PUBLIC DEBT.
Origin of the Funded Debt of Buenos Ayres. Receipts and
Expenditure from 1822 to 1825, during peace. Loan raised in
England. War with Brazil, and stoppage of all Revenue from
the Customhouse for three years. Pecuniary difficulties in
consequence. The Provincial Bank of Buenos Ayres converted
into a National one. The Government interferes with it,
and, by forcing it to increase its issues, destroys its
credit. Debt at the close of the war at the end of 1828.
Hopes founded on the peace destroyed by the mutiny of the
Army;--deplorable consequences of that event. Depreciation
of the Currency. Deficit in the Revenue, and increase
of the Funded Debt:--its amount in 1834, and further
increase in 1837. General Account of the Liabilities of the
Government up to that year;--increased by subsequent war
with Bolivia, and French Blockade Page 374
APPENDIX.
No. 1.--Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces
of South America, in 1816 Page 392
No. 2.--Estimated Population of the Provinces of the Rio de
la Plata, 1836-7 Page 393
No. 3.--Statistics of British Residents at Buenos Ayres, in
1831-- Page 394
No. 4.--Treaty between Great Britain and the United
Provinces of Rio de la Plata Page 396
No. 5.--Copy, in the Guarani language, of the Memorial
addressed by the People of the Mission of San Luis, praying
that the Jesuits might be allowed to remain with them.
Dated 28th February, 1768 Page 404
No. 6.--Meteorological Observations in Buenos Ayres during
1822 and 1823 (from the Registro Estadistico) Page 406
No. 7.--Some Fixed Points in the Provinces of Rio de la
Plata Page 407
No. 8.--Return of Foreign Shipping arrived at Buenos Ayres
from 1821 to 1837 inclusive Page 411
No. 9.--A Statement of the Quantities and Declared Value of
British and Irish Produce and Manufactures exported from
the United Kingdom to the States of the Rio de la Plata,
in each year, from 1830 to 1837 (from Returns laid before
Parliament)-- Page 412
No. 10.--Trade of Monte Video Page 414
No. 11.--Comparative Value (declared) of British and Irish
Produce and Manufactures exported from Great Britain to the
River Plate, Mexico, Columbia, Chile, and Peru, from 1829
to 1837, and to Spain in the same years Page 415
LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.
General Map.
Plate of the Glyptodon opposite Title page.
Buenos Ayres besieged by the Querandis in 1535 " page 19.
Plan of the City " " 28.
Plate of the Megatherium " " 178.
" of the Chlamyphorus " " 330.
BUENOS AYRES AND THE PROVINCES OF LA PLATA.
CHAPTER I.
DIVISIONS AND PRESENT STATE OF THE REPUBLIC.
Extent, Divisions, and General Government of the
Provinces of La Plata. Jurisdiction of the old
Viceroyalties:--Necessity of dividing and subdividing such
vast Governments:--Embarrassments arising out of this
necessity. The backwardness in the Political organization
of these Provinces, common to all the new Republics of
South America; and attributable to the same cause; the
Colonial system of the Mother Country. Mistake in comparing
the condition of the Creoles with that of the British
Colonists of North America. Natural ascendency of Military
Power in the new States. Their progress in the last
twenty-five years compared with their previous condition.
The United Provinces of La Plata, or, as they are sometimes called, the
Argentine Republic, comprise, (with the exception of Paraguay and the
Banda Oriental, which have become separate and independent states) the
whole of that vast space lying between Brazil and the Cordillera of
Chile and Peru, and extending from the 22nd to the 41st degree of south
latitude.
The most southern settlement of the Buenos Ayreans as yet is the
little town of Del Carmen, upon the river Negro.
The native Indians are in undisturbed possession of all beyond, as far
as Cape Horn.
Generally speaking, the Republic may be said to be bounded on the north
by Bolivia; on the west by Chile; on the east by Paraguay, the Banda
Oriental, and the Atlantic Ocean; and on the south by the Indians of
Patagonia. Altogether, it contains about 726,000 square miles English,
with a population of from 600,000 to 700,000 inhabitants.
This vast territory is now subdivided into thirteen Provinces, assuming
to govern themselves, to a certain degree, independently of each
other; though, for all general and national purposes, confederated by
conventional agreements.
For want of a more defined National Executive, the Provincial
Government of Buenos Ayres is temporarily charged with carrying on the
business of the Union with foreign Powers, and with the management of
all matters appertaining to the Republic in common. The Executive Power
of that Government, as constituted in 1821, is vested in the Governor,
or Captain General[6], as he is styled, aided by a Council of ministers
appointed by himself--responsible to the junta or legislative Assembly
of the Province by whom he is elected. The junta itself consists of
forty-four deputies, one-half of whom are annually renewed by popular
election.
Geographically, these Provinces may be divided into three principal
sections:--1st, the Littorine, or eastern; 2nd, the Central, or
northern; 3rd, those to the west of Buenos Ayres, commonly called the
provinces of Cuyo.
The Littorine Provinces are, Buenos Ayres, and Santa Fé, to the west,
and Entre Rios and Corrientes to the east of the River Paranã. Those in
the Central section, on the high road to Peru, are Cordova, Santiago
del Estero, Tucuman, and Salta; to which may be added, Catamarca,
and La Rioja. Those lying west of Buenos Ayres, and which formerly
constituted the Intendency of Cuyo, are San Luis, Mendoza, and San Juan.
All these together now form the confederation of the United Provinces
of La Plata.
Under the Spanish rule, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres comprehended
further, the provinces of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia; as well as
Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental: and immense as this jurisdiction
appears for one government, it was but a portion separated from that of
the old viceroys of Peru, whose nominal authority at one time extended
from Guayaquil to Cape Horn, over 55 degrees of latitude, comprising
almost every habitable climate under the sun; innumerable nations,
speaking various languages, and every production which can minister to
the wants of man.
To Spain, it was a convenience and saving of expense to divide her
American possessions into as few governments as possible; and under her
colonial system, without a hope of improving their social condition,
their native industry discouraged, and the very fruits of the soil
forbidden them, in order to ensure a sale for those of the mother
country, it was of little consequence to the generality of the people
by what viceroy they were ruled, or at what distance from them he
resided.
It became, however, a very different matter when that colonial system
was overthrown, and succeeded by native governments of their own
election. Then, all the many and various distinctions of climate, of
language, of habits, and productions, burst into notice; and as they
separately put forward their claims to consideration, the difficulty,
if not impossibility, became manifest, of adequately providing for them
by the newly-constituted authorities, which, although succeeding to all
the jurisdiction of the viceroys, repudiated _in limine_ the principles
of the system under which such discordant interests had hitherto been
controlled and held together.
The consequence has been, that most of the new states in their
very infancy have been subjected to the embarrassing necessity of
re-casting their governments, and dividing and subdividing their
extensive territories, as the varying and distinct interests of
their several component parts have shown to be requisite for their
due protection and development. Nothing has tended more to retard the
organization and improvement of their political institutions than this
necessity; and nowhere has it been more strikingly exemplified than
in the widely-spread provinces of La Plata. In the first years of the
struggle with the mother country, one common object, paramount to all
other considerations, the complete establishment of their political
independence, bound them together--perhaps I should more correctly
say, prevented their separation;--but the very circumstances of that
struggle, and the vicissitudes of the war, which often for long periods
together cut off their communications with the capital, and with each
other; obliging them to provide separately for their own temporary
government and security, gave rise in many of them, especially those
at a distance, to habits of more or less independence, which, as they
imperceptibly acquired strength, produced in some, as in Paraguay and
Upper Peru, an entire separation from Buenos Ayres; and in others such
an assumption of the management of their own provincial affairs, as ere
long reduced the metropolitan government to a nullity.
It is true that, up to 1820, the semblance of a Central Government
was maintained at Buenos Ayres, but in that year the unpopularity of
the measures of the Directory and of the National Congress led to its
final dissolution, under circumstances which precluded all hope of its
re-establishment, and terminated in the system of federalism, which has
ever since _de facto_ subsisted.
Experience has taught Buenos Ayres the inefficacy of forcible measures
to bring back the provinces under her more immediate control; and
though congresses have been more than once convoked for the purpose
of establishing something more definite as to the form, at least, of
their national government, whether central or federal, individual and
local interests have always prevailed in thwarting such an arrangement;
and the probability now is, that for a long time to come the national
organization of this State will be limited to the slender bonds of
voluntary confederation, which at present constitute the _soi-disant_
union of the provinces, not only with each other, but with their old
metropolis, Buenos Ayres.
It is not my purpose here to enter into the history of the domestic
troubles and civil dissensions which brought about this state of things
in the new republic: it is an unsatisfactory, and to most of my readers
would be a very unintelligible, narrative. Suffice it to say, that
whilst the political importance of Buenos Ayres has been apparently not
a little diminished; on the other hand, it may be questioned if the
provinces have reaped any substantial advantage by shaking off their
immediate dependence upon the metropolis. Most of them have suffered
all the calamitous consequences of party struggles for power, and have
fallen under the arbitrary rule of the military chiefs, who, in turn,
have either by fair means or foul obtained the ascendency; and if in
some of them the semblance of a representative junta has been set up in
imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, it will be found, I believe, that
such assemblies have, in most instances, proved little more than an
occasional convocation of the partisans of the governor for the time
being, much more likely to confirm than to control his despotic sway.
The present political state of the provinces of La Plata is certainly
very different from what was expected by the generality of those who
originally took an interest in the fate of these new countries. It is,
however, a state of things not confined to this republic; we shall
find, more or less, the same scenes; the same violent party struggles,
the same continual changes of government; the same apparent incapacity
for arriving at anything like a settled political organization in
almost every one of the several independent states into which the old
possessions of Spain on the New Continent have resolved themselves; and
this under circumstances, to all appearance, the most dissimilar with
regard to the locality, climate, soil, language, wants, and physical
condition of the inhabitants; with no one common element, in fact,
in their composition, save their having all been brought up in, and
habituated to, the same colonial system of the mother country. What,
then, is the conclusion we must draw from this fact? Is it not evident
that it was that colonial system which, wherever applied, unfitted the
people for a state of independence, and left them worse than helpless
when thrown upon their own resources?
Well might Spain urge upon other nations, as an argument against the
recognition of those countries, that the South Americans were unfit for
a state of independence. She knew the full extent of moral degradation
to which her own policy had reduced them; but it was futile to allege
it, when it had become manifest to all the world that her own power to
reduce them again to subjection was gone for ever, and that the people
of South America had not only achieved their complete independence, but
were resolved and fully able to maintain it. The notoriety of those
facts left no alternative to foreign governments whose subjects had
any real interest in the question, whatever might be the speculative
opinions of some parties as to the eventual prospects of the New States.
In this country our ignorance of the real condition of the people of
South America naturally led us to look back to what had taken place in
our own North American colonies, and with but little discrimination
perhaps, to anticipate the same results, whereas nothing in reality
could be more dissimilar than the circumstances of the colonial
subjects of Great Britain and Spain when their political emancipation
took place.
In the British colonies all the foundations of good government were
already laid: the principles of civil administration were perfectly
understood, and the transition was almost imperceptible.
On the other hand, in the Spanish colonies the whole policy, as well
as the power of the mother country, seems to have been based on
perpetuating the servile state and ignorance of the natives: branded
as an inferior race, they were systematically excluded from all share
in the government, from commerce, and every other pursuit which might
tend to the development of native talent or industry. The very history
of their own unfortunate country was forbidden them, no doubt lest it
should open their eyes to the reality of their own debased condition.
When the struggle came, the question of their independence was soon
settled irrevocably; but as to the elements for the construction at
once of anything like a good government of their own, they certainly
did not exist.
Under these circumstances, what was perfectly natural took place.
In the absence of any other real power, that of military command,
which had grown out of the war, obtained an ascendency, the influence
of which in all the New States became soon apparent. They fell, in
fact, all of them more or less under military despotism. The people
dazzled with the victories and martial achievements of their leaders,
imperceptibly passed from one yoke to another.
It is true that national Congresses and legislative Assemblies were
everywhere convoked; but, generally aiming at more than was practicable
or compatible with their circumstances, they in most instances failed,
and by their failure rather confirmed the absolute power of the
military chiefs. They, however, abolished the slave-trade, put an end
to the forced service of the mita, so grievous to the Indians, and
nominally sanctioned more or less the liberty of the press,--measures
which gained them popularity and support amongst men of liberal
principles in Europe, who fancied they saw in them expressions of
public opinion, and evidences of a fitness amongst the people at large
for free institutions; but this was an error.
The people of South America, with the Laws of the Indies still hanging
about their necks, shouted indeed with their leaders, "Independence and
Liberty," and gallantly fought for and established the first; but as to
liberty, in our sense of the word at least, they knew very little about
it:--how could they?
They have yet practically to learn that true liberty in a civilized
state of society can only really exist where the powers of the ruling
authorities are duly defined and balanced; and where the laws--not
the colonial laws of Old Spain--are so administered as to ensure to
every citizen a prompt redress for wrongs, entire personal security,
and the right of freely expressing his political opinions. The working
of such laws makes men habitually free and fit for the enjoyment of
free institutions. But such a state of things is not brought about
in a day or in a generation, nor can it be produced by any parchment
constitution, however perfect in theory. The experiment has been
tried of late years in some of the oldest states of Europe, and has
invariably failed. Is it then reasonable that we should expect it to be
more successful in such infant states as these new republics? Time--and
we, of all people in the world, ought best to know how long a time--is
requisite to bring such good fruit to maturity.
Education, the press, a daily intercourse with the rest of the world,
and experience not the less valuable because dearly bought, are all
tending gradually to enlighten the inhabitants of these new countries,
and to prepare them for their future destinies. And, although from a
variety of causes, their advancement may appear slow, and their present
state fall far short of what has been expected of them, the truth is,
they have made immense progress, compared with their old condition
under the colonial yoke of Spain;--and especially, I will say so, of
Buenos Ayres.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Upon the election in 1835 of the present Governor Don Juan Manuel
Rosas, he refused, under the particular state of things at the time, to
undertake the office, unless invested with extraordinary powers, which
were in consequence granted by the Junta without limitation for such
time as circumstances might render necessary:--he was elected for five
years.
CHAPTER II.
RIVER PLATE.
The River Plate--why so called. Its immensity. Arrival off
Buenos Ayres. Passengers carted on shore. Want of a better
landing-place, for goods especially. Navigation of the
River not so perilous as was supposed in former times.
The river Plate, or La Plata, was originally named after De Solis,
who first entered it in 1515. Some years afterwards, Sebastian Cabot,
ascending it above its junction with the Paranã, found silver ornaments
amongst the natives; and thence believing, or desiring to induce others
to believe, that that precious metal abounded on its shores, he gave it
the false appellation by which it has ever since been known.
It is a singular coincidence, that thus the two mightiest rivers of the
South American continent, indeed two of the most remarkable rivers of
the world, the Plata, and the Amazons, should derive their names from
fictions, rather than from those brave adventurers who first made them
known, and to whom the honour was the more justly due; as both of them,
Orellana, as well as De Solis, lost their lives in the prosecution of
those particular discoveries.
But one feeling takes possession of the stranger on his arrival off
this wonderful river--that of amazement at the immensity of its extent;
a hundred miles before he enters it, he may have seen its turbid
current, and had to struggle with its influence in the ocean itself[7].
At its mouth, from Cape St. Mary's to Cape St. Antonio, its width is
170 miles. Farther up, between Santa Lucia, near Monte Video, and the
point of Las Piedras on its southern bank, within which its waters are
generally fresh, it is double[8] the distance across from Dover to
Calais.
But for that positive freshness, the stranger can hardly credit that he
is not still at sea. He has yet to sail up it nearly two hundred miles
ere he reaches the anchorage off Buenos Ayres, and then, at the end of
his voyage, if the ship be large[9], he will probably find it difficult
to make out the land.
It is only from the pozos, or inner roads, that the city becomes
visible in its full extent, ranging along a slightly elevated ridge,
which bounds the river. The towers of the churches, and here and there
a solitary Umbú tree, alone break an outline almost as level as the
horizon of the river itself. There is no back-ground to the picture,
no mountains, no trees; one vast continuous plain beyond extends for
nearly 1000 miles unbroken to the Cordillera of Chile.
Unless the weather be perfectly settled, of which the barometer is the
best index, the landing is not unattended with danger. I have known
many a boat lost in crossing the bar or bank which lies between the
outer and inner roads[10]. Nor is the bank the only danger: thick fogs
at times come on, suddenly enveloping land and water in total darkness
without the slightest previous indication; in such a dilemma, if a boat
be caught without the means of anchoring, the chances are that she may
be carried down the river by the currents, and the people half-starved
before they are picked up or can find the land again.
But supposing these dangers passed, nothing can be more inconvenient
or strikingly characteristic of the country than the actual landing.
A ship's boat has seldom water enough to run fairly on shore, and, or
arriving within forty or fifty yards of it, is beset by carts, always
on the watch for passengers, the whole turn-out of which I defy any
other people in the world to produce anything at all approaching.
On the broad flat axle of a gigantic pair of wheels, seven or eight
feet high, a sort of platform is fixed of half a dozen boards, two or
three inches apart, letting in the wet at every splash of the water
beneath; the ends are open--a rude hurdle forms the side, and a short
strong pole from the axle completes the vehicle; to this unwieldy
machine the horse is simply attached by a ring at the end of the pole,
fastened to the girth or surcingle, round which his rider has the
power of turning him as on a pivot, and of either drawing or pushing
the machine along like a wheelbarrow, as may be momentarily most
convenient:--in this manner, for the first time in my life, I saw the
cart fairly before the horse:--in Europe we laugh at the idea; in South
America nothing is more common than the reality.
The wild and savage appearance of the tawny drivers of these carts,
half naked, shouting and screaming and jostling one another, and
flogging their miserable jaded beasts through the water, as if to show
the little value attached to the brute creation in these countries, is
enough to startle a stranger on his first arrival, and induce him for
a moment to doubt whether he be really landing in a Christian country.
It is a new and a strange specimen of human kind, little calculated to
create a favourable first impression.
In old times there was a sort of mole, such as it was, which ran
some way into the river, and obviated a part, at least, of these
inconveniences, but it was either washed or blown down some years
ago, and the people have been too indolent, or too busy ever since
to set about replacing it; not, however, for want of plans for its
reconstruction, amongst which one for a chain-pier, some years ago
submitted to the government, appeared particularly suited to the
locality; why it was not adopted, I never heard, but it is no credit to
the natives that something of the sort has not long since been built.
Nothing is more wanted, or more deserving the primary attention of
the authorities, whilst I believe no work they could undertake would
more certainly repay its expenses, for the convenience to passengers
is a small consideration compared with the value which any commodious
landing-place for merchandise at Buenos Ayres would be of to the trade.
The loss and damage yearly sustained by the present mode of carrying
goods on shore, in the rude carts I have described, is incalculable,
and highly detrimental to the port in a commercial point of view.
With respect to the passage up the river, though somewhat intricate,
it is by no means so perilous as it was long believed to be, probably
because the commercial shipping from Spain rarely ascended higher than
Monte Video, to which Port the country produce from Buenos Ayres and
the interior provinces was for the most part sent down in small craft
for shipment to Europe.
In 1789 Malaspina commenced the elaborate survey of the river,
afterwards completed by Oyarvide, and still further corrected by the
observations of Captains Beaufort and Heywood, of the British navy,
the latter of whom, also, published particulars directions for the
navigation of the several channels between the banks. With his chart
and sailing[11] directions, and due attention to the soundings and
currents, there is now little risk; and that little would be still
farther diminished by the establishment, long projected, of a floating
light off the tail of the Ortiz bank, and of two or three leading
landmarks opposite to the Chico channel.
The most dangerous parts of the river are buoyed, and licensed pilots
ply off its mouth to take vessels either into the harbour of Monte
Video, or up to Buenos Ayres.
Ships drawing fifteen or sixteen feet water may ran freely up to the
anchorage of that city. Foreign vessels do not go higher, Buenos Ayres
being at present the only port of entry; indeed, were it otherwise,
and the navigation of the upper parts of the river thrown open, and
declared free, as some of the provinces have at times wished, it is
not likely that European shipping would ever avail themselves of it,
seeing that the passage up from Buenos Ayres to Corrientes, besides the
additional risk, would at least occupy as much time as the whole voyage
out from France or England.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Kotzebue says 200.--"In the parallel of the Rio de la Plata,
although 200 miles from land, we were daily carried by the current
thirty-nine miles out of our course; so great is the influence of this
mighty river."--Kotzebue's _Voyage round the World_, 1823-26.
[8] The distance between Point Piedras and Santa Lucia Point is
fifty-three miles.
[9] Vessels drawing more than sixteen feet water seldom get nearer than
seven or eight miles.
[10] In former times the commanders of our men-of-war established a
good rule, that "no boat should go on shore without its anchor, and
none leave it after sunset;" which, if attended to by our merchantmen,
might prevent many a calamitous accident.
[11] They will be found in Purdy's "Sailing Directory, for the South
Atlantic Ocean," published by Laurie, 1837, together with those of M.
Barral of the French navy, the results of a still more recent survey of
the River.
CHAPTER III.
CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.
First Impressions of Buenos Ayres. Date of the Foundation, and
Insignificance of the Colony for a long period. Contraband
Trade carried on through it a grievance to the Mother
Country. Erected into a distinct Viceroyalty in 1776, and
its trade opened in consequence of the modified system
adopted by Spain about the same time. The advantages of
this to Buenos Ayres.
If my first feelings on being carted ashore at Buenos Ayres in the
uncouth manner I have described, were none of the most agreeable,
they soon passed off, and gave way to different impressions. As I
walked up to the lodgings which had been prepared for me, I was struck
with the regularity of the streets and buildings, the appearance of
the churches, the general cheerfulness of the white-stuccoed houses,
and especially with the independent contented air of the people--- a
striking contrast to the wretched beggary and slave population, of
which I had lately seen so much at Rio de Janeiro.
The date of the foundation of this city is comparatively recent, and
long subsequent to the arrival of the first discoverers of the country,
to whom neither the aspect of the Pampas, nor the warlike disposition
of the Querandis, the then inhabitants, appear to have offered any
attractions. Their search was for the land of gold and silver, which
was evidently not this: in quest of those precious metals they
ascended the river, and for the most part settled in the more inviting
regions of Paraguay; hoping from thence to open an easy communication
with the rich countries of Peru.
[Illustration: _The first Settlement at Buenos Ayres, in 1535, beseiged
by the Querandi Indians._
(_From the original representation given in Ulric Schmidel's account
thereof, on his return to Nuremberg._)]
In 1535 the Adelantado, Don Pedro de Mendoza, on his way to Paraguay
with one of the most brilliant expeditions ever equipped in Spain
for South America, landed to recruit his people near the spot where
Buenos Ayres now stands, and caused a fort to be built there for the
first time, in which he left what he supposed a sufficient garrison
for its defence; but he was mistaken--the warlike natives as soon as
he was gone drove out the Spanish soldiers, and remained for nearly
another half-century in undisturbed possession of all that part of the
country.[12]
It was not till the year 1580 that the famous Don Juan de Garay, then
in Paraguay, determined once more to endeavour to form a permanent
settlement in the same neighbourhood. In this attempt the Spaniards
as before met with a most obstinate resistance on the part of the
natives, who attacked them armed with their formidable slings (the
bolas now used by the gauchos) and with bows and arrows, to which they
tied burning matches, which set fire not only to their tents but to
their shipping. De Garay's little band, which only consisted of sixty
men-at-arms, was at first well nigh overwhelmed by the number of the
savages who poured down upon them bravely fighting for their lands.
On both sides prodigies of individual valour are related. The death,
however, of the Cacique, who commanded in chief, seems to have decided
the battle; the Indians, seeing him fall, fled, followed by the victors
till they were weary of killing them: and such was the slaughter that
to this day the scene of the engagement is called _La Matanza_, or "the
Killing Ground."
After this victory De Garay took formal possession of the country
in the King of Spain's name, and founded the present city of Buenos
Ayres--A.D. 1580.
For two centuries the settlement thus planted languished in
insignificance, abandoned to its own resources, and the mother country,
to all appearance, fearing rather than desiring its aggrandizement:
nor was this without cause;--Spain, in fact, lost so immensely by the
contraband trade carried on from Peru, through the river Plate, that
she became accustomed to regard with something more than indifference a
possession which in consequence of her own prohibitory and restrictive
system, was totally unproductive to her, whilst the facilities it
offered for illicit trading made it a fruitful source of grievance and
of disputes with other nations.
The extent, however, of these evils in the course of time produced
their own remedy. The King of Spain at last discovered that a Viceroy
at Lima could not put down the smugglers in the river Plate, or prevent
the continual territorial encroachments of the Portuguese in the same
quarter.
The necessity had long been evident of establishing a separate
and independent authority on the spot where its vigilance was in
daily request, and in 1776 Buenos Ayres was made the seat of a new
Viceroyalty, and separated from the government of Peru.
It was about that time, also, that Spain made most important changes in
her colonial system. The exclusive and pernicious monopoly of the whole
trade of South America, till then possessed by the merchants of Seville
and Cadiz, was put an end to, and a comparatively free intercourse
was, for the first time, permitted with many ports in the new world,
with which till then it was death to communicate. Buenos Ayres reaped
a large share of the advantages of this alteration in the commercial
views and policy of the mother country; and from a nest of smugglers
became one of the first trading cities in Spanish America. The rapid
increase of her population, under these new circumstances, is worth
notice.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See annexed plate, copied from the original in the account
published by Ulric Schmidel, a volunteer under Mendoza, and one of the
garrison besieged by the Querandis.
CHAPTER IV.
POPULATION OF BUENOS AYRES.
Statistics of the Population. Its great increase in the last
fifty years. Castes into which it was formerly divided now
disappearing. Numbers of Foreigners established there,
especially British. Their influence on the habits of the
Natives. The Ladies of Buenos Ayres; the Men and their
occupations.
In the year 1767, when M. de Bougainville visited Buenos Ayres, he
tells us that the number of the inhabitants did not exceed 20,000.
In 1778, the year in which the port was partially thrown open under
the free-trade regulations of Spain, as they were called, a census
was taken, by which it appears that the inhabitants of the city and
of its campaña, or country jurisdiction, amounted to 37,679 souls, of
which 24,205 belonged to the city, 12,925 to the country, and 549 were
members of religious communities; divided as follows, viz.:--
+------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------+
| | CITY. | COUNTRY. |
| COLOUR. +-------+---------+-------+-------+---------+--------+
| | Males.| Females.| Total.| Males.| Females.| Total. |
+------------------+-------+---------+-------+-------+---------+--------+
|1, Spaniards and }| | | | | | |
| Creoles }| 7,821 | 7,898 |15,719 | 5,008 | 4,724 | 9,732 |
|2, Indians | 276 | 268 | 544 | 841 | 702 | 1,543 |
|3, Mestizoes | 289 | 385 | 674 | .. | .. | .. |
|4, Mulattoes | 1,366 | 1,787 | 3,153 | 571 | 449 | 1,020 |
|5, Negroes | 1,933 | 2,182 | 4,115 | 351 | 279 | 630 |
| +-------+---------+-------+-------+---------+--------+
| Total |11,685 | 12,520 |24,205 | 6,771 | 6,154 | 12,925 |
| +-------+---------+-------+-------+---------+--------+
| |
| SUMMARY. |
| |
|Population of the city 24,205 |
|Population of the country 12,925 |
|Ecclesiastical establishments 549 |
| ------ |
| Total 37,679 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
To these numbers, however, some, and not an inconsiderable, addition
should be made for short returns, particularly from the country
districts; for, let it be borne in mind, in examining all such official
estimates of the population of the Spanish colonies, that, as any
attempt on the part of the authorities to take a census was sure to
be regarded as the forerunner of some new exaction for the service
of the mother country, so it was as certain to be evaded, especially
by the lower orders of the people, and, in proportion, to fall short
of the reality. In this census it does not appear that the military
were included, but in that year, or the preceding one, no less than
10,000 men were sent out from Spain under the command of the Viceroy
Cevallos, in addition to the ordinary forces, to carry on the war with
the Portuguese: a great part of them it may be assumed never returned,
and should therefore be added to the numbers of the colonists. Making,
then, a fair allowance for these deficiencies in the census for 1778,
the population at that time probably did not fall short of 50,000
souls; and this calculation may be rather under than over the truth.
In 1789, ten years afterwards, Helms, the German traveller, on his
way to Peru, was told by the Viceroy at Buenos Ayres that the city
contained between 24,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, a calculation probably
founded on the census of 1778, with his own vague notion of the
probable increase upon it in the interim. No mention is made by him of
the population of the country.
In 1795 the Viceroy Aredondo, on delivering up the government to his
successor, took occasion to allude to the great increase which had
taken place in the population since the opening of the trade, and spoke
of it as then amounting altogether to nearly 60,000 souls.
In 1800 Azara calculated it to be 71,668, estimating 40,000 for
the city, and 31,668 for the country-towns and villages within its
jurisdiction--a great increase since 1778, compared with the past,
which can only be ascribed to the more liberal policy adopted by Spain,
and to the extraordinary impulse thereby given to the colony. This,
however, was but an indication of the further results to be anticipated
from the removal of those remaining restrictions which still grievously
hampered the energies of the community, and retarded the development
of the capabilities of a country formed by nature to be a great
commercial emporium. The British invasions in 1806 and 1807 awakened
the Buenos Ayreans to a sense of their own political importance,
and the subsequent struggle with the mother country for their
independence opened their ports to all the world; and in nothing are
the consequences more strikingly exemplified than in the extraordinary
increase which since that epoch has taken place in the population,
notwithstanding all the waste of war in all its forms, foreign and
civil, by land and by sea.
The following Tables of the Marriages, Births, and Deaths in the city
and country districts of the province for 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825,
are taken from data published under the authority of the Government;
and the calculations founded upon them give the most correct idea to be
procured of the extent of the population up to the close of 1825.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| No. 1.--MARRIAGES. |
+-----------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| | CITY. | COUNTRY. |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| | 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.| 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.|
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
|1. Whites | 331 | 366 | 357 | 393 | 602 | 547 | 513 | 549 |
|2. Free Coloured}| 120 | 88 | 119 | 135 | 81 | 86 | 81 | 62 |
| People }| | | | | | | | |
|3. Slaves | 130 | 112 | 107 | 71 | 40 | 59 | 48 | 41 |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| Total | 581 | 566 | 583 | 599 | 723 | 683 | 642 | 652 |
+-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| No. 2.--BAPTISMS. |
+-----------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+
| | CITY. | COUNTRY. |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| | 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.| 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.|
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
|1. Whites | 1962 | 2110 | 2163 | 2102 | 2703 | 2672 | 2534 | 2735 |
|2. People | | | | | | | | |
| of Colour | 748| 816 | 835 | 793 | 498 | 532 | 498 | 399 |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| Total | 2710 | 2926 | 2998 | 2895 | 3201 | 3204 | 3032 | 3134 |
+-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| No. 3.--DEATHS. |
+-----------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
| | CITY. | COUNTRY. |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| | 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.| 1822.| 1823.| 1824.| 1825.|
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
|1. Whites | 1448 | 1927 | 1498 | 1812 | 1463 | 1801 | 1446 | 1392 |
|2. Free Coloured}| 591 | 846 | 714 | 895 | 350 | 364 | 333 | 252 |
| People }| | | | | | | | |
|3. Slaves | 114 | 145 | 114 | 98 | 52 | 74 | 90 | 47 |
| +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| Total | 2153 | 2918 | 2326 | 2805 | 1865 | 2239 | 1869 | 1691 |
+-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| SUMMARY. |
+---------------------------------------------+------+------+------+------+
| | 1822 | 1823 | 1824 | 1825 |
| +------+------+------+------+
|Total Marriages | 1305 | 1249 | 1225 | 1251 |
| " Baptisms | 5911 | 6130 | 6030 | 6029 |
| " Deaths | 4018 | 5157 | 4195 | 4496 |
| +------+------+------+------+
|Excess of Births over Deaths | 1893 | 973 | 1835 | 1533 |
+---------------------------------------------+------+------+------+------+
Thus it appears that the proportion of births to deaths is in the ratio
of about four to three: amongst the coloured population, the births
are very little more than equal to the deaths; in the city they fall
much short of them; the increase, therefore, is on the white stock. The
births to the marriages appear to be as nearly five to one.
The _Statistical Register_ of Buenos Ayres assumes the annual measure
of mortality to be one in thirty-two in the city, and one in forty
in the country; and, taking the average of the results for 1822 and
1823, arrives at the conclusion that the inhabitants of the city
amounted, at the commencement of 1824, to 81,136, and those of the
country to 82,080, making in all a population of 163,216. If we
calculate, according to the same rule, the mean of the results of the
bills of mortality for the four years ending with 1825, it will give
us a population for the city of 81,616 persons, and for the country
districts of 76,640, in all of 158,256, at the close of 1825; about
5000 less than the estimate made in the _Register_ two years before,
the falling off being in the country: but this is at once accounted for
by the recruiting which took place in 1825 for the war with Brazil,
which must have taken off a much larger number: allowing for which, I
think we may fairly assume that the total population of the city and
province of Buenos Ayres at the close of that year was not far short of
165,000 souls, being, as nearly as we have the means of calculating,
about double what it was twenty years before. At the time I am
writing, ten years afterwards, I have not a doubt that it amounts to
nearly 200,000[13].
As an additional exemplification of the increase which has taken place
in the population since the time of M. de Bougainville, I annex a plan
of the city, showing what were its limits in his time, and what has
been added since.
From the numbers let us turn to the general composition of this
population.
The census of 1778 divided it into five castes.
1. The Spaniards and their descendants born in America, generally known
as Creoles.
2. The native Indians.
3. The Mestizoes--offspring of the Spaniard and Indian.
4. The Mulattoes--offspring of the Spaniard and Negro.
5. The Negroes or Africans born.
Of these five castes, however, the Indians and their Mestizo offspring
formed a very small and insignificant proportion, and can only be
regarded as accidentally domiciliated at Buenos Ayres in consequence of
its being at that time the principal channel of communication between
Peru, their proper soil, and Spain.
[Illustration: _The City of_ BUENOS AYRES, _in 1767_ (_tinted thus_
[Black Square]) _and in 1825_, (_blank_).]
The original Indians of Buenos Ayres were a hostile race, who would
hold no intercourse with their conquerors. No mixture, therefore,
of Spanish and native blood took place in that particular part of
South America, which could produce a distinct caste, as in the Upper
Provinces and in Peru, where the more peaceable and domesticated
inhabitants continue to the present day to constitute the main stock
of the population. In those parts we see a striking difference in the
people; the further we advance into the interior, the more scarce
become the white in proportion to the coloured inhabitants. The
aboriginal Indian blood decidedly predominates in the Mestizo castes,
whilst the negro and his Mulatto descendants, so common on the coast,
are there almost unknown. The cause of this is easily explained;
for a long period very few European women reached the interior of
America: the Spaniards, therefore, who settled there, were under the
necessity of mixing with the natives, from which connexion has arisen
that numerous race, the Mestizoes, which forms so large a part of
the present population of those countries. The same difficulty in
transporting their women from Europe did not occur with respect to
Buenos Ayres; there the European stock was easily kept up, though for
a long period it increased but slowly; and, but for the adventitious
circumstance of its having been for some years a depôt for the
slave-trade, under the Asiento Treaties, the population of Buenos
Ayres would have been nearly free from be seen that the Indian and
Mestizo no longer appear: the division made is simply into the white
and the coloured population; and, although the latter still at that
time amounted to nearly a fourth part of the whole, it had ceased to
increase. In the four years the births barely exceeded the deaths, and
whilst the proportion of deaths amongst the coloured people increased,
there was a striking falling off in the number of their marriages
and births, even from 1822 to 1825. The slave-trade has in fact,
been prohibited since 1813, by a decree of the Constituent Assembly,
consequently any further supply from the Negro stock has ceased, and
it cannot be very long ere all trace of its having ever existed must
be merged in the rapid increase of the whites--a result which will
be greatly accelerated by the introduction of fresh settlers from
Europe, who are daily arriving and domiciliating themselves in the new
republic. Of the extent of this some notion may be formed when I state
that the number of foreigners, who, up to 1832, had fixed themselves
in the city and province of Buenos Ayres, amounted, with their wives
and children, to no less than from 15,000 to 20,000 persons. Of these,
about two-thirds were British and French, in about equal proportions;
the remainder was made up of Italians, Germans, and people of other
countries, not the least numerous of whom were emigrants from the
United States, and especially from New York.
As it may interest some of my readers to know what classes of
our countrymen find employment at Buenos Ayres, I have given in
the Appendix an account of them, as taken from a register which I
established on my own arrival there, together with the marriages,
births, and deaths amongst them, as far as they could be learned for
the period stated: to these I have further added a copy of the Treaty
I concluded with the Government of Buenos Ayres, in 1825, securing to
His Majesty's subjects in that country many important privileges, and
amongst the rest the free exercise of their own religion:--a great
object to so numerous a community:--I had subsequently the satisfaction
of seeing it fully carried out by the erection of an English church,
capable of containing 1000 persons, towards which the Buenos Ayrean
Government itself contributed, by giving a valuable plot of ground for
the purpose:--His Majesty's Government appointed the chaplain, and
regularly defrays one half of the annual expense, the British residents
paying the remainder. A Presbyterian chapel has been since built in
virtue of the same privilege by the Scotch part of the community; and
for the Catholics, an Irish priest is allowed to do duty in one of the
national churches.
In a population so intermixed, and in such daily communication with
the people of other countries, it is not surprising that national
peculiarities should have very nearly disappeared. Thus the men of the
better classes in Buenos Ayres are hardly to be distinguished in their
dress from the French and English merchants who have fixed themselves
amongst them, whilst the ladies vie with each other in imitating the
last fashions from Paris: it is only in their out-door costume that
any difference is apparent; then the more becoming mantilla and shawl
thrown over the head and shoulders supersede the European bonnet and
pelisse. Some of them are very beautiful, and their polite and obliging
manners, especially to strangers, render them doubly attractive. Our
countrymen have formed many matrimonial connexions with them, which
has contributed, no doubt, to the good feeling with which they are so
generally regarded by the natives.
Education, it is true, has not as yet made great progress amongst them,
but in this improvement is taking place, and if the young ladles of
Buenos Ayres do not study history and geography, they are adepts in
many pleasing accomplishments; they dance with great grace, and sing
and play very prettily; the piano-forte, indeed, is a constant resource
morning as well as evening in every respectable house.
Amongst the men there are native poets, whose productions do honour
to the Spanish language. A collection of them, called _La Lira
Argentina_, was printed in 1823, which is well worth the notice of all
lovers of Spanish verse. But the men have more advantages as respects
education than the ladies: in their schools and universities they are
now very fairly grounded in most branches of general knowledge, and of
late years it has been much the custom amongst the better families to
send their sons to Europe to complete their studies.
I should say of them in general that they are observing and
intelligent, and extremely desirous to improve themselves.
Their ordinary habits are certainly a good deal influenced by climate:
I cannot speak of them as an industrious people, and yet it is rare to
see a man who has not some nominal occupation.
From the number of _doctores_, a stranger might suppose that all the
upper classes were lawyers or physicians. This is not exactly the case;
but, as that degree serves to mark the man who has received a liberal
education, it is generally taken by those who pass through the schools,
without particular reference to their future calling. Thus I have known
_doctores_ in all pursuits--ministers of state, _employés_ of all
sorts, clerks in public offices, military officers, and merchants; all
attaching to it the same importance as we do, perhaps with less right,
to the ordinary title of esquire as the designation of a gentleman.
Law and physic, however, do give employment to revolution in
this, as in other Catholic countries, has put an end to the
unconstitutional influence exercised by them in old times, and under
different circumstances: the Government having taken possession of
the ecclesiastical property, the officiating priests are left to
depend upon a stipend, in general barely sufficient for their decent
maintenance, so that there is but small inducement left for men to
devote themselves to a life of celibacy.
But it is the trade and commerce of Buenos Ayres which is the great
source of occupation for its extensive population; since, though the
importing and exporting part of the business may be chiefly carried
on by the foreign merchants, the details are for the most part left
to the natives: they collect, and prepare, and bring in for sale, all
the produce of the country, and retail the goods imported from foreign
countries: nor is it thought at all degrading for young men of the best
connexions to stand behind a counter: there they gossip with their fair
customers upon a perfect equality, and in dandyism a Buenos Ayrean
shopkeeper may be backed against the smartest man-milliner of London or
Paris.
The mechanics and artisans form also a large class, as may be supposed,
in a country where everything is wanted, and no man feels inclined
to do much; it is in this line that the European has so decided an
advantage over the native from his more industrious habits; for he
requires no siesta, and works whilst the natives of all classes, high
and low, are asleep: he cannot fail to prosper if he will but avoid
the drinking-shops; but he must be resolute on that point, for it is a
temptation which he finds at the corner of every street: no less than
600 pulperias are open in the city alone, as appears by the list of
licences annually taken out at the police[14].
For everyone who will work there is employment, and as to real _want_,
it can hardly exist in a country where beef is dear at a halfpenny
a-pound, and where the generality of the lower orders want nothing
else.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] By a return for 1836, it appears that in the _City_ in that year,
The Marriages were 412
Baptisms 3211
Deaths 2785 exclusive of those in the hospitals. I have
no return from the _Country_.
[14] The same list will give some idea of the general distribution of
the trades for 1836; it was as follows:--
358 Wholesale stores.
348 Retail shops.
323 Tailors, shoemakers, milliners, and all handicrafts.
6 Booksellers.
598 Pulperias, or drinking shops.
26 Billiard-tables.
44 Hotels, taverns, and eating-houses.
48 Confectioners and liqueur-shops.
29 Chemists and apothecaries.
76 Flour-shops and bakeries.
44 Baracas, or hide-warehouses.
33 Timber-yards.
13 Livery-stables.
6 Coachmakers.
874 Carts and carriages paid duties.
CHAPTER V.
CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.
Great extent of the City. Public Buildings. Inconvenient
Arrangement and want of Comfort in the Dwellings of the
Natives a few years ago. Prejudice against Chimneys.
Subsequent Improvements introduced by Foreigners. Iron
gratings at the windows necessary. Water scarce and dear.
That of the River Plata excellent, and capable of being
kept a very long time. Pavement of Buenos Ayres.
Buenos Ayres, like all other cities in Spanish America, is built upon
the uniform plan[15] prescribed I believe by the Council of the Indies,
consisting of straight streets, intersecting each other at right angles
every 150 yards; and, from the peculiar construction of the houses,
covers at least twice the ground which would be required for any
European city of the same population.
With the exception of the churches, which, though unfinished
externally, exhibit in their interior all the gaudy richness of the
religion to which they belong, and will be lasting memorials of the
pious zeal of the Jesuits, who built the greater part of them, there
is nothing remarkable in the style of the public buildings. The old
government considered money laid out in beautifying the city as so
much thrown away upon the colonists, and the new government has been
as yet too poor to do more than has been absolutely necessary; what
has been done, however, has been well done, and does credit to the
republican authorities.
In their private dwellings there was a wretched want of every comfort,
when I first went to the country. With but few exceptions, they were
confined to a ground floor; the apartments built _en suite_, without
passages, round two or three successive quadrangular courts, called
patios, opening into each other; and the whole distribution about as
primitive and inconvenient as can be imagined.
The floors of the best rooms were of bricks or tiles, the rafters of
the roof seldom hid by a ceiling, the walls as cold as whitewash could
make them; whilst the furniture was of the most gaudy, tawdry, North
American manufacture: a few highly-coloured French prints, serving,
perhaps, to mark the state of the fine arts in South America.
Nothing could be more anti-comfortable to English eyes. In cold
weather these cold-looking rooms were heated by braziers, at the risk
of choking the inmates with the fumes of charcoal; chimneys, so far
from being looked upon as wholesome ventilators, were regarded as
certain conductors of wet and cold; and it was not till long after the
introduction of them by the European residents had practically proved
their safety and superiority over the old Spanish warming-pans, that
the natives could be induced to try them. The apprehension that they
increased the risk of fire was even without foundation, for never were
the habitations of man built of such incombustible materials. The
roofs and floors, I have already said, are all of brick, and the few
beams which are necessary for supporting the former are of a wood from
Paraguay, as hard as teak, and almost as incombustible as the bricks
themselves.
Of the prejudices of the natives about chimneys I may perhaps have
rather a sensitive feeling, from a practical experience I had myself
upon the subject soon after my landing amongst them. There was but
one in all the apartments I occupied with my family, and that one my
Spanish landlord, to my no small dismay and astonishment, ordered a
bricklayer to stop up one afternoon over our heads, because he had had
a dispute with my servants about the necessity of occasionally sweeping
it, which he chose to take this summary way of putting an end to. The
weather was wet and bad enough, and I never was more in want of the
comfort of a good fire; but no entreaty or remonstrance could shake the
obstinate determination of the old Don. He had the advantage of us by
living over head, in the upper apartments of the building; and he was
determined to make us fully sensible of the _de facto_ superiority of
his authority. He required no chimney himself, and he could not be made
to understand that a Spanish brazier would not answer all our English
wants just as well as it did his.
I lived, however, long enough in Buenos Ayres to see great changes in
these matters, and such innovations upon the old habits and fashions
of the people as would make a stranger now doubt whether it really
be the place he may have read of. In nothing is the alteration more
striking than in the comparative comfort, if not luxury, which has
found its way into the dwellings of the better classes: thanks to the
English and French upholsterers, who have swarmed out to Buenos Ayres,
the old whitewashed walls have been covered with paper in all the
varieties from Paris; and European furniture of every sort is to be
met with in every house. English grates, supplied with coals carried
out from Liverpool as ballast, and often sold at lower prices than in
London, have been brought into very general use, and certainly have
contributed to the health and comfort of a city, the atmosphere of
which is nine days out of ten affected by the damps from the river. Nor
is the improvement confined to the internal arrangement of the houses,
a striking change has taken place in the whole style of building in
Buenos Ayres. With the influx of strangers, the value of property,
especially in the more central part of the city, has been greatly
enhanced, and has led the natives to think of economising their ground
by constructing upper stories to their houses in the European fashion,
the obvious advantage whereof will no doubt ere many years make the
plan general, and greatly add to the embellishment of the city.
Some peculiarities will probably long be preserved, such amongst
other as the iron gratings, or rather railings, which protect the
windows, and which, on more than one occasion, have proved the best
safeguards of the inhabitants: it requires some time for a European
to become reconciled to their appearance, which ill accords with the
_beau-idéal_ of republican liberty and public safety; yet when painted
green they are rather ornamental than otherwise, particularly when
hung, as they frequently are, with festoons of the beautiful air-plants
of Paraguay, which there live and blossom even on cold iron, and one
does get reconciled to them, I believe, from a speedy conviction of
their necessity in the present state of society in those countries:--in
the hot nights of summer, too, it is some comfort to be able to
leave a window open without risk of intrusion; though some of the
light-fingered gentry have made this not quite so safe as it used to
be. I have known more than one instance of a clever thief running off
with the clothes of the sleeping inmates, fished through the gratings
by means of one of the long canes of the country, with a hook at the
end of it:--in one well-known case, a gentleman's watch was thus hooked
out of its pocket at his bed's head, and he was but just roused by his
frightened wife in time to catch a last glimpse of the chain and seals
as they seemingly danced out of the window.
It will hardly be credited that water is an expensive article within
fifty yards of the Plata, but so it is; nothing can be worse than the
ordinary supply of it. That obtained from the wells is brackish and
bad, and there are no public cisterns or reservoirs, although the city
is so slightly elevated above the river, that nothing would be easier
than to keep it continually provided by the most ordinary artificial
means. As it is, those who can afford it go to a great expense in
constructing large tanks under the pavement of their court-yards, into
which the rainwater collected from the flat-terraced roofs of their
houses is conducted by pipes; and in general a sufficiency may thus
be secured for the ordinary purposes of the family; but the lower
orders, who cannot afford to go to such an expense, depend for a more
scanty supply upon the itinerant water-carriers, who, at a certain
time of day, are to be seen lazily perambulating the streets with
huge butts filled at the river, mounted on the monstrous cart-wheels
of the country, and drawn by a yoke of oxen; a clumsy and expensive
contrivance altogether, which makes even water dear within a stone's
throw of the largest river in the world. Taken at the very edge, it is
seldom of the purest, and generally requires to stand twenty-four hours
before it deposits its muddy sediment, and becomes sufficiently cleared
to be drinkable; it is then excellent, and may be kept for any time. I
have drunk it myself on board ship, after it had been two voyages to
England and back, and never tasted better.
The principal streets are now tolerably paved with granite brought from
the islands above Buenos Ayres, especially from Martin Garcia. How the
people got about before they were paved it is difficult to understand,
for the streets must have been at times one continued slough; at least
if one may judge from the state of those which are still unfinished,
and which, after any continuance of wet weather, are nearly, if not
entirely, impassable, even for people on horseback, much more so for
carriages. I have seen in some of them the mire so deep that the oxen
could not drag the country carts through it; and it not unfrequently
happens, in such a case, that the animals themselves are unable to get
out, and are left to die and rot in the swamp in the middle of the
street.
It was a fair sample of the miserable economy and wretched policy of
the colonial authorities, that a commercial city of such importance,
and in which the traffic was daily increasing, should have been allowed
so long to remain in such a state, with an inexhaustible supply of the
best paving materials in the world within twenty or thirty miles of
it, and of such easy water-carriage. The people however, were led to
believe that the difficulties and impediments to such an improvement as
the general paving of the city were next to insurmountable.
The Viceroy himself, the Marquis of Loreto, when the first notion of
such a plan was started, gravely gave, amongst other reasons against
it, the danger of the houses falling down from the shaking of their
foundations, by the driving of heavy carts over a stone pavement so
close to them, whilst another and still more weighty objection in his
opinion was, the necessity it would entail upon the people to put
iron tires to their cart-wheels, and to shoe their horses, which,
he reminded them, would cost them more than the animals themselves.
Fortunately, his immediate successors, Aredondo and Aviles, were not
deterred by similar alarms. The former commenced the work with activity
about the year 1795, with the aid of a subscription voluntarily raised
by the inhabitants; and the latter carried it on to a much greater
extent, levying a trifling duty upon the city for the purpose, which
was readily submitted to, when, as the work advanced, the improvement
became manifest. In later times, especially during the government of
1822-24, much more was done, and there are few of the principal streets
which are not now more or less completed.
The granite is excellent, and was carefully examined in situ by Mr.
Bevans, an English engineer, a few years ago, who reported that it was
easy to be worked, and the supply inexhaustible. When the working of it
is better understood by the natives, it will probably be brought into
much more general use.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Mr. Scarlet has given the best possible description of this plan,
in comparing it to a chess-board:--the relative proportions are as
nearly as possible four English acres to each square.
CHAPTER VI.
CLIMATE OF BUENOS AYRES, AND ITS EFFECTS.
Climate of Buenos Ayres, liable to sudden changes. Influence
of the North Wind. Case of Garcia. Effects of a Pampero.
Dust-Storms and Showers of Mud. The Natives free from
Epidemics, but liable to peculiar affections from the state
of the atmosphere. Lockjaw of very common occurrence. The
Smallpox stopped by Vaccination. Introduced in 1805, and
preserved by an individual. Its first introduction amongst
the Native Indians by General Rosas. Cases of Longevity, of
frequent occurrence.
Azara, the best of all writers upon the country, has with much truth
observed that the climate of Buenos Ayres is governed not so much by
its latitude as by the wind, a change of which will continually produce
an alteration of from 20 to 30 degrees in the thermometer[16]?
I have been often asked whether the heats in summer are not almost
intolerable. On some days they are so; the glass perhaps above 90°
in the shade, and all nature gasping for air; but on those very days
the most experienced of the natives will be clothed in warm woollens
instead of linen jackets and trousers, for fear of catching cold.
During the greater part of the year the prevailing winds are northerly,
which, passing over the marshy lands of Entre Rios, and then over the
wide expanse of the Plata, imbibe their exhalations, and, by the time
they reach the southern shores of the river, have a great influence
upon the climate. Everything is damp: the mould stands upon the boots
cleaned but yesterday; books become mildewed, and the keys rust in
one's pocket. Good fires are the best preservatives, and I found them,
if not absolutely necessary, at least very comfortable, during quite
as many months as I should have had them in England; and yet I never,
during nine years, saw snow, or ice thicker than a dollar, and the
latter only once. Upon the bodily system the effect produced by this
prevailing humidity is a general lassitude and relaxation; opening the
pores of the skin, and inducing great liability to colds, sore throats,
rheumatic affections, and all the consequences of checked perspiration;
one of the best safeguards against which is doubtless the woollen
clothing of the natives, of which I have already spoken; though they
require it, perhaps, the more especially, because they seldom stir
out of their houses in the extreme heat of the day; and it is at the
time they do go out, when the sun has lost its power and the damps of
evening are setting in, that such precautions are doubly necessary.
Europeans, at first, are loth to take the same care of themselves,
but sooner or later they discover that the natives are right, and
insensibly fall into their ways.
The evil effects of all this humidity, so far as they are dangerous,
appear to be confined to the immediate vicinity of the river, and to
the inhabitants of the city; for in the pampas the gauchos sleep upon
the ground during the greater part of the year in the open air without
risk. Their skins, however, like those of the cattle they watch, are
probably impervious to the wet.
Before I went to Buenos Ayres I had suffered much from malaria fever,
caught in Greece; and when I saw, for the first time, the low, flat,
marshy appearance of the whole country, I expected nothing less than
a return of my old ague. Everything around seemed to bespeak it: but
Buenos Ayres is free from such disorders, and cases of intermittent
fever, such as that I speak of, are rarely known there.
Still, though free from the malaria of the Mediterranean coasts,
the sirocco of the Levant does not bring with it more disagreeable
affections than the viento norte, or north wind of Buenos Ayres;
indeed, the irritability and ill-humours it excites in some people
amount to little less than a temporary derangement of their moral
faculties: it is a common thing to see men amongst the better classes
shut themselves up in their houses during its continuance, and lay
aside all business till it has passed; whilst amongst the lower orders
it is a fact well known to the police that cases of quarrelling and
bloodshed are infinitely more frequent during the north wind than at
any other time. In illustration of this, I shall quote a case in point,
the account of which I received from one of the most eminent medical
men in the country, who had paid particular attention during a practice
of more than thirty years to its influence upon the human system.
In the year ---- a man named Garcia was executed for murder. He was
a person of some education, esteemed by those who knew him, and,
in general, rather remarkable than otherwise for the civility and
amenity of his manners; his countenance was open and handsome, and
his disposition frank and generous; but when the north wind set in
he appeared to lose all command of himself, and such was his extreme
irritability, that during its continuance he could hardly speak to
any one in the street without quarrelling. In a conversation with my
informant a few hours before his execution, he admitted that it was the
third murder he had been guilty of besides having been engaged in more
than twenty fights with knives, in which he had both given and received
many serious wounds; but, he observed, it was the north wind, not he,
that shed all this blood. When he rose from his bed in the morning,
he said, he was at once aware of its accursed influence upon him;--a
dull headache first, and then a feeling of impatience at everything
about him, would cause him to take umbrage even at the members of
his own family on the most trivial occurrence. If he went abroad his
headache generally became worse, a heavy weight seemed to hang over his
temples, he saw objects, as it were, through a cloud, and was hardly
conscious where he went. He was fond of play, and if in such a mood a
gambling-house was in his way he seldom resisted the temptation; once
there, any turn of ill-luck would so irritate him, that the chances
were he would insult some of the by-standers. Those who knew him,
perhaps, would bear with his ill-humours, but, if unhappily he chanced
to meet with a stranger disposed to resent his abuse, they seldom
parted without bloodshed. Such was the account the wretched man gave
of himself, and it was corroborated afterwards by his relations and
friends, who added, that no sooner had the cause of his excitement
passed away than he would deplore his weakness, and never rested till
he had sought out and made his peace with those whom he had hurt or
offended.
Europeans, though often sensible of its influence, are not in general
so liable to be affected by this abominable wind as the natives,
amongst whom the women appear to be the greatest sufferers, especially
from the headache it occasions. Numbers of them may be seen at times
in the streets, walking about with large split-beans stuck upon their
temples; a sure sign which way the wind blows. The bean, which is
applied raw, appears to act as a slight blister, and to counteract the
relaxation caused by the state of the atmosphere.
But it is not the human constitution alone that is affected; the
discomforts of the day are generally increased by the derangement
of most of the household preparations:--The meat turns putrid, the
milk curdles, and even the bread which is baked whilst it lasts is
frequently bad. Every one complains, and the only answer returned
is--"_Señor, es el viento norte._"
All these miseries, however, are not without their remedy; when the
sufferings of the natives are at their climax, the mercury will give
the sure indication of a coming pampero, as the south-wester is called;
on a sudden, a rustling breeze breaks through the stillness of the
stagnant atmosphere, and in a few seconds sweeps away the incubus and
all else before it; originating in the snows of the Andes, the blast
rushes with unbroken violence over the intermediate pampas, and, ere it
reaches Buenos Ayres, becomes often a hurricane.
A very different state of things then takes place, and, from the
suddenness of such changes, the most ludicrous, though often serious,
accidents occur, particularly in the river; whither, of an evening
especially, a great part of the population will resort to cool
themselves during the hot weather. There they may be seen, hundreds
and hundreds of men, women, and children, sitting together up to their
necks in the water, just like so many frogs in a marsh: if a pampero
breaks, as it often does, unexpectedly upon such an assembly, the
scramble and confusion which ensues is better imagined than told;
fortunate are those who may have taken an attendant to watch their
clothes, for otherwise, long ere they can get out of the river, every
article of dress is flying before the gale.
Not unfrequently the pampero is accompanied by clouds of dust from the
parched pampas, so dense as to produce total darkness, in which I have
known instances of bathers in the river being drowned ere they could
find their way to the shore. I recollect on one of these occasions, a
gang of twenty convicts, who were working at the time in irons upon the
beach, making their escape in the dark, not one of whom, I believe, was
retaken.
It is difficult to convey any idea of the strange effects of these
dust-storms: day is changed to night, and nothing can exceed the
temporary darkness produced by them, which I have known to last for a
quarter of an hour in the middle of the day; very frequently they are
laid by a heavy fall of rain, which, mingling with the clouds of dust
as it pours down, forms literally a shower of mud[17]. The sort of
dirty pickle in which people appear after being caught in such a storm
is indescribable.
Sometimes the consequences are more serious, and the pampero is
accompanied by the most terrific thunder and lightning; such, I believe
as is to be witnessed in no other part of the world, unless it be the
Straits of Sunda. Nothing can be more appalling. In Azara may be read
an account of nineteen persons killed by the lightning which fell in
the city during one of these storms.
But the atmosphere is effectually cleared; man breathes once more, and
all nature seems to revive under the exhilarating freshness of the
gale:--the natives, good-humoured and thoughtless, laugh over the less
serious consequences, and soon forget the worst; happy in the belief
that, at any rate, they are free from the epidemical disorders of other
regions.
Still such variations from the ordinary courses of nature cannot but be
productive of strange consequences; and, though the transient effects
of an overcharged atmosphere may be quickly dispelled by a pampero,
and the people be really free from the epidemics of other countries,
there is every reason to believe that, in this particular climate,
the human system is in a high degree susceptible of affections which
elsewhere would not be deemed worth a moment's consideration. Besides
those I have already spoken of as arising from the north wind, old
wounds are found to burst out afresh, new ones are very difficult
to heal; an apparently trivial sprain will induce a weakness of the
part requiring years perhaps to recover from, as I know from my own
experience; and lock-jaw from the most trifling accidents is so common
as to constitute the cause of a very great portion of the deaths from
hurts in the public hospitals. A cut thumb, a nail run into the hand
or foot, a lacerated muscle, will generally terminate in it; and our
own medical men well know how great a proportion of our wounded in
the attack of 1806 and 1807 died from this dreadful cause. The native
practitioners attribute its frequent occurrence to some peculiarity
in the atmosphere acting upon the system in a manner they are as yet
unable to explain. Under the name of the "mal de siete dias" (the seven
days' sickness), a vast number of children are carried off by it in the
first week of their existence; but, as this mortality is principally
limited to the lower orders, it may perhaps in most cases be traced to
mismanagement and neglect. With us, the long confinement of the mother
ensures the same care of the infant in the first weeks of its life;
but, in a country where the mother leaves her bed in two or three days
to return to her work, the child must often be neglected. Many a Buenos
Ayrean washerwoman may be seen at her usual work at the riverside
three or four days after her delivery, with her infant lying for the
greater part of the day upon a piece of cold hide, beside her on the
damp ground. Can any one wonder that it takes cold and dies? There was
a time, and but few years ago, when it was gravely asserted that the
mortality amongst infants arose from their being baptized with cold
water, and the authorities, concurring in the notion, actually issued
a decree that none but warm water should be used for such purposes in
the churches. I believe, however, that the deaths were not found to
diminish, and that the priests are again permitted to use cold water
as before, though I doubt the enactment to the contrary having ever
been repealed; but why should these cases so generally terminate in
lock-jaw[18]?
The dreadful ravages occasioned formerly by the small-pox have latterly
been in a great measure arrested amongst the civilised portion of
the inhabitants by the general use of vaccination: accidentally
conveyed to Buenos Ayres in 1805 by the owner of a cargo of slaves,
it was preserved by the patriotic zeal of an enlightened priest,
Dr. Segurola, who, deeply impressed with its immense importance,
voluntarily devoted himself to the task of propagating it amongst his
countrymen, especially the poor, whose ignorant prejudices he had
often to combat, and whom he was not unfrequently obliged to bribe to
submit to the operation. For sixteen years he laboured incessantly in
this vocation, at the expiration of which, he had the satisfaction of
finding his single exertions no longer adequate to satisfy the general
demand for it. The Government then (in 1822) relieved him of his
charge, and instituted a proper establishment for the express purpose
of propagating vaccination gratis, not only in the city of Buenos
Ayres, but throughout the republic; others were afterwards added in
the several country districts, from which the lymph is now distributed
to all who apply for it, and has been sent into every province of the
interior. The authorities make it compulsory, as far as they can,
on parents to carry their children to these establishments; and the
parochial priests are charged to see that they do so.
By a report published in 1829 upon this subject, it appeared that in
the city alone, in the previous nine months, as many as 4160 children
had been vaccinated; a large proportion to the births, which are
estimated at little more than 6000 yearly. I was more than once applied
to for it from Rio de Janeiro, whither it was always most readily
forwarded by the Buenos Ayrean administrators.
But the destruction created by the small-pox amongst the Spaniards
was nothing when compared to its dreadful consequences amongst the
native Indians. Whole tribes have been swept away by it: I believe,
nations--whose languages have been lost. The plague is not more a
frightful scourge than this disorder, when it attacks the miserable
inhabitants of the pampas: they themselves believe it to be incurable,
a feeling which adds to its lamentable consequences, for no sooner
does it appear than their tents are raised, and the whole tribe takes
to flight, abandoning the unfortunate sufferers to the certainty of
perishing of hunger and thirst, if the virulence of the disorder itself
does not first carry them off.
An opportunity, however, offered during the time I was at Buenos Ayres
of making known to these poor people, also, the effects of vaccination,
under circumstances which it is to be hoped may eventually lead to its
diffusion amongst them, as well as their more civilised neighbours.
A large party of some of the friendly tribes, with their wives and
children, repaired to the city on a visit of duty to the Governor,
General Rosas, and had not been there long when some of them were
attacked with small-pox, amongst the rest, one of their principal
Caciques. As usual, the sufferers were immediately abandoned by their
own relatives, and might have died like dogs, had not their more
civilised friends taken charge of them, for which the poor wretches
were abundantly grateful; but their surprise was without bounds,
when the Governor himself, who had a regard for the old Chief, went
in person to visit him. General Rosas did not fail to remark the
strong impression created by his visit, and saw at once the advantage
to which it might be turned. Ordering the astonished Indians to be
brought before him, he showed them the mark upon his own arm, and
fully explained to them the nature of the secret which had enabled
him to visit their dying Cacique with impunity. The result was,
that nearly 150 of them, including some of their Caciques, Catrieu,
Cachul, Tetrué, Quindulé, Callinao, Toriano, and Venancio, with their
wives and children, were vaccinated on the spot at their own earnest
solicitation; and great was their childish delight on finding, in due
time, the appearance of the disorder upon their arms, which they were
fully satisfied would prove an infallible charm against the worst
powers of the Evil one.
The impression created by this interesting occurrence will not be
easily effaced, and, although subsequent events may have unfortunately
delayed for a time the further propagation of this inestimable blessing
amongst the Indians, I have little doubt that it will again be sought
for; and who can say that, with good management, it may not be
converted into a means of domiciliating and reducing to Christianity
the remnants of a race, who, in their turn, might repay with productive
labour their benefactors a hundred fold?
I must not close this chapter without adding that, notwithstanding
what I have said as to the effects of the climate upon some
constitutions, the people in general live to a good old age in perfect
enjoyment of their mental as well as bodily faculties; and that
instances of longevity are common, the following extracts from the
several population returns will sufficiently prove:--
"In the census of 1778, 33 cases are quoted of individuals then living
in the city, aged from 90 to 100; and 17 of from 100 to 112."
In the tables of mortality for 1823 and 1824, 58 persons are said to
have died between the ages of 90 and 100; 6 between 100 and 110; 3
between 112 and 116; 1 of 128, and another of 130. The two last were
females.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Meteorological Tables will be found in the Appendix.
[17] The following letter, received from Buenos Ayres after my own
departure, gives an account of one of these visitations. It is dated
"Buenos Ayres, 11th February, 1832
"Yesterday we had another of those awful dust-storms which you have
previously witnessed; it came on about a quarter past twelve o'clock.
The rapidity of its approach, and awful opacity, alarmed the whole
population; in an instant, as it were, there was a transition from
the glaring ray of the meridian to the most intense darkness. Immense
flocks, or rather one immense flight of birds, immediately preceded it,
and, in fact, however incredible it may appear, commenced the obscurity
by their numbers.
"The whole time of its duration was eleven minutes and a half, the
total darkness eight minutes and a half, by watch, observed by Dr. S.
and myself by candlelight; it was accompanied by loud claps of thunder,
but not a ray of lightning was visible, although the thunder was by no
means distant. After eleven minutes and a half the rain began to fall
in very large black drops, which had the effect upon the white walls of
making them appear, when the sun again showed itself, as if they had
been stained or sprinkled with ink. I never witnessed a more majestic
or awful phenomenon. The consternation was general; every one rushing
into the nearest house, and all struggling to shut their doors on their
neighbours. I have heard as yet of no accidents, although doubtless
there must have been many; the wind, of course from S.S.W."
[18] Horses are very liable to the same affection, and are continually
lost from it.
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY OF THE SPANISH SETTLEMENTS ON THE COAST OF PATAGONIA.
Little known of Patagonia till the appearance of Falkner's work
in 1774. It stimulates the Spanish Government to send out
an expedition under Piedra in 1778, to form settlements
upon the coast. He discovers the Bay of San Joseph's.
Francisco Viedma forms a settlement on the River Negro.
Antonio, his brother, explores the southern part of the
coast, and forms another at San Julian's. His account of
the Indians he found there. The New Settlements abandoned
in 1783, with the exception of that on the River Negro.
Villariño ascends that river, as far as the Cordillera
opposite Valdivia. A dispute with the Araucanian Indians
prevents his communication with the Spaniards of Chile,
and obliges him to return. Piedra succeeds Viedma, attacks
the Pampa Tribes, and is defeated. Don Ortiz de Rosas,
father of the present Governor of Buenos Ayres, is taken
prisoner by them, and succeeds in bringing about a general
pacification. Subsequent neglect of the settlement on the
Rio Negro. Its population in 1825, and coasting-trade with
Buenos Ayres.
Before they became independent of Spain, and whilst the people of
Buenos Ayres possessed in the Banda Oriental more waste lands than they
wanted, safe from any incursions of the Indians, and better adapted
perhaps than any other in South America for the rearing of cattle,
at that time their only object, they had no particular inducement to
extend their possessions further than the River Salado; all beyond
was left to the Indians, and little or nothing was known of their
country, except what they chose to communicate, until Falkner published
his account of Patagonia in a country town in England in 1774. The
appearance of that book produced results which the author perhaps
little anticipated, for it stimulated the Spanish Government to make a
general survey of the coast of Patagonia, and to form settlements upon
it, the history of which to this day has never yet been made public.
It is of those measures, and the information derived from them, that I
purpose to give some account in this chapter.
Father Falkner, the author above alluded to, was an Englishman, who,
from a very early age, seems to have had a passion for travelling.
Brought up to the medical profession, he went in the capacity of a
surgeon on board a trading-vessel to Cadiz, where he embarked in one
of the Assiento ships, bound on a slaving voyage, eventually to Buenos
Ayres: there he was induced to enter the order of Jesuits, in which, as
a missionary, he afterwards made himself conspicuous for the zeal with
which he devoted himself to the conversion of the Indian inhabitants
of the unexplored regions of that part of the world. Forty years he
passed amongst them, and, but for the expulsion of his order from South
America, he would probably have ended his days there. On his return to
England, he wrote his book, to this day the only authentic account we
have of the manners and customs of the Indians of the pampas, whilst
the map it contains, compiled partly from his own observations, and
partly from Indian accounts, has furnished the principal, if not the
sole data for all those which have since been published of the interior
of their country.
One of his principal objects avowedly was to point out how vulnerable
by any hostile naval power were the Spanish possessions in those parts;
and hardly had the book appeared when the Spanish Government, taking
alarm lest his suggestions should be listened to in England, sent
secret orders to the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres to have the whole coast
of Patagonia carefully surveyed, with a view "to the formation of such
new settlements upon it as might secure the King of Spain's rights, and
forestall the English in their supposed intention of appropriating to
themselves the valuable fisheries on the southern part of the coast."
Competent officers were sent out from Spain for the purpose, and no
expense was spared to execute the survey as completely as possible. The
command was intrusted to Don Juan de la Piedra, who sailed from Monte
Video on this service on the 15th December, 1778.
Running down the coast, on the 7th January he entered the great bay,
then called Bahia Sin-fondo, or San Matthias' Bay, but now more
generally known under the name of San Antonio, at the bottom of which,
in latitude 42° 13´, he discovered the entrance of a noble harbour,
which he named San Joseph's.
Piedra passed three months in examining the shores of this great gulf
and the peninsula which bounds it, and so impressed was he with its
capabilities that, without proceeding further, he left an officer and
part of his men to build a fort there, and returned himself to the
River Plate to give an account of his discovery.
According to his report, indeed, it appeared on many grounds to offer a
most eligible site for a new settlement. The port itself was said to be
deep and commodious, affording anchorage for ships of any size, whilst
its situation seemed particularly convenient not only for facilitating
the further exploration of the great rivers Negro and Colorado, which
empty themselves a little to the northward of it, but for securing more
or less the entrance of those rivers against any sudden surprise by
the enemies of Spain, a point to which great importance was attached
in the instructions of the surveying officers, in consequence of the
statements made by Falkner as to the possibility of passing up them
into the very heart of the Spanish possessions.
The vast number of whales and seals which were seen in its
neighbourhood, moreover, held out the promise of its becoming a station
whence to carry on those fisheries which the Spanish Government of
the day were so anxious to establish[19]; whilst the extensive salt
deposits in several parts of the peninsula promised an inexhaustible
supply of an article of the first necessity in Buenos Ayres in curing
the hides and beef.
The only drawback to the situation was the apparent scarcity of fresh
water, which the discoverers had great difficulty in finding in the
first instance, though subsequently a sufficiency was obtained at some
distance from the coast: it was, however, at all times more or less
brackish, and eventually caused much sickness and suffering to the
settlers.
The Viceroy was dissatisfied with Piedra for returning, and superseded
him, when it devolved upon Don Francisco and Antonio Viedma (the
officers next in command of those sent out from Spain) to carry into
execution the intentions of their Government. These brothers were long
employed upon various parts of the coast of Patagonia, and collected
much valuable information respecting that _terra incognita_.
In April, 1779, Don Francisco sailed from San Joseph's, to form a
settlement on the River Negro, in favour of which he was fortunate
enough to propitiate the Viceroy, who supplied him with men and
stores, and all things necessary for the purpose.
Don Antonio was left in charge at San Joseph's; but, the scurvy
breaking out amongst the people to a great extent, they became so
dissatisfied that he was under the necessity in the course of the
summer of returning with the greater part of them to Monte Video.
He was not, however, permitted to be long idle; and in the January
following (1780) was again despatched to carry out the original plan,
and to survey the whole of the southern part of the coast of Patagonia.
In furtherance of these orders, he examined the several ports of St.
Helena, San Gregorio, the northern shores of the great Bay of San
George, Port Desire, and San Julian's: which occupied him till the end
of May, when, the cold weather setting in, he hutted his people for
the winter at Port Desire, and despatched one of his vessels to Buenos
Ayres with an account of his proceedings.
Of all the places he had visited, San Julian's appeared to offer the
best, if not the only suitable site for any permanent establishment.
Everywhere else, the coast presented the aspect of sandy, steril dunes,
intermixed with stones and gravel, fit only, to all appearance, for the
occupation of the wild guanacoes and ostriches, which wandered over
them in quest of the scanty coarse grass which constituted their only
herbage. No wood was to be seen bigger than a small species of thorny
shrub, fit only for the purposes of fuel; and, as to water, it was
every where scarce, and the little to be found was generally brackish
and bad. The ports, too, were most of them difficult and dangerous of
access, affording little or no security for vessels above the size of a
brig.
San Julian's was so far an exception, that at high tide the largest
ships might enter and lay safely at anchor within the bar off its
mouth. A constant supply of water, too, was found three or four miles
inland, proceeding from some springs in the hills, about which there
was good pasturage, and enough of it to have induced a considerable
tribe of Indians to fix upon it as their ordinary dwelling-place.
There, also, Viedma proposed to plant a little colony; and, the Viceroy
approving the plan, the people were removed from Port Desire in the
month of November, and commenced building their habitations in the
vicinity of the springs above mentioned, about a league from the coast.
They received the materials, and a variety of necessary supplies, from
Buenos Ayres, not the least useful of which were some carts and about
twenty draught-horses, which enabled them afterwards to keep up a
constant communication between the shore and their little settlement.
They found the Indians extremely well disposed, and ready to render
them every assistance in their power, in return for the trifling
presents they made them. Altogether there might be about 400 of
them, and about half as many more were encamped upon the Santa Cruz
River further south. These were apparently the only inhabitants of
those regions. They said that in their journeys northward they fell
in with no other toldos or encampments till they came to a river
twenty-five days off; there were some more two days beyond again upon
a second river, and thence it was twenty days further to the toldos
of the Indians of Tuca-malal, on the river called by Villariño the
Encarnacion, which falls into the great River Negro; altogether,
according to their computation, something less than fifty days' travel
from San Julian's[20]. To those parts they were in the habit of
occasionally repairing in order to buy fresh horses from the tribes
there resident, who they said had plenty of them, and exchanged them
for the guanaco skins which they took from the more southern part of
the country. They caught those animals with their bolas and lassoes,
and often supplied the colonists with fresh meat when they had no means
of their own of obtaining it.
This assistance was of the greater value to them, as the winter set in
with a severity, against which they were very indifferently prepared.
The months of June, July, and August were piercingly cold, much snow
fell, and the people, unused to such a climate, became very sickly,
and many of them died. Viedma himself was so ill as to be some time
confined to his bed; nor was it till the return of spring that the
survivors began to recover their strength, and were able to go on with
the works. They got through the subsequent winter better, after their
houses were completed, and they were able to collect some necessary
comforts about them. The vegetables they planted throve well, and
in the second February they gathered in their first harvest, which
yielded a fair crop in proportion to the corn sown. The brushwood in
the surrounding country was sufficient to supply them with fuel, but
there was no timber fit for building, of which they were daily in want;
and in quest of this Viedma was induced to make an excursion into the
interior by the Indians, who asserted that an abundance was to be had
near the source of the Santa Cruz river, which they said was a great
lake at the foot of the Cordillera, whither they offered to guide him.
On this expedition he left San Julian's early in November (1782), with
some of his own people, and a party of the Indians under their cacique.
Proceeding westward, and inclining to the south, over hills and dales,
at a distance of about twenty-five leagues they reached the Rio Chico,
or little river, which the Indians said fell into the harbour of Santa
Cruz. There was at that time no difficulty in fording it, the water not
being much above their saddle-girths, and its width not above fifty
yards, though, from the appearance of its steep and water-worn banks,
it was evidently a much more considerable stream during the season of
the floods. The Indians said it was the drain of a lake far in the
north-west, formed by the melting of the snows in the Cordillera.
So far, wherever they halted, they had found no lack of pasturage for
their horses, or water, or brushwood for fuel; but after crossing
the Chico the country became more rocky and barren: fourteen leagues
beyond the Chico they came to a much more considerable river, called
the Chalia by the Indians, who described it as issuing from another
lake in the mountains, between the sources of the Rio Chico and those
of the great river of Santa Cruz, which it joined, they said, further
on. They found it too deep to cross where they first reached it, and
were obliged in consequence to follow its course upwards for eight
leagues, over a stony, rugged country, which lamed all their horses,
and the desolate appearance of which was increased by the visitation
of a flight of locusts which had devoured all the vegetation for three
leagues. They crossed it, at last, at a place called Quesanexes by
their Indian guides, from a remarkable rock standing out like a tower
from the rocky, rugged cliffs which there bounded the bed of the river
(some basaltic formation probably).
On looking at the sketch, in the seventh volume of the "Journal of the
Geographical Society," of Captain FitzRoy's Survey of the river Santa
Cruz, it appears probable that the Chalia is the stream which runs into
it from _basalt glen_, and which, though a very inconsiderable one at
the season he passed by it, was manifestly one of much more importance
at other times.
Eight leagues after crossing the Chalia they came to the great lake
under the Cordillera, which the Indians had talked of as the origin of
the Santa Cruz River.
Viedma describes it as of great extent, situated in a sort of bay, or
vast amphitheatre of the mountains, from the steep ravines of which ran
down the many streams which filled it, chiefly derived from the melting
of the snows in the north-west: he skirted it for twelve leagues to
its extremity in that direction, and estimated its extreme length at
about fourteen; its width, he says, might be from four to five leagues.
Some dark patches amongst the snow on the distant heights indicated
the clumps of trees of which the Indians had spoken; but the few which
Viedma was able to examine were not what he had been led to expect; he
speaks of them as resembling a wild cherry, with a fruit in appearance
not unlike it, though of a more orange colour, and without a stone and
very tasteless; the wood stunted, and so crooked as to be entirely
unfit for anything but burning. May it not have been the crab-apple? We
know there are plenty of apples further north in the same range.
Describing the appearance of the Cordillera from the head of the
lake, he says, towards the north it looked like a vast table-land
stretching from east to west; but it had a different appearance in
the south, breaking into steep and broken peaks, for the most part
covered with snow. The Indians said that neither to the north nor
south was the main chain passable by man or beast for a very long
distance. They all concurred in stating that a large river issued
from the south-east angle of the lake, which they believed to be the
great river of Santa Cruz[21]; Viedma, unfortunately, was not able
to examine it, as he wished, in consequence of the apparent swelling
of the mountain-torrents, which alarmed the Indians lest they should
so increase the rivers as to prevent their recrossing them on their
return; nor were they very wrong, for, by the time they got back to the
Chico, they found it a wide and rapid stream no longer fordable.
It was proposed that some of the Indians who could swim should tow
Viedma across on a balsa, which they set to work to construct of hides
and sticks, but when completed, it looked so frail and dangerous a
ferry, that the Spaniards preferred running the risk of swimming their
horses over. This they accomplished without accident, and reached San
Julian's in safety again on the 3rd of December, after nearly a month's
absence, during which they were much indebted to the Indians for their
friendly aid, and knowledge of the country through which they passed.
The people of this tribe, who had never seen a Spaniard before, Viedma
describes as of large stature, generally above six feet high, and very
stout and fleshy; their faces broad, but of good expression, and their
complexion rather sunburnt than naturally dark. Their skin cloaks,
worn very long, and reaching when on foot to their heels, gave them
an appearance of greater height than the reality. Their habits and
customs, according to his account, seem to differ little from those
of the Pampa tribes, of which I shall elsewhere have to speak. The
men employed themselves in hunting guanacoes and other animals for
their skins, and for meat to eat, whilst the women performed all the
domestic offices and drudgery of the household, such as it was; but the
good disposition uniformly shown by them gave Viedma a most favourable
opinion of them, forming, as it did, a striking contrast with the
character of the tribes further north.
Shortly after this excursion (in April, 1783) Don Antonio, considering
his little colony as fairly planted, proceeded to Buenos Ayres for the
recovery of his health. There the mortification awaited him of learning
that all his labour had been thrown away, and that the Government of
Spain had resolved to break up the Patagonian settlements. The fact
was, that the great trouble and expense already incurred, from the
necessity of supplying all their first wants from Buenos Ayres; the
grumbling and complaints of the settlers themselves, of the hardships
they had to go through, and of the inclemency of a climate to which
they were unaccustomed (which, joined to the bad quality of their salt
provisions, had certainly produced scurvy amongst them to a frightful
extent), had all tended to create so unfavourable an impression upon
the Viceroy, that he had been led to express a strong opinion to his
Government as to their worse than uselessness. The consequence was,
that after three or four years, in which upwards of a million of hard
dollars was spent upon them, orders were sent out to abandon them all,
except the settlement upon the Rio Negro, after setting up at San
Joseph's, Port Desire, and San Julian's, signals of possession, as the
English had done at Port Egmont, for evidence in case of need, of his
Catholic Majesty's rights[22].
Don Antonio Viedma, who took a lively interest in the settlement he
had formed at San Julian's, in vain raised his voice against this
determination, and endeavoured to show that the grievances of the
settlers were but the natural difficulties to be expected in the
infancy of all new colonies; that they knew the worst of them, and many
of their remedies; that a further experience of the seasons had shown
that the lands, so far from being unfit for cultivation, as amongst
other things was alleged, were quite sufficiently productive to support
them in after-years without further aid from Buenos Ayres; and as to
the expenses, the heaviest were already incurred; whilst the fisheries
alone promised sources of wealth and revenue to the mother country, as
well as to the neighbouring viceroyalty. But these arguments met with
little attention, and came too late to alter the determination of the
higher powers.
The same jealous policy which led the Spanish Government to cause
the coast of Patagonia to be surveyed, equally influenced them in
withholding from publication the results, which remained carefully
hid from all inspection in the archives of the Viceroyalty, though I
cannot but think, had the reports even of Viedma himself been given
to the world, they would have been the best possible security to his
Catholic Majesty against the curiosity or encroachments of foreign
nations. Not only did they all tend to show that the coast itself
was full of dangers, but they also proved that the interior of the
land was, throughout, a steril and desolate waste, scarce of water
and vegetation: a region fit enough for the wild beasts which had
possession of it, but very little adapted for the supply of any of the
wants of man. I cannot conceive what temptations such possessions could
possibly have offered to any European power whatever, nor can it, I
think, create surprise that Spain herself abandoned them.
With respect to the fisheries, had there been any real spirit of
enterprise in the people of Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, they might
have monopolized them; but no such spirit existed, and they were
suffered to fall into the hands of the more adventurous sailors
of England, North America, and France. They equally neglected the
importation of salt, though a more necessary article to them, perhaps,
could hardly have been placed within their reach; and after Viedma's
voyage it was well known that any quantity of it, of an excellent
quality, could be obtained either at San Joseph's, Port Desire, or
San Julian's. All that was necessary was to collect it at the proper
season, in the months of January, February, and March, when it is hard
and dry, and consequently in the fittest state for shipping.
Dean Funes, the historian of Buenos Ayres, writing on this subject,
cannot suppress his indignation at the apathy of his countrymen,
though he attempts, at the same time, to find an excuse for it in
an observation of Humboldt's with a simplicity quite worth quoting.
He says--"Who doubts that the Spaniards of South America might have
carried on these fisheries at infinitely less cost than the English
and North Americans, when their own coasts of Patagonia and round
Cape Horn are known to abound in whales, even in the harbours, by all
accounts? But it was not the cost, neither was it the want of hands,
which caused this important object to remain neglected. It was the
natural indolence of the people and indifference of the Government.
How, indeed, was it possible," he adds, "to find men to follow the hard
profession of the sea, amongst a people who prefer a hunch of beef to
all the comforts of life? 'The hope of gain,' Baron Humboldt observes,
'is too weak a stimulus in a climate where bounteous nature offers man
a thousand ways of obtaining a comfortable subsistence without the
necessity of leaving his native home to go to fight with the monsters
of the deep.'"
The Dean was a wise old man, who knew the character of his countrymen
thoroughly. Nor are his observations confined to the Spaniards of
South America. Speaking of the ill-success of a company in Spain
to which the king, in 1790, had conceded extraordinary privileges,
as an encouragement to carry on these fisheries, he says--"Its
continual losses, up to the period of its final failure, lead us to
the conclusion, that projects depending upon intelligence, economy,
and activity, are not made for a people notoriously behindhand in
information, and habitually extravagant and lazy."
Whilst Don Antonio was occupied at San Julian's, his brother, Don
Francisco, was with no less zeal laying the foundations of the
settlement upon the Rio Negro, the only one, as it appeared, of these
new establishments which was destined to be maintained.
It certainly possessed many advantages over the more southern parts
of the coast which had been explored. It was not, like San Julian's,
a thousand miles distant from the governing authorities. Succours in
case of need could be sent to it by land as well as by sea from Buenos
Ayres; and this consideration alone obviated the strongest objections
made by the poorer classes to settling themselves permanently on other
parts of the coast. The river itself was not only a safeguard against
the Indians, but fertilized the adjoining lands, and insured to the
colonists a never-failing supply of fresh water, the want of which
had caused perhaps the greatest part of their sufferings at the other
places.
There were also other motives which operated more powerfully than these
in determining the Spanish Government to maintain a settlement upon the
River Negro.
It was by proceeding up this river that Falkner supposed a hostile
naval power might surprise the Spanish territories in the interior
and in Chile--a notion founded upon the concurrent accounts given
him by the Indians of the possibility of ascending it as far as the
Cordillera, and even to Mendoza. If these accounts were to be depended
upon, and such a communication were really practicable between the
shores of the Atlantic and the provinces of Chile, and Cuyo, it was
impossible to foresee to what important consequences it might lead, and
how valuable (independently of its advantages as a military position)
might become a settlement which would necessarily be the key of that
communication.
To determine a point of so much interest, in a geographical as well
as political point of view, was therefore one of the first objects
after the first settlers were fairly established; and an expedition
was prepared to explore the river to its sources, and to examine
its principal affluents. The command was intrusted to Don Basilio
Villariño, a master-pilot in the Spanish navy, who had sailed with
Piedra in 1778; and had since been the chief practical officer engaged
in the survey originally undertaken by that commander. In the four
years which had elapsed since the commencement of that service, he
had himself examined and laid down the Bays of Anegada and of Todos
Santos, the bar of the River Negro, and the ports of San Antonio, of
San Joseph, and that to the south called Porto Nuevo. He had also
surveyed the River Colorado for about seven leagues from its mouth.
No man, then, in those parts could be better qualified for the task,
and no expense or supply was spared, that he might be furnished with
everything likely to ensure his success.
Four large launches (chalupas) were fitted out, to which masters,
carpenters, caulkers, and ample crews were appointed, besides a number
of peons with horses, who were to attend them along the banks of the
river to assist in reconnoitring the country, and in towing the boats
against the stream, when contrary winds might prevent their sailing.
On the 28th September, 1782, they started from the settlement of
Carmen, and were absent till the 25th of May following; and, although
on some points they did not perhaps realize all the expectations of
those who sent them, yet they certainly obtained much new and valuable
information, and for the first time determined correctly the course of
the great river they ascended, and proved the possibility of navigating
it to the very foot of the Andes.
The heavy Spanish launches unfortunately proved ill-calculated for the
service, and could make but little way with the fairest wind against
the force of the stream. They were obliged in consequence continually
to have recourse to the towing-rope, a tedious and laborious operation,
which occupied them a whole month before they reached the great
island of Choleechel, about seventy leagues, according to their daily
reckoning, from Carmen.
This island[23] (the eastern extremity of which was found to be in
latitude 39°) is not only one of the most remarkable features in the
map of the River Negro, but is a point of great importance connected
with the inroads of the Aucazes Indians into the Province of Buenos
Ayres. It is here that, in their journeys from the Cordillera, they
leave the course of the Negro and strike across to the River Colorado,
whence their beaten track runs straight to the mountain ranges of the
Ventana and Vulcan, where they pitch their tents, recruit their horses,
and watch for a favourable opportunity to scour the Pampas, and carry
off the cattle from the defenceless estancias on the frontiers of
Buenos Ayres.
Being at all times greatly encumbered with their women, children,
and cattle, and having no notion of anything like a raft or canoe
to facilitate the passage of the rivers they have to cross, they
are obliged to resort to those points where they are fordable, and
afterwards to follow such routes as will lead them by places affording
sufficient pasture for the daily maintenance of their horses and
cattle. Now, in their descent from the Cordillera, their only pass
across the great River Neuquen is just above its junction with the
Negro, the course of which they are forced afterwards to follow as far
as the Choleechel, from the impracticability of the country to the
north of it, and the scarcity of fresh water for their animals.
The great importance, therefore, of any military post at this point,
will be at once evident, and Villariño did not hesitate to give his
strong opinion to his superiors, that a fort built here, with a small
Spanish garrison, would be one of the most effectual checks upon these
savages, and the best defence for the cattle owners of Buenos Ayres.
After fifty years of further experience, this suggestion (in 1833)
has been acted upon by General Rosas, the present Governor, and the
Choleechel, now called Isla de Rosas, has been occupied as a military
station.
After reaching their tracks, it was not long before the Spaniards fell
in with a party of the Indians themselves, travelling by the river's
side towards the Cordillera. Villariño, anxious to conciliate them in
order to obtain their aid as he proceeded, was at first lavish in his
presents to them, particularly of spirits and tobacco, which appeared
to be the objects most in request among them. The more, however, they
got, the more they wanted; and upon the first hesitation to comply
with their unreasonable demands, they became as insolent as they were
importunate. They conceived suspicions, too, of the real designs of the
Spaniards in exploring those parts, and shrewdly enough guessed that
some more permanent occupation of their country was projected--an idea
in which they were confirmed by the lies of a vagabond who deserted
to them from the boats, and whose first object, of course, was to sow
the seeds of dissension between them and his countrymen, in order to
facilitate his own escape.
Although they dared not openly attack the Spaniards, they soon gave
manifest proof of their determination to thwart the progress of the
expedition by every means in their power. Riding on in advance of the
boats they destroyed the pasturage along shore, and, hovering just out
of the reach of danger to themselves, annoyed the party by all kinds of
petty hostilities, and kept Villariño in continual alarm for the safety
of his peons and cattle.
This conduct on the part of the natives, added to the certainty now
acquired, that the service would be one of much longer duration than
had been contemplated, made Villariño pause before he proceeded
farther, and finally, determined him to halt where he was till he could
communicate with Carmen, and receive from thence such further supplies
as would render him independent for the rest of the voyage.
In passing the Choleechel, he had been much struck with a little
peninsula, covered with rich pasturage, and easily made defensible
against the Indians; and thither he now returned to await the further
assistance he had applied for to his superior.
By running a sort of palisade across the narrow isthmus which separated
their position from the main, and landing their swivels from the boats,
the Spaniards soon formed a little fortification[24], perfectly secure
from any sudden attack on the part of the Indians, but of them they saw
nothing more so long as they remained there.
Six weeks elapsed before Villariño received answers to his letters,
conveying to him the orders of Don Francisco Viedma, to proceed with
the expedition; but in the interval the river fell so considerably
that Villariño became alarmed (and not, as it appeared, without good
cause,) lest he should be driven into the season when the waters were
at their lowest, which would greatly add to his difficulties as he
advanced:--nor was this the worst:--though Don Francisco had sent him
an ample supply of provisions and other necessaries for the prosecution
of the enterprise, he had at the same time peremptorily ordered him to
send back all the peons with their horses, under the idea that this
would be the surest means of obviating any future disputes or collision
with the Indians. Villariño, without time to remonstrate, had no option
but to obey this order, though he saw at once that it deprived him
of his main-stay, and would necessarily very much retard his future
progress.
Under these circumstances, on the 20th of December, the boats once more
got under sail to proceed up the river. Its winding course rendered the
sails of little use, and it was hard work without the horses to make
way against the force of the stream, the rapidity of which, as well
as the difficulty of getting along, was much increased by innumerable
small islands, which stud the river above Choleechel; indeed the men
were nearly worn out, as might have been expected, with the toil of
working at the towing-rope almost continually.
In ten days they only advanced twenty-four leagues; they were not then
sorry to fall in again with some of their fellow-creatures, albeit
they were Indians, from whom they procured some horses, which relieved
them from this part of their labour at least. They too were journeying
westward, and much information was obtained from them respecting the
upper parts of the river which greatly encouraged them to proceed, for
there seemed little doubt from their accounts, that it was navigable to
the foot of the Cordillera, from whence they might easily communicate
with Valdivia.
These Indians were returning to their ordinary haunts on the eastern
slopes of the Cordillera, over against that city, and they readily
offered their assistance to the Spaniards to show them the way over,
when they arrived at their lands, which they described as being near
the Huechum-lavquen, or lake of the boundary spoken of by Falkner.
They said it was not more than three days' journey from thence to
Valdivia, with the people of which it appeared they were in the habits
of intercourse, and among whom they found ready purchasers for all the
cattle they could carry off from the Pampas. Thus it appeared that the
people of Buenos Ayres might thank their countrymen on the shores of
the Pacific for a great part of the depredations they were continually
complaining of from the hostile incursions of these savages.
This party was a fair sample of the evil consequences of such a system.
It consisted altogether of about 300 people under their caciques, who
had left their country more than a year before for the sole purpose
of collecting cattle for the Valdivians; and they were now on their
way home with about 800 head, every animal of which bore a Buenos
Ayrean mark, and had been stolen from some estancia in that province.
They were less shy than the Indians whom the Spaniards had before
fallen in with, and so long as they got plenty to eat and drink they
journeyed on by the side of the boats in apparent good humour, giving
such assistance as was in their power, and such information as they
could with respect to the country they passed through. But this did not
last long; and when after about a fortnight they found that Villariño
could not afford to make the caciques and their wives drunk every day
they changed their tone, and even went so far as to lay a plot for
getting the boat's crew on shore on pretence of a feast, in order to
rob and murder them. Frustrated in this by a timely discovery of their
treachery, they suddenly galloped off, carrying with them, however, two
of the men, whom it was supposed, by means of their women, they had
contrived to inveigle from the boats.
Cunning and treachery, Villariño observes, seem the special
characteristics of these people; thieves by habit, plunder is the
object of their lives, and to obtain it fair means or foul are alike
justifiable in their eyes. Kindness is thrown away upon them, and fear
alone seems to have any influence over them which can be calculated
upon.