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

Kaiso lived here in tents all summer, but his warriors and people went on frequent far-off hunting expeditions, and even visited Santa Cruz, bringing back many of the luxuries of civilisation.

Kaiso was never attacked. The Patagonian Indians are far too superstitious to venture anywhere near the Gualichu land. So Kaiso and his people, who numbered in all about three hundred souls, lived in peace. The king told us there was no Gualichu; his medicine man had driven him away, with the assistance of his witch.

We were introduced to this medicine man. He had a string of strange charms hanging round his neck, the fangs of wild beasts, curious coloured stones, and other trifles; and he carried attached to his spear a bunch of herbs. Otherwise there was nothing remarkable about him.

The witch we also saw. Instead of the old hag we imagined she would be, we were agreeably surprised to find a young girl of very prepossessing appearance, who smiled pleasantly on us, shook hands and made signs. She was deaf and dumb.

The bad spirit, the medicine man told us, had stolen her ears and tongue, but had given her much wisdom instead.

During the winter months Kaiso and his wives lived in caves.

We visited these caves, and found to our astonishment that they were completely lined with skins; all the walls, all the roofs, and all the floors were skin. The value of these skins must have been very great. Thousands of pounds would not purchase them in Europe.

Some of Kaiso’s customs were ridiculous enough. One was this: he insisted upon his wives having a Banian day, as we call it at sea, once a week. He not only insisted, but made sure of it; for the night before he clapped them all together in one of these hairy caves, and placed armed sentries before the door, and neither food nor drink was allowed to cross the threshold till they had fasted four and twenty hours.

“They get too fat,” Kaiso explained. “Suppose I not do that. Fat wife too slow. No good. No.”

Every day of our sojourn in the country of the Gualichu brought some new pleasure. As far as I can remember, the programme was somewhat as follows: —

First day. A grand hunt and battue in the forest, in which all hands engaged, even to the women and children. We killed many pumas, foxes as big as wolves, and other beasts and birds innumerable.

Second day. A great fishing expedition, with a feast of fish in the evening. We were more than astonished to-day to see little boys and girls leap from cliffs over a hundred feet high into deep pools in the river beneath. They also allowed themselves to be carried over a waterfall, and when we white folks thought we should never again behold them, lo! they bobbed up like seals close to our feet, smiling, and thinking it the best fun in the world.

Third day. A kind of circus. Marvellous display of horsemanship by Kaiso’s people. We tried to persuade Peter to display his prowess, but he begged to be excused owing to the bumps. Dance in the evening.

Fourth day. The marriage of a subordinate chief. This marriage was made on purpose to gratify us, for the chief had no particular desire to enter the holy bonds. Kaiso’s word was law, however. There was a grand procession to bring the bride home, and a wild ride all round the plain, with much clapping of hands, singing, and shouting.

Fifth day. This was our last, and I shall never forget it. It was to be devoted to harmless dancing and other frolics. But unfortunately some of Kaiso’s men who had been away at Santa Cruz arrived in the forenoon, bringing with them a large keg of rum.

“Now,” said Castizo to us, “the Gualichu has come in earnest.”

I am sorry to say that the rejoicing among the male portion of King Kaiso’s little community was universal, as soon as that keg of fire-water was broached. Even old quiet men, of whom there were several in camp, smacked their lips and grew garrulous in their glee.

To do him justice, Kaiso shared the poison liberally among his braves. After which, dancing and the wildest revelry became the order of the day. Everything, however, passed off pleasantly enough till near sunset, when some disagreement between two of the warriors was to be fought out with knives upon the spot. In this they were disappointed, however, for the women had taken the precaution to hide all warlike weapons. The warriors, however, were not to be entirely baulked in their designs. They commenced therefore to fight literally with teeth and nails, like wild beasts. The desire to tear each other spread through the camp like wild-fire. Donnybrook Fair was never anything to the scene we now witnessed.

We white folks stood aloof and simply looked on. It is dreadful to have to say that several men were killed with stones in this inhuman battle.

In the midst of it all up strode the giant Kaiso, with the keg of rum in his arms, and peace was immediately restored, and more rum distributed. The men who fought now commenced to sing and to hug each other, and vow eternal friendship; but in the midst of their ill-timed merriment it was heartrending to hear the wail of the women and children over dead husbands and fathers.

Kaiso had gradually changed during the afternoon from a fool to a raving maniac, rushing around with a bludgeon, felling his men and smashing the tents. He relapsed into idiocy again, but it was of a mischievous and fiendish kind.

Castizo tried to get him to eat. He would not; but he would drink maté mixed with rum. So our good cacique humoured him, hoping he would soon fall asleep.

Not so soon, however. He called his chiefs together, and waving an arm wildly in our direction, said briefly and fiercely, —

“Wirriow walloo! Eemook noosh. Lasso!”

His chiefs grinned and retired. But Castizo began to sing; but we could see it was but a ruse. Kaiso joined in with his deep bass voice, which was more like a lion’s roar than anything human. It was a song with a chorus, and a rattling one too, and this we all sang. We certainly were not very like men who were condemned to be strangled with the lasso early in the morning, but such had, indeed, been Kaiso’s command.

“More rum!” Kaiso would have it. But it told even on the brain of this giant before long, and he toppled back where he sat, and fell into a deep sleep.

What a sigh of relief Peter gave!

I was expecting that pet puma in every minute.

“D’ye think he’ll waken?”

“Oh no, he won’t wake to-night,” said Castizo.

“We’re going to be all hanged in the morning, aren’t we?” said Ritchie.

“Yes, that’s the order.”

“Well, if I had my way, I’d – ”

“What?”

“Scupper the lot. Begin with Kaiso.”

“No, no, my friend; Kaiso is not a bad fellow when sober. I know a better plan than that Come with me. Lawlor, you’re a big fellow, carry the keg.”

Off we marched to the large toldo, where all who were awake of Kaiso’s warriors were still talking and shouting.

Seeing what we carried, they welcomed us with a shout and a yell.

Castizo was most liberal in his allowances. Nor did we leave the toldo till every warrior had succumbed.

“I pity their heads in the morning,” I said.

“So do I,” said Castizo, “for this is not rum, but the vilest arrack, brought to the country specially for these poor wretches.”

It is needless to say that there was no sleep for us that night.

Luckily it was fine, so about one o’clock in the morning we silently caught and saddled our horses, and rode away into the forest in the same way as we had come.

We had great difficulty in finding our way, and had to steer by our pocket-compasses. But we got through at last, and before the sun shone over the hills we were far beyond pursuit.

We arrived early in the afternoon, safe and sound, at our Indian camp, and were received with every sign of joy, no one having expected we would ever return from the land of Gualichu.

Chapter Twenty Six

Castizo’s Idyllic Home in the Cordilleras – Preparing for winter – catching and Breaking Wild Horses

So long had we lazed on the Pampas and on the borders of the Cordilleras, that summer had almost fled before we reached Castizo’s mountain home. It is probably doing ourselves injustice, however, to talk of lazing on the Pampas. The time was well spent, for if there be any happiness of a solid nature on earth, I think it had been ours during those all-too-short summer months. If you were to ask me for an analysis of this happiness, I think I should reply that it resulted from that perfect freedom from all care which only a true nomad ever enjoys, from the constant chain of adventures and incidents that surrounded us, from the strange scenery weird and wild, from the beauty of the sky night and morning, and, above all, from the perfect, the bounding health we enjoyed, health that made us laugh at danger and consider troubles, in whatever shape they came, trifles light as air.

Castizo had told us often about his estancia in the hills. For many years he had gone back and fore to it from Santa Cruz. It was simply a craze of his, he said; a mere whim or fad. He dearly loved loneliness, and in his own little Highlands he enjoyed it to the fullest extent. He was never afraid of the Indians. Not that he considered them immaculate as to virtue, and the soul of honour; but because his person, intact and safe and sound, represented to them so much property. He never paid them wholly until they had returned with him to the little station on the eastern coast, and then great indeed was their reward.

But all independently of this, I am convinced that these poor Indians dearly loved their white cacique, and that apart from any financial consideration, any one of them would have fought for him until he fell and died on the Pampa.

Yes, Castizo had spoken much to us of his life and adventures in the mountains, but he had not described his little village. Therefore we were not prepared for what we saw.

First, then, we had to cross a wide, extended, open plain or pampa, so great in extent indeed that we began to think the wilderness had commenced again.

In the very centre of this plain was a broad lagoon, but how fed or dried we could not tell, for no stream ran into nor out of it. There it was, nevertheless, and all round its borders bushes grew, and a rank, rushy kind of vegetation with tall flowers, crimson, blue, and bright yellow. We noticed with pleasure, too, that there were both ducks and geese on it. On the plain, moreover, we shot several birds of the grouse species, though quite different from any I had ever seen before.

After we had ridden about an hour longer, a purple mist that had hitherto hidden the hills was lifted up like a veil by some slight change of wind, and there revealed in all its beauty was one of the loveliest little glens ever met with in a long summer’s ramble. And near the top, closely shut in and sheltered from the cold west winds by wooded hills, was our mountain home. Primitive enough, in all conscience, was this estancia, consisting of a mere collection of log huts, well thatched and cosy enough in appearance, but only one having any pretension to display. This last was plastered as to its walls, had a little garden in front, and flowers growing up over it.

Before we reached this tiny village we came upon the Indian camp, and here children and women and old men ran out to meet us, with joyful shouts that were re-echoed from the hills and rocks on every side.

Even before the wives embraced their husbands or the children their fathers, they all gathered round Castizo, the welcome they gave him bringing tears to his eyes.

“Yank! Yank! Yank!” they shouted a hundred times o’er. (Father! father! father!) Had he possessed a score of hands they would have shaken them all, while the pretty children who could not reach high enough must catch and kiss the border of his guanaco robe.

They took away his horse. He must walk the rest of the way. He must be in their midst and tell them all his adventures. Their Yank must speak to his children, and tell them too what he had brought them.

The girls had culled wild flowers, and these they hung round the necks of all our horses, so that the welcome was a general one.

No, we had not expected this. Neither had we expected that the inside of the principal cottage would be so well furnished. Everything was rough and homely, to be sure, but everything was comfortable and cosy. Viewed externally, it was difficult at first to see whence the smoke could issue, but as soon as we entered we noticed a very ample fireplace indeed, the smoke being conveyed away by a copper chimney issuing from the back of the house, and thus protected from the baffling winds of winter and spring.

We admired all we saw, and Peter at once ensconced himself in one of the easy chairs, and confessed that he felt happier and hungrier than he had done for many a long day.

Pedro had the toldo erected at some distance from the house, and proceeded forthwith to cook dinner.

After this meal Castizo went down to the Indian camp, accompanied by Lawlor, carrying a huge bundle containing the presents and pretty things brought to the old men and women and children all the way from Valparaiso. There were pipes and cards (Spanish) and dice-boxes of curious shapes for the former, trinkets and dolls and toys and sweets for the children, and for the ladies strings of beads, necklaces, bracelets, and lockets that made them almost scream with delight and admiration. As gewgaw after gewgaw was taken out the constant shout by these impulsive young ladies was —

“Heen careechi? Heen careechi?” (Who gets that?) followed by a grateful —

“O nareemo nachee!” (Many thanks!) from the lucky recipient.

Only one old man asked for rum. But Castizo shook his head and replied in Spanish, which this Indian understood —

“Never more, Goonok, never again. When last I brought rum to the camp, thinking you would but taste and put it away, hé aqui! you and your people drank all. All at once! You quarrelled and fought. There was much bloodshed, Goonok. You know the green grave at the corner of the wood yonder. There your brave son sleeps. He was killed that night, Goonok, by his own cousin’s hand. Never more, Goonok, never again.”

“Maté yerba?”

“Yes, plenty of that. As much maté as will last the camp all the livelong winter.”

“Hé!” cried the old man. “Is, then, our white cacique to stay with us through the winter?”

“Yes.”

“And his young men and all his followers?”

“All, Goonok, every one of us.”

“Then is Goonok indeed happy, and to-night, old as he is, Goonok will dance.”

It was only natural that a ball should follow the home-coming of the white father, as Castizo was sometimes called.

A special toldo was erected for the purpose by the Indians by making three kaus into one, and to the music of horrid drums and still more horrid pipes, very pretty dances were gone through indeed. It seemed to me a pity, however, that the men daubed their faces with paint or clay, as it gave them a grotesque appearance which bordered on the hideous.

At a sign from Castizo, and during a lull in the proceedings, Peter brought out his clarionet. He had hardly played a note ere a silence deep as death fell upon the assembled Indians. At first some of them ran away, as if frightened, but all soon returned and stood or sat listening entranced. How very deeply the music had affected them was proved by the sighs they gave vent to immediately after Peter had finished. There must be something genuinely good in the heart of those wild Tehuelches, or they could not love music so much.

We all slept well and soundly that night, there being nothing to disturb us save the occasional shrill scream of the Indian on sentry. This startled Jill and I at first, but as the sound died away in mournful cadence, instinct told us what it meant, and we slept all the better after it.

Though it was yet early in autumn, we took the advice of our own cacique and set about at once preparing for the long winter that was before us. For storms in these regions come on suddenly, sometimes, long before autumn is over.

Our people were divided into two parties, one to hunt, another to work at home and in the woods.

The former brought in the flesh of the guanaco, the ostrich, the armadillo, and even the skunk. Skunk meat certainly sounds offensive, but it is very delicious eating, nevertheless. This meat was carefully salted and stored in huge earthenware jars.

One way of storing meat was very strange to me, but, as I afterwards discovered, most effectual. It was first salted with pampas salt from the Salinas, it was then buried in a grave lined with salt-sprinkled leaves, and well packed down. Meat was also sun-dried and partially smoked.

Fish were caught in abundance, especially a sort of perch, and these were smoked with a peculiar kind of wood and stored away for winter use.

Firewood was also to be had in abundance, simply for the gathering. Much of this was dug up out of the boggy land, and was found to be “as fat as fir,” to use an expression of Ritchie’s.

There were many kinds of fruit in the forests, principally of the hardier species, and bushels of these were dried in the sun or by fire, and during the winter they made a valuable adjunct to our diet. Nuts too were plentiful.

But, after all, the most important item of food, not only for ourselves but for our horses, was a kind of tuberous root, which grew in any quantity in the glens and even on the banks out in the open plain. For two whole weeks we had fully a score of Indians, to say nothing of their children, digging and storing these roots. The mice were in millions all round our estancia, so the only safe way of preserving our roots and thereby preventing a famine was to dig graves and bury them. Even these had to be watched, so numerous were the mice.

Hay we stored in large quantities in stacks; also the tender herbage of several trees of which, when green, the horses ate with great relish.

We soon discovered that the armadillos were on the scent of our buried flesh food. So stakes were driven in the ground, and to these dogs were fastened every night in the immediate vicinity of our buried treasure. We did not intend, however, that these poor animals should be on sentry all night long exposed to the wind and rain, the sleet or the snow. We therefore built them shelters, so that they were cosy and happy.

We had our reward, for even on the second night of his watch one dog made an immensely large armadillo prisoner. I happened to be first about that morning, and seeing how eagerly the faithful canine sentry looked towards me, I went up to pat him, when he pointed to a huge ball-looking thing.

“That’s the robber,” the dog seemed to say; “I can’t get him to unroll himself, or I should soon let the stuffing out of him. Will you oblige me?”

I did not oblige the dog, as I object to take life in a cold-blooded manner. But an Indian did, and we had the ’dillo for dinner. Though somewhat peculiar in flavour, the flesh was as tender as that of a stewed rabbit.

So much fodder had we collected, that we determined to add to our stock of horses, feeling sure that some accident would befall a few of them before the winter was over.

Jill and Ritchie joined the expedition to go over the plain in search of wild horses. Peter preferred to stay at home. He had no desire, he said, to raise his bumps again. I stayed with Peter to keep him company.

Jill and Ritchie were gone for three days, and I was getting uneasy when the whole cavalcade reappeared.

“Terribly wild work,” said Ritchie as he entered the log-house. “Ain’t I tired just?”

“Oh, I’m not a bit,” said Jill, coming in behind him.

Jill looked flushed and excited, and confessed to being delightfully hungry. He proved his words, too, when we all sat down to dinner.

The Indians had brought in with them five poor, dejected-looking animals that had been thrown with the lasso, and altogether used far more cruelly than I care to describe.

But these horses soon took to their food; then the breaking-in process was commenced. After being tormented until perfectly wild, and their strength almost quite expended with kicking and plunging, they were forcibly bitted and bridled. An Indian then waiting his chance would spring boldly on the bare-back of a steed, and the battle ’twixt man and beast commenced in downright earnest. The way the Indian breaker stuck to his horse, despite his rearing, plunging, and buck-jumping, was truly marvellous. If he was thrown, which he sometimes was, he sprang to his feet again, those around jeering and laughing at him, and though bruised and bleeding, vaulted once more on the horse’s back.

The battle had but one ending: total exhaustion of the horse, and victory of the Indian.

Only one poor animal escaped thorough subjection. This steed reared too far, fell backwards, and his skull coming against a piece of rock with a sickening thud, he never moved a leg again.

We had that horse for dinner.

Jeeka, seeing the accident, touched me on the shoulder.

“Poor horse!” he said, “good horse! He go there now. So, so?”

He pointed solemnly upwards with his whole arm as he spoke.

What could I answer? This was my convert to Christianity, the religion of love. I had read to him of horses in both the Bible and New Testament. Could I now say to him, “No, Jeeka, a horse has no hereafter?” Had I done so, I would not have been speaking my mind, as I do most sincerely believe that no creature God ever made is born to perish. So I nodded and smiled and said —

“So, so, Jeeka; so, so.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

The Snow-Wind – Winter Life and Amusement – Death of “De Little Coqueet.”

“Listen,” said Castizo, one evening about a month after this, as we all sat round the fire in the log hut. “Listen, boys, listen all. That is the snow-wind. Winter is coming now in earnest. Pedro,” he added, “put more logs on the fire, and brew us a cup of yerba maté. Thank Heaven no one of us is out on the Pampa to-night, or belated in that dismal forest.”

The snow-wind!

Have you ever heard it, reader mine?

If you have listened to it only half as often as I have done, you will be able to tell it by the sound, as it goes moaning round your dwelling, although at the midnight hour. Should you even have gone to bed ere it comes on, and are awakened by it, you will shiver a little and say to yourself, “That is the snow-wind.” A nervous shiver it would be, a shiver born of thought and thankfulness, for there is something in the voice of this heartless wind which seldom fails to cast a momentary sadness over the spirits of the listener – not necessarily an unpleasant sadness, for you have to thank Heaven you are not out on the moor or out on the plain, and exposed to it. And if sitting by your own hearth when you hear it, the fire seems to burn more cheerily, and the room around you looks more pleasant and homelike.

The snow-wind does not shriek and whistle, and scream, as does an ordinary gale; it is heard but in one low, long-drawn dreary monotone. It never threatens to tear off roofs or uproot trees; it does not get very high at one moment to sink into semi-silence the next; it hardly ever alters its key-note, but keeps on – on – on in its one sad wail.

If you hear a wind like this on a winter’s night, be sure that, if flakes are not already falling, the snow is on its wings, and soon it will be shaken off.

The snow-wind! I have been out on the icy plains of Greenland when it has begun to blow, and made all haste to reach my ship. I have heard it in moorland wilds when far from home, and made speedy tracks backward to my hut, my very dogs seeming to know what was coming, and trotting on with heads down and tails almost trailing on the ground. If it comes at night the stars always hide themselves, and the very moon – should there be one – appears to shelter behind the unbroken surface of dark grey clouds.

Every wild creature knows the sough of the snow-wind. Bears creep farther into their dens when they hear it; wolves hide under the pine trees; the fox dreams not of leaving his burrow; rabbits cower closer beneath the tree roots, and birds seek shelter under the thickest boughs.

“The snow-wind,” continued Castizo. “Are we all safe and secure, Ritchie?”