Hermit of Patagonia 

 Keeps Hid^as 

 Train Rolls By<# 



Steward Cuts His Arm 

 Opening Window to 

 Toss Out Bread 



f i // 



By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr. 



Star Staff Correspondent. 



EN ROUTE TO BARILOCHE, 

 Patagonia. — We never saw the her- 

 mit. He was supposed to be hidden 

 in the rocks— very well hidden! 



I had my 



pocket camera |$ 

 out and the I 

 train crew was 

 on the alert. % 

 The diner stew- 

 ards had a bun- 

 dle of bread to 

 toss to him. 



But the train 

 was going down- 

 grade, having la- 

 bored over the 

 divide. 



One cliff 

 looked like an- 

 other as we 

 coasted toward w - H - shippen, Jr * 

 Bariloche. We wound in and out, 

 descending a twisting track which 

 showed the engine and at least 10 

 cars ahead. 



The diner stewards, an Austrian 

 and a young Argentine, got a bit 

 excited looking for their friend, the 

 hermit. The Argentine tried to 

 raise a window which (because, the 

 train traversed a desert) was tightly 

 fitted. 



In his hurry he shattered the 

 glass. His wrist went through. 



The steward wrapped a napkin 

 about his hand to hide the crimson 

 stain, and got the bundle of bread 

 out at its proper destination. 



The hermit, it seems, is quite 

 fond of bread, although he has fore- 

 sworn other benefits of civilization. 

 He lives in a cave and has no truck 

 with the world, as represented by 

 the trains which come dropping 

 down, and huffing and puffing back, 

 once a week in the off tourist sea- 

 son. 



The trains have been passing for 

 two years— pretty regularly ever 

 since the line was built to its ter- 

 minus at Bariloche, on Lake Nahuel 

 Huapi, in the Andes, just under the 

 border of Chile. The stewards knew 

 nothing about the hermit. They 

 had seen him only once or twice. 

 He had a beard, of course, and he 

 was deeply religious. 



Beyond that the stewards could 

 give us no description of the recluse. 



"The hermit," they said, "likes 

 bread." 



"But what about those sheep back 

 there? They seem to be eating the 

 hermit's bread." 



"Ah, senor, the hermit will be 

 there soon. If the sheep eat the 

 bread, perhaps the hermit will eat 

 the sheep!" 



"Si, si, si, senor," I said, meaning, 

 «-.~r» vps. yes, mister ! 



Texan, 75, Injured in 

 Chase, Shows Visitors 

 i-Pound Carcass 



By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr., 



Star Staff Correspondent. 



BARILOCHE, Patagonia.— In the 

 future Don Juan (John) Jones will 

 kill his wild boars from horseback. 



Several months ago he wrenched 



an ankle dodg- :w , : ,,,,,.,, v ,. v ,,, 



ing about the 

 scrub trying to 

 get a pistol bul- 

 let into a charg- 

 ing tusker at 

 close ra/:g'S. 



Don JuaL was 

 still limping ft- ; >J 

 when we visited 

 his ranch today, 

 today, but not 

 enough to stop 

 him from show- 

 ing us his meat 

 house, in which 

 hung the carcass 

 of a European w. h. shippen, Jr. 

 wild boar that had weighed almost 

 000 pounds. 



"At my age," grinned Senor Jones, 

 who admits to 75 years, "a man 

 learns to be a mite cautious. With 

 my boys, now, it's different. They 

 ride into the brush and get their 

 pigs on foot. I'm afeerd I can't run 

 last enough to do that any more!" 



Don Juan came to the Argentine 

 from Northwest Texas when the 

 fences began to crowd him, and 

 when he was young enough to live 

 about 20 hours a day in the saddle. 

 He got a job driving cattle from 

 Buenos Aires West across the Pam- 

 pas and through an Andean pass 

 into Chile on the West Coast. Some- 

 times the round -trip took a year. 



In Chile he met a girl newly ar- 

 rived from Iowa. The two hit it off 

 together and were married after 

 young Jones got a stake of several 

 thousand pesoes salted away in his 

 money belt. The couple came South 

 in search of grazing leagues un- 

 manned by fences. 



Imported Own Trees. 



The two found what they wanted 

 in this region, rimmed by the snow- 

 clad Andes and the bright waters 

 of Lake Nahuel Huapi. They 

 bought sheep and cattle and ranged 

 them on government land. Senor 

 Jones imported his own trees. He 

 rode for weeks with a bundle of 

 seedling poplars tied behind his 

 saddle. Year after year the pre- 

 vailing wind whipped all the life 

 out of the young poplars, but the j 

 Joneses persisted. They had built \ 

 their first cabin from native cedar j 

 dragged off the slopes of the Andes, [ 

 and were not to be discouraged by | 

 the reluctance of shade and wind- 1 

 break trees to thrive in the new 

 environment. After they got 

 enough poplars started to stem the 

 full force of the wind, the new 

 plantings grew rapidly in the rich 

 soil. The Jones ranchhouse now 

 is surrounded by great trees. 



Senor Jones holds the title to his 

 lands, although they lie within 

 a great national park. In the early 

 days, during the border dispute be- 

 tween Argentina and Chile, Jones 

 was able to do many favors for 

 Senor Francisco P. Moreno, who 

 represented the Argentine on the 

 Boundary Commission. Senor Mo- 

 reno later became "the father of 

 the national park system." He re- 

 warded the North American pioneer 

 by helping to pass special legislation 

 authorizing him to purchase from 

 the government the grazing land he 

 had rented. I 



The Joneses have five sons and, two j 

 daughters. The family is an active | 

 one. The two girls ride almost as 

 well as their brothers, although the j 

 youngest Jones boy, called Duke, j 

 has outstripped them all at killing 

 wild boars. The neighbors predict 

 that Duke won't live to a ripe old 

 age. He gets his pig by pulling its 

 hind feet from under it after the 

 dogs bring it to bay, and slitting its 

 throat with a Gaucho knife. Some 

 of the boars have 6-inch tusks. 

 Boars Came From Germany. 



The boars, just now, are quite a 

 topic of conversation at the sur- 

 rounding estancias. They were im- 

 ported, about 14 years ago, from 

 the Black Forest of Germany by 

 some sportsmen from Buenos Aires 

 who planned to ride them down on 

 the pampas with- lances — like the 

 daring British pig-stickers of swank 

 regiments in India. 



"The trouble with that idea," 

 grinned Don Juan Jones (his Texas 



drawl persists after more than half 

 a century of speaking Spanish) "is 

 that those pigs are too cute to run 

 on the plains. They just naturally i 

 take to the brush and the mountain j 

 roughs as soon as they hear a hound 

 open up. 



"The only way you can get a boar 

 in the open is to shoot him dead 

 and drag him out behind a horse!" 



It seems that the B. A. sports- 

 men, upon verifying this disconcert- 

 ing habit of the pigs, washed their 

 hands of the whole shooting match. 

 The pigs became the problem of 

 the local ranchers, a problem that 

 multiplied with the years and the 

 litters. The big boars grew lustily j 

 in a favorable, wild environment 

 and took to killing lambs. 



"Last lambing season," Senor 

 Jones said, "we tracked a big one 

 through the snow in a back pasture. 

 That fellow killed and ate 11 lambs 

 between midnight and daylight and 

 we could tell by his tracks he was 

 still hungry and hunting for more ! " 



Imports Coon Hounds. 



Don Juan imports Tennessee coon 

 hounds to hunt the boars. Ken- 

 tucky fox hounds, he says, are faster 

 on the trail but they won't take 

 hold of a big boar to bring him to 

 bay. The Jones have lost many 

 dogs. Of a pack of eight, six came 

 back wounded from the last hunt. 



"A hound takes a big boar by 

 the ear," Senor Jones said, "and 

 the boar shakes his head. His ears 

 are set just right to bring a hound's 

 throat across his tusks. Then we 

 need another hound. The big fellow 

 always comes to bay in thick brush. 

 When we follow, he won't hesitate 

 to charge a man on horseback. One 

 of them slashed a horse of mine 

 across the hock and the wound was 

 months in healing. I've seen them 

 leap up and try to cut the throat 

 of a horse. 



"The trick is to ride in close, 

 save your fire and shoot when you 

 know exactly where a bullet's go- j 

 ing! Eight or 10 feet is the best 

 range . . . and don't miss!" 



The wild boars have multiplied 

 and ranged far. They time their 

 raids on lambing fields and poultry 

 yards so that daylight finds them 

 far away in the mountains. They 

 sometimes run for 12 hours ahead 

 of the hounds. Up* until a few 

 years ago. the ranchers were seri- 

 ously worried about the new natural 

 enemy threatening their flocks. 



"I doubt if they're increasing 

 now," said Senor Jones. "I've seen 

 signs that the boars eat their own [ 

 young. For the last few years < 

 they're only averaged about 300 j 

 lambs a spring from my sheep." 



"Did you ever think of asking- 

 damages from the men who liber- 

 ated the wild pigs?" 



"Well, my boys and I get a lot 

 of sport out of hunting boars. We 

 figure it's cheap at 300 lambs a 

 yearT^^ 



Lonely Naturalist 



In Lake-Set Park 



Guanacos Get Too Friendly 

 Without Introduction to 

 Dr. Mann and Party 



By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr., 



Star Staff Correspondent. 



BARILOCHE, Patagonia. — "Ah, 

 please to excuse my friends ! " 



The German naturalist on Vic- 

 toria Island was embarrassed. He 

 blushed a bit into his beard. 



Or perhaps it was exertion. His 

 arms were about the long giraffe- 

 like neck of a 

 guanaco . . . 

 two guanacos, 

 as a matter of 

 fact. Now a 

 guanaco is a 

 llama's cousin 

 and a camel's 

 nephew. He's 

 pretty strong 

 and twice as 

 curious. 



The guanacos 

 were trying to 

 get at the vis- 

 itors — all in the 

 friendliest pos- 

 sible Spirit. They W. H. Shippen, jr. 



wanted to put their hooves on the 

 visitors' shoulders and lick their 

 Hoses. The young naturalist, a pret- 

 ty husky citizen, was having quite 

 a tussle trying to restrain his 

 "friends," and keep it all on a dig- 

 nified plane. He kept calling for 

 his assistant. 



"You know the guanaco, yes?" 

 panted the naturalist, making con- 

 versation while his assistant came 

 on the run. 



"I've met a few," replied Wash- 

 ington Zoo Director William M. 

 Mann, "but that's the first time one 

 ever kissed me before we were in- 

 troduced!" 



"Please to excuse." The naturalist 

 sighed with relief as he turned over 

 his armload of necks to an assistant 

 with rope halters. 



"My friends, they come here when 

 they are very little. I make them 

 my pets because I am much alone. 

 I have other pets. Will you come 

 and see, please?" 



Deer Seen in Numbers. 



We had landed from a Govern- 

 ment launch on Victoria Island in 

 Lake Nahuel Huapi, where the 

 National Parks Service is estab- 

 lishing a game refuge in the virgin 

 forests and clear waters that lie 

 under the snow-capped Andes. The 

 naturalist in charge led us up the 

 pathway toward his lodge of cedar 

 logs set in a clearing on a knoll 

 overlooking the lake. 

 ~ A Great Dane came bounding to 

 meet us, and a canary chirped a 

 greeting as we entered the lodge. 

 A poodle was stretched before blaz- 

 ing logs in the fireplace, and from 

 the windows we could see deer graz- 

 ing along the lake shore. 



"I have many friends to keep me 

 company in the winter when the 

 snow comes down," the naturalist 

 said. He showed us photographs 

 he had taken of the deer feeding 

 in little yards he had cleared from 

 the drifts. 



He had been much alone on the 

 island during the months he had 

 started. 



He showed us his grand piano 

 by the windows overlooking the 

 lake, where he tried his hand at 

 composing; his studio on the sec- 

 ond floor, where he developed his 

 photographs, sketched and exe- 

 cuted wood cuts of life on the 

 pampas and in the Andes; his col- 

 lection of curios (boleodoras, las- 

 soes, Gaucho knives, ponchos, In-' 

 dian handwork, old silver and duel- 

 ing pistols) and his Winchester 

 rifle and revolvers. 



Take Stroll in Virgin Forest. 



The naturalist then took us for 

 a stroll through a virgin forest of 

 pines and native trees from which 

 hung Spanish moss and strange 

 parasite plants. One of these 

 looked like our honeysuckle and 

 flowered the year around. Humming 

 birds darted among the blossoms, 

 although the fall season was well 

 advanced, and the first snow had 

 drifted well below the timber line 

 on ♦he granite mountains that tow- 

 ered into the clouds above us. 



The naturalist, he said, was re- 

 turning with us in our launch, the 

 some 15 miles to Bariloche. Bach 

 at the lodge he excused himself 

 while he dressed. When he showed 

 up again he was outfitted in flow- 

 ing Gaucho trousers gathered into 

 half boots, a broad, silver- decorated 

 belt with cartridges and revolver 

 holster, a tweed coat and Tyrolean 

 hat. His brown beard was neatly 

 trimmed and he wore a monocle. He 

 was en route, he explained, across 

 the lakes and over an Andean pass 

 to Chile to negotiate for some fla- 

 mingos. The snow had stopped 

 automobile traffic through the pass, 

 and he planned to make that part 

 of the journey on horseback. 



As we approached the boat land- 

 ing one of the guanacos broke free 

 and made straight for Dr. Mann, 

 nudging him suddenly from behind. 

 The startled zoologist jumped a 

 good distance down the trail. Our 

 host, embarrassed all over again, 

 wrestled his 4-footed friend behind 

 a fence. 



Fails to Make Good His Threat. 



"Come on over," grinned Dr. 

 Mann, "and I'll give you a poke 

 on the jaw!" 



The guanaco obliged, and was 

 about to leap the fence when Dr. 

 Mann retreated to the launch. 



"Perhaps I make pests of my 

 pets," smiled the naturalist, "You 

 see, I am a lonely man on - my 

 island." 



As our launch moved out into 

 the lake, however, we noticed the 

 naturalist furtively reading a let- 

 ter in a feminine hand— it bore a 

 Chilean date mark. 



"I wonder," said Dr. Mann, "if 

 that young fellow is riding through 

 a snowy pass in the Andes just to 

 bring back some flamingoes * * * 

 maybe his pets will hav*e a mistress 

 this winter to teach them the proper 

 respect for their elders ! " 



