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

CHAPTER XVIII IN SEARCH OF WATER

LAKE SALI­NAS ends the string of la­goons con­nect­ed with the Sier­ras Ven­tana and Guami­ni. Nu­mer­ous ex­pe­di­tions were for­mer­ly made there from Buenos Ayres, to col­lect the salt de­posit­ed on its banks, as the wa­ters con­tain great quan­ti­ties of chlo­ride of sodi­um.

But when Thal­cave spoke of the lake as sup­ply­ing drink­able wa­ter he was think­ing of the RIOS of fresh wa­ter which run in­to it. Those streams, how­ev­er, were all dried up al­so; the burn­ing sun had drunk up ev­ery thing liq­uid, and the con­ster­na­tion of the trav­el­ers may be imag­ined at the dis­cov­ery.

Some ac­tion must be tak­en im­me­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er; for what lit­tle wa­ter still re­mained was al­most bad, and could not quench thirst. Hunger and fa­tigue were for­got­ten in the face of this im­pe­ri­ous ne­ces­si­ty. A sort of leather tent, called a ROUKAH, which had been left by the na­tives, af­ford­ed the par­ty a tem­po­rary rest­ing-​place, and the weary hors­es stretched them­selves along the mud­dy banks, and tried to browse on the ma­rine plants and dry reeds they found there– nau­seous to the taste as they must have been.

As soon as the whole par­ty were en­sconced in the ROUKAH, Pa­ganel asked Thal­cave what he thought was best to be done. A rapid con­ver­sa­tion fol­lowed, a few words of which were in­tel­li­gi­ble to Gle­nar­van. Thal­cave spoke calm­ly, but the live­ly French­man ges­tic­ulat­ed enough for both. Af­ter a lit­tle, Thal­cave sat silent and fold­ed his arms.

“What does he say?” asked Gle­nar­van. “I fan­cied he was ad­vis­ing us to sep­arate.”

“Yes, in­to two par­ties. Those of us whose hors­es are so done out with fa­tigue and thirst that they can scarce­ly drag one leg af­ter the oth­er, are to con­tin­ue the route as they best can, while the oth­ers, whose steeds are fresh­er, are to push on in ad­vance to­ward the riv­er Guami­ni, which throws it­self in­to Lake San Lu­cas about thir­ty-​one miles off. If there should be wa­ter enough in the riv­er, they are to wait on the banks till their com­pan­ions reach them; but should it be dried up, they will has­ten back and spare them a use­less jour­ney.”

“And what will we do then?” asked Austin.

“Then we shall have to make up our minds to go sev­en­ty-​two miles south, as far as the com­mence­ment of the Sier­ra Ven­tana, where rivers abound.”

“It is wise coun­sel, and we will act up­on it with­out loss of time. My horse is in tol­er­able good trim, and I vol­un­teer to ac­com­pa­ny Thal­cave.”

“Oh, my Lord, take me,” said Robert, as if it were a ques­tion of some plea­sure par­ty.

“But would you be able for it, my boy?”

“Oh, I have a fine beast, which just wants to have a gal­lop. Please, my Lord, to take me.”

“Come, then, my boy,” said Gle­nar­van, de­light­ed not to leave Robert be­hind. “If we three don’t man­age to find out fresh wa­ter some­where,” he added, “we must be very stupid.”

“Well, well, and what about me?” said Pa­ganel.

“Oh, my dear Pa­ganel, you must stay with the re­serve corps,” replied the Ma­jor. “You are too well ac­quaint­ed with the 37th par­al­lel and the riv­er Guami­ni and the whole Pam­pas for us to let you go. Nei­ther Mul­rady, nor Wil­son, nor my­self would be able to re­join Thal­cave at the giv­en ren­dezvous, but we will put our­selves un­der the ban­ner of the brave Jacques Pa­ganel with per­fect con­fi­dence.”

“I re­sign my­self,” said the ge­og­ra­pher, much flat­tered at hav­ing supreme com­mand.

“But mind, Pa­ganel, no dis­trac­tions,” added the Ma­jor. “Don’t you take us to the wrong place–to the bor­ders of the Pa­cif­ic, for in­stance.”

“Oh, you in­suf­fer­able Ma­jor; it would serve you right,” replied Pa­ganel, laugh­ing. “But how will you man­age to un­der­stand what Thal­cave says, Gle­nar­van?” he con­tin­ued.

“I sup­pose,” replied Gle­nar­van, “the Patag­oni­an and I won’t have much to talk about; be­sides, I know a few Span­ish words, and, at a pinch, I should not fear ei­ther mak­ing him un­der­stand me, or my un­der­stand­ing him.”

“Go, then, my wor­thy friend,” said Pa­ganel.

“We’ll have sup­per first,” re­joined Gle­nar­van, “and then sleep, if we can, till it is start­ing time.”

The sup­per was not very re­viv­ing with­out drink of any kind, and they tried to make up for the lack of it by a good sleep. But Pa­ganel dreamed of wa­ter all night, of tor­rents and cas­cades, and rivers and ponds, and streams and brooks–in fact, he had a com­plete night­mare.

Next morn­ing, at six o’clock, the hors­es of Thal­cave, Gle­nar­van and Robert were got ready. Their last ra­tion of wa­ter was giv­en them, and drunk with more avid­ity than sat­is­fac­tion, for it was filthy, dis­gust­ing stuff. The three trav­el­ers then jumped in­to their sad­dles, and set off, shout­ing “_Au revoir!_” to their com­pan­ions.

“Don’t come back what­ev­er you do,” called Pa­ganel af­ter them.

The _De­ser­tio de las Sali­nas_, which they had to tra­verse, is a dry plain, cov­ered with stunt­ed trees not above ten feet high, and small mi­mosas, which the In­di­ans call _cur­ra-​mam­mel;_ and JUMES, a bushy shrub, rich in so­da. Here and there large spaces were cov­ered with salt, which sparkled in the sun­light with as­ton­ish­ing bril­lian­cy. These might eas­ily have been tak­en for sheets of ice, had not the in­tense heat for­bid­den the il­lu­sion; and the con­trast these daz­zling white sheets pre­sent­ed to the dry, burned-​up ground gave the desert a most pe­cu­liar char­ac­ter. Eighty miles south, on the con­trary, the Sier­ra Ven­tana, to­ward which the trav­el­ers might pos­si­bly have to be­take them­selves should the Guami­ni dis­ap­point their hopes, the land­scape was to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. There the fer­til­ity is splen­did; the pas­turage is in­com­pa­ra­ble. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, to reach them would ne­ces­si­tate a march of one hun­dred and thir­ty miles south; and this was why Thal­cave thought it best to go first to Guami­ni, as it was not on­ly much near­er, but al­so on the di­rect line of route.

The three hors­es went for­ward might and main, as if in­stinc­tive­ly know­ing whith­er they were bound. Thaou­ka es­pe­cial­ly dis­played a courage that nei­ther fa­tigue nor hunger could damp. He bound­ed like a bird over the dried-​up CANADAS and the bush­es of CUR­RA-​MAM­MEL, his loud, joy­ous neigh­ing seem­ing to bode suc­cess to the search. The hors­es of Gle­nar­van and Robert, though not so light-​foot­ed, felt the spur of his ex­am­ple, and fol­lowed him brave­ly. Thal­cave in­spir­it­ed his com­pan­ions as much as Thaou­ka did his four-​foot­ed brethren. He sat mo­tion­less in the sad­dle, but of­ten turned his head to look at Robert, and ev­er and anon gave him a shout of en­cour­age­ment and ap­proval, as he saw how well he rode. Cer­tain­ly the boy de­served praise, for he was fast be­com­ing an ex­cel­lent cav­alier.

“Bra­vo! Robert,” said Gle­nar­van. “Thal­cave is ev­ident­ly con­grat­ulat­ing you, my boy, and pay­ing you com­pli­ments.”

“What for, my Lord?”

“For your good horse­man­ship.”

“I can hold firm on, that’s all,” replied Robert blush­ing with plea­sure at such an en­comi­um.

“That is the prin­ci­pal thing, Robert; but you are too mod­est. I tell you that some day you will turn out an ac­com­plished horse­man.”

“What would pa­pa say to that?” said Robert, laugh­ing. “He wants me to be a sailor.”

“The one won’t hin­der the oth­er. If all cav­aliers wouldn’t make good sailors, there is no rea­son why all sailors should not make good horse­men. To keep one’s foot­ing on the yards must teach a man to hold on firm; and as to man­ag­ing the reins, and mak­ing a horse go through all sorts of move­ments, that’s eas­ily ac­quired. In­deed, it comes nat­ural­ly.”

“Poor fa­ther,” said Robert; “how he will thank you for sav­ing his life.”

“You love him very much, Robert?”

“Yes, my Lord, dear­ly. He was so good to me and my sis­ter. We were his on­ly thought: and when­ev­er he came home from his voy­ages, we were sure of some SOU­VENIR from all the places he had been to; and, bet­ter still, of lov­ing words and ca­ress­es. Ah! if you knew him you would love him, too. Mary is most like him. He has a soft voice, like hers. That’s strange for a sailor, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Robert, very strange.”

“I see him still,” the boy went on, as if speak­ing to him­self. “Good, brave pa­pa. He put me to sleep on his knee, croon­ing an old Scotch bal­lad about the lochs of our coun­try. The time some­times comes back to me, but very con­fused like. So it does to Mary, too. Ah, my Lord, how we loved him. Well, I do think one needs to be lit­tle to love one’s fa­ther like that.”

“Yes, and to be grown up, my child, to ven­er­ate him,” replied Gle­nar­van, deeply touched by the boy’s gen­uine af­fec­tion.

Dur­ing this con­ver­sa­tion the hors­es had been slack­en­ing speed, and were on­ly walk­ing now.

“You will find him?” said Robert again, af­ter a few min­utes’ si­lence.

“Yes, we’ll find him,” was Gle­nar­van’s re­ply, “Thal­cave has set us on the track, and I have great con­fi­dence in him.”

“Thal­cave is a brave In­di­an, isn’t he?” said the boy.

“That in­deed he is.”

“Do you know some­thing, my Lord?”

“What is it, and then I will tell you?”

“That all the peo­ple you have with you are brave. La­dy He­le­na, whom I love so, and the Ma­jor, with his calm man­ner, and Cap­tain Man­gles, and Mon­sieur Pa­ganel, and all the sailors on the DUN­CAN. How coura­geous and de­vot­ed they are.”

“Yes, my boy, I know that,” replied Gle­nar­van.

“And do you know that you are the best of all.”

“No, most cer­tain­ly I don’t know that.”

“Well, it is time you did, my Lord,” said the boy, seiz­ing his lord­ship’s hand, and cov­er­ing it with kiss­es.

Gle­nar­van shook his head, but said no more, as a ges­ture from Thal­cave made them spur on their hors­es and hur­ry for­ward.

But it was soon ev­ident that, with the ex­cep­tion of Thaou­ka, the wea­ried an­imals could not go quick­er than a walk­ing pace. At noon they were obliged to let them rest for an hour. They could not go on at all, and re­fused to eat the AL­FA­FARES, a poor, burnt-​up sort of lucerne that grew there.

Gle­nar­van be­gan to be un­easy. To­kens of steril­ity were not the least on the de­crease, and the want of wa­ter might in­volve se­ri­ous calami­ties. Thal­cave said noth­ing, think­ing prob­ably, that it would be time enough to de­spair if the Guami­ni should be dried up–if, in­deed, the heart of an In­di­an can ev­er de­spair.

Spur and whip had both to be em­ployed to in­duce the poor an­imals to re­sume the route, and then they on­ly crept along, for their strength was gone.

Thaou­ka, in­deed, could have gal­loped swift­ly enough, and reached the RIO in a few hours, but Thal­cave would not leave his com­pan­ions be­hind, alone in the midst of a desert.

It was hard work, how­ev­er, to get the an­imal to con­sent to walk qui­et­ly. He kicked, and reared, and neighed vi­olent­ly, and was sub­dued at last more by his mas­ter’s voice than hand. Thal­cave pos­itive­ly talked to the beast, and Thaou­ka un­der­stood per­fect­ly, though un­able to re­ply, for, af­ter a great deal of ar­gu­ing, the no­ble crea­ture yield­ed, though he still champed the bit.

Thal­cave did not un­der­stand Thaou­ka, it turned out, though Thaou­ka un­der­stood him. The in­tel­li­gent an­imal felt hu­mid­ity in the at­mo­sphere and drank it in with fren­zy, mov­ing and mak­ing a noise with his tongue, as if tak­ing deep draughts of some cool re­fresh­ing liq­uid. The Patag­oni­an could not mis­take him now–wa­ter was not far off.

The two oth­er hors­es seemed to catch their com­rade’s mean­ing, and, in­spired by his ex­am­ple, made a last ef­fort, and gal­loped for­ward af­ter the In­di­an.

About three o’clock a white line ap­peared in a dip of the road, and seemed to trem­ble in the sun­light.

“Wa­ter!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, yes! it is wa­ter!” shout­ed Robert.

They were right; and the hors­es knew it too, for there was no need now to urge them on; they tore over the ground as if mad, and in a few min­utes had reached the riv­er, and plunged in up to their chests.

Their mas­ters had to go on too, whether they would or not but they were so re­joiced at be­ing able to quench their thirst, that this com­pul­so­ry bath was no grievance.

“Oh, how de­li­cious this is!” ex­claimed Robert, tak­ing a deep draught.

“Drink mod­er­ate­ly, my boy,” said Gle­nar­van; but he did not set the ex­am­ple.

Thal­cave drank very qui­et­ly, with­out hur­ry­ing him­self, tak­ing small gulps, but “as long as a la­zo,” as the Patag­oni­ans say. He seemed as if he were nev­er go­ing to leave off, and re­al­ly there was some dan­ger of his swal­low­ing up the whole riv­er.

At last Gle­nar­van said:

“Well, our friends won’t be dis­ap­point­ed this time; they will be sure of find­ing clear, cool wa­ter when they get here– that is to say, if Thal­cave leaves any for them.”

“But couldn’t we go to meet them? It would spare them sev­er­al hours’ suf­fer­ing and anx­iety.”

“You’re right my boy; but how could we car­ry them this wa­ter? The leather bot­tles were left with Wil­son. No; it is bet­ter for us to wait for them as we agreed. They can’t be here till about the mid­dle of the night, so the best thing we can do is to get a good bed and a good sup­per ready for them.”

Thal­cave had not wait­ed for Gle­nar­van’s propo­si­tion to pre­pare an en­camp­ment. He had been for­tu­nate enough to dis­cov­er on the banks of the _rio a ra­ma­da_, a sort of en­clo­sure, which had served as a fold for flocks, and was shut in on three sides. A more suit­able place could not be found for their night’s lodg­ing, pro­vid­ed they had no fear of sleep­ing in the open air be­neath the star-​lit heav­ens; and none of Thal­cave’s com­pan­ions had much so­lic­itude on that score. Ac­cord­ing­ly they took pos­ses­sion at once, and stretched them­selves at full length on the ground in the bright sun­shine, to dry their drip­ping gar­ments.

“Well, now we’ve se­cured a lodg­ing, we must think of sup­per,” said Gle­nar­van. “Our friends must not have rea­son to com­plain of the couri­ers they sent to pre­cede them; and if I am not much mis­tak­en, they will be very sat­is­fied. It strikes me that an hour’s shoot­ing won’t be lost time. Are you ready, Robert?”

“Yes, my Lord,” replied the boy, stand­ing up, gun in hand.

Why Gle­nar­van pro­posed this was, that the banks of the Guami­ni seemed to be the gen­er­al ren­dezvous of all the game in the sur­round­ing plains. A sort of par­tridge pe­cu­liar to the Pam­pas, called TINA­MOUS; black wood-​hens; a species of plover, called TERU-​TERU; yel­low rays, and wa­ter­fowl with mag­nif­icent green plumage, rose in cov­eys. No quadrupeds, how­ev­er, were vis­ible, but Thal­cave point­ed to the long grass and thick brush­wood, and gave his friends to un­der­stand they were ly­ing there in con­ceal­ment.

Dis­dain­ing the feath­ered tribes when more sub­stan­tial game was at hand, the hunters’ first shots were fired in­to the un­der­wood. In­stant­ly there rose by the hun­dred roe­bucks and gua­na­cos, like those that had swept over them that ter­ri­ble night on the Cordilleras, but the timid crea­tures were so fright­ened that they were all out of gun­shot in a twin­kling. The hunters were obliged to con­tent them­selves with hum­bler game, though in an al­imen­ta­ry point of view noth­ing bet­ter could be wished. A dozen of red par­tridges and rays were speed­ily brought down, and Gle­nar­van al­so man­aged very clev­er­ly to kill a TAY-​TETRE, or pec­ca­ry, a pachy­der­ma­tous an­imal, the flesh of which is ex­cel­lent eat­ing.

In less than half an hour the hunters had all the game they re­quired. Robert had killed a cu­ri­ous an­imal be­long­ing to the or­der EDEN­TA­TA, an ar­madil­lo, a sort of tatou, cov­ered with a hard bony shell, in mov­able pieces, and mea­sur­ing a foot and a half long. It was very fat and would make an ex­cel­lent dish, the Patag­oni­an said. Robert was very proud of his suc­cess.

Thal­cave did his part by cap­tur­ing a NAN­DOU, a species of os­trich, re­mark­able for its ex­treme swift­ness.

There could be no en­trap­ping such an an­imal, and the In­di­an did not at­tempt it. He urged Thaou­ka to a gal­lop, and made a di­rect at­tack, know­ing that if the first aim missed the NAN­DOU would soon tire out horse and rid­er by in­volv­ing them in an in­ex­tri­ca­ble labyrinth of wind­ings. The mo­ment, there­fore, that Thal­cave got to a right dis­tance, he flung his BO­LAS with such a pow­er­ful hand, and so skill­ful­ly, that he caught the bird round the legs and par­alyzed his ef­forts at once. In a few sec­onds it lay flat on the ground.

The In­di­an had not made his cap­ture for the mere plea­sure and glo­ry of such a nov­el chase. The flesh of the NAN­DOU is high­ly es­teemed, and Thal­cave felt bound to con­tribute his share of the com­mon repast.

They re­turned to the RA­MA­DA, bring­ing back the string of par­tridges, the os­trich, the pec­ca­ry, and the ar­madil­lo. The os­trich and the pec­ca­ry were pre­pared for cook­ing by di­vest­ing them of their tough skins, and cut­ting them up in­to thin slices. As to the ar­madil­lo, he car­ries his cook­ing ap­pa­ra­tus with him, and all that had to be done was to place him in his own shell over the glow­ing em­bers.

The sub­stan­tial dish­es were re­served for the night-​com­ers, and the three hunters con­tent­ed them­selves with de­vour­ing the par­tridges, and washed down their meal with clear, fresh wa­ter, which was pro­nounced su­pe­ri­or to all the porter in the world, even to the fa­mous High­land USQUE­BAUGH, or whisky.

The hors­es had not been over­looked. A large quan­ti­ty of dry fod­der was dis­cov­ered ly­ing heaped up in the RA­MA­DA, and this sup­plied them am­ply with both food and bed­ding.

When all was ready the three com­pan­ions wrapped them­selves in the pon­chos, and stretched them­selves on an ei­der­down of AL­FA­FARES, the usu­al bed of hunters on the Pam­pas.