheep, but inexpressibly desolate and monotonous in aspect. For two days we held along in this valley or on the pampa immediately above it, but, remembering our experiences near Santa Cruz, I resolved to sleep in no _boliche_ until we reached Gallegos.

The _cañadon_ of the Coyly was fenced at intervals, the grass eaten close to the ground by many sheep. Thousands of wild geese clamoured on the banks of the river. In this river valley we made our last camp in Patagonia. There was no wood for fire, and the horses found but little to eat, the sun set among sickly green lights, and presently rain came on. Altogether it made a dismal good-bye to the life we had led for so many months.

The following day, striking across the pampa for the River Gallegos, we knew ourselves to be entering on the last stage of our wanderings. And here we very nearly had a disastrous accident. Meeting two Gauchos, we asked them about the condition of the ford over the Gallegos, which they told us had been but hock-high when they passed through with their horses. Consequently, when we arrived at the ford half an hour later, we took our troop down into the water, but seeing it looked uncommonly deep for the description given us by the Gauchos, we returned to the shore, and, as there happened to be a house at no great distance, I sent Bernardo to make inquiries. He brought back the news that the tide was running strong and the ford quite impracticable, but it was possible that we might be able to cross higher up at another spot. We followed this advice and crossed in safety, I with my precious photographs tied round my neck; but had we tried the lower ford I am very sure I should have lost them all, which would have been a disappointment indeed, considering the circumstances under which they had been taken and the impossibility of replacing them.

Once across the Gallegos we emerged upon flat ground, and here we found a road with a line of telephone-posts running along one side of it. Gallegos was by that time only eighteen miles ahead, but with our tired horses that appeared a long distance. The country was absolutely featureless, the black posts sticking up against a dull sky, the brown earth absorbing such light as there was. A very cold wind blew across our faces, but there was one thing that cheered us, that told us our wanderings were over--the humming of the wind in the wires overhead.

The road dipped and rose over the long undulations, and at last, as we topped one of the many inclines, Gallegos straggled into sight, obviously a frontier town, all wire fences, wooden and corrugated-iron houses with painted roofs. The emotions with which one returns and feels the long wanderings over are not easy to describe. I rode slowly up the main street and passed the bank--for there is a bank at Gallegos, and the fact gave one a sensation of being very civilised indeed. I dismounted and went into the building to inquire about the steamer for Punta Arenas, where I hoped to pick up a homeward-bound boat. A steamboat was to have started for Punta Arenas that same morning, I was told, but as the captain was in gaol, her departure had been postponed for a day or so. The delay seemed a special dispensation for my benefit, for, had she adhered to her original date, I must have been too late to go by her. I understood that the captain's crime lay in having drawn up his anchor without waiting to receive a written permit.

Luckily I had not been preceded at Gallegos by any "lord," hence I drew the cash necessary for my passage and payments at the bank without any trouble. Then I went on to the hotel and put up my horse, the good little big-hearted Moro, who had carried me a hundred and fifty miles in three days and looked fat on it. Afterwards I bought a cigar, a very bad one, but a cigar for all that, and so proceeded down to the beach to secure my passage. Up on the shingle were several ships high and dry, and out in the fairway about the very smallest steamer I have ever seen, yet a good sea-boat, as I afterwards proved. She rejoiced in a brilliant green deck-house two storeys high, and the funnel was almost on top of the propeller!

When it grew dark it was strange to walk through the lighted streets and to see the faces pass and repass beneath the lamps. There was a delightful sense of newness about it all. But perhaps the most strange sensation was produced by a visit to the hairdresser's shop, where one could watch in the glass the swift transformation. Afterwards it was quite good to smoke a second execrable cigar, and to listen to the hotel-keeper in another room telling some of his friends how he had mistaken me for a camp-loafer owing to my patched clothes and the ragged remnants of my boots, and had, in consequence, led me to an outhouse, proposing to allow me to sleep there!

Best of all, perhaps, was the civilised dinner, despite the attentions of an intoxicated itinerant dentist, who kept on reiterating the same question, "Have you ever been to Nahuelhuapi?" the _huapi_ ending in a wail--"w-a-a-a-pi." Bernardo had not turned up from the farm where we had left the horses, and a gentleman connected with the Government who was present, understanding that I wished to see him before sailing, offered to send a file of soldiers to look for him. Presently Bernardo arrived, and then we went away and lit our pipes for a last talk over it all.

Next morning on the wet shingle I said good-bye to him, and there he stood for a while as the boat shoved off and we rowed away. A wild figure was Master Bernardo, for he had not yet had time to clothe himself in the garments of civilisation. With his ragged blue jersey and his big boots of _potro_ hide, surmounted by his pleasant bearded face, he watched us through the wind and the rain, and then he turned and walked away, passing out of sight among the sheds. He was going to Santa Cruz by the horse-track. Good luck to him, and may we meet again!

I went aboard, little guessing the pleasure that awaited me, for at the gangway-head I met Mr. Waag and Mr. Von Plaaten Hallermund, of the Boundary Commission, who were on their way down from Santa Cruz to Punta Arenas. Mr. Waag and I had just missed each other by a couple of hours on the pampa up country some months earlier. We were soon deep in talk about the Cordillera, and all that had happened to the three of us since we last met at the Hotel Phœnix in Buenos Aires. Mr. Waag had had a successful time about Lake Puerrydon, and Mr. Von Plaaten Hallermund at Lake San Martin. Meantime the _Elena_ got in her anchor, and we were in the Magellan Straits by nightfall.

And so we reached Punta Arenas, where I was shown much hospitality by Mr. Perkins, and where I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Fred Waldron, in whose company, as well as that of Mr. Waag and Mr. Von Plaaten Hallermund, I made the passage to Buenos Aires by the Pacific Company's steamship the _Orellana_, and so home.

To turn for a moment to the personal point of view. I had landed in Patagonia with enthusiasm, and I left it not in the least damped or disheartened in that enthusiasm, but very much the opposite. I had learned many lessons of life, passed through many experiences, explored a small part of the earth's surface, and made some original observations with regard to the zoology of the country and other matters, but I am inclined to think that the most useful lesson to myself was one that sank deeper and deeper into my mind, I might say heart, with every day lived in these great solitudes--and that was the knowledge of my own ignorance. The long solitary days in the forests, on the pampas, and about the stormy fjords of the Cordillera brought me face to face with Nature. There are many voices in the silence of Nature. The stars above, the waters beneath, and the earth all spoke in a hundred tongues, and little enough of it all could I, with my lack of knowledge, interpret. "There are many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification," but so long as they spoke to me in unknown tongues how much was I the better? And there it was I learned the useful truth that, to be a traveller of any value, a man must also be an adequate interpreter.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PATAGONIA

It would be possible to write a very long chapter about the future of Patagonia. I do not, however, propose to do this, but to write what I have to say as briefly as possible.

To begin with, Patagonia can boast of a fine climate, for, though the winters are certainly hard, no endemic disease exists. The country is exceptionally healthy, nor are there any poisonous reptiles to endanger life on its far-reaching pampas. There are few parts of the earth of which so much can be said.

A large portion of the land is eminently suited for the support of sheep, as the enormous and prosperous sheep-farms to be found along the east and south coasts bear witness. Cattle and horse-breeding are also successfully carried on, and although a portion of the country is unsuited for agricultural purposes, it is equally certain that large expanses of ground of great fertility and rich promise are to be found here.

The tide of pastoral life from the thriving southern farms round and about Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan, and Gallegos on the Atlantic coast, is setting strongly north and west. The crying want of the country is capital to open up means of communication with the interior. At present there are no railways or other settled lines for the transport of produce, although I believe a steam-launch has lately been placed upon the River Santa Cruz. In consequence of this lack some farmers have to carry wool two hundred miles by bullock-cart to the coast; a few cover even a greater distance. To send wool two hundred miles in bullock-carts means at least three weeks of travel. To go and come from the farm to the coast would thus take up about two months of a farmer's time. _Peones_ are necessary to look after the carts, and their wage is at least £5 a month and their keep. Then carts not infrequently break down upon the rough surfaces of the pampas and in the _cañadones_, hence more delay. Even when the port is reached difficulties have to be surmounted, for none of them, with the exception of Punta Arenas, are served by any steamship lines. This was so at the time of my being in Patagonia last year (1901). Government transports from Buenos Aires had the whole of the coast service of Argentine Patagonia in their hands, and these could boast of only very uncertain dates of departure and still more uncertain dates of arrival.

All these difficulties of transit do not make for prosperity. I understand that of late a German line has undertaken to call at some of the ports, and if they carry out their contract it should help events in Patagonia to get into the stride of success.

On the coast-farms, where ships could and did occasionally put in, especially in the wool season, money was made and men began to see fortune ahead. But far away in the interior, where a very few pioneers have made their homes beside a lake here and there, the wide and uninhabited pampas lie between the producer and his market. Until railways open up the land the position of these people cannot much improve. They are too heavily handicapped in the race.

It is almost impossible to tell what enormous numbers of sheep and cattle Patagonia could produce for the providing of the world if capital and enterprise would but pave the way. In the meantime the country remains the paradise of the middleman. At present there is little money in hand, much of the trade is carried on by barter, and on this system there is always an evil tendency towards profits accruing mostly to the storekeepers, who gradually become more or less masters of the situation. Many of the small farmers are deeply in debt to this class. A hard winter--and there are often very hard winters--fills the pocket of the storekeeper, for they advance provisions, without which no man can continue to live, and they, of course, thus secure mortgages on the farms.

This same unfortunate liability is observable in other countries where similar conditions obtain, but the opening up of the interior of Patagonia and the introduction of capital in the hands of employers of labour would probably lessen the pressure of hard times on the poorer farmers.

Beyond the pampas again tower the unnumbered peaks of the Cordillera, and among them all things, minerally speaking, are possible. Perhaps the future of Patagonia is to be found there. In a few years the Patagonian Andes may be as commonly known a seeking-place for fortune as Klondyke is to-day. But concerning this part of the subject I have nothing to say, being no prophet of El Dorados.

Although during our travels we had little time to spare for prospecting, or searching for the mineral wealth which may lie hidden in the Cordillera, yet there was one obvious source of riches that was always before our eyes in those regions.

The coast-towns of Patagonia are supplied with wood by sea from the woodlands of Tierra del Fuego, and this while many square miles about the bases of the Andes are covered with dense forests of magnificent growth. Here are to be found beech, cypress and redwood, not to speak of other trees, but the absolute absence of any means of conveying logs to the coast has so far left this store of wealth untouched. Until better means of transport can be developed, there are certainly one or two rivers which might be made use of in this connection.

I can only insist upon the fact that Patagonia is a great though at present undeveloped land; that it cries aloud to railway enterprise to become its salvation. Nevertheless, it is even now a good country for the man ready and able to work. A capable man will make £6 a month and his keep, but he must know the work required of him; a considerable time has to be spent in learning the skilled labour of camp life, and very hard labour that sometimes is. An emigrant does not consequently find it so easy to get employment. But, given vigorous health, an aptitude for hard work, and a small sum in hand to keep him going until he is broken in to the necessities of the life, and I know of few countries more favourable to the _unmarried_ working man.

There is something further which I should like to suggest to intending emigrants of my own nation.

The greatest of British exports is, one might contend, Britishers.

The attitude of the young Britisher abroad towards the rest of the world in general is at once a source of great national strength and of serious national weakness.

First, as we know, he is a poor linguist, who prefers to go on speaking his own language, and, when not understood, attempting to enforce comprehension by the very simple expedient of shouting louder. The result of this uncompromising attitude, backed by a good national financial status, is that as the mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must needs come to the mountain, and the foreign Mahomet does come, wrestling his way through difficulties of pronunciation. By his attitude in this matter--an attitude dictated partly by a too common lack of the linguistic faculty and partly by a certain rooted conviction that a man who cannot speak English is a man of "lesser breed"--the Britisher has to a certain extent forced English upon a very unwilling world.

But whether this question of the one-language system is a loss or a gain to the country, it is very certain that there is another idiosyncrasy of the Englishman abroad which is an undoubted loss. Every country has its own ways and methods, not only peculiar to its inhabitants but adapted to their special needs. And here the brusque unadaptability of the Englishman becomes pitifully apparent.

He loses immensely by it. He will ride on his English saddle because he has been used to ride on it at home; he will wear his pigskin leggings for precisely the same reason.

You cannot teach him that he who walks in a noontide sun in latitudes near the equator is sometimes apt to contract a fever. Of course I refer chiefly to the "new chum," but we have an unfortunate gift of remaining new chums for an indefinite period.

Our young blood is very sure of himself, which is a first-rate national trait, and one to which as a nation we, no doubt, owe much. But it has its drawbacks. Thus, although he is physically excellent beyond his fellows, his death-rate is usually heavier, which in the nature of things it ought not to be.

But in cases where adhesion to the methods of the country to which he has migrated touches not himself but his goods and his work he needlessly--indeed, almost mischievously--handicaps himself. He takes pride in occupying a position of more or less splendid isolation.

The Britisher lacks adaptability. He lacks suavity. He often lacks common politeness. In fact, he is a good fellow when you know him, but you have got to know him first. An excellent reputation to possess, perhaps, apart from business, and when your position is assured. But in foreign countries, and in the case of dealing with strangers of other nations, who are very apt to like or dislike at first sight, its results are disastrous, for they rarely reconsider their first opinion.

The Continental races, on the other hand, aim at merging their individuality in that of their temporary hosts. Actuated by a sense of politeness or of self-interest--I do not know which--these peoples do not thrust forward the fact that they are aliens, but rather try to foster the idea that the land of their adoption is their own. But when the young Englishman comes along, his manner placards him with his nationality. He seems to say, "You fellows, I've got to live here, Fate orders it. But I am not of you. Apart from business, leave me alone."

He and his compatriots are sufficient unto themselves. And not infrequently also, though strangers in a strange land, they are a law unto themselves. Now this is all very well in its way, and we would not, I suppose, have it otherwise; yet, if the English youth abroad would modify their attitude towards the works of the alien, even while, if they so choose, preserving it towards the alien himself, they would rise to greater heights of success than they at present touch.

The fact is that the alien thinks the Englishman is a fool of a very notable kind, and in many cases he is right.

It is not in the excellence of their goods, or even in the cheapness of their tariff, that the Germans are forging ahead of us in trade. It is in their attitude towards those with whom they deal. They make an art of selling a yard of red flannel to an elderly negress. The negress feels the compliment, rather despises the complimenter, but likes it on the whole--and comes again.[32]

While the German studies the people who are to buy his goods in a spirit of subtlety, the Englishman makes up his mind without considering anybody save himself and his own ideas. In the days before competition assumed its present proportions this was all very well, perhaps; or at least it was not the commercial suicide that it certainly is to-day.

From the standpoint of the employer, the Englishman does not know his work. He has no money. He must, therefore, earn something. He expects to be allowed to earn and learn at one and the same time, which is an absurd notion.

The cause of all this is the same as that which sends out first-rate goods but to the wrong market.

The fact is, we do not study our markets seriously either for mercantile or for human exports.

If the South Sea Islanders want red cloth we send them yellow, and if in Patagonia there is an opening for men who are decent practical blacksmiths, we send them a stream of youths who have never fullered a shoe, but who are well up in the rudiments of Greek.

FOOTNOTE:

[32] I have watched with considerable interest the methods adopted by the Germans as opposed to those of the young man of our own race. I remember an instance of a German who set up as a chemist in a town out Central America way, and whose chief source of income came from the sale of drugs to rather impressionable negroes. In his place the Englishman would have laid in decent English drugs, would have sat behind his counter, and would have dispensed in stolid fashion to the limit of the abilities with which he was blessed. Not so our German friend. His drugs were good, but not supremely so; his prices were cost prices, with a mere shaving of profit.

But his method was excellent.

He made a character-study of each of his customers. He sold a fine tonic, coloured red and reported invincible. He put the title of Dr. before his name, and advertised free consultations, provided the patients bought their medicines at his store. He throve.