While Doing This He Was Obliged
To Dodge Round His Horse, And Received Two Severe Wounds
From Their Chuzos.
Springing on the saddle, he managed, by
a most wonderful exertion, just to keep ahead of the long
spears of his pursuers, who followed him to within sight of
the fort.
From that time there was an order that no one
should stray far from the settlement. I did not know of this
when I started, and was surprised to observe how earnestly
my guide watched a deer, which appeared to have been
frightened from a distant quarter.
We found the Beagle had not arrived, and consequently
set out on our return, but the horses soon tiring, we were
obliged to bivouac on the plain. In the morning we had
caught an armadillo, which although a most excellent dish
when roasted in its shell, did not make a very substantial
breakfast and dinner for two hungry men. The ground at
the place where we stopped for the night, was incrusted with
a layer of sulphate of soda, and hence, of course, was without
water. Yet many of the smaller rodents managed to
exist even here, and the tucutuco was making its odd little
grunt beneath my head, during half the night. Our horses
were very poor ones, and in the morning they were soon
exhausted from not having had anything to drink, so that
we were obliged to walk. About noon the dogs killed a kid,
which we roasted. I ate some of it, but it made me intolerably
thirsty. This was the more distressing as the road,
from some recent rain, was full of little puddles of clear
water, yet not a drop was drinkable. I had scarcely been
twenty hours without water, and only part of the time under
a hot sun, yet the thirst rendered me very weak. How people
survive two or three days under such circumstances, I cannot
imagine: at the same time, I must confess that my guide did
not suffer at all, and was astonished that one day's
deprivation should be so troublesome to me.
I have several times alluded to the surface of the ground
being incrusted with salt. This phenomenon is quite
different from that of the salinas, and more extraordinary.
In many parts of South America, wherever the climate is
moderately dry, these incrustations occur; but I have nowhere
seen them so abundant as near Bahia Blanca. The salt here,
and in other parts of Patagonia, consists chiefly of sulphate
of soda with some common salt. As long as the ground
remains moist in the salitrales (as the Spaniards improperly
call them, mistaking this substance for saltpeter), nothing is
to be seen but an extensive plain composed of a black, muddy
soil, supporting scattered tufts of succulent plants. On returning
through one of these tracts, after a week's hot weather,
one is surprised to see square miles of the plain white, as if
from a slight fall of snow, here and there heaped up by the
wind into little drifts. This latter appearance is chiefly
caused by the salts being drawn up, during the slow evaporation
of the moisture, round blades of dead grass, stumps of
wood, and pieces of broken earth, instead of being crystallized
at the bottoms of the puddles of water. The salitrales
occur either on level tracts elevated only a few feet above
the level of the sea, or on alluvial land bordering rivers.
M. Parchappe [7] found that the saline incrustation on the plain,
at the distance of some miles from the sea, consisted chiefly
of sulphate of soda, with only seven per cent. of common
salt; whilst nearer to the coast, the common salt increased
to 37 parts in a hundred. This circumstance would tempt
one to believe that the sulphate of soda is generated in the
soil, from the muriate, left on the surface during the slow
and recent elevation of this dry country. The whole phenomenon
is well worthy the attention of naturalists. Have
the succulent, salt-loving plants, which are well known to
contain much soda, the power of decomposing the muriate?
Does the black fetid mud, abounding with organic matter,
yield the sulphur and ultimately the sulphuric acid?
Two days afterwards I again rode to the harbour: when
not far from our destination, my companion, the same man
as before, spied three people hunting on horseback. He
immediately dismounted, and watching them intently, said,
"They don't ride like Christians, and nobody can leave the
fort." The three hunters joined company, and likewise
dismounted from their horses. At last one mounted again
and rode over the hill out of sight. My companion said,
"We must now get on our horses: load your pistol;" and he
looked to his own sword. I asked, "Are they Indians?" -
"Quien sabe? (who knows?) if there are no more than three,
it does not signify." It then struck me, that the one man
had gone over the hill to fetch the rest of his tribe. I
suggested this; but all the answer I could extort was, "Quien
sabe?" His head and eye never for a minute ceased scanning
slowly the distant horizon. I thought his uncommon
coolness too good a joke, and asked him why he did not
return home. I was startled when he answered, "We are
returning, but in a line so as to pass near a swamp, into
which we can gallop the horses as far as they can go, and
then trust to our own legs; so that there is no danger." I did
not feel quite so confident of this, and wanted to increase
our pace. He said, "No, not until they do." When any
little inequality concealed us, we galloped; but when in sight,
continued walking. At last we reached a valley, and turning
to the left, galloped quickly to the foot of a hill; he gave me
his horse to hold, made the dogs lie down, and then crawled
on his hands and knees to reconnoitre.
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