4-1 - Rio Negro to Bahia Blanca - The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin

CHAPTER IV
RIO NEGRO TO BAHIA BLANCA
Rio Negro--Estancias attacked by the Indians--Salt-Lakes--Flamingoes--R. Negro to R. Colorado--Sacred Tree--Patagonian Hare--Indian Families--General Rosas--Proceed to Bahia Blanca--Sand Dunes--Negro Lieutenant--Bahia Blanca--Saline Incrustations--Punta Alta--Zorillo.
 JULY 24th, 1833.--The Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and on August the 3rd she arrived off the mouth of the Rio Negro.  This is the principal river on the whole line of coast between the Strait of Magellan and the Plata.  It enters the sea about three hundred miles south of the estuary of the Plata.  About fifty years ago, under the old Spanish government, a small colony was established here; and it is still the most southern position (lat. 41 degs.) on this eastern coast of America 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 everywhere 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 had been 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 spearhead.  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, form, 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.  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 bank of the river, and the people are employed in drawing out the salt in bullock-waggons, This salt is crystallized in great cubes, and is remarkably pure: Mr. Trenham Reeks has kindly analyzed some for me, and he finds in it only 0.26 of gypsum and 0.22 of earthy matter.  It is a singular fact, that it does not serve so well for preserving meat as sea-salt from the Cape de Verd islands; and a merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he considered it as fifty per cent. less valuable.  Hence the Cape de Verd salt is constantly imported, and is mixed with that from these salinas.  The purity of the Patagonian salt, or absence from it of those other saline bodies found in all sea-water, is the only assignable cause for this inferiority: a conclusion which no one, I think, would have suspected, but which is supported by the fact lately ascertained, [3] that those salts answer best for preserving cheese which contain most of the deliquescent chlorides.
The border of this 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 soda 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 confervae; 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 brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate of soda and lime!  And what becomes of these worms when, during the long summer, the surface is hardened into a solid layer of salt?  Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, and breed here, throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, and at the Galapagos Islands, I met with these birds wherever there were lakes of brine.  I saw them here wading about in search of food--probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or confervae.  Thus we have a little living world within itself adapted to these inland lakes of brine.  A minute crustaceous animal (Cancer salinus) is said [4] to live in countless numbers in the brine-pans at Lymington: but only in those in which the fluid has attained, from evaporation, considerable strength--namely, about a quarter of a pound of salt to a pint of water.  Well may we affirm that every part of the world is habitable!  Whether lakes of brine, or those subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains--warm mineral springs--the wide expanse and depths of the ocean--the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface of perpetual snow--all support organic beings.
 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 Buenos Ayres 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 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 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.  Everywhere 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, etc., had been suspended. Poor Indians, not having anything better, only pull a thread out of their ponchos, and fasten it to the tree.  Richer Indians are accustomed to pour spirits and mate 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 horses which had been slaughtered as sacrifices.  All Indians of every age and sex make their offerings; they then think that their horses will not tire, and that they themselves shall 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 from Walleechu the offerings.
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 Indian 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 in the direction of the Sierra.  Upon being asked the reason of this, the Indian said in broken Spanish, "First see the Sierra." 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, who set off in full chase, and in a few minutes dragged her in with their lazos, and slaughtered her.  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 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 never be forgotten.
The next day the country continued similar to that above described.  It is inhabited by few birds or animals of any kind.  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 of the desert; it is a common feature of the landscape to see two or three hopping quickly one after the other in a straight line across these wild plains. They are found as far north as the Sierra Tapalguen (lat. 37 degs. 30'), where the plain rather suddenly becomes greener and more humid; and their southern limit is between Port Desire and St. Julian, where there is no change in the nature of the country.  It is a singular fact, that although the Agouti is not now found as 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 by Captain Wood in one day at Port Desire, that they must have been considerably more abundant there formerly than at present. Where the Bizcacha lives and makes its burrows, the Agouti uses them; but where, as at Bahia Blanca, the Bizcacha is not found, the Agouti burrows for itself.  The same thing occurs with the little owl of the Pampas (Athene cunicularia), which has so often been described as standing like a sentinel at the mouth of the burrows; for in Banda Oriental, owing to the absence of the Bizcacha, it is obliged to hollow out its own habitation.
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 and hundreds of heads, all directed one way, with pointed ears and distended snorting nostrils, appearing just above the water like a great shoal of some amphibious animal. Mare's flesh is the only food which the soldiers have when on an expedition. This gives them a 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, etc.  The soldiers were nearly all cavalry; and I should think such a villainous, 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 [5] 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.