GALLEGOS. 31 



\Ye immediately commenced making inquiries as to the best means of 

 procuring horses and a suitable vehicle with which to get about over the 

 country. We had unfortunately relied upon the advice given us by Mr. 

 John R. Spears, who had a year or two before visited the country, going 

 down and back on the same steamer, making only the short stops of the 

 vessel at each port, and from the meagre information thus hastily gained 

 returned to write his "Gold Diggings of Cape Horn," a quite readable 

 but very unreliable book. Mr. Spears had given us, before sailing from 

 New York, the assurance that we could procure in Gallegos American 

 mountain wagons, harness, and everything needful for a trip inland. 

 What was our disappointment on our arrival to find that the only vehicles 

 to be had were cumbersome two-wheeled bullock carts, heavier by half than 

 any load which they might be trusted to carry. Some of these were con- 

 structed in Buenos Aires, while others were of English manufacture. But, 

 whatever their manufacture, they were always excessively heavy and 

 clumsily made, no thought of combining strength with lightness having 

 apparently ever entered the minds of those by whom they were built. 

 Nothing more stupid and ridiculous can be conceived than the present 

 method of freighting overland the wool and camp supplies of the Pata- 

 gonian sheep farmers. The axle of these carts usually consists of a steel 

 casting, seven feet long and three inches square in cross-section in the 

 middle, with either end rudely fashioned into a spindle for the wheels, 

 each of which will, as a rule, weigh from three to four hundred pounds. 

 The body is framed of four- by six-inch timbers and is usually about eight 

 feet in length by five in breadth. It is provided with a floor and sides, 

 but is without ends. The tongue or pole is usually made of a great beam 

 six by eight inches in cross-section and eighteen feet in length. It ex- 

 tends underneath the entire body of the cart and is firmly bolted to it 

 and the axle. When set up, such a cart will weigh about three thou- 

 sand five hundred pounds, while the maximum load for one cart, with 

 two men and from four to six bullocks, was seven bales of wool weighing 

 some four hundred pounds each. It is difficult to understand why in a 

 country like Patagonia, naturally so well adapted for overland travel, the 

 inhabitants, for the most part either Scotch, English, or German, are so 

 backward in introducing more improved methods for the transportation 

 of their wool and necessary ranch supplies to and from the different ports 

 along the coast 



