There is but one drawback to the value of the valley in which Santa Cruz city is located that would operate against it seriously, and that is the lack of drinking water. The young boomer did not say a word about water. There is a scant supply from wells even for the seven occupied houses with their stock, and that is brackish. Of course, should the place become a great city, the supply would be drawn from the swift Santa Cruz, but while the settlement is growing to a village of a few thousand people the cost of twenty odd miles of pipe line would prohibit tapping the river. The tide rises over forty feet every day in the river mouth, so there is salt water a long way up stream.
It is worth noting that the Santa Cruz people draw water from their wells as the people in the cowboy parts of the United States often do. A pulley is suspended over the well. When water is wanted a horse is saddled, and one end of a lasso fastened to the saddle. The other end of the lasso is passed through the pulley and made fast to a pail, which is then lowered and filled. Then the water drawer mounts the horse, and rides away till the pail is up to the pulley. Next the rider dismounts, walks back to the well, takes the pail from the lasso and carries it to the house. Last of all he unsaddles the horse. I saw this done myself. I must admit that this description of the Patagonian way of drawing a pail of water reads like a traveller's untrue tale, but it is literally true.
Gallegos, the capital of Santa Cruz territory, the next port visited, stands on the south bank of the Gallegos River, several miles above the mouth. The Gallegos is a very interesting stream. Its head is in the Cordilleras, of course, and the head is made up of a number of small streams which unite in the foot hills to make a river never less than 180 feet wide and three feet deep in the dryest of seasons. The current is fair, and although there are three fording places along its route, large steamers drawing 2-1/2 feet of water could navigate it to the forks the year round. But that steamers will ever be found there is a matter of doubt, although the country is rapidly filling up with settlers. There are several reasons for this. All branches of the stream rise within a few miles of the Pacific Ocean, the south heads being almost within sight of Skyring Water, just northwest from Punta Arenas, while between the north and the south forks there is a complete and a wide break in the Andes through which one may drive a wagon as easily as one can drive over the mesa of Patagonia anywhere. By cutting a road five miles long through a belt of timber a highway to the bays of Chili will be formed, and so the traffic of at least half the length of the Gallegos River will go to the west instead of down stream to the Argentine town of Gallegos. I say at least half, but it is not unlikely that more than half will go west, for the reason that the entire population of the territory south of the Gallegos, and about all between Rio Gallegos and Rio Santa Cruz have a strong feeling of friendship for Chili.