Wild Adventures in Wild Places

Chapter Eighteen

Part VII – The Pampas

Swallowed up in the Forest – Buenos Ayres – Away to the Wilds – A Colony of Highlanders – Frank to the fore

There is no word in the world your true British sailor better knows the meaning of than that little noun duty. Lyell’s time was up; he must hurry back to Sydney, and thence to England, by very quickest boat; and so he did, and his last words to our heroes were these: —

“Don’t think of returning without having a look at the Pampas; to be sure you might go straight to San Francisco and away home by train and steamer. That would be going round the world in one sense – a landsman’s not a sailor’s sense. Whenever I meet a man who says he has been round the world, I just pull him up sharp by asking him some such question as, ‘Did you ever drink tea in Pay-San-Du?’ That usually settles him. By-bye. We’ll meet again.”

And away went merry-hearted Lyell, leaving sadder hearts behind him. Yes, but sad only for a time. There was a deal to be seen in Australia yet, and Chisholm was not sorry to spend a few months longer in this queer country, where everything seems topsy-turvy. But their last day in the kind and hospitable home of the Thompsons came round, and all too soon to one at least; and so adieus were spoken and whispered, hands were pressed, ay, and foolish tears were shed by pretty eyes, and handkerchiefs waved; then the great forest seemed to swallow them up.

The great green and gloomy forest has swallowed our heroes up; but, hey presto! what is this we see? A blue, blue sea in which a brave ship has just dropped anchor – a bluer sky that makes the eyes ache to behold; other ships at anchor and boats coming and going from a distant town, only the spires and steeples of which can be seen with the naked eye. On the deck of this ship stand Chisholm, Fred, and Frank, and beside them a smart naval officer in blue and gold and white.

Yes, you have guessed right. Lyell was the first to greet them when the anchor rattled down into the shallow waters off Buenos Ayres. He had been appointed to a South American station, and here he was, looking as happy and jolly and red as ever.

“And at present,” said Lyell, “I am my own master; so for six weeks I’m at your service.”

There was little encouragement for stopping in this city of straight streets and tame houses, and heat and dust, so they jumped at Lyell’s suggestion to get on land as soon as possible. Lyell knew some folks, he said, that would “show them a thing or two.”

A long journey first in a comfortless train, through a country as level and lonesome as mid-ocean itself. Hot! it was indeed hot, and they were glad when the sun went down; for the carriages in which they rode were over-upholstered, and the paint stood up in soft boiling blisters on the wood-work.

Now the journey is changed to one by river. Not much of a boat, to be sure; but then it is comparatively cool, and the scenery is sylvan and delightful. On once more next day, this time by diligence. This conveyance had none of the comfort of the Hyde Park canoe-landau. It was just what Lyell called it in pardonable slang, “a rubbly old concern – a sort of breed betwixt an orange-box, a leathern portmanteau, and a venerable clothes-basket. They paid a hawser out from its bows, and bent the nags on to that.” Frank thought of his elephant ride.

But the country grew more hilly and romantic as they proceeded, and the inns, sad to say, worse and worse. Their beds were inhabited – strangely so; our heroes did not turn in to study natural history, or they might have done so. Indeed they had to rough it. The country grew wilder still; they had left the diligence with nearly broken bones; bought hones, hired guides, and now they found themselves on the very boundaries of a savage land. Ha! the fort at last, where Lyell’s friends lived. Their welcome was a regal one. Half a dozen Scotchmen lived here, four of them married and with grown-up families – quite a little colony.

They shook hands with Lyell a dozen times. “Oh, man!” they cried, “but you’re welcome.” Then they killed the fatted calf.

These good people were farmers; their houses all rough, but well furnished; their flocks and herds numerous as the sands by the sea-shore. A wild, lonely kind of a life they led with their wives and their little ones, but they were content. There were fish in the streams and deer in the forest. You had but to tickle the earth with a toasting-fork, and it smilingly yielded up pommes de terre which would grace the table of a prince.

Every soul in the colony was a McSomebody or other; so no wonder Chisholm was in his glory, no wonder —

“The nicht drive on wi’ sangs and clatter.”

When our heroes heard their principal host call out, “Send auld Lawrie McMillan here (his real name was Lorenzo Maximilian) to give us a tune,” they had expected to see some tall old Highlander stride in with the bagpipes, not an ancient, wiry Spaniard, guitar-armed. Is it any wonder Chisholm burst out laughing when this venerable ghost began to sing —

“Come under my plaidie, the night’s gaun to fa’.”

Well, getting such a welcome as this in the midst of a wilderness was enough to make our heroes forget all former hardships. The dinner was a banquet. There were many dishes that were new to them; but had Frank, who was fastidious as regards eating, known that lagarto soup was made from the iguana lizard, a perfect dragon; that curried potro was horse, and that peludo-pie was made of armadillo, I don’t think he would have sent his plate twice for either.

Frank trod on the tail of an iguana next day. The dragon, seven feet long, and fearful to behold, turned and snapped. Frank, armed with a stick, would not fly, but fought. The Scotchmen were delighted. They tossed their bonnets in the air, and shouted “Saint George for merrie England!” Never mind, they might laugh as they pleased; but Frank killed the dragon.

Saint George, as Chisholm now dubbed him, quite won the affection of the llama hunters next day; he was the only one of our heroes who kept alongside the Indians in their furious gallop at the heels of the fleet pacos.

(The lama pacos, hunted for its wool, chiefly used in rope and cloth-making.)

All day long Frank was well to the fore, and how he was wishing he could throw the lassoo or bolas.

Sweet Lizzie McDonald was the prettiest girl in the fort; she was the wildest huntress as well. She and her brothers “rigged out,” as Lyell called it, young Frank in native dress; and he rode by her side to the hills next day, presumably in the capacity of cavalier, but really as pupil. And Frank was an apt pupil; he didn’t think the time long.

“Lucky dog you,” said Lyell, “if I wasn’t a sailor, I’d throw myself at Lizzie’s feet. I wouldn’t mind being lassooed by a girl like her. Heigho!”

Chapter Nineteen

Chasing Wild Horses – Ostrich-Stalking – A Moonlight Ride – A Deed of Blood – Los Indios! – The Fight – Victory and Pursuit

Knowing, as we do, how good a horseman Frank was, it is almost needless to say that before he was one month in this country he was as handy with bolas or lassoo as one of the natives. The former he preferred: it quitted his hands like stone from a sling, next moment the llama or guanaco was down; there was no dragging, no cruelty.

The battue he did not like. But chasing wild horses was quite another thing. This was a manly and a useful sport; the very hunted horses themselves seemed to like it, and used to stand in herds on heights sniffing the air, as much as to say, “catch me if you can, but I don’t mean to be caught napping.” Nor were they; and a chase of this kind was sometimes most exciting. The poor colts that were lassooed were broken in speedily enough, it must be allowed, but in a manner that was cruel in the extreme; but brutality to animals is the order of the day in the Pampas. The bullocks are treated horribly; so, too, are their dogs, and every animal that comes under the native’s domination. The estancia, where our heroes dwelt, was about two hundred yards square; there was a fort at one end of it, surrounded by a strong wall covered with a ditch filled with water – the whole of the little village being near the river. In case of trouble with the Indians, all the colony could take refuge here, and draw up the bridge. The servants were Gauchos. On the arrival of Mr McDonald and his kinsmen, there had at first been many broils with Los Indios. These treacherous Indians are a flat-faced copper-hued race, with most forbidding countenances; and lying and thieving seem really to be part and parcel of their education. At all events, they are adepts at both.

Chisholm wanted one day to go ostrich-stalking, or rhea-hunting you might better term it. These curious birds are as fleet as the wind, you cannot ride them down in the open; but you can approach them near enough with mules, to get a shot when fires are lit here and there on the plain, and the creatures get confused. It had been a long day’s sport; and the moon had arisen, and was flooding all the beautiful country with its soft and mellow light, ere the party had got within two leagues of the estancia. But they knew the welcome that there awaited them, and so on they rode, slowly but cheerfully, singing as they went. There would have been less music at their hearts, had they seen the expression of mingled hate and cunning on the faces of those fiends behind the cactus bush. What were they lurking there for? Why did they not come boldly forth?

Lizzie and her sister met them at the garden gate. They had been watching for the cavalcade for fully an hour, and were rejoiced when their song fell upon their listening ears. Everyone was extremely happy and lively that evening; and it was quite ten o’clock before any one thought of retiring. Silence at last fell on the estancia. Higher and higher rose the moon, flooding the land with light; there isn’t a sound to be heard, save the buzz of insect, the call of wild drake, or the mournful cry of the owl.

And the night wore on.

It must have been considerably past midnight when suddenly from down the glade where the horses were grazing, there arose a shriek so piercing, so full of wild imploring grief, that it found a response in every heart in the estancia sleeping or awake. While they listened it was repeated only once, but this time it died away in a moan, that told the terrible tale that a deed of blood had been done.

“Los Indios? Los Indios?” That was the shout from the Gaucho camp.

“To arms, men, to arms!” roared patriarchal old McDonald, rushing sword in hand into our heroes’ bed-chamber.

There was bustle and hurry now, but no confusion. The women were got into the fort first, the men covering their retreat, and hardly was this effected ere there was a headlong rush of a dark cloud that swept upwards from the river’s brink.

“Fire, men!” cried McDonald. “Give it ’em.”

There was a rattling volley, and the cloud fell back with shouts and groans. In five minutes more every man was inside, and the drawbridge was up.

Foiled in their attempt to seize and occupy the estancia by a surprise, the Indians, who were over a hundred strong, would hardly dare to attack the fort before morning. Nor did they seem to want to, but twice they made attempts to creep towards the houses, intent on plunder, but such a contingency as this had been well considered while building the fort, and those who now made the attempt bitterly repented their rashness the very next moment.

The men in the fort were thirty in all; their rifles were twenty. Twenty rifles against a hundred spears, the odds were not so overwhelming; but those Indians are terribly cunning in their mode of warfare, as our heroes soon found out, for small balls of burning grass, thrown sling-fashion, attached to a stone and rope of skin, soon began to fall thick and fast into the garrison.

McDonald made up his mind he would wait no longer. The drawbridge was suddenly lowered, and out rushed the defenders. The surprise was sudden, the rout complete.

“To horse, to horse!” cried McDonald, who seemed to be everywhere in the fight. Then followed a wild stampede of the Indians, numbers of them bit the sod, and the rest scattered and disappeared. They seemed indeed to melt away.

When the victors returned it was so nearly day that no one would think of retiring, so breakfast was got ready.

This night’s adventure did not interfere in the least with the sport our heroes enjoyed, during the remainder of their stay. But the Indians never showed face again.

Chapter Twenty

Part VIII – The Backwoods

Rounding Cape Horn – Storm and Tempest – San Francisco – Guides for the Backwoods – The Group around the Camp-fire – A Wild Hunter’s Story

Two months after the adventures related in last chapter, our wandering trio of friends found themselves bivouacked in one of the forests of the far West, just as the shades of evening were beginning to deepen into night. They had bade adieu to kind-hearted Captain Lyell at Monte Video, finding a passage in an American ship to San Francisco. Heavy weather had been experienced while rounding the Horn, weather that put them in mind of the old days up north in the ice-fields: strong head-winds snow-laden, against which they could scarcely stand, far less walk; tempestuous grey seas, foam-fringed, that often broke aboard of them with sullen roar, or went hurrying astern with an angry growl, like a wild beast disappointed in its prey. But the good barque had borne herself well. And when at length her head was fairly north, clouds, and gloom, and storm fled away; the sun shone down on a sea of rippling blue; reefs were shaken out, stu’n’sails set alow and aloft; and in a few weeks they were safely at anchor not far off that busy world’s mart, that mighty mushroom city called San Francisco. Here they had lazed for a whole week, then wended their way towards the wilderness. Yet am I loth to call it a wilderness, this beautiful tract of country in which they now found themselves. Savage and wild it was; its woods more often rang with the war-whoop of the Indian, or the roar of the grizzly bear, than echoed to the sound of the white roan’s rifle; savage in all conscience. But no one who has not wandered in its great and interminable forests, roamed over its mountains, or embarked on its thousand and one rivers and lakes, could imagine that such sublime scenery could exist anywhere out of a poet’s dream or an artist’s fancy.

Now, although as the historian of their adventures, I am quite willing to admit that our heroes were, after nearly three years of wandering and hair-breadth ’scapes, and adventures in almost every land the sun shines upon, both good travellers and sportsmen in the true sense of the word, still, I think, it was lucky for them they met with two experienced hunters, who consented to guide them on their expedition to the northern backwoods of America. They met them, as they had met Lyell, at a table d’hôte, in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco; and in a few days a friendship was cemented between them, which none of the party had ever reason to repent of, because they were men of the world.

And here we have the five of them, mostly intent on the preparation of the evening meal. Lyell is cook to-night; and he evidently cooks from no badly-stored larder. Yonder hangs a lordly deer; wild-fowl they have in prolusion; and in a short time they will, doubtless, enjoy their al fresco dinner as only sportsmen can.

Dugald McArthur, one of their pioneers, is standing with his arms folded, and his brawny shoulders leant against a tree, while honest John Travers is carefully examining the mechanism of Chisholm O’Grahame’s bone-crusher. Chisholm himself is gazing dreamily at the log-fire, and so, too, is Frank. But Dugald is the first to break the silence. He bends down, and lays a hand on Chisholm’s shoulder.

“I say,” he remarks, “you wouldn’t think to look at me that there was much the matter with me, would you?” Chisholm smiled by way of reply.

“But there is, though,” continued Dugald. “I’m suffering from a disease the doctors call nostalgia, and I oftentimes dream o’ the bonnie hills and glens of dear auld Scotland.”

(Nostalgia, home-sickness; an irresistible longing to return to one’s native land, which sometimes becomes with the Swiss a fatal disease.)

“Well, you don’t look very bad, I must say,” said Chisholm. “But if going back will cure you, why not go with us?”

“It is just what Jack and I mean to,” said Dugald. “Now wait a wee until we have eaten supper, and sit down to toast our toes, and John and I will tell you what brought us out.”

“Now,” said Dugald, when the time had come, “it is ten long years, and begun again, since Jack there and I came to the conclusion that civilisation was a grand mistake, that broad Scotland wasn’t big enough to hold us, and so turned our eyes to the West, to seek for adventures and fortune. What determined our choice? Why this, we both fell in love with the same lass. John and I always rowed in the same boat. We were both orphans, and had been at school and college together; and had, on coming to age, both put our monies into the same grand scheme. The grand scheme was a bubble; and, like all bubbles, it burst. While we were still rich and fortunate, neither Jack nor I could ever tell which of the two of us was most regarded by the beautiful, accomplished, but heartless Maggie Rae. As soon as we became poor, however, Maggie didn’t leave us much longer in doubt; she ended our suspense by marrying the wealthy old laird of Drumliedykes. That was a sad blow for me; and, I believe, for Jack too, though it wasn’t his nature to say very much. But I took to moping. I used to wander about the woods and lonely glens, longing for peace, even if it were in the grave.”

“I met Jack one evening as I was returning from one of these rambles; and I suppose I looked very lugubrious. I addressed him in the words of our national poet —

But Jack pulled me up sharp.

“‘Havers,’” (Scottish for absurd nonsense) said Jack, in a bold, manly voice. “I tell you, Dugald, man was never made to sit on a stane and greet (weep); man was made to work. You envy the rich? Bah! Carriages were made for the sick and the auld. A young man should feel the legs beneath him, should feel the soul within him. Let us be up and doin’, Dugald; there’s no pleasure on earth, man, can equal his, wha can look up to God, fra honest wark.

“Well, gentlemen, after this I was just as anxious to get away from England as Jack was, so we made our preparations; and in a month’s time we had crossed the wide Atlantic, and journeyed as near to the Rocky Mountains as cars would take us. I don’t think we had either of us any very definite notion of what we should do, or what adventures we should meet with. We were not unprepared, however, for anything. We had not gone abroad with our fingers in our mouths, so to speak; but we had read books on travel, and taken the best advice on everything. We had good horses, good waggons, good guns and compasses, and a fair supply of the necessaries of life, to say nothing of a trusty guide. So we just set a stout heart to a stiff brae (hill), and began the march. ‘To the west’ was our watchword; and there was in all our wanderings, ever in our hearts, the reflection of a sweet dream, which we firmly believed would one day become a reality, namely, that we would fall in with some land of gold, make riches in time, and then return to our own country.

“For many months after we had once crossed the prairie-lands, and the terrible alkali flats, we followed the course of a broad-bosomed river, so that our compasses were of but little use to us, for one day this stream would take us right away up north, the next day west or south-west. It certainly was in no great hurry to reach its destination; but neither were we, so it just suited us. We were contented, nay, more, we were perfectly happy; we slept at night as hunters sleep, and we awoke at early dawn fresh as the forest birds that flitted joyously around us, and quite prepared for another day’s work. It was work sometimes, too, and no mistake; work that many a British ploughman would have considered toil, for we had our waggons to fetch along, and that sometimes entailed long journeys round, to avoid a forest too dense, or river banks too rocky.

“For months we never came across the trail of a living soul, so that we were not afraid to picket our horses, leaving them plenty to eat and drink, and go off pleasuring for days at a time in our birch canoes, after the deer and wild-fowl by the river, or the swans by night. We knew, or we could generally guess, where their haunts were. Erecting a bit of canvas in the stern sheets, by way of cover, we would light a bundle of hay, and throw it overboard, then drop slowly down stream before it. If they were anywhere about, they were sure to be out soon; and as they came sailing towards us, wondering what was up, one or two of them was sure to pay for his curiosity with the forfeiture of his life.”

Chapter Twenty One

Dugald continues his story – A fearful storm – Attacked by wolves – Lost in the forest – Indians – The surrender – The escape – The mine of gold

“But it wasn’t always plain sailing with us either on these expeditions,” said Dugald, continuing the narrative of his adventures; “sometimes storms would arise, ay, and such storms too! One I shall never forget; our horses were picketed down stream, but on high ground; so as soon as the blue sky got overcast, and while yet the thunder was muttering ominously in the distance, we made up our minds to get down towards them as speedily as possible, not knowing how they would fare.