SHEPHERD AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 4, 6 January 1938, Page 15

SHEPHERD AT SEA.

VOYAGE BOUND HORN.

NEW ZEALANDER VISITS

ARGENTINA.

a ranaiDLY country.

(By D. G. ROSS.)

On July 24 I set sail from the friendly and familiar shores of New Zealand bound for the Argentine in charge of 55 Corriedale ewes and three rams. I had also two dogs and two pups, of my own, Border Collies which against everyone's advice I had decided to bring. We encountered bad weather for nearly the whole trip after the first week. Fortunately the ship was a large one, well loaded and a jolly good rough-sea boat. She had a depth of 14ft from sea level to the deck, but after a few days it was necessary to rig canvas curtains in front of the sheep pens, which were lashed down in rough weather. In spite ..of this it was. impossible-to keep the sheep dry at times as the force of the gale simply tore the canvas from the The feeding was awkward' in -very rough weather as it needed two men at least, one to let a corner of the canvas up and hold like grim death and the other to crawl inside with- the buckets of feed and fill the troughs in darkness. Had the pens been von the loVer deck they would;,have all Been. swept over.board or snikshed to atoms ; in no time, as. she was shipping it green 'fpre and aft, .durii»g rough 'weather.

\S ®F k ' Eirly onevmoming two o'clock all on. •" board « ndi awakened by filing either thrown out of their bunks or bukiped enough' to shatter the dream of theidpepest sleeper. A most appalling crash so'unded through the ship as though all'the plates in New Zealand had been dropped. The ship heeled over steeply. Everything breakable and not fastened was smashed and all the heavy sheep crates on deck were shifted of lashings. She must , of a wave, but no damage was done. The weather continued cold and the time beganVto lie heavily on my hands in spite of the almost daily task of cleaning under the pens and chucking it overboard. We were doing about 380 miles every 24 hours. | I spent all my spare time swotting Spanish in my -cabin. In the late evenings we played cheap poker and had supper parties with the tinned food laid in in New Zealand. To our disgust we found among the tins at least six tins of bully beef, which were left to the last. Birds Near Cape Horn.

Very little bird life was seen until we got :c&qeer : to Cape Horn and there, I was toM^-thfe'birds were Cape Horn pigeons and a few smaller gulls called Birds of i-Itt Omen, I don't whv. On the morning of August 7 our fifteenth day at sea, we sighted Isle Defenso through falling snow. For several hours the glass had been falling. At 1.30 pjn. we saw Hermit-Island and Gape Horn. W& were only aßoiit five miles off the Horn. It looked .very bleak, and desolate with a background-; of anowy hard looking country. <We; did not 'go through the passage, as I think- the weather was too rough. On the followliig. day we passed-the Falklands.... --- — The ship anchored on the afternoon of August 11 in the harbour of Monte Video. It »Q|£SpsiUing to see all the ships of the world :pkssing in and out after passing nothing but sea for 19 days. That night ;fihe doctor and I went ashore to see the. sights.

Monte Video is jrruite a big port and full of the usual places of amusenVent. I began to realise/my Spanish was not quite what I thought it was. However, we had quite an' atnusing--evening and finished up at a cabarct /where the girls outnumbered the clientele ten to one. They all drank anise, which is like aniseed balls'soaked in water. We were able to get Scotch "whisky true to label.

The food at the restaurants was. good and cheap, and the coffee the best I had ever tasted. We found a German restaurant where they served black beer in earthernware mugs. It was a trifle sweet, but very nice indeed. On the following day the sheep and dogs were transferred to lighter?, and I was told that they would be sailing for Buenos Ayres the next day, Friday. I spent most of Thursday night saying good-bye to the chaps on the ship, and when the tug came alongside I felt quite sad to be seeing the last of them. As the tug pulled away from the ship and the huge propellers'' began to move, not to stop again till she reached F.ngland, I felt not a little envious. But I waved a final good-bye and turned towards the Americans wondering what was in ; store for me, as I knew only one person in the whole h.uge, continent .and .was not sure where to find him.; -i J '

The sheep were decanted from their crates into bplcL.of„.thferry. and we arrived in the harbour of Buenos Ayres at about 8.30 the' following morning, -the trip .across taking , eight hc-nrs. Someldflftials aboard ifnd took the sheep off to quarantine, and after ithree of cpniinual ..annoyance for me I got through Customs with my dog?, and for some reason or other ovor which I did not inquire, the dogs did not have to go into quarantine. I would not condemn my worst enemy to Land in Argentina, with four dogs, not being able to speak Spanish, having-no one to meet him and nowhere to go.

rgf at. Show Time,

,j£ v found that I had luckily arrived just before the Palermo Show, when all the estancerios would be in town for several weeks. I got a room at an ! Eng-lish-speaking hotel, where they allowed me to put-my dogs-in the baggage- room. I might mention jit this stage that when it came to the.spoken word in Spanish, in spite of all .the study I had put! in on thie'-'boat. I found I might as well have when it came to underwas said to me. I «.-an read Spanish quite well in the paper, but it a long time to get oau's ear trained. *'

The next thing to do was to And my friend, an Argentine whom I had met once in Sydney, sosl made for that show. The first thing that strikes an Enslishman,at'Pa 1 erfno is what Vfot of Eiiglishm itVe in In reality practically all of them are conctot»ted* ing Palermo for the frhow weeks, and at other times you rarelv run inta_%^ny ft go to the places Quite a number of Argentines can speak a little 9fctfie stockmen are half Iristf ISrtf'liMlf Argentine, and thev learn English IwhetfJ young, but don't get much practice. 4*5 < V Actually the Argentine is a very mixed race. On one estancia where I have been staying recently there were among the 90 men employed, an Eng.

lish manager and Scottish head stockman, Czechs, Russians, Italians, Spaniards, Poles and Germane.

A Portanian.

The foreigner born in the Province of Buenos Ayres is called a Portanian, and automatically becomes an Argentine citizen, so that an English couple having a child in the province find they have produced a little Argentinian, which if a boy is eligible at the age of 20 to a compulsory military' training , for a year. The only way to keep the nationality of one's issue is either-to'drive the prospective mother to thelßritish Embassy and use the waiting room.as a maternity hospital, or to send her out to - sea beyond" the..line-or to/Uruguay, where they don't have that law."

The showground at Palermo, five minutes from BuenosAyres in a. is a beautiful spot, with beautiful trees everywhere. It is not as big as the Sydney ground, but then there are no; sideshows at Palermo. It is strictly business, with nothing there that is not connected with stock. ;

The cattle were a wonderful sight, I should say, taking them all through the beet in the world, the Shorthorn taking I pride of place in popularity, as in Ausand the Hereford coming next. [ The Slacks are also getting very popul«v They put a tremendous amount of condition on the cattle; far too much, as it takes such.* long lime to get them back into breeding condition again. The meet represented breed of sheep were the Lincolns, divided into two breeds, Kew Zealand type and English The New. Zealand type are much preferred, being closer to. the ground, more compact and halving finer wool, in the opinion of the experts, though the New Zealand, sheep have, deteriorated a lot m the last ten years, a~nd they say they have a difficulty to select suitable 'sires from the" sheep exported from the Dominion.

, Tfce puce of living is a little cheaper than in New Zealand or Australia, but whisky -and - English cigarettes are expensive. Taxis are cheap. Buenos Ayres has. been;cleaned up a lot Tin the last few years, and is quite a mild place to live in. All the old hands shake their heads sadly and say it's not what it used to be. The famous Fannv'e Bar is now just an ordinary place and has been denuded of all its feminine attractions. There are hundreds of cabaret* and night clubs, but they are all pretty expensive. They start at 10 p.m. and finish about 4.30 a.m.