Taken as a whole the Indians of Uruguay are—and have ever been—a brave but peace-loving people, engaged principally in sheep and cattle-rearing. No doubt the mildness of their character and pursuits is largely due to considerations which are purely geographical; for the sea and the Uruguay River together make the country almost an island, to which the Argentine and Brazilian Indians would never venture to penetrate. Further, there are—apart from the native cattle—no large or fierce wild animals.

The latter fact is by no means generally known; and ignorance, or doubt of it, led the late Thomas Woodbine Hinchcliff to take a trip across from Buenos Ayres to the little state in the hope of finding jaguars, pumas, or other animals more worthy of a sportsman’s gun than those which he had seen round about Buenos Ayres.

Mr. Hinchcliff was a London barrister, but is better remembered as the first president of the Alpine Club, and the man who did more than any of his contemporaries to popularise mountaineering. In 1861, while touring in South America, he went ashore from 317 a Uruguay River steamer, quite alone and with only provisions for a couple of days, determined to explore one of the mountain forests, and, if possible, to reach San JosÉ, the largest of the inland towns.

A fourteen-mile walk across a well-wooded plain brought him in sight of a Gaucho farmstead, where he was made very welcome and persuaded to stay the night; and it was here that he learned the futility of attempting to find any big game shooting in the country, and that there was nothing special to see at San JosÉ.

In consequence, he altered his course in the morning, making direct for the most accessible of the mountain forests, and, arrived here, he wandered about with the ecstasy of a man who has discovered an earthly paradise. It was the Amazon forest over again, with all its beauties and advantages and none of its drawbacks; a climate similar to that of Algiers, a wealth of fruit and flowers and streams and birds; and no deadly swamps, no suffocating heat, no jaguars or alligators, and apparently no snakes. He made his dinner of fruit and continued his wanderings, with a result that he might well have foreseen: when night came, he was utterly lost. He slept sweetly enough, however, under a tree, and after a hearty breakfast, continued his wanderings.

By evening he came to an outlet, and found himself on an undulating grass plain, but, as no habitation was in sight, he finished his provisions and philosophically resigned himself to another night in the fresh air.

He awoke early, conscious of two things; the one that he was hungry, the other that a beast whose like 318 he had never seen, in or out of a show, was gravely inspecting him from a distance of a few feet. Was it a bull, or a bison, or a nightmare? Without question it had the body of a bull, but the face was far more like that of a bull-dog, for the nostrils were placed high up, and the lower jaw protruded in such a fashion, that the teeth showed ferociously, whether the mouth was closed or open.

He reached for his gun, which he had laid ready loaded on going to bed; the beast looked well capable of goring or trampling him to death at less than a minute’s notice. But even while, half sitting, half lying, he took aim for the creature’s eye, a general lowing sounded from farther down the hill, and the bull turned and ran swiftly down the slope. The bewildered Englishman arose and was now able to learn the cause of the lowing. A dozen mounted Indians were in the valley, their horses standing motionless, while two more, approaching from the left and right sides of the hill, were seeking to frighten a small herd of the remarkable-looking animals into the valley. The bull, no doubt the recognised protector of his tribe, whom curiosity had betrayed into a momentary neglect of duty, had heard the bellowings of alarm, and was hastening to the defence of his kindred.

But even as he charged wrathfully down the hill, the nearer of the Indians made a motion with his arm, and he fell with a crash that was distinctly audible to the spectator above; while the second Indian, spurring his horse and bawling at the top of his voice, rode straight at the retreating cattle; these, of course, 319 became panic-stricken and ran helter-skelter down towards the spot where the unruffled horsemen were awaiting them with lassoes. From his vantage ground, Hinchcliff watched the proceedings with breathless interest. For a minute or so a whole maze of lassoes showed against the background of the next slope, curling and twirling; then the herd fled, some right, some left; some to rush away out of sight, others to be pulled up in mid-career by the fatal thong that had been deftly thrown over their horns; and so suddenly and sharply, that in most cases they fell to the ground.

The Englishman walked quickly towards his particular bull, which lay roaring piteously, but the animal was up again before he could reach him; the Indian had dismounted, slipped a noose over the roarer’s head, and untwisted from his forelegs what Hinchcliff at once recognised as a bolas—three thongs of equal length, the upper ends joined, the lower loose, and each terminating in a ball of metal or heavy wood.

The redskin, whose only garment was a pair of loose-fitting trousers made of deer-skin, looked inquisitively at the stranger and gave him a respectful “good morning” in Spanish; adding to the bull, which was beginning to toss his head and stamp, “Useless, old friend; useless; we have coveted you this many a day,” and even while he spoke he vaulted across his horse and started away at a breakneck speed, dragging his captive after him, willy-nilly.

By the time the pedestrian reached the valley, the prisoners seemed to have become sullenly reconciled 320 to their fate, for they were making no attempt to struggle, and some had even begun to crop the grass at their feet, leaving their captors free to inspect the stranger. Hinchcliff told them, in Spanish, that he had lost his way and wanted some breakfast.

“It is many miles to our town,” said the young man who had caught the disturber of his peace; “but we shall breakfast here when we have made our cattle fast. You are welcome to share our food.”

His companions echoed the invitation, and, the cattle being secured to the neighbouring trees, the Indians seated themselves by a pool and shared their breakfast of chocolate-cake, bread and beef with their guest, who now began to notice the queer bulls and cows more closely. The hind legs were markedly longer than the front ones, and, whenever they moved, they seemed to be looking for pasture, for they persistently kept their heads low and their necks sloping.

“We call them niata,” was the reply to a question of his. “The best and youngest will be kept for breeding; the rest will be slaughtered for carne seca.”

Carne seca, the very meat to which the hungry Englishman was doing such abundant justice, is beef dried in the sun; and for the last fifty years, Uruguay has been exporting immense quantities of it all over South America. The niata cattle are peculiar to Uruguay and La Plata, and are probably the only kind indigenous to South America.

When breakfast was finished, the question naturally arose, whither did the seÑor wish to be guided? In point of fact, the seÑor had seen quite enough of the woods and hills for one while, and lost no time in 321 making up his mind that he would like to visit their village, provided there was some means of riding there.

One of the Indians pointed to his horse.

“Neither of us is very heavy; you can ride behind me. If you hold by my waistband you will be perfectly safe.”

It was a method of locomotion new to the explorer; but now that the morning was growing warm and he was away from the shade of the forest, it would be decidedly preferable to walking; and he meekly mounted behind this good Samaritan.

At starting, the cattle became obstinate for a while; but superior force and intelligence prevailed; the horses were not the deplorable scarecrows of the Argentine, but stout, well-fed animals, that understood the business of catching and driving refractory bulls as well as their masters; and they closed in on the niata, hustling them with knees and shoulders, till they were glad enough to walk in sober fashion. All the same, the journey to the Indian town was not to be entirely void of adventure. Outside the village was a stream some forty feet wide, deep, but easily fordable in some places; and this would have to be crossed.

“We always swim our horses across,” said Hinchcliff’s companion; “but if we have cattle with us, it is safer to go a little out of our way to this ford. Why, good Lord! only last year one of our men was killed—cut nearly in halves, if the seÑor will believe me—through a bull hanging back on the bank after his horse had started to swim. The horse took fright, 322 and backed so that the man got the lasso drawn round him and—Bah!”

Cattle and horses plunged into the water and all landed safely on the other side without more ado, except the horse that carried the two men. Whether it was that he was less used to the water, or was merely restive at the unaccustomed weight, it was impossible to say; but, when he was about a fifth of the way across, he stopped and began to kick; and the Englishman, with the gruesome story of the man who was sawn through by a lasso still in his mind, felt that he was in no enviable position.

“Sit tight, SeÑor,” shouted the Indian, putting the bridle into his hand and jumping down so suddenly, that Hinchcliff had barely time to clutch at the saddle and steady himself.

“Keep his head straight; don’t let him jib.” Then water began to splash liberally in the face of the disobedient horse, which immediately plunged forward, stopping whenever the splashing ceased. The Englishman could not refrain from throwing an inquiring glance over his shoulder, and then he was very much tempted to burst out laughing; for the Indian, up to his shoulders in water, was grasping the animal’s tail with one hand, and beating the water into his face with the other. And so, with much patience, horse and rider and helmsman landed on the other bank.

The town, its inhabitants and their actions, were very much what Hinchcliff had seen in Brazil and the Argentine; very orderly and simple and not too cleanly. The people refused to take any money for 323 their hospitality, and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded the chief, on bidding him good-bye the next day, to accept a small sum to hold in trust for any one of his subjects who might happen to be in want. The truth is, that where they have not been demoralised by white people, savage tribes are usually simple enough in their habits; none of them is ever in want, and poverty, as understood in civilised countries, is almost unknown. A man works (or, more properly speaking, makes his wife work) not for a fixed sum, but for the necessaries of life merely; and the Indian tribes, whether of North or South, have little of the insatiable cupidity of the Asiatic or the negro.

After a night in the village, Hinchcliff set out to find his way back to the river by a different route, avoiding the woods and endeavouring to follow a faintly-marked horse-track over the grassy hills. This procedure nearly led him into a difficulty far more serious than that of losing his way in a luxuriant forest, for he missed his road and got on to one where there was no sign of a stream, and where the pools had nothing but dry mud to offer him, so that he went all the afternoon and night without tasting a drop of water. He woke before daybreak, almost delirious, and set off at the best pace he could contrive for some low-lying land, which he had failed to notice overnight.

All at once a strongly built Indian started up from the ground fifty yards in front of him, and, after one look at him, began to flee down the hill.

“Stop! I want you; I want water,” shouted Hinchcliff.

The fleeing figure turned its head as though straining to catch the words, but still ran on. Then the thirsting man grew desperate, and, determined to make the man help him to find water, raised his gun and pretended to take aim at him. Immediately the fugitive stopped.

“Water!” shouted Hinchcliff. “I have lost my way, and am dying of thirst.”

The Indian appeared to reflect for a moment, and at last made towards his pursuer, disengaging a large water-gourd from his belt as he walked.

“What made you run away?” panted the Englishman, when he had emptied the gourd at one draught.

“I saw your gun and I was frightened. We do not like firearms, SeÑor; and here in the lowlands we seldom see white men.—You have lost your way, you say?”

“Yes; I want to reach the river.”

“I am going that way and will show you it; it is but a few miles. But first, with your permission, I will finish what I was doing when I caught sight of you.”

He sat down, and from a round wooden box, began to cover his fingers liberally with a lard-like substance which he proceeded to rub over his face, shoulders, breast, arms, and waist.

“I have been much indoors, lately; sick,” he explained; “and the insects trouble me greatly. They will not sting through this ointment. Some of our more ignorant people use mud instead; but I—I have lived in towns at times; I am more learned.”

The Indian was, in truth, a very intelligent man, 325 and Hinchcliff found him a most interesting companion. He soon discovered a stream where they could drink their fill; he asked questions about the weapons that had frightened him so much, and even so far overcame his fear of firearms as to offer to carry the gun a little way; an offer that was declined with thanks. When the wonderful instrument brought down a fine young ostrich for dinner, the unsophisticated fellow actually put his lips to the barrel. Quick to turn his hand to any open-air work, he plucked and cleaned the bird and collected sticks and dry pampas grass for the fire; whereupon another surprise awaited him; for Hinchcliff was growing very short of matches, and was in the habit of economising them by using a burning-glass for lighting his pipe and his fire. And this was the only occasion on which an Indian ever asked him for anything, even indirectly; on receiving a hint that his companion would give the world to possess such a wonderworking implement, he handed it to him readily enough; for, if necessary, he could easily use one of the lenses of his field-glass for getting a light.

Shortly before sunset, as the two trudged along towards the river, which had long been in sight, the Indian, after a sudden glance behind him, set off at a sharp run, making for a tiny valley that opened between the hills on his left.

“Now what?” shouted the astonished Englishman. As he turned to look back, the sound of approaching horses caught his ear, and he saw an Indian and three Gauchos riding at full speed, followed closely by a man who rode like a European. They wheeled for the 326 valley at once, and reached it long before the fleeing Indian, who turned back shrieking towards Hinchcliff.

“Shoot, SeÑor; for the love of all the Saints; shoot them dead; they are bad men,” he gasped in an agonised voice.

This was rather a large call on a man who came from a country where to shoot people is a capital crime; but the piteous appeal for help in the fugitive’s face was irresistible. If an Englishman is averse to taking pot-shots at strangers, he is generally quite as loth to see the weaker side go to the wall. While he was asking himself what was the best thing to do, the foremost Gaucho made a sudden motion with his arm, the noose of a lasso dropped over the Indian’s head, and he was jerked over on to his back. At sight of the bulging eyes of the half-strangled victim, Hinchcliff pulled out his knife and was about to slash the thong through, when the second Gaucho, springing to the ground, flung himself in the way and presented a pistol.

“We are acting under orders,” he said. “Be careful what you do.—All right; loose him and tie his hands, Juan.”

“You are sure that’s your man?” asked the European stranger, hurrying up. He had spoken in such execrable Spanish, that Hinchcliff said unceremoniously:

“Englishman, aren’t you?”

“Yes; I am British vice-consul for this district. Question for question—is this a friend of yours?”

“No; merely a paid guide; but——”

“Then you don’t know that he is the cleverest 327 thief and prison-breaker in Uruguay, if what these fellows say is true. I only met them by accident a little higher up; but I know it’s a fact that an Indian prisoner broke loose from San JosÉ gaol the other day.”

“There’s no mistaking him,” said the man who was binding the prisoner. “But let the tracker decide.” (A “tracker” is an Indian who hires himself out as a sort of blood-hound, to catch horse-thieves, stray cattle, etc.) “He knows him well enough.”

No mistake had been made; the simple—but teachable—Indian was the man who was wanted; and a most respectable barrister of the Inner Temple had spent a whole day chatting affably with a notorious criminal, who would assuredly have robbed him of his gun and money had the opportunity arisen.