Chapter XI

We continued our journey with great industry, generally travelling about forty miles a day. My Indian guide had the usual taciturnity of his race, but occasionally he entered into conversation, and I then discovered that he had led a life of adventure, and possessed the happy talent of describing what he had seen. I had by this time acquired a knowledge of the Spanish language, and I therefore found his narratives quite a resource during the tedious hours during which we seemed to be creeping like snails over the almost interminable plain.

He had frequently officiated before as a guide over the road we were now travelling, and he gave me an account of several occurrences in which he had taken part, which might have graced the pages of romance.

It appears that the Pampas are inhabited by a peculiar race of men, called Gauchos. These are the descendants of Spaniards of wild and irregular character, who had fled from civilized society and settled upon the plains, subsisting almost entirely by hunting and rearing cattle. The son followed the vocation of the father, and thus several succeeding generations of hunters had been scattered over these prairies. At the time of which I am speaking, they consisted of considerable numbers of people, though they lived apart from each other in families, dwelling in small huts, and spending the greater part of their time on horseback. These men generally respected travellers, but occasionally they would take to the highway and commit desperate acts of robbery.

There were small bands of Indians, also, whose homes were along the southern borders of the Pampas, but possessing fleet horses, they occasionally made incursions even into remote portions of the plains, and after having struck a sudden blow upon some unprotected family, they would speed to another and another, marking their route with blood and conflagration. Of these wild and savage people, my guide told me various anecdotes. I have not space to recount them, but in order to give an idea of the scenes which are constantly occurring in this remote region of the world, I will repeat one of the tales which he told me.

A few years previous to the period of which I am speaking, a wealthy Spanish gentleman, with his daughter about eighteen years of age, was travelling from Chili to Buenos Ayres. They were in a carriage drawn by four horses, and were attended by several servants, two of whom were on horseback. One night, as they were passing through a thicket of tall grass, a terrible cry burst upon their ears, and at the same moment about a dozen savages sprung from their lurking places, and immediately assailed the travelling party. The servants who were armed discharged their pistols, but they were speedily torn from their horses; the coachman was knocked from his seat, and the two post-boys in their fright ran away. The gentleman in the coach threw open the door and rushed out; but at the moment, he was laid prostrate, by a blow, upon the earth.

Frightened at the sounds around them, the horses in the carriage began to rear and plunge, and then, suddenly springing forward, ran with all their might. In a few moments, they were lost to the view, but the rattling of the wheels was heard for a time, and was then suddenly terminated by a heavy and crashing sound.

The pockets of the travellers were soon rifled, and the Indians then departed in pursuit of the coach, leaving two of the servants who had been engaged in the fray dead upon the spot, and the Spanish gentleman himself stunned by the blows he had received.

At the distance of two miles, the savages found the coach overturned, and reduced to a mere wreck. The young lady within, overcome with terror, was in a state of insensibility. Being taken out, she was speedily restored. The coach was then rifled, and the lady being placed on horseback before one of the savages, the party pushed forward across the prairie in a southerly direction.

In the course of four days, they reached their settlements, and the young lady, whose name was Donna Marina, was committed to the charge of a daughter of one of the savage chiefs. Worn out with fatigue and anxiety, she seemed at first indifferent to her fate; but in the course of a few days, having recovered her health and spirits, she became desirous of knowing the fate that awaited her. She then learned that a messenger was to be despatched to Buenos Ayres, where, it was ascertained, her father had arrived, proposing to surrender his daughter for a ransom of 5000 dollars.

Understanding from the savage maiden under whose care she was placed, that no personal injury to herself was intended, she became tolerably calm. But it chanced that there was among the Indians a fiery young warrior, whose father was a Spaniard, his mother being an Indian. He was born at one of the Spanish huts in the vicinity of Buenos Ayres, and in his early days had acquired a taste for the refinements of civilized life. But his natural daring and love of adventure had led him to join the wild inhabitants of the Pampas, among whom he had now become a celebrated leader.

At this period, he was in the bloom of early manhood, and was remarkable alike for the symmetry of his form, the grace of his movements, and the manly beauty of his countenance. Among the women of the tribe, he was an object of universal regard, on account of his fine appearance, and even the stern old warriors could not withhold their admiration at his achievements in the foray and the field. Thus an object of universal adulation, it may well be supposed that the young warrior, whose name was Yorika, had a pretty high estimate of himself. He was not of the party who had captured the fair Marina; but when he heard of the beauty of the maiden, he sought an opportunity to see her. His wishes were easily gratified by means of a little flattery bestowed upon her keeper. Vanity had led the youthful Indian to seek the interview, but a deeper sentiment led him frequently to renew it.

The beauty of the captive stole into his heart, and doubtless, her gentle manners awakened his recollections of scenes that had been familiar in his childhood. At all events, he was deeply enamored of the Spanish maiden, and did not hesitate to avow his passion. His overtures, however, were sternly repelled; and, stung to the quick, the fiery savage determined to obtain by force the maiden he could not win by affection.

During these events, the messenger had communicated with the father of Donna Marina at Buenos Ayres, and brought a favorable answer to the proposition of ransom. In two days a gentleman was to arrive at a designated point to pay the required sum and receive the captive. Preparations were immediately made to carry the treaty into effect, and in due time four men were despatched with Donna Marina to meet the Spanish agent. Yorika had been designated as one of this party, but he excused himself, seeming to disdain a service which offered so little of enterprize or adventure.

The party set forward, and at the place of meeting found the person whom they expected, already in attendance. The negotiation was speedily settled, the money paid and the captive surrendered. The savages, and the Spanish maiden, now under the charge of her affianced lover, also departed. The latter were mounted on horseback, and by the light of a summer moon they made their way across the plain. Rejoicing in their reunion after the distressing events which had transpired, they rode side by side, their hearts being often too full for utterance.

At length their path led them into a shallow vale thickly overgrown with wild thistles. As they were passing through this, a pistol was fired, and a ball whizzed near the breast of the attendant of Donna Marina. A moment after, the athletic form of Yorika rose from the thicket and sprung like a lion upon the object at which his pistol had been aimed. The Spaniard was immediately pulled from his horse, and a desperate conflict ensued. The superior strength of the Indian, however, prevailed, and he soon pressed the form of his antagonist beneath him. He drew his dirk, and was about to plunge it into the breast of his foe.

At that critical instant, the Spaniard brought his pistol to bear, and discharging it in the breast of the Indian, laid him prostrate upon the earth. Bruised and bleeding, he rose from the ground and made his way to Marina. At first, the girl shrunk back with horror, imagining that it was the victorious Yorika, who had come to claim her as his own. But when her reason was restored, and she learned the truth, she expressed her joy and gratitude alike for the safety of her lover and her own.

Such was one of the tales of my guide, which beguiled the weariness of our journey over the Pampas. He related several narratives respecting the jaguar, which is a kind of tiger infesting the thickets which border upon the road. One day, as we were passing through an immense forest of thistles, ten feet in height, and spreading out like an interminable sea on every side, he pointed to a spot where a traveller, on descending from his horse, had been seized and torn in pieces by one of these furious beasts.

Day after day, we continued our monotonous course. Although it was winter, the weather by no means answered to the common idea of that season. We had occasional rain, but it was seldom colder than during our April or May. Few incidents occurred to break the uniformity of our journey. One day appeared like another, and as we had no objects by which we could mark our progress, we seemed, like a ship in the waste of waters, to stand still in the midst of the shoreless desert. As we stood alone upon the bosom of the mighty prairie, stretching out on every side, and blending itself with the sky, we seemed dwindled into insects. Never have I felt such a sense of nothingness as in the presence of that mighty plain. In measuring myself by the gigantic scale which the Pampas presented, it seemed that I might be blotted from existence like the veriest moth that fluttered in the breeze. It was not until I turned my mind upon my plans and prospects, my hopes and fears, that my bosom began to swell again with those powerful emotions which seem to give importance to our existence and enable us to triumph over the despondency which often besets the heart, and might otherwise sink us in despair.

The sense of loneliness, the yearning for society, the longing to be restored to the sympathy of human beings which beset one in these solitudes, can only be understood by experience. I doubtless felt these the more from my youth and the want of that stern habit of self-reliance which is acquired by men who pursue a life of hazard and adventure. But I was becoming trained in the school of experience, and day by day was learning to sustain myself with my own thoughts, plans and prospects.

We met few travellers upon the road. Four men on horseback, and a company with two vehicles, were all that we encountered in a distance of more than 500 miles. The latter consisted of some five and twenty persons. They had a baggage cart, which was a capacious, rude uncouth-looking vehicle, with cane sides and a roof covered with hides. The body was balanced upon two prodigiously high wheels for the convenience of passing through rivers. The other vehicle was a long coach, called a _galera_, and resembled the modern omnibus; the seats ran sideways, and the door was at the end. To each of these carriages there were four horses, and a postilion to each horse. Such is the ordinary equipment of travellers upon the Pampas.

The post houses upon the road were miserable tenements, generally of mud, and affording scanty accommodation. The lazy inhabitants seem to offer the commonest civility with reluctance or languid indifference. We occasionally met with huts inhabited by squalid Indians, who seemed sunk in indolence and apathy. They were nearly naked, yet they possessed a gentle and kindly character. The herds of cattle upon the plains furnish them abundance of meat, and they parted with it freely, seeming to be almost indifferent whether they received compensation or not.

At the end of twenty days, we reached the verge of the Pampas, and now began to ascend the highlands, which rise by gradations for the distance of nearly two hundred miles, at the foot of the Andes. Industriously pursuing our journey, we rose step by step, and at last reached a village situated in a deep gorge at the foot of mountains that seemed to reach the skies. Here we sold our horses, and purchased mules, these animals being considered safer in climbing the dizzy precipices, over which our road now lay.

Being duly equipped, and having rested three days, we departed and began to creep up the frowning battlements of the Andes. Sometimes we seemed lost in deep and dark ravines; sometimes we threaded our way amid rocks that lifted their shaggy pinnacles over our heads, which seemed to threaten us with destruction, and sometimes, we reached a lofty peak from which we could see the rugged valley stretched out behind, and still loftier pinnacles rising up to the heavens in front. How striking the contrast between these savage mountains and the level prairie!--yet the emotions they excited were nearly the same; the same overpowering sense of vastness in nature; the same oppressive sense of my own insignificance, visited me here as upon the Pampas. There was, indeed, something exhilarating in the mountain air, and the consciousness of danger frequently experienced as we wound along the edges of the mountains with a yawning chasm of five hundred feet below, imparted something of a romantic interest to our journey. The scenery, too, was often amazingly grand, and when at last we reached the highest ridge of the Andes, and I gazed upon its glittering peaks covered with everlasting snow, I experienced a sensation which I shall never forget. They seemed indeed like bluish-white clouds piled up to the very heavens. They appeared like the ghosts of mountains, dreamy and mist-like, rather than those eternal barriers of snow-capped granite which they really are.

Winding for several days along the devious path, amid the wilderness of rocky peaks and cliffs, we began to emerge from the labyrinth, and the western slope of the Andes soon opened before us. Creeping over a succession of ridges, we finally reached the undulating plain, and from an eminence, we caught a distant view of the Pacific. Proceeding through a country of great fertility we arrived at the place of our destination, thankful indeed that I had reached it in safety.