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“What do you want? What’s your game?” he shouted to the redskins in their own dialect.
“Look; look!” cried the skipper. “Do they conclude to stave her in?—What is it they say, Boss?”
Sure enough, every Indian was stooping low, spear in hand and point downwards, earnestly studying the water, and as much of the boat’s underside as they could distinguish. A conversation was proceeding meanwhile between Barnes and the Indian nearest him; and all of a sudden the journalist fell back into the arms of the skipper, choking and convulsed with laughter.
“Say!” remonstrated the skipper mildly. “Don’t keep it all to yerself, Squire; if they don’t mean mischief, what the plaguedothey mean?”
“Sturgeons!” gasped the Canadian. “Oh, my aunt! Somebody’s been plumbing them up that the ‘fire-canoes’ are towed along by great sturgeons. Look at the noble savages.”
With breathless anticipation, every Indian was gravely watching the water round the bows, ready in an instant to plunge his spear into the first sturgeon that came handy.
“Wal,” said the skipper, “even then their intentions wasn’t more’n middlin’ benevolent, I allow. How did they calc’late we’d make any way when a neefarious gang had cleared out our propelling gear for us—s’posingwe was towed that way? You’d better argufy with ’em, and bring that p’int home to ’em, Mr. Barnes.”
After another conversation the journalist turned to the master.
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“If you’ll pay out one or two tow-lines, skipper, they’ll soon have us off this. I’ve told them it’s their fault we ran aground, and that, if they don’t tow us off, we shall report them at the next cavalry depôt, and they’ll get hurt.”
No time was lost in throwing over four tow-warps, and the Indians, much impressed by Barnes’s representation to them of the measure of their iniquity, considered themselves let off very cheaply. The canoes were divided into four lots, one to each rope, and as soon as they had “tailed-on” one to the other, the four long teams paddled with a will, and the launch—no bigger than a Brighton fishing-smack—was towed free without the least difficulty.
Only too glad to fall in with a companion who, in addition to being a decently educated man, undoubtedly “knew his way about,” Mr. Colton readily agreed to the young Canadian’s becoming his companion as far as his destination. He still had a very long journey before him, but the newness of all his surroundings and the beauty of the country made it seem all too short. Sometimes they got a lift in a farm-waggon or were able to hire horses as far as the next water-way; failing these, they walked, sleeping at night at a farmhouse, or sometimes in the forest; and in this way they came to the Lake of the Woods, whence they would be able to travel all the way by water to the Saskatchewan River, where the clergyman’s journey ended.
They reached the lake early one morning after having passed the night at a fur-agent’s house on the Minnesota boundary; and, before they were aware of307it, they had walked straight into a camp of wandering Chippewyans, who had been resting on the lake shore for a few days before returning northwards from disposing of their furs. Evidently they were used enough to meeting with white men, for, beyond a cheery “good morning,” they took no further notice till the strangers addressed them; and then it appeared that several of them spoke English or French. They had just finished their breakfast, for the fires were still smoking, and cooking utensils and broken food lay about the ground, though most of their other property had already been stowed in the canoes.
“We also want to reach the Saskatchewan,” said Barnes, when they mentioned their destination. “What reward do you ask for taking us there?”
The braves conferred in a low voice, and at last the chief said:
“We will take you there, and feed you by the way, for five dollars each”; which meant that, for a guinea, a man might travel four hundred miles by water, in beautiful weather, and be fed for a whole week at the least. Colton was about to offer them more, but his companion checked him.
“Give them what you like extra at the end of the journey, but we must haggle now, or they’ll think we’re worth robbing”; and he actually had the face to beat the redskins down to three dollars a head, money down.
“What did you get for your furs?” he asked, when his terms had been agreed to. They named a sum which was a disgrace to the white agents, for it meant that they had bought skins which the Indians had308toiled for months to get, and had brought all the way from the Saskatchewan, for a sum that would yield about five hundred per cent profit.
“You see?” he whispered to his companion. “They’ve no idea of values, poor chaps; a few dollars seem a gold-mine to them; and then, when a man comes along and offers an honest price without any bating, ten to one he’ll be robbed and murdered because they think he’s a millionaire.”
But the day was rapidly coming when unscrupulous persons could no longer defraud the savages; writing only ten years later, an English traveller deplores the extortionate charges made by the redskins for even the most trifling service, and points out that he could have bought furs in Regent Street as cheaply as they would sell them to any private individual.
The two travellers paid their money, of course prepared to add liberally to it at the journey’s end, and their boat was pointed out to them. The canoes were most of them very large, and capable of seating a crew and a family. The one assigned to the white strangers was manned by a chief and five braves; the other men, with their wives and children, distributing themselves pretty equally between the remaining canoes.
“How will they get these down? Or are they going to leave them?” asked Colton, pointing to the huts, or lodges, as Barnes called them.
“Get them down? You might as well talk about taking home empty wine-bottles and lobster claws after a picnic. They may take the matting, but I doubt it. They can make and erect a hut in less than an hour.”
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Hitherto the only Indian dwellings they had passed had been huts, or else the well-known wigwams made of grass-cloth, or coarse linen; but these “lodges” were very different. They were nearly dome-shaped; more strictly, they were octagonal with a convex roof, and were constructed by eight long, slender rods of some flexible wood being stuck in the ground at equal distances; the tops were bent down till they met or overlapped, and then bound securely together with vegetable fibre. Lengths of bark, cut from the paper birch, were tied over these to form a roof; and the sides were made, in some cases by hanging strips of matting from pole to pole, but more commonly by erecting thatch walls, speedily improvised with fibre and bundles of wild rice stalks, which grew like rushes in the shallows. No attempt was made to remove them, and they were left to the next comer—an altruistic practice which had its reward; for other wandering Indians had done the same thing higher up the lake, and more often than not, when the flotilla stopped for the night, there was a camp of ready-made tents awaiting the travellers.
All that week the two adventurers lived, like the proverbial fighting-cock, on the fat of the land: sturgeon, salmon, woodcock, wild-duck, venison, eggs, and sometimes fruit, were all to be had for the asking; for, though the Chippewyans had no guns, they had spears and arrows and quick sight. The boat’s crew were decent fellows, who soon lost their taciturnity and suspicion when they found the passengers kindly and conversationally disposed; and they made no demur at being asked, from time to time, to turn out of their310way a little, that Colton might explore one or other of the channels, side-creeks, and rivulets that form part of the complicated water-way between Minnesota and the Saskatchewan.
On one of these experimental cruises, the explorers found themselves in an adventure which missed little of ending tragically. Barnes suggested following a little stream that appeared to run parallel to the main channel, and the Indians, who, of course, knew almost as little about the byways of the vicinity as their passengers, were not unready to indulge their own curiosity; if the stream did not bring them into the open water again, they could soon turn back. The banks were low and sparsely wooded, and suggested little in the shape of either game or human habitation; but these features did but add to the romance of the scene, and the two travellers were well content to go on; more particularly when they saw that ahead of them the banks promised to rise mountains high.
“We are coming to a cañon,” murmured an Indian lazily. All the better; Mr. Colton had never seen a cañon worth the name.
Gradually the speed of the canoe quickened, and the rowers’ labours became proportionately lighter; so much so that the chief looked grave.
“We must go no farther,” he cried. “With a current like this, there must surely be rapids ahead.”
“Then here’s one who’s for going back,” said the Canadian, who knew, far better than his companion, what this might imply; shooting low rapids in small canoes, with Indians who knew every inch of the way, was all very well; but who could say that311there was not a second Niagara within a few miles of them?
The Indians at once rested on their paddles, only to find that this did not greatly arrest the progress of the boat. For once, curiosity and indolence combined had got the better of their characteristic wariness. The chief signed to the white men to move to the other end of the boat, for there was no difference in the shape of her bows and stern, and, the weight properly adjusted, she could be worked either way and needed no turning. But even while they were obeying, the canoe moved swiftly on again; two of the Indians, in the confusion, had had their paddles swept from under them for a moment by the water, the canoe swerved a little more towards midstream, and was at once caught in an irresistible current.
“No good; we must take our chance now,” said the chief. The note of something approaching despair in his voice was not comforting to his hearers.
“Come; we must make some effort,” said the clergyman briskly. But his friend shook his head.
“Leave them alone; they won’t miss a chance. They know they may do more harm than good with their paddles in a wash like this.—I say; thisisgoing it.”
The canoe was fairly held by the tide now, and the utmost that could be done was for the chief and the bowman to keep her head straight. The banks flew by at an appalling rate, rising higher and higher till they formed an imposing cañon. Suddenly Barnes whistled under his breath.
“Can you hear?” he said.
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The distant rumble which had hitherto passed unnoticed, or at least unconnected with coming danger, was swelling to a thunder roll that could only proceed from a mighty rapid. Their plight was only too horribly apparent now; in the ordinary course of events, nothing could save them from the destruction awaiting them, and to attempt to make matters better by trying to reach the smoother water under either bank, would only be to make that destruction quite as sure and much more swift. And the black dots ahead, where the current split into forty currents and joined again beyond; what were they? Rocks, beyond a doubt. That being the case, it was not easy to understand why the chief’s morose expression suddenly grew brighter. He made a motion with his head, and one of the braves picked up and loosened a coil of rope, muttering words in dialect to the other canoemen.
“O-ho! Sit tight,” whispered Barnes.
The Indian had doubled his rope, so that the bight formed a loop-noose; and now, on his knees across the bottom of the boat, with the three unoccupied canoemen ready to bear a hand at a quarter of a second’s notice, he was watching a spike of rock that rose two or three feet above the torrent, between which and a flat islet of stone, the current was bearing them. Colton involuntarily half closed his eyes; safety was so near now; yet so sickeningly doubtful. Now they were up to the passage. At any rate, the bows had not dashed on to either rock. Now they were through. Only a few yards beyond was a ghastly vision of boulders—a whole bed of them, over which the torrent surged and bubbled, and which they could never hope313to pass. He opened his eyes wide again. If they were alongside the little pinnacle of rock, why did the Indian still remain motionless?
But, at that very moment, the lean brown arm shot past his head, as though the brave had struck at him; the three waiting Indians fell almost on to their faces grasping at something; there was a jerk that brought a frightful spasm of pain to the face of the man who had thrown the rope, and the boat had come to a stop. The bight had fallen over the splinter of rock, and already the ends of rope had been made fast to the canoe by the three waiting redskins, while the fourth held the double line together till the chief had bound the two cords with a thong, so completing the noose.
The men could now take enough breath to enable them to realise that, so far, their case was not much better than it had been. As long as the line held, they were in no danger of being dashed on to the rocks, or beyond, to the distant rapids; but they could never paddle back; and, though there was a little food in the boat, they must starve to death in a few days if they stayed here.
“There’sthe way out,” said Barnes confidently, after a lengthy silence.
Ay; it was a way out, but only such as a man of strong nerve could follow. They who dared might leap on to the flat rock on the other side of the canoe, walk across it, and, by a series of jumps, from one to another of the three stepping-stones beyond, reach a low spit of rock that ran out from the cliff foot; and from there the face of the cañon might be scaled with314tolerable ease, in one place, by means of a series of ledges and boulders.
“I will climb up and examine,” said one of the redskins; and he leapt lightly across the awful current and began his walk over the rocks, the rest watching in breathless suspense. In half an hour he was back again, with the report that the top of the cliff was a narrow, barren hill, sloping gently down on two of its sides; would they not do well to abandon the canoe and walk back to the lake shore?
This course did not recommend itself to anyone; least of all to the white men, who could not afford to leave their baggage behind. The only other plan was to land, drag the canoe as far as possible out of the current and into the fringe of smoother water, and then tow her; and this they agreed to adopt. Five of the redskins were to climb up to the cliff-top, carrying a tow line, and the remaining one was to stay behind and steer.
An Arduous TaskFive of the redskins climbed up to the cliff-top carrying a tow-line, and the remaining one stayed behind to steer.
An Arduous TaskFive of the redskins climbed up to the cliff-top carrying a tow-line, and the remaining one stayed behind to steer.
Barnes and Colton were for accompanying the Indians; but when he came to face the six-foot leap over that roaring torrent, the clergyman, who was no longer young or very active, felt that in his case it would be sheer suicide to attempt the jump; and he stayed behind with the steersman. In so doing he well knew that he was not choosing the safer course. For, the moment the mooring rope was removed, the boat began to kick frightfully, and water was soon streaming over her bows. He caught up a copper pot and began baling for dear life, till the sweat ran out of him and his arms grew weary, and till the water had ceased to flow in. Then he looked up at the other men;315there they were, fifty or sixty feet above him, straining like horses going uphill, in their effort to fight the current below. What wonder that he looked almost despairingly at the tow-line—a wretched contrivance hastily rigged up by joining together all the ropes and thongs that the canoe contained? How long was it going to stand the mere strain, let alone the sawing and chafing that it must get from every abutting rock? At such a time a man can do no more than keep a stiff upper lip, and humbly leave his fate in the Hands that, for wise purposes, made Nature at once as beautiful and as terrible as she is.
Suddenly the rector was aroused by the chief’s voice.
“Can paddle! Yes! You see!”
The men at the top had paused for breath, but the line was no longer so horribly taut, and the fact that the chief was beginning to propel the boat at least sufficiently to cause the rope very soon to sag, showed that the worst was over. In due time she was towed as far as the low bank and the six men were taken aboard; but Mr. Colton never again trusted himself down a strange river with canoemen who knew no more about it than he.
316CHAPTER XXVA WALK ABOUT URUGUAY
Taken as a whole the Indians of Uruguay are—and have ever been—a brave but peace-loving people, engaged principally in sheep and cattle-rearing. No doubt the mildness of their character and pursuits is largely due to considerations which are purely geographical; for the sea and the Uruguay River together make the country almost an island, to which the Argentine and Brazilian Indians would never venture to penetrate. Further, there are—apart from the native cattle—no large or fierce wild animals.
The latter fact is by no means generally known; and ignorance, or doubt of it, led the late Thomas Woodbine Hinchcliff to take a trip across from Buenos Ayres to the little state in the hope of finding jaguars, pumas, or other animals more worthy of a sportsman’s gun than those which he had seen round about Buenos Ayres.
Mr. Hinchcliff was a London barrister, but is better remembered as the first president of the Alpine Club, and the man who did more than any of his contemporaries to popularise mountaineering. In 1861, while touring in South America, he went ashore from317a Uruguay River steamer, quite alone and with only provisions for a couple of days, determined to explore one of the mountain forests, and, if possible, to reach San José, the largest of the inland towns.
A fourteen-mile walk across a well-wooded plain brought him in sight of a Gaucho farmstead, where he was made very welcome and persuaded to stay the night; and it was here that he learned the futility of attempting to find any big game shooting in the country, and that there was nothing special to see at San José.
In consequence, he altered his course in the morning, making direct for the most accessible of the mountain forests, and, arrived here, he wandered about with the ecstasy of a man who has discovered an earthly paradise. It was the Amazon forest over again, with all its beauties and advantages and none of its drawbacks; a climate similar to that of Algiers, a wealth of fruit and flowers and streams and birds; and no deadly swamps, no suffocating heat, no jaguars or alligators, and apparently no snakes. He made his dinner of fruit and continued his wanderings, with a result that he might well have foreseen: when night came, he was utterly lost. He slept sweetly enough, however, under a tree, and after a hearty breakfast, continued his wanderings.
By evening he came to an outlet, and found himself on an undulating grass plain, but, as no habitation was in sight, he finished his provisions and philosophically resigned himself to another night in the fresh air.
He awoke early, conscious of two things; the one that he was hungry, the other that a beast whose like318he had never seen, in or out of a show, was gravely inspecting him from a distance of a few feet. Was it a bull, or a bison, or a nightmare? Without question it had the body of a bull, but the face was far more like that of a bull-dog, for the nostrils were placed high up, and the lower jaw protruded in such a fashion, that the teeth showed ferociously, whether the mouth was closed or open.
He reached for his gun, which he had laid ready loaded on going to bed; the beast looked well capable of goring or trampling him to death at less than a minute’s notice. But even while, half sitting, half lying, he took aim for the creature’s eye, a general lowing sounded from farther down the hill, and the bull turned and ran swiftly down the slope. The bewildered Englishman arose and was now able to learn the cause of the lowing. A dozen mounted Indians were in the valley, their horses standing motionless, while two more, approaching from the left and right sides of the hill, were seeking to frighten a small herd of the remarkable-looking animals into the valley. The bull, no doubt the recognised protector of his tribe, whom curiosity had betrayed into a momentary neglect of duty, had heard the bellowings of alarm, and was hastening to the defence of his kindred.
But even as he charged wrathfully down the hill, the nearer of the Indians made a motion with his arm, and he fell with a crash that was distinctly audible to the spectator above; while the second Indian, spurring his horse and bawling at the top of his voice, rode straight at the retreating cattle; these, of course,319became panic-stricken and ran helter-skelter down towards the spot where the unruffled horsemen were awaiting them with lassoes. From his vantage ground, Hinchcliff watched the proceedings with breathless interest. For a minute or so a whole maze of lassoes showed against the background of the next slope, curling and twirling; then the herd fled, some right, some left; some to rush away out of sight, others to be pulled up in mid-career by the fatal thong that had been deftly thrown over their horns; and so suddenly and sharply, that in most cases they fell to the ground.
The Englishman walked quickly towards his particular bull, which lay roaring piteously, but the animal was up again before he could reach him; the Indian had dismounted, slipped a noose over the roarer’s head, and untwisted from his forelegs what Hinchcliff at once recognised as abolas—three thongs of equal length, the upper ends joined, the lower loose, and each terminating in a ball of metal or heavy wood.
The redskin, whose only garment was a pair of loose-fitting trousers made of deer-skin, looked inquisitively at the stranger and gave him a respectful “good morning” in Spanish; adding to the bull, which was beginning to toss his head and stamp, “Useless, old friend; useless; we have coveted you this many a day,” and even while he spoke he vaulted across his horse and started away at a breakneck speed, dragging his captive after him, willy-nilly.
By the time the pedestrian reached the valley, the prisoners seemed to have become sullenly reconciled320to their fate, for they were making no attempt to struggle, and some had even begun to crop the grass at their feet, leaving their captors free to inspect the stranger. Hinchcliff told them, in Spanish, that he had lost his way and wanted some breakfast.
“It is many miles to our town,” said the young man who had caught the disturber of his peace; “but we shall breakfast here when we have made our cattle fast. You are welcome to share our food.”
His companions echoed the invitation, and, the cattle being secured to the neighbouring trees, the Indians seated themselves by a pool and shared their breakfast of chocolate-cake, bread and beef with their guest, who now began to notice the queer bulls and cows more closely. The hind legs were markedly longer than the front ones, and, whenever they moved, they seemed to be looking for pasture, for they persistently kept their heads low and their necks sloping.
“We call themniata,” was the reply to a question of his. “The best and youngest will be kept for breeding; the rest will be slaughtered forcarne seca.”
Carne seca, the very meat to which the hungry Englishman was doing such abundant justice, is beef dried in the sun; and for the last fifty years, Uruguay has been exporting immense quantities of it all over South America. Theniatacattle are peculiar to Uruguay and La Plata, and are probably the only kind indigenous to South America.
When breakfast was finished, the question naturally arose, whither did the señor wish to be guided? In point of fact, the señor had seen quite enough of the woods and hills for one while, and lost no time in321making up his mind that he would like to visit their village, provided there was some means of riding there.
One of the Indians pointed to his horse.
“Neither of us is very heavy; you can ride behind me. If you hold by my waistband you will be perfectly safe.”
It was a method of locomotion new to the explorer; but now that the morning was growing warm and he was away from the shade of the forest, it would be decidedly preferable to walking; and he meekly mounted behind this good Samaritan.
At starting, the cattle became obstinate for a while; but superior force and intelligence prevailed; the horses were not the deplorable scarecrows of the Argentine, but stout, well-fed animals, that understood the business of catching and driving refractory bulls as well as their masters; and they closed in on theniata, hustling them with knees and shoulders, till they were glad enough to walk in sober fashion. All the same, the journey to the Indian town was not to be entirely void of adventure. Outside the village was a stream some forty feet wide, deep, but easily fordable in some places; and this would have to be crossed.
“We always swim our horses across,” said Hinchcliff’s companion; “but if we have cattle with us, it is safer to go a little out of our way to this ford. Why, good Lord! only last year one of our men was killed—cut nearly in halves, if the señor will believe me—through a bull hanging back on the bank after his horse had started to swim. The horse took fright,322and backed so that the man got the lasso drawn round him and—Bah!”
Cattle and horses plunged into the water and all landed safely on the other side without more ado, except the horse that carried the two men. Whether it was that he was less used to the water, or was merely restive at the unaccustomed weight, it was impossible to say; but, when he was about a fifth of the way across, he stopped and began to kick; and the Englishman, with the gruesome story of the man who was sawn through by a lasso still in his mind, felt that he was in no enviable position.
“Sit tight, Señor,” shouted the Indian, putting the bridle into his hand and jumping down so suddenly, that Hinchcliff had barely time to clutch at the saddle and steady himself.
“Keep his head straight; don’t let him jib.” Then water began to splash liberally in the face of the disobedient horse, which immediately plunged forward, stopping whenever the splashing ceased. The Englishman could not refrain from throwing an inquiring glance over his shoulder, and then he was very much tempted to burst out laughing; for the Indian, up to his shoulders in water, was grasping the animal’s tail with one hand, and beating the water into his face with the other. And so, with much patience, horse and rider and helmsman landed on the other bank.
The town, its inhabitants and their actions, were very much what Hinchcliff had seen in Brazil and the Argentine; very orderly and simple and not too cleanly. The people refused to take any money for323their hospitality, and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded the chief, on bidding him good-bye the next day, to accept a small sum to hold in trust for any one of his subjects who might happen to be in want. The truth is, that where they have not been demoralised by white people, savage tribes are usually simple enough in their habits; none of them is ever in want, and poverty, as understood in civilised countries, is almost unknown. A man works (or, more properly speaking, makes his wife work) not for a fixed sum, but for the necessaries of life merely; and the Indian tribes, whether of North or South, have little of the insatiable cupidity of the Asiatic or the negro.
After a night in the village, Hinchcliff set out to find his way back to the river by a different route, avoiding the woods and endeavouring to follow a faintly-marked horse-track over the grassy hills. This procedure nearly led him into a difficulty far more serious than that of losing his way in a luxuriant forest, for he missed his road and got on to one where there was no sign of a stream, and where the pools had nothing but dry mud to offer him, so that he went all the afternoon and night without tasting a drop of water. He woke before daybreak, almost delirious, and set off at the best pace he could contrive for some low-lying land, which he had failed to notice overnight.
All at once a strongly built Indian started up from the ground fifty yards in front of him, and, after one look at him, began to flee down the hill.
“Stop! I want you; I want water,” shouted Hinchcliff.
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The fleeing figure turned its head as though straining to catch the words, but still ran on. Then the thirsting man grew desperate, and, determined to make the man help him to find water, raised his gun and pretended to take aim at him. Immediately the fugitive stopped.
“Water!” shouted Hinchcliff. “I have lost my way, and am dying of thirst.”
The Indian appeared to reflect for a moment, and at last made towards his pursuer, disengaging a large water-gourd from his belt as he walked.
“What made you run away?” panted the Englishman, when he had emptied the gourd at one draught.
“I saw your gun and I was frightened. We do not likefirearms, Señor; and here in the lowlands we seldom see white men.—You have lost your way, you say?”
“Yes; I want to reach the river.”
“I am going that way and will show you it; it is but a few miles. But first, with your permission, I will finish what I was doing when I caught sight of you.”
He sat down, and from a round wooden box, began to cover his fingers liberally with a lard-like substance which he proceeded to rub over his face, shoulders, breast, arms, and waist.
“I have been much indoors, lately; sick,” he explained; “and the insects trouble me greatly. They will not sting through this ointment. Some of our more ignorant people use mud instead; but I—I have lived in towns at times; I am more learned.”
The Indian was, in truth, a very intelligent man,325and Hinchcliff found him a most interesting companion. He soon discovered a stream where they could drink their fill; he asked questions about the weapons that had frightened him so much, and even so far overcame his fear offirearmsas to offer to carry the gun a little way; an offer that was declined with thanks. When the wonderful instrument brought down a fine young ostrich for dinner, the unsophisticated fellow actually put his lips to the barrel. Quick to turn his hand to any open-air work, he plucked and cleaned the bird and collected sticks and dry pampas grass for the fire; whereupon another surprise awaited him; for Hinchcliff was growing very short of matches, and was in the habit of economising them by using a burning-glass for lighting his pipe and his fire. And this was the only occasion on which an Indian ever asked him for anything, even indirectly; on receiving a hint that his companion would give the world to possess such a wonderworking implement, he handed it to him readily enough; for, if necessary, he could easily use one of the lenses of his field-glass for getting a light.
Shortly before sunset, as the two trudged along towards the river, which had long been in sight, the Indian, after a sudden glance behind him, set off at a sharp run, making for a tiny valley that opened between the hills on his left.
“Nowwhat?” shouted the astonished Englishman. As he turned to look back, the sound of approaching horses caught his ear, and he saw an Indian and three Gauchos riding at full speed, followed closely by a man who rode like a European. They wheeled for the326valley at once, and reached it long before the fleeing Indian, who turned back shrieking towards Hinchcliff.
“Shoot, Señor; for the love of all the Saints; shoot them dead; they are bad men,” he gasped in an agonised voice.
This was rather a large call on a man who came from a country where to shoot people is a capital crime; but the piteous appeal for help in the fugitive’s face was irresistible. If an Englishman is averse to taking pot-shots at strangers, he is generally quite as loth to see the weaker side go to the wall. While he was asking himself what was the best thing to do, the foremost Gaucho made a sudden motion with his arm, the noose of a lasso dropped over the Indian’s head, and he was jerked over on to his back. At sight of the bulging eyes of the half-strangled victim, Hinchcliff pulled out his knife and was about to slash the thong through, when the second Gaucho, springing to the ground, flung himself in the way and presented a pistol.
“We are acting under orders,” he said. “Be careful what you do.—All right; loose him and tie his hands, Juan.”
“You are sure that’s your man?” asked the European stranger, hurrying up. He had spoken in such execrable Spanish, that Hinchcliff said unceremoniously:
“Englishman, aren’t you?”
“Yes; I am British vice-consul for this district. Question for question—is this a friend of yours?”
“No; merely a paid guide; but——”
“Then you don’t know that he is the cleverest327thief and prison-breaker in Uruguay, if what these fellows say is true. I only met them by accident a little higher up; but I know it’s a fact that an Indian prisoner broke loose from San José gaol the other day.”
“There’s no mistakinghim,” said the man who was binding the prisoner. “But let the tracker decide.” (A “tracker” is an Indian who hires himself out as a sort of blood-hound, to catch horse-thieves, stray cattle, etc.) “He knows him well enough.”
No mistake had been made; the simple—but teachable—Indian was the man who was wanted; and a most respectable barrister of the Inner Temple had spent a whole day chatting affably with a notorious criminal, who would assuredly have robbed him of his gun and money had the opportunity arisen.
328CHAPTER XXVITHE EXPLORATION OF THE SALADO VALLEY
When poor Charles Mansfield made his journey up to the unknown Chaco, he passed, on his way, a district equally unknown at that time: the valley of the Salado River, which remained unexplored till 1863, when Hutchinson, the African traveller, traced the river to its source. Thomas Hutchinson,F.R.S., had been appointed British Consul at Rosario in 1862, and, before leaving England, had been instructed by the Foreign Secretary (Earl Russell) to take the first opportunity of exploring the Salado and its basin, and to test the truth of the report that the Indian territory there abounded in wild cotton.
It was not till the following year that he could spare time for a task which might occupy an indefinite period; and then he ascended the Parana by steamer as far as Parana City, rode across to Santa Fé, which is on the Salado River, and there began to make inquiries. Generally, a man on such an errand finds plenty of people ready to pour cold water on his schemes and to draw his attention to innumerable obstacles; but this time the reverse was the case. Though he could find none of the inhabitants who had329ever been more than a few miles higher up than Santa Fé, when he returned to his hotel that evening, the landlord informed him that a gentleman who was now in the smoking-room had just arrived by private steamer from Buenos Ayres, and had been asking the same question as himself: did anyone know anything of the upper part of the Salado?
The stranger was one, Don Ruberta, a young Argentino engineer who had studied in London; he had been making a survey of the Colorado and Rio Negro, and aspired to do the same on the Salado. He proposed starting on the following morning, and at once begged the Consul to accept the hospitality of his little launch; and so it came about that outlying Guaranis, Quiteños, and Chiquitos were enabled to behold a steam vessel—and probably an Englishman—for the first time.
The crew, which consisted of a Portuguese engineer and three Zambos, were as ignorant of the neighbourhood as their employer; but the main charm in river exploration lies in the fact that, so long as rapids, or dilemma-like forks, or mud-banks do not intervene, you have but to follow your nose. On the first day they passed sundry Indians in canoes, but these evinced no excitement or curiosity. Don Ruberta had divided his coal into two parts, and meant, if necessary, to steam for as long as the first half held out. At night the vessel stopped from dark till dawn, to avoid mud-banks, and in order that the explorers might miss nothing that could be of importance. By the middle of the second day they came to arancheria, or collection of Gaucho huts, standing about a mile back from the330left bank; and, as it looked as if some valuable information might be obtained here, the two men landed and strolled up the hill.
The place was a very large horse-farm, but the Gauchos could tell them little or nothing of what they wanted to know, for their trade was all with Santiago or Cordoba, and they never had occasion to use the river. But one of the employés, a Quiteño Indian who hailed from the Bolivian frontier, said modestly that he could tell the señors all they needed to know about the river.
“Then will you come with me as pilot for a few days?” asked Ruberta.
“I will come—that is, if you are well armed. For there are wild people higher up, who eat man’s flesh; they run from guns, but they do not fear arrows unless there are many bowmen. Then, too, there are the river Chiquitos, who may blow poisoned darts at us unless we keep them at a distance.”
No objection was raised by the Gauchos, to whom Hutchinson gave a small money present, and the Indian retired to “pack up.” The luggage with which he very shortly reappeared was doubtless cumbersome; but then it comprised all that he needed, whether for a journey to the United States, or for setting up housekeeping permanently. Over his shoulders were slung bow, quiver, blanket, lance, and copper pot; in one hand he carried a hatchet, a bundle of lassoes, and two bolas; in the other, some spare thongs, a well-seasoned paddle, a pair of stirrups, each as big and wellnigh as heavy as the skidpan of a waggon-wheel, the sharpened angles of which did331duty for spurs; while at his belt hung a knife and adeer-skinpouch, the latter containing flint and steel, palmetto-leaves, tobacco, and a little bag of driedmaté. Happy Quiteño; he was ready for any emergency; whether fighting, boat-building, horse-catching, or beast-slaying! Of the launch he had not much opinion; if it did not sink with all that weight of machinery, it would catch fire at any moment; nothing would persuade him to sleep in the tiny forecastle with the Zambos, and he passed the night wrapped in his blanket on deck.
Therancheria, he said, was the last civilised spot they would pass, for Tucuman was many days’ journey away from the water; so was Salta; and, after that, the river became only a stream, running through the territory of the Aymaras. The cotton he knew nothing about, which, from Hutchinson’s point of view, was awkward, as it would mean many landings and perhaps many fruitless searches.
The next morning the Consul woke soon after dawn, to find the guide peering through the hatch of the little after-cabin where he and Ruberta slept.
“The man-eaters have come,” whispered the Quiteño; “they have been watching us all night, I suppose. If you bring your gun you can kill many of them.”
Hutchinson went on deck and looked towards the nearer bank, which was about eight yards away. Crouching behind the reeds were some fifty Indians. He called out to them in Spanish; they made no answer, but slunk backwards a few steps up the slope, so bringing themselves into full view. They were of332medium height, stark naked, with no ornaments whatever, and armed only with short spears. The explorer had seen Niger savages and Fuegians, but neither had the debased, abject look of these men.
“Speak to them in your tongue. Tell them we mean no harm,” he said.
The Quiteño obeyed, and it was plain that they at least partially understood him.
“The dogs!” he said scornfully. “They think our boat is alive. May I kill them, Señor?”
“Rubbish. Tell them I and my friend are coming on shore after breakfast.—Ah, Señor Don; here are the cannibals, you see.”
“What do they say?” asked Ruberta, laughing.
“The dogs!” reiterated the guide. “They say that my people kill and eat them;” and he would have unslung his bow, but that Hutchinson stayed him.
“Tell them we will do them no harm, and that we are only coming to look for flowers; but that if they attempt to injure us we shall kill them.” This menace was more to the Indian’s taste, and he delivered the latter part of it with unction.
“They say they are not afraid ofyou, gentlemen, because you have no bows. It is I whom they fear.”
The crew had now come on deck, and at their appearance, one by one from the bowels of the boat as it were, the savages retreated still farther. The Zambo cook, as usual, laid the explorers’ breakfast on deck.
“Let’s test them with a little Christian diet,” said Ruberta, flinging a bunch of bananas towards the333inquisitive crowd, who at once scrambled for it. Those who succeeded in getting one of the fruits ate it greedily, rind and all, which told a tale: there was no fruit about here, and the savages, not having energy or courage to travel, had never tasted such a delicacy. Hutchinson cut off a thick round of cold ham and threw it after the bananas. The man who captured it took a big bite, and while he coughed and spluttered at it, his neighbour snatched the remainder from him, and was soon coughing in like manner. They had never tasted salt.
“Try them with bread,” said Ruberta to the cook, who took a steaming cake from his frying-pan and threw it on the bank. But no one picked it up. Already the smoke from the engine-funnel had surprised if not terrified them.
“They think it is alive,” said the Quiteño, “because it steams. They are not men, Señors; they are monkeys; they do not understand half what I say to them, and I suggest that your excellencies should kill them all.”
Hutchinson had already taken it for granted that they did not understand all that was said, for accustomed to listening attentively to uncivilised speech, he had detected in theirs that continual repetition of certain sounds, which argues a scanty vocabulary. When breakfast was finished he filled his pipe, and Ruberta rolled up a cigarette; this brought the Indians a pace nearer again, and made them stand on tiptoe; but when one of the white men struck a match they sprang back again, and, at sight of the smoke issuing from the strangers’ lips, they set334up a chorus of little shrieks that suggested even more fear than surprise; and was repeated with double vigour when the Quiteño and the crew also “lit up.” That an Indian, of all people, had never seen smoking told a tale in itself.
“Now draw in, Pedro,” said Ruberta to his engineer, who backed his engine, making towards a natural landing-place which had been observed on the previous night. “Diego; tell them once more we will not hurt them.”
The Quiteño repeated the message, which seemed to be received with indifference; but, as he leapt ashore, every spear was poised, and levelled at him.
“Come back. Ask them what’s the matter,” said Hutchinson.
Diego jumped back to the deck.
“They are saying that I want to kill them with my spear and arrows.”
“Well, then, let them see you lay them down.”
“I cannot go without my arms, Señor.”
“Stupid fellow; borrow Señor Pedro’s revolver, but hide it in your pouch; if they see it, they’ll want it, because it shines.” Then the explorer, versed in the ways of such people, held up a string of bright beads. He might as well have held up a turnip, for all the excitement or cupidity it created; and some scarlet cloth met with no better reception.
“Shall I try them with these, Señor?” said the Zambo cook, coming aft with a small basket of yesterday’s fish which he had been keeping for bait.
Thatthey understood; their eyes brightened a little—a very little; and, as the half-breed threw335each raw and anything but fresh fish to them, it was scrambled for and greedily devoured.
The Quiteño now jumped a second time; the Indians started distrustfully, but did not threaten him with their spears, and the two white men followed him, their hands prudently on their hidden revolvers. The savages chattered excitedly, but still made no offensive motion.
“Ask them about the cotton, Diego,” said the Argentino. “Tall yellow flowers, with purple spots, tell them.”
“Yellow? What? Flowers? We eat them,” was the lucid reply which Diego obtained.
The truth was, the poor wretches were so degraded and helpless, that apart from obeying such elementary instincts as eating and killing, they knew nothing, thought nothing, understood nothing. They ate anything that they could chew or swallow: flowers, roots, slugs, beetles, and such fish, birds, or reptiles as they had the wit to kill; perhaps they filled their stomachs with mud upon occasion, as many savages are said to do; perhaps they actually were cannibals, and, like some of the Fuegians, ate their dead relatives instead of burying them. Altogether it was a sad spectacle; sadder still if one reflects that they may possibly have had in their veins the blood of a once powerful people.
As the strangers advanced, the Indians drew off, walking backwards and at a similar pace to theirs. The bank gave on to a shrub-dotted plain, covered with flowers of all colours, and, in patches, with giant thistles. Snipe started up from the ground at336the sound of the voices; in the distance were a few ostriches and wild cattle; but as the only weapon which the natives seemed to possess was this kind of club with a fish-bone point bound to it with a strip of fish-skin, it is probable that neither birds nor beasts suffered much at their hands.
This visit was not thrown away, for Hutchinson soon found enough wild cotton to encourage the hope that there was more in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Ruberta asked how the savages caught their fish. It turned out that they had even forgotten how to make lines, let alone hooks; they had no boats, and were dependent on spearing such fish as came under the banks from time to time. Where the poor souls lived was a mystery; not a habitation of any sort was visible. Only once more did they show anger or animation. Diego was questioning them, when all of a sudden they stopped and extended their spears, as if to bar the intruders’ passage; and, for a moment, their wooden expression gave place to something like ferocity and rage.
“What have you been saying to them?” asked Hutchinson anxiously.
“I merely asked what they had done with their women and children.”
The question was indiscreet, as the explorer could have told him; but their mode of answering it was interesting, as showing that the poor fellows had some little sense of proprietorship, if not of the duty of protecting those who should be dependent on them. Most likely they had sent the women and children away, on finding that strangers were in the neighbourhood—a337sign of suspicion, if not of meditated war, common among all Indians from the Eskimos to the Fuegians.
“They needn’t think we’re likely to want to marry into their tribe,” said Ruberta. “I think we have seen about enough of them now. Let’s get rid of them.” He drew his revolver and fired into a flock of wild duck that were making for the water. A startled scream rose from all the Indians; they turned and fled for perhaps fifty yards; then stopped and looked back; but just then the three Zambos who were loitering on the bank began running towards their employer, thinking the report was a danger signal; and this completed the panic of the savages, who fled over the nearest hill and were seen no more.
The launch proceeded another two days’ journey up the river, and this brought the travellers in sight of the distant peaks of the Andes. It was a positive relief here to meet with Indians who could help themselves, after the animal-like beings seen lower down. They began to pass canoes, and sometimes neat and prosperous villages peopled by Christian Guaranis and Quiteños; and now, as Ruberta wanted to stop and make geological researches, Hutchinson decided to continue the journey by land, and, taking Diego with him, agreed to return to the launch in a few days’ time.
Diego enlivened the journey; he chatted, hunted, introduced his master to various wandering Indians, as well as surprised him by his dexterity in the use of the bolas. He had consented to leave his paddle, cooking-pot, and spear in the boat, but could not be338prevailed upon to part with his lassoes, bolas, and stirrups. Such Indians as he are almost lost without a horse, and he showed Hutchinson before long that he meant to have one. As though to keep his hand in, he practised from time to time on the ostriches with his bolas, bringing down the ungainly birds with perfect ease from a distance of sixty or seventy yards. The weapon used for such work as this was lighter than that described in the last chapter, and consisted of only two joined thongs, the balls being pebbles covered with leather.
At the next village Hutchinson found that an ox-waggon was about to start for the spot which he wished to reach, and, having little admiration for the domestic horses of the neighbourhood, and no ambition to ride one of the wild ones which Diego was so confident of catching, he resolved to travel in this manner. But Diego had a soul above such a conveyance, and, that very evening, while the oxen were being unyoked, he stole away towards a small group of horses that were browsing on the plain. It was becoming a question of “do or die” with him now, for every step was taking the travellers farther from the region where horses are to be seen in any numbers. The Consul had many times seen a lasso used from the saddle, but he could not understand how Master Diego proposed to catch a horse while he was on foot; and he watched him eagerly through his field-glass.
Crawling on his belly, the Quiteño patiently worked his way towards the nearest horse, and no sooner did the animal turn his back on him, than he sprang up, and the noose had secured him. So far, so good; but339did Diego expect the animal to follow him like a pup on the lead, or a donkey in the shafts? thought the Consul. The horse gave a wild spring, and, for a second, the Indian was almost dragged off his feet; then he began to “play” his capture.
Diego was a fine-looking man, over six feet high, and with limbs as hard as a stone, though they were so slender; and he had no hesitation in pitting his own strength against the horse’s. With infinite patience he stood, the centre of a circle, while the frightened creature ran off his first fit of energy, round and round his captor; then, having spied a clump of trees not far away, the Quiteño let himself be dragged towards these; and, before the horse had realised that he was running to his doom, the lasso had taken a turn round the nearest trunk and was soon hitched there immovable.
By morning the prisoner was in a humbler frame of mind, and, under pressure, submitted to be loose-hobbled; Diego vaulted on to his back without thought of saddle or bridle, and, holding his mane, buffeted him so mercilessly over the face and withers, that Hutchinson was tempted to serve him the same. Less than half an hour of this management made the animal sufficiently tractable to submit to being saddled; and, with the skid-pan stirrups, the rest was perfectly easy—and disgusting.