Gradually, as we got nearer and nearer to the sea, the landscape underwent a change. Instead of being flat it became gently undulating, and here and there the wind had rasped away the topsoil and exposed large areas of yellow and rust-red gravel, like sores on the furry pelt of the land. These small desert-like areas seemed to be favoured by that curious animal, the Patagonian hare, for it was always on these brilliant expanses of gravel that we found them, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in small groups of three or four. They were strange creatures, that looked as though they had been put together rather carelessly. They had blunt, rather hare-like faces, small, neat, rabbit-shaped ears, neat forequarters with slender forelegs. But the hindquarters were large and muscular in comparison, with powerful hind-legs. The most attractive part of their anatomy was their eyes, which were large, dark and lustrous, with a thick fringe of eyelashes. They would lie on the gravel, sunning themselves gazing aristocratically down their blunt noses, looking like miniature Trafalgar Square lions.[89] They would let us approach fairly close, and then suddenly their long lashes would droop over their eyes seductively, and with amazing speed they would bounce into a sitting position. They would turn their heads and gaze at us for one brief moment, and then they would launch themselves at the heat-shimmered horizon in a series of gigantic bounding leaps, as if they were on springs, the black and white pattern on their behinds showing up like a retreating target.
Presently, towards evening, the sun sank lower and in its slanting rays the landscape took on new colours. The low growth of thorn scrub became purple, magenta[90] and brown, and the areas of gravel were splashed with scarlet, rust, white and yellow. As we scrunched our way[91] across one such multi-coloured area of gravel we noticed a black blob in the exact centre of the expanse, and driving closer to it we discovered it was a huge tortoise, heaving himself over the hot terrain with the grim determination of a. glacier. We stopped and picked him up, and the reptile, horrified by such an unexpected meeting, urinated copiously. Where he could have found, in that desiccated land, sufficient moisture to produce this lavish defensive display was a mystery. However, we christened him Ethelbert, put him in the back of the Land-Rover and drove on.
Presently, in the setting sun, the landscape heaved itself up into a series of gentle undulations, and we switch-backed[92] over the last of these and out on to what at first looked like the level bed of an ancient lake. It lay encircled by a ring of low hills, and was, in fact, a sort of miniature dust-bowl created by the wind, which had carried the sand from the shore behind the hills and deposited it here in a thick, choking layer that had killed off the vegetation. As we roared across this flat area, spreading a fan of white dust behind us, we saw, in the lee of the further hills, a cluster of green trees, the first we had seen since leaving Deseado. As we drew nearer we could see that this little oasis of trees was surrounded by a neat white fence, and in the centre, sheltered by the trees, stood a neat wooden house, gaily painted in bright blue and white.
Huichi's two peons[93] came to meet us, two wild-looking characters dressed in bombachas[94] and tattered shirts, with long black hair and dark, flashing eyes. They helped us unload our gear and carry it into the house, and then, while we unpacked and washed, they went with Huichi to kill a sheep and prepare an asado[95] in our honour. At the bottom of the slope on which the house was built, Huichi had prepared a special asado ground. An asado needs a fierce fire, and with the biting and continuous wind that blew in Patagonia you had to be careful unless you wanted to see your entire fire suddenly lifted into the air and blown away to set fire to the tinder-dry scrub for miles around. In order to guard against this Huichi had planted, at the bottom of the hill, a great square of cypress trees. These had been allowed to grow up to a height of some twelve feet, and had then had their tops lopped off, with the result that they had grown very bushy. They had been planted so close together in the first place that now their branches entwined, and formed an almost impenetrable hedge. Then Huichi had carved a narrow passage-way into the centre of this box of cypress, and had there chopped out a room, some twenty feet by twelve. This was the asado room, for, protected by the thick walls of cypress, you could light a fire without danger.
By the time we had washed and changed, and the sheep had been killed and stripped, it was dark; we made our way down to the asado room, where one of the peons had already kindled an immense fire. Near it a great stake had been stuck upright in the ground, on this a whole sheep, split open like an oyster, had been spitted. We lay on the ground around the fire and drank red wine while waiting for our meal to cook.
I have been to many asados in the Argentines, but that first one at Huichi's estancia will always remain in my mind as the most perfect. The wonderful smell of burning brushwood, mingling with the smell of roasting meat, the pink and orange tongues of flame lighting up the green cypress walls of the shelter, and the sound of the wind battering ferociously against these walls and then dying to a soft sigh as it became entangled and sapped of its strength in the mesh of branches, and above us the night sky, trembling with stars, lit by a fragile chip of moon. To gulp a mouthful of soft, warm red wine, and then to lean forward and slice a fragrant chip of meat from the brown, bubbling carcase in front of you, dunk it in the fierce sauce of vinegar, garlic and red pepper, and then stuff it, nut-sweet and juicy, into your mouth, seemed one of the most satisfying actions of my life.
Presently, when our attacks on the carcase became more desultory, Huichi took a gulp of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and beamed at me across the red, pulsating embers of the fire, lying like a great sunset on the ground.
"Manana,"[96] he said, smiling, "we go to the pinguinos?"
"Si, si" I responded sleepily, leaning forward in sheer greed to detach another strip of crackling skin from the cooling remains of the sheep, "manana the pinguinos."
Chapter Two
A SEA OF HEADWAITERS[97]
It was a brave bird; and till reaching the sea, it regularly fought and drove me backwards.
89
Trafalgar Square lions – the four bronze figures of lions, which lie with their heads thrown back, and fore paws stretched out, decorating the corners of the quadrangular base of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square, London
91
scrunched our way – made our way noisily grinding the gravel under the wheels of the car (cf. note to p. 20)
93
peon ['pi:on] – in Mexico and Spanish South America, a laborer, especially one working to pay off a debt
97
headwaiter – chief waiter at a restaurant, generally wearing a black suit and a snow-white shirt-front; the author compares penguins to head waiters because of their coloring, and also because of their peculiar shuffling gait