BUENOS AYRES (_continued_)
Botany and zoölogy are sister sciences. We leave the plants to inspect
the beasts in the company of M. Thays, who is always glad to see his
neighbour M. Onelli.
The governor of the Zoölogical Garden of Buenos Ayres is a phlegmatic
little man, Franco-Italian in speech, and the more amusing in that his
gay, caustic wit is clothed in a highly condensed, ironical form. What
a pity that his animals, for whom he is father and mother, sister and
brother, cannot appreciate his sallies! Not that it is by any means
certain that they do not. It seems clear that they can enter into
each other's feelings, if not thoughts, since an intimacy of the most
touching kind exists between the man and inferior creation, to whose
detriment the rights of biological priority have been reversed.
I should like to pause before the llamas, used as beasts of burden to
carry a load of twenty-five kilogrammes apiece, or before the vicuñas,
whose exquisite feathery fur is utilised for the motor-car, and whose
private life would need to be told in Latin by reason of the officious
interference of the Indian in matters that concern him not a whit.
M. Onelli has housed the more prominent groups in palaces in the style
of architecture peculiar to their native land, and this gives to the
gardens a very pleasing aspect.
But first let us enjoy the animals. It is amazing to see the two
monstrous hippopotami leap from the water with movements of ridiculous
joyfulness in response to the whistle of their governor-friend, and, on
a sign from him, open their fearful caverns of pink jaws bristling with
formidable teeth to receive with the utmost gratitude three blades of
grass which they could easily cull for themselves beneath their feet if
these manifestations of joy were called forth by the delicacy and not
by friendship. The great beasts became human at sight of their master,
if one may thus describe ferocity.
The puma, a sort of yellow panther whose colour has apparently won for
him the name of the American lion, came running up to offer his back
to the caressing hand of his friend with a hoarse roar that seemed to
express rather helpless rage than voluptuousness.
The puma is perhaps the commonest of the wild beasts of the northern
provinces of the Argentine, for it retreats from before the approach of
man, and is more successful than the jaguar or the panther in escaping
the traps or the guns of the hunter.
M. Edmond Hilleret, who has killed several, told me that at Santa Ana,
near Tucuman, it was impossible to keep a flock of sheep, as they were
always devoured by the pumas in spite of all the efforts he made to
protect them. "Yet," he added, "notwithstanding my dogs and my peons
the puma can never be seen. He is quite a rarity."
After a short palaver with some delicious penguins newly arrived from
the southern ice, with their young, which would die of spleen if they
were not fed with a forcing pipe, like an English suffragette, we
pause before the grey ostrich of the Pampas, which has been nearly
exterminated by the cruel lasso of the _gaucho_.
The grey American ostrich, which should be safe from our barbarous
ways since his tail feathers offer no attraction for ladies' hats, is
interesting by certain peculiarities in his domestic habits. To the
male is left the duty of hatching the eggs, the female preferring to
stray. By way of compensation, the paternal instinct is the more keenly
developed in the father in proportion as the mother--reprehensible
bird!--neglects her duties. Thus before beginning to sit on the eggs,
he sets carefully aside two or three of them, according to the number
of young to be hatched, and when the little ones leave their shells,
he opens them with a sharp blow from the paternal beak, and spreads
in the sunshine the contents of the eggs his foresight had reserved;
the appetising dish attracts thousands of flies who promptly drown
themselves therein to make the first meal of the fledglings. Admirable
instance of the contradictory processes of nature designed for the
preservation of existing types.
But we have come to the palace of the elephants. There are half a
dozen of them beneath a vast dome, and the sight of M. Onelli rouses
them all. The heavy grey masses sway from side to side, large ears
beat up and down, while the small eyes wink; the trunks are flung
inquiringly round, eager for any windfall. One amiable and tame
elephant, the youthful Fahda, born on the place, hustles her colossal
friends, to clear a way to M. Onelli, who talks to her affectionately,
but is unable to respond as he should to her pressing request for
cakes. The governor gives us the reason of their friendliness.
"We have no secrets from each other," he remarks gently.
And it was truer than he thought, for the young trunk was softly
introduced into his tempting pocket, and brought out a packet of
letters which were forthwith swallowed. Thereupon exclamations as late
as fruitless from the victim, who thus witnessed the disappearance of
his correspondence down the dark passages of an unexpected post-office
from which there is no hope of return.[3]
M. Onelli kindly offered us a few minutes' rest in his own _salon_. But
what did we find there? The housemaid who opened the door to us carried
a young puma in her arms, and I know not what sort of hairy beast on
her back. The gnashing of white teeth proceeded from under the chairs
and coiled serpents lay in the easy-chairs. Indeed, we were not the
least tired! Palermo must be visited.
The celebrated promenade starts nobly at the Recoleta, where the
lawns and groves are seen in a setting of harmonious architecture.
Carriages of the most correct British style, drawn by superb horses,
and noisy motor-cars dash swiftly by. But for the groups of exotic
trees one might be in the Bois. Palermo begins well. Unfortunately,
we suddenly find before us an avenue of sickly coco-palms, whose bare
trunks are covered with dead leaves, giving an unpleasing perspective
of broom-handles. This tree, which is so fine in Brazil, is not in its
element here. When planted in rows, even in the streets of Rio, it is
more surprising than beautiful. It is in groves that it best displays
its full decorative qualities. I take the liberty of suggesting that
M. Thays should pull up the horticultural invalids and plant eucalyptus
or some other species in their place.
But we are not yet at the end of our troubles. Less than two hundred
yards down, the railway traverses the avenue on a level crossing. A
gate, generally closed, a turnstile for pedestrians, a station, and all
the rest of it. After a wait of ten minutes, the train duly passes,
and then the motor-car plunges into a roadway, full of ruts, leading
to a dark archway which carries another railway across the promenade,
making an ugly blot on the landscape. And now we reach a further marshy
road, bordered with young plantations, which leads across a leafless
wood dividing the railway track from the estuary of La Plata.
A succession of trains on one hand, and a muddy yellow sea on the
other: as a view it is not romantic. Gangs of labourers are at work on
the roads, which are badly in need of their attentions. No doubt some
day this will be a superb promenade. It is only a question of making
it, and the first step must be to clear away the railway-lines with
their embankments and bridges. This is probably the intention, since
I was assured that the level crossing would shortly be swept away.
That will be a beginning. M. Bouvard is not likely to overlook the
importance of the matter. My only fear is lest the situation should
make it impossible for Palermo ever to attain to imposing proportions.
But one thing is certain, if M. Thays can get a free hand, the city
will not lack a park worthy the capital of the Republic.
Need I say that squares and parks alike are superabundantly decorated
with sculpture and monuments both open to criticism? There is nothing
more natural to a young people than a desire to acquire great men
in every department as early as possible. Yet idealism that is to
be materialised must, one would think, have its base set solidly on
established facts. In a country whose population offers a mixture of
all the Latin races, art could not fail to flourish. It will free
itself from its crust as fast as public taste is purified. Works
such as those of M. Paul Groussac, or the fine novel by M. Enrique
Rodrigues Larreta,[4] the distinguished Minister of the Argentine
Republic in Paris, are evidences of the development of literary taste
on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.[5]
The sculptor does not appear to have reached quite the same point,
but I hasten to add, for the sake of justice, that our own hewers
of marble, with a very few prominent exceptions, expose nothing in
Buenos Ayres which is calculated to throw into too dark a shade their
_confrères_ of across the ocean.
France, Italy, and Spain supply some fairly fine statuary for the
Latin confraternity. But, as might be readily imagined, a legitimate
desire to write history on every square and market-place has given a
profusion of monuments to soldiers and politicians. The same mania has
been pushed to such extremes in our own land that it would ill become
me to make it a subject of reproach to others; nevertheless it behoves
us to acknowledge that the Argentine Republic has, both in times of war
and of peace, produced some great men. It suffices to mention the names
of San Martin (whose statue is being raised at Boulogne-sur-Mer and at
Buenos Ayres) and of Sarmiento.
If genius were always at the disposal of Governments, the wish to
perpetuate to all eternity the renown a single day had won for them
might readily be pardoned. But men of genius are rare, and they are
apt to make mistakes like other men. And for the rest, the statues
that are put up to their memory serve merely to inspire in our breasts
a few philosophic reflections on the danger of a permanent propaganda
of mediocrity! Besides, the sculptor has this defect--that he forces
himself on the attention of the passer-by. We are not compelled to
purchase a poor book or to go into ecstasies over all the Chauchard
collection, whereas we are unable to avoid the sight of the statue of
Two-shoes by Thingummy. My only consolation is that such monuments
will not prevent the advent of other supermen in the future, who, like
those of the past, will raise their own monuments in a surer and better
manner by their own glorious achievements.
But it is time to leave these men of marble and come to the living,
of whom I have so far said not a word. My remark as to the European
aspect of Buenos Ayres at first sight must be taken as referring merely
to its outdoor life. I do not speak of the business quarter, which
is the same in all countries. The man who is glued to the telegraph
wire or to the telephone, waiting for the latest quotations in the
different parts of the globe in order to build on them his own careful
combinations, is, notwithstanding his patriotism, an international
type whose world-wide business connection must in time modify his own
characteristics and make of him the universal species of merchant.
At the same time, the population of any large European city, while
preserving in its general outline the special characteristic evolved
by its own history, does yet show a certain trend in the direction
of some well-defined types of modern activity whose attributes are
the outcome of natural conditions of civilisation the world over. But
when transplanted outside Europe, the original characteristics are
inevitably modified by the new environment, and the result will be a
striking differentiation--North America is an example of this.
In the eyes of our ancient Europe, with its venerable traditions
and its base of primeval prejudice, the man who ventures to strike
a new root in a colony beyond the sea will have to expiate his new
prosperity by some extravagances which will expose him to the fire of
the satirical pressman or playwright. This is the reason why South
America, having undoubtedly borne in common with every country of
Europe some few fantastic types of high and of low ideals, suddenly
finds herself represented to the public, for the greater entertainment
of the boulevard, as being exclusively peopled with those strange
creatures we have christened _rastaquouères_, whose privilege it is to
lead a life that is ever at variance with all the laws of common-sense.
If all we ask is a joke at the expense of our neighbours, the Gauls of
Paris may give rein to their wit. Still, it may be useful for us all to
know that these so-called _rastaquouères_, leaving to petty tyrants the
whole field of ancient history, have not only secured to their country
by their steady labour its present prosperity, but have also founded
in their new domain a European civilisation which is no whit inferior
in inspiration to that which we are for ever vaunting. They learn our
languages, invade our colleges, absorb our ideas and our methods, and
passing from France to Germany and England, draw useful comparisons as
to the results obtained.
We are pleased to judge them more or less lightly. Let us not forget
that we in our turn are judged by them. And while we waste our time
quarrelling about individuals and names, they are directing a steady
effort toward taking from each country of Europe what it has of the
best, in order to build up over yonder on a solid base a new community
which will some day be so much the more formidable that its own
economic force will perhaps have as a counterbalance the complications
of a European situation that is not tending toward solution.
In spite of everything, France has managed to maintain so far friendly
and sympathetic relations with the Republic. Latin idealism keeps these
South American nations ever facing toward those great modern peoples
that have sprung from the Roman conquest. I cannot say I think we
have drawn from this favourable condition of things all the advantage
we might have derived from it, both for the youthful Republics and
for our Latinity, which is being steadily drained by the huge task of
civilisation and by the vigorous onslaught that it is called on to
sustain from the systematic activity of the Northern races.
The great Anglo-Saxon Republic of North America, tempered by the same
Latin idealism imported in the eighteenth century from France by
Jefferson, is making of a continent a modern nation whose influence
will count more and more in the affairs of the globe. May it not be
that South America, whose evolution is the result of lessons taught
to some extent by the Northern races, will give us a new development
of Latin civilisation corresponding to that which has so powerfully
contributed to the making of Europe as we know it? It is here no
question obviously of an organised rivalry of hostile forces between
two great American peoples, who must surely be destined both by reason
of their geographical situation, as also by mental affinities, to unite
their strength to attain to loftier heights. The problem, which ought
not to be shirked by France, will be henceforth to maintain in the
pacific evolution of these communities the necessary proportion of
idealism which she had a large share in planting there.
In following such a train of thought, how can we help pausing for an
instant to consider the Pan-American Congress which so fitly closed the
splendid exhibition of the Argentine centenary? With the sole exception
of Bolivia, every republic of South America sent a representative
to the palace of the Congress to discuss their common interests--an
imposing assembly, which in the dignity of its debates can bear
comparison with any Upper Chamber of the Continent of Europe. For my
part, I sought in vain for one of those excitable natures, ever ripe
for explosion--the fruit, according to tradition, of equatorial soil.
I found only jurisconsults, historians, men of letters or of science,
giving their opinions in courteous language, whose example might with
advantage be followed by many an orator in the Old Continent. Not,
of course, that passions were wholly absent from these debates. In
these new countries, where the strength of youth finds a free field
for its display, and where revolution and war are the chief traditions
of the race, warmth of feeling has too frequently transformed the
political arena into a field of battle. But by degrees, as the
community takes form and acquires greater weight in every domain of
public life, there grows up an imperious need of organised action, and
the youthful democrats themselves end by realising that a people can
only govern itself when its citizens have proved themselves capable of
self-discipline.
Of all the problems which might naturally present themselves in a
Pan-American Congress, those that might be expected to call forth
implacable opposition were rigorously eliminated. An exchange of views
took place, and each delegate was able to report to his principals
a number of conclusions calculated to pave the way to future
understandings.
When the Congress threw out the proposal to generalise the Monroe
Doctrine and apply its principle to the whole of the South American
continent, the representative of a large State said to me:
"We shall separate without accomplishing anything."
"It is already much to have avoided all conflict," I replied, "and if
you had really accomplished nothing you would still have been useful in
that you had met, talked together, understood one another, and parted
on good terms."
Perhaps the man whose position was the most delicate of all was Mr.
Henry White, the delegate of the great northern Republic, and the
distinguished diplomat so popular in Parisian society, who contributed
to the utmost of his power towards finding an equitable solution of the
Franco-German conflict at the Algeciras Conference. At the Congress of
Buenos Ayres, the delegate of Washington had, like the representative
of Uruguay, one vote only, and his efforts were directed to making his
collaborators forget that he was a "big brother," a very big brother,
faintly suspected of tendencies towards an hegemony. It took all the
gracious affability of Mr. White to disarm the distrust aroused more
especially by the proposal to place Southern America under the banner
of the Monroe Doctrine, and thus the Congress could be dissolved
without a word of any but good-will and American brotherhood.
The Pan-American Congress was the natural outcome of the great
international exhibition by which the Argentine Republic celebrated
the centenary of its independence. The great fairs of older times
existed with very good reason. There was every advantage to be gained
by bringing together at stated times the produce of different districts
at a period of the world's history when the deficiency of means of
communication placed insurmountable obstacles in the way of producer,
merchant, and consumer. To-day, thanks to steampower, every city in the
world offers a permanent exhibition adapted to the needs of its public,
and the traveller wastes his time when he endeavours to bring back from
his journeys some article unknown to his countrymen. For this reason
the finest of international exhibitions can reserve no surprises to its
visitors. And as for experts, or specialists in any branch of commerce
or industry, he is to be pitied who awaits the opening of one of these
universal bazaars in order to obtain information on some detail of his
business.
There remain evidently the amusements and entertainments which in
such gatherings are naturally intended to arouse the pleasure-loving
instincts of crowds. But civilisation has pretty well surfeited us
with such amusements, which are now better calculated to tempt than
to satisfy us. And when the friendly city that summons us to such a
show is situated 11,000 kilometres from our shores, it requires a more
powerful attraction than this of the "already seen" to induce us to
undertake the expedition.
For all these reasons and without seeking any others the Buenos Ayres
Exhibition could not be a success either in the way of money or of
the concourse of peoples. An unfortunate and ultra-modern strike
retarded the arrangements to such a point that on the anniversary
day, May 25th, only the section of _ganaderia_ (cattle-breeding) was
ready. Notwithstanding a multitude of difficulties, pavilions were
put up, in which were amassed and docketed in the usual fashion some
of those products which the greed for gold brings to all the depots
of the world. A few special side-shows were remarkably successful. Of
these may be mentioned the English exhibit of the railway industry and
the German section of electricity. Some of the buildings were never
completed, as that of the Spanish section. France, I regret to say,
did not distinguish herself. The omission is inconceivable when one
considers what a market might in this way have been found for our
manufactures. Apart from some interesting displays by dressmakers,
jewellers, and goldsmiths, exhibited in a tasteful pavilion slightly
resembling Bagatelle, and called the Palace of Applied Art, we found
nothing to send. I admit that for France this was not sufficient.
England, however, exhibited a magnificent State railway-carriage--said
to be worth two millions--which she presented to the President of
the Republic. It is a luxury that the English might very well permit
themselves, since almost all the railways of the Argentine are in their
hands. And why, if you please? Because the engineer who one day invited
tenders for the construction of the first Argentine railway-line found
in Paris no support, and from our capital (I have it from his own lips)
he turned to London, where the enterprise was carried to colossal
proportions.
We could hardly help being represented in the art and sculpture
pavilions. I can honestly say that our exhibit, well-organised, was
highly creditable to the nation. But, without any tremendous effort,
we might have done much better! We reckoned, perhaps, on the Argentine
millionaires coming to Paris to look for the works we failed to exhibit
in their capital. If only millionaires were concerned, I should say
nothing. But it is precisely because the art education of the Argentine
people is as yet rudimentary, as might also be said of more than one
nation in ancient Europe, that we ought to have attempted to arouse a
wider public interest instead of appealing merely to connoisseurs, who
are in the habit of getting what they want in the picture-galleries of
the Old World. Some excellent examples were shown, no doubt; that was
the least we could do. Our home artists would not risk the experiment
of creating a kind of exhibition-museum, which might have been a
revelation of French art and have had the effect of arousing the need
of the Beautiful which is latent in every nation, and at the same time
inviting that intelligent criticism which is a powerful factor in the
development of taste in connoisseurs.
There is no art museum worthy the name in the Argentine Republic. You
must exist before you can add adornment. If, however, I may judge by
what I saw in a few private galleries, the time is at hand when the
need for large art collections will be fully acknowledged in the south
as it is now in the north; there, forty years ago, I know by personal
observation that the ground was less fully prepared than it is to-day
in the Argentine, while now we see the treasures of Europe being
eagerly bought up in order that the New World may soon vie with the Old
on this point.
I must not omit to say a word on the retrospective exhibit of "colonial
days." A centenary celebration implies a history and a past, and
this history is remarkably well illustrated by the instruments of
civilisation now in the hands of the founders. What a contrast there is
between the more than sumptuous railway-carriage of which I spoke just
now and the archaic coaches, fat-bellied barouches, and Merovingian
chariots which used to pick a painful way across the pathless Pampas,
transporting from plantation to plantation families that had but
little prospect of ever amassing more than they needed for a bare
daily life. Utensils of the simplest, bespeaking a time when wood was
scarce. Weapons of the clumsiest, undressed skins as a protection from
the occasional blasts of the _pampero_. In a period when the horse was
the universal means of locomotion--he still is as a matter of fact,
to a very great extent, since in the country the little children must
mount their ponies to go to school--the equipment of the horseman was
a pompous bedizenment in Spanish guise, from his heavy brass ornaments
to the rowels of monstrous spurs. All this belongs to the ancient
times of scarcely fifty years ago, and when you meet a _gaucho_ on his
thick-set horse, his feet in weighty wooden stirrups hanging vertically
like wheels, you realise that the modern miracle of iron roads has not
been able to entirely wipe out the primitive machinery of a world of
colonists.
The section of Argentine produce--cattle, timber, plants, fruits,
cereals, etc.--is specially interesting to foreigners. To describe
it would be to write the economic history of the land. I heard on
all sides that the cattle exhibits were exceptionally fine. I am not
astonished, now that I have seen in the shows and on the _estancias_
(farms) the finest of stock for breeding purposes. We know that out
on the Pampas the rearing of horses and horned cattle as well as of
sheep has developed enormously. I shall have occasion presently to
return to the subject when I speak of the famous freezing-machines
which supply the English markets with meat slaughtered in Buenos
Ayres--to say nothing of the live cattle exported. The only detail that
I shall give here is that the event of the day has been the purchase
by a meat-freezing company of five oxen for beef at the price of
25,000 francs apiece (£1000). This looks like madness, and perhaps it
is. We are beginning to learn in Europe to what point the craze for
advertisement is carried by Americans. I only quote this fact because
it throws more light on certain traits of character than any number of
traveller's tales could do.
Grain-growing--wheat and maize--like that of flax (of which they burn
the stalks for want of knowing how to utilise them) has recently grown
enormously. I shall return to this subject also later on, when I speak
of the Pampas, with their immense stretch of arable land between the
Andes and the sea, yielding every kind of harvest without manure and
almost without labour. Wherever the locomotive makes its appearance
there blossoms forth a fertile strip of country on either side of the
line, which on the plan of the administrators symbolises an instant
rise in value of the property whose produce has henceforth a quick
means of transport to its market. Had I not firmly resolved to abstain
from quoting figures and facts cut out of books of statistics, I could
easily dazzle the reader by showing him the fantastic increase in the
crops of maize alone, standing in gigantic ricks round the _estancias_,
pending the moment when they will be handed over to the gigantic
elevators to be flung on board the English and German cargo-boats.
Strolling through the galleries in which are accumulated the exhibits
of Argentine agricultural produce, you are forced to admire the variety
of species yielded by a soil that produces clover two and a half yards
in height! I say nothing of the fruits and vegetables, because at that
season of the year I could not try them. Neither seemed to me to
compete with European varieties. As for the tropical fruits, with the
exception of the oranges and pines, they are astonishing, I confess,
but I cannot give them any other praise.
In the section of Argentine timber is to be seen in the front rank
the "false cedar" and the marvellous _québracho_, of which I have
already spoken. No other wood can be compared with this in respect
of the quantity of tannin it contains. For this reason the immense
forests of the northern provinces are being devastated to supply the
manufacturers. Railway-sleepers and stakes for the wire-fencing that
marks out the immense stretches of Pampas are the principal employment
for _québracho_, irrespective of the extraction of tannin. As the
demand increases, and the idea of replanting does not seem to have
occurred to the Argentinos, it is reasonable to foresee the moment
when the Government of the Republic, having neglected to husband its
resources, will have only vain lamentations to offer to its customers.
The day may be far distant; I do not dispute it. Such an improvident
policy is, none the less, reprehensible. How many years, moreover,
must elapse between the planting of the young _québracho_ and its
maturity? Indeed, the same remarks might be made of all the other
species of timber.
When you have seen tree-trunks that were many centuries in growth
falling bit by bit into the maw of a factory furnace, without any
attempt being made to replace them, when you have been saddened by
the spectacle of the marvellous Brazilian forests blazing in every
direction to make room for coffee plantations that will presently
spring up amongst the charred trunks, you realise keenly that there
is no more urgent need in these great countries than a complete
organisation of forestry. If in some parts of Brazil the soil will no
longer yield freely without the help of manure, the water system, at
all events, remains unchanged. In the Argentine Pampas the case is
very different, for the reason that the watercourses disappear into
the ground before reaching the sea. When the immense forests of the
highlands have disappeared to make way for plateaux open to wind and
sun, can we doubt but that the already terrible scourge of drought will
be still further aggravated, and its disastrous effects on cattle and
harvests be even more redoubtable than they are at present?
I must resist the temptation of dwelling on the interesting exhibits
of the South American Republics. I should never finish. Neither must I
wander any farther from the Argentine capital to set down reflections
that will more fitly suggest themselves later. Nevertheless I cannot
leave the exhibition without mentioning the extraordinary establishment
in which the Rural Society holds its annual cattle-shows--vast stables
and stalls, constructed according to the latest pattern on English
model farms. There is accommodation perhaps for more than 500 horned
cattle, or horses, and for 700 or 800 probably in the paddocks, while
4000 sheep can be penned under a single roof, the whole completed by an
enclosure for trials with seating accommodation for 2000 persons.
These shows take place every year in October. They are closed by a sale
at which the beasts are put up at auction. No better system of gauging
the progress of the breeding industry could be devised. As many as 4000
animals have been brought together for these shows, collected from all
parts of the country, including stallions of the best breeds, Durham
and Herefordshire cows, to say nothing of pigs, llamas, and poultry.
Agricultural machinery and dairy implements also find a place here, of
course.
It is in this colossal cattle-rearing city that the greatest effort
of production ever made has been concentrated. I saw at Rosario a
magnificent cattle show. But the great Fair of Buenos Ayres outdoes
anything to be offered elsewhere of the kind. I shall have to return
to the subject when I come to the _estancias_ and the vast herds that
belong to them. Here it suffices to note that the Argentine breeders
do not shrink from any expense in order to obtain the most perfect
stallions. England is, of course, the chief market for the frozen
meat, which is carried as return cargo by the coaling-boats. Naturally
the farmers of the Pampas endeavour to suit the tastes of their
customers. This is why the finest specimens of British cattle-farms
find their way every year to Buenos Ayres. It is not surprising that
the horse-breeders have adopted the same course, though full justice
is done to the qualities of French breeds. Still, the English breeder
best understands how to make an outlet for his wares, whilst the French
prefers to sit in the sun on the plains of Caen to wait until the
foreigner comes to ask him as a favour for his animals.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] One word about M. Onelli's interesting work, _À Travers les Andes_,
an accurate account of his journey in Patagonia. When describing to
me the customs of the natives, he was good enough to promise me a few
arrowheads collected in the course of his expedition. They reached me
the following day with this letter:
"My dear Sir,--After rummaging amongst my drawers, I finally found
the arrowheads you wanted. The book which accompanies them, a humble
homage to yourself, describes the places in which I found them. If you
are good enough to glance at it you will find several photographs of
the descendants of the makers of these arrows. The Tchuleches Indians,
who to the number of rather more than 2000 live in the southern half
of Patagonia, say, when shown one of these arrowheads, which are to be
found all over the arid plateau they inhabit, that they were the usual
weapon of the Indians of olden times who travelled on foot. We know
that they did not know the horse until a hundred and fifty years ago,
at most, and, in fact, one may say that the Stone Age represented by
these arrowheads only ended in Patagonia a half-century ago. The arrows
to be found in Patagonia demonstrate in a contrary manner the influence
of civilised industries, since the heads the most clumsily made are
the most modern. The Indians lost little by little the art of making
them when they learnt to make the shafts of fragments of knife-blades,
or of iron obtained from the Christians, and since then they have
completely abandoned the work to adopt firearms. In the preparation of
guanaco skins, the Indian women, naturally more conservative than the
men, still use the old system of scraping the under side of the leather
with scrapers made of stone, in every way similar to the tool used by
prehistoric man in European lands. Nowadays, having no means of making
them, they search in their leisure moments in the ancient dwellings
of their forefathers in order to find a flint scraper, which they
carefully use and preserve.
"The arrow age still subsists in the north of the Republic among the
Indians of the Chaco forests. Their arrows are made of hard wood. On
alluvial soils no flint can be found, just as none can be had in the
province of Santa Fé, and nearly throughout the whole of the province
of Buenos Ayres (a region larger than all France), without a single
pebble!--a fact which renders it extremely difficult to keep up good
roads across a flat country of crumbling soil without lime. The highway
is turned into soft mud by traffic and rain; yet observe the enormous
increase of railway lines.
"As for the art of making arrowheads, the Stone Age still reigns among
the Onas and Lakaluf, natives of Terra del Fuego; but alas! the art
has degenerated. The natives of the seacoast, always on the lookout
for a whale, dead or wounded, and for fragments of wrecks of sailing
vessels rounding Cape Horn, have discovered that bottle glass is the
easiest material to work upon for their arrows, and their poor language
is thus enriched with a new word; to express 'glass' they say 'botel,'
by the natural _quid pro quo_ of a tongue which in adopting a new word
confuses the name of the object with that of the material of which it
is made.
"The opaque black arrowhead is of basalt, the most abundant kind
of rock in Patagonia, but also the most difficult to use in the
manufacture of such small objects. Obsidian--the little black point of
flint--is more generally used.
"The twisted forms are moulds of flint of the inside of a tertiary
fossil mollusc, the 'turritella,' very common in the strata of the Rio
Santa Cruz cliffs, and which Indian women often wear as ornaments.
In the hope you will excuse my bad French, since I have had the
presumption to write direct to you instead of being translated into
good French,
"I am, my dear sir, yours, etc.,
"CLEMENT ONELLI."
[4] _La Gloire de Don Ramire._
[5] I quote these two names because they are best known among us
in France. But Argentine literature cannot be dismissed in a word.
The struggle for independence could not fail to inspire songs to be
caught up from ear to ear and sung everywhere, and in the same way
the spread of education has naturally turned many minds to literary
composition. The struggle with the metropolis and the flame of civil
war irresistibly impelled the individual into the arena to take public
action, and from the vortex there issued a new nationality. It is
from such a period of strife that the first history of a people takes
its origin, and the record of deeds wrought under the influence of
such excitement is the material from which a nation's archives are
derived, fixing for ever the memory of actions that will be revered by
the generations to come. In this way, the noble harangues of Moriano
Moreno to the Provisional Government, the eloquent proclamations made
by General Belgrano after the battles of Salta and Tucuman, the noble
letters of San Martin are impressive lessons for all humanity; time
can have no effect on the exalted nobility of thought and artistic
mode of expression that are here held up before us. Under the savage
dictatorship of Rosas, all voices were silenced. Still, Sarmiento from
his exile in Chili launched from the heights of the Andes his virulent
pamphlets against the odious tyrant. When liberty was regained, Press
and rostrum sent forth a legion of writers and orators, at whose head
we must place Bartolome Mitré and Nicolas Avellaneda. To come down to
our own time, the list of distinguished writers meriting each a special
notice would be long indeed.