It was only on horseback that I could dream of escaping.
The Patagonians are some of the first horsemen in the world. In their school I made rapid progress; and, however wild and vicious might be the horse that they gave me, in a few minutes I subdued him, and made myself completely his master.
Our wandering and purposeless journeys conducted us at last to about ten leagues from the Carmen of Patagonia, the most advanced fort constructed by the Spaniards on the Río Negro, at the extreme frontier of their former possessions.
The troop camped for the night at a little distance from the river, near an abandoned farm.
The opportunity for which I had waited so long had come at last. I prepared to profit by it, convinced that if I did not escape now, I should die a slave.
I will not fatigue the reader with the details of my flight; I will content myself with simply saying that after a devious journey, which lasted seven hours, and during which I constantly felt the smoking nostrils of the horses on my track, on the croup of the one I rode; after having escaped twenty times by a miracle from the bolas which the Patagonians threw at me, and from the sharpened points of their long lances, I came unexpectedly upon a patrol of Buenos Airean horsemen, in the midst of whom I fell fainting, overcome by fatigue and excitement.
The Patagonians, suddenly taken aback by the appearance of white men, whom the high grass had hidden from them till that time, turned tail with fright, and fled away, howling with fury.
By my singular equipment--all the clothing I had on was a frazada (blanket) in rags, fastened round the body by a leather strap--the soldiers at first took me for an Indian, a mistake which was rendered more natural by my complexion, bronzed by the severity of the seasons to which I had been so long exposed and which had assumed nearly the colour of copper. As soon as I regained consciousness, I hastened to disabuse them as well as I could, for at that time I could only speak the Spanish language very imperfectly.
The brave Buenos Aireans listened with signs of the liveliest sympathy to the recital of my sufferings, and lavished on me the kindest attentions.
My entry into Carmen, in the midst of my preservers, was a veritable triumph.