In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XI TRAVELING IN CHILI

THE na­tive troops or­ga­nized by Lord Gle­nar­van con­sist­ed of three men and a boy. The cap­tain of the mule­teers was an En­glish­man, who had be­come nat­ural­ized through twen­ty years’ res­idence in the coun­try. He made a liveli­hood by let­ting out mules to trav­el­ers, and lead­ing them over the dif­fi­cult pass­es of the Cordilleras, af­ter which he gave them in charge of a BAQUE­ANO, or Ar­gen­tine guide, to whom the route through the Pam­pas was per­fect­ly fa­mil­iar. This En­glish­man had not so far for­got­ten his moth­er tongue among mules and In­di­ans that he could not con­verse with his coun­try­men, and a lucky thing it was for them, as Lord Gle­nar­van found it far eas­ier to give or­ders than to see them ex­ecut­ed, Pa­ganel was still un­suc­cess­ful in mak­ing him­self un­der­stood.

The CAT­APEZ, as he was called in Chil­ian, had two na­tives called PE­ONS, and a boy about twelve years of age un­der him. The PE­ONS took care of the bag­gage mules, and the boy led the MAD­RI­NA, a young mare adorned with rat­tle and bells, which walked in front, fol­lowed by ten mules. The trav­el­ers rode sev­en of these, and the CAT­APEZ an­oth­er. The re­main­ing two car­ried pro­vi­sions and a few bales of goods, in­tend­ed to se­cure the good­will of the Caciques of the plain. The PE­ONS walked, ac­cord­ing to their usu­al habit.

Ev­ery ar­range­ment had been made to in­sure safe­ty and speed, for cross­ing the An­des is some­thing more than an or­di­nary jour­ney. It could not be ac­com­plished with­out the help of the hardy mules of the far-​famed Ar­gen­tine breed. Those reared in the coun­try are much su­pe­ri­or to their pro­gen­itors. They are not par­tic­ular about their food, and on­ly drink once a day, and they can go with ease ten leagues in eight hours.

There are no inns along this road from one ocean to an­oth­er. The on­ly viands on which trav­el­ers can re­gale them­selves are dried meat, rice sea­soned with pi­men­to, and such game as may be shot _en route_. The tor­rents pro­vide them with wa­ter in the moun­tains, and the rivulets in the plains, which they im­prove by the ad­di­tion of a few drops of rum, and each man car­ries a sup­ply of this in a bul­lock’s horn, called CHIF­FLE. They have to be care­ful, how­ev­er, not to in­dulge too freely in al­co­holic drinks, as the cli­mate it­self has a pe­cu­liar­ly ex­hil­arat­ing ef­fect on the ner­vous sys­tem. As for bed­ding, it is all con­tained in the sad­dle used by the na­tives, called RECA­DO. This sad­dle is made of sheep­skins, tanned on one side and wool­ly on the oth­er, fas­tened by gor­geous em­broi­dered straps. Wrapped in these warm cov­er­ings a trav­el­er may sleep sound­ly, and brave ex­po­sure to the damp nights.

Gle­nar­van, an ex­pe­ri­enced trav­el­er, who knew how to adapt him­self to the cus­toms of oth­er coun­tries, adopt­ed the Chil­ian cos­tume for him­self and his whole par­ty. Pa­ganel and Robert, both alike chil­dren, though of dif­fer­ent growth, were wild with de­light as they in­sert­ed their heads in the na­tion­al PON­CHO, an im­mense plaid with a hole in cen­ter, and their legs in high leather boots. The mules were rich­ly ca­parisoned, with the Arab bit in their mouths, and long reins of plait­ed leather, which served as a whip; the head­stall of the bri­dle was dec­orat­ed with met­al or­na­ments, and the AL­FOR­JAS, dou­ble sacks of gay col­ored linen, con­tain­ing the day’s pro­vi­sions. Pa­ganel, DIS­TRAIT as usu­al, was flung sev­er­al times be­fore he suc­ceed­ed in be­strid­ing his good steed, but once in the sad­dle, his in­sep­ara­ble tele­scope on his shoul­der-​belt, he held on well enough, keep­ing his feet fast in the stir­rups, and trust­ing en­tire­ly to the sagac­ity of his beast. As for Robert, his first at­tempt at mount­ing was suc­cess­ful, and proved that he had the mak­ing in him of an ex­cel­lent horse­man.

The weath­er was splen­did when they start­ed, the sky a deep cloud­less blue, and yet the at­mo­sphere so tem­pered by the sea breezes as to pre­vent any feel­ing of op­pres­sive heat. They marched rapid­ly along the wind­ing shore of the bay of Talc­ahuano, in or­der to gain the ex­trem­ity of the par­al­lel, thir­ty miles south. No one spoke much the first day, for the smoke of the DUN­CAN was still vis­ible on the hori­zon, and the pain of part­ing too keen­ly felt. Pa­ganel talked to him­self in Span­ish, ask­ing and an­swer­ing ques­tions.

The CAT­APEZ, more­over, was a tac­iturn man nat­ural­ly, and had not been ren­dered lo­qua­cious by his call­ing. He hard­ly spoke to his PE­ONS. They un­der­stood their du­ties per­fect­ly. If one of the mules stopped, they urged it on with a gut­tural cry, and if that proved un­avail­ing, a good-​sized peb­ble, thrown with unerring aim, soon cured the an­imal’s ob­sti­na­cy. If a strap got loose, or a rein fell, a PE­ON came for­ward in­stant­ly, and throw­ing off his pon­cho, flung it over his beast’s head till the ac­ci­dent was re­paired and the march re­sumed.

The cus­tom of the mule­teers is to start im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter break­fast, about eight o’clock, and not to stop till they camp for the night, about 4 P. M. Gle­nar­van fell in with the prac­tice, and the first halt was just as they ar­rived at Arau­co, sit­uat­ed at the very ex­trem­ity of the bay. To find the ex­trem­ity of the 37th de­gree of lat­itude, they would have re­quired to pro­ceed as far as the Bay of Carnero, twen­ty miles fur­ther. But the agents of Gle­nar­van had al­ready scoured that part of the coast, and to re­peat the ex­plo­ration would have been use­less. It was, there­fore, de­cid­ed that Arau­co should be the point of de­par­ture, and they should keep on from there to­ward the east in a straight line.

Since the weath­er was so fa­vor­able, and the whole par­ty, even Robert, were in per­fect health, and al­to­geth­er the jour­ney had com­menced un­der such fa­vor­able aus­pices, it was deemed ad­vis­able to push for­ward as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the next day they marched 35 miles or more, and en­camped at night­fall on the banks of Rio Bio­bio. The coun­try still pre­sent­ed the same fer­tile as­pect, and abound­ed in flow­ers, but an­imals of any sort on­ly came in sight oc­ca­sion­al­ly, and there were no birds vis­ible, ex­cept a soli­tary heron or owl, and a thrush or grebe, fly­ing from the fal­con. Hu­man be­ings there were none, not a na­tive ap­peared; not even one of the GUAS­SOS, the de­gen­er­ate off­spring of In­di­ans and Spaniards, dashed across the plain like a shad­ow, his fly­ing steed drip­ping with blood from the cru­el thrusts in­flict­ed by the gi­gan­tic spurs of his mas­ter’s naked feet. It was ab­so­lute­ly im­pos­si­ble to make in­quiries when there was no one to ad­dress, and Lord Gle­nar­van came to the con­clu­sion that Cap­tain Grant must have been dragged right over the An­des in­to the Pam­pas, and that it would be use­less to search for him else­where. The on­ly thing to be done was to wait pa­tient­ly and press for­ward with all the speed in their pow­er.

On the 17th they set out in the usu­al line of march, a line which it was hard work for Robert to keep, his ar­dor con­stant­ly com­pelled him to get ahead of the MAD­RI­NA, to the great de­spair of his mule. Noth­ing but a sharp re­call from Gle­nar­van kept the boy in prop­er or­der.

The coun­try now be­came more di­ver­si­fied, and the ris­ing ground in­di­cat­ed their ap­proach to a moun­tain­ous dis­trict. Rivers were more nu­mer­ous, and came rush­ing nois­ily down the slopes. Pa­ganel con­sult­ed his maps, and when he found any of those streams not marked, which of­ten hap­pened, all the fire of a ge­og­ra­pher burned in his veins, and he would ex­claim, with a charm­ing air of vex­ation:

“A riv­er which hasn’t a name is like hav­ing no civ­il stand­ing. It has no ex­is­tence in the eye of ge­ograph­ical law.”

He chris­tened them forth­with, with­out the least hes­ita­tion, and marked them down on the map, qual­ify­ing them with the most high-​sound­ing ad­jec­tives he could find in the Span­ish lan­guage.

“What a lan­guage!” he said. “How full and sonorous it is! It is like the met­al church bells are made of–com­posed of sev­en­ty-​eight parts of cop­per and twen­ty-​two of tin.”

“But, I say, do you make any progress in it?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Most cer­tain­ly, my dear Lord. Ah, if it wasn’t the ac­cent, that wretched ac­cent!”

And for want of bet­ter work, Pa­ganel whiled away the time along the road by prac­tis­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties in pro­nun­ci­ation, re­peat­ing all the break-​jaw words he could, though still mak­ing ge­ograph­ical ob­ser­va­tions. Any ques­tion about the coun­try that Gle­nar­van might ask the CAT­APEZ was sure to be an­swered by the learned French­man be­fore he could re­ply, to the great as­ton­ish­ment of the guide, who gazed at him in be­wil­der­ment.

About two o’clock that same day they came to a cross road, and nat­ural­ly enough Gle­nar­van in­quired the name of it.

“It is the route from Yum­bel to Los An­ge­les,” said Pa­ganel.

Gle­nar­van looked at the CAT­APEZ, who replied:

“Quite right.”

And then, turn­ing to­ward the ge­og­ra­pher, he added:

“You have trav­eled in these parts be­fore, sir?”

“Oh, yes,” said Pa­ganel, quite grave­ly.

“On a mule?”

“No, in an easy chair.”

The CAT­APEZ could not make him out, but shrugged his shoul­ders and re­sumed his post at the head of the par­ty.

At five in the evening they stopped in a gorge of no great depth, some miles above the lit­tle town of Lo­ja, and en­camped for the night at the foot of the Sier­ras, the first steppes of the great Cordilleras.