Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco, Page 3

  CHAPTER THREE.

  THE HUNTER-NATURALIST.

  In some respects similar to the experience of Aime Bonpland was that ofLudwig Halberger. Like the former, an ardent lover of Nature, as alsoan accomplished naturalist, he too had selected South America as thescene of his favourite pursuits. On the great river Parana--better,though erroneously, known to Europeans as the La Plata--he would find analmost untrodden field. For although the Spanish naturalist, Azara, hadthere preceded him, the researches of the latter were of the olden time,and crude imperfect kind, before either zoology or botany had developedthemselves into a science.

  Besides, the Prussian was moderately fond of the chase, and to such aman the great _pampas_ region, with its pumas and jaguars, itsostriches, wild horses, and grand _guazuti_ stags, offered anirresistible attraction. There he could not only indulge his naturaltaste, but luxuriate in them.

  He, too, had resided nine years in Paraguay, and something more. But,unlike Bonpland, his residence there was voluntary. Nor did he livealone. Lover of Nature though he was, and addicted to the chase,another kind of love found its way to his heart, making himself acaptive. The dark eyes of a Paraguayan girl penetrated his breast,seeming brighter to him than the plumage of the gaudiest birds, or thewings of the most beautiful butterflies.

  "_El Gilero_" the blonde--as these swarthy complexioned people were wontto call the Teutonic stranger--found favour in the eyes of the youngParaguayense, who reciprocating his honest love, consented to become hiswife; and became it. She was married at the age of fourteen, he beingover twenty.

  "So young for a bride!" many of my readers will exclaim. But that israther a question of race and climate. In Spanish America, land offeminine precocity, there is many a wife and mother not yet entered onher teens!

  For nigh ten years Halberger lived happily with his youthful _esposa_;all the happier that in due time a son and daughter--the formerresembling himself, the latter a very image of her mother--enlivenedtheir home with sweet infantine prattle. And as the years rolled by, athird youngster came to form part of the family circle--this neither sonnor daughter, but an orphan child of the Senora's sister deceased. Aboy he was, by name Cypriano.

  The home of the hunter-naturalist was not in Assuncion, but some twentymiles out in the "_campo_." He rarely visited the capital, except onmatters of business. For a business he had; this of somewhat unusualcharacter. It consisted chiefly in the produce of his gun andinsect-net. Many a rare specimen of bird and quadruped, butterfly andbeetle, captured and preserved by Ludwig Halberger, at this day adornsthe public museums of Prussia and other European countries. But for thedispatch and shipment of these he would never have cared to show himselfin the streets of Assuncion; for, like all true naturalists, he had noaffection for city life. Assuncion, however, being the only shippingport in Paraguay, he had no choice but repair thither whenever hiscollections became large enough to call for exportation.

  Beginning life in South America with moderate means, the Prussiannaturalist had prospered: so much, as to have a handsome house, with atract of land attached, and a fair retinue of servants; these last, all"Guanos," a tribe of Indians long since tamed and domesticated. He hadbeen fortunate, also, in securing the services of a _gaucho_, namedGaspar, a faithful fellow, skilled in many callings, who acted as his_mayor-domo_ and man of confidence.

  In truth, was Ludwig Halberger in the enjoyment of a happy existence,and eminently prosperous. Like Aime Bonpland, he was fairly on the roadto fortune; when, just as with the latter, a cloud overshadowed hislife, coming from the self-same quarter. His wife, lovely at fourteen,was still beautiful at twenty-four, so much as to attract the notice ofParaguay's Dictator. And with Dr Francia to covet was to possess,where the thing coveted belonged to any of his own subjects. Aware ofthis, warned also of Francia's partiality by frequent visits with whichthe latter now deigned to honour him, Ludwig Halberger saw there was nochance to escape domestic ruin, but by getting clear out of the country.It was not that he doubted the fidelity of his wife; on the contrary,he knew her to be true as she was beautiful. How could he doubt it,since it was from her own lips he first learnt of the impending danger?

  Away from Paraguay, then--away anywhere--was his first andquickly-formed resolution, backed by the counsels of his loyal partnerin life. But the design was easier than its execution; the last notonly difficult, but to all appearance impossible. For it so chancedthat one of the laws of that exclusive land--an edict of the Dictatorhimself--was to the point prohibitive; forbidding any foreigner whomarried a native woman to take her out of the country, without having awritten permission from the Executive Head of the State. LudwigHalberger was a foreigner, his wife native born, and the Head of theState Executive, as in every other sense, was Jose Gaspar Francia!

  The case was conclusive. For the Prussian to have sought permission todepart, taking his wife along with him, would have been more thanfolly--madness--hastening the very danger he dreaded.

  Flight, then? But whither, and in what direction? To flee into theParaguayan forests could not avail him, or only for a short respite.These, traversed by the _cascarilleros_ and gatherers of yerba, all inthe Dictator's employ and pay, would be no safer than the streets ofAssuncion itself. A party of fugitives, such as the naturalist and hisfamily, could not long escape observation; and seen, they would assurely be captured and carried back. The more surely from the fact thatthe whole system of Paraguayan polity under Dr Francia's regime was oneof treachery and espionage, every individual in the land finding it tohis profit to do dirty service for "El Supremo"--as they styled theirdespotic chief.

  On the other side there was the river, but still more difficult would itbe to make escape in that direction. All along its bank, to the pointwhere it enters the Argentine territory, had Francia established hismilitary stations, styled _guardias_, where sentinels kept watch at allhours, by night as in the day. For a boat to pass down, even thesmallest skiff, without being observed by some of these Argus-eyedvidettes, would have been absolutely impossible; and if seen as surelybrought to a stop, and taken back to Assuncion.

  Revolving all these difficulties in his mind, Ludwig Halberger wasfilled with dismay, and for a long time kept in a state of doubt andchilling despair. At length, however, a thought came to relieve him--aplan of flight, which promised to have a successful issue. He wouldflee into the Chaco!

  To the mind of any other man in Paraguay the idea would have appearedpreposterous. If Francia resembled the frying-pan, the Chaco to aParaguayan seemed the fire itself. A citizen of Assuncion would no moredare to set foot on the further side of that stream which swept the verywalls of his town, than would a besieging soldier on the _glacis_ of thefortress he besieged. The life of a white man caught straying in theterritory of "El Gran Chaco" would not have been worth a withey. If notat once impaled on an Indian spear held in the hand of "Tova" or"Guaycuru," he would be carried into a captivity little preferable todeath.

  For all this, Ludwig Halberger had no fear of crossing over to the Chacoside, nor penetrating into its interior. He had often gone thither onbotanising and hunting expeditions. But for this apparent recklessnesshe had a reason, which must needs here be given. Between the Chacosavages and the Paraguayan people there had been intervals ofpeace--_tiempos de paz_--during which occurred amicable intercourse; theIndians rowing over the river and entering the town to traffic off theirskins, ostrich feathers, and other commodities. On one of theseoccasions the head chief of the Tovas tribe, by name Naraguana, havingimbibed too freely of _guarape_, and in some way got separated from hispeople, became the butt of some Paraguayan boys, who were behavingtowards him just as the idle lads of London or the _gamins_ of Pariswould to one appearing intoxicated in the streets. The Prussiannaturalist chanced to be passing at the time; and seeing the Indian, anaged man, thus insulted, took pity upon and rescued him from histormentors.

  Recovering from his debauch, and conscious of the service the strangerhad done him
, the Tovas chief swore eternal friendship to his generousprotector, at the same time proffering him the "freedom of the Chaco."

  The incident, however, caused a rupture between the Tovas tribe and theParaguayan Government, terminating the _tiempo de paz_, which had notsince been renewed. More unsafe than ever would it have been for aParaguayan to set foot on the western side of the river. But LudwigHalberger knew that the prohibition did not extend to him; and relyingon Naraguana's proffered friendship, he now determined upon retreatinginto the Chaco, and claiming the protection of the Tovas chief.

  Luckily, his house was not a great way from the river's bank, and in thedead hour of a dark night, accompanied by wife and children--takingalong also his Guano servants, with such of his household effects ascould be conveniently carried, the faithful Caspar guiding and managingall--he was rowed across the Paraguay and up the Pilcomayo. He had beentold that at some thirty leagues from the mouth of the latter stream,was the _tolderia_ of the Tovas Indians. And truly told; since beforesunset of the second day he succeeded in reaching it, there to bereceived amicably, as he had anticipated. Not only did Naraguana givehim a warm welcome but assistance in the erection of his dwelling;afterwards stocking his _estancia_ with horses and cattle caught on thesurrounding plains. These tamed and domesticated, with their progeny,are what anyone would have seen in his _corrals_ in the year 1836, atthe time the action of our tale commences.