Through the Heart of Patagonia. Hesketh Vernon Hesketh PrichardЧитать онлайн книгу.
agreed that we could manage without their help, though it would leave us awkwardly short-handed.
On arriving at the camp I asked the Germans the reason of their late behaviour, but they could give me no satisfactory answer, but burst into a tirade about an inoffensive companion, Barckhausen, which was obviously only an excuse to cover their real designs. I told them they must in future behave properly or else leave my camp next morning. After a certain amount of talk and bluster Fritz said that not only Hollesen and he but the Welsh peones would in that case turn back.
During the course of the evening I spoke to Jones, who informed me that Fritz had persuaded him to desert, but on my pointing out that this would not be a very wise proceeding, he at once threw in his lot with us.
In the morning, finding I was of the same mind, the Germans again informed me of their wish to turn back. I therefore gave them food to last them upon their journey to civilisation, as well as the worst buck-jumper of the troop, and told them to leave the camp as soon as possible. Fritz, after some further talk and after remarking to Hollesen in German that they had better have stayed after all, climbed on to the horse and rode away.
The Germans at the outset had been admirable workers, apart from their cunning, which tinged most of their conduct. Yet perhaps, if they had gone on with us, we might have paid for Hollesen's misdoings with the Indians, by getting into trouble with the tribe who had saved his life and whom he had so scurvily requited. As it happened, a few days later we came upon the very tribe with whom he had had to do.
I will now take some extracts from my diary:
"October 28.—The Germans left us this morning. I think we shall be all the better without them. Immediately on their departure I determined to march to the cañadon or valley of the River Senguerr, giving up the route suggested by the Indian, as it was likely that the horses would stray upon the pampa. It was necessary to decrease the weight of some of our cargo, which we at once set about doing. The reason for this was that, having so few men, each pair of us would have to look after six cargueros, or pack-horses, and we were consequently obliged to lessen their number.
"While we were getting ready a thin rain and a yelling wind came down the cañadon as we started to catch the horses. The salt marsh over which the Germans had gone lay behind us, and ahead were shallow lagoons around which the tussocks whistled in the wind. But I think we none of us noticed the inclemency of the weather, we were soaked to the skin as we worked, and in an hour and a half—a record as to time in cargoing up even with the aid of the men who had gone—we had loaded the last carguero of the twelve, and with extra ropes hanging to the saddles, a brandy bottle protruding from each of the pockets of Barckhausen and with Jones perched high and stirrupless upon a sack of beans, we set off."
Providentially, not a single cargo shifted, although we covered something like fourteen miles. I should have mentioned that one of the reasons which weighed with me in again seeking the cañadon of the River Senguerr was the fact that four of the horses had strayed in the night. It was our intention to camp as soon as we reached a suitable place in the valley and to scour the country for the lost horses. This, however, turned out not to be necessary, as we came right upon the truants grazing in the mouth of a small rift in the cliff of the cañadon. One of them cantered out with a neigh to meet the troop upon the hillside.
It rained so heavily in the night that we put up the tent and were glad of its warm shelter. Morning came with pearl-grey mists in the valley. We worked like slaves, and our hands became very sore with the new cargo-ropes.
RIVER SENGUERR, WHERE DISASTER OVERTOOK US
The next day, had I but known it, marked the last of our misfortunes, for after that we enjoyed as good luck as we had hitherto experienced the reverse.
We spent most of the morning in slowly marching a couple of leagues, and then Scrivenor, who was leading, came back to say that our way was barred by a sheer cliff, close under which the river ran. Burbury, however, was of the opinion that it would be easier to proceed than to attempt to scale the tall barranca, which was our only alternative choice. We straggled across the half-dry marshy grass that fringed the river-bed, which here winds greatly.
Presently we climbed on to a steep slope on the cliffs, where directly below us the river ran with a current of about three knots. The passage along this slope was very difficult, and we were driving the horses with infinite care. The face of the cliff was scarred with the traces of a landslip. One of the horses, the Old Zaino, so called not because of any weight of years, but on account of the gravity of his demeanour, climbed up and up, in spite of all our efforts, among the shifting earth and loose stones until he was some hundred feet above the main body of the troop. He was a tall, ewe-necked animal, and always bore an exasperating expression of insulted dignity. He was carrying a cargo of flour.
When he had, in his own opinion, managed to get sufficiently ahead of his companions, he stopped dead and looked down upon us with a baleful eye as we toiled beneath him. Then suddenly, but methodically, he began to descend towards us in a succession of devastating bucks. No cargo, tied with ropes, could withstand such treatment. The cinch gave way, and he and his pack arrived simultaneously in the middle of the troop.
THE OLD ZAINO
He cannoned against a black horse carrying ammunition and oatmeal, and it began to slide down the cliff towards the river on its haunches. The remainder of the horses stampeded, some fell, some got into impossible positions.... For several minutes the big black horse hung within measurable distance of violent death upon the rocks below, but Barckhausen made a great effort to save him, and succeeded, though the cargo was kicked off in a most perilous place. Only a guanaco track led along the steep hillside, and over the edge of the slope our belongings dropped into the river a hundred feet below. Each lifted a small cloud of spray as it fell and floated serenely away on the current or sank from sight. The water was dotted with the various packages. All Burbury's clothes, some of mine, flour, oatmeal, a case of corned beef, six hundred rounds of ammunition, and the concertina—these were among our losses.
A salvage-party was at once despatched to attempt the rescue of such of our goods as were still swimming, while the rest of us collected the horses and returned with a sufficiency of ropes to enable us to get down the cliff, for upon the ragged edge left by the landslip and overhanging the river some of our things had lodged. We felt that we were for the time being out of luck. We had not long lost the waggon, and now followed the losing of important stores and the yet more important ammunition. We knotted together eight of the cargo-ropes, and while Scrivenor and I were doing this, Barckhausen retrieved one of the boxes of ammunition, and told us that there were a couple more farther down, and out of reach, he feared, which had stuck in the soft earth of the landslip. However, with the aid of the rope I managed to bring both up to safe ground.
THE GUANACO (AN INTIMATE OF THE OLD ZAINO'S)
"During this time we could see Burbury and Jones far away in the valley, where the river narrowed and the current swinging near the bank offered a hopeful chance of catching the floating articles. They succeeded in dragging ashore most of the packages, but Burbury's clothes, which were in a brown waterproof bag, sank, the bag, I fancy, having filled with water. Our total losses thus amounted to 200 12-bore cartridges, a tin of Mauser ammunition, a 25-kilo bag of oatmeal, and the clothes. On the whole we could not help thinking things might have been very much worse.
"The horses had meantime come to a standstill in a patch of high grass farther along beneath the barranca, and there we rounded them up and re-cargoed.
"When this was done it was found that we had another place, almost as difficult as that upon which we had come to grief, to surmount. This time, however, Burbury led a horse in front, and the others followed meekly in his track. We had wasted several hours in negotiating the first