_Argentina_
To countless people South America is little or nothing more than a
geographical expression, and to such the Argentine Republic is the
representative State, typical of all the rest. There could be no greater
error, for the natives of the great southern continent are sharply
differentiated, alike in many traits of character, the vocations which
they pursue, and the physiography of the territory which they inhabit.
There are, it is true, certain ties between them all; they all boast a
common ancestry in the Iberian Peninsula, and they are also united by a
common religion, and, to a lesser extent, a common language. Still, the
uninitiated person does not go so very far wrong in supposing that the
Argentine dwarfs all its neighbours. It would be a veritable Triton
among the minnows were it not for the juxtaposition of Brazil, which
vastly exceeds it in the matter of size, if not in prosperity. The
rivalry between the two countries is of long standing, but even
Brazilians have to reluctantly admit that their neighbours are easily
first both in the development of their resources and the extent of their
commerce. There is yet another factor which gives the Argentina
pre-eminence. In its capital, Buenos Ayres, it has the largest city
south of the Equator, and, next to Paris, the largest Latin city in the
world. The noise of its fame has reached the ears of thousands of people
to whom Rio de Janeiro and Lima are mere abstractions. Nor is that
predominant fame undeserved. Buenos Ayres is a mighty place of
habitation boasting avenues and architecture which would grace any city
in the Old World. The progress has been almost incredibly rapid. From an
ill-paved, wretched settlement on the flat banks of the muddy River
Plate, a splendid city has arisen. There is no “Colonial” atmosphere
about it; it has instead all the impress of a European city, and in
this respect it stands apart from every other town in South America.
The traveller who approaches Buenos Ayres, after having seen Rio and
Montevideo, will probably experience a little disappointment, when he
first catches sight of the city, for its fame far transcends its
appearance when viewed from the deck of an incoming steamer. The journey
up the muddy river is uninteresting, and, but for the buoys that mark
the fourteen miles of dredged channel, has no features to distinguish it
from the English Channel on a calm day. At night, when lit up by its
innumerable lights, the city presents a more imposing spectacle from the
river, for the vast area that it covers is then apparent. In the daytime
the low-lying metropolis is relieved by only a few outstanding
buildings, the lemon-shaped dome of the Congress Buildings being the
most conspicuous. Its straight streets are set at right angles, and
through the centre of the city runs the magnificent Avenida de Mayo,
lined with magnificent buildings of many styles, shaded by tall trees,
and at night brilliantly lighted by electric standards. It is in the
“Avenida” that you receive the best impression of the city’s importance.
Stand at any point of this great boulevard, your mind receives the
impression that you have reached the centre of a State which has in a
remarkably short space of time risen to be one of the most important
countries of the New World.
But the majority of the streets of this vast city are still the long,
narrow lanes which the early designers laid out, and they offer dreary
vistas of interminable length. Although most of the buildings that line
them are new and stately, and have fronts which betoken the wealth of
the builders, they are rather ostentatious, and become wearying after a
short time. But there are many notable buildings in the city which are
worthy of the city’s importance. The Government buildings in the Plaza
de Mayo, the Houses of Congress, the numerous hotels, the Cathedral, the
Bolsu, and the sumptuous quarters of the Jockey Club compare favourably
with similar institutions in other parts of the world. Moreover, the
homes of the wealthy landowners, merchants, are veritable palaces,
sumptuously furnished, and even persons of lesser estate reside in
houses of great beauty and luxury. Clubs are plentiful, and provide for
the various nationalities who form colonies in the city. When one
considers the fact
[Illustration]
that the city has a population of about one million, which is about a
fifth of the entire population of the country, it is not surprising to
find that there are many places of entertainment, which are run upon
similar lines to those in Paris, London, and New York. Companies from
Europe tour South America, and Rio, Buenos Ayres, Valparaiso are
favoured with the best talent the world possesses. The opera house at
Buenos Ayres is quite a sight on gala nights, and the toilets of the
beauties of fashion are not less extravagant or tasteful than those of
the fairest Parisiennes. The women of Argentina are famous for their
beauty, and although they begin at an early age to put on flesh, they
long retain their good complexions and love of showy dress. The men are
not far behind the womenfolk in their love of display, good looks, and
luxuriant habits, although of late there is a disposition among the
younger men to go in for the sports and pastimes generally associated
with Englishmen and Americans. The Jockey Club owns and runs the
racecourse, and its enormous wealth is derived largely from that
institution. Horses and motor-cars are the passions of the rich, as the
long line of automobiles of latest types that line the boulevard outside
the racecourse testify. There are many horses on the streets of the city
that must arrest the attention of the visitors, not on account of their
beauty, but of their sorry appearance. The cab horses in particular are
badly treated by their drivers, and it is one of the stains upon this
city, that has in so many respects emulated the ways of northern
capitals, that its authorities allow the brutes who ill use the poor
beasts to go unpunished. So far as its maritime situation is concerned,
Buenos Ayres is not very fortunate, for the channel of the estuary being
so shallow has, notwithstanding the many improvements that have been
made in the docks of recent years, forced much of the shipping to other
ports more accessible. Rosario has been growing in importance as a grain
exporting town, and being well placed in the Parana, large vessels can
go alongside and load much of the grain grown in the fertile province of
Santa Fé. Bahia Blanca has even a greater importance, and is growing so
rapidly that it has not inaptly been called the “Liverpool of the
South.” Magnificent graving docks have been built, as well as harbour
works, and the Government, recognising the strategical value of its
position on the Atlantic, have made it a military and naval depot.
The growth of Rosario and Bahia Blanca is a good thing for the country,
for it helps to counteract the tendency towards concentration in the
capital, which is about the only real menace to the republic’s continued
and increased prosperity. La Plata, the other port which lies about
fifteen miles farther down the estuary of the Plate than the capital,
has proved a dismal failure. Much money has been wasted in the attempt
to make a port for the capital at this spot; but, in spite of its wide
streets and imposing buildings, the city has a neglected, desolate
aspect, few persons cross its grass-grown streets, and the whole place
is a good instance of the Nemesis which overtakes extravagant hopes. The
projectors of the city showed a singular lack of foresight in imagining
that there was need for another grand city within such easy distance of
the capital. The museum at La Plata is a magnificent building, with much
to interest the anthropologist, but it proves rather gruesome to the
average visitor, who is rather appalled by the enormous collection of
skulls and skeletons of American Indians that occupies many rooms and
hundreds of cases.
[Illustration: THE LEMON-SHAPED DOME OF THE CAPITAL.]
La Plata has its parks with muddy little ponds and lakes, gardens with
beautiful trees, an avenue of giant eucalyptus trees, and its zoological
gardens, with a few specimens, that give signs of life that the city
could ill spare.
With the exception of Belgrano and Palermo, which are filled with
superbly appointed mansions, the suburbs of Buenos Ayres are depressing
and sordid. As the town fades into the camp, the houses become poorer
and poorer, streets are like quagmires, and old tin cans are utilised
for building the shacks occupied by the squalid poor, for, like all
great cities, Buenos Ayres has them in great abundance, a mixed lot of
the unfit of European and native races.
But the cities are only the small part of Argentina. They are the
exchanges rather than the creators of its wealth, a wealth which lies in
the far-spreading Pampas, which form the natural feature of the
republic. Much has been written upon them, and nearly everyone who has
undertaken the task has set on record their two salient characteristics,
their apparent limitlessness and their deadly monotony. The first hour’s
journey on any of the railways that run from Buenos Ayres is over an
unbroken, expansive sea of green, the second hour is the same, and if
you go travelling on until sundown, the same landscape will meet the
eye. With certain necessary variations, Swinburne’s lines on the North
Sea might be applied to the Pampas of the Argentine:
“Miles and miles, and miles of desolation!
Leagues on leagues on leagues without a change!
Sign or token of some oldest nation,
Here would make the strange land not so strange”;
or, as another poet has phrased it, the vast prairie seems:
“Almost as limitless as the unbounded sea, but without its changing smile.”
But the dweller in cities will not be depressed by this changelessness
of landscape. He will rather welcome the escape from the congested
haunts of man, drinking in with gusto the fresh clean air that has blown
over countless leagues of grassland, and revel in the sense of liberty
which comes when one stands in the great open spaces and vast solitudes
of nature. If the unending sweep of green and the herds of innumerable
cattle become oppressive, the eye can seek relief in following flights
of hawks and other birds, or in searching for a clump
[Illustration: DESOLATION.]
of stunted trees, or the round head of a wind-pump, the sweep of a small
stream, the occasional hut of a shepherd, or the more imposing
“estancia,” as the Argentina farmhouse is called. Cattle, horses, and
sheep are never long out of the line of a traveller’s vision, and with
them the herdsmen of the plains, the “gauchos.” Although the Pampas form
so large a part of the territory, they do not occupy it all, for the
country is so long that it boasts all sorts of climates, from the
tropical to the arctic. To the north subtropical forests abound; to the
west the plains fade away into the mighty Andes, which tower 23,000 feet
towards the sky; while to the south lie the bleak hills and arid plains
of Patagonia. Cattle-raising, horse-breeding, wheat-growing, and meal
preparation, although the staple industries of the Argentine, do not
exhaust the list. Mendoza, situated at a point where the Pampas merge
into the foot-hills of the Andes, is celebrated for its vineyards.
Poplar trees give shelter from the cold mountain winds, and the scene
might almost be laid in the Rhone valley. Woods, streams, and lakes give
a diversity which is welcome to the traveller who comes from across the
plains. Mendoza has plenty of wide streets and low one-story houses.
Shady trees line the roads, and streams of water run down the gutters
all day long. In the hot dusty weather an army of boys and men, equipped
with buckets attached to long poles, sprinkle the streets with water
from the runnels. Little bridges of planks are formed across the
gutters where they are too wide to step across. In the dark and smoky
interiors of the workmen’s cafés and wineshops merry little groups of
bronzed and grizzly bearded peons sit round heavy, old-fashioned tables,
sipping wine out of great flagons, smoking big black cigars, gambling,
and playing cards. Women, with jet-black eyes, and mantillas, move
leisurely about the streets, seeking always the shady side, or sit upon
stiff wooden chairs placed outside the entrances to their homes, plying
their fans vigorously to keep themselves cool, and the flies from
settling. The town is laid out with rigid symmetry; the streets are wide
and straight, as if drawn with a ruler, and cross one another at right
angles. New buildings have sprung up in the principal street, which lies
at the lower end of the town, and all the architectural fads and fancies
of recent years are represented. Buenos Ayres has set the fashion for
all the newer and progressive towns and cities in the republic, and an
effort is made in Mendoza to emulate the outside cafés that crowd upon
the pavements of the Avenida in the capital. Round the tables, under the
awnings, a crowd of the youth of the city congregate before breakfast
and dinner, and all the latest styles in clothes are to be seen, and the
very latest gossip heard. The Grand Hotel, which occupies a large
portion of one side of the Plaza, is an old-fashioned but very
comfortable caravansary with flowery patios and lofty rooms, and a fore
court in front, which is used as an open-air dining space. As rain
seldom, if ever, falls upon this town, it is always safe to take a seat
and a meal in this pleasant spot. The popularity of the courtyard is
contributed to in the evenings by the cinema pictures which are thrown
on to a screen stretched on one side. Crowds gather round the tables to
witness the free show, and visitors have opportunities of mixing with
the better class inhabitants. The evenings are very hot during the
summer months, but the days are stifling. Dust is wafted about in great
clouds, and adds to the general discomfort of the sweltering heat, and
the noonday siesta is the only refuge for those fortunate enough to
indulge in this custom of the country. A public park has recently been
laid out on the rising ground on the outskirts of the town. The
fertility of the soil, assisted by artificial irrigation, has produced a
fine shady spot, surrounded by rich green foliage. Firs, poplars, palms,
and smaller plants of many varieties flourish on this beautiful
[Illustration: LANDSCAPE NEAR MENDOZA.]
site. The great Cordillera forms a background of surpassing beauty to
these gardens, as well as an almost impregnable barrier between the
republics of Argentine and Chili. In a corner of the park, which is
dotted with pools of muddy water, meant for lakes, there is a small
collection of animals and birds, hardly large enough to be called a
“Zoo.” The best specimens it possesses are the giant condors, which are
found upon the surrounding heights of the Andes. These great birds are
formidable enemies to travellers on the hills, and many stories are told
of their prowess. That they attack sheep and even men can readily be
credited, for their outstretched wings frequently measure from eight to
ten feet across, while their beaks and talons are equally strong and
powerful. A flock of these aerial monsters, sailing near a narrow
mountain pass, would scare the nerves of any traveller, for an encounter
with them on the edge of a precipice is rather a one-sided affair, in
which the odds are all in favour of the birds. The other exhibits in the
gardens are mostly native fauna, and there is plenty of room for future
extensions. The vineyards round the town and in the surrounding
districts are shaded by tall poplar trees, and irrigated by small
canals, for nature is all
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF THE INCA.]
too sparing of the “gentle rain” in this sunny region. The water for
these canals is derived from mountain streams, formed by the melted
snow, and there is no limit to quantities available. The dry air of
Mendoza and the altitude (it is 2700 feet above sea-level) render it a
most desirable place of residence for persons troubled with pulmonary
complaints, and the perpetual sunshine which covers the landscape makes
for cheerfulness, in spite of the heat. The wine of this district is
much appreciated locally, although the bulk of it finds its market in
the provinces of Buenos Ayres and Santa Fé. The best qualities are
really good, although they might not tempt the connoisseur accustomed to
the wines of France to forsake his vintage. Mendoza is an important
station on the Trans-Andean Railway route, and many passengers from
Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso find it a pleasant resting-place on the long
and trying journey. After nearly twenty-four hours in the train which
crosses the monotonous plains, a day’s or a night’s rest at Mendoza acts
as a pick-me-up of which delicate people should always avail themselves.
Although the railway across or through the summit of the Andes is now
completed, and is available for passengers nearly the whole year round,
the summer months from November to April are the best for making this
trip. Until quite recently the seven-hour journey by coach or muleback,
from Las Cuevas to Salado, deterred many from making the journey, but
now that the trains run backwards and forwards through the tunnel at the
summit, no one considers the journey
[Illustration: CROSSING THE HILLS.]
in the light of an undertaking. The scenery is grand. Majestic and
rugged mountain tops covered with dazzling white snow lie round on all
sides, and as the train winds round the slopes, over valleys and
ravines, an endless succession of strange rocky forms are passed. Just
before coming to Las Cuevas the train stops at a little station, where
there is a small hotel patronised by mountaineers and excursionists who
desire to spend a day or two among the rugged peaks. It is nearly nine
thousand feet above sea-level, and quite near to the railway track--a
curious compact mass of stones and gravel forms a natural bridge over a
small river. This bridge gives its name to the station--Punta del Inca.
Many passages in the journey are awe-inspiring, and as the route follows
that taken by San Martin on his famous march into Chili a good idea can
be formed of the difficult nature of his undertaking. Great brown hills,
destitute of vegetation, rocky and sandy, predominate. Immense boulders,
which threaten to fall at any moment, hang menacingly over the track,
which is protected in many places by stout iron sheds. Fallen boulders
and rocks brought down by storms and the melting snows lie scattered in
wild disorder over the valleys. The scenes are full of a melancholy
which even the bright sunlight reflected from the snowy peaks cannot
dispel. The distant peak of Aconcagua rising to the enormous height of
nearly twenty-three thousand feet, comes into view from time to time as
the train winds around its tortuous course. At the highest points
reached by the line many of the passengers suffer from the “mountain
sickness,” but only a few resolve to brave the “Straits” in future
rather than repeat the Andean journey. At Soldado, the frontier station,
the customs examine the baggage, and at Los Andes carriages are
changed, and the journey down to Santiago and Valparaiso, through richly
wooded slopes, is accomplished in about four hours. The traffic between
Chili and Argentina is steadily increasing, and the establishment of the
Trans-Andean Railway has done much to bring about a more intimate
friendship between the two nations.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF ACONCAGUA.]
The history of the Argentine nation has followed similar lines to those
of its sister republics. The conquest by the Spaniards was followed by a
long colonial period, which came to an end when the people, after a
desperate struggle, won their independence. Since then it has had its
wars with neighbouring States, and, like all the rest of the republics,
innumerable internecine quarrels. But of late years more peaceful
counsels have prevailed, and the settlement of the boundary dispute with
Chili, through the more sensible medium of arbitration, is a good augury
for the future. Out of the war for independence a great and commanding
personality emerges. General San Martin might almost be called the
Brutus of South America--the noblest of them all. The Argentines
recognise this, and have expressed their admiration and gratitude by
erecting a statue to him in the public square of every town in the
country, an act which though admirable is apt to bore the traveller.
Brave, patriotic, able in warfare, and unselfish are the qualities which
can be ascribed in all fairness to San Martin. In many respects he may
be overshadowed by Bolivar, but he had none of the latter’s weakness,
none of his faults or crimes. His sole aim was to drive the oppressor
out of his native land, and he not only succeeded in doing this, but
also materially assisted in breaking the power of Spain in Chili and
Peru. When his great task was accomplished he retired quietly from the
scene of conflict, disdaining to compete for power with self-seeking,
unscrupulous politicians. His was a mind utterly incapable of intrigue,
so he was content to leave the wily Bolivar to his desperate devices and
his colossal dreams of empire.
[Illustration: TRAVELLERS BY A RIVER-SIDE.]