Note: Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3750786#view=1up;seq=9 GUIDE OF THE DESERT by GUSTAVE AIMARD And Edited by Percy B. St. John London John and Robert Maxwell Milton House, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street and 35, St. Bride Street, Ludgate Circus. (From the Collected Works 1863-1885) CONTENTS I. A PRISONER. II. THE GAUCHO. III. THE RANCHO. IV. THE FAZENDA DO RIO D'OURO. V. O SERTÃO. VI. TAROU NIOM. VII. THE MARQUIS DE CASTELMELHOR. VIII. A NOBLE BANDIT. IX. THROUGH THE DESERT. X. THE GUAYCURUS. XI. A STRATEGIC ASSAULT. XII. THE PAYAGOA VILLAGE. XIII. THE CHASE. XIV. DISASTER. XV. EL VADO DEL CABESTRO. XVI. FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. XVII. THE PEONS. XVIII. SAN MIGUEL DE TUCUMÁN. XIX. LA MONTONERA. XX. THE SOIRÉE. NOTICE. Gustave Aimard was the adopted son of one of the most powerful Indian tribes, with whom he lived for more than fifteen years in the heart of the Prairies, sharing their dangers and their combats, and accompanying them everywhere, rifle in one hand and tomahawk in the other. In turn squatter, hunter, trapper, warrior, and miner, Gustave Aimard has traversed America from the highest peaks of the Cordilleras to the ocean shores, living from hand to mouth, happy for the day, careless of the morrow. Hence it is that Gustave Aimard only describes his own life. The Indians of whom he speaks he has known--the manners he depicts are his own. CHAPTER I. A PRISONER. Loading in the environs of Barbara Bay, Cape Horn, I was surprised, with two companions, by the Patagonians, and made prisoner. I had the pain of witnessing from the cliffs the departure of the whaler on board of which I had entered at Havre as harpooner. It was with a deep pang of grief, and eyes bathed in tears, I saw the white sails of my ship disappear on the horizon, and the sea become solitary once more. I little suspected that the vessel I then saw for the last time was doomed to some terrible fate. Nothing was ever heard of her again. Two hours later, stripped of our clothes and tied by the wrists to the tails of Patagonian horses, we were carried off into the interior of the country. The Patagonians, with regard to whom travellers relate so many fables, are neither so gigantic nor so evil as generally represented. They are sturdily independent. The least yoke galls them, and rather than submit to the will of a chief, they rush off into exile, and submit to the most terrible privations. We were not ill-used by our captors, but I was at length alone. One of my companions went raving mad, the other committed suicide. I was kept alive, I believe, by the spirit of hope.