Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, Vol. 3 [of 3] · Charles Darwin
RIO NEGRO TO BAHIA BLANCA.
JULY 24TH, 1833.--The Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and on August the 3d she arrived off the mouth of the Rio Negro. This is the principal river on the whole line of coast between the Straits of Magellan and the Plata. It enters the sea about three hundred miles south of the estuary of the latter. About fifty years since, under the old Spanish government, a small colony was established here; and it is still the most southern position (lat. 41°) on this eastern coast of America which is inhabited by civilized man. The country near the mouth of the river is wretched in the extreme: on the south side a long line of perpendicular cliffs commences, which exposes a section of the geological nature of the country. The strata are of sandstone, and one layer was remarkable, from being composed of a firmly-cemented conglomerate of pumice pebbles, which must have travelled more than four hundred miles, from the Andes. The surface is every where covered up by a thick bed of gravel, which extends far and wide over the open plain. Water is extremely scarce, and, where found, is almost invariably brackish. The vegetation is scanty; and although there are bushes of many kinds, all are armed with formidable thorns, which seem to warn the stranger not to enter on these inhospitable regions.
The settlement is situated eighteen miles up the river. The road follows the foot of the sloping cliff, which forms the northern boundary of the great valley, in which the Rio Negro flows. On the way we passed the ruins of some fine “estancias,” which a few years since were destroyed by the Indians. They withstood several attacks. A man present at one gave me a very lively description of what took place. The inhabitants had sufficient notice to drive all the cattle and horses into the “corral”[1] which surrounded the house, and likewise to mount some small cannon. The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats.
As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. The Indians, with great steadiness, came to the very fence of the corral: but to their surprise they found the posts fastened together by iron nails instead of leather thongs, and, of course, in vain attempted to cut them with their knives. This saved the lives of the Christians: many of the wounded Indians were carried away by their companions; and at last one of the under caciques being wounded, the bugle sounded a retreat. They retired to their horses, and seemed to hold a council of war. This was an awful pause for the Spaniards, as all their ammunition, with the exception of a few cartridges, was expended. In an instant the Indians mounted their horses, and galloped out of sight. Another attack was still more quickly repulsed. A cool Frenchman managed the gun; he stopped till the Indians approached close, and then raked their line with grape-shot: he thus laid thirty-nine of them on the ground; and, of course, such a blow immediately routed the whole party.
The town is indifferently called El Carmen or Patagones. It is built on the face of a cliff which fronts the river, and many of the houses are excavated even in the sandstone. The river is about two or three hundred yards wide, and is deep and rapid. The many islands, with their willow-trees, and the flat headlands, seen one behind the other on the northern boundary of the broad green valley, forms, by the aid of a bright sun, a view almost picturesque. The number of inhabitants does not exceed a few hundreds. These Spanish colonies do not, like our British ones, carry within themselves the elements of growth. Many Indians of pure blood reside here: the tribe of the Cacique Lucanee constantly have their Toldos[2] on the outskirts of the town. The local government partly supplies them with provisions, by giving them all the old, worn out horses, and they earn a little by making horse-rugs and other articles of riding gear. These Indians are considered civilized; but what their character may have gained by a lesser degree of ferocity, is almost counterbalanced by their entire immorality. Some of the younger men are, however, improving; they are willing to labour, and a short time since a party went on a sealing voyage, and behaved very well. They were now enjoying the fruits of their labour, by being dressed in very gay, clean clothes, and by being very idle. The taste they showed in their dress was admirable; if you could have turned one of these young Indians into a statue of bronze, his drapery would have been perfectly graceful.
One day I rode to a large salt-lake, or Salina, which is distant fifteen miles from the town. During the winter it consists of a shallow lake of brine, which in summer is converted into a field of snow-white salt. The layer near the margin is from four to five inches thick, but towards the centre its thickness increases. This lake was two and a half miles long, and one broad. Others occur in the neighbourhood many times larger, and with a floor of salt, two and three feet in thickness, even when under water during the winter. One of these brilliantly-white and level expanses, in the midst of the brown and desolate plain, offers an extraordinary spectacle. A large quantity of salt is annually drawn from the salina; and great piles, some hundred tons in weight, were lying ready for exportation. It is singular that the salt, although well crystallized, and appearing quite pure, does not answer so well for preserving meat as sea salt from the Cape de Verd Islands. Although the latter is necessarily much dearer, it is constantly imported and mixed with the salt procured from these salinas. A merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he considered the Cape de Verd salt worth fifty per cent more than that from the Rio Negro. The season for working the salinas forms the harvest of Patagones; for on it, the prosperity of the place depends. Nearly the whole population encamps on the banks of the river, and the people are employed in drawing out the salt in bullock-waggons.
The border of the lake is formed of mud: and in this numerous large crystals of gypsum, some of which are three inches long, lie embedded; whilst on the surface, others of sulphate of magnesia lie scattered about. The Gauchos call the former the “Padre del sal,” and the latter the “Madre”; they state that these progenitive salts always occur on the borders of the salinas, when the water begins to evaporate. The mud is black, and has a fetid odour. I could not, at first, imagine the cause of this, but I afterwards perceived that the froth, which the wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervæ: I attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and this, perhaps, was owing to some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able to exist in a fluid, saturated with brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate of soda and lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during a long summer, the surface at least is hardened into a solid layer of salt? Flamingoes[3] in considerable numbers inhabit this lake; they breed here, and their bodies are sometimes found by the workmen, preserved in the salt. I saw several wading about in search of food,--probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter, perhaps, feed on infusoria or confervæ. Thus we have a little world within itself, adapted to these little inland seas of brine.[4]
With respect to the geological position of the salinas, they occur either in the plains composed of shingle, and overlying various deposits, or within the grand calcareo-argillaceous formation of the Pampas. The only rule I can discover, is, that they do not occur where the substratum is granitic, as in Brazil and Banda Oriental. I know of their occasional existence over the immense territory extending from lat. 23°, near the Rio Vermejo, to 50° south. The climate may generally be considered as rather dry; at least, such is the case in Patagonia, where the salinas are most numerous. Those which I saw occurred in depressions, whence there was no exit; in a more humid climate the water flowing from the lake would soon have hollowed a channel in the soft strata, and thus converted the depression of the soil into an ordinary valley. There is reason to believe that the whole of these great plains have been raised above the level of the sea within a recent geological period. May we not then consider the salinas as the receptacles of the washings of the sedimentary strata? On this idea we understand their absence where the land is granitic. It is manifest that these great natural evaporating dishes can only occur where the amount of annual rain is small.[5]
To the northward of the Rio Negro, between it and the inhabited country near Buenos Ayres, the Spaniards have only one small settlement, recently established at Bahia Blanca. The distance in a straight line to the capital is very nearly five hundred British miles. The wandering tribes of horse Indians, which have always occupied the greater part of this country, having of late much harassed the outlying estancias, the government at Buenos Ayres equipped some time since an army under the command of General Rosas for the purpose of exterminating them. The troops were now encamped on the banks of the Colorado; a river lying about eighty miles to the northward of the Rio Negro. When General Rosas left Buenos Ayres, he struck in a direct line across the unexplored plains: and as the country was thus pretty well cleared of Indians, he left behind him, at wide intervals, a small party of soldiers, with a troop of horses (a _posta_), so as to be enabled to keep up a communication with the capital. As the Beagle intended to call at Bahia Blanca, I determined to proceed there by land; and ultimately I extended my plan so as to travel the whole way by the postas to Buenos Ayres.
AUGUST 11TH.--Mr. Harris, an Englishman residing at Patagones, a guide, and five Gauchos, who were proceeding to the army on business, were my companions on the journey. The Colorado, as I have already said, is nearly eighty miles distant: and as we travelled slowly, we were two days and a half on the road. The whole line of country deserves scarcely a better name than that of a desert. Water is found only in two small wells: it is called fresh; but even at this time of the year, during the rainy season, it was quite brackish. In the summer this must be a distressing passage; for now it was sufficiently desolate. The valley of the Rio Negro, broad as it is, has merely been excavated out of the sandstone plain; for immediately above the bank on which the town stands, a level country commences, which is interrupted only by a few trifling valleys and depressions. Every where the landscape wears the same sterile aspect; a dry gravelly soil supports tufts of brown withered grass, and low scattered bushes, armed with thorns.
Shortly after passing the first spring we came in sight of a famous tree, which the Indians reverence as the altar of Walleechu. It is situated on a high part of the plain, and hence is a landmark visible at a great distance. As soon as a tribe of Indians come in sight of it, they offer their adorations by loud shouts. The tree itself is low, much branched, and thorny. Just above the root it has a diameter of about three feet. It stands by itself without any neighbour, and was indeed the first tree we saw; afterwards we met with a few others of the same kind, but they were far from common. Being winter the tree had no leaves, but in their place numberless threads, by which the various offerings, such as cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, &c., had been suspended. Poor people not having any thing better, only pulled a thread out of their ponchos, and fastened it to the tree. The Indians, moreover, were accustomed to pour spirits and maté into a certain hole, and likewise to smoke upwards, thinking thus to afford all possible gratification to Walleechu. To complete the scene, the tree was surrounded by the bleached bones of the horses which had been slaughtered as sacrifices. All Indians of every age and sex, made their offerings; they then thought that their horses would not tire, and that they themselves should be prosperous. The Gaucho who told me this, said that in the time of peace he had witnessed this scene, and that he and others used to wait till the Indians had passed by, for the sake of stealing their offerings from Walleechu.
The Gauchos think that the Indians consider the tree as the god itself; but it seems far more probable that they regard it as the altar. The only cause which I can imagine for this choice, is its being a landmark in a dangerous passage. The Sierra de la Ventana is visible at an immense distance; and a Gaucho told me that he was once riding with an Indian a few miles to the north of the Rio Colorado, when the latter commenced making the same loud noise, which is usual at the first sight of the distant tree; putting his hand to his head, and then pointing it in the direction of the Sierra. Upon being asked the reason of this, the Indian said in broken Spanish, “First see the Sierra.” This likewise would render it probable that the utility of a distant landmark is the first cause of its adoration. About two leagues beyond this curious tree we halted for the night: at this instant an unfortunate cow was spied by the lynx-eyed Gauchos. Off they set in chase, and in a few minutes she was dragged in by the lazo, and slaughtered. We here had the four necessaries of life “en el campo,”--pasture for the horses, water (only a muddy puddle), meat, and firewood. The Gauchos were in high spirits at finding all these luxuries; and we soon set to work at the poor cow. This was the first night which I had ever passed under the open sky, with the gear of the recado for my bed. There is high enjoyment in the independence of the Gaucho life--to be able at any moment to pull up your horse, and say, “Here we will pass the night.” The death-like stillness of the plain, the dogs keeping watch, the gipsy-group of Gauchos making their beds round the fire, have left in my mind a strongly-marked picture of this first night, which will not soon be forgotten.
The next day the country continued similar to that above described. It is inhabited by few birds or animals. Occasionally a deer, or a Guanaco (wild Llama) may be seen; but the Agouti (_Cavia Patagonica_) is the commonest quadruped. This animal here represents our hares. It differs, however, from that genus in many essential respects; for instance, it has only three toes behind. It is also nearly twice the size, weighing from twenty to twenty-five pounds. The Agouti is a true friend to the desert; it is a common feature in the landscape to see two or three hopping quickly one after the other in a straight line across these wild plains. On the eastern side of America their northern limit is formed by the Sierra Tapalguen (lat. 37° 30′), where the plains rather suddenly become greener and more humid. The limit certainly depends on this change, for near Mendoza (lat. 33° 30′), which is much further north, but where the country is very sterile, I again met the Agouti. It is not evident by what circumstances their southern limit is governed; it occurs between Port Desire and St. Julian (about 48° 30′), where there is no change in the kind of land, and only a trifling and gradual one of temperature.
It is a singular fact, that although the Agouti is not now found so far south as Port St. Julian, yet that Captain Wood, in his voyage in 1670, talks of them as being numerous there. What cause can have altered, in a wide, uninhabited, and rarely-visited country, the range of an animal like this? It appears, also, from the number shot in one day at Port Desire, that they must have been considerably more abundant there formerly than at present. Azara states that the Agouti never excavates its own burrow, but uses that of the Bizcacha. Wherever this animal is present, without doubt this is true; but on the sandy plains of Bahia Blanca, where the Bizcacha is not found, the Gauchos maintain that the Agouti is its own workman. The same thing occurs with the little owls of the Pampas (_Noctua cunicularia_), which have so often been described as standing like sentinels at the mouths of the burrows; for in Banda Oriental, owing to the absence of the Bizcacha, they are obliged to hollow out their own habitations. Azara also says that the Agouti, except when pressed by danger, does not enter its burrow: on this point I must again differ from that high authority.
At Bahia Blanca I have repeatedly seen two or three of these animals sitting on their haunches by the mouths of their holes, which, as I passed by at a distance, they quietly entered. Daily in the neighbourhood of these spots the Agouti were abundant: but differently from most burrowing animals, it wanders, commonly two or three together, to miles or leagues from its home; nor do I know whether it returns at night. The Agouti feeds and roams about by day; is shy and watchful; does not squat, or so rarely that I never saw an instance of this; it cannot run very fast; and, therefore, is frequently caught by a couple of dogs, even of mixed breed. Its manner of running more resembles that of a rabbit than of a hare. The Agouti generally produces two young ones at a birth, which are brought forth within the burrow. The flesh, when cooked, is very white; it is, however, rather tasteless and dry.
The next morning, as we approached the Rio Colorado, the appearance of the country changed; we soon came on a plain covered with turf, which, from its flowers, tall clover, and little owls, resembled the Pampas. We passed also a muddy swamp of considerable extent, which in summer dries, and becomes incrusted with various salts; and hence is called a salitral. It was covered by low succulent plants, of the same kind with those growing on the sea-shore. The Colorado, at the pass where we crossed it, is only about sixty yards wide; generally it must be nearly double that width. Its course is very tortuous, being marked by willow-trees and beds of reeds: in a direct line the distance to the mouth of the river is said to be nine leagues, but by water twenty-five. We were delayed crossing in the canoe by some immense troops of mares, which were swimming the river in order to follow a division of troops into the interior. A more ludicrous spectacle I never beheld, than the hundreds of heads, all directed one way, with pointed ears and distended nostrils, appearing just above the water like a great shoal of some amphibious animals. Mare’s flesh is the only food which the soldiers have when on an expedition. This gives them a very great facility of movement; for the distance to which horses can be driven over these plains is quite surprising: I have been assured that an unloaded horse can travel a hundred miles a day for many days successively.
The encampment of General Rosas was close to the river. It consisted of a square formed by waggons, artillery, straw huts, &c. The soldiers were nearly all cavalry; and I should think such a villanous, banditti-like army, was never before collected together. The greater number of men were of a mixed breed, between Negro, Indian, and Spaniard. I know not the reason, but men of such origin seldom have a good expression of countenance. I called on the secretary to show my passport. He began to cross-question me in the most dignified and mysterious manner. By good luck I had a letter of recommendation from the government of Buenos Ayres[6] to the commandant of Patagones. This was taken to General Rosas, who sent me a very obliging message; and the secretary returned all smiles and graciousness. We took up our residence in the _rancho_, or hovel, of a curious old Spaniard, who had served with Napoleon in the expedition against Russia.
We staid two days at the Colorado; I had little to do, for the surrounding country was a swamp, which in summer, (December) when the snow melts on the Cordillera, is overflowed by the river. My chief amusement was watching the Indian families as they came to buy little articles at the rancho, where we staid. It was supposed that General Rosas had about six hundred Indian allies. The men were a tall, fine race, yet it was afterwards easy to see in the Fuegian savage the same countenance rendered hideous by cold, want of food, and less civilization. Some authors, in defining the primary races of mankind, have separated these Indians into two classes; but I cannot think this is correct. Among the young women or chinas, some deserve to be called even beautiful. Their hair was coarse, but bright and black; and they wore it in two plaits hanging down to the waist. They had a high colour, and eyes that glistened with brilliancy; their legs, feet, and arms were small and elegantly formed; their ankles, and sometimes their waists, were ornamented by broad bracelets of blue beads. Nothing could be more interesting than some of the family groups. A mother with one or two daughters would often come to our rancho, mounted on the same horse.
They ride like men, but with their knees tucked up much higher. This habit, perhaps, arises from their being accustomed, when travelling, to ride the loaded horses. The duty of the women is to load and unload the horses; to make the tents for the night; in short to be, like the wives of all savages, useful slaves. The men fight, hunt, take care of the horses, and make the riding gear. One of their chief indoor occupations is to knock two stones together till they become round. The bolas is a very important weapon to the Indian; for with it he catches his game, and also his horse which roams free over the plain. In fighting, his first attempt is to throw the horse of his adversary with the bolas, and when entangled by the fall to kill him with the chuzo. If the balls only catch the neck or body of an animal, they are often carried away and lost. As the making the stones round is the labour of two days, the manufacture of the balls is a very common employment. Several of the men and women had their faces painted red, but I never saw the horizontal bands which are so common among the Fuegians. Their chief pride consists in having every thing made of silver; I have seen a cacique with his spurs, stirrups, handle of his knife, and bridle made of this metal: the head-stall and reins being of wire, were not thicker than whipcord; and to see a fiery steed, wheeling about under the command of so light a chain, gave to the horsemanship a remarkable character of elegance.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.