Hartnell’s own life record commences with a journal entry on St. Patrick’s Day, 1819.
Leaving Buenos Aires accompanied by the “jolly guide Morales,” the Englishman proceeded overland more than a thousand miles, straight across the continent; sometimes by stage, as on the military road traversing the slowly rising pampas to Mendoza, stopping at posthouses en route, sometimes on horseback or even afoot, following the final perilous path across the Andes from the Argentine over into coastal Chile.
Being a methodical person with limited means, Hartnell kept careful account of expenses crossing the continent and of the length of each phase in his journey.
There are also prosaic little notes of happenings along the way; at San Bernardo he came on “a farmhouse full of pretty girls,” and at Cana de Poche he recorded, “Here I slept.”
After riding and walking for a month, Hartnell reached Santiago in time to celebrate his twenty-first birthday.
It was a solitary celebration, for he knew no one except his employer.
And Mr. Begg, aside from demanding long working hours and unremitting efficiency, showed no interest in the new bookkeeper.
Any social life, to Mr. Begg, seemed a waste of time, an impairment of business acumen.
He drove the young men who worked for him as he drove himself.
As recreation in this lonely life, Hartnell commenced to write long letters home, keeping a copybook.
The following is typical, to his older brother George:
‘I embrace the present favourable opportunity of giving you a good blowing up; what do you mean by this long silence, can’t you find time to write me a few lines, or does your charmer so entirely captivate your sensitive faculties that you have forgot your transatlantic brother?
[Lapsing into Spanish:] ‘I also have my Dulcinea, but she doesn’t make me forget those I used to be fond of, so I hope this will be the last time I must complain. . .
THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL
Susanna Bryant Dakin
Stanford University Press, 1949
ADVENTURER: Page 11
CCC – LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1849 – 2009