24 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



men of to-day would scoff at them. But onlookers often see most 

 of the game. In 1865 the Welsh, in deep sorrow, left their own 

 land to escape the tyranny of the English law, as they considered 

 it, which sought to force upon them the English language. Their 

 desire was to preserve their own tongue. And tlying from Scylla 

 they will fall (and to some degree have already fallen) a prey to 

 Charybdis. But it is a very pleasant Charybdis, typified by a 

 dark-haired, dark-eyed, lissom maiden, who will bear them sons 

 no longer of the old pure-bred Welsh stock, but of a mixed race. 

 And so the effort of the forefathers, who fared overseas to found a 

 new home, shall be made null and void. 



Now and again it is the fate of frontier towns to be stirred to 

 their depths by some incursion from the old world they have left 

 behind them. Trelew was still recovering from such an experience 

 when we arrived there. The settlement, in short, had been suffer- 

 ing from a plague of lords. First appeared an aristocrat, who 

 wished to travel in the interior, and he bought up horses with a 

 lavish hand, and generally made preparations w^hich, no doubt, 

 filled the purses of the inhabitants. This gentleman's projected 

 tour, however, fell through for some reason, and he departed 

 whence he had come into the unknown world outside of Trelew's 

 daily cognisance. 



Presently after him followed a second "lord," who gave his 

 name as Lord Reed, and who was received with open arms by 

 an enthusiastic community. A run of lords appeared to be setting 

 in, and was regarded by the Trelewians as a distinct dispensation 

 in their favour, which it was their happy duty to work out thoroughly 

 to their own advantage. By some mistake Lord Reed had left 

 his ready money behind him, and, therefore, borrowed pretty 

 extensively from the kind-hearted Welshmen. After a time Lord 

 Reed vanished, and upon inquiry being made it was discovered 

 that no such title as Lord Reed was to be found in the Peeraofe of 

 Great Britain. When this fact became established, more than one 

 Welshman is reported to have gone out after Lord Reed with the 

 family gun, and, I believe, he was finally caught with a lasso ! But 

 the incident was not without its bearing on our personal affairsjfpr 

 the Bank of Trelew would have nothing whatever to say to my 



