THE OASES OF THE NORTH-WEST AND PASTORAL LIFE IN THE SCRUB
The inhabited zones of the Andes in the north-west--_Valles_,
_Quebradas_, _Puna_--The irrigation of the _valles_--The
historic routes--Convoys of stock--The breeding of mules and
the fairs--The struggle of the breeders against drought--The
Sierra de los Llanos.
The whole life and wealth of the arid provinces of north-western
Argentina depend upon irrigation; the water-supply definitively settles
the sites of human establishments. The water resources are irregularly
distributed. They are especially abundant in the south (San Juan,
Mendoza, and San Rafael), where the torrents of the Cordillera are fed
by the glaciers, and on the outer fringe of the hills above the Chaco,
at the foot of Aconcagua, which gathers masses of cloud and rain on its
flanks (Tucuman). In the intermediate district, on the contrary, in the
regions of La Rioja and Catamarca, and in the interior of the hilly
zone to the north-west of Tucuman, the amount of available water is
small; the oases shrink into small spots far removed from each other.
This natural inequality was not felt at first. For a long time the
spread of cultivation and the progress of wealth were restricted only
by the scarcity of population, the difficulties of transport, and the
inadequacy of the markets. The best endowed oases paid no attention
to the surplus supply of water, for which they had no use. We have to
come down to the close of the nineteenth century to find men reaching
the limits which nature has set to colonization, and mapping out
their domain. It is not until then that La Rioja ceases to compete
with Mendoza, or Catamarca with Tucuman. While large industrial
enterprises develop at Mendoza and Tucuman, strong centres of urban
life arise, the population increases, and immigrants stream in, the
oases of the interior scarcely change. Their population does not keep
its level. Life has an archaic character that one finds nowhere else
in Argentina. The physical conditions have retarded, one would almost
say crystallized, the economic development. The living generation
exploits the soil in ways that to some extent go back as far as the
indigenous tribes, the masters of their Spanish conquerors in the art
of irrigation. The industry of fattening and convoying cattle, which
was once the chief source of wealth of the whole country, is still
alive in those districts.
The zone of the elevated tablelands of the Andes without drainage
toward the sea--the Puna--has still, below 22 deg. S. latitude on
the northern frontier of Argentina, a width of about 250 miles. This
breadth steadily contracts southward as far as 28 deg. S. latitude,
where the Puna ends about the level of the road from Tinogasta to
Copiapo.
To the east and south of the Puna the Argentine Andes are cut from
north to south by a series of long gullies and large basins, between
which there are lofty and massive chains with steep flanks. Some of
these lie in the heart of the mountains, while others often open like
gulfs upon the edge of the plain. These depressions with rectilinear
contours are a common feature of the topography of the Andes in this
latitude. The central plain of Chile is closely related to them.
In the Argentine speech they are called _valles_: Valle de Lerma,
Valle Calchaqui, Valle de Iglesias, de Calingasta, d'Uspallata. They
are, however, not "valleys" in the sense of hollows made by erosion
by running water. They owe their formation to tectonic movements,
subsidences of the surface. The scanty rivers of the arid Anacs are not
capable of doing work of that kind. When they enter the already formed
bed of a _valle_, they seem to be lost in the immense space. Often
they dry up in it, leaving behind the sediment and salts with which
the water was laden. In other places they cut at right angles across
the _valle_, escaping by narrow breaches in it, while the depression
continues its course on either side, taking in sections of a number of
independent streams.
Opposed to the _valle_ is the eroded ravine, carved out by water, the
_quebrada_. It opens upon a _valle_ with a V-shaped mouth, which widens
out at the top, and one can recognise at sight the various slopes and
the successive stages of erosion. Narrow and winding, a level bed
of shingle filling the entire base of the valley, it rises rapidly
toward the mountains and provides a route from the _valle_ to the
_puna_. These _valles_, _quebradas_ and _puna_ are the three inhabited
zones of the Andes. The first is the richest. The inhabitant of the
_valle_, proud of his comparative comfort, has for his neighbour in the
_quebrada_ or the _puna_--the _coyada_--a contempt such as one finds
the inhabitants of the good land in Europe feeling for the people in
poorer districts.
The narrower the _valle_, the less rain there is. The observations
give 112 millimetres of rain per year at Tinogasta, 290 at Andalgala,
and 200 at Santa Maria. Salta and Jujuy have a much moister climate,
and have no less than 570 and 740 millimetres of rain annually. This
is because the eastern chain of the Andes, which stretches from the
Sierra de Santa Victoria on the Bolivian frontier to Aconcagua, sinks
lower at the latitude of Salta, and lets in the moisture of the Chaco
to the heart of the zone of the Andes. The rains of Salta and Jujuy are
suspended during the winter, but they are so heavy during the summer
months (November to March) that maize, which needs only the summer
rain, can be cultivated without irrigation. But when we follow the
Valle de Lerma southward from Salta the maize harvest becomes more and
more uncertain, and it is no longer sown in dry soil when we get to
about twenty miles from Salta, in the latitude of the confluence of the
Arias and the Juramento. However, the summer rains, which are good for
maize, are very injurious to the vine; they spoil the grapes. Thus the
southern limit of the cultivation of maize in dry soil almost coincides
with the northern limit of the vine. At that point we have the real
beginning of the typical scenery of the _valles_.
[Illustration: THE PATAGONIAN ANDES. _Mount Tronador (11,500 feet) on
the Chilean frontier, dominating the road from Lake Nahuel Huapi to
Chile. The glaciers still reach the bottom of the valley, which they
filled at one time. A burnt forest in the foreground._ PLATE III. To
face p. 38.]
The need of irrigation is due to the scarcity of rain, but it is
accentuated by a number of causes which tend to increase the aridity.
The _valles_ are the scene of scorching day-winds, the _zonda_, like
the _Foehn_ of the Swiss Alps, which, there being no snow, dry up
the water of the springs and of the irrigation trenches, or use the
deposits left by the waters to form dunes, which they push southward,
sometimes like veritable glaciers of sand. Moreover, the soil of
the _valles_ is generally composed of coarse and permeable alluvial
deposits, which absorb the rain-storms immediately. There is at the
foot of both sides of the hills which enclose each _valle_ an immense
and far-lying bed of imperfectly rounded shingle. This double zone of
detritus is strangely desolate, for the vegetation on it is restricted
to isolated bushes of _jarilla_ and _tola_. From the sheepfolds on the
mountains to the oases in the valleys one hardly meets a single house.
The bed of the valley is not so desolate. A broad ribbon of sand marks
the dry bed of a torrent, and on the clays of its banks, if the sheet
of water underground is not too deep, one finds, in spite of the goats
and asses and charcoal-burners, little forests of _algarrobas_, which
the foundries use for fuel.
The modern alluvial beds, gravel and sand, represent the upper stratum
of a considerable series of continental deposits which lie on the
Paleozoic crystalline rock of the Andes.[16] They chiefly consist of
red sandstone and coloured marls, which crop up here and there through
the alluvial covering and give the landscape a rugged character, worn
by water and wind. There is no trace of humus: nothing to soften the
vivid colours of the rock. Bodenbender, to whom we owe the first
general attempt to classify the series, points out the importance of
distinguishing the different strata in connection with the question
of water supply and the conditions of human life.[17] A complete
geographical study would have to follow the geological description in
detail. In places--on the eastern edge of the Sierra de los Llanos--the
fine modern clays are in contact with the granites of the hills and
form above them a thick bed that is rich in fresh water. In other
places--south-westward of the Sierra de la Famatina, as far as the
Bermejo--the outcrop is of red sandstone only. The tablelands of
Talampaya and Ischigualasta, which are cut across by the gorges of the
tributaries of the Bermejo, form one of the most conspicuously desert
regions in the whole Republic. Wherever the gypsiferous marls of the
Calchaqui are near the surface, the springs are saline. The undulations
of the impermeable rocky substratum bring to light the water that
gathers in the alluvial beds. Thus the streams which come down the
Famatina range in the west disappear in the alluvial beds on the fringe
of the Sierra, but re-appear presently in the oasis of Pagancillo.
[16] This series, stretching from the Permian to the Tertiary,
also includes, especially in the region of the sub-Andean
chains, on the fringe of the Chaco, a number of marine strata
(see Bonarelli, _Las sierras subandinas del Alto y Aguarague y
los yacimientos petroliferos del distrito minero de Tartagal_
"Ann. Min. Agric.," Seccion Geologia, Mineralogia, y Mineria,
viii. No. 4: Buenos Aires, 1913).
[17] G. Bodenbender, _Parte meridional de la Provincia de la
Rioja y regiones limitrofes_ (Ann. Min. Agric., Seccion Geol.,
Minerol., y Mineria, vii. No. 3: Buenos Aires, 1912).
Hence the _valles_ are by no means wholly productive. The oases
represent only a limited portion of them. It would be impossible to
imagine a more striking contrast than that of the freshness and life
of the oases compared with the surrounding desert. Screens of poplars
shelter them from the _zonda_. The water runs along trenches paved
with round pebbles under the spreading vines, at the foot of which, to
economize water and space, lucerne is sown. Each garden feeds a family.
Near the raw-brick houses there are large earthenware vessels, as tall
as a man, in which the corn is kept. The hammering of the cooper fills
the air.
In places the oasis is watered by a stream. In those cases there is
on each side of the bed of the stream a narrow fringe, a continuous
ribbon, of smiling gardens, which hide the path. Above and below Santa
Maria a trench is opened every mile in the wet sands of the Rio. The
water rises in it and fills it, and is directed by it toward one of the
banks, where it is jealously collected and distributed. The water which
flows from the irrigated fields and returns to the river, as well as
that which the porous side of the trench has permitted to escape, goes
to fill another trench and supply other fields farther on. The region
of Los Sauces, in the northern part of the province of La Rioja, to the
south of Tinogasta, shows a different type of irrigated cultivation,
on account of the sandy course of the stream. The fields follow the
feeding artery for about fifty miles. It is bled at the beginning of
each bend, the waters remaining underground like hidden wealth.
In most cases however, the _valle_ has no running water. What
reaches it from the lateral _quebradas_ is lost in the alluvial beds
accumulated at the point where the _quebrada_ enters the _valle_. In
order to make use of it the cultivated areas are grouped on the cone of
deposition; at least, that is the position in the great majority of the
oases. A _costa_ is a line of separate oases with their backs to the
same slope. When the _valle_ is narrow, the _costas_ on either side of
the sterile depression face each other, like two parallel roads. The
water of the _quebrada_ is never sufficiently abundant to irrigate the
whole of the cone of the torrent. In order to create an oasis there,
they have selected the most easily cultivable zone, which is usually
the foot of the cone, where the deposits are finer and more fertile,
retain the moisture better, and require less watering. The summit of
the cone is composed of coarse stones, the first to be dropped by the
torrent as it loses its strength. These are bad lands, where the water
is wasted.
To meet the occasional drought and the danger of sudden floods in
this fluvial zone, which is entirely the domain of the torrent, there
is need of constant care and ingenuity. At Colalao del Valle the
cultivated fields are five or six miles from the summit of the cone.
After a number of successive years of drought the stream of water
which reached them on the flanks of the cone lost half its volume and
threatened to disappear altogether. They then built a stone dam at the
outlet of the _quebrada_, and the water accumulates behind this during
the night. At three o'clock in the morning the sluices are opened, and
the stream, having thus nursed its strength, reaches the fields down
below about seven o'clock. Then the sun and the wind rise, just at the
time when the reservoir is empty, and by the middle of the day the
stream ceases, and irrigation is suspended. At Andalgala, above which
rises the glittering crest of Aconcagua, the waters of the melting
snows which feed the torrent have not time to be "decanted" before they
reach the valley. They come down laden with mud and sand. Above the
points where the irrigation-channels begin the people make, in the bed
of the torrent, a dam of branches of trees which filters the water. It
is swept away by every flood that occurs, and is at once restored.
What is even more admirable than the ingenuity of the _vallista_
in utilizing the natural resources is the minute detail of the
water-rights. It seems as if the _vallista_ is even more cunning in
protecting himself from his neighbour than in dealing with nature. The
water-customs of these Andean valleys are worth an extensive study.
The water does not belong to the State, and is not used by concession
from the State. It is private property. The owner uses or abuses it as
he pleases on the lands which he has selected. A man may be poor in
land and rich in water, which he accordingly sells. There are frequent
business deals in regard to water-rights, just as in regard to the soil
and its produce. Appropriation of water often precedes appropriation
of the soil. Many oases are communities where the non-irrigated lands
are common to the whole population, and the irrigated fields alone are
divided.
A primary group of customs regulates the relations to each other of
communities higher up and lower down the same stream. At Catamarca the
water of a certain stream is shared by Piedra Blanca and Valle Viejo.
Piedra Blanca, in the upper part, absorbs the whole of the water for a
week, but it must then suspend its irrigation during the following week
and permit the stream to flow down the valley. The same evening, or the
next morning, according to the season, the water reaches Valle Viejo.
It is a custom known as the _quiebras_ in the southern valleys of the
desert side of Peru, where it allows different stages of cultivation
to proceed simultaneously. In the same way, above Santa Maria, where
several communities (S. Jose, Loro Huasi, etc.) receive the water
brought by a channel from the Rio Santa Maria, each of them has a
right to the full output of the channel for three days. At the end of
that time the sluices are closed, and the water passes to the next
community. There is grave trouble for any oasis that has its rights
infringed or does not compel the communities higher up to respect them.
Amongst individuals the water-right is generally defined by a
measurement of time, a certain number of days or hours--during which
the owner controls the entire flow of the spring or stream. It is
only when the water is more abundant that we find another method of
fixing the right of water, defining it by bulk. The water is then said
to be _demarcada_, as the unit is customarily the _marco_, or the
volume which passes through an opening about twenty-one centimetres
in width and eight in height. The _marco_ has infinite divisions, and
each subdivision has its own name--the _naranja_, the _bombilla_, the
_paja_, and so on.
As all the water is utilized, and the rights of all are equally
entitled to respect, the division of the water into _marcos_
(_demarcacion_) is in practice merely a proportional distribution of
it amongst those who have rights to it. If the sum total of rights
expressed in _marcos_ represents something like the total flow of
a stream during an average season, in the time of low water it is
disproportionate, and the water no longer flows to the tops of the
_marcos_. In other words, the quantity of water granted to each rises
or falls with the rise or fall of the stream itself.
Theoretically, when the water-right is defined in _marcos_ it is
permanent. Often, however, it is impossible to grant each proprietor
a permanent title to the water. Even in oases where the water is
"demarked," the _turno_--that is to say, the turn of the proprietors to
have water--which is the absolute rule in the poorest oases, reappears
during the months of scarcity, in winter, when there is no rain,
and at the beginning of summer. It reappears also when the right of
ownership has been broken up into fractions that are too small, and it
is better to grant a larger volume of water for several hours instead
of a constant stream of water which would be too scanty for profitable
use. At Andalgala the "turn" is sometimes obligatory, and regulated by
custom, in channels where the irrigating proprietors are too numerous;
at other times optional, and settled by convention amongst the owners
themselves, when water is scanty. At Valle Viejo (Catamarca), when
the water runs low, they set up the _mita_; that is to say, the
sluices remain closed in each channel during four days out of eight,
each proprietor in turn giving up his right to a permanent supply in
order to have a double allowance when his turn comes. The _turno_ is,
therefore, a general practice. Everywhere we can see the farmers on
the watch along the _acequias_, waiting for the moment to close their
neighbour's trench with a pellet of clay and to let the stream into
their own trenches with a blow of the spade.
The most minute precautions are taken in order that no one shall suffer
injury. As the irrigation is always slower and less thorough during the
night, they take it in turns to have the day and the night alternately.
When the community receives the water from another community higher up
the stream, the succession of "turns" amongst its members differs every
time. The water comes down charged with sediment, pushing in front of
it a mass of liquid mud, as the flush of a torrent does. It takes some
time for the stream to become regular and clear. The first irrigator
therefore exercises his right under unfavourable conditions. In the
local phraseology the _volcada de agua_ is not as good as the _corte
de agua_, which means the irrigation that begins when the _acequia_ is
full.
Irrigation entails the services of quite a staff of arbitrators and
administrators. The head men, who have jurisdiction of a higher order
and secure the accurate distribution of the water amongst a number
of channels or communities, are now, as a rule, officials of the
administration, appointed by the provincial authorities (_juez de
Irrigacion_ at Catamarca, _juez de rio_ at Rosario de Lerma). But the
_juez de agua_ of each community or each channel is a syndic elected by
the interested parties. At Santa Maria the _juez de agua_ is elected
by the owners and confirmed by the Government. He controls irrigation
throughout the department, settling all differences, submitting plans
of work to a meeting of the owners, and assigning their respective
charges in labour and contributions according to their rights.
* * * * *
This land of customs and traditions is also a land of lively movement.
The briskness of the traffic is primarily due to continuous exchange
between the various zones of the mountainous district. This large
trade, so scattered that the railways could not dream of satisfying
its needs, is carried, in the old fashion, on the backs of mules. The
lively aspect of the roads between the tableland and the lower valleys
of the region, the brisk interchange of goods between zones with
different climates, is one of the common features of life on the Andes.
But the classic spectacle presents a different aspect in different
latitudes. In Peru, and in southern Bolivia, the higher valleys--Jauja,
Cuzco, the Pampas of Cochabamba and Sucre--have centres of dense
population and agricultural wealth at a height of between 9,000
and 11,000 feet. They raise cereals, and receive from the tropical
districts (_montanas and yungas_) sugar, cane-brandy, cocoa, and
coca-leaf. The valleys of the Argentine Andes are usually at a less
elevation than the _yungas_ and _montanas_ of Bolivia and Peru. But
they are not hot districts, and have not tropical vegetation. Frost
prevents the harvesting of sugar-cane at Salta, at a height of 4,000
feet. As to the coca-leaf, which is not as much used here as in the
north, the Argentine _valles_ do not send it to the tableland, but
receive it indirectly from there, through the southern _yungas_. In
default of tropical crops, the Argentine _valles_ sow wheat and maize,
which they sell to the Indians of the cold districts of the Puna for
wool and salt.
These commercial currents are of very ancient, probably pre-Columbian
origin. Boman has discovered ears of maize in the prehistoric tombs
of the Puna de Atacama.[18] The Puna, at a height of 11,000 to 12,000
feet, is permanently inhabited, unlike the high valleys of the
Cordillera de San Juan, which are occupied only during the summer
season by Chilean shepherds. It is primarily a pastoral and mining
region, but it has some tilled land, at more than 6,700 feet above the
level of the valleys. The higher limit of annual cultivation in the
cold districts, which is fixed by the summer temperature, does not fall
in the same way as that of arboriculture in warm districts, because
trees suffer from the winter frosts. The Indians of Cochinoca and
Susques sow lucerne and barley for fodder, and the _quinoa_ and potato
for food. Transport between the Puna and the _valles_ is carried on
by the inhabitants of the Puna, and is not shared by the _vallistas_.
They are especially active in the north, in the province of Jujuy.
Belmar shows how important the sales of the Puna woollen goods were by
the middle of the nineteenth century.[19] These fabrics were used by
the mill-owners of the Rio Grande de Jujuy to pay for the work of the
Indians of the Chaco, whom they employed in the sugar-cane harvest.
The competition of the manufactured products of Europe now menaces the
domestic weaving of the Puna, just as the competition of the flour of
the Pampa menaces the cultivation of cereals in the _valles_.
[18] Eric Boman, _Antiquites de la region andine de la
Republique Argentine et de la Puna de Atacama: Mission scient.
G. de Crequi-Montfort et E. Senechal de la Grange_ (Paris,
vols. i. and ii. 1908).
[19] Belmar, _Les provinces de la Federation argentine_
(Paris, 1856).
Besides this traffic of local interest the _valles_ serve for a traffic
of a higher, almost a continental character. It seems certain that
during the pre-Spanish period the road from the Peruvian tablelands to
Chile avoided the inhospitable desert of the Puna de Atacama, entered
the region of the _valles_ to the east, and crossed the Cordillera in
the latitude of Tinogasta, or even a little further south. That was
the route of the armies of the Incas, which in the fourteenth century
came as far as Maule. The pre-Columbian roads, of which Boman has
found traces between the Valle de Lerma and the Valle Calchaqui, seem
to correspond with this direction of traffic. By this route the long
_quechua_ passed amongst the Diaguites populations. The conquerors
followed the Indian guides. Almagro, in going from Peru to Chile,
passed through the _valles_ at the eastern edge of the Andes.
Later the _valles_ were incorporated in the many variations of the
historic high road, one of the first and busiest of Spanish America,
which goes from the Rio de la Plata to Lima: a route both for armies
and merchants. The plan proposed by Matienzo (1566) to make a road
from the silver mines to the estuary of the Parana, through the Valle
de Calchaqui, seems to have been intended merely to improve a line of
communication that had already been in use. Buenos Aires for a long
time received European goods by this road. About 1880 the Salta route
recovered for a time its continental importance, during the Pacific
War and the occupation by the Chileans of the maritime provinces of
Bolivia.[20] At that time it was the only outlet for Bolivia.
[20] See Brackebusch, "Viaje a la provincia de Jujuy," _Bol.
Instit. Geog. Argent._, iv. 1883, pp. 9-17.
[Illustration: VEGETATION OF THE INTERIOR VALLEYS (ANDES OF THE
NORTH-WEST).
_Descent of Tafi del Valle, going to Santa Maria. The ravine is
excavated out of the mass of coarse deposits which forms a fringe
between the mountain and the valley. On this permeable soil the
vegetation is particularly thin. Cactus._
Photograph by the Author.]
[Illustration: FOREST ON THE OUTER SLOPE OF THE SUB-ANDEAN CHAINS.
_Sierra de San Antonio (Salta province). Perennial foliage, creepers,
ferns._ Photograph by the Author.
PLATE IV. To face p. 48.]
But of all the forms of traffic that have enlivened the _valles_ the
most constant, and the form that has had the most profound influence on
their existence, is the movement of cattle. The cattle trade has been
of fundamental importance in the history of the colonization of South
America. Animals were the only goods that could be conveyed any great
distance. At the beginning of the conquest the productive regions of
the continent, which supplied the export trade with Europe, were very
limited in extent. Pastoral colonization began at once, and spread
over a very wide area. Herds of oxen, for meat or draught, horses, and
mules, made their way toward the centres of consumption: towns like
Lima, Bahia, and Rio, the Peruvian mines, and the sugar-refineries of
the north-east of Brazil, and later toward the _yerbales_ of Paraguay
or the seaports of the Caribs and the Rio Grande do Sul, where the
jerked meat industry developed. The cattle routes converge upon these
centres.
The export of cattle and mules from the Argentine plains to Peru was
fully established by the close of the sixteenth century, and it seems
to have continued without interruption ever since. Upper Peru is,
however, not the only market on which the Argentine breeders lived. At
the end of the eighteenth century D'Azara demanded that they should
permit the sale of horses and mules to Brazil, for use in the mines.
The cattle traffic with Portuguese territory had not then assumed
the form of a regular commerce, and the Brazilians made raids on the
north-eastern provinces for the animals they needed--60,000 a year,
D'Azara says.[21] The export of cattle to Paraguay and Misiones was, on
the other hand, of substantial economic importance in the eighteenth
century. Before the Revolution, Rengger says, as many as 200,000 head
of cattle passed yearly from Corrientes to Paraguay, which paid for
them in _mate_ and tobacco.[22] This trade was kept up intermittently
in the nineteenth century. The exports from Corrientes were especially
important at the time when the Paraguay stock was reconstituted after
the war (40,000 head of cattle in 1875).
[21] _Memorias sobre el estado rural del rio de la Plata en
1801, Escritos postumos de D. Felix de Azara_, published by D.
Augustin de Azara (Madrid, 1847).
[22] A. Rengger, _Reise nach Paraguay in den Jahren 1818 bis
1826_ (Aarau, 1835).
Finally, the Chilean market was opened to the Argentine breeders about
the middle of the nineteenth century. In the time of Martin de Moussy
the convoys of cattle to Chile were so numerous that the lucerne fields
of both slopes were stripped bare at the very beginning of the season;
and they were rented at a high price.[23] Not only the mining provinces
of the north, but central Chile also, bought Argentine cattle. The
opening of the Chilean market was followed by a remarkable expansive
movement in the pastoral colonization of Argentine territory. We can
follow the progress of this not only in Martin de Moussy's book, but in
all contemporary works of travel. Its chief theatres are the provinces
of San Luis and of Santiago del Estero, north of the Rio Dulce, where
Hutchinson, in particular, describes the activity of the ranches.[24]
Finally, after the Pacific War (1880) the nitrate district, taken from
Bolivia and Peru by Chile, received a great influx of population, and
works sprang up in the midst of the desert. The nitrate fields, wholly
barren and doomed, under their shroud of grey dust, to an unalterable
desolation, became at once one of the chief centres of consumption for
Argentine stock.
[23] The fattening of cattle for Chile was no longer done in
the _invernadas_ of Mendoza at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. See an article on Mendoza in the _Telegrafo
Mercantil_, January 31, 1802, which tells of the development
of ranches on the Tunuyan. Mendoza and San Juan were their
only markets, and they did not sell cattle to Chile.
[24] T. J. Hutchinson, _Buenos Aires y otras Provincias
argentinas_ (translated by L. Varela, Buenos Aires, 1866).
It is difficult to give accurate details of the volume of trade in
cattle in colonial Argentine. However, the facts given by travellers
(though they often merely borrow from each other) suffice to show how
important this traffic was in the life of the country and the extent
of the zone that was occupied with it. As early as the middle of the
seventeenth century Cordoba seems to have exported to Peru as many as
28,000 to 30,000 mules annually.[25] At the close of the eighteenth
century, we read in D'Azara, 60,000 mules were exported; and Helms
gives the same figure.[26] The mules were bought young by Cordoba
dealers at Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Corrientes, reared at Cordoba,
and then sent to Salta, where they were sold in their third year to
mule-dealers from Peru.
[25] Azcarate de Biscay, quoted in H. Gibson, _La evolucion
ganadera_ in _Censo agropecuario nacional_, Buenos Aires, 1909,
vol. iii.
[26] A. Z. Helms, _Voyage dans l'Amerique meridionale_ (Paris,
1812). The journey was in 1788.
An article in the _Telegrafo Mercantil_ of September 9, 1801
(reproduced in the _Junta de Historia y Numismatica americana_, Buenos
Aires, 2 vols., 1914-5) contains very valuable information in regard to
the mule trade. From 1760 to 1780 Salta sent between 40,000 and 50,000
mules annually to Peru. At Salta they were worth ten piastres each
before they were broken in, and thirteen or fourteen afterwards; and
they were sold at the age of four years. The _arrieros_, who conveyed
European goods and home products (_ropas y frutas_), bought a large
number of them. The _Telegrafo_ complains that this trade has been
gradually transformed. The mules now came from Santa Fe and Cordoba
to Salta two years old, and after the _invernada_ they were still,
at fair time, barely three years old. They suffered much during the
long journey to Lima, and the losses of the caravans were heavy. They
could not be loaded for the journey, and, as the _arrieros_ could no
longer secure adult and strong animals, the freight to the tableland
had risen, to the serious loss of merchants on the coast. The reply
of a Potosi mule-dealer (December 13th) clearly shows that the last
years of the eighteenth century had been marked by increasingly heavy
demands from Peru for Argentine mules. In order to meet these demands
the Cordoba breeders had developed production. The buyers, coming to
Salta from Lima, Cuzco, and Arequipa, took, without discussion or
examination, the batches that were offered them. The correspondent of
the _Telegrafo_ complains bitterly of these _caballeritos_ who came
from Peru with their 100,000 piastres, and raised the price at Salta,
alleging that their instructions were to get mules at any cost.
Robertson gave in 1813 the recollections of a mule-dealer as to the
convoys of mules between Santa Fe and the Andes, which had already
ceased at that time. Each convoy or _arreo_ comprised 5,000 to 6,000
mules. They came from Entre Rios, or even from the Uruguay, whence they
were brought, after crossing the Parana, to the Santa Fe ranches. The
Santa Fe breeders owned the best part of the land on the left bank of
the river. The expedition also included thirty waggons of goods and
500 draught-oxen; and fifty _gauchos_ were in charge of it. The main
expense was then tobacco and _yerba_. One feature of this mule traffic
that is emphasized in all the descriptions is that it was divided
into two stages, with an interval between them, for breaking in. As
we have already learned from Azcarate, Cordoba, Santa Fe, Santiago,
and Salta kept the mules for two or three years before sending them to
Peru. Cordoba and Santiago del Estero seem to have been important in
connection with the industry of breaking in the mules.
The sending of cattle on foot to Bolivia and Chile is now only a
subsidiary element of the national economy, but it is not yet quite
extinct, as the table on p. 53 shows.
Whatever its point of departure, the traffic in stock always passed
through the _valles_. Transport of cattle was particularly difficult
in the Argentine Andes. The chief obstacles were not the elevation of
the passes or the steepness of the roads, but the scarcity of water and
the extent of the _travesias_, which were equally poor in pasturage
and water, and had to be crossed rapidly by doubling the stages. The
difficulties of the journey were very profitable to the oases that
lay along the route. The cattle-driver could not dispense with the
hospitality of the _vallista_ or dispute the price he cared to charge.
[Illustration: MAP II.--IRRIGATION IN THE WEST AND NORTH-WEST OF
ARGENTINA.
_Extent of the irrigations in the north (zone of the great summer
rains), and the south (glacier zone) The historic industry of fattening
cattle in the invernadas and the export of cattle to the Andean regions
only survive in part. On the other hand large modern industries have
developed at Tucuman, Jujuy (sugar-cane), Mendoza, and San Juan
(vines), and they supply the Buenos Aires market._
To face p. 52.]
The length of the journey and the difficulty of keeping the animals
in good condition in the poor pastures of the breeding districts
made it advisable to stay longer in the oases. There thus arose
lucerne-farms--the _invernadas_--to receive and fatten the cattle which
passed through. Lucerne is the characteristic and most profitable
produce of the _valles_. It is grown wherever there is an assured
supply of water, and is invariably found in the upper section of the
system of irrigation-channels; the cereals are sown lower down, and
are the first to suffer from drought. In the _quebradas_, where space
is more limited, the lucerne-fields cover the entire oasis. Every
cattle track has a corresponding line of _invernadas_, which is often
completed on the opposite slope by a last group of lucerne-farms where
the beasts recover from the journey before they are sold and dispersed.
1910 1911 1912 1913 1914
Export of Cattle:
To Bolivia 3,600 6,600 6,200 6,300 4,800
To Chile 61,200 87,500 68,400 58,000 28,300
Export of Mules:
To Bolivia 2,700 4,600 7,900 8,300 2,500
To Chile 2,300 3,200 5,000 2,600 3,500
Export of Asses:
To Bolivia 9,000 10,500 15,000 15,600 14,400[27]
[27] Imperfect statistics given by Poncel for the province
of Catamarca give us some idea of the respective shares of
the various Andean districts in the export of Argentine
cattle about the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1855
the province of Catamarca sold 2,700 head of cattle (1,300 to
Chile, 200 to Bolivia, 600 to San Juan and Mendoza), 3,200
mules (2,500 to Bolivia 600 to Salta--which also were for
Bolivia), and 1,200 asses (700 to Bolivia and 400 to Salta).
Besides the official routes there have for a long time been clandestine
tracks, through more difficult ravines, by which stolen cattle were
conveyed with impunity. Guachipas was the gathering place for cattle
of suspicious origin, and, to avoid being seen in Salta and Jujuy,
they passed through the Quebrada del Toro or the Quebrada d'Escoipe.
When Brackebusch visited Guachipas in 1880 the inhabitants still kept
something of their reputation as smugglers.
A map of the cattle-tracks which are still used in the Argentine Andes
is a complicated network in which we can trace two main directions,
crossing each other at right angles. One set of tracks leads to the
west, toward the Pacific coast, the other set to the north, toward the
Bolivian tableland.
The cattle traffic is now restricted to Chile. It survives at San Juan,
Jachal, Vinchina, and Tinogasta. The cattle descend to Chile about
Coquimbo, Vallenar, or Copiapo. But the trade is now busiest in the
region of the saltpetre-beds. The roads lead from the Valle de Lerma
and the Valle Calchaqui toward the tableland by the Quebrada del Toro
or the Quebrada de Cachi or de Luracatao, crossing lofty passes at the
foot of the Nevados of Acay and Cachi, and reuniting between Santa
Rosa de Pastos Grandes and San Antonio de los Cobres to cross the
Puna de Atacama. _Vegas_ (pastures) and fresh water are scarce here.
The track passes interminably by depressions covered with a carpet of
glistening salt, dominated by volcanic crests. It is used in every
season of the year, but in winter the caravans are exposed to the cold
wind laden with snow, the _viento blanco_. San Pedro is the port in
this desolation. Here there are, on the flanks of the enormous cone of
Licancour, fields of lucerne and groups of figs and _algarrobas_. The
cattle are left there for a few days' rest, to prepare them for the
last stage, the Calama oasis on the Antofagasta railway.
The centre of this trade is Salta, or, rather, the little village of
Rosario de Lerma, nine miles south of it, where most of the caravans
are formed. The saltpetre works make yearly contracts in advance with
the Rosario dealers, fixing the number and price of the beasts to be
delivered at Calama. The cost of transport includes, besides the pay
of the cattle-drivers--eighty to a hundred piastres a journey--the
shoeing of the mules, the rent of pasture at San Pedro, and the value
of the beasts which die on the way. In 1913 the number of animals
exported by this route was put at 30,000. The saltpetre works buy also
draught-mules for their waggons. Draught-mules must be heavy, and only
animals over five feet in height are sent to Chile. Bolivia is now the
only market for the smaller mules and for asses.
The trade in mules in its traditional form and the industry of
breaking-in still flourish at Santa Maria. The mule-dealer's business
is very different from that of the cattle-dealer. The mules are
so tough that it is possible to send them by roads which would be
unsuitable for cattle.[28] The journeys are longer, and the contracts
are less settled in advance. Moreover, breaking-in is a delicate
operation that requires experience. The survival of the mule-trade at
Santa Maria is an example of the maintenance of an industry owing to
the presence of skilled handicraft. The men who break in the mules at
Santa Maria have a remarkable caste-pride. Their first job is to go to
Santiago or Cordoba to buy the mules. They bring them back to Santa
Maria by way of Catamarca or the valley of Tafi. At Santa Maria the
mules are broken in, then taken to the lucerne-farms at Poma to be put
into good condition. There they remain in pasture for several months;
and at length, when the season is suitable, the little band of Santa
Marienos gathers together and, driving the now docile beasts in front
of them, and putting no loads on them in order that they may keep
fresh, make for the fair at Huari in Bolivia, or even as far as Sucre.
There they sell at a hundred and fifty piastres each the animals which
they had bought for half that price before being broken in. The number
of mules hibernating at Poma is about 4,000.
[28] For instance, herds of mules are taken from Abrapampa, on
the line of the Quiaca, to the saltpetre mines of Antofagasta,
whereas every effort to convey cattle by this route has failed.
The business done in the fairs of the southern Andes is very varied in
character, but their main function was always as markets for stock.[29]
They are held in March or April, when the rains do not fall, but
pasture is still abundant and travelling easy. The fair at Vilque,
north of Lake Titicaca, is no longer visited by dealers in Argentine
mules. The Salta fair which was held at Sumala, near Rosario de Lerma,
has ceased to be important; at the close of the eighteenth century
it was the chief centre of the mule-trade. The fair held at Jujuy is
still, like the annual pilgrimage to the Virgen del Valle de Catamarca,
one of the great dates in the life of the Andes. In the eighteenth
century it was mainly a cattle-fair, but it is now frequented only by
mule-dealers. The development of the railways is gradually causing it
to decline.
[29] There is an interesting study of fairs on the elevated
tableland by G. M. Wrigley, "Fairs of the Central Andes," in
the _Geographical Review_ (New York), vii. 1919, pp. 65-80.
The cattle-trade has long been really a form of barter. The
Argentinians who took their herds to Peru brought back with them
European goods that had come via Panama and the Pacific. At Jachal
direct communication with Argentina is still so costly that they
prefer to get many manufactured articles from Chile. Everywhere
else, however, the sellers of stock take payment in cash. The Santa
Marienos bring back from Bolivia only a few bags of coca and, for
chief payment, letters of exchange, which they cash in the Salta banks
when they return. Their gains swell the profits of the merchants of
Salta, Catamarca, and Jujuy, who get their goods at the large importing
houses of Buenos Aires. It is the first form under which the influence
of Buenos Aires reaches the _valles_. It gets their custom before it
begins to absorb their produce.
A large proportion of the stock sent to Chile now comes from the
Andean valleys themselves. The most arid and desolate regions round
the oases breed only goats and asses; but as soon as the soil improves
sufficiently to give a better vegetation, it is found good enough for
a hardy and tenacious breed of horned cattle. The land is divided
into large ranches, and the owners have also lucerne-farms, either
individually or communally, the tillers of the oasis each putting in
their beasts, which wander about in small groups without control.
During the summer they go of their own accord up to the _cerros_,
where the rains have brought out the vegetation, and drinking-water is
found in the ravines for several months. In the winter they return to
the valley, within range of the reservoirs and permanent _acequias_.
Bodenbender gives us a few details about movements from place to place
owing to such differences, as they are in vogue in the western part of
the province of La Rioja, in the district of Guandacol. There the herds
are taken during years of drought up to the mountains of the west.
Apart from the Andes, the zone which used to feel the influence of
the trans-Andean markets has been steadily reduced in the last forty
years. At one time it comprised the whole range of the scrub, and
even overflowed upon the prairie region, but it is now limited to the
nearest cantons to the fringe of the mountains. Over the greater part
of the _monte_ the cattle are now sent in other directions; either to
Buenos Aires or to other Argentine towns with a growing population,
such as Cordoba, Mendoza, and Tucuman.
The rupture of commercial relations with Chile has, however, not made
any notable change in the pastoral industry. Pastoral life in the scrub
has very uniform characters. It is chiefly dominated by the question of
water-supply. Natural open water is scarce, and the cattle can drink
only where man's industry makes it possible. The problem of taming the
beasts, which the breeders on the prairies have not always been able to
solve, is simplified by the scarcity of water. There is no need to hunt
the cattle, no periodical _rodeos_, when the herd is drawn in every
night by thirst to the water-supply. Advance in colonization means the
provision of wells and reservoirs (_baldes_ and _represas_), without
which the breeders cannot occupy the plain permanently, but have to
fall back during the dry season upon the few streams that cross it.
The word _balderia_ means districts where the presence of a sheet of
water not far underground has enabled them to form a system of wells.
The best known is the Balderia Puntana, in the northern part of the
province of San Luis.
Of the regions apart from the Andes which still depend on the Chilean
market it will be enough to mention two, which may be regarded as
typical. The first is the Chaco Salteno, on the eastern slope of the
Sierra de la Lumbrera. The Lumbrera is a lofty anticlinal range of
limestones and red sandstones, which pass to the west underneath the
clay of the Chaco plain, and separate it from the great longitudinal
sub-Andean corridor, which was followed by the old road, and is now
followed by the railway from Tucuman to Jujuy. Colonization began
beyond the Lumbrera in the eighteenth century by passing round it, from
south to north, by the valleys of the Juramento and the San Francisco
(which joins the Bermejo). The ranches, which employed the Indians--the
occupation of the Chaco at this point being pacific--bordered the
Bermejo and the Rio del Valle, which flows from the Lumbrera range
toward the former bed of the Bermejo, and washes the foot of the range
at the edge of the plain.
[Illustration: DRY SCRUB OF THE CENTRAL CHACO.
_On the Anatuya line (province of Santiago del Estero). Cactus. The
leafless tree in the foreground is a red_ quebracho. _The leafy trees
are white_ quebrachos.
Photograph by the Author.]
[Illustration: MARSHES (ESTEROS OR CANADAS) OF THE EASTERN CHACO.
_On the Tartagal line (province of Santa Fe). It is by means of these
marshes, which form in the forest, that this part of the plain is
drained._
Photograph by the Author.
PLATE V. To face p. 58.]
The cattle live in the scrub during the summer, when the rains have
brought out the grasses. In winter they go up to the moist forest, with
perennial vegetation, which covers the flanks of the range.[30] The
comparative abundance of water lessens the labour of the breeders and,
at the same time, the discipline of the herds. When the time comes,
the whole ranch is mobilized for the purpose of collecting the adult
cattle and making a convoy of them. Horsemen, with the double leather
apron which hangs at the saddle-bow to protect them from the branches,
ride up the range with their dogs and plunge into the scrub. The savage
beasts are rounded up and held at bay. The procession is formed, and
sets out, either by the rugged paths across the forest and mountain or
along the easier tracks over the plain to Embarcacion or Lumbreras,
where they reach the railway. If buyers from the sugar-refineries at
Jujuy do not take them, the cattle are put into trucks and sent to
the Salta market, where there are sales all the year round. At Salta
the beasts are fattened on the lucerne-farms before crossing the
Cordillera. There is hardly any tillage, either because the winter
drought makes the result dubious or because the breeders are not good
at agricultural work.
[30] On Aconcagua also the moist forest serves as winter
pasture for the cattle from the ranches.
The Sierra de los Llanos in La Rioja is another centre for extensive
breeding. From the railway, which follows the range at some distance,
between Chanar and Punta de los Llanos, before it reaches La Rioja,
no one would have the least suspicion of the importance and life of
the region. It is, nevertheless, one of the main foci of Argentine
history. It has proved a cradle of population and wealth. It was there
that Quiroga and, later, the strange adventurer who was known by the
nickname of the "Chacho" gathered the strength that enabled them to
dominate part of Argentina. Colonization is even older here than in
the Chaco Salteno. It occupied two distinct periods, separated by a
long interval. At first it advanced from north to south, passing round
the foot of the Sierra. It is marked by a line of springs, poor but
permanent, the waters of which are absorbed as soon as they flow down
to the porous alluvial beds of the plain. They appear much in the names
of the district--_aguitas_, _aguaditas_, and so on, abound. The road
from La Rioja to San Luis passed these springs, and some population
grew up about them. Thus the two sides of the range--the _costa baja_
in the east and the _costa alta_ in the west--became inhabited. The
estate of Facundo is one of these _aguaditas_ of the _costa alta_.
The two _costas_ form the historic territory of the Llanos. It was from
there that colonization swarmed over the plain long afterwards. This
expansive movement began about 1850; that is to say, at a time when the
breeders enjoyed comparative peace and security, and especially when
the _invernadas_ of San Juan and Mendoza were developed, together with
the export of cattle to the agricultural provinces of Chile. The price
of stock rose, and the unoccupied land became of value. The occupation
and exploitation of the plain was the work of the last two generations.
They pushed on to the very edge of the salt lakes, leaving no vacant
space. The _travesias_ which surrounded the narrow inhabited zone of
the _costas_ were filled with life. The Sierra and its two _costas_
are no longer an oasis in the desert, as they were in the time of
Sarmiento; though they still differ from the remainder of the pastoral
zone in the density of their population and the variety of their
resources.
The early date of the colonization may be traced in a special system
of tenure, though this is also found in parts of the provinces of
Catamarca and Santiago del Estero. On the plain the right of ownership
was obtained in the nineteenth century by purchase or by concessions
of public lands which belonged to the provincial Government. They were
allotted in very large estates, and these, intact or broken up, are
the actual ranches. In approaching the foot of the range one passes
estates in the _mercedes_. The name indicates concessions that date
from the colonial epoch, and they are, in all parts of South America
that were early colonized, the source of land-ownership. But what is
peculiar to the _mercedes_ of the Llanos is that they have never been
divided amongst the heirs of the first owner.[31] Sometimes the number
of co-proprietors is small. They are conscious of their relationship
to each other and know the value of the rights of each. The _merced_
is in that case only an undivided property held in common. Sometimes,
however, the numbers of _comuneros_ is so great that they have lost
count of the exact share of the _merced_ which belongs to each of them.
The _merced_ feeds a whole population, legitimate heirs and usurpers
mixed together. In these cases it is a real communal property, and one
might compare it, in spite of its different origin, with the Indian
communities which exist in Argentine territory as well as that of most
of the other Andean States.
[31] The title of the _merced_ often shows clearly the
attraction which the springs at the foot of the Sierra had for
colonists. The land of the _merced_ of Ulapes is defined thus:
"The spring and the land within two leagues of it in every
direction." The spring is the centre. There its protecting
deities live.
The economy of the Llanos is less simple than that of the Chaco
Salteno. There is agriculture as well as breeding. There is not much
rain, and it is confined to the summer months. The mean rainfall is,
no doubt, higher than what we find at La Rioja (about 30 centimetres),
but it is not good enough to dispense with irrigation. The _aguadas_,
springs and brooks at the foot of the range, are the only provision of
permanent water, and it is very limited. The oases watered by these
springs and brooks cover only a few acres at the foot of the steep
cliffs of the range. It has not been possible to cultivate the land
far from the mountains. At Chamical a trench that was made to convey
water to the railway dried up. All that can be done is to follow for
a few miles with a line of wells a subterranean stream of fresh and
not very deep water. At Bella Vista a _comunero_ has dug an _acequia_
several miles long, and he sells the water at a rate of five piastres
for forty-eight hours. But when it reaches the end of the _acequia_, it
is lost between the trench and the field to which they would conduct
it. At Ulapes, though it is one of the chief centres, it takes the full
outflow of the spring during sixteen hours to irrigate one _cuadra_ (a
little over two acres), and each man's "turn" is for seventeen days.
The entire oasis measures about fifty acres. At Olta the thin stream of
water is surrounded by so many cupidities that the "turn" comes only
every fifty-eight days, so that each field has to live fifty-eight days
on one watering. At Catuna where a trickle of brackish water is eagerly
collected at the foot of a dejection-cone, the water-right is regulated
by an arrangement of turns that covers ninety days, so that plants die
of thirst in the interval. The plots vary according to the quantity,
quality, and regularity of the water. The orange-tree is the most
exacting, the fig the most tenacious, of the trees. The poorest oases
consist only of a few gardens of dusty fig-trees.
However small it is, the oasis always stands for a rudiment of communal
life, a _poblado_, a centre round which life is organized in this
pastoral, anarchic, amorphous world. Land that has a water-right is
regarded as detached from the _merced_ and never remains undivided.
Besides these properly irrigated lands there are the _banados_:
cultivated plots in the hollows, where the moisture left by the storms
is concentrated and preserved. These are much more extensive, and they
are very irregularly distributed. Inequalities of the alluvial ground
that almost escape the eye are sufficient to direct the streaming of
the water after rain, and it is quickly absorbed. Man assists nature as
well as he can, and one sees everywhere tiny ridges of earth across the
paths, for the purpose of diverting the water to the plots. These are
the _tomas_. When you follow a _toma_ downward, you see it after a time
pass under a hedge of dry thorn, and this encloses a field, a _cerco_.
The crops have to be jealously guarded against the cattle which roam in
the scrub. The _cercos_ are sometimes so numerous that they give the
impression of a regular agricultural district. Most of them are planted
with maize. The maize harvest rarely fails in the summer, for it is
then, on account of the regular rains, that the maize grows and ripens.
When the ears have been gathered, the cattle are let into the _cerco_,
as maize-straw is excellent fodder. But wheat also grows well in the
_banados_. Provided the year has had a few late showers, the wheat sown
in autumn stands the winter drought more or less well, and ripens after
the early rains, at the beginning of summer. The Llanos produce a hard
wheat; it is not milled, but eaten, like rice, in the grain. There have
been times when the Llanos have exported wheat. The census of 1888
gives the Department of General Belgrano, on the eastern slope of the
Llanos, an area of 900 acres under maize and 1,900 under wheat. When
the Chilecito railway was constructed, this wheat competed with that
brought on mules from Jachal, in the mining district of the Famatina
range. Like the gardens in the oases, the _cercos_ may be divided, and
they are the personal property of those who cultivate them.
Sowing and reaping are, however, mere episodes in the life of the
_Llanero_. He is mainly occupied with cattle-breeding. The quality
of the pasture differs considerably according to the nature of the
soil and the good and bad character of the season. Sometimes it forms
a thick carpet under the brushwood, but in other places it is poor
and there is nothing but the leaves and pods of the _algarroba_. If
the herd is too large, the grass will not grow again; the breeder
recognizes at a glance the _campo recargado_--the field which has had
its capacity overstrained. The pasture has to be carefully nursed. But
the most urgent problem is to get a supply of water for the cattle.
Round the Sierra the underground water is often fresh, and there are
plenty of wells. Still, in order to avoid having to draw the water,
they dig large trenches at suitable spots in the clay, and round
these they arrange the earth that has been dug out, with an opening
toward the hills to catch the water when it is raining. These are the
_represas_. As in the case of the _banados_, ridges of earth direct the
stream to the _represa_. It is surrounded by a hedge as carefully as
the field is. On the plain rain is rare, and the _represas_ are usually
the only reserve. They have to last the whole year; even two years if
there is a particularly dry summer that prevents re-filling. Thus they
become sometimes veritable lakes. From a distance you can see, above
the top of the brushwood, the bald curve of the mound of beaten earth
which encircles them. The water flows over it when there has been much
rain. The mound is sometimes 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 yards high; as it is at
Tello, between the Sierra d'Ulapes and the Sierra de los Llanos, where
the San Juan coach used to change horses.
The _represa_ is the real centre of the estate. The house is built near
it, and guards the entrance. From early morning until dusk the cattle
come to it, singly or in groups. The rancher admits them, lets them
drink, and closes the gate behind them. If the thirsty cattle have not
his mark and belong to a neighbour, he sends them to drink at their own
_represa_; but he gives water to lost beasts, from a distance, whose
owner will presently come for them. Near the _represa_ is the enclosure
(_potrero_) for calves that have just been born. The cows come there
every morning, and they are milked for a few months to make cheese.
Like the _cerco_, the _represa_ is the personal property of the man who
made it, or of one who has inherited it and sees to its upkeep.
The cattle of the Llanos move a good deal. There are certain irregular
migrations, and others that are periodic or connected with the seasons.
Everywhere on the fringe of the Sierra the cattle remain in the ravine
and on the foot-hills during the winter. In the summer they return of
themselves to their _querencia_ on the plain. The irregular migrations
are due to scarcity of water or pasture. Driven by hunger, the beasts
travel a long distance of their own accord. They mingle with other
herds, sometimes so far from the ranches where they were born that no
one recognizes their mark. Sometimes, again, the rancher himself goes,
when his _represa_ is dry, to ask hospitality in some more favoured
canton. He is fortunate if the drought has not been general; if part of
the country has been spared and can offer a refuge.
But it sometimes happens that the whole district has suffered, and the
land is naked and scorched everywhere. There is then no help except
a long journey, to San Luis or to the lucerne-farms of San Juan, for
the cattle. The misfortune of the Llanos sends up at once the rent
of the _invernadas_ all round. A general evacuation of the cattle is
a desperate remedy, and is, in fact, often impracticable. During the
whole summer the men wait patiently, hoping for the end of the drought.
There is room for hope until April, when storms are still possible. If
the month ends without rain, it is too late to remove the exhausted
cattle; the stages across the desolated country are too severe.
The memory of the worst years of drought--the "epidemics," as the
Llanero calls them--lives for a long time. They make a deep impression
on the popular imagination, and legend makes plagues of them, in the
Biblical way. The drought of 1884 was particularly disastrous. The
herds were destroyed, and families that had been wealthy the day before
set out on foot, "having nothing to put a saddle on": a touching
picture of misery for this race of centaurs, people who feel themselves
mutilated when they are not on horse. The rain returns next year. The
pasture grows all the better because the herd is smaller, and the
Llanos give the traveller who crosses them an exaggerated impression of
their natural wealth.
Until quite a recent date the cattle reared in the Llanos were destined
exclusively for Chile. Dealers from Jachal or Tinogasta came in the
autumn, and the cattle passed the winter in the _invernadas_ at the
foot of the Cordillera. From the Sierra d'Ulapes, which is a southward
continuation of the Llanos, the cattle destined for Chile were first
sent to San Juan. They took one or two weeks to reach it. Five men were
needed for a herd of a hundred beasts: eight for a herd of two hundred.
The caravan was directed by an _estanciero_ (rancher) or his _capataz_,
or by dealers who came originally from the Llanos.
Exports to Chile have not entirely ceased. In 1913 the dealers from
Tinogasta and Jachal, who had not appeared in 1912, came back. The
southern part of the Sierra d'Ulapes, which is some distance from the
railway, reserves its cattle for San Juan. The cattle are, however,
more and more sent by rail to the coast. In the Sierra d'Ulapes the
dealers from Villa Mercedes, which has become one of the great markets
of Argentina, come every year, rent an enclosure (_protrero_), and
collect in it, one by one, a herd of cattle, which they then take away
on foot. They are sold at the fair at Villa Mercedes, and they disperse
in every direction toward the fattening zones of the Pampa.
This commercial revolution has led to a rise in the price of cattle,
and this in turn has raised the value of land. When the value of the
land rises, the methods of working it are necessarily improved, there
is greater security, and thefts of cattle (_cuatrerismo_) become
impossible. The farmers are not content merely to enlarge their
_represas_ or dig deeper wells. They divide the fields by fences--cheap
iron wire stretched on home-made posts, or hedges of spines like those
which protect the _banados_. Thus pasture can be reserved untouched for
the difficult months.
This subdivision of the land by fences began in the south, in the
Ulapes district, in touch with the richer districts of San Luis and
Cordoba. In the Llanos proper the practice has scarcely begun. At
Ulapes it is even done on the _mercedes_. Each _comunero_, without
opposition, encloses as much space as he can, and leaves his cattle
outside, on the common land, as long as possible. He only brings them
into his enclosed land when the common pasture is exhausted. This will
bring about the end of the _mercedes_; and, indeed, communal ownership
is not suited to modern conditions. The latest sign of progress is the
appearance of lucerne fields. Lucerne can be grown on the _banados_
wherever anything else can be grown; and the creation of lucerne-farms
will give the pastoral industry a security and stability it never had
before, besides enabling the breeders to collect stores of dry forage
and exploit the full pastoral capacity of the _monte_.