SOUTHWARD HO! 



21 



WF.I.SH SETTI.llMKNT OF TKKl.KW 



Trelew itself is a bare settlement of raw-looking houses and 

 shanties, which has started up on the emptiness of the pampas. It 

 cannot lay any claim to picturesqueness, and a pervading impres- 

 sion of being unfinished adds a suggestion of discomfort to 

 the place. All round about the mud houses the pampa rolls 

 away to the dis- 

 tances, harsh, stony, 

 overgrown with little 

 humpy bushes of 

 thorn and dotted 

 here and there with 

 wheat - land. All 

 throuo^h and over the 

 settlement vou are 

 never out of hearinor 

 of three lano-uaQ^es — 

 English, Welsh and 

 Spanish. 



For thirty-five 



years the W^elsh have lived in this little colony of their own 

 founding. Exactly all the reasons which led them to forsake their 

 far-off homes for Patagonia it would serve no purpose to set out 

 in detail, but the root of the matter appears to have lain in 

 the fact that they objected to the laws relating to the teaching of 

 English in the schools ; and, having the courage of their convic- 

 tions, they came several thousand miles across the sea to escape 

 the r<fgime they disliked. At present, however, they seem to have 

 slipped from the frying-pan into the fire, for they like still less the 

 Argentine code, by which every man born in the Republic is sub- 

 ject to conscription and Sunday drilling. 



Some time ago the colonists of Trelew appealed to I'.ngland 

 to intercede for them with the Argentine Government with a view 

 to obtainincr release from these disabilities. But as the Welsh had 

 of their own free will deliberately placed themselves under the 

 Government of the Republic, it was impossible for I'-nghnid to 

 interfere, and this fact was notified to the suppliants, much to 

 their disappointment and disgust. I'.vcn when I was tluMT they 



