6,000 Tons of Gold. Henry Richardson Chamberlain
century ago their numbers were probably almost ten times as great. Casimiro lamented the growth of the white colonies, denounced indiscriminately the traders and the missionaries who had come among his people, and predicted gloomily the speedy extinction of his race. I sympathized with him and tried to convince him that there was good as well as bad in the civilization which he denounced.
“Finally a bit of adventure gave me a stronger hold upon the old chief’s regard. We had been wandering one afternoon last April through a very rough, half-wooded valley some miles inland. Making our way along the side of a steep declivity, we came to a spot where there had been a recent landslide. I stopped to examine what I thought were traces of gold in the fresh surface. Casimiro, picking his way some yards in advance of me, started somehow another movement of the loose earth and stones. He was swept off his feet in a moment, and before I realized what had happened I saw him whirled over and over in a great mass of débris toward the bottom of the defile more than a hundred yards below. I gave him up for lost, but about a third of the distance from the bottom, before the descent became almost perpendicular, was a large jutting rock, which divided the small avalanche, and the old man managed to catch and cling to it.
“Of course I went to his assistance. It was a matter of great difficulty to reach him. There was danger of starting fresh slides which would sweep us both away and it was not easy to get a footing in the insecure earth. Two or three times I slipped a few feet, but by digging toes and fingers into the hillside I checked myself with no worse damage than a few scratches. The old Indian was badly shaken and bruised but he seemed to have no bones broken. I got him into a more comfortable position on the rock and in a few minutes his strength came back, so that with a little help from me he was finally able to scramble up the steep slope to an easier angle where we could stand on our feet again and make our way to sound earth.
“Well, the old man persisted in making a hero of me for my part in the incident and declared I had saved his life. Two or three days later, he came to the settlement and invited me to go with him to one of the principal native villages where he declared he wished to ‘make a big talk’ with me and intrust to me a great secret. I made up my mind, principally on account of his solemn manner, that he really had something more important on hand than a native celebration of his deliverance from the landslide and so I decided to go with him. It was nearly a week’s journey on foot and horseback to the west. When I arrived, I was invited to attend a council of four caciques, Waki, Orkeke, Cuastro, and Casimiro. They had met, the old chief explained to me, to consider a great difficulty and peril which threatened the tribe. They needed a white man’s advice and assistance. He had in his intercourse with me for several weeks been testing my knowledge, my judgment, and my good faith. The adventure of the avalanche had completed my establishment in his confidence. I did not feel particularly complimented by this expression of their esteem until they had described their problem. Then you will readily believe, I was dumfounded.
“Casimiro as spokesman told the story. There existed, he said, at a secret spot in a spur of the Cordilleras within the tribe’s domain a vast store of native gold. ‘How much?’ I inquired in astonishment. ‘More, much more, than a thousand mules could carry,’ the chief declared solemnly. ‘But you mean ore, rock or sand with specks of gold in it,’ I said to him in Spanish, thinking I had misunderstood. ‘No,’ he replied, and going to a corner of the hut in which we were sitting, he produced presently a small bag of skin. He opened it and poured upon the floor in front of me a heap of yellow dust and nuggets—the purest virgin gold I had ever seen. ‘All like that,’ the old man remarked laconically. I was too amazed to speak. I put out my hand and took up a handful from the shining pile. There was no doubt about it. It was perfectly genuine—worth really four sovereigns an ounce, every speck of it. Then I looked from one to another of the four chiefs. They were watching me stoically.
“‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked finally.
“‘Take the gold away from our country,’ was Casimiro’s answer; whereat my surprise was so great that I must have shown signs of approaching idiocy. The four chiefs talked rapidly for a few moments in their own tongue, but I was too dazed to try to understand what they said. Involuntarily I was calculating roughly the amount of the treasure they had described. A mule-load I knew was about two hundredweight. Could there be two hundred thousand pounds, equivalent to twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling, or sixty millions of your American dollars, in this Patagonian treasure-bed? Presently Casimiro explained himself more clearly. What he said amounted to this:
“‘My people have long known of this gold which you white men love, fight for, suffer for, and die for. It is of no use to my people. It neither feeds them nor clothes them. The traders tell us they will give us food and clothing and much whisky for it. We know better. If they discover we have it, they will come with many soldiers and seize our country and drive us out and kill us. The white man knows no mercy in seeking gold. We have tried to cover it up and keep it secret. We fear we have been betrayed. Two or three times in recent moons white men have penetrated near to its hiding-place. The first seeker met his death, the second likewise. But more are coming. Our people are in peril. We must save them. We love our country, we love our simple life. We want none of your civilization, none of its cruelties, its vices, its death. With this gold tempting the white multitude, we shall become as chaff before the wind in front of you. So we say, Take the gold. We have nothing else to excite your cupidity, take it and let us live in peace.’
“I was fairly humiliated, lad, before that grand old savage. His words were simple; they were not spoken in anger. Yet he stood there melancholy, powerless before a relentless fate, looking fearlessly into a future full of peril for his people. There was something sublime in the dignity of the old Patagonian that I had never seen in any other man and for a moment I felt almost like going down in the dust before him. He came back presently to his usual mood and noticing, I suppose, my shamefacedness he assured me I was by no means included in the denunciation into which the contemplation of his people’s wrongs had led him. A renegade member of the tribe, it appeared, was held responsible for the betrayal of the secret. They asked me if I thought they had determined upon the right course to pursue. I told them they would be foolish to let such a vast treasure go without providing for certain lasting benefits to themselves in return. They might easily make themselves free of the traders, and secure all necessary annual supplies including harmless luxuries, besides providing for the practical exclusion of the white man’s liquor, which was already becoming a grave evil among them.
“They all seemed to think the suggestion a good one. When they had discussed it for a little while among themselves, Casimiro finally made me this proposition: His brother chiefs, he said, wished to make a test of my good faith. They would deliver into my hands at the Rio Negro settlement a small mule-load of gold. This I was to take to my own country and spend on behalf of the tribe in the purchase of arms, ammunition, supplies of various kinds, and necessary tools, receptacles, etc., for the gathering and transportation of the treasure. I should bring these things in a ship to Rio Negro and meet Casimiro at a point near the settlement fourteen days previous to the longest day of the coming summer, which will be the sixth of December, two months hence. Casimiro would then accompany me on the ship to a point on the coast farther south and nearer to the location of the treasure. If I failed to appear on the day appointed our treaty would be at an end. Of course I agreed. I received about one hundred and fifty pounds of gold-dust ten days later and immediately sailed for Buenos Ayres. I did not dare dispose of any considerable quantity of native gold here, for I am pretty well known and the location of my wanderings in the South was also known. Besides I wished to make a large portion of my purchases elsewhere in order to avoid exciting suspicion. So I sailed to England where I arrived early in August, turned my gold into money, bought all my supplies except food-stuffs, and now here I am laid up with a broken leg with none too great margin of time to keep my appointment with Casimiro in December.
“So you see, my lad, I am compelled to seek assistance. If I were well it would probably be impossible to charter a suitable sailing craft, do all that must be done here in buying, fitting, and other preparations, and sail before the end of the month. The five weeks remaining would be none too much for the uncertainties of such a voyage in a small ship. Now you know practically as much about this strange venture as I do. I have money enough left for the trip to Rio Negro and back besides