Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/375

 PATAGONIA 353 Santa Cruz there are frequently lakes or ponds ; they are generally impregnated with common salt, Epsom salts, or some other mineral ingredient, the substance varying from lake to lake without any regularity of distribution (see Bur- meister, La Republique Argentine, vol. ii. (1876) appendix). Certain limited tracts with finer soil and richer vegetation occur, especially in the river -valleys, but the general aspect of the plains is one of sterility and desolation. The most ordinary bushes are the jume (Salicornici) and the calafate (Berleris buxifolia) ; the ashes of the former contain 41 per cent, of soda, and the latter makes excel lent fuel and bears a pleasant bluish-purple berry known to the older English explorers as Magellan s grape. Among the perennial herbs may be named Stronyyloma struthium, Chuquiragas, Aclesmias, Azorellas. The palm-tree men tioned by many travellers as growing on the south coast is really a kind of fern, Lomaria boryana. 1 The guanaco, the puma, the zorro or Canis Azarx (a kind of fox), the zorrino or Mephitis patagonica (a kind of skunk), and the tuco-tuco or Ctenomys magellanicus (a kind of rodent) are the most characteristic mammals of the Patagonian plains. Vast herds of the guanaco roam over the country, and form with the ostrich (Rhea americana, and more rarely Rhea Darwinii) the chief means of sub sistence for the native tribes, who hunt them on horseback with dogs and bolas. Bird-life is often wonderfully abundant. The carrancha or carrion-hawk (Polylorus Tharus) is one of the charac teristic objects of a Patagonian landscape ; the presence of long-tailed green parroquets (Conurus cyanolysim} as far south as the shores of the strait attracted the attention of the earlier navigators ; and humming-birds may be seen flying amidst the falling snow. Of the many kinds of water-fowl it is enough to mention the flamingo, the up land goose, and in the strait the remarkable steamer duck. As the Andes are approached, a great change is observed in the whole condition of the country. The shingle is replaced by porphyry and granite and vast masses of basalt and lava; vegetation becomes luxuriant, majestic trees evergreen beeches, alerces, cipres, araucarias, &c. combined with jungle-like underwood clothing the ravines and hillsides ; and, with the richer plant life, animal life grows more abundant and varied, deer, peccaries, wild cattle, and wild horses 2 finding fitting pasture. The fruit trees planted by the Jesuits in the neighbourhood of Lake Nahuel-Huapi have spread into vast natural orchards, which furnish the local tribes of Araucanians with food and wine, and have given rise to the designation Man- zancros or apple-folk by which they are distinguished. Eastern Patagonia is traversed from west to east by a consider able number of rivers, but few if any can ever be of much use as highways. In their passage seawards they are joined by compara tively few tributaries from the low country ; rain falls seldom, and the water sinks away among the shingle and sand. The Rio Negro, which separates the pampas from Patagonia proper, is formed by the junction of the Neuquen and the Limay. The former collects by numerous channels the drainage of the Andes between 36 25 and 38 40 ; the latter has its main source in the great Nahuel- Huapi Lake, which was discovered in 1690 by Mascardi the Jesuit (whose station on the lake was maintained till 1723), and is reached from Chili by the Bariloche pass, rediscovered by Joije Rohde in 1882. For some distance the Rio Negro is navigable for steamers drawing 12 feet, but only vessels with powerful engines can make head against the current. South of this river there stretches north and south a chain of hills the Yalchita and Uttak range which, lying from 50 to 100 miles from the coast, forms a secondary watershed, draining westward into the plain as well as eastward to the Atlantic. The next great Andean river is the Chubut (Chubat or Chuba, i.e., erosion), which gives its name of 1 See Dr Karl Berg, &quot;Eine Naturhist. Eeise nach Patngonien,&quot; in Petemmnns Mittheilungen, 1875 ; and tlie botanical part of the report of Roca s expedition (resume in Nature, 1884). 2 Hence the name Cordillera de Bajuaks applied to the southern extremitv of the Andes. Chubut Territory to the northern division of Argentine Patagonia, and is well known from the Welsh colonies established in its valley in 1865 by Mr. Lewis Jones. Its northmost affluent rises probably a little south of Nahuel-Huapi, about 41 25, and its southmost between 46 and 47. The latter stream, the Sengel or Senguer (explored by Durnford 1877, Moyano 1880), has this peculiarity, that, before entering the shallow basin of Lake Colguape (Huapi), Colhue, or, as Thomas and Moreno call it, Dillon, the volume of water is so much larger than when it issues again that the Welsh settlers distinguish the lower course of the stream as Sengellen or the Little Sengel. 3 Rio Deseado, which disembogues at Port Desire (Puerto Deseado), well known in the early history of the coast, has its source about 46 42, in the vicinity of a large lake, Buenos Ayres (20 miles long by 14 broad), which lies, however, 600 feet below the level of the river, and consequently has no connexion with it. Of the rivers which unite in the Santa Cruz estuary the Rio Chico (explored by Musters, Moyano, and Lista) and the Chatta or Sheuen (explored by Moyano and Moreno) have little that calls for notice ; but the Santa Cruz is connected with the most remarkable cluster of mountain-lakes in the country. The largest of these is Capar or Viedma Lake (discovered by Yiedma in 1782) ; northward it com municates by a narrow channel with what may be distinguished as Moreno Lake, which again opens into San Martin, and southward it discharges into the very irregular Lago Argentine or Fitzroy Lake (discovered, according to Musters, by an adventurer called Holstein in 1868, and next visited by Fallberg), which in its turn probably has extensive ramifications. From the east end of Lago Argentine issues the rapid current of the Santa Cruz. Round these lakes the moun tains rise with glaciers and snow-fields from 3000 to 3500 feet, and at the north-west end of Viedma stands the active volcano of Chalten. At the time of Moreno s visit in March (the latter part of summer) gigantic icebergs rising 70 feet above the water continued to float about Lago Argentine. With the melting of the snows the river rose rapidly, and by 17th March was 63 feet above its ordinary level. So swift was its current that the explorers sped down the whole length of its course in twenty-four hours, though they had taken a month to ascend. In some parts the rate was at least 15 miles per hour. The Rio Gallegos, the last of the rivers of Patagonia which flow west and east, is comparatively insignificant except during thaw-floods, when it completely interrupts communication by its wide and raging torrent (see Beerbohm s exciting narrative). The eastern coast of Patagonia contrasts strikingly with the western ; hardly an island of any considerable size exists on all the 2000 miles of its development, and it is scooped out into spacious and open gulfs. The peninsula of San Jose or Yaldes to the south of the Gulf of San Matias is quite exceptional. But the whole seaboard offers only one or two safe harbours ; and submerged reefs, strong tides, currents, and overfalls combine to render it highly perilous. Besides El Carmen or Patagones, near the mouth of the Rio Negro, a place of 1690 inhabitants in 1869, there is hardly a permanent settlement of any size from the river to the strait ; but, since the partition between Chili and the Argentine Republic, beginnings of colonization have been made at the more promising points. A notice of the native Patagonians is given in the article IXDIANS (AMERICAN), vol. xii. p. 829 ; and the history of the Araucanian tribes of the Chilian side has been sketched under AMERICA, vol. i. pp. 701-702. History. Patagonia was discovered in 1520 by Magellan, who called the country Tierra de Patagones from the large footsteps observed near his winter quarters at San Julian, and on his passage along the coast named many of the more striking features Bay of San Matias, Bay of Santa Cruz, Cape of 11,000 Yirgins (now simply Cape Virgin or De la Yierge), &c. By 1611 the Patagonian god Setebos (Settaboth in Pigafetta) was familiar to the hearers of the Tempest. Rodrigo de Isla, despatched inland in 1535 from San Matias by Alcazava Sotomayor (on whom western Patagonia had been conferred by the king of Spain), was the first to traverse the great Patagonian plain, and, but for the mutiny of his men, he would have struck across the Andes to the Chilian side. Pedro de Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, lived to found Buenos Ayres, but not to carry his explorations to the south. Camargo (1539), Ladrilleros (1557), Hurtado de Mendoza, and Ercilla (1558) helped to make known the western coasts, and Drake s voyage in 1577 down the eastern coast through the strait and northward by Chili and Peru was memorable for several reasons ; but the geography of Patagonia owes more to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who, devoting himself especially to the south west region, made such careful and accurate surveys that from twenty to thirty of the names which he affixed still appear in maps (Kohl). The settlements which he founded at Nombre de Dios and San Felipe were neglected by the Spanish Government, and the latter was in such a miserable state when Thomas Cavendish visited it in 1587 that he called it Port Famine. The district in the neighbourhood of Port Desire, explored by John Davis about 3 See Durnfovd s account in The Field, 23d and 30th Dec. 1882, and Proc. llmi. Ocugr. Si&amp;gt;c., 1883. XVIII. 45