Accompanied by his wife, Mr. Enrique Bitsch arrived in the territory in the year 1887, coming from Punta Arenas. He was then twenty-nine years of age, and became with the firm purpose of making a fortune, reckoning with his youth, his iron will and the moral and material aid of his greatly daring companion. As at that time there was no other means of transportation, they had to travel on horseback passing the night on the open Pampa, under the slight shelter afforded them by a tent which was carried by one of their pack-horses. After many vicissitudes they reached the lands they had decided to settle on and whither they had sent on a few days earlier, some cattle from the woods and pastures of Chile. The life of hardships which they had taken on themselves in starting the journey went on without any variation after they took up the land which was to be their base of operations, for the settler, lacking the means to provide supplies and conveniences, found himself reduced to what little the desert afforded him where he intended to win out. It was little indeed in truth. The flesh of the guanacos and ostriches which he shot constituted his table; his neighbours were a few Indian tents and his constant preoccupation as well as his only diversion was hunting the many pumas hungrily marauding round the tents and endangering the lives of the stock.

Besides, wood for fuel was scarce and in order to get it several days' journey had to be undertaken. If one adds to all this the difficulty entailed in acclimatising stock originating from the fertile land on the barren plains whither Mr. Bitsch had driven his cattle, above all, when fences are lacking and it is impossible to pay for help, one has a pallid reflex of thetl gigantic undertaking attempted by the hardy settler.

It is interesting to note that at the time the territory was governed by Frigate-Commander Moyano and that Gallegos, the nearest town, consisted of two houses only!

In the year 1895, Mr. Bitsch bought his first sheep from Mr. Hermann Eberhardt, owner of a neighbouring estancia named "Chimen-Aike", who had imported them from the Falkland Islands. Little by little at the cost of huge sacrifices, he was refining his stock and stocking the land he had taken up until he succeeded at the end of the year in forming the present establishment "Bella Vista", the property pf Bitsch Brothers, one of the best known firms in the region.

In that tough and incessant struggle which was intensified by the lack of means and the harshness of the climate, Mr. Enrique Bitsch could always count on his wife's assistance. She was ever ready to second his efforts, and her clear vision and optimism glimpsed an easy and prosperous future.

After eighteen years of labour and economy, Mr. Enrique Bitsch absented himself in 1904 for the first time with his family for the purpose of visiting his native place, Friedrichstadt, in Schleswig-Holstein. He resided there until 1920, when he returned to Argentina because of the painful situation his country was in. In the meantime he had already made two trips to the territory for the purpose of acquainting himself with the state of his establishment.

At the present time, this old-timer fills in his leisure with light rural occupations until such a time as he can carry out his ideal purpose which is to settle down for good in Germany.