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SOUTH AMERICA TO-DAY
A Study of Conditions, Social
Political, and Commercial
in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil
by
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
Formerly Prime Minister of France
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1911
Copyright, 1911
By
G. P. Putnam's Sons
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
INTRODUCTION
I have been asked for my impressions as a traveller in South America. I
had no sooner promised them than a difficulty presented itself. I have
no notes of my journey, and I should be sorry to have them, for it is
annoying to record impressions in black and white at the precise moment
when one feels them most vividly. And I pass over in silence the hour
when it is wisdom to remain quiet.
The task of Christopher Columbus was lightened by one fact. America
was there, stationary, in the middle of the sea, only waiting for some
one to knock against it. I even found in Brazil an eminent Senator for
the State of Saint Paul, Señor Almeida Nogueira, who declared that the
principal event of that Friday, October 12th, was the discovery--by the
original Americans--of Europe in the person of the great Genoese. They
had this advantage over him--they had not left their homes.
What was I going to discover in my turn, at the risk of being
myself discovered?--unknown countries?--unheard-of peoples?--virgin
civilisations?--or simply points of comparisons for new judgments on
myself and on my country?
Our self-satisfaction will not allow us readily to admit that we have
anything to learn from young communities, though we are too ready to
talk in generalities about them. We cannot deny, however, that their
effort is fine, and tends continually toward success.
In such a result the least quick-sighted of us must be interested.
Facility of communication has multiplied the points of contact between
the men of every country. One of our first needs is to correct the
vague or false conceptions of the different human societies borne by
this globe in a tumult of joy and misery towards destinies unknown.
Because there was no one to contradict them, travellers of ancient
times were able to give full play to their wildest imaginings. A
proverb even sanctions their lack of veracity. When our good Herodotus
related that the army of Xerxes dried up the rivers on its passage,
the Athenians, perhaps, were not astonished. Christopher Columbus
himself died in ignorance of the continent on which he had landed,
convinced that he had reached the east coast of Asia. To-day it
is another matter. From the Poles to the torrid zone are at work
innumerable explorers who only succeed painfully in discovering the new
at the price of being verified by their rivals. The incidents which
accompanied the probable discovery of the North Pole by Commander Peary
showed the danger of rash assertions, even when denial seemed only
possible from seals and white bears.
I enjoy, happily, the great advantage of having discovered nothing.
And, as I am less ambitious of astonishing my contemporaries than of
suggesting reflections by the way, I shall perhaps escape offending
the susceptibilities of those formidable savants who, having theorised
upon everything, can only see everything from the standpoint of their
studies. Statisticians had better avoid me; I have nothing to tell
them. Having no preconceived notions, I shall not attempt to make
facts square with them. Having in mind Voltaire's expression that
the most mischievous ignorance is that of the critic, I confess that
my own criticism of old civilisations makes me indulgent towards new
experiments outside Europe.
I am of my time and my country, and at the end of a long career I
submit with equanimity to the public the opinions and judgments I have
gained. I do not share the prejudices current in Paris against the
suburban dwellers of Villers-sur-Marne or St. Cloud. Our comic journals
and our plays have inflicted the same kind of torture upon the South
Americans. Having ridiculed them for so long, has not the moment come
when we should study them, not merely to flatter ourselves at their
expense, but as a people who, more than any other, are our intellectual
children, and to ask ourselves whether we cannot sometimes learn
something from them?
It is not in three months that one gets definite ideas as to the future
of these vast territories, where a work of civilisation is going on
which will inevitably change the political and social equilibrium of
the planet that to-day is still, in effect, European. It is always
difficult to report faithfully what one has seen, for there is an
art in seeing as in telling. Without claiming to have achieved it, I
venture to hope that my observations, impartially recorded, will bear
the seal of good faith and be of some use to the reader.
It is obvious that the towns of South America, though some of them are
very fine and well laid out, cannot, by reason of their recent history,
offer monuments comparable with those of Europe. One not infrequently
hears a remark of this sort: "Have you seen that old church over there?
It is at least forty or fifty years old!" The towns derive their
chief interest from their situation and surroundings; their internal
features are only those which Europe has been pleased to send them
in superabundance. There remain the land and the people, two worthy
subjects of study. The land, rich in undeveloped forces, calls for new
energies. As it only becomes valuable through human labour, everything
depends upon man's activity. In the depth of his soul, at once
ingenuous and complex, are inscribed all the mysteries of the past, all
the secrets of the future.
Admitting that American civilisation is of recent origin, it must be
said that the American peoples, far from suffering from growing pains,
as we are fond of imagining, are really old races transplanted. Like
us, they bend under the weight of a heavy history of glory and human
suffering; they are imbued with all our traditions, good or bad; and
they are subject to the same difficulties, whilst manifesting their
vital energies in an environment better adapted to their display.
Then, again, let us not fail to distinguish between Latin America of
the South and Anglo-Saxon America of the North. Let us refrain as well
from generalities, sometimes unjustifiable, regarding the parallel
development of two orders of civilisation, and the future destinies
which, in hours of crisis, may appear uncertain, of old historic races.
I shall deal only with Latin America, without, however, losing sight of
the great Republic of the North, where I lived nearly four years. Since
neither Jefferson nor Washington foresaw the economic evolution which,
in a little more than a hundred years, was to be realised by their
infant Republic, it behoves me to be modest in my prophecies. But, if
I firmly believe that, in spite of the "historic materialism" of Karl
Marx, commercial interests are not the only factors in civilisation;
if I take from an eminent writer in Brazil, Señor Arinos de Mello, the
curious information that in 1780, at 1400 kilometres from the coast,
at the house of his great-grandfather, who had never seen the ocean, a
company of amateurs played the tragedies of Voltaire--I must conclude
that the influence of Ideas, inherited from our forefathers, is not
less certain or durable than that of international trade relations.
This I say with no intention of depreciating the importance of such
commerce as, even at that time, served as the vehicle of Ideas--just
as the good sailing ship transported a copy of Voltaire's _Mérope_
or _Mahomet_ from Rotterdam to Pernambuco, and a train of mules took
a month to complete the journey. It should remind us that moral
influences are not inferior in results to monetary affairs.
We French have allowed ourselves to be outstripped in economic matters
at too many points of the globe. Yet, notwithstanding our mistakes,
our eighteenth century--with the Revolution which was its inevitable
outcome--has constituted for us a patrimony of moral authority which we
should seek not only to preserve, but also, if possible, to enlarge.
G. C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION iii
CHAPTER
I. THE OUTWARD VOYAGE 1
II. MONTEVIDEO AND BUENOS AYRES 18
III. BUENOS AYRES (_Continued_) 48
IV. FOREIGN COLONISTS IN ARGENTINA 81
V. ARGENTINE EDUCATION, HOSPITALS, AND ASYLUMS 109
VI. ARGENTINE TYPES, MANNERS, AND MORALS 142
VII. ARGENTINE POLITICS 175
VIII. PAMPAS LIFE 204
IX. FARMING AND SPORT 233
X. ROSARIO AND TUCUMAN 257
XI. URUGUAY AND URUGUAYANS 289
XII. RIO DE JANEIRO 316
XIII. BRAZILIAN SOCIETY AND SCENERY 352
XIV. BRAZILIAN COFFEE 389
INDEX 427
SOUTH AMERICA TO-DAY
South America To-Day
CHAPTER I
THE OUTWARD VOYAGE
The _Regina Elena_ is in harbour. A great white boat vomits volumes of
black smoke from its two funnels, whilst the siren sounds the familiar
farewell. Two gangways, on which luggage and passengers are jostling
desperately, present the peculiar spectacle of departing crowds. On a
dais of multi-coloured sunshades, the wide hats of beautiful Genoese
women offer their good wishes to the little veiled toques of the
travellers. People stop in the narrowest part of the gangway to laugh
and cry together. Vainly the human flood tries to break through the
obstacle. The current, according to its strength, carries the living
mass of feathers and ribbons back to the landing-place or pushes it on
to the deck, where, in a perfect maze of movement and exclamations, it
continues to stop the traffic.
Not far away, heavily laden with nondescript burdens, the silent
emigrant forces his way to the lower deck, dragging old parents and
young children after him. Do not imagine the emigrant leaving Italy for
the Argentine to be the miserable human specimen one generally sees. He
is neither more nor less than a workman moving from one hemisphere to
another. We shall meet him again on board. Strongly attached to family
life, his peculiarity is to move about with his wife and progeny. The
difference in seasons allows him, after cutting corn on the Pampas, to
return to Italy for the harvest. Often he settles down in the Argentine
under the conditions which I shall explain later, and takes strong root
there. Often, again, the love of his native land speaks louder than his
love of adventure, and the steamship companies are glad to profit by
the circumstance.
The siren has blown its last authoritative blast; the last visitors
have returned to land; the huge monster glides gently out to sea. One
sees nothing but waving handkerchiefs and hears nothing but parting
words. We are off. "Good-bye." The grand amphitheatre of white marble
and sunburnt stones glides slowly past us, dazzling in the warm light.
Already our eyes were looking with curiosity and hopefulness towards
the liquid plain. Are we flying from Europe, or is Europe flying from
us? From this moment we shall look to see America surge up from the
horizon on the day ordained.
The first impressions of the boat are excellent: it is admirably fitted
up; clean as a new pin, with good attendance. We are welcomed in a most
charming manner by the Captain, de Benedetti, a _galant 'uomo_, who
advertises his French sympathies by flying a French flag. A fortnight
in a handsome moving prison, with floods of salt air to fill one's
lungs, and the marvellous panorama of sky and sea, shot with luminous
arrows. Our daily promenades are those of prisoners condemned to walk
in an eternal circle. As long as land is in sight, our eyes linger on
the blue line of mountains, which speaks to us of the country which,
in spite of the revolving screw, our hearts refuse to leave.
The Ligurian coast, crowned by Alpine heights; Provence, rich in
memories, blue mountains darkened by the dying day; grey spots,
which represent Toulon and Marseilles. A choppy, rather rough sea,
complicated by a ground swell, as we cross the Bay of Lyons, tries the
ladies, who had hitherto been very lively. They retire to their cabins,
whence issue sinister sounds.
But let us pass on. To-morrow's sun will illumine the joyous
hospitality of Barcelona.
Never did land look so fascinating to me. I have crossed the Atlantic
eight times without ever feeling that kind of anticipated regret for
the old Continent. Youth longs for the Unknown, but age learns to fear
it.
The passengers lunched on shore. Then came a visit to the _Rambla_,
sad and deserted under the grey sky. We linger over our first letters
home, which can neither be called letters from abroad nor letters
of farewell. A cab carries us about in a haphazard way, past modern
houses which are a disgrace to Spain and our epoch, and past façades
of convents burnt down in the last revolution. Finally, we are driven
back to the quay, where, since morning, a crowd of fruit-sellers,
picturesquely attired in red and yellow, have been selling their wares
to the emigrants, forbidden by the regulations to land at the ports of
call. Nets attached to long poles, filled with provisions of all sorts,
are offered to the passengers on the lower decks and held at a safe
distance until the sum, which has been volubly disputed, falls into the
outstretched apron below.
But the signal is given. The teeming market disappears, and, without
more ado, we put out to sea. In the dusk of the evening we discern the
white summits of the Sierra Nevada, in whose shadow lie Granada and the
Alhambra. We shall pass Gibraltar in the night, and at dawn to-morrow
we shall have only the blue monotony of the infinite sea.
It is five days' steam to St. Vincent, in the Cape Verde Islands.
The passengers shake down, grouping themselves according to national
or professional affinities. Stretched on arm-chairs of excessive
size--which turn the daily walk into a steeplechase--fair ladies,
wrapped in shawls and gauzes, and profoundly indifferent to the comfort
of others, try to read, but only succeed in yawning. They chatter
aimlessly without real conversation. The cries of the children create a
diversion, and a badly-trained dog is a fruitful topic for discussion.
The men sit down to bridge, or smoke innumerable pipes in the Winter
Garden. I catch scraps of business talk around me.
The boldest foot it on the deck, but their enterprise does not please
the gentler passengers, who are in quiet possession of the only space
available for exercise. Soon, under the guise of sops to the ravenous
ocean appetite, piles of plates, glasses, and decanters, complicated
with stools and travelling rugs, encumber the passageway. As the soft
roll of the ship causes a certain disturbance of the crockery, the
pedestrian, young or old, has always a chance of breaking his leg--a
contingency to which the ladies appear to be perfectly indifferent. The
piano suffers cruelly from sharp raps administered by knotty juvenile
fingers. An Italian lady sings, and one of my own countrywomen sketches
a group of emigrants.
In the primitive setting of the steerage everybody is already at home
and appears happy. Attentive fathers walk and play with their offspring
and occasionally smack them by way of showing them the right path.
Mothers are nursing their babies or washing clothes. I am told that
there are no fewer than twenty-six nursing mothers out of a total of
six hundred third-class passengers on board. Amid the Italian swarm,
brightly coloured groups of Syrians stand out. The women, tattooed,
painted, and clad in light-coloured draperies, sometimes covered with
silver ornaments, fall naturally into the dignified and statuesque pose
of the Oriental. A few are really handsome, with a sort of passive
sensuality of bearing. It is said that the Syrians are the licensed
pedlars of the Pampas.
A visit between decks shows that the ventilation is good and that
cleanliness is insured by incessant application of brush and hose.
The sick bay is well kept. One or two patients are in the maternity
ward awaiting an interesting event before the Equator can be reached.
The food is wholesome and abundant. The Italian Government keeps a
permanent official on board who is independent of the officers of the
ship, and sees that the regulations concerning hygiene and safety for
this class of passengers are rigorously carried out. Frightful abuses
in former days necessitated these measures, which are now entirely
efficacious.
We are looking forward to calling at St. Vincent as a welcome break
in the monotony of our days. However, thanks to wireless telegraphy,
we are no longer cut off from the world on this highly perfected
raft which balances our fortunes between heaven and sea. One cannot
help feeling surprised when presented with an envelope bearing the
word "Telegram." Some one has sent me his good wishes for the voyage
from France by way of Dakar. Then by the same mysterious medium the
passengers of a ship we shall meet to-morrow wave their hats to us in
advance. On several occasions I have had the pleasure of receiving
messages of this sort; they are incidents in a day. From time to time
we can read the despatches of the news agencies posted in the saloon.
I leave you to imagine how, with our abundant leisure, we discuss
the news. From St. Vincent to the island of Fernando de Noronha, the
advanced post of Brazil, I do not think we were ever more than two days
out of range of wireless telegraphy. When it is compulsory to have a
wireless installation on board all ships, collisions at sea can never
occur. I visit the telegraph office situated forward on the upper deck.
It is a small cabin where an employee sits all day striking sparks from
his machine as messages arrive from all parts of the horizon; the sound
reminds me of the crackling of a distant mitrailleuse. Here one must
not allow the mind to wander even with the smoke of one's cigarette.
Through a technical blunder our unfortunate telegraphist, without
knowing it, sent the information to Montevideo that we were in danger.
In consequence, we learnt from the newspapers on our arrival that the
Government was sending a State ship to our help. We thus experienced
the sweet sensation of peril without danger, whilst the employee guilty
of the error found himself discharged.
We shall not profit by the call at St. Vincent, since we arrive in the
night. It is in vain that they tell us that the Cape Verde Islands are
nothing but a series of arid, yellow rocks; that St. Vincent can only
show commonplace houses and cabins with the inevitable cocoanut-trees;
that the "town" is only inhabited by negroes who pick up a living from
the ships that put in here to coal; whilst the English coal importers
and real masters of this Portuguese possession live up in the hills.
Nevertheless, we are disappointed of an opportunity to stroll on shore
towards a clump of trees, apparently planted there with the object of
justifying the name of the place, which is in reality the most barren
spot.
On our way we had passed the denuded rocks which somebody tells us are
called the Canaries. St. Vincent, it seems, is a second edition of the
Canaries--only more sterile. We have no difficulty in believing it when
at nightfall the _Regina Elena_ stops at the bottom of a deep black
hole dotted with distant lights, of which some are fixed to the bows of
small craft or tugboats drawing coal lighters, which dance up to us on
the waves.
Suddenly, as in the third act of _L'Africaine_, under the orders of an
invisible Nelusko, we are invaded on the starboard and port side by a
dual horde of savages. They are fearful-looking blacks, with grinning
masks, clothed in coal-dust, who swarm like monkeys up the shrouds
and fall on deck with the laugh of cannibals. We are assured that our
lives are not in danger, and, in fact, they are no sooner amongst us
than, attacked with sudden shyness, they offer in a low voice and in a
language in which French and English are strangely mixed, an assortment
of cocoanuts, bananas, and bags made of melon seeds, to which they seem
to attach great importance.
Once more we fall back on the small events of our daily life on board,
of which the principal is to find the point in the southern horizon by
which the speed of the ship can be calculated, under given conditions
of wind and tide. On the New York crossing, the Americans make of this
detail an excuse for a daily bet. I notice that the South Americans are
less addicted to this form of sport. The first impression made upon me
by these South American families with whom I am thrown in daily contact
is eminently favourable. Simplicity, dignity, and graciousness are
what I see: I find none of the extravagance ascribed to them by rumour.
Only on one point am I led to make a criticism: their children seem to
enjoy the utmost license of speech and action.
Henceforth our only subject of conversation is the probable date
on which we shall cross the Equator. The _Regina Elena_, with a
displacement of 10,000 tons, did 17 knots on her trials. If she
makes 14 or 15 now, we are satisfied. The sea is calm: not a stomach
protests. In these latitudes the storms of the North Atlantic are
unknown. We shall make the crossing from Barcelona to Buenos Ayres in
fifteen or sixteen days. A long rest for any one leaving or seeking a
life of excitement.
We amuse ourselves by watching troops of dolphins, divine creatures,
passing from the joys of the air to those of the sea with a facile
grace. What legends have been created about these mammals! From the
most ancient times they have been the friends of the seafarer! They
save the shipwrecked, and surrender to the charms of music. According
to Homeric song, it was from the dolphin that Apollo borrowed the
disguise in which he led the Cretan fishermen to the shores of Delphi,
where later his temple was built. How true to life is the undulating
line of the bas-reliefs on the monument of Lysicrates, in which the
Tyrrhenian pirates, transformed into dolphins, fling themselves into
the ocean, as though in feverish haste to try a new life! Souvenirs of
this old tale surge in my brain until I hear a voice saying harshly:
"All these filthy beasts ought to be killed with dynamite, for they
destroy the nets of the fishermen." Good-bye to poetic legend!
Friendship between man and the dolphin ends in utilitarian holocausts!
Civilisation has not yet stamped out the flying-fish. It is still left
to us to enjoy the spectacle of the great sea-locusts in flight, rising
in flocks into the air to escape from their greedy comrades in the
water, and dappling the wide blue plain with their winged whiteness.
They remind me of the story of the traveller who was readily believed
when he declared he had found at the bottom of the Red Sea a horseshoe
belonging to the cavalry of Pharaoh swallowed up in their pursuit of
the Hebrews. But when he talked of flying-fish, he found no credence
anywhere! It is true men have told so many tales that it is not easy to
know when it is safe to show surprise.
A daily increasing and heavy heat meets us as we draw near the Line.
Light flannel suits are brought into requisition, and breathing becomes
difficult to redundant flesh. We are in the _Black Pot_--skies low,
heavy with iron-grey clouds; an intermittent, fine rain which cools
nothing; a glassy sea; no breeze stirring. It feels like the interior
of a baker's oven. We take refuge in the dangerous electric fan which
is unequalled for adding a bad cold to the disagreeable sensation of
suffocation.
Nothing remains of the famous ceremony of christening the passenger who
crosses the Line for the first time. The innocent performance is now
converted into a ball, with a subscription for the crew. Passengers
on the lower deck waltz every evening with far less ceremony, to the
strains of an accordion, varying the entertainment by playing at
_Morra_, the national game. They stand up in couples and aim terrific
blows at each other's faces, accompanying the movement with savage
cries. If you watch carefully you will find that in this game of
fisticuffs the closed hand is stopped just in time and, at the same
moment, a certain number of fingers are shot out. Simultaneously a
voice cries a number, always less than ten; and the game consists in
trying to announce beforehand how many fingers have been pointed by the
two partners. This sport, which has the advantage of requiring none but
Nature's implements, is a great favourite with the Italians. Often, in
the early morning, from my berth, I used to hear an alarming barking in
the direction of the bows, which seemed to be the beginning of a deadly
quarrel, but was in reality merely the fun of the _Morra_.
Brazilian territory is now in sight--Fernando de Noronha. It is a
volcanic island three days off Rio de Janeiro. Successive streams of
lava have given strangely jagged outlines to the peaks. A wide opening
in the mountain lets in a view of the shining sea on the other side of
the island. Three lofty poles of wireless telegraphy stand out among
the foliage. They say that these posts were set there by Frenchmen.
Goodluck to them!
Captain de Benedetti pays me the compliment of celebrating the
Fourteenth of July. The Queen's portrait is framed in the flags of
the two nations. In the evening we have champagne and drink healths.
An Italian senator, Admiral de Brochetti, expresses, in well-chosen
language, his appreciation of the friendship of France and I echo his
good wishes for the sister nation.
Is there any better relief from the exhaustion of a sleepless night in
the tropics than a solitary walk beneath the starry firmament of the
Southern Hemisphere? Naturally, I sought the Southern Cross as soon as
it had risen above the horizon. It was another disillusionment caused
by an inflated reputation. Where are ye, O Great Bear and Pleiades, and
where the Belt of Orion? On the other hand, words fail to describe the
Alpha of Argo. Every morning, between three and four o'clock, I see on
the port side a sort of huge blue diamond which appears to lean out of
the celestial vault towards the black gulf of the restless sea as if to
illumine its abysses. I receive the most powerful sensation of living
light that the firmament has ever given to me. If there is in any part
of infinite space a prodigious altar of celestial fire, that focus must
be Canopus. It was assuredly there that Prometheus stole the heavenly
spark with which he kindled in us the light of life. There, too, Vesta
watches over the eternal hearth of sacred fire in which is concentrated
a more divine splendour than even that of a tropical sun.
But now the earth calls us back to herself, or, rather, it is the
stormy ocean that rouses us, for as we approach the immense estuary of
La Plata a tempest of icy wind blows suddenly upon us from the south.
This is the _pampero_, the south wind, the wind from the Pampas, which
blows straight from the frozen tops of the Andes. A heavy swell makes
the _Regina Elena_ roll in the great yellow waves, for already the
clay of the Rio de la Plata is perceptible in the sea and gives it
the aspect of a vast ocean of mud. To-morrow morning we shall be in
Montevideo.