Kitabı oku: «Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers», sayfa 11
Chapter Twenty
A Wild Ride – Cooking an Ostrich Whole – Quiet Evenings round the Camp Fire
He was indeed a noble savage, this Patagonian chief. His name was Jeeka; at least it sounded like that. Peter said “Jeeka” was near enough, and to give it a better ring we added “Prince” – Prince Jeeka.
Peter admired him very much, as all young men admire nobility of figure.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Jack,” he said to me to-day; “if I had a figure like that fellow, it isn’t going to sea I’d be.”
“What would you do?”
“Take to the stage. What an Othello the fellow would make! Look at him now. What an air of quiet command, and such a voice! That is his favourite wife in the corner, with baby in her arms. She looks at him with fondness, not unmingled with awe. Even the dogs are listening, as if they understood every word he said.”
“It’s more than I do, Peter.”
In good weather – and this particular morning was beautiful – no one feels inclined to laze on the Pampas. Your sleep has been sweet and sound; your breakfast, principally of meat, as fat as you please, has been a hearty one, yet you do not feel heavy after it. On the contrary you have but one wish – to be up and away.
Our route to-day would lead us somewhat aside from this Rio Santa Cruz (the river of the Holy Cross), in a direction about west and by north, straight away, in fact, for the distant Cordillera range of mountains, which was to be our ultimate destination.
Ever since our start, and even before we started, we – Ritchie, Peter, Jill, and myself – had been practising morn, noon, and night with bolas and lasso. The latter needs no description, and a good horseman soon gets up to throwing it well, although there is a danger of being dragged headlong out of the saddle, when it becomes tightened between the lassoed animal and the thrower. The bolas are balls, two or three, of either stone or lead covered with skin, attached to the ends of some yards of thong. They are whirled rapidly round the head for a moment or two, then deftly allowed to fly off at a tangent, so that when they fall upon an animal, be it ostrich, guanaco, or even the South American lion called puma, they so hamper his movements that further flight is out of the question. The horseman speedily advances and puts a speedy end to the creature’s sufferings.
To-day the journey was a peculiarly arduous one. The sun was blazing down from an unclouded sky, making it positively hot for the climate; but after being heated, when we stopped a short time the cold east wind went searching through bones and marrow. We felt, as Peter expressed it, “suddenly placed inside an American patent freezer.”
The route was very rough: the same barren wilderness that we had been traversing for days; the same sort of sand-clay or gravel, under foot; the same stunted bushes, grass and thistle tufts; the same stony ground, the same up hill and down dell, over banks, up steep terraces, across plateaus, down into cartons and past salinas, near which was a greater abundance of vegetation, though nothing approaching to luxuriance. These salinas are salt lagoons or lakes. I feel sure, from their appearance, many of them are the craters of extinct volcanos. And indeed the whole country where we were to-day seemed as if at one time it had been overflown by lava, and subsequently rent and torn by earthquakes.
Castizo told Jill and me that all the land here at various periods of time had been raised from the level of the sea by the giant forces of nature operating beneath, and that this accounted for the terrace-like formation we now and then came to. But Jill and I were too young at that time to study geology. Besides, we had no more love for “ologies” at this period of our lives, than we had when poor Aunt Serapheema used to strike one o’clock on our knuckles at home. As we wanted to put as much land between us and the Atlantic as possible, we did not stay to-day for big hunting. Besides, we were not in the very best of hunting countries yet, though we saw several herds of guanaco, and a good many ostriches.
We had one little hunt, however. It was disobeying the orders of our cacique to break away from the line of march, but in this particular case we could not well help it. Besides, if any one was to blame, it was Ossian.
A fox, a huge beast like a wolf, ran across our path.
“Hurrah!” Ossian seemed to cry, “Yowff, yowff. Come on, Bruce. Here’s a chance!”
Away went the two dogs like two birds. Away went Jill after his pets like a third bird, while I brought up the rear.
We heard Castizo order a halt, so we thought it would be all right, and rode heedlessly on after the dogs. We must have ridden fully two miles when we came up with Ossian. Poor Bruce was nowhere in it; near him lay the fox, dead. I speedily dismounted, and secured the tail, which I fastened to Jill’s saddle. Then Bruce came up panting, and complained to us that his legs were not long enough. Guanacos, he said, were more his form; and this proved to be true enough, for he afterwards proved invaluable at this form of hunting.
As we were returning, we noticed an ostrich at some distance to the right. Our bolas were handy, and so off we went at a tangent, in pursuit. Another and another sprang up, and to my intense delight and Jill’s glory he succeeded in entangling one I shot the bird with my revolver, but I think even now I see the wild and frightened look the poor creature had in its quaint, queer face. We did not stop to possess ourselves of any of the meat, but secured the feathers, tied them in a bundle, and prepared to return in triumph.
Well, to retrace our trail was easy enough. We reached the spot where we had left our companions.
They were gone.
But where, whither? We could see the plains all round us when we rode up to the top of a ridge for very many miles, but never a vestige of the cavalcade.
“Jill,” I said, “we’re left and lost.”
“But they cannot surely have gone out of sight in so short a time!”
“Where are they then?”
“It seems to me as if the earth has opened and swallowed them up.”
And that was really and truly what had happened, with this difference: the earth had opened thousands of years before, and our companions were swallowed to-day. They were quietly preparing lunch down in the bottom of a green-carpeted cañon.
We were very glad to find them, and Peter told us after, he had been looking out for us all the time from behind a boulder at the top of the bank.
When Prince Jeeka found out we had killed an ostrich, and had not brought in the flesh, he was astonished.
“You young,” he said, smiling, “young, young – ” Then he ordered an Indian to go and find it; which he did, and not long after brought it to camp.
Meanwhile the Indians had made a splendid fire in the lee of a rock, with roots and bushes pulled from the adjoining bank. I had once seen an ox roasted whole, but never before an ostrich.
The huge bird was speedily disembowelled. The entrails fell to the share of the mongrel greyhounds, or coarse-built whippets, and a deal of quarrelling they had over them. The blood was drunk by the chief and his wives. It certainly did not improve their copper-coloured complexions. Meanwhile stones were heated and placed inside the bird, the whole being finally lifted on to the bright fire, and partly covered. In about an hour it was cooked.
We were all hungry, and glad to share with the Indians. I cannot say I relished it very much; but hunger is sweet sauce, and it is never half so sweet as when squatting gipsy-fashion round a meal spread in the open air.
After a few hours’ rest we went on again, and so on and on day after day.
We seemed to be making forced marches, and seldom stayed to do much hunting, except simply for sake of fresh meat.
Unless one keeps a diary on the road – and that is what neither Jill nor I did – it is impossible to remember a tithe of the many little events that happen, or the character of the scenery. During the first six or eight days of this journey, however, there was but one character in the scenery, and that I have already noted; and great events were few and far between, so that only a few impressions remain recorded on the tablets of my memory.
I will never forget our quiet camp life of an evening, when the tents were raised, and we settled down for enjoyment. Sometimes even yet, when sleepless in bed of a night I allow my mind to revert to them, and they never fail to woo me to sweet and dreamless slumber.
The dinner was, of course, the great event of the evening, and it was wonderful how well Pedro cooked that meal, considering the few things at his command. Lawlor and he were our servants in a manner of speaking, but immediately after dinner they joined the group around the camp fire, and there we sat chatting and telling stories till ten o’clock or past.
Every one had something to tell, and Castizo, though full of adventurous stories and reminiscences himself, never failed to draw “yarns,” as sailors call them, from others.
Even Jill and I found our tongues, and told Castizo about the little escapades of our schoolboy days. He listened to these, I think, far more eagerly than he did to the wilder exploits of Ritchie, Lawlor, and Pedro.
He laughed heartily over our piratical experiences, running with, or being run away with by the hulk, and firing our pistols at the flag-ship.
“Your sister Mattie,” I remember him saying one evening, “must be a darling child, and as full of spirit and fun as a young puma.”
“She is all that,” “She is all that,” said Jill and I together.
It used to amuse Castizo to hear my brother and me, when mutually excited, speak thus together in one breath and in the same words. He would laugh, and then say —
“You boys seem to be animated with but one spirit between you.”
“One spirit is quite enough for Jill and me,” “One spirit is quite enough for Jack and me.” – this would be our answers.
It was not very often that Castizo was in the humour to tell us a story; but when we did get him to consent, we had descriptions of the most thrilling adventures, both by sea and land, that it is possible to imagine.
“Do,” I ventured to say once, “do the señora, your wife, and the señorita – ”
“Dulzura,” said Peter.
“Miss you greatly, when from home?”
A strange change came over his countenance. From happiness and mirth it suddenly changed to melancholy the most acute. I felt sorry immediately I had spoken, and hastened to say —
“My dear friend, I have hurt your feelings; pray pardon my thoughtlessness.”
“Nay, nay,” he made haste to reply; “it is nothing. But my wife is gone. If ever angel lived and breathed on earth, it was Magdalena. Her death was to me an abiding sorrow. But I seem to see her and feel her presence even yet, and she is often with me when I am alone.”
This gave me the clue to what we had considered a mystery, namely, Castizo’s great fondness for spending a portion of almost every night all alone out in the Pampas. Whether it rained or blew, in fact whatsoever the weather was like, Castizo always went out. This habit he commenced, as I have already shown, when we first started, when he rode two lonesome days and nights after us; and the habit he kept up till the last.
But Castizo was always willing to oblige us with a song. He had a splendid voice, and sang as well in English as in Spanish or Chilian.
Pedro’s stories were also well worth listening to. His experiences had been many and varied; but, alas! many of them were, to say the least, very hazy, and there was a deal in the history of his life far too dark to tell. Yet he was a faithful fellow, and would any day go through fire and water to oblige us.
Peter never had a story to tell. When asked to “spin us a yarn” he would tap his clarionet, and say, with a smile —
“I tell all my stories, like the Arcadian shepherds, through my pipe.”
“Well, then, play,” Castizo would remark.
“Yes, play,” Jill would add emphatically; “our cacique commands you.”
“All right, Greenie dear,” Peter would reply, and play forthwith.
I do not think I ever heard sweeter melody anywhere than that which Peter discoursed on his pipe, as he called it, around the camp fire on the lonely Pampas.
Some of the Indians would be sure to come from their toldos, and draw near our door, whenever Peter began to play, especially Prince Jeeka and his favourite wife, Nadi.
They were invariably asked in, and just as invariably did poor Nadi bring with her some sewing to do, generally in the shape of a few pieces of guanaco skin, which she was sewing together to make a roba or mantle for her husband or herself.
Very gentle, quiet, and amiable was Nadi, and bound up in her child and noble husband. I say “noble” advisedly; for all the time we knew him he was always the “prince,” generous, kind to his wife and child, brave and unselfish in the extreme. And yet they told me that he had in his time done some terrible deeds, and had even with his own hand slain the cousin of his wife Nadi. When I looked at Jeeka, I could not find it in my heart to believe this.
Nadi used to sing. It was more a wail than anything else; though while doing so she used to nod her head, and smiles would steal over her dark but pretty face, while her eyes sparkled with excitement and fun. Her husband would join in the chorus, as if he, too, enjoyed it. Perhaps Castizo and Pedro knew what it was all about; I am sure none of the rest of us ever did.
Sometimes Jill, or Peter, and I used to go over to the toldos of the Indians. We always took with us a bit of tobacco, and sometimes a little bag of flour. We generally found them lazing in groups, smoking and playing cards or dice. But as soon as ever their own cacique, Jeeka, gave the word, all playing was almost instantly stopped, and soon after they had rolled their mantles more tightly round them, and gone off to sleep.
In the morning before the start, Jeeka invariably helped his wife into the saddle; then she, with her child and the other two women, rode leisurely on.
To be alone in the desert, is to be alone with God; and every one of us soon came to follow the habit of Castizo, and retire nightly a little way from the camp, there to commune with our Father above. Like as in the old, old times, Jill and I invariably went together, knelt together, and returned together.
Jeeka was a strange being. He was clever, for he could not only speak Spanish but tolerably good English, and he could think.
“What you go out for,” he said to me one morning, “last night?”
“To speak with the Great Good Spirit,” I replied. “He who made all things, and who keeps us in life and free from danger. Do you not speak with the Great Good Spirit?”
“Hum-m-m. Sometime. I think there is one, two, Great Spirit.”
“Yes, a Spirit of Evil, and a Great Good Spirit.”
“Hum-m-m. I sometime speak the one for good. Sometime I speak the other.”
“That is not right, Jeeka. We are told only to pray to the Great Good Spirit.”
“You told? Who tell you?”
I was getting out of my depth now, so I put him off for the present.
“Some day soon,” I said, “Jill, my brother, and I, will tell you all the strange story of the world.”
“You tell Nadi, my wife, too?”
“Yes, we will tell you both, and you shall tell your tribe.”
“Hum-m-m. Good!”
Next minute Jeeka had shaken off all concern and religious feeling, and was addressing his men in loud stentorian tones as to the duties of the day before us. For a great hunt was on the tapis.
Chapter Twenty One
The “Murder Tree” – Wild and Exciting Sport – Jill and the Puma – Hostile Indians
This was to be a memorable day in the history of our adventures, for troubles began that we did not see the end of for many a long month afterwards.
We were now in a splendid hunting district; herds of guanacos had been seen, with innumerable ostriches, besides animals of various kinds.
We had even noticed some wild horses in the distance, but they had evidently sniffed danger from afar, for they speedily drew off, and disappeared to the nor’ard in a cloud of dust.
Very early in the morning we crossed a river. I am unable at this date to give the name of it, but think it must have been some tributary of the now distant Rio Santa Cruz or of the Chico.
We Englishmen were all tolerably good horsemen now, thanks to Jeeka, who had given us lessons, and thanks to our good steeds themselves. They were wonderfully well trained. Peter and Lawlor were the worst riders, and got many a tumble and shaking; but instead of bolting when their riders fell off, the horses simply stood and looked at them, as much as to say: “What fun you can find in tumbling off our backs in that higgledy-piggledy way, we utterly fail to discover.”
An accident of this kind caused the greatest merriment among the Indians. They waved their spears in the air, and shouted with laughter. Even gentle Nadi clapped her hands, and cried “Engleese! Engleese!” She meant, of course, that there was nothing too eccentric for an Englishman to do, for the notion that they had fallen off accidentally never for a moment crossed her thoughts.
We got over the river easily enough, only Peter did not gird up his mantle in the true Patagonian fashion, and so when he reached bank he looked more like a half-drowned pole-cat ferret than anything else on earth. Again Nadi must clap her hands and laugh, and cry “Engleese! Engleese!”
On now over a vast undulating plain, with more bush than we had yet seen, and, wonder of wonders! one single tree, growing at the east side of a rock. I noticed that all the Indians gave the tree a wide birth. I asked one Indian to come with me towards it; he only answered “Malo, malo,” and rode away in another direction. So Jill and I went to see it. A more weird-looking tree I never had come near. It was almost dead; just a few green leaves, the rest of its branches bare and blackened, as if by fire. Near it, and half buried in the gravel, were several skulls and bones.
It was a murder tree!
Castizo told us this in the evening. Some Chilians, who were suspected of having proved false to a certain tribe, were taken to this dreary spot at midnight, and quietly “knifed.”
The story made us shudder, and both Jill and I dreamt about it afterwards.
Preparations were now set about to form a grand battue.
This is a form of hunting which I admit I do not admire, but it is common in nearly every country, Scotland and England not excepted. In this case it was to some extent a necessity. We wanted fresh meat, and the Indians wanted skins and feathers.
To say that we “youngsters” were not excited from the very commencement, would be to throw doubts upon our very nationality.
We were excited.
So much so, that the preliminaries seemed to us interminably long and dull. First of all a halt was called, and Jeeka held a short palaver with our cacique. As they spoke in Patagonian we could not tell what was said, but from the gestures they made it was evident that Castizo was placing the principal command of the hunt in the hands of Prince Jeeka.
Now guns and revolvers, lassoes and bolas, were seen to. After this, Jeeka disrobed himself, tying his mantle on his saddle, and almost at the same time four Indians followed his example. Off they presently rode in different directions, two bearing away to the right, and three, including Jeeka, to the left. They seemed to make or describe the arc of a circle. After they had been gone some time, a fire was seen in one place on the right, and another to the left. Four more Indians at once divested themselves of the roba, and rode after the others. So gradually they all dispersed. We followed in due time, “dislocating” ourselves just as the Indians had done, leaving the women with the spare horses, and one boy to follow slowly along the tract.
We soon sighted the Indians, who were careering to and fro, and gradually closing in. But the portion of country – a wide, rough, rolling, bushy plain – was very extensive, so that the afternoon was well begun before the real sport was.
We soon, however, noticed herds of guanaco here and there, and scared looking, strangely bewildered ostriches. The guanacos stampeded, the birds fled hither and thither, but were turned with yells and shouts wherever they went.
Presently a herd began to break between Jill and myself and some Indians.
Now was the time to display our skill. Our horses seemed to know more about this strange species of hunting than we did, for they carried us quickly near the flying herd. I swung and flung my bolas, and missed, and had to dismount. Jill was more fortunate, and soon killed his first guanaco. The Indians were very busy indeed; so was Castizo. I had never seen finer horsemanship than his was out of the circus itself. He and his steed seemed imbued with the same spirit. Indeed, it did not appear to be a man on horseback we saw before us, but some Centaur of old. As Ritchie said afterwards, man and horse were all of a-piece.
I made up soon after for my awkwardness, and an ostrich succumbed to my bolas.
Gradually as the circle narrowed, wilder and more exciting grew the sport. Wilder and wilder yet. It came to be almost a mêlée at last. It came to a slaughter and murder of the innocents. And we white men, tired of bolas work, laid birds and beasts dead around us by the dozen with our guns.
It has been said that the puma will not attack a man on horseback. But in cases like the present there is many an exception.
Jill had an adventure which I will never forget. Nor shall I ever forget the splendid display of his huge strength and skill as a rider, which Prince Jeeka made on this occasion.
From behind a green calpeta bush an immense puma charged down on my brother. I noticed that, but I was powerless to help him, though my rifle lay on my arm. But I noticed something else at the same moment – Jeeka coming thundering down to the charge. He was rapidly shortening his bolas till he swung but one ball.
The puma paused to spring – so terrible a countenance, such fierce, vindictive eyes, such awful teeth! Hurrah! Jeeka is on him or over him. There is a dull thud as the ball crashes against the brute’s skull. Next moment the beast is on his back, spitting blood and spasmodically kicking his last; while Jeeka is riding on as unconsciously as if he had not saved my dear Jill’s life.
I frequently saw Peter driving the battue. I sometimes saw him in the saddle; at other times I saw him on his back on the gravel, and once I noticed him crawling out of a bush into which his horse had shied him. At least he told us his horse had shied him there; but Jill only laughed at him, and said the facts were, he had no seat.
“No mistake about the seat,” said Peter. “It’s all there, and a precious hard one it is.”
Prince Jeeka told us that he had never conducted a more successful hunt in his life, and that there would be plenty of work now for his followers in curing skins, so that playing cards must for a time be abandoned.
As we rode on to a camping ground that night we saw the smoke of fires in the distance, and after about half an hour drew rein near a camp of strange Indians. They were men from the north, Castizo informed us, hardly so well mounted as we were, but even better armed than our own Indians.
As they at once sprang to their saddles on our approach, and as Jeeka marshalled his men in battle array, the danger of a fight appeared imminent.
Castizo, however, was equal to the occasion for once. He galloped in front of our Prince Jeeka and waved him back, the proud Patagonian chief obeying reluctantly. Then he stationed us white men on each flank of our little army, the women having already been beckoned off to a safe distance in the rear.
Castizo’s next move was a brave one. With revolver in his right hand he rode straight up to the northern cacique, and at once covered him. This chief’s spear had been pointed at Castizo’s breast, but after a few words from the latter it was raised. The spears of all his band were immediately after elevated also. Then the palaver began. There was much excited talking between Castizo and the strange cacique, and several times I expected to see Castizo put a bullet through his heart, for he still had him covered.
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.
