The Weather Was Fine, But The Atmosphere
Remarkably Hazy; I Thought The Appearance Foreboded
A Gale, But The Gauchos Said It Was Owing To The Plain, At
Some Great Distance In The Interior, Being On Fire.
After a
long gallop, having changed horses twice, we reached the Rio
Sauce:
It is a deep, rapid, little stream, not above twenty-five
feet wide. The second posta on the road to Buenos Ayres
stands on its banks, a little above there is a ford for horses,
where the water does not reach to the horses' belly; but from
that point, in its course to the sea, it is quite impassable,
and hence makes a most useful barrier against the Indians.
Insignificant as this stream is, the Jesuit Falconer, whose
information is generally so very correct, figures it as a
considerable river, rising at the foot of the Cordillera. With
respect to its source, I do not doubt that this is the case
for the Gauchos assured me, that in the middle of the dry
summer, this stream, at the same time with the Colorado
has periodical floods; which can only originate in the snow
melting on the Andes. It is extremely improbable that a
stream so small as the Sauce then was, should traverse the
entire width of the continent; and indeed, if it were the
residue of a large river, its waters, as in other ascertained
cases, would be saline. During the winter we must look to
the springs round the Sierra Ventana as the source of its
pure and limpid stream. I suspect the plains of Patagonia
like those of Australia, are traversed by many water-courses
which only perform their proper parts at certain periods.
Probably this is the case with the water which flows into the
head of Port Desire, and likewise with the Rio Chupat, on
the banks of which masses of highly cellular scoriae were
found by the officers employed in the survey.
As it was early in the afternoon when we arrived, we
took fresh horses, and a soldier for a guide, and started for
the Sierra de la Ventana. This mountain is visible from
the anchorage at Bahia Blanca; and Capt. Fitz Roy calculates
its height to be 3340 feet - an altitude very remarkable
on this eastern side of the continent. I am not aware
that any foreigner, previous to my visit, had ascended this
mountain; and indeed very few of the soldiers at Bahia
Blanca knew anything about it. Hence we heard of beds
of coal, of gold and silver, of caves, and of forests, all of
which inflamed my curiosity, only to disappoint it. The
distance from the posta was about six leagues over a level
plain of the same character as before. The ride was, however,
interesting, as the mountain began to show its true
form. When we reached the foot of the main ridge, we had
much difficulty in finding any water, and we thought we
should have been obliged to have passed the night without
any. At last we discovered some by looking close to the
mountain, for at the distance even of a few hundred yards
the streamlets were buried and entirely lost in the friable
calcareous stone and loose detritus. I do not think Nature
ever made a more solitary, desolate pile of rock; - it well
deserves its name of _Hurtado_, or separated. The mountain
is steep, extremely rugged, and broken, and so entirely destitute
of trees, and even bushes, that we actually could not
make a skewer to stretch out our meat over the fire of thistle-
stalks. [1] The strange aspect of this mountain is contrasted
by the sea-like plain, which not only abuts against its steep
sides, but likewise separates the parallel ranges. The uniformity
of the colouring gives an extreme quietness to the
view, - the whitish grey of the quartz rock, and the light
brown of the withered grass of the plain, being unrelieved
by any brighter tint. From custom, one expects to see in
the neighbourhood of a lofty and bold mountain, a broken
country strewed over with huge fragments. Here nature
shows that the last movement before the bed of the sea is
changed into dry land may sometimes be one of tranquillity.
Under these circumstances I was curious to observe how
far from the parent rock any pebbles could be found. On
the shores of Bahia Blanca, and near the settlement, there
were some of quartz, which certainly must have come from
this source: the distance is forty-five miles.
The dew, which in the early part of the night wetted the
saddle-cloths under which we slept, was in the morning
frozen. The plain, though appearing horizontal, had insensibly
sloped up to a height of between 800 and 900 feet
above the sea. In the morning (9th of September) the guide
told me to ascend the nearest ridge, which he thought would
lead me to the four peaks that crown the summit. The climbing
up such rough rocks was very fatiguing; the sides
were so indented, that what was gained in one five minutes
was often lost in the next. At last, when I reached the ridge,
my disappointment was extreme in finding a precipitous
valley as deep as the plain, which cut the chain transversely
in two, and separated me from the four points. This valley
is very narrow, but flat-bottomed, and it forms a fine horse-
pass for the Indians, as it connects the plains on the northern
and southern sides of the range. Having descended, and
while crossing it, I saw two horses grazing: I immediately
hid myself in the long grass, and began to reconnoitre; but
as I could see no signs of Indians I proceeded cautiously on
my second ascent. It was late in the day, and this part of
the mountain, like the other, was steep and rugged. I was
on the top of the second peak by two o'clock, but got there
with extreme difficulty; every twenty yards I had the cramp
in the upper part of both thighs, so that I was afraid I
should not have been able to have got down again.
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