The Officers
Of Each Boat Lived With, Ate The Same Food, And Slept
In The Same Tent With Their Crew, So That Each Boat Was
Quite Independent Of The Others.
After sunset the first level
spot where any bushes were growing, was chosen for our
night's lodging.
Each of the crew took it in turns to be
cook. Immediately the boat was hauled up, the cook made
his fire; two others pitched the tent; the coxswain handed
the things out of the boat; the rest carried them up to the
tents and collected firewood. By this order, in half an hour
everything was ready for the night. A watch of two men
and an officer was always kept, whose duty it was to look
after the boats, keep up the fire, and guard against Indians.
Each in the party had his one hour every night.
During this day we tracked but a short distance, for there
were many islets, covered by thorny bushes, and the channels
between them were shallow.
April 20th. - We passed the islands and set to work. Our
regular day's march, although it was hard enough, carried
us on an average only ten miles in a straight line, and perhaps
fifteen or twenty altogether. Beyond the place where
we slept last night, the country is completely _terra incognita_,
for it was there that Captain Stokes turned back. We saw
in the distance a great smoke, and found the skeleton of a
horse, so we knew that Indians were in the neighbourhood.
On the next morning (21st) tracks of a party of horse
and marks left by the trailing of the chuzos, or long spears,
were observed on the ground. It was generally thought
that the Indians had reconnoitred us during the night.
Shortly afterwards we came to a spot where, from the fresh
footsteps of men, children, and horses, it was evident that
the party had crossed the river.
April 22nd. - The country remained the same, and was
extremely uninteresting. The complete similarity of the
productions throughout Patagonia is one of its most striking
characters. The level plains of arid shingle support
the same stunted and dwarf plants; and in the valleys the
same thorn-bearing bushes grow. Everywhere we see the
same birds and insects. Even the very banks of the river
and of the clear streamlets which entered it, were scarcely
enlivened by a brighter tint of green. The curse of sterility
is on the land, and the water flowing over a bed of pebbles
partakes of the same curse. Hence the number of water-fowls
is very scanty; for there is nothing to support life in
the stream of this barren river.
Patagonia, poor as she is in some respects, can however
boast of a greater stock of small rodents [1] than perhaps any
other country in the world. Several species of mice are
externally characterized by large thin ears and a very fine
fur. These little animals swarm amongst the thickets in the
valleys, where they cannot for months together taste a drop
of water excepting the dew. They all seem to be cannibals
for no sooner was a mouse caught in one of my traps that
it was devoured by others. A small and delicately shaped
fox, which is likewise very abundant, probably derives its
entire support from these small animals. The guanaco is
also in his proper district, herds of fifty or a hundred were
common; and, as I have stated, we saw one which must
have contained at least five hundred. The puma, with the
condor and other carrion-hawks in its train, follows and
preys upon these animals. The footsteps of the puma were
to be seen almost everywhere on the banks of the river;
and the remains of several guanacos, with their necks
dislocated and bones broken, showed how they had met their
death.
April 24th. - Like the navigators of old when approaching
an unknown land, we examined and watched for the most
trivial sign of a change. The drifted trunk of a tree, or a
boulder of primitive rock, was hailed with joy, as if we had
seen a forest growing on the flanks of the Cordillera. The
top, however, of a heavy bank of clouds, which remained
almost constantly in one position, was the most promising
sign, and eventually turned out a true harbinger. At first the
clouds were mistaken for the mountains themselves, instead
of the masses of vapour condensed by their icy summits.
April 26th. - We this day met with a marked change in
the geological structure of the plains. From the first starting
I had carefully examined the gravel in the river, and
for the two last days had noticed the presence of a few small
pebbles of a very cellular basalt. These gradually increased
in number and in size, but none were as large as a man's
head. This morning, however, pebbles of the same rock,
but more compact, suddenly became abundant, and in the
course of half an hour we saw, at the distance of five of
six miles, the angular edge of a great basaltic platform.
When we arrived at its base we found the stream bubbling
among the fallen blocks. For the next twenty-eight miles
the river-course was encumbered with these basaltic masses.
Above that limit immense fragments of primitive rocks,
derived from its surrounding boulder-formation, were
equally numerous. None of the fragments of any considerable
size had been washed more than three or four miles
down the river below their parent-source: considering the
singular rapidity of the great body of water in the Santa
Cruz, and that no still reaches occur in any part, this example
is a most striking one, of the inefficiency of rivers in
transporting even moderately-sized fragments.
The basalt is only lava, which has flowed beneath the sea;
but the eruptions must have been on the grandest scale. At
the point where we first met this formation it was 120 feet
in thickness; following up the river course, the surface
imperceptibly rose and the mass became thicker, so that at
forty miles above the first station it was 320 feet thick.
What the thickness may be close to the Cordillera, I have
no means of knowing, but the platform there attains a height
of about three thousand feet above the level of the sea;
we must therefore look to the mountains of that great chain
for its source; and worthy of such a source are streams that
have flowed over the gently inclined bed of the sea to a
distance of one hundred miles.
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