Gaspar The Gaucho

CHAPTER ONE.

THE GRAN CHACO.

Spread before you a map of South America. Fix your eye on the point of
confluence between two of its great rivers--the Salado, which runs
south-easterly from the Andes mountains, and the Parana coming from the
north; carry your glance up the former to the town of Salta, in the
ancient province of Tucuman; do likewise with the latter to the point
where it espouses the Paraguay; then up this to the Brazilian frontier
fort of Coimbra; finally draw a line from the fort to the aforementioned
town--a line slightly curved with its convexity towards the Cordillera
of the Andes--and you will thus have traced a boundary embracing one of
the least known, yet most interesting, tracts of territory in either
continent of America, or, for that matter, in the world. Within the
limits detailed lies a region romantic in its past as mysterious in its
present; at this hour almost as much a _terra incognita_ as when the
boats of Mendoza vainly endeavoured to reach it from the Atlantic side,
and the gold-seekers of Pizarro's following alike unsuccessfully
attempted its exploration from the Pacific. Young reader, you will be
longing to know the name of this remarkable region; know it, then, as
the "Gran Chaco."

No doubt you may have heard of it before, and, if a diligent student of
geography, made some acquaintance with its character. But your
knowledge of it must needs be limited, even though it were as extensive
as that possessed by the people who dwell upon its borders; for to them
the Gran Chaco is a thing of fear, and their intercourse with it one
which has brought them, and still brings, only suffering and sorrow.

It has been generally supposed that the Spaniards of Columbus's time
subdued the entire territory of America, and held sway over its
red-skinned aborigines. This is a historical misconception. Although
lured by a love of gold, conjoined with a spirit of religious
propagandism, the so-called _Conquistadores_ overran a large portion of
both divisions of the continent, there were yet extensive tracts of each
never entered, much less colonised, by them--territories many times
larger than England, in which they never dared set foot. Of such were
Navajoa in the north, the country of the gallant Goajiros in the centre,
the lands of Patagonia and Arauco in the south, and notably the
territory lying between the Cordilleras of the Peruvian Andes and the
rivers Parana and Paraguay, designated "El Gran Chaco."

This vast expanse of champaign, large enough for an empire, remains to
the present time not only uncolonised, but absolutely unexplored. For
the half-dozen expeditions that have attempted its exploration, timidly
entering and as hastily abandoning it, scarce merit consideration.