Chapter 11 12.clue

At eight o'clock the next day, October 22, Tarcaf gave the signal for departure.The topography of Argentina, between the 22nd and 42nd latitudes of the south, slopes in a straight line from west to east.Passengers can only walk to the seaside from this slightly sloping downhill road. When the Patagonian refused horses, Glenarvan thought he, like many guides, preferred to walk.If so, his two long legs must not be difficult to catch up with the horse.However, Glenarvan was wrong. At the time of departure, Takaf screamed strangely.A tall, big Argentinian horse, hearing his master's call, immediately ran out of a nearby grove.This horse is very handsome, and its brown-red fur shows that it is a proud, brave and lively horse.The head is light and the neck is thin, the nostrils are wide open, the eyes are bright, the legs are broad, the shoulders are high, the chest is high, and the neck is long, which means that it has all the conditions for delicate and healthy.The major is an expert in horse recognition. He is full of praise for this fine Argentine horse, and thinks it has some similarities with the British "hunting horse".This fine horse is called Toka, "Taoka" means "flying bird" in Patagonian, and this horse really deserves the name.

The horse pranced as soon as Tarcaf was in the saddle.The Patagonian was a master of horseback riding and had a very good posture on his horse.His equipment consisted of two hunting tackles customary in the Argentine plains: one called a pala and the other a lasso. "Paola" is 3 balls connected by leather strips, hanging in front of the saddle, the Indian can throw "Paola" a hundred steps away to hit the beast he is chasing or wrap the enemy's legs, and immediately stumbles. .So the Paola is a formidable weapon in the hands of the Indian, and he wields it with astonishing dexterity. "Lasso", on the contrary, is a weapon that is swung in the hand and never let go.It was just a ten-meter-long rope, braided with two strips of leather, with a slipknot at the end, and strung in a hoop.When in use, the right hand throws the slipknot, and the left hand holds the rope, which end is fastened to the saddle.In addition to the above two weapons, a carbine is carried across the back, which is the full armor of the Patagonians.

Tarcaf's natural and strong posture, such agility, and such ease, everyone praised him, but he didn't care, and ran to the front of the team.The whole team set off, sometimes at a gallop, sometimes at a slow pace, never at a trot, because Argentine horses didn't seem to know this medium pace at all.Robert rode boldly, and he showed he had the ability to control the saddle, so Golinarvan quickly put his mind at ease. The flat land of the grassland begins at the foot of the mountain with high and low rocks.It can be divided into three bands.The first zone extends from the Andas Mountains to 400 kilometers away, and the whole area is not very tall root trees and shrubs.The second belt is 720 kilometers wide, covered with dense grass, and extends to a place 288 kilometers away from Buenos Aires.Since then, all that is trampled under the feet are large tracts of alfalfa and Atractylodes macrocephala, which is the third zone of the grassland.

As soon as they walked out of the high and low Yan'er Mountains, Gelinafan and his party encountered many sand dunes, which the locals call "looming waves". When they are up, they are constantly flying with the wind.The sand is extremely fine, so all it takes is a little wind.The sand, like light smoke, floats up in bursts, or a column of sand surges up, spinning and rising to high altitude.Looking at this scene, it is both joyful and frightening: the joy is that these sand pillars are swaying on the plain, gathering and dispersing, separating and joining, rising and falling, indescribably chaotic, There is nothing more interesting than this kind of image. The fear is that the dust raised from these "lost spots" is so fine and elusive that it will drill into your eyelids no matter how tightly your eyes are closed.

The north wind was blowing that day, and the sand was blowing for most of the day.Even so, everyone walked quickly, and when it was almost 6 o'clock, the high and low rocks had been left behind for 40 miles, showing only a line of shadows, disappearing in the evening smoke. The pedestrians walked about 60 miles and were a little tired, so they were very happy to see that the time for the night was approaching.They pitched their tents on the banks of the Neukon.This is a swift river with muddy water flowing among red cliffs.The Neukon River, also called the Lami River or the Komo River, rises in the middle of many lakes, the location of which is known only to the Indians.

There was nothing to say that night, and the next day I went on my way as usual.The caravan went swiftly and smoothly.The road is flat and the weather is bearable, so the journey is not difficult.Towards noon, however, the sun warmed up.In the evening, a cloud dotted the southwestern sky, which was a harbinger of changes in the weather.The Patagonian was right, and he showed the geographer the western sky. "Well! I see," said Paganel, and turning to his traveling companions, "the weather is going to change. We're going to have a run." Then he explained that "Ben Bei Luo" is a common southwesterly wind on these grasslands in Argentina, which is very dry.As expected, Tarcaf read it right, and the "running north and falling" that night was violently blown up.Passengers who are only wrapped in a "cover" are quite miserable. The horses lie on the ground, and the people lie next to the horses, tightly packed.Glenarvan was worried.If the storm doesn't stop, it will delay the trip.But Paganel, looking at the barometer, assured him that was not the case.

He said: "Usually, if the temperature drops, the northward set must bring three days of storms. If, as it is now, the mercury column rises, a few hours of squalling winds will be all right. You can take it easy, my dear friend." , as soon as day breaks, the sky will clear again, as usual." "You speak as well as a book, Paganel," said Glenarvan. "I'm just a book, you just read it." This book is really right.At one o'clock in the night, the wind suddenly stopped, and everyone had a good night's sleep.The next day, everyone was in high spirits, especially Paganel, who clattered his joints happily and stretched himself like a puppy.It was October 24th, the tenth day after our departure from Talcahuano.Pedestrians are still 150 kilometers away from the intersection of the Colorado River and the 37th parallel, that is to say, they will have to walk for three days.Along the way, Golinavan concentrated his attention to see if any natives came near them.He was eager to ask the natives for news about Captain Grant.Now that Paganel was able to speak Spanish with the Patagonians and knew each other well enough, Tarcaf could act as an interpreter if he wanted to ask the natives for information.But they took a route that the Indians did not usually take, for the great roads in the steppes from the Argentine Republic to the High and Low Rock Mountains were on the north side of this route.

Hence neither nomadic Indians nor settled Indians under chieftains can be encountered here.Occasionally a nomad on horseback appeared at a distance, but he fled as soon as he saw them, for they would not come into contact with strangers.Originally, this group of them made any single passerby on the prairie look suspicious: the robbers would run away when they saw the eight of them fully armed and riding fast horses; would mistake them for robbers.Therefore, whether they want to talk to good people or robbers, it is absolutely impossible.They would love to meet a gang of robbers, just shoot each other a few times and talk to them later.It would be a pity, however, not to meet Indians in order to inquire about the route, but on the other hand this desolate route gave rise to a side problem which brought an unexpected proof to the interpretation of the document.

The route taken by the caravan included several paths across the prairies, one of which was quite important, the one from Carmenton to Mendoza.Along the way are the bones of mules, horses, cattle and sheep, pecked to pieces by birds of prey, and eroded to death by the air.There were thousands of bones, and it was inevitable that human bones were mixed with those of livestock, and they all turned into dust. Up to this point, Tarcaf had watched them walk in a straight line without making any comments.But he knew that this straight line neither connected with any road on the prairie, nor did it go to any town, village, or any colony in Argentina.He was a guide, and when he saw that this group of people not only did not let the guide lead the way, but came to guide him, he was naturally surprised.Yet, in spite of his astonishment, he always maintained that reserved attitude inherent in Indians, and he never said a word about the many trails that had been neglected.On this day, he reached the above-mentioned main road, reined in his horse, and finally spoke to Paganel.

"This is the way to Carmen," he said. "Yes, yes, my good Patagonian," replied Paganel in pure Spanish, "this is the road from Carmen to Mendoza." "Aren't we going this way?" Tarcaf asked. "No." "We're going to..." "Go straight east." "There's nowhere to go all the way east." "Who knows?" Takaf stopped talking, and he looked at the scholar with a look of deep surprise.However, he didn't think Paganel meant the slightest bit of joking.An Indian is always serious, and he never imagines that other people are not serious.

"Aren't you going to Carmen?" He asked again after a moment of silence. "No." Paganel replied. "Not to Mendoza, either?" "Neither." At this moment Glenarvan caught up with Paganel, and asked Tarcaf what he was talking about, and why he had stopped. "He asked me if we were going to Carmen or Mendoza and I said no, he was surprised." "In fact, it should have seemed strange to him that we were going this way," said Glenarvan. "I believe so, too, because he said we had nowhere to go." "So, Paganel, can you explain to him the purpose of our expedition? Can you explain to him what is the point of us going all the way east?" "It's hard. An Indian knows nothing of latitude and longitude, and the story of our discovery of the papers will sound to him a marvelous story." "I'll ask you," said the major, solemnly, " Is the story itself incomprehensible to him, or is the storyteller unable to understand him?" "Ah, MacNabbs," replied Paganel, "you still doubt my Spanish. It's hard to say!" "Well said, try it, my dear friend." "Just try it!" Paganel went over to the Patagonian again and tried to tell the whole story.His long speeches were often truncated sometimes because the words could not be found, sometimes because certain details could not be translated, and sometimes because certain details were not easily understood by a half-ignorant person.The scholar looked really interesting.He gesticulated, talked with gritted teeth, racked his brains and tried his best, and beads of sweat flowed from his forehead to his chest like a waterfall.Finally, unable to speak, he helped with his hands.He jumped off his horse and drew a large map on the sand: this is the line of longitude, that is the line of latitude, intersecting; here is the Pacific Ocean, there is the Atlantic Ocean;Never before has a teacher of geography found such difficulty.Tarcaf watched this performance with a calm attitude all the time, so as not to let others see whether he understood or not.The geographer talked for more than half an hour, and then he stopped, wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked at the Patagonian. "Does he understand?" asked Golinarvan. "Let's see, if he doesn't understand anymore, I can't tell." Tarcaf didn't move, didn't say a word, his eyes were fixed on the map on the wind-blown sand. "How?" Paganel asked him. Tarcaf didn't seem to hear him ask.Already Paganel saw a mocking smile play on the major's lips.He was about to renew his efforts to make another geographical explanation in order to win the breath, when the Patagonian stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Are you looking for a prisoner?" Tarcaf asked. "Yes." Paganel answered immediately. "Is it on the road from sundown to sunrise?" Tarcaf said again, confirming the route from west to east in Indian terms. "Yes, yes, exactly!" "It was God who delivered the captive's secret to the waves of the sea?" "It was delivered by God himself." "Let God's will be done!" replied Tarcaf, rather gravely, "and we shall go straight east, if necessary, to the sun!" Complacent to see that his pupil understood, Paganel immediately translated the Indian's answer for his traveling companions. "What a clever race!" he added. "In our own country, nineteen out of twenty country folk will not understand what I tell them!" Glenarvan asked Paganel to ask the Patagonian whether he had heard of foreigners falling into the hands of Indians in the steppes. Paganel asked the same question, and waited for an answer. "I seem to have heard of it," said the Patagonian. After this sentence was translated, seven people gathered around Tarcaf and asked him with their eyes. Paganel was so excited that he was almost speechless, and he continued to question such an interesting question, keeping his eyes on the solemn Indian, wishing to see his answer before he opened his mouth. . For every Spanish word the Patagonian uttered, he said it simultaneously in English, so that it seemed to his traveling companions that Tarcaf was speaking directly in English. "What kind of man is this captive?" asked Paganel. "It's a foreigner, a European." "Have you seen him?" "No, but the Indians talked about him. He's a good man!" Have the heart of a bull! " "The heart of a bull!" exclaimed Paganel. "Ah! What a Patagonian language! Do you understand, my friends?! That means a brave man!" "That's my father!" cried Robert. Then he turned to Paganel and asked: "That's my father, how do you say that in Spanish?" "Ace-Mio-Butler," replied the Geographer. Immediately, Robert took Tarcaf's hand and said softly: "Ace-Mio-Butler!" "Suo-Butler!" (your father!) echoed Tarcaf, his eyes glowing. He threw his arms around the boy, lifted him out of the saddle, and studied him with a kind of curious sympathy.There was a calm touch in his intelligent countenance. But Paganel hadn't finished asking him.Where was the captive then?What was he doing then?When had Tarcaf ever heard of him? Many questions came to his mind at the same time. His questions were promptly answered, and he learned that the European was a slave in a tribe of Indians, a nomadic tribe that lived between the Colorado and Negro rivers. "Where is the nearest European?" asked Paganel. "At Chief Khafgura's house." "Is it on the line we've been following?" "It's on this route." "And what kind of man is the Chief?" "He is the chief of the Indian Bausches, a man of two tongues!" "That is to say: he is erratic in what he says, and he is erratic in his actions." Paganel translated the Patagonian proverb Then he explained it like this. "Can we get our friend out?" he asked again. "Maybe, if he's still in the hands of the Indians." "When did you hear about it?" "It's been a long time. It's been two years since I heard about it." The joy of Golinavan is indescribable.This answer matches the date on the document!But there is one more question for Tarcaf.Paganel immediately offered in Spanish: "You speak of a captive, but are there three at the same time?" "I don't know about that." "Don't you know anything about the prisoner's current situation?" "Not at all." This sentence ended the whole conversation.Perhaps the three captives had been separated long ago.But the data provided by the Patagonian confirm one thing: the Indians used to speak of a European who had fallen into their hands.The date of his capture, and even the place of his internment, everything, even the Patagonian phrase describing his bravery, clearly identified the European as Harry Grant.The next day, October 25, the travelers set off again eastward with a new excitement.The grasslands in that area are often desolate, monotonous, endless open spaces called "travisia" in the native language.The clay ground, worn by the wind, was so smooth that there was not even a pebble in it, except for a few stones in some dry ditches and in some ponds dug by the Indians.Sparse bushes, far apart from each other, with pale black tops, sporadically sprung up a few white cassia trees, with pods on the pods, and a kind of sugary pulp growing in the pods. Cool and delicious.In addition, there were a few clumps of eucalyptus, 'chanal', wild gorse, and brambles of various kinds, the thinness of which was a sufficient proof of the poverty of the soil. The 26th was a hard day, because they had to go to the Colorado River for the night.The horses were whipped and galloped very fast, so that that night they reached longitude 69 degrees 45 minutes west, the beautiful river in the steppe area.This river is called "Gobilebi" in Indian, which means "big river", and it flows into the Atlantic Ocean through a long process.At the section close to the mouth of the river, there is a strange phenomenon: the closer to the sea, the less water in the river, maybe because the river water is absorbed by the loose soil, maybe evaporated, until now, this is still a mystery. When he arrived at the Colorado River, the first thing Paganel did was to jump into the clay-dyed red river and take a "geographical" bath.He was surprised that the river was so deep!This is entirely the result of the early summer sun melting the snow!Also, the river is quite wide, so horses cannot swim across it.Fortunately, there is a wooden shed bridge a few hundred meters upstream, and the bridge decks are tied with leather strips and hung on the river.The little party thus crossed the river, and camped overnight on the left bank. Before going to bed, Paganel had to measure the Colorado River correctly, and he drew it with great care on his map.Because he had let the Brahmaputra flow freely in the mountains of Tibet, now he had to map the Colorado River. On the 27th and 28th, the journey was safe and sound.The same monotony and poverty is everywhere.The scenery changes very little, and the terrain is dull.However, the soil became very wet.Pedestrians have to cross many waterlogged depressions and many swamps. On the evening of the 28th, the horse rested on the shore of a large lake.The water in this lake is full of strong mineral springs. The name of the lake is Lankun Lake, which means "bitter lake" in Indian. In 1862, the Argentine army brutally massacred natives here.The traveling party camped as usual.If it weren't for the many monkeys and wild dogs, everyone would have slept comfortably.It's a pity that those monkeys and wild dogs were clamoring endlessly. They played a natural symphony to welcome these foreign guests, but the ears of these Europeans just couldn't appreciate the flavor of futuristic music.