June, July, and August were piercingly cold; much snow fell, and the people, unused to such a climate, became very sickly, and many of them died. Viedma himself was so ill as to be some time confined to his bed; nor was it till the return of spring that the survivors began to recover their strength, and were able to go on with the works.

They got through the subsequent winter better, after their houses were completed, and they were able to collect some necessary comforts about them. The vegetables they planted throve well, and in the second February they gathered in their first harvest, which yielded a fair crop in proportion to the corn sown. The brushwood

in the surrounding country was sufficient to supply them with fuel, but there was no timber fit for building, of which they were in great want; and in quest of this Viedma was induced to make an excursion into the interior by the Indians, who asserted that an abundance was to be had near the source of the Santa Cruz river, which they said was a great lake at the foot of the Cordillera, whither they offered to guide him.

or

On this expedition he left San Julian's early in November, 1782, with some of his own people, and a party of the Indians under their cacique. Proceeding in a south-westerly direction over hills and dales, at a distance of about twenty-five leagues they reached the Rio Chico, "little river," which the Indians said fell into the harbour of Santa Cruz. There was at that time no difficulty in fording it, the water not being much above their saddle-girths, and its width not above fifty yards, though, from the appearance of its steep and water-worn banks, it was evidently a much more considerable stream during the season of the floods. The Indians said it was the drain of a lake far in the north-west, formed by the melting of the snows in the Cordillera.

So far, wherever they halted, they had found no lack of pasturage for their horses, or water, or brushwood for fuel; but after crossing the Chico the country became rocky and barren. About 14 leagues beyond the Chico they came to a much more considerable river, called the Chalia

140

SOURCE OF THE SANTA CRUZ RIVER.

PART II.

or Fish River by the Indians, described as issuing from another lake in the mountains, between the sources of the Rio Chico and those of the great river of Santa Cruz, which it joined, they said, further on.

They found it too deep to cross where they first reached it, and were obliged in consequence to follow its course upwards for eight leagues, over a stony, rugged country, which lamed all their horses, and the desolate appearance of which was increased by the visitation of a flight of locusts which had devoured all the vegetation for three leagues. They crossed it, at last, at a place called by their Indian guides Quesanexes, from a remarkable rock standing out like a tower from the rocky, rugged cliffs which there bounded the bed of the river (some basaltic formation perhaps?)

On looking at the sketch, in the seventh volume of the Journal of the Geographical Society,' of Captain FitzRoy's Survey of the river Santa Cruz, it appears probable that the Chalia is the stream which runs into it from Basalt Glen, and which, though a very inconsiderable one at the season he passed by it, was manifestly one of much more importance at other times.

Eight leagues after crossing the Chalia they came to the great lake under the Cordillera, which the Indians had talked of as the origin of the Santa Cruz River.

Viedma describes it as of great extent, situated in a sort of bay, or amphitheatre of the mountains, from the steep ravines of which ran down the many streams which filled it, chiefly derived from the melting of the snows in the north-west: he skirted it for twelve leagues to its extremity in that direction, and estimated its extreme length at about fourteen; its width, he says, might be from four to five leagues.

Some dark patches amongst the snow on the distant heights indicated the clumps of trees of which the Indians had spoken; but the few which Viedma was able to examine were not what he had been led to expect: he speaks of them as resembling a wild cherry, with a fruit in appearance not unlike it, though. of a more orange colour, and without a stone and very tasteless; the wood

stunted, and so crooked as to be entirely unfit for anything but burning. May it not have been the crabapple? We know there are plenty of apples further north in the same range. Or is it the evergreen beech of Patagonia, described by Captain FitzRoy as bearing the yellow-looking fungi which the Fuegian Indians eat?

Describing the appearance of the Cordillera from the head of the lake, he says: towards the north it looked like a vast table-land stretching from east to west; but it had a different appearance in the south, breaking into steep and broken peaks, for the most part covered with snow. The Indians said that neither to the north nor south was the main chain passable by man or beast for a very long distance.

They all concurred in stating that a large river issued from the south-east angle of the lake, which they believed to be the great river of Santa Cruz.* Viedma, unfortunately, was not able to examine it as he wished, in consequence of the apparent swelling of the mountaintorrents, which alarmed the Indians lest they should so increase the rivers as to prevent their recrossing them on their return; nor were they very wrong, for, by the time they got back to the Chico, they found it a wide and rapid stream, no longer fordable.

It was proposed that some of the Indians who could swim should tow Viedma across on a balsa, which they set to work to construct of hides and sticks; but when completed, it looked so frail and dangerous a ferry, that the Spaniards preferred running the risk of swimming their horses over. This they accomplished without accident, and reached San Julian's in safety again on the 3rd of December, after nearly a month's absence, during which they were much indebted to the Indians for their friendly aid, and knowledge of the country through which they passed.

The people of this tribe, who had never seen a Spaniard before, Viedma describes as of large stature, generally

* Captain FitzRoy went up it, with three whale-boats, for 245 miles, and found it a very considerable river the whole way--never fordable, according to

the accounts he received. He must have been very near the lake when he found himself obliged to turn back from his provisions failing.

142

SAN JULIAN'S ABANDONED.

PART II.

above six feet high, and very stout and fleshy; their faces broad, but of good expression, and their complexion rather sunburnt than naturally dark. Their skin cloaks, worn very long, and reaching when on foot to their heels, gave them an appearance of greater height than the reality. Their habits and customs, according to his account, seem to differ little from those of the Pampa tribes, of which I shall elsewhere have to speak. The men employed themselves in hunting guanacoes and other animals for their skins, and for meat to eat, whilst the women performed all the domestic offices and drudgery of the household, such as it was.

The good disposition uniformly shown by them impressed Viedma with a very favourable opinion of them, forming, as it did, a striking contrast with the character of the tribes further north.

Shortly after this excursion (in April, 1783) Don Antonio, considering his little colony as fairly planted, proceeded to Buenos Ayres for the recovery of his health, where the mortification awaited him of learning that all his labour had been thrown away, and that the Government of Spain had resolved to break up the Patagonian settlements.

It appeared that the great trouble and expense incurred, from the necessity of supplying all their first wants from Buenos Ayres; the grumbling and complaints of the settlers themselves, of the hardships they had to go through, and of the inclemency of a climate to which they were unaccustomed (which, joined to the bad quality of their salt provisions, produced scurvy amongst them to a frightful extent), had all tended to create so unfavourable an impression upon the Viceroy, that he had been led to express a strong opinion to his Government as to their worse than uselessness.

The consequence was, that, after three or four years, in which upwards of a million of hard dollars was spent upon them, orders were sent out to abandon them all, except the settlement upon the Rio Negro, after setting up at San Joseph's, Port Desire, and San Julian's, signals of possession, as the English had done at Port Egmont,

CHAP. XI. WANT OF ENTERPRISE OF THE SPANIARDS. 143

for evidence, in case of need, of his Catholic Majesty's rights.*

Don Antonio Viedma, who took a lively interest in the settlement he had formed at San Julian's, in vain raised his voice against this determination, and endeavoured to show that the grievances of the settlers were but the natural difficulties to be expected in the infancy of all new colonies; that they knew the worst of them, and many of their remedies; that a further experience of the seasons had shown that the lands, so far from being unfit for cultivation, as amongst other things was alleged, were quite sufficiently productive to support them in after years without further aid from Buenos Ayres; and as to the expenses, the heaviest were already incurred; whilst the fisheries alone promised sources of wealth and revenue to the mother country, as well as to the neighbouring viceroyalty. But these arguments met with little attention, and came too late to alter the determination of the higher powers.

The same jealous policy which led the Spanish Government to cause the coast of Patagonia to be surveyed, equally influenced them in withholding from publication the results, which remained carefully hid from all inspection in the archives of the Viceroyalty, though I cannot but think, had the reports even of Viedma himself been given to the world, they would have been the best possible security to his Catholic Majesty against the curiosity or encroachments of foreign nations. Not only did they all tend to show that the coast itself was full of dangers, but they also proved that the interior of the land was, throughout, a sterile and desolate waste, scarce of water

* In 1670 Sir John Narborough passed six months at San Julian's. He also visited Port Desire, and took possession of it, with all due form, for his master, Charles II. Anson was also at both places in 1741; and the account of his voyage contains views of that part of the coast, and of the harbour of San Julian's.

Narborough, who is very precise in his description of the country, mentions a fact of some interest to geologists. He says, Going on shore on the north-west side of the harbour of San Julian's with thirty men, I travelled seven or eight

miles over the hills, &c. On the tops of the hills and in the ground are very large oyster-shells. They lie in veins in the earth and in the firm rocks, and on the sides of the hills in the country. They are the biggest oyster-shells that ever I saw, some six, some seven inches broad, yet not one oyster is to be found in the harbour."

Mr. Darwin found these gigantic oysters at the same place, and describes them as one of the most striking characteristics of the geology of the Patagonian formations.