Across Patagonia

Across Patagonia The ravine was in itself a fit preparation for something strange and grand. Its steep slopes towered up on either side of us to an immense height; and the sunlight being thus partially excluded, a mysterious gloom reigned below, which, combined with the intense, almost painful silence of the spot, made the scene inexpressibly strange and impressive. Its effect was intensified by the knowledge that since these gigantic solitudes had been fashioned by nature, no human eye had ever beheld them, nor had any human voice ever raised the echoes, which, awakening now for the first time, repeated in sonorous chorus the profane shouts of "Iegua! Iegua!" with which our guides drove the horses along. We hurried on, anxious to reach the mouth of the ravine, and behold the promised land as soon as possible, but several hours elapsed before we 164at last reached its farther end, and emerged from its comparative gloom into the sunshine of the open. A glance showed us that we were in a new country. Before us stretched a picturesque plain, covered with soft green turf, and dotted here and there with clumps of beeches, and crossed in all directions by rippling streams. The background was formed by thickly-wooded hills, behind which again towered the Cordilleras,—three tall peaks of a reddish hue, and in shape exact facsimiles of Cleopatra's Needle, being a conspicuous feature in the landscape. The califaté bushes here were of a size we had never met on the plains, and were covered with ripe berries, on which hosts of small birds were greedily feasting. The very air seemed balmier and softer than that we had been accustomed to, and instead of the rough winds we had hitherto encountered there was a gentle breeze of just sufficient strength agreeably to temper the heat of the sun. Here and there guanaco were grazing under the shade of a spreading beech tree, and by the indolent manner in which they walked away as we approached, it was easy to see that they had never known what it was to have a dozen fierce dogs and shouting horsemen at their heels. But soon we all dismounted round a huge califaté 165bush, and there we ate our fill of its sweet juicy berries, taking a supply with us to be eaten after dinner, mashed up with sugar, as dessert. Then we gaily cantered on towards the hills, passing many a pleasant-looking nook, and enjoying many a charming glimpse of landscape, doubly delightful after the ugliness of the plains. Numerous small lagoons, covered with wild-fowl of strange and novel appearance, frequently came in our way, and by their shores basked hundreds of the lovely white swans whose species I have already mentioned. Unlike their comrades of the plains they appeared perfectly tame, merely waddling into the water when we approached close up alongside them, and never once attempting to fly away. I was greatly struck by the thousands of ducks and geese that covered these lakes. Crossing a broad mountain-stream which ran down from the hills on our left, and disappeared into a mighty gorge stretching away into those on our right, we still directed our march along the grassy plain which led direct towards the three huge Cleopatra peaks rising from out of the snow glaciers far ahead of us. The thickly-wooded slopes which we could perceive in the distance filled us with eager longing to reach them, as it 166was many a day since we had last seen trees of any kind. In the vast forests which lay before us we promised ourselves a goodly supply of fuel and many a roaring fire around the camp. On the way we occasionally gave chase to the foxes which started up at our approach. There are a great many of these animals in Patagonia, and one has to be careful to put all leather articles in some safe place at night, or else in the morning one is apt to find them gnawed to pieces by these sly marauders. Their fur is very soft, and silver gray in colour. I resolved to make a collection of their skins, and carry them back to England to be made up into rugs and other useful articles. It is very rarely that a dog can catch one of these foxes by himself: our best ostrich hound, "La Plata," after an exciting chase of half an hour, found himself outpaced and outstayed. So quickly can they twist, turn, and double, that it is out of the power of one dog to equal them.

Weary of her life in English society, during 1878-1879 Dixie travelled with her husband, two of her brothers and Julius Beerbohm in Patagonia in South America. There, she hunted big game and ate it with gusto. On one occasion, while riding on the prairie, her party was overtaken by a huge prairie fire, and her horse bolted with her. On her return to England, Dixie wrote her book Across Patagonia, which discussed Dixie's observations of the country and its inhabitants. Lady Dixie also shared her observations of Patagonia with Charles Darwin. Lady Dixie sent Darwin a copy of Across Patagonia; Darwin's copy of this book is part of the Library of Charles Darwin located in the Rare Books Room of Cambridge University Library. A hotel at Puerto Natales in the Chilean part of Patagonia is named the Hotel Lady Florence Dixie in her honour.

"This volume is a selection of the papers presented during the international conference Patagonia: Myths and Realities organised through the Centre of Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester and held in September 2005 at the Manchester Museum"--Introd.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Across Patagonia Florence Dixie With illustrations from sketches by Julius Beerbohm engraved by Whymper and Pearson COMPLETE - FULLY ILLUSTRATED Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (nee Douglas; 25 May 1855 - 7 November 1905), was a Scottish traveller, war correspondent, writer and feminist. Her account of travelling Across Patagonia, her children's books The Young Castaways and Aniwee, or, The Warrior Queen, and her feminist utopia Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900 all deal with feminist themes related to girls, women, and their positions in society. In December 1878, two months after the birth of their second son, Edward, Dixie and her husband left their aristocratic life and children behind them in England and traveled to Patagonia. She was the only female in her traveling party. She set out accompanied by her brothers, Lord Queensberry and Lord James Douglas, her husband Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie, and Julius Beerbohm. Beerbohm, a family friend, was hired as the group's guide because of his previous experience in Patagonia. Dixie debated going to elsewhere, but choose Patagonia because few European men, and no European women, had ever set foot there.] (Although reasonably accurate in terms of travelers' accounts, this claim ignores Britain's active economic involvement in the region.)"

These, and similar questions and exclamations I heard from the lips of my friends and acquaintances, when I told them of my intended trip to Patagonia, the land of the Giants, the land of the fabled Golden City of Manoa. What was the attraction in going to an outlandish place so many miles away? The answer to the question was contained in its own words. Precisely because it was an outlandish place and so far away, I chose it. Palled for the moment with civilisation and its surroundings, I wanted to escape somewhere, where I might be as far removed from them as possible. Many of my readers have doubtless felt the dissatisfaction with oneself, and everybody else, that comes over one at times in the midst of the pleasures of life; when one wearies of the shallow artificiality of modern existence; when what was once excitement has become so no longer, and a longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous emotion than that afforded by the monotonous round of society's so-called -pleasures.-

When asked in 1879 why she wanted to travel to such an outlandish place as Patagonia, the author replied without hesitation that she was taking to the saddle in order to flee from the strict confines of polite Victorian society. Palled with civilization and its surroundings, I wanted to escape to some place where I might be as far removed from them as possible. A longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous emotion than that afforded by the monotonous round of society s so-called pleasures, Dixie wrote. Riding Across Patagonia tells the story of how the aristocrat successfully traded the perils of a London parlor for the wind-borne freedom of a wild Patagonian bronco. Her equestrian exploits became legendary. One of the first Europeans to ride Criollo horses, on one occasion Lady Dixie escaped from a rampaging prairie fire by riding directly through the flames! Long considered a classic of equestrian travel, Lady Dixie s book is illustrated with pen and ink drawings that show her mounted entourage during the course of their remarkable adventures.