Northern Patagonia Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ...now traveled, crossing the dangerous lakes on the Paso de Perez Rosales in frail canoes. Guillelmo persistently sought to rediscover the old road of Vuriloche and finally succeeded in reopening it in 1712. It was perhaps because the Indians feared that the Spanish soldiers would return and attack them as they had their grandfathers, and also because they coveted the herds of cattle which the mission owned, that they soon afterward destroyed it. The site of the old mission was identified by Moreno as having been on the Peninsula San Pedro, and the Indian settlements were apparently distributed along the southern shore of the lake eastward past the present village of Bariloche to the valley of the Rio Nirihuau. It is said that the chief Manqueunai who lived on the Nirihuau sent for the assistant of the father in charge of the mission, on the morning when its fate had been determined, in order that the two, being separated, might be easily dispatched. In the woods and meadows along the southern shore of the lake, especially west of Bariloche, many Indian relics have been found, and there are groves of the wild apple tree which the friars are believed to have introduced. Thus in entering here we tread upon historic ground. The conflict between the whites and the Indians was not yet ended when Moreno was at Lago Nahuel Huapi, at first as the guest and friend of the Indians and later, through the misrepresentations of Indian traders, as their captive. Very near the spot where Guillelmo had been killed 163 years earlier, Moreno was tied to a tree to await overnight his execution on the following morning, but he escaped and carried to the frontier in the distant province of Buenos Aires word of an Indian attack which only a few days later rolled...