The Guide of the Desert. Gustave Aimard
the long sufferings which I had endured, and from the privations of all kinds to which I had, during so long a period, been condemned; but, thanks to the attention by which I was surrounded, and especially thanks to my youth and the vigour of my constitution, I at last regained my health.
The governor of Carmen, who had become much interested in me, agreed at my request to give me a passage on board a little Buenos Airean brig, then anchored before the port, and I left for Buenos Aires, with the firm intention of returning to France as soon as possible—so much had the rude apprenticeship I had had to American life disgusted me with travel.
But it was not to be so, and before again reaching France—I was to wander for twenty years an adventurer in all the countries of the world—from Cape Horn to Hudson's Bay, from China to Oceania, and from India to Spitzburg.
On my arrival in Buenos Aires, my first care was to present myself to the French consul, to ask of him the means of returning to Europe.
I was well received by the consul, who, on proofs of my identity, immediately informed me that there was no French ship in the harbour, but that need not disquiet me, since my family not receiving news of me, and fearing that I might find myself in a difficult position from the want of money, if any misfortune had happened to me during my voyage, had written to all our agents in foreign countries, so that anyone to whom I might present myself might give me, on my demand, a sum adequate to supply my wants, and put me in a position, if I wished it, to try my fortune where chance should have conducted me. He concluded by adding that he held at my disposal the sum of 25,000f., and that he was ready to give it me immediately.
I thanked him, and only accepted three hundred piastres.
Some months passed, during which I made several agreeable acquaintances, and perfected myself in the study of the Spanish language.
On several occasions the consul had done me the kindness to inform me that if I wished to leave for France, it would entirely depend upon my own will; but each time, under some pretext or other. I declined his offer, not being able to resolve to leave forever that land where I had suffered so much, and to which, for that very reason, I was attached.
It is not with impunity that one has once tasted the wild pleasures of independent, nomadic life, and breathed in liberty the embalmed atmosphere of the high savannahs! I felt arising within me the passion of an adventurer, and suffered a secret horror at the thought of recommencing the colourless, circumscribed, and mean existence to which European civilisation would have bound me.
And then I had bound myself in friendship with the gauchos. I made excursions with them into the pampas, slept in their ranches, hunted wild oxen and horses; all the poetry of the desert had taken possession of me, and I only wished to return into the savannahs and virgin forests, whatever might be the consequences to me of such a determination.
In a word, one day, instead of embarking, as I had almost promised the consul, I went to him, and explained my intentions.
The consul neither blamed me, nor gave me his approbation, but contented himself with shaking his head with the melancholy smile of a man in whom experience had killed all the illusions of youth, counted out to me the sum I asked of him, shook my hand with a sigh of regret and of pity, and, my business being at an end, I never saw him again.
Four days later, mounted on an excellent wild horse, and accompanied by an Indian Guaranis, whom I had engaged to serve me as a guide, I left Buenos Aires with the intention of proceeding by land to Brazil.
What business had I at Brazil?
I myself did not know.
But it is neither my history, nor that of my sensations, that I relate here; all which precedes has no other design but that of preparing for the recital, unhappily too true, that I now undertake, and which, without that prelude, would not perhaps have been so clearly explained as is necessary to its being clearly understood. Leaping, then, at a single bound, over some hunting adventures of too little importance to mention, I will transport myself to the banks of the Uruguay, a little above the Salto, four months after my departure from Buenos Aires, and I will enter immediately on the narrative.
After a rather fatiguing day, I stopped for the night in a pagonal, half-inundated by reason of the sudden overflowing of the river, and where it was necessary to go into the water nearly up to the horse's belly, in order to gain a dry spot. For some days the Guaranis, whom I had engaged at Buenos Aires, appeared to obey me with repugnance; he was sad, morose, and answered only in monosyllables the questions I was sometimes obliged to put to him. This turn of mind in my guide disquieted me, as, knowing very well the character of the Indians, I feared he might plot some treason against me; therefore, feigning not to perceive his change of humour, I kept myself on my guard, resolved to blow his brains out at the least hostile demonstration on his part.
As soon as we were encamped, the guide, notwithstanding the suspicions I had conceived of him, manifested great activity in gathering dry wood to light the fire for the evening, and to prepare our modest repast.
The supper over, each enveloped himself in his blanket, and gave himself up to repose.
In the middle of the night I was suddenly awakened by a strange noise; my first movement was to seize my gun, and to look around me.
I was alone; my guide had disappeared.
The night was dark, the fire extinguished; to complete my discomfiture, my bivouac was about to be invaded by the waters of the river, the overflowing of which continued with extreme rapidity.
I had not a moment to lose. I rose in haste, and leaping into the saddle, I darted, with a loose rein, in the direction of a neighbouring hill, the black outline of which was clearly marked on the sombre background of the sky.
Here I was in comparative security. I passed the rest of the night awake, as well to watch for the wild beasts, the howlings of which I heard about the place where I had sought a refuge, as because my present position had become critical—alone, abandoned in a desert country, and completely ignorant of the route it was necessary to take.
On the rising of the sun, I examined the horizon around. As far as my view could reach, reigned the most complete solitude; nothing gave me ground for hope, so wild and desolate appeared the landscape.
This uncertainty, however, from a singular disposition of mind, did not seriously affect me; my position, without being pleasant, had nothing in it positively sad in itself. I possessed a good horse, arms, supplies in abundance—what more could I desire? I, who for so long a time had aspired to the adventurous life of the gaucho and of the trapper?
Accordingly I took in good part the desertion of my guide, and prepared myself, half laughing, half railing against the ingratitude of the Guaranis, to commence my apprenticeship to the life of the desert.
My first care was to light a fire. I prepared a maté cimarron, that is to say, without sugar; and, refreshed by this warm drink, I mounted my horse, with the design of seeking my breakfast by killing a head or two of game, an easy thing in the locality in which I found myself; then I carelessly resumed my adventurous route.
Some days thus passed. One morning, at the moment when I was preparing to light, or rather to rekindle, my bivouac fire to cook my breakfast, I suddenly saw several venados rise from the midst of the high grass, and, after having sniffed the wind, scamper away with extreme rapidity, passing at a pistol shot from the thicket where I had established myself for the night; at the same instant a flight of vultures passed above my head, uttering discordant cries.
Novice as I still was in my new occupation, I instinctively understood that something extraordinary was passing not far from me.
I made my horse lie down, tied my girdle round his nostrils to prevent him neighing, and stretching myself on the ground, I waited with my finger on the trigger of my gun, my heart palpitating, and eye and ear on the watch. Carefully scanning the undulations of the high grass of the plain stretched out before me, I was ready for every event.
I was crouching in the middle of a nearly impenetrable thicket. On the outskirts of a wood which formed