Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

51 Books on southernmost South America are not of every day or of every few days. The element of the unusual is present, therefore, to enhance interest in H.Hesketh Prichard’s ‘Through the Heart of Patagonia’ published by Appletons. Mr Prichard writes out of the experiences and the information gained in about six months of travel. He helps other writers to destroy the legend, started by Magellan’s men in 1510, of a great race of Patagonian giants. However, he finds the Tehuelches constituting one of the finest races in the world: ‘Most of them average six feet, some attain to six feet four inches, and in all cases they are well-built and well-developed.’ It is a libel to accuse them of eating raw flesh, ‘but on occasion they will eat raw fat and drink the warm blood of the ostrich.’ Mr Prichard does not believe they were ever the ‘bloodthirsty and barbarous savages’ some writers have represented them to be. Many of Mr Prichard’s readers will be surprised at the extent to which, according to his accounts, colonization is going on in Patagonia. The Welsh and Chilean settlements are most successful. The book is illustrated from photographs and from drawings by John Guille Millais. Rather more significant was a long and enthusiastic notice in the New York Times on 20 December, referring to ‘Hesketh Prichard’s stirring tale of adventure in the far South’ . So by the end of 1902 Hex’s literary and journalistic reputation was well established, and he had played some good cricket. Portsmouth and Patagonia