Adventures Among the Red Indians Part 20

Leastwise they 'most always do," he said.

After a moment's hesitation the Indians charged with a frightful howl at the waggon; but, in so doing, they brought themselves in full range of the couple who had been trying to get a shot from the window. Two more of their number dropped, and the rest pulled up as suddenly as they had begun their charge. Bartlett and the driver fired, wounding a man and killing a horse.

Such a reception was more than the Apaches had bargained for or could stand; they fired one wild, almost aimless volley which flew well clear of the waggon, then, urging their horses forward, they spurred past Bartlett's team like a whirlwind and disappeared.

The inn was one kept by a Mexican and his Yankee wife; and they, too, told fearful tales of the Apaches' depredations; and were both convinced that, but for the happy arrival of the waggon, they would have been killed, and their house plundered and burnt.

CHAPTER XVIII

A JOURNEY TO THE GRAN CHACO

The Gran Chaco, or "great hunting-ground" of Western Paraguay, is a land of wooded plains and little patches of primeval forest, about which astonishingly little is known even to-day. White men have never yet explored more than the fringe of it, and it was to an Englishman that the honour fell of being the first European in a period of forty years to venture into the unknown region, as well as of proceeding farther through it than any of his predecessors had done. This was in 1853, when Mansfield made his celebrated journey up the Paraguay River.

Charles Blachford Mansfield, the dearly loved friend of Kingsley, Maurice, Carlyle, and other great thinkers of a bygone generation, was one of those men whose physical bravery and spirit of enterprise are hidden from all but close observers by the shyness natural to a scholar, and by the gentle earnestness of a man who takes life very seriously. While travelling down the South American coast from Pernambuco to Buenos Ayres, he incidentally heard much talk of this mysterious hunting-ground from his fellow-pa.s.sengers; but he no sooner hinted at his desire to see it than he brought a hail of ridicule on himself. Who but an Englishman would think of trying to go where the Paraguayans themselves dared not venture?

The same doubts or ridicule a.s.sailed him when he spoke of his intention to the Spanish skipper of the river steamer on which he took a pa.s.sage from Buenos Ayres to Corrientes.

"Ask the crew, Senor; some of them are of Indian blood; they will tell you all about the Paraguay," said he scornfully.

To the quiet scientist, whose pursuits kept him mainly among people of his own social standing, this crew was something of a revelation: Zambos, blacks, Mestizos, Italians, Spaniards, most of them as dirty and lazy and insubordinate as they were high. The negroes and whites had never been farther up than Corrientes, but some of the half-bloods had been as far as Asuncion, and these said unhesitatingly that even if the Englishman could get canoemen to take him up the Paraguay to the capital, every inch of the way was dangerous on account of the uncivilised Guaranis; and that--supposing he reached Asuncion alive--he would not be permitted to enter upon the Chaco.

"Take me as far as Corrientes and I will be responsible for the rest,"

said Mansfield. "At least I can but try."

The voyage up the Parana was monotonous, for the boat was seldom close enough to either bank to admit of more than a confused view of the country, and the solitary Englishman was relieved when the two days'

journey came to an end. On the second morning, when he went on deck the boat was making a stop, and he profited by it to slip off shirt and trousers and take a cool, delicious header into the river. Coming to the surface again he glanced up at the steamer, for the crew were all screaming one against the other; a charitable Zambo was heaving him a life-belt which (on finding that there were no objectionable reptiles anywhere near him) he laughingly refused. He had his swim, swarmed up a rope, and reached the deck again.

"Did I not say he was possessed, or mad?" he overheard the skipper growl in Spanish.

"What made the Senor do that?" asked the friendly Zambo soothingly.

"For pleasure, _amigo_; and in order to be clean. In my country it is the custom to have a cold bath or a swim every morning."

The half-breed turned away, tapping his forehead gravely, and communicated this piece of news to the white men, who seemed even more astounded. Wash? What _for_, in the name of all the fiends? They had scarcely ever heard of such an operation.

In Corrientes, Mansfield whiled away a few days in trying to obtain further information about the Chaco; but without much success. The civic authorities, from whom he had first to gain permission to move any higher up the river, made little demur; privately they thought the town would be well rid of a wandering maniac. They told him that he might possibly find Indian canoemen who would take him to Asuncion, though he would be almost the first Englishman who had ever been there; but that he must a.s.sume entire responsibility for such a venture; they would offer no hindrance, but no help either.

As luck would have it, while he was loitering on the jetty one evening, a large canoe, manned by four Indians and laden with oranges and plantains, ran alongside. That they did not belong to these parts was evidenced by their great size, their strange dress and easy motions, and by the number of native words with which their Spanish was interlarded. A crowd of buyers gathered round them, and their cargo was very soon disposed of; indeed, the townsfolk seemed only too anxious to let them do their business and take themselves off again, the brawny forest-giants being about as welcome here as Genseric's Vandals were in Rome.

When the crowd had dispersed, Mansfield approached the Indians and asked if they were going up the river again. They stared at him, more in wonder than in ill-humour.

"Yes," said one of them at last. "To-morrow." (No one in South America ever yet did anything "to-day"; has not _manana_ fever become a byword?)

"I want to come with you. I will pay you well, if you will take me and my luggage up to Asuncion."

The savages hesitated, muttered among themselves, and at length one remarked half-sulkily that it was a long journey; nearly two hundred miles. The Senor was doubtless in a hurry, and speaking for themselves they objected to being hurried. They would want to kill deer to take back with them; perhaps to catch fish as well. Mansfield said that that would be no objection, and, in the end, they agreed to set off with him in the morning.

Their respect for the stranger increased somewhat when, the next day, his luggage appeared, and was found to contain a very excellent double-barrelled gun; they themselves had only spears and bows, and were inclined to pooh-pooh firearms except for fighting. Who ever saw a gun kill a manatee, they asked; or a cayman, or even an inia (fresh-water dolphin)? The boat pushed off and swung rapidly round the bend of the river, and out of sight of civilisation. Then the Englishman began to cultivate his crew's acquaintance. Physically they formed a striking contrast to any of the town Indians he had seen; all were naked but for a waist-cloth of deer-skin; their hair, done in either one or two plaits, reached almost to their heels, though not one of them was under six feet three. At first they were very reserved with their employer, but when, treating them like children, he began to distribute sweet cakes and other confectioners' ware, such as they had never beheld, their tongues were loosed, one topic led to another, and they soon forgot to be shy or suspicious.

On the first day they showed no disposition to stop or land till night-time, and as they hugged the left bank all the way, Mansfield had the advantage of seeing what was to be seen without the delays that he had antic.i.p.ated. Whatever else happened on this hazardous journey, starvation would surely be kept at a distance, for in that vast forest through which the Paraguay runs, are no less than four hundred and fifty varieties of birds, from eagles to creatures the size of a thumb-nail, together with deer innumerable; while the fish in the stream almost plead to be caught. Mansfield already knew enough of the climate to be aware that, even in summer, when the sun has gone in, warm coverings are necessary; and he had supplied himself with a pair of good blankets, thinking that he would be expected to sleep in the canoe. But, at sundown, the Indians ran inside a tiny creek and three of them took up their bows and arrows, while the fourth clambered up the bank, spear in hand. Mansfield started to ask questions, but was immediately frowned into silence.

The Indian disappeared behind a thick curtain of bush and creeper, and was followed by one of his friends, who stood on the bank within sight; while the other two remained in the boat, standing like beautiful copper statues, their bows bent, their eyes fixed on the trees or the bank. After a little rustling behind this natural curtain, there came the sharp click of a flint and, a little later, the crackling of burning gra.s.s; but not till a great burst of smoke arose, followed by a roaring flare, did the other Indians drop their weapons.

"That will keep the jaguars away," said one of them. "They come down to drink just about this time."

"Were you afraid that one of them might spring out on your comrade?"

asked Mansfield.

"Who knows? It is not only they that have to be guarded against. Do you hear that noise? That is a puma; ocelots sometimes will spring upon us from a tree; a tapir will attack us if her young one is with her. And what of the snakes and the alligators?"

"Then why land at all for sleeping?"

The Indians shivered. "Have you never heard of water-boas? The Paraguay is full of them; by day they rarely come up; but at night!

Come; our fire is big now; we are going to moor the boat and land."

When he got ash.o.r.e, the traveller found that a whole bush formed the substance of the fire; a little dry gra.s.s had been laid to the windward side of it, and the bush, being of a resinous nature, soon flared up like an oil-barrel. The fire-maker was returning from collecting fuel, and had both arms full of fallen wood, with which he banked up a solid fire before the bush could roar itself out. The Englishman had his own opinion on the wisdom of lighting fires in such overgrown spots, and was not surprised when, during that river journey, they pa.s.sed many patches--some over a hundred acres in extent--where almost every tree had been consumed by some recent conflagration.

"So there are water-serpents here, are there?" he asked as they seated themselves as near to the fire as was consistent with comfort.

"Yes; some of them thirty feet long, or even forty. They will sometimes upset a whole canoe, or will lift a man out of his seat and drag him to the bottom." This may or may not be an Indian exaggeration, but it is certainly a fact that the anaconda and his many brethren in the Paraguay make no trouble of carrying off a calf or small deer that has come down to drink.

"To-morrow we must kill something," said another Indian as he unwrapped a slab of _carne seca_, or dried beef, from a strip of gra.s.s matting. "This is all that is left. See after the water, one of you."

A redskin had brought a great pot full of water from the river, and this he wedged nicely on the fire where the ashes were the most solid. Mansfield sighed; were they going to make chocolate, a drink which he loathed? By the time the beef was eaten, together with the French bread which the explorer had brought as a special luxury for his guides, the water boiled; and it transpired that they were not going to drink chocolate, for one of the men produced from a bag a great handful of dry, curled leaves, whipped the pot off the fire and dropped the leaves into it, stirring the whole vigorously with a stick.

The leaves were the _yerba mate_--generally abbreviated to _mate_--or Paraguay ilex; a sort of holly which occupies exactly the same position among the South Americans as tea does with the Chinese.

Another Indian cut five hollow stalks of a plant that looked to the scientist suspiciously like hemlock; but he supposed the man knew what he was doing, and accepted the one that was offered to him. As soon as the decoction was sufficiently stirred, the redskins thrust their stalks into the almost boiling liquid and began to suck greedily at it. Mansfield took his place in the circle round the pot when its contents had cooled somewhat, and found it exceedingly refreshing, though rank and bitter to anyone not used to it. But as he drank more freely, he became aware that, like many other good things, it may become a curse instead of a blessing to a man; for he soon found himself growing drowsy under its influence; but the Indians, more accustomed to it, were equal to his share as well as their own, and emptied the pot unmovedly. On later occasions he saw natives quite stupid or unconscious through over-indulgence in the beverage.

He rolled himself in his blankets and was soon asleep; but he was awakened at daybreak by the ceaseless chatter of the monkeys in the trees overhead. The Indians were already astir, packing up their weapons and cooking-utensils, and showing generally that this was the most energetic period of the day with them. The most noticeable feature of their behaviour now was that they had become as careless and bold as, over night, they had been vigilant and calculating; and this point perhaps marks more strongly than any other the difference between the Indians north and south of the Mexican frontier. The attacks in the dark, the night marches so common among the northern redskins, are almost unknown in the south and centre; and in all likelihood this has arisen from the comparative scarcity of nocturnal animals in the north. For one square mile of the Amazon contains more animals of the cat tribe than a hundred miles of the Mississippi, and the only beasts likely to be abroad after dark, apart from a few pumas, are the wolves, of which the North American Indian has no fear.

Mansfield and two of the guides had got into the canoe, when those on the bank held up each a warning hand and fitted an arrow to his bow. A rustling noise came from among the trees and a very graceful though short-legged deer came bounding from between them. No deer ever moved at such a speed unless frightened or pursued, and the Englishman was not surprised to see a dark-skinned animal rise from the ground some few feet behind the fugitive and fall full on its back with a snarling roar that a good-sized lion could scarcely have beaten. A confident smile played over the faces of the Indians in the boat, who took no more notice of the slayer than they would have done of a rabbit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STOCKING THE LARDER

As they watched from the canoe a graceful deer darted out of the thicket closely pursued by a full-grown jaguar. No sooner had he slain his prey than the two Indians coolly approached and planted one arrow in his neck and another in his ribs, and while one of them dragged away the carcase of the deer, the other put an end to the jaguar with his spear.]

"Why should not the _tigre_ save us the trouble of hunting?" said one, disdaining all pretence at silence.

Just then the roar was repeated, this time more ear-splitting than before; the yell of a beast in great pain. Mansfield peered through the bushes and saw the Guaranis walking in very leisurely manner towards the place where the deer had fallen. Almost as its a.s.sailant--a full-grown male jaguar--put an end to its struggles by taking the head between its immense paws and breaking the neck, two arrows had pierced him simultaneously; one through the ribs and the other through the neck, and the howl which the watchers in the boat had heard was his last.

The taller of the Indians dragged the deer's carcase free, while his companion contemptuously drove his spear-blade into the expiring jaguar, and the venison was quickly butchered and brought in triumph to the canoe. The two hunters chuckled as they got into the boat; they had now enough food for to-day's needs and meant to take it easy: another difference between the Indian who lives within the tropics and him who lives outside; only hunger or strict business will prompt the one to exert himself to go a-hunting; the other is a sportsman born.

No event worth chronicling befell the little crew till, a day or two later, they were within ten miles of Asuncion. The canoemen were dipping their paddles lazily, and Mansfield himself was inclined to doze, for it was getting towards the middle of the day, when a horrified whisper, which he could not catch, pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. In an instant the Guaranis threw off their lethargy, and the explorer saw that a look of terror had come into every eye; the paddles flew through the water, the men straining till the sweat streamed down their faces, and till their veins swelled as though they must burst.

He spoke encouragingly to them, but obtained no answer; the Indians only paddled the faster, till their panic began to communicate itself to him; for it is always the unknown that is most terrifying. Two minutes pa.s.sed, and they did not abate their speed or answer the questions put to them. Surely it could not be anything so very awful, for, only ten minutes before, a schooner-rigged vessel had overtaken them on its way up the river; whatever the peril was, she seemed to have escaped it. Mansfield had known what danger was, for he had worked like a hero among the poor of South London during the cholera outbreak of five years before; but, when the third minute had pa.s.sed, he found that the suspense was becoming unbearable. A minute is a short time, but those who have pa.s.sed through great danger or uncertainty know that it can sometimes seem like a week.