Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

After a time matters grew more quiet, but I could frequently hear the name of Nadi mentioned. At last Castizo shouted, and with downcast head Nadi appeared – still on horseback – before them. Prince Jeeka was about to plunge forward and join his wife, but a word from Castizo restrained him. Had he done so, the consequences would have been terrible.

There was more wild talk, much of it addressed by the northern cacique to Nadi, who answered never a word, but sat as still as a statue, the tears raining down over her face and falling on her baby’s shoulders.

I was very sorry for Nadi, though I could not tell what it all meant.

At last the long stormy interview ended. Nadi made a gesture as if about to ask forgiveness from the strange cacique, but he turned from her.

Then the Indians of our party filed slowly past the others, Jeeka, with his wife riding beside him, exchanging glances of deadly hatred with the other cacique as he left him on his right hand.

When all had gone on, but not one moment before, Castizo slowly lowered his revolver, made a salaam, which was – not without some considerable degree of courtesy returned, – and came on after us.

I noticed soon after this that Nadi, with a fond smile, handed her baby to Jeeka, and that he kissed it and returned it. This was a very pretty little Patagonian love-passage that spoke volumes.

Peter asked Castizo for an explanation of the feud soon after, but was laughingly referred to Jeeka himself.

“That man, that cacique, is my Nadi’s blood-brother,” – he meant her real brother, for the term “brother” is often used among the Patagonians in the sense of sincere friendship. “I visit far north. I see Nadi; Nadi see me. I not can live without Nadi. I offer fifty horse for her. The brother refuse. Then I call my men; I ride to the brother’s camp. We fight, and kill much men. Then I carry Nadi away. I not give one horse. Ha, ha!”

“Then it was, after all, a case of elopement. It was young Lochnivar all over again, only ten times more so.”

“We see, then, Peter,” I said, “that the self-same feelings agitate the breasts of these savages as dwell in our own.”

“Yes,” said Peter, “human nature is the same all the world over.”

That evening, after supper, Jill asked Peter what his feelings were particularly.

“I don’t know,” was the reply, “which end of me is uppermost. I feel all bruised and sore, and just as though I had gone in at one end of a thrashing machine and come out at the other.”

“Won’t you sing us a song to-night, then?” said Castizo, laughing, “or play on your pipe?”

“Play, mon ami? Pipe, my friend? It’ll be when I’m asleep, then.”

“I tell you what it is, you know,” said Ritchie. “You wouldn’t find it ’alf so ’ard on ye if you were to stick more in the saddle.”

“Ah! well,” said Peter, “I’ll perhaps learn to. Anyhow, I mean to try. Good-night, boys; I’m off to the land of dreams.”

Extra precaution was used to-night to prevent a surprise. Although he had been riding all day, Castizo intimated his intention of keeping the middle watch. He knew the Patagonians well, and knew that, while he lived, Jeeka would not be forgiven by the chief whom he had made his brother-in-law in so heroic a manner. Sooner or later vengeance would come, and it would be sooner rather than later if the northern Indians should have their will.

But the night wore away peacefully, and next day a scout, who had been sent out early to see what was doing at the hostile camp, returned with a morsel of half-burnt wood in his hand. He silently handed it to Jeeka. It was cold to the heart.

The enemy had gone early.

Chapter Twenty Two

A Blinding Summer-Snowstorm – Peter as a Horseman – Peter in a Fix

Such is the exhilarating and toning power of the air on the Pampas, that though we had all lain down tired enough, we felt as fresh next morning as mountain trouts.

The only feeling that remained from our exertions of yesterday was a kind of gentle and not unpleasant languor. We were therefore in no great hurry to depart. But as towards ten o’clock the clouds began to bank up and obscure the sun in the north and east, and our present camp was not one of the best-positioned, Castizo gave the order for departure.

We had not gone far till up started an ostrich right from under Jill’s horse’s nose, and lo! and behold, our first find of a nest – if nest it could be called.

As there were but fifteen eggs in it, we were sure they would be fresh, so we quickly appropriated them, the poor bird himself and his mate, who was not far away, both falling victims to the bolas of the Indians.

Perhaps it was just as well; it took them away from sorrow.

A most exemplary parent and husband is the ostrich. The hen bird lays over a score of eggs, and the cock considers it his duty to do the greater part of the hatching. At all events, he sits on the nest for about eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and before he leaves the nest carefully turns every egg over. Then he goes away to stretch his legs and scratch a bit for his breakfast, which it must be allowed he has fairly earned. While he is gone it is the hen’s turn to brood, so that between them, in about a month’s time, they usually succeed in raising a very large family of the most idiotic-looking chickens it has ever been my good fortune to cast eyes upon.

There is no close time for the ostrich on the Pampas of Patagonia, and it will probably be a very long time indeed before there is one. Meanwhile, despite hunters, white and brown, wild cats, pumas, and foxes, the birds thrive and abound in such quantities, that the wonder is that more sportsmen from this country do not go to Patagonia to try their luck.

As we advanced on our journey to-day the weather seemed to grow colder and colder. The wind went down at last. It had not been high all the morning. Then little morsels of snow began to fall. They were no bigger than millet-seeds, but Jeeka shook his head when he saw them, pointed upwards, then around him, and said something to our cacique in Patagonian.

The millet-seed snow gradually merged into flakes; bigger and bigger did these grow, till at last we were in the midst of a blinding summer’s snowstorm.

It was impossible to see even a few yards ahead, so we formed into line, one going in front of the other, Jeeka and Castizo being ahead. Castizo had a compass. Jeeka seemed to carry a compass in the brain. He appeared to know every rock, every bush, and every tussock of grass, disguised though they now were in a mantle of snow.

By and by Castizo came to the rear, where, with heads down and with our arms often across our faces, leaving it entirely to the horses to follow the trail, Peter, Jill, and I were struggling on.

“How do you like it?” he said cheerfully to Jill, who was the centre figure.

“I’ve been more agreeably situated many a time,” replied Jill.

“And I’ve been more agreeably seat-uated too,” cried Peter, with a glance behind him, which almost cost him the seat he was punning about. For when on horseback, poor Peter was always like the rocking-stone on the Cornish hills – touch and go. Only the rocking-stone never does go. Peter did frequently, and although the sly dog at first pretended that he could ride, he had the reckless courage to confess now that he had been mistaken. He would not venture to look up in the air, he said, for anything; and whenever he was rash enough to glance behind him, as he did now, he had to clutch at the saddle with both hands.

“Peter!” I shouted, “you’ll fall, little boy.”

“He deserves to,” said Jill, “after making so despicable a pun.”

“Well,” said Castizo, laughing, “seat or no seat, Peter, you will have to remain in that saddle for many hours to come. You’ll have to dine there, too.”

“Will I, indeed? Well, mon ami, before night comes I’ll be as soft as a jellyfish or a lightly boiled egg. But never mind, if I’m to be a martyr, here goes. I’m willing.”

Just at that very moment, as if fate were all against Peter, his horse stumbled and the rider tumbled. Then the steed stood stock still, and Peter got up, rubbing himself amid a chorus of laughing. We really could not help it, he looked so comical and ridiculous. Castizo had to hold his sides, and Nadi, who was next in front, and of course jumped to the conclusion that Peter had done it on purpose, and that he was the most humorous youth under the sun, made the Pampa ring with her merry laughter.

“He, he, hee-ee!” she laughed. “O Engleese! Engleese!”

But Peter himself looked as solemn as a judge with the black cap on. He simply rubbed himself.

“That’s the way it’s done, you see,” he said at last. “You thought I would remain in the saddle for many hours, did you, my friend? Ah! you don’t know Peter Jeffries yet.”

“Well, Peter,” I said, “I should think that falling off would get somewhat monotonous at last.”

“I don’t fall off. The beast pitches me off Come, Jack, don’t you sit and grin there like a cub fox at a dead turkey. Get down and give a fellow a leg-up.”

I did as told, and Peter was soon seated once more. Nadi departed still laughing, for she never could imagine that any one, unless a squaw, would ask a “leg-up.” She imagined it was all part of the performance. Peter was evidently a favourite of hers.

This was still more evident when, about an hour afterwards, wishing to adjust her robe, she rode coolly alongside his horse and, before Peter could tell what she was about, deposited the baby in his arms.

Peter looked aghast, though he kept firm hold of the child.

“Honi soit qui mal y pense!” he said, solemnly. “Honey, suet, marling-spikes, and pens! I’m in a fix now. Jack, dear boy, are you behind me? I daren’t look round for the world!”

“I’m here,” I answered, choking with laughter.

“Pray for me, Jack. I’ll do as much for you again. Goodness gracious, Jack! if I’ve got to leave the saddle now, I’ll be death of this darling child. If the horse should stumble or baby should kick, it’s all up with us; and I haven’t made my will either.”

Here the baby sneezed, and Peter swayed unsteadily in the saddle.

“Hoop!” he cried. “I did think it was all up with me then. Jack, will you have baby?”

“Not I, thank you.”

“Jill, you’re a dear, good fellow. You’ll take the baby, won’t you? The mother has gone away forward somewhere. Do, old man. I’ll never call you Greenie again.”

“I won’t have little copper-face.”

“Well, then,” said Peter, doggedly, “if it should sneeze again there’ll be manslaughter. That’s all.”

But, greatly to our shipmate’s relief, back came Nadi, and once more secured her darling. Peter smiled now, but he gave a big sigh of relief that might have been heard all over the Pampas.

“You chaps,” he said, “boast about your feats of horsemanship; but just let any of you try riding over the wide wild prairie with a baby in your arms. Well, I’ve done that, and don’t you forget it.”

The storm grew worse instead of better; the snow fell thicker and faster every moment. And now something very strange occurred, for suddenly it became very dark. One would have thought night was falling. While we were all wondering what was about to happen, a blinding flash of lightning spread itself athwart the gloom, followed almost immediately after by a rattling peal of thunder. Flash succeeded flash, peal after peal of thunder, harsh, sharp, and deafening, reverberated from rock to rock. It was unlike any thunder I had ever heard before – not the deep bass roar that one listens to in a storm off the Cape, nor the crashing big-gun sound of thunder in the mountains. The noise was of a tearing, rending character, and resembled platoon or volley firing as near as anything I know of. But the effect of the lightning among the falling snow was most beautiful and wonderful. And whenever a more brilliant and dazzling flash than usual occurred, for a few seconds thereafter the flakes looked purple, blue, and crimson, and sometimes nearly black.

Our horses stood the storm well, for they are marvellously trained animals.

It got lighter now, and gradually the snow ceased to fall, and we could see the sky. Blue it was towards the eastern horizon, with one dark, unbroken canopy of clouds moving fast away overhead towards the Cordilleras.

Back rolled the great cloud-curtain, and presently out shone the glorious sun, and the scene around us was now beautiful but dazzling in the extreme.

We rode on through the Pampas all that day. Whenever we came to a lagoon – and we passed many – we noticed that the water looked as black as ink. It is the same with the sea in the Arctic regions, the contrast in colour accounting for the optical illusion.

We saw many ducks on these lakes, as well as a species of wild geese; but Castizo did not think it advisable to delay our advance for the sake of sport, especially as our larder was full to repletion.

The sun was setting when we reached our camping ground, which was under the lee of a terrace of rocks and close to a pretty little lake. Tired though we all were, more particularly Peter, we could not help pausing to marvel at the extraordinary beauty of the snow-clad hills of the west. Their strange and fantastic summits, and even far down towards the base of the mountains, were lit up with a glory of colour which in no country of the world have I ever seen rivalled or equalled. The shadows or shades were sharply defined and of a bluish purple hue. The high lights were either of pure white or the most delicate shades of crimson. What a beautiful world this is, after all, if we could be but content with it! and every sort of weather, every sort of scenery, and every season, whether spring, summer, autumn or winter, has its own peculiar charm to one who is at home with Nature or Nature’s God.

Our men and the Indians now bustled about, and in less than half an hour the toldos were erected and the dinner nearly ready. Our dish to-night was to be a Patagonian stew, the meat consisting of the tit-bits of the guanaco and ostrich, with a kind of tuberous root dug up by the Indians, and which is indeed a palatable adjunct to diet on the Pampas. Another dish was to be a mash of ostriches’ eggs, which, well salted and peppered and mixed with a morsel of guanaco suet, is food fit for a hungry king.

But while dinner was cooking, and in order to pass the time, Ritchie, Jill, and I went down by the side of the lagoon to look for game, while Peter lay down in the toldo to rub himself.

We had half an hour’s splendid sport. Owing to the weather, perhaps, the birds did not care to fly, so we had to shoot them afloat Ossian would not take the water to retrieve, so Bruce had all the work to do, and very nimbly and energetically he did it too. There were with us several of the ordinary Pampas whippets, but they merely sat with their tails in the snow and looked on. It really seemed to us that Bruce was showing off a bit on his own account, for although he might have waded into the water, this did not suit him. It was not effective enough. He must give one warning bark first to attract the attention of the mongrels – the bark sounding almost like the word “look?” – then down he came with a feathering rush, sprang far into the water, swam up to his bird, caught it nimbly and brought it out.

We retired early, and slept very sound indeed, particularly Peter.

Chapter Twenty Three

“Our Horses Stampeded” – “Poor Benighted Heathens!” – Jill’s Little Joke – Telling Jeeka the Story of the world – Adventure in the Haunted Wood

When we looked out next morning we found, to our surprise, that the snow had all gone from the Pampas.

“Isn’t it strange?” I said to Castizo.

“No,” he answered – “at least I should say ‘yes, it is strange,’ but then one must never marvel at anything that happens on the Pampas. If I’m any judge of the weather, however, well have summer now.”

Travelling to-day was exceedingly difficult, the ground being so wet and sloppy. Peter only tumbled once. We came to a river, and had some trouble getting over it. There should be no river here, though on very rare occasions the rain from the mountains, and more particularly the melting snow, has been known to come down in an immense force and fill the cañon from bank to bank.

As the weather soon grew fine once more, with the exception of now and then a drizzling rain or thick fog, which, however, did little more than damp the surface and lay the dust, Castizo, our worthy cacique, determined to take things easy.

We therefore set about enjoying ourselves as much as we could. Our report was at all times excellent. I could not help saying to Peter that a sportsman in this country who was not afraid of roughing it a little, might actually accumulate wealth.

“And bumps,” said Peter, solemnly. “My dear Jack,” he added, “it’s the roughing it that is the great drawback. Now I can walk as well as anybody. Or if I ride and the nag goes at a nice swinging gallop, then I’m as jolly as if on the quarter-deck of an A1-er. But these beastly nags go hippity-skippity, skippity-nippity, till it’s perfectly sickening.”

“Well, but Peter, old man, you ought to be getting quite hard by this time.”

“No, Jack, it’s all the other way. Instead of the saddle hardening me, I’m hardening the saddle. There is where the grief comes in, and I’m afraid it is breaking down an otherwise splendid constitution.”

“Have an extra rug under you, then.”

“A feather pillow would suit him best,” said Jill, laughing.

“I’ll tell Mother Coates about you, Mr Greenie, soon’s we get home. That is if there be anything left of me to get home.”

“Well, Peter,” continued Jill, “it is partly my fault, after all – your being so sore, I mean.”

“How, Greenie?”

“Because I neglected to ask Mother Coates for the cold cream before the steamer left Sandy Point.”

At this moment a herd of guanacos was sighted. There was a shout from the Indians, who at once spread out to surround them.

“Hurrah!” cried Peter. “Here’s for off. Hoop!”

And away went our erratic messmate, helter-skelter over the plains, quite forgetting the hardness of the saddle in that wild gallop.

Peter had become quite an adept at throwing either lasso or bolas. The only drawback here again being that after “heaving,” as he called it, he was apt to follow them, and this resulted in more bumps. It is really surprising to me that Peter never smashed his neck, or at the very least his collar-bones. When we congratulated him on his good luck in this respect, he replied —

“Why, how can I break bones? There isn’t a bone in my body, I tell you. I’m all pulp.”

Peter certainly had plenty of pluck.

I never saw Peter happier than one morning when awaking, we found that all our horses had stampeded. Perhaps stampeded is too strong a word. It would be more correct to say they had silently disappeared. So we had to walk in search of them.

The trail was evident enough, and led us still farther to the west. There was no mistake about it. Peter could walk if he could not ride. He was constantly turning round to us and calling —

“Come on, you fellows. Haven’t you got any legs under you? Such old dawdlers I never did see!”

The Indians said that the Gualichu had lured the horses away – meaning the evil spirit whom they sometimes worship.

The Gualichu might have been an evil spirit, but if so he was a most handsome one, and shaped like a small-headed, fiery-eyed, arch-necked stallion, with marvellous mane and tail.

I was surprised to see Jeeka level his gun at the beautiful brute and fire. The stallion rolled down dead, and after that we had but little difficulty in bringing back our steeds.

We encamped that night by a very small stream, which meandered through a chaos of round stones and boulders. And here, for the first time since we set out, we succeeded in catching fish – a kind of grey mountain trout; they were of excellent flavour, but small in size.

We saw some commotion among the Indians this evening after dinner, and found they were muttering prayers or incantations, and making salaams to the new moon.

“Poor benighted heathens!” said Peter, glancing up at the lunar scimitar, which had just escaped from beneath a little cloud. “Poor heathens! I quite feel for them.”

“But what are you doing,” said Jill, “with your hands in your pockets?”

“Why, I’m turning my money of course. Don’t you always do that when you see the new moon?”

“Poor benighted heathen!” cried Jill.

Peter now saw what was meant, and laughed as heartily as any one.

Presently we entered the toldo, and Peter sat down as usual to smooth his bumps. I noticed Jill looking towards him with a half-subdued smile of mischief on his face. Soon he glanced towards me, and we went out together.

“I’ve thought of a little trick to play Peter,” said Jill.

“Well?” I said.

“Get Nadi to give him the baby again.”

“But how will you manage?”

“Come and see.”

Nadi’s innocent face always lighted up with smiles when Jill and I went near her. My brother addressed her in broken Patagonian. It was very much broken, but it suited the purpose. Nevertheless, Nadi understood English well, though too shy to talk it.

“Peter,” he said, pointing to little copper-face. “Peter ywotisk, Peter kekoosh, moyout win coquet talenque.” (Peter is weary and cold, and would like to have the baby for a little while.)

Up jumped Nadi, her eyes sparkling with delight, and went off to the tent. We followed. In she went, and without a word popped the baby down on Peter’s knee, then retired most gracefully.

Everybody laughed at Peter, but, like a sensible young man, he made the best of it; and when we entered, looking as innocent as sucking guanacos, there he was talking away to the child, and making it laugh and crow more than ever its mother did.

“You see what it is to be a good-natured fellow,” Peter said to me. “Now you’ll live a long time before you get baby to hold.”

Peter often got baby after this, and I really think he came to like it, only he told Jeeka to inform his wife, that the danger of handing him the child when on horseback was extreme. So this never occurred again.

I think, on the whole, then, that Peter had the best of Jill and his little joke.

The country now became changed in aspect, far more rugged and hilly and wild, but at times its beauty was almost awesome.

One day we came upon a patch of woodland, the first real trees we had seen. Then we knew we were within a measurable distance of Castizo’s romantic home in the Cordilleran forests.

We encamped this night close to the wood.

The Indians did not, according to Jeeka, quite relish the propinquity. The wood was haunted by evil spirits. There was a fox with two heads that had been frequently seen within its dark shades, and there was something in white which Jeeka could not well define. It might have two heads or it might have twenty, he could not say; but it was very terrible, and death soon visited the person whose track this something-in-white crossed.

There was no good could accrue from laughing at Jeeka. I could not help thinking, however, what a pity it was so noble a fellow – savage, if you choose to call him so – should remain in such mental darkness. Could we not do a little to help him, Jill and I?

We might try. One never does know what one can do till a trial is made.

“Jeeka,” I said that evening, “will you go for a walk with Jill and me, and bring Nadi?”

“So, so,” was the reply, meaning “yes.”

We would have led him towards the wood, but he shook his head, and spoke but one word in a very firm and decided tone —

“Gualichu!”

He led us down into a rocky ravine where grew many strange bushes we had never seen before, and in the more open places an abundance of wild flowers, many like our own pinks and primroses that grow among the dear Cornish hills. In this ravine was a streamlet which, however, had so worn away its rocky bed that we could hardly see it. We could hear it, however, and when we peeped over the cliffs that formed its banks, there it was foaming and tearing along, and leaping from shelf to shelf of its stony bed. Sometimes it formed great pools of dark brown water, in which fish were leaping after the swarming flies.

Not far from this wild stream, and within hearing of its ceaseless song, we all threw ourselves on the grass in a ring. Nadi, woman-like, had brought some sewing with her, some beautiful skunk skins from which – we afterwards discovered – she was making a little roba or poncho for her favourite Peter.