Abstract
LONDON
Royal Geographical Society, December 13.-Sir H. Bartle Frere, vice-president, in the chair. The following new fellows were elected:-Daniel David Dymes; Colonel T. G. Glover, R.E.; R. M. Gordon; Captain L. W. Longstarl, Edward Masterman, jun.; Don Pompeio Moneta (Chief Engineer Argentine Republic), Charles Pannel; Alfred Robinson; G. S. T. Scobell; and C. A. Winchester.-Lieutenant G. C. Musters, R.N., read a paper on his- recent journey through Patagonia, from the Straits of Magellan to the frontier of the Argentine Republic. The author, having determined on this journey, landed at the Chilian penal settlement of Punta Arena, in the Straits, on the 15th April, 1869, and, having procured the goodwill of the governor, was permitted to accompany a party who were despatched across the country to recover some runaway convicts at the mouth of the River Santa Cruz. Here he made a friendly arrangement with Orkeke, the cacique of a tribe of Patagonians, to traverse the country with them as far as the Rio Negro. He studied their language and manners, and joined them in their hunting parties: the country abounding in game, chiefly guanaco, the three-toed ostrich, and the puma, or American lion, the latter of which was eaten as well as the rest. Frozen rivers and heavy snow-falls prevented their starting from Santa Cruz before the 12th of August. They travelled at first in a westerly direction, until reaching the foot of the Cordilleras, along which they marched for upwards of 700 miles to the upper waters of the Rio Negro, making a short, but important, detour across the River Limay, in the Cordillera due east of Valdovia. The author described the streams crossed throughout the route, the physical nature of the country, and its chief productions, and gave also long and most interesting details of the manners of the wild tribes, including an account of hostile encounters with other tribes. He stated that, when not excited, the Patagonians manifested a good-tempered and generous disposition, and that they were remarkable for their affection to their wives and children. The women have the whole charge of the tents, constructed of poles and guanaco skins, and the march of many months was an almost continuous chase after the game in the country. Every morning the chief gave his orders for the day in a set speech. The men, on starting, spread themselves over a wide space in the plains, in a crescent form, the more advanced of whom on each side, travelling fastest, as the whole cavalcade moves on, meet in front, and thus enclose the game in a circle; the women and children, with the baggage-horses, forming the base line of the crescent. In the earlier part of the journey four such marches were made in succession, averaging eight or ten miles each; then followed a rest of several days, in places where pasture was abundant. Lieutenant Musters was altogether more than a year with the tribe, who had come to look upon him as one of themselves. In May 1870 he crossed the country again from west to east, and on the 21st of that month arrived at the Argentine settlement of Patagonia, near the mouth of the Rio Negro. The climate of the country, in which he reached north of 400 S. lat., he describes as cold and ungenial; snow fell at midsummer, and the greatest heat experienced in the warmer months was only 650.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 3, 157–160 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/003157a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003157a0