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Updated: May 9, 2025
Following Colonel Washington's trail, it had crossed the ranges of mountains immediately west of Abiquia, and, striking the Rio de Chaco, had tracked its course for some distance with the hope of reaching the San Juan.
Missionaries in the solitary station I have referred to, after ten years' probing, have been unable to find any approach to worship in their darkened minda. "The poverty of the Indian dialects of the Chaco is scarcely surpassed by that of the dumb brutes." These wretched tribes have perfect community of goods; what is secured by one belongs equally to all.
Not the only one, however. Something besides causes them surprise, equally perplexing them. Among the other hoof-marks, they have observed some that must have been made by a horse with shoes on; and as they know the Chaco Indians never ride such, the thing strikes them as very strange.
The Indian of the Chaco, a pure savage, a bow-bearing savage, will never come east of the Paraguay, and the Paraguayan is only beginning to venture into the western interior, away from the banks of the river under the lead of pioneer settlers like Rickard, whom, by the way, the wild Indians thoroughly trust, and for whom they work eagerly and faithfully.
The labours of the padres, both Jesuit and Franciscan, have alike signally failed; the savages of the Chaco refusing obedience to the cross as submission to the sword. Three large rivers the Salado, Vermejo, and Pilcomayo course through the territory of the Chaco; the first forming its southern boundary, the others intersecting it.
Afoot in the midst of the Chaco, helpless as shipwrecked sailors on a raft in mid-ocean! For a while they remain undecided; only a short while, when they are made aware of that which speedily brings them to a decision, and without any will of their own. In putting space between themselves and the dangerous beast, they have retreated quite up to the cavern's entrance.
All are mounted on steeds of small size, but sinewy and perfect in shape, having long tails and flowing manes; for the barbarism of the clipping shears has not yet reached these barbarians of the Chaco. Nor yet know they, or knowing, they use not saddle.
For the Gran Chaco is no sterile tract, like most parts of the Navajo country in the north, or the plains of Patagonia and the sierras of Arauco in the south. Nor is it a humid, impervious forest, at seasons inundated, as with some portions of the Amazon valley and the deltas of the Orinoco.
The blue stream ascending over the tops of the trees, as if out of a chimney, had just then, for the first time, been caught sight of by the ostriches, sending them off in quick scare. Nor strange it should, being a spectacle to which the wild denizens of the Chaco are not accustomed, or only familiar with as denoting an enemy near their greatest enemy, man.
In the Chaco there are sheep the Indians themselves breeding them while since settling there the hunter-naturalist had not neglected either pastoral or agricultural pursuits. Hence the meal from which came that cake of maize-bread.
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