are very fine. The mountains of the lower half of the continent abound
with vicuñas, guanacos, alpacas, and chinchillas, while the archipelago
of Chili and Terra del Fuego, with its thousands of islands, fairly
swarm with seals. Very many furs are shipped to Europe, but the seals
are seldom touched except by the native Indians, who use their flesh for
food and their skins for garments. The supply of seals is practically
inexhaustible. They are found in large numbers as far north as
Guayaquil, on the west coast, and the passengers on the steamships
passing up and down are entertained by their antics. The seals have
helped the sea-birds to create the supply of guano upon the Peruvian
coast, and this valuable fertilizing material is largely composed of
decayed seal flesh and bones, as well as the remnants of the fishes they
have dined upon for thousands of years.
The skins of the northern seals are worthless, but farther south, as the
archipelago is reached, a colder climate exists, the fur is thicker, and
the skins have value. If the reader will take the map of South America,
and examine the configuration of the continent south of the fortieth
parallel, he will see how numerous these islands are, and every one of
them is swarming with seals. There have been some attempts at
seal-fishing in Terra del Fuego, but the Indians are so fierce as to
make it dangerous for small parties to visit the islands, and only a few
skins are shipped from Punta Arenas.
The guanaco skins are considered very fine. These are the wearing
apparel of the Indians, and with the ostrich rugs constitute the chief
results of their chase. In Patagonia ostriches are not bred, as at the
Cape of Good Hope, but run wild, and are getting exterminated rapidly.
The Indians chase them on horseback, and catch them with _bolas_--two
heavy balls attached to the ends of a rope. Galloping after the ostrich,
they grasp one ball in the hand, and whirl the other around their heads
like a lasso coil. When near enough to the bird, they let go, and the
two balls, still revolving in the air if skilfully directed, will wind
around the long legs of the ostrich, and send him turning somersaults
upon the sand. The Indians then leap from the saddle, and if scarce of
meat they will cut the throat of the bird and carry the carcass to camp.
If they have no need of food, they will pull the long plumes from the
tail and wings, and let him go again to gather fresh plumage for the
coming season.
The bolas are handled very dexterously, and well trained Indians are
said to be able to bring down an ostrich at a range of two or three
hundred yards. But it is not often necessary to draw at that distance.
Horses accustomed to the chase can overtake a bird on an unobstructed
plain; but the
[Illustration: PATAGONIAN INDIANS.]
birds have the advantage of being “artful dodgers,” and as they carry so
much less weight, can turn and reverse quite suddenly. The usual mode of
hunting them is for a dozen or so Indians to surround a herd and charge
upon it suddenly. In this way several are usually brought down before
they can scatter, and those that get away are pursued. As they dodge
from one hunter they usually run afoul of another, and before they are
aware they are tripped by the entangling bolas. People who are passing
through the strait often stop over and await another steamer at Punta
Arenas to enjoy an ostrich chase. They can secure trained horses and
guides at moderate rates. One who has never thrown the bolas will be
amazed, the first time he tries it, to find how difficult it is to do a
trick that looks so easy.
BUENOS AYRES.
CAPITAL OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.
[Illustration: THE HARBOR, BUENOS AYRES.]
The Chillanos claim to be the Yankees of South America, and it is their
proudest boast, but the Argentinians are more entitled to that
distinction. Chili, commercially and in her political affinities, is to
all intents and purposes an English colony. She reckons her transactions
in pounds, shillings, and pence, and her statute-books bear the law of
entail. There is no democracy outside her constitution, and a peon can
never be anything else. The poor may not acquire land, but must be the
retainers of the rich and the tenants of the great estates which are
tied up forever from them. In the Argentine Republic, on the contrary,
the pampas are divided like the prairies of our own great West. Any man
may acquire an estancia by location upon the public lands and the
payment of a nominal price per acre; so the country is settling up with
those who have fled from the conditions that exist in Chili, free
thought, free speech, free air, and free land being their inducement.
The city of Buenos Ayres is the only one of the South American capitals
in which modern ideas and manners of life prevail. The town is of
mushroom growth, like Chicago. There were no old prejudices to uproot,
no antiquated bigotry to tear down. It looks less like Spain than any of
the other capitals, and more like a modern American community.
The first impressions of the traveller are unfavorable, and you wonder
what possessed the Spaniards to locate this capital where it stands. But
Buenos Ayres is like Topsy--it simply “growed.” The first man who came
was Juan Diaz de Solis, in 1515. He discovered the Rio de la Plata, and
was murdered by the Indians. Then came the famous Sebastian Cabot, who
explored the country as far up the river as Paraguay ten years later,
and was followed by Pedro de Mendoza in 1535, who obtained permission
from the Spanish Government to equip an expedition to subdue the
country, provided--as was always the rule in the Pickwick Club--he did
the same at his own expense. Mendoza came with eleven hundred men, went
ashore where he first saw land, established a camp as a basis of
operations, and from the purity of the atmosphere called it Buenos
Ayres, or “good air.” He had no intention of founding a city at this
location; his purpose was to rest there a while and keep a base of
supplies, until he had found a path to the mythical El Dorado, which was
supposed to lie somewhere in the interior of South America.
The approach to Buenos Ayres, which stands about one hundred miles above
the mouth of the Rio Plata--or “the river Plate,” as it is more commonly
called by English writers--is perplexing to navigators, as the mouth of
the river is beset with mud-banks and sand-bars--accumulations that come
down from the interior of the continent upon the swift waters, and, like
the shoals in the Mississippi, are constantly shifting. The voyage from
the Strait of Magellan to the place is not a comfortable one, and the
captain is always glum and anxious. When it is calm weather he is
nervous, and keeps his eye on the barometer for fear of a gale; and
when the gale comes, as it does about three or four days in a week, the
jokes of the passengers do not appear to entertain him. These gales are
called _pamperos_, and sweep across the pampas of Patagonia with the
violence of a tornado. Many a brave ship has gone down a victim of their
fierceness, and the sailors are as much afraid of them as of the
tempests which haunt Cape Horn.
Our captain was unusually anxious, because we had a priest on board.
Ever since the days of Jonah there has been a superstition among sailors
that clergymen always bring bad luck, particularly a Catholic priest. In
trying to discover why the forebodings over a priest should be greater
than those over a Protestant parson, the conclusion is reached that it
is because the priest wears the sign of his office in his apparel, and
is thus more conspicuous. Many captains of sailing-vessels will not take
clergymen as passengers under any circumstances, always protesting, of
course, that they do not share the common superstition, but basing their
objections upon the ground that it would demoralize the sailors. A
missionary to one of the South American countries waited in New York for
over three months to get passage by a sailing-vessel, and although
several started in the mean time for the port he wanted to reach, he was
finally obliged to go on a steamer by way of England. The steamer was
lost in a storm off the coast of British Guiana. He and other of the
passengers were saved in the life-boats, but the chief mate and several
of the seamen were drowned. This superstition prevails among sailors of
all races, but the Spaniards are the most sensitive to it, as they are
to omens of all kinds. The Spanish seamen believe that if the decks are
wet by the sea the first day out, they will have fine weather for the
rest of the voyage, and for this reason they often leave their moorings
in a storm when skippers of other countries would wait for fair weather.
There is scarcely a tar in the Spanish service who cannot find some
significance in every incident.
Through the Strait of Magellan and up the east coast of
[Illustration: THE CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.]
South America vessels are followed by myriads of sea-birds--albatrosses,
Mother Carey’s chickens, and a beautiful species of the gull variety not
found elsewhere, known as the “cape pigeon.” Their plumage is beautiful,
of the purest white, mixed with the most intense black, and nature has
clothed them so warmly for the severe climate in which they live that
their skin is as thick as fur, and is used for the manufacture of robes
and rugs. More than a hundred breasts of these birds are needed for an
ordinary sized robe, however, so that they are a luxury few can afford.
I saw in Montevideo a mass of tiny feathers, black and white, as fine
and soft as eider-down, that was lined with scarlet silk, and cost two
hundred and fifty dollars. Nothing more beautiful could be imagined.
Robes made of the breasts of ostriches are lovely enough, but one of
cape-pigeons’ breasts is passing lovely.
The sailors catch them by throwing overboard a long piece of coarse
twine and trailing it in the wake of the ship. As hundreds of the birds
are constantly sailing along the surface of the water, they get tangled
in the cord and are drawn in, but it requires as much dexterity to get
them aboard as to land a lively trout. Sometimes brass or tin tags are
tied to their necks, with names and dates scratched upon them, when they
are released. The officers of our ship reported that upon a previous
voyage they got a bird with one of these tags on, bearing inscriptions
showing that it had been caught twice before. They gave the little
stranger another indorsement and let him go. The albatrosses of the
southern hemisphere are very large, sometimes measuring ten and twelve
feet from wing to wing; but they are worthless, and are stupid, awkward
birds, that often dash themselves against the side of a ship from pure
stupidity.
There is no port of importance between Punta Arenas, in the Strait, and
the river Plate except Bahia Blanca (White Bay), near where the United
States astronomical expedition made its observations at the last transit
of Venus. The entire coast for fifteen hundred miles is barren of
civilization, except the cabin of some hardy frontiersman, who has set
up a ranch and is waiting for the country to grow down to him.
[Illustration: LOADING CARGO AT BUENOS AYRES.]
Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, lies a few miles below Buenos Ayres,
on the other side of the river, and vessels usually touch there, for it
is a place of great commercial importance, more accessible to shipping
and more favorably located in every respect than the latter city, which
lies stretched along a low sandy bank seven or eight miles beyond the
anchorage of ships. There is no harbor at Buenos Ayres--not even an
excuse for one--and it is beyond the power of human genius to give
vessels direct access to the city. The water is so shallow that they
anchor seven, eight, and ten miles out, and are loaded and unloaded by
means of flat-bottomed lighters, which are towed back and forth. Two or
three times a week during the winter, when a pampero is blowing, the
water is carried out to sea by force of the wind, and these lighters are
left high and dry upon a beach over which they were floating a few hours
before. Then they have to be unloaded by means of carts on wheels eight
to ten feet in diameter, which are driven into the water until nothing
can be seen of the mules that draw them but their indignant noses and
nodding ears. It is amusing to see the heads of these mules sticking out
of the water at an elevation which must be very uncomfortable, but one
they are used to. Passengers who arrive on these occasions are
transferred from the ship to a lighter, then to a mule-cart, and
sometimes are carried ashore on the back of a stormy Italian, who never
fails to swear by all the saints and the Virgin that the man on his back
is the heaviest he has ever carried, and demands more than the regular
fee for extra baggage, so to speak. Lacking confidence in the sincerity
of the cargador, the passenger will promise him heaven and earth and the
sea if he will not drop him into the water, and then fights it out when
he gets safely ashore.
[Illustration: GOING ASHORE AT BUENOS AYRES.]
Notwithstanding the commercial disadvantages of Buenos Ayres, it is the
most enterprising, prosperous, and wealthy city in South America--a
regular Chicago--the only place on the whole continent where people seem
to be in a hurry, and where everybody you meet appears to be trying to
overtake the man ahead of him. It is all bustle and life night and day,
and is so different from the rest of South America that the traveller is
more impressed than he would be if he came direct from the United
States. Elsewhere people always put off till to-morrow what they are
absolutely not compelled to do to-day. In the other countries mañana
(manyana) is king, and mañana means to-morrow, but in Buenos Ayres the
idea seems to be that the liveliest turkey gets the most grasshoppers,
and everybody is trying to get as many as he can. Merchants do not shut
up shop to go to dinner, as is the rule elsewhere in Spanish-America,
and morning newspapers are not printed on the afternoon of the previous
day. To do as much as possible this week, and a good deal more, is the
motto, and that accounts for the progress of the republic.
And it is a republic, not only in name but in fact. There is no bossism
there, as in other Spanish-American countries. Every man is a sovereign,
and he will not permit the soldiers to count the votes. There is always
a good deal of a rumpus during election times, and the defeated party
often raises a revolution, but since the tyrant Rosas was overthrown, no
man has attempted to bully or oppress the Argentine people.
Our knowledge of the Argentine Republic amounts to little more than we
know of the Congo State, and the man who goes there from the United
States is kept in a state of astonishment until he leaves. Then, as he
sits on shipboard and reflects over what he has seen, he cannot find an
exclamation point big enough to do justice to his description of the
country. The Argentinians think it is wicked indifference on our part to
know so little about them, for the surprise of the few American visitors
wounds their self-esteem. They are a proud people, like all the rest of
the Spanish race, and, unlike some nations, have many things to be proud
of. They know all about us. There are many men in the Argentine Republic
who can tell you the percentage of increase in population, industry, and
progress in the United States, as shown by the latest statistics, but
how many people in the United States are aware that that country is
growing twice as fast as ours? How many members of the Senate or the
House of Representatives at Washington, how many members of the Cabinet
or Justices of the Supreme Court, know that the increase of population
in the Argentine Republic during the last twenty-five years has been one
hundred and fifty-four per cent., while in the United States it has been
only seventy-nine per cent., and that Buenos Ayres is growing as fast as
Denver or Minneapolis?
The people are right when they assert that their country is the United
States of South America, and there is nothing else that they are so
proud of. They study and imitate our institutions and our methods, and
in some cases improve upon them. You can buy the New York dailies and
illustrated papers at any of the news-stands in Buenos Ayres, although
they are six weeks old, and the people purchase and read them. They
understand the significance of the cartoons in _Puck_, and read
_Harper’s Magazine_ and the _Century_. Blaine’s book and Grant’s Memoirs
are on sale, and the issues of our Presidential campaigns are as well
understood as their own local squabbles.
The greatest benefit to be derived by a traveller in the countries of
South America is to make him think well of his own; but, nevertheless,
his vanity receives a severe shock when he comes to the Argentine
Republic, and discovers how little he knows of what is going on in the
world.
The succession of surprises that greet one on either hand keep him
reminded of his own ignorance. It is perfectly natural, however, because
we have no communication with the Argentine Republic, and have not had
since the day when steam was substituted for canvas as a motive power on
the sea. There was a time when we almost monopolized the commerce of
that country, but during our civil war the ships were withdrawn, and the
sailors went into the navy. Then when peace came all hands were called
to the development of our own resources, and we were so busily engaged
in building railroads, opening up farms, establishing ranches, working
mines, and erecting new towns and cities in the great West, that we
forgot that there was anybody to be looked after in South America.
Twenty-five years ago our knowledge of the continent was pretty good,
but we have learned nothing since. Our geographies read as they did
then, our histories have not been rewritten, and our maps remain
unaltered. But in the mean time mighty changes have been taking place
among our neighbors that have escaped our attention. They have been
growing as we have grown, and instead of a few half-civilized,
ill-governed people upon the pampas of the Argentine Republic, a great
nation has sprung up, as enterprising, progressive, and intelligent as
ours, with “all the modern improvements,” as house agents say, and an
ambition to stand beside the United States in the front rank of modern
civilization. While we have been occupied with our own internal
development, the European nations have gone in and taken the commerce to
which we by the logic of political and geographical considerations are
entitled.
Twenty-three lines of steamships connect the Argentine Republic with the
markets of Europe, and from forty to sixty vessels are sailing back and
forth each month. In the harbor of Buenos Ayres, or in what they call
the harbor, are dozens of steamships and scores of sailing-vessels,
showing every flag but that of the United States; for an American
steamer never goes there, and only occasionally a bark or brigantine,
chartered at New York or Philadelphia, with a cargo of lumber or railway
supplies. Nearly all the goods these people buy of us are sent by way of
Europe, as mails and passengers usually go, and very little is bought in
the United States that can be purchased elsewhere. The reason for this
is very plain--we have no transportation facilities, while those
afforded for trade in Europe are as regular and convenient as exist
between Liverpool and New York.
[Illustration: A PRIVATE RESIDENCE IN BUENOS AYRES.]
And this trade is worth having. The Argentine Republic imports nearly
one hundred million dollars’ worth of manufactured merchandise every
year, of which about one-third is from England, one-fifth from France,
one-fifth from Germany, while the United States comes in at the
tail-end of the list, along with Sweden, Denmark, and Chili. While
England sent $35,375,628 worth there in 1885, we sent $7,000,000 worth,
mostly lumber, railway locomotives and cars, and agricultural
implements. While she sent $7,000,000 worth of cotton goods, we sent
$600,000 worth; while she sent nearly $7,000,000 worth of hardware and
other manufactures of iron and steel, we sent about $500,000 worth; and
so on, down through the list of manufactured articles in which we, with
equal transportation facilities, can compete with any nation on the
globe. Our goods are more popular there, as everywhere in South America,
so popular that the manufacturers at Manchester and Birmingham imitate
our trade-marks, and send cargoes of merchandise which appears to have
been produced in the United States, but never got nearer to Yankeeland
than Liverpool.
There is not a country in all the world so deserving of attention as
this, and particularly of our attention, for the time is drawing near
when we must confront the results of its enterprise in the markets of
the world. In its resources as well as in the character of its people it
resembles the United States. Here are found pampas like our prairies,
rich and fertile in the lowlands, and covered with fine ranges as they
rise in mighty terraces from the Atlantic to the Andes; while in the
foot-hills of the mountains are deposits of gold and silver similar to
those of Colorado, whose wealth is yet untold. In the north is a soil
that will produce cotton, rice, and sugar, like Louisiana and Texas;
then come tobacco lands, like those of Virginia and Tennessee; then, as
the temperature grows colder towards the south, are wheat and corn
fields, as yet a tithe of them untilled, but suggesting Iowa, Nebraska,
and Kansas. This vast area, as vast as that which lies between Indiana
and the Rocky Mountains, is furnished with natural highways even more
tempting to navigation than the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri
rivers, and which find their sources in forests as extensive as those
that shelter our great lakes.
Already the pampas produce wheat enough for domestic consumption and
9,000,000 bushels for export, and the production is increasing with the
greatest rapidity. Nearly 100,000,000 sheep--more than are owned in any
country of the world--are grazing on the ranges, and producing
200,000,000 pounds of wool for export; already beef and mutton are sent
to England in refrigerator ships at prices cheaper than we can compete
with, and few of our people know it.
[Illustration: THE COLON THEATRE, BUENOS AYRES.]
A mistaken notion prevails everywhere among the American people about
the social and political condition of the Argentine Republic, as well as
about its commerce. There are banks at Buenos Ayres with capital greater
than any in the United States, and occupying buildings finer than any
banking-house in New York, palaces of marble and glass and iron. The
Provincial Bank has a capital of $33,000,000, and $67,000,000 of
deposits. It does more business than any one of our banks, and more than
the Imperial Bank of Germany, being exceeded by but two banks in the
world. The National Bank has a capital of $40,000,000, another has
$8,000,000, another has $7,000,000, and several have $5,000,000. If we
compare the banking capital and deposits of the Argentine Republic with
those of the United States we find that they amount to $64 per capita of
population there, and only $49 per capita with us. They have a Board of
Trade and a Stock Exchange, where business is conducted upon the same
plan as in New York or Chicago, and with as great an amount of
excitement.