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salaries to tempt the best performers to leave Europe. Variety shows are popular and carried to an extreme with which we are not familiar in the United States. Some of them are poor copies of questionable Parisian enterprises. But even these are not as bad as the moving picture shows that have captured Buenos Aires. Public opinion is astonishingly lax in the southern capital. Exhibitions of shocking indecency are countenanced, that would no longer be tolerated in Europe or North America. In this matter Buenos Aires also offers a marked contrast to Santiago de Chile where morals are on a much higher plane, thanks to the Catholic Church, which unfortunately seems to have lost its grip here.
The Porteño has not only forgotten his religion, he seems also to have lost the pleasing manners of his Castilian ancestors. I have been in eight South American capitals and in none have I seen such bad manners as in Buenos Aires. Nowhere else in South America is one jostled so rudely. Nowhere else does one see such insolent behavior and such bad taste. Santiago, Lima, Bogotá, and Caracas seem to belong to a different civilization. To be sure, none of them are as rich and prosperous. But in all of them good society is a much more ancient concern than in this overgrown young metropolis.
Here the newly rich are in full sway and their ideas and instincts seem to predominate. On Sunday afternoon, all the world dashes madly out to the race course, where it exercises its passion for gambling to the fullest capacity. In the Jockey Club inclosure are gathered the youth and beauty, thewealth and fashion of the city. And yet the ladies carry the artificial tricks of feminine adornment to such an amazing extent that it is almost impossible to realize that they belong to the fashionable world and not to the demi-monde. The races that I attended drew an audience of thirty thousand. One race had a first prize amounting to fifteen thousand dollars. The horses seemed to be of a rather heavier build than ours but they did not interest the spectators. Facilities for betting were provided on an elaborate scale. There were no bookmakers, and the odds depended entirely on the popular choice, as is commonly done in Europe. The gate receipts and the proceeds of the “percentage” are enormous and have enabled the Jockey Club to build one of the most luxurious and extravagant club houses in the world.
After the races, hundreds of motor cars and carriages promenade slowly up and down that part of the parkway which society has decreed shall be her rendezvous. Here one sees an astonishing display of paint and powder illuminating the faces of the devotees of a fashion which decrees that all ladies must have brilliant complexions. The effect is very unpleasant. I suppose it is simply another evidence of the newness of modern Buenos Aires. Very few wealthy families have a long-established social position. Culture and refinement are at a discount. Otherwise it is difficult to imagine how any society can tolerate such artificiality. This garish Sunday parade is quite a swing of the pendulum from the old days when Creole ladies, modestly attired in lovely black lace mantillas, walked quietly to church and home again, as they still do in most South American cities.
It is hardly necessary to speak of the more usual evidences of great wealth, palatial residences that would attract attention even in Paris and New York, charming parks beautifully laid out on the shores of the great Rio de la Plata, and a thousand luxurious automobiles of the latest pattern carrying all they can hold of Parisian millinery.
One does not need to be told that this is a city of electric cars, telephones, and taxis. These we take for granted. But there is a characteristic feature of the city that is unexpected and striking: the central depots for imported thoroughbreds. Only a few doors from the great banks and railway offices are huge stables where magnificent blooded horses and cattle, sheep and pigs, which have brought records of distinguished ancestry across the Atlantic, are offered for sale and command high prices.
These permanent cattle-shows are the natural rendezvous of the wealthy ranchmen and breeders who are sure to be found here during a part of each day while they are in town. So are foreigners desirous of purchasing ranches and reporters getting news from the interior. The cattle-fairs offer ocular evidence of the wealth of the modern Argentino and the importance of the pastoral industry. There are over a hundred million sheep on the Pampas. Cattle and horses also are counted by the millions.
The problems of Argentine agriculture and animal industries are being continually studied by thegreat land-owners, who have already done much to improve the quality of their products.
During my stay in Buenos Aires, it was my privilege to visit an agricultural school in one of the neighboring towns. The occasion was the celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary. The festivities were typically Spanish-American. An avenue of trees was christened with appropriate ceremonies, being given the name of the anniversary date. To each tree a bunch of fire-crackers had been tied. At the beginning and end of the avenue a new sign-post bearing its name had been put up and veiled with a piece of cheese cloth. A procession consisting of the officials of the school and of the National University of La Plata, with which the school is affiliated, alumni and visitors, formed at the school-buildings after the reading of an appropriate address, and marched down the new avenue following the band. As we progressed, the signs were unveiled and the bunches of fire-crackers touched off. At the far end, in a grove of eucalyptus trees, a collation was served, and we were entertained by having the fine horses and cattle belonging to the school paraded up and down. The school has an extensive property, is doing good work, and shows a practical grasp of the needs of the country.
Argentina has worked hard to develop those industries that are dependent upon stock-raising. The results have amply justified her. The exportation of frozen meat from Argentina amounts to nearly twenty million dollars annually. Only recently one of the best known packing-houses of Chicago opened a large plant here and is paying tribute to the excellence of the native stock. Every year Argentina sends to Europe the carcasses of millions of sheep and cattle as well as millions of bushels of wheat and corn, more in fact than we do. Of all the South American republics, she is our greatest natural competitor, and she knows it. Nevertheless, she lacks adequate resources of iron, coal, lumber, and water power, and notwithstanding a high protective tariff, can never hope to become a competitor in manufactured products. Argentina exports more than three times as much per capita as we do, and must do so in order to pay for the necessary importation of manufactured goods. It also means that she will always find it to her advantage to buy her goods from England, France, and Germany, where she sells her food-stuffs. Brazil can send us unlimited amounts of raw materials that we cannot raise at home, while at present Argentina has little to offer us. Yet we are already buying her wool and hides, and before long will undoubtedly be eating her beef and mutton, as England has been doing for years.
The banks of Buenos Aires have learned to be extremely conservative. For a long time this city was a favorite resort of absconding bank cashiers from the United States, and stories are told of many well-dressed Americans who have come here from time to time without letters of introduction but with plenty of money to spend, who have been kindly received by the inhabitants, only to proveto be undesirable acquaintances. What we consider “old-fashioned and antiquated” English bank methods are the rule, and it frequently takes a couple of hours to draw money on a letter of credit even when one has taken the pains to notify one’s bankers beforehand that the letter was to be used in South America. Personally, I have found American Express checks extremely useful in all parts of South America and have had no difficulty in getting them accepted in Buenos Aires. In the interior it is more difficult unless one comes well introduced. But the necessity for letters of introduction is quite generally recognized all over the continent. Strangers who have “neglected to supply themselves with credentials,” frequently turn out to be fugitives from justice.
Another local peculiarity noticeable also in Chile, is that many of the citizens bitterly begrudge us our attempted monopoly of the title of “Americans.” They catalogue us at all possible times under “N” instead of “A.” They also speak of us asNorthAmericans or as “Yankis,” and they call our Minister the “North American Minister,” quite ignoring the existence of Mexico and Canada.
Certain Americans who are desirous of securing an increase of our trade with South America and of placating in every possible manner the South Americans, overlooking the practical side of the question, have acquiesced in the local prejudice and speak of themselves as North Americans, even though they do not address their letters to the “United States of North America.”
The fact that the South American refuses to grant us our title of “Americans” is really an indirect compliment. It is chiefly owing to the industry and intelligence of the citizens of the United States, that the word “American” has come to have a complimentary meaning,—far more complimentary in fact than it had fifty years ago when distinguished foreigners were wont to use that adjective as a peculiarly opprobrious epithet. With this change in the significance of the term has come a natural desire on the part of the South Americans to apply it to themselves. They reason that they have as good a right, geographically, to the term as we have, and they wilfully forget that each of their republics has in its legal title a word which conveniently and euphoniously characterizes its citizens. The people of the United States of Brazil are called Brazilians, and those of the United States of Mexico are Mexicans by the same right that those of the United States of America are Americans. To be sure, the world generally thinks of our country as the United States, quite forgetful that there are several other republics of the same name. It is a pity that a euphonious appellation cannot be manufactured from one or both of those two words. We cannot distinguish ourselves by the title “North American,” as that ignores the rightful claim to that title which the denizens of the larger part of this continent, the Mexicans and Canadians, have in common with us. It is difficult to see how we are to avoid calling ourselves Americans even if it gives offence to our neighbors. It is not a point ofgreat importance and it seems to me that in time, with the natural growth of Chile and the Argentine Republic, their citizens will be so proud of being called Chilenos or Argentinos that they will not begrudge us our only convenient and proper title.
There is another point, however, in their criticism of us which is more reasonable and on which they might be accorded more satisfaction. I refer to that part of our foreign policy known as the Monroe Doctrine. Many a Chileno and Argentino resents the idea of our Monroe Doctrine applying in any sense to his country and declares that we had better keep it at home. He regards it as only another sign of our overweening national conceit. And on mature consideration, it does seem as though the justification for the Monroe Doctrine, both in its original and its present form, had passed. Europe is no longer ruled by despots who desire to crush the liberties of their subjects. As is frequently remarked, England has a more democratic government than the United States. In all the leading countries of Europe, the people have practically as much to say about the government as they have in America. There is not the slightest danger that any European tyrant will attempt to enslave the weak republics of this hemisphere. Furthermore, such republics as Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru no more need our Monroe Doctrine to keep them from being robbed of their territory by European nations than does Italy or Spain. If it be true that some of the others, like the notoriously lawless group in Central America, need to be looked afterby their neighbors, let us amend our outgrown Monroe Doctrine, as has already been suggested by one of our writers on international law, so as to include in the police force of the Western Hemisphere, those who have shown themselves able to practice self-control. With our lynchings, strikes, and riots, we shall have to be very careful, however, not to make the conditions too severe or we shall ourselves fail to qualify.
The number of “North Americans” in Buenos Aires is very small. While we have been slowly waking up to the fact that South America is something more than “a land of revolutions and fevers,” our German cousins have entered the field on all sides.
The Germans in southern Brazil are a negligible factor in international affairs. But the well-educated young German who is being sent out to capture South America commercially, is a power to be reckoned with. He is going to damage England more truly than Dreadnoughts or gigantic airships. He is worth our study as well as England’s.
Willing to acquaint himself with and adapt himself to local prejudices, he has already made great strides in securing South American commerce for his Fatherland. He has become a more useful member of the community than the Englishman. He has taken pains to learn the language thoroughly, and speak it not only grammatically but idiomatically as well; something which the Anglo-Saxon almost never does. He has entered into the social life of the country with a much more graciousspirit than his competitors and rarely segregates himself from the community in pursuing his pleasures as the English do. His natural prejudices against the Spanish way of doing things are not so strong.
His steamers are just as luxurious and comfortable as the new English boats. It is said that even if the element of danger that always exists at sea is less on the British lines, the German boats treat their passengers with more consideration, giving them better food and better service. No wonder the Spanish-American likes the German better than he does the English or American. Already the English residents in Buenos Aires, who have regarded the River Plate as their peculiar province for many years, are galled beyond measure to see what strides the Germans have made in capturing the market for their manufactured products and in threatening their commercial supremacy. And neither English nor Germans are going to hold out a helping hand or welcome an American commercial invasion.
Meanwhile the Argentinos realize that their country cannot get along without foreign capital, much as they hate to see the foreigner made rich from the products of their rolling prairies.
Politically, Buenos Aires and Argentina are in the control of the native born. They have a natural aptitude for playing politics, and they much prefer it to the more serious world of business. This they are quite willing to leave to the foreigner.
They realize also that they greatly need more immigrants. The population is barely five per squaremile, and as a matter of fact, is practically much less than that for so large a part of the entire population is crowded into the city and province of Buenos Aires. Consequently they are doing all they can to encourage able-bodied immigrants to come from Italy and Spain.
And the immigrants are coming. My ship brought a thousand. Other ships brought more than three hundred thousand in 1908. Argentina is not standing still. Nor is she waiting for “American enterprise.” During 1908 considerably more than two thousands vessels entered the ports of the republic. Four flew the American flag.
Onthe 25th of May, 1910, the Argentine nation in general, and Buenos Aires in particular, observed with appropriate ceremonies the one hundredth anniversary of their independence. Great preparations were made to insure a celebration that should suitably represent the importance of the event.
In 1810 Buenos Aires had been a Spanish colony for two hundred and fifty years following her foundation in the sixteenth century. But the Spanish crown had never valued highly the great rolling prairies drained by the Rio de la Plata. There were no mines of gold or silver here, and Spain did not send her colonists into far-away America to raise corn and wine that should compete with Spanish farmers at home. Buenos Aires was regarded as the end of the world. All persons and all legitimate commerce bound thither from Spain were obliged to go by way of Panama and Peru, over the Andes, across the South American continent, before they could legally enter the port of Buenos Aires. The natural result of this was the building up of a prosperous colony of Portuguese smugglers in southern Brazil. Another result was that no Spaniards cared to liveso far away from home if they could possibly help it, and society in Buenos Aires was not nearly so brilliant as in the fashionable Spanish-American capitals of Lima, Santiago, or Bogotá.
During the closing years of the eighteenth century the Spaniards became convinced of their short-sighted policy and made Buenos Aires an open port. The English were not slow to realize that this was one of the best commercial situations in South America, and that far from being the end of the world, as the Spaniards thought, it was a natural centre through which the wealth of a large part of South America was bound to pass. The great Mr. Pitt, who was most interested in developing British commerce with South America, felt that it would probably be necessary to introduce British manufactures in the wake of a military expedition, and decided to seize Buenos Aires, which was so poorly defended that it could easily be captured by a small resolute force.
Accordingly in June, 1806, an attack was made. The Viceroy, notwithstanding repeated warnings, had made no preparations to defend the city, and it was captured without difficulty. There was great rejoicing in London at the report of the victory, but it was soon turned to dismay by the news of a disgraceful and unconditional surrender. The sudden overthrow of the English was due largely to the ability of a local hero named Liniers who played successfully on the wounded pride of the Porteños.
The significance of the episode is that it gave to the Porteños the idea that the power of Spain couldbe easily overthrown, and that they actually had the courage and strength to win and hold their own independence.
Hardly had the city recovered from the effects of its bombardment by the English before events, destined to produce a profound change throughout South America, commenced to attract attention in Spain. Napoleon inaugurated his peninsula campaigns, and the world beheld the spectacle of a Spanish king become the puppet of a French emperor. In July, 1809, a new Viceroy, appointed by the Spanish cortes then engaged in fighting against Napoleon, took possession of the reins of government in Buenos Aires. In the early months of 1810, Napoleon’s armies were so successful throughout the Spanish peninsula that it seemed as if the complete subjection of Spain was about to be accomplished.
On May 18, the unhappy Viceroy allowed this news from Spain to become known in the city. At once a furor of popular discussion arose. Led by Belgrano and other liberal young Creoles, the people decided to defy Napoleon and his puppet king of Spain as they had defied the soldiers of England. On the 25th of May, the Viceroy, frightened out of his wits, surrendered his authority, and a great popular assembly that crowded the plaza to its utmost capacity appointed a committee to rule in his stead. So the 25th of May, 1810, became the actual birthday of Argentina’s independence, although the acts of the popular government were for six years done in the name of Ferdinand, the deposed king of Spain, and the Act of Independencewas not passed by the Argentine Congress until 1816.
No sooner had Buenos Aires thrown off the yoke of Spain than she began an active armed propaganda much as the first French republic did before her. Other cities of Argentina were forcibly convinced of the advantages of independence, and the armies of Buenos Aires pressed northward into what is now southern Bolivia. It was their intention to drive the Spanish armies entirely out of the continent, and what seemed more natural than that they should follow the old trade route which they had used for centuries, and go from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of the highlands of Bolivia and Peru. But they reckoned without counting the cost. In the first place the Indians of those lofty arid regions do not take great interest in politics. It matters little to them who their masters are. Furthermore, their country is not one that is suited to military campaigns. Hundreds of square miles of arid desert plateaux ten or twelve thousand feet above the sea, a region suited only to support a small population and that by dint of a most careful system of irrigation, separated by frightful mountain trails from any adequate basis of supplies, were obstacles that proved too great for them to overcome. Their little armies were easily driven back. On the other hand, when the royalist armies attempted to descend from the plateaux and attack the patriots, they were equally unsuccessful. The truth is that southern Bolivia and northern Argentina are regions where it is far easier to stay at home and defend one’s self thanto make successful attacks on one’s neighbors. An army cannot live off the country as it goes along, and the difficulties of supplying it with provisions and supplies are almost insurmountable. The first man to appreciate this was José San Martin.
It is not too much to say that San Martin is the greatest name that South America has produced. Bolivar is better known among us, and he is sometimes spoken of as the “Washington of South America.” But his character does not stand investigation; and no one can claim that his motives were as unselfish or his aims as lofty as those of the great general to whose integrity and ability the foremost republics of Spanish South America, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, owe their independence.
San Martin was born of Spanish parents not far from the present boundary between Argentina and Paraguay. His father was a trusted Spanish official. His mother was a woman of remarkable courage and foresight. His parents sent him to Spain at an early age to be educated. Military instincts soon drew him into the army and he served in various capacities, both in Africa and later against the French in the peninsula. He was able to learn thoroughly the lessons of war and the value of well-trained soldiers. He received the news of the popular uprising in Argentina while still in Spain, and soon became interested in the struggles of his fellow-countrymen to establish their independence. In 1812 he returned to Buenos Aires where his unselfish zeal and intelligence promptly marked him out as an unusual leader. The troops under him
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became the best-drilled body of patriots in South America.
After witnessing the futile attempts of the patriots to drive the Spanish armies out of the mountains of Peru by way of the highlands of Bolivia, he conceived the brilliant idea of cutting off their communication with Spain by commanding the sea power of the West Coast. He established his headquarters at Mendoza in western Argentina, a point from which it would be easy to strike at Chile through various passes across the Andes. Here he stayed for two years governing the province admirably, building up an efficient army, organizing the refugees that fled from Chile to Mendoza, making friends with the Indians, and keeping out of the factional quarrels that threatened to destroy all proper government in Buenos Aires. In January, 1817, his army was ready. He led the Spaniards to think that he might cross the Andes almost anywhere, and succeeded in scattering their forces so as to enable him to bring the main body of his army over the most practical route, the Uspallata Pass.
The expedition was successful, and in 1818 San Martin had the satisfaction of administering such a decisive defeat to the Spaniards at Maipo as to insure Chilean independence. With the aid of a remarkable soldier of fortune, Thomas Cochran, Earl of Dundonald, and an interesting group of Anglo-Saxon seamen, San Martin drove the Spaniards from the West Coast and captured the city of Lima. The aid which was given him by Buenos Aires and Chile was not sufficient to enable him to penetratethe great Andes of the interior and totally destroy the last Spanish army. He sought Bolivar’s aid, but that proud Liberator would only come as Commander-in-chief. So, rather than sacrifice the cause of independence, San Martin, with unexampled self-effacement, gave up his well-trained veterans to Bolivar and Sucre and quietly withdrew to his modest home in Argentina. His unwillingness to enter into political squabbles, his large-minded statesmanship, and his dignified bearing did not endear him to his fellow countrymen, and he was forced to pass the declining years of his life in Europe, an exile from his native land.
The history of the period is full of petty personal rivalries and absurd political squabbles. Against these as a background the magnificent figure of San Martin, efficient soldier, wise statesman, and unselfish patriot, stands out plainly distinct. His achievements are worthy to be remembered with those of the greatest heroes of history. His character, the finest that South America has ever produced, has few equals in the annals of any country.
For many years he was disliked by his fellow patriots because he openly expressed the belief that they were not fit for pure democratic government. Since his day many South Americans agree with him.
The most serious criticism, however, which we can lay at the door of the South American is his lack of political cohesion. The border provinces are everlastingly rebelling against the decrees of the central government. Furthermore, when the Spanish colonies secured their independence, they either did notcombine or else combining soon fell apart. The reason for this lack of solidarity may be found in the history of the Hispanic race and in the geographical conditions that exist in the southern continent.
In criticising South American habits of mind and political tendencies, one must remember that the moral and intellectual characteristics that form the soul of a people have been developed by its entire past and represent the inheritance of its ancestors. For the motives of its conduct, one must look to its history.
Historically, the Hispanic race was led to develop individualistic rather than coöperative action. The forces at work in the peninsula were centrifugal rather than centripetal. A small handful of brave mountaineers were almost the only inhabitants of the peninsula that were able to defy the Moorish conquerors. The process of the Christian re-conquest of Spain was so slow that it took nearly eight centuries for her to grow from the lonely, rocky fastness of Covadonga to the group of Christian kingdoms that embraced the entire peninsula. During these eight hundred years, preceding the Conquest of America, the Spaniards fought almost continuously against an ever-present enemy. This developed a strong municipal spirit, for the towns on the frontier were in constant danger of attacks from the Moors, and it was necessary to grant them very considerable powers. As the boundaries of Christian Spain extended southward, new cities came to be frontier posts, but the old ones retained the powers and the semi-independence they had previously gained.
The result was a race of men devoted primarily to their cities; only secondarily to the province or kingdom to which their city belonged, and quite incidentally to Spain as a geographical and linguistic unit. Such a racial tendency could not help developing that disregard of large national interests in preference to petty local concerns which has been a most unfortunate trait in the history of the South American republics. For while it may be true that the conception of the city as the soul of the native country has always been effective from the point of view of the development of civilization, it has been disastrous in its effect on national progress. It was just that loyalty to the municipality that prevented the growth of the Greek Empire.
Another result of the eight hundred years of Christian warfare against the infidel Moor, was the development of moral and physical qualities that made possible the marvellously rapid conquest of America by small companies ofconquistadores. Brave, bigoted, courageous, accustomed to continuous hostilities, ardently devoted to a cause for which they were willing to lay down their lives, fighting to the last ditch, it is not surprising that the ancestors of the South Americans were able to achieve such wonderful results in the early sixteenth century.
Only a vigorous and rising nation could have accomplished the great work of exploring, conquering, and colonizing America which was done at that time.
As a matter of fact, a wonderful transformation was then taking place in Spain. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella had united by personalbonds what had formerly been a handful of detached kingdoms. These countries each had their own laws, their own peculiar customs and separate administrative systems. Some of the provinces were inhabited by people of different stock. The process of unification was almost contemporaneous with the conquest and colonization of America.
For a career destined to be as great as that of any of the larger empires of history, Spain had at the beginning of the colonizing period an inadequate political organization. Spanish racial unity and religious uniformity were of recent growth. The European progenitors of the conquerors did not fight for Spain as a whole, but rather as citizens of a municipality or as vassals of a petty king. The spirit of a centralized, unified government whose citizens are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their nation, did not run in their blood. They belonged to a fragmentary and embryonic group of nations. Spain did not adopt a policy of centralization long enough before the acquisition of her American colonies to allow the results of such a change in methods of government to affect popular habits of thought. In the meantime, South America was being colonized by men who had no sense of racial unity and few tendencies towards concerted political action.
Hence it is not at all surprising that their descendants, the heroes of the Wars of Emancipation, did not find it easy or natural to unite under one government. It was in accordance with the history of their race that they should form separate political establishments. It was also in accordance with thatSpanish colonial policy which forbade communication between the different colonies and in no way encouraged a community of interests.
Historically then, there was little to cause the South American colonies on achieving their independence, to unite, even had they not been separated by tremendous natural obstacles.
Although the basins of the Amazon, the La Plata, and the Orinoco offered many thousands of miles of navigable highways, the masses of water were too copious and too irregular to be controlled until the era of steam navigation. In the great valleys east of the Andes, the excessive fertility of the soil has produced an enormous area of continuous woodlands, a mass of vegetation that has defied the efforts of centuries to effect clearings and roads. This densely timbered and sparsely inhabited region keeps Venezuela from having any dealings with Bolivia more effectually than if an absolute desert lay between them.
There is nothing that separates one of the United States from another that is at all comparable to the lofty chain of the Andes and the impenetrable jungle that lies for hundreds of miles on the eastern slope of the Cordillera. The more one considers the matter, the more it seems as though nature could not have placed more impassable obstacles in the way of intercommunication if she had set out with that definite purpose in view. In comparison with the difficulties of travelling from Lima, the centre of the old Spanish domain, to Buenos Aires, a journey from New York to Charleston in the days of the American revolution was a mere pleasure jaunt, and yet it seemed difficult enough at that time! Nowhere in the English colonies existed such impediments to communication as the deserts of northern Chile and southern Peru, the swamps of eastern Colombia and western Venezuela, the forests of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, or the gigantic chain of the Andes whose lowest point for thousands of miles is ten thousand feet above the sea.
The founders of the original thirteen English colonies not only inherited racial unity but providentially built their homes on a short strip of coast and occupied a homogeneous country, no larger than a single Spanish colony. Their union followed as a matter of course.
It was quite otherwise in South America. For, as though it were not enough that the tendency of the race was towards building up individual communities rather than federations, as though the laws forbidding the colonists from trading with one another and from travelling from one colony to another were not a sufficient preventive of union, all the forces of nature, mountains, rivers, deserts, swamps, and even winds, combined to promote the isolation of the new republics. The top of the highest mountain in the thirteen English colonies was not half as high as the lowest point in the ranges of lofty mountains that separated the Spanish colonies; nor one third as high as the Uspallata Pass by which Chile is connected with Argentina.
It is not for us to criticise the South Americans for having failed to unite and form a great nation. Ourancestors were favored by nature with a region that is comparatively accessible in all parts. It is not any more creditable to the English colonists that they united than it is discreditable to the Latin-Americans that they did not. In both cases, racial characteristics, aided by diverse policies of colonial administration made a foundation for growth which by an extraordinary coincidence, was in every possible way favored by local geographical conditions.
The English colonists, on securing their independence, had been acquainted with one another for generations; had fought side by side in the French and Indian wars; had intermarried, built up social and business friendships; united in sending agents to the mother country and in sending representatives to Congresses where the leading men of each colony came to know one another’s desires and aspirations. Placed by fate on a narrow strip of coast less in length than the seaboard of Chile alone, enabled by nature to communicate both by sea and land, separated from one another by neither deserts nor lofty mountains, what more likely than that they should have followed their natural traditions and formed a single nation? The difficulties in the way of the South American colonists following such an example were stupendous. Scattered over an enormous area, separated by the greatest natural boundaries that nature has produced, it was scarcely to be expected that they too should not follow the traditions of their race and build up local governments instead of forming a federation.
The historical and geographical reasons that prevented the formation of confederations have also mitigated against the building up of strong national governments. The citizen is still inclined to favor the affairs of his city rather than the good of his country. He finds it easier to be loyal to the local chieftain than to the central government. The cure for this, however, is already in sight. The energy and enterprise of English, French, and German capitalists are overcoming the obstacles that nature has placed in the way of intercommunication.
In time, aided by steam and electric systems of transportation, some of the Southern Republics may even unite with others. But before this comes about it may confidently be expected in the near future that the development of new transportation facilities will make possible the growth of strong national feeling and will prevent the states from falling apart. It will certainly make revolutions less frequent and bring a condition of stability that will even attract American capital and greatly augment European immigration.
Fornearly three centuries the most important trade-route in South America was the overland trail from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of the silver mines of Potosí. The system of travel for both passengers and freight was well established. In 1773 there was published a little book called “El Lazarillo,” “The Blind Man’s Guide,” which contains full information for travellers going from Buenos Aires to Lima with exact itineraries and “with some useful notes for those new business men who traffic by means of mules.” The road with its post-houses, its relays of mules, and its provisions for the comfort of man and beast is well described. Buenos Aires is credited with having twenty-two thousand souls, of whom “ninety-nine are orphans and sixty-eight are in jail!”
I should have liked nothing better than to have been able to follow “The Blind Man’s Guide” from post-house to post-house along the entire distance. But alas, since the days of railways, many of the road-houses that formerly offered “good accommodations to travellers,” have disappeared, and it is necessary to go as the world goes and take the train—when there is one.
On November 13, 1908, accompanied by Mr.Huntington Smith, Jr., I left Buenos Aires for Bolivia. The first stage of the journey, seven hundred and twenty miles, was by train to Tucuman, over the tracks of the Buenos Aires and Rosario R. R., one of the oldest and richest railways in Argentina. Our train was made up entirely of vestibuled sleeping and dining cars.
Among the first-class passengers was a newly arrived Spanish mercantile clerk and a French commercial traveller. I noticed more French in Argentina and Brazil than on the West Coast or in the northern countries. Especially in the large cities, they, with the Germans and English, have been very active in promoting local enterprises.
In the first fifteen miles out from Buenos Aires we saw numbers of villas shaded by groves of eucalyptus trees standing in the midst of the owner’s broad acres. There is considerable evidence of market gardening and general agriculture. So far as we could see from the train, the roads are very bad and have not improved since the days of the woe-begotten travellers who had to cross these plains in ox-carts.
When Edmund Temple, the breezy secretary of the Potosí, La Paz & Peruvian Mining Association, crossed Argentina on his way to Bolivia in 1825, he was struck with the immense number of “hoppers” that they passed on the Pampas. He says the locusts covered the road and adjacent parts for miles. In those days, pasturage was plenty, and cultivated fields were scarce, so nobody cared very much. It is only with the increasing importance ofcrops that the Argentinos have come to regard the swarms of locusts as a great pest, and have spent many thousands of dollars fighting them. They are now planning to build a fence of sheet zinc, costing several million dollars, to keep back the “hoppers.” Some modern travellers have had their trains delayed by locust swarms on the tracks, but we saw comparatively few.
Our first stops were at suburban towns, which are more attractive than one would suppose in a country that is so flat. At one of them, on the River Tigre, the English colony has made boating fashionable, with festivals like those at Henley. We had showers in the course of the morning, but the country over which we passed looked rather dry.
A characteristic feature of the Pampas are the modern windmills with their steel frames. Most of them are of American make, for despite our backwardness in some lines, we have been peculiarly successful in supplying Argentina with windmills. In fact, we have almost monopolized that particular business. Fortunately, our manufacturers seem also to excel in the production of small and inexpensive motors, such as are particularly desired on farms and ranches where, owing to the extreme difficulty of getting workmen, there is an excellent market for labor-saving machinery. Notwithstanding this encouraging feature, for every million dollars’ worth of goods which Argentina imports from the United States, she imports six millions from Europe.
Many of the interior towns have their own electric lighting plants. The agents of German manufacturers have been far-sighted in following up new concessions and in getting large contracts for the installation of German machinery. It takes a good many windmills to equal one electric lighting plant.
Our train made a short stop at Rosario, the second largest city in Argentina. Owing to its advantageous situation at the bend of the Paraná River, it has become a most important port.
Accessible throughout the year to vessels drawing sixteen feet, it is the terminus of many trans-Atlantic lines which bring European manufactured goods here in exchange for wheat and cattle. Some ore from Bolivia is also shipped from here. On our mule trip in Southern Bolivia we saw hundreds of animals laden with huge packing-cases from Europe marked “via Rosario.”
The other important new port in Argentina is Bahia Blanca, which is situated several hundred miles south of Buenos Aires and is connected by railways with the newly opened regions in northern Patagonia. There is no scarcity of good agricultural land as yet undeveloped. Were the government of Argentina as well managed for the interests of the individual farmer as the governments of our western states, there is no question that Argentina would secure a much higher grade of immigrant. The opportunities are truly magnificent, but I was repeatedly told by foreign residents who are engaged in farming, that there are many unpleasant features. The truth of the matter is that the Argentino is too fond of keeping political power in his own hands. He does not understand all that is meant by a constitutional democratic form of government. It is not his fault, for his race history, as we have seen, has given him other inheritances and prejudices. Nevertheless he is learning.
Leaving Rosario we plunged into the heart of a great agricultural and pastoral region. The heat and dust were rather trying. The humidity was considerable, being about eighty per cent in our car. In truth, we experienced all the various annoyances to which one is subject when crossing our western plains, in a moderately slow train. We had been told that this Tucuman express was “the finest train in America.” Some of the young Englishmen on our steamer were extremely enthusiastic over it and assured us that we could have nothing so fine in the United States. Consequently we were somewhat disappointed to find the standard of comfort not any greater than it was on our western trains fifteen years ago.
There is one thing, however, in which the “B. A. and R.” is ahead of most American railroads. At each station are one or two very large sign-boards conveniently placed so that the stranger has no difficulty in ascertaining whether he has reached his destination or not. And there are other little things along the line that make one feel the presence of railway officials carefully trained in English railway methods. It goes without saying that the road is largely owned in England and has Anglo-Saxons for its principal officers.
Argentina has about thirteen thousand miles of railway operated under some twenty companies.One thousand seven hundred miles are owned by the government, but by far the larger part of the railway system is controlled by British capitalists. A little more than half of the mileage consists of the very broad five and a half foot gauge. The remainder is one metre or less. The three gauges necessitate considerable transferring of freight and passengers.
To one who is accustomed to thinking of Argentina as a rich but undeveloped region, it seems incredible that she should have fifty thousand freight-cars and two thousand passenger-coaches. It is still more astonishing to learn that every year her railways carry thirty million passengers, and thirty million tons of freight, of which about one third are cereals. During the year 1906, the receipts from the passenger traffic amounted to more than $18,000,000, and from freight traffic to something over $55,000,000. Statistics are dry and uninteresting except as they open our eyes to conditions of which we have formed but a small conception. The extremely rapid growth of the Argentine railways is shown by the fact that while in 1884 the capital invested did not amount to $100,000,000, it now amounts to over $700,000,000.
So far as killing people is concerned, the Argentine railways do not come up to our record, although they do fairly well. In 1905 they killed, all told, two hundred and eighteen persons, and in 1906, two hundred and fifty. This is a heavier percentage per passenger carried than in the United States.
Towards evening we left the farming country and entered a barren region where great stretches ofperfectly flat land seemed to promise splendid results if it could be irrigated.
The dust increased, and we were glad enough to be hauled over these dry pampas of Santa Fé and Santiago del Estero in a night, instead of being obliged to spend a fortnight on them following a slow-moving Spanish caravan.
When we looked out of the car window the next morning all was changed. Sugar-cane fields waving attractively in the sunlight, big wheeled carts lumbering noisily along drawn by oxen or mules, lithe horsemen riding strong little ponies through thickets of dry scrub, had transformed the scene from the everlasting prairies of the pampas into the highlands of the northwest. The hills beyond the fields of cane were covered with a scrubby growth. To the north-west and north arose green mountains that seemed to be forested to their tops. Some of the trees were in bloom with brilliant yellow flowers.
The contrast between the dry, barren pampas and the green cane-fields of Tucuman is so striking that Argentine writers have been accustomed to speak of the latter in terms of the most extravagant praise. Even the well-travelled Sarmiento called it the “Eden of America,” “where nature had displayed its greatest pomp!” As a matter of fact Tucuman is admirably situated in a very fertile and highly cultivated plain, and is the centre of the most important sugar-growing region in Argentina. In its immediate vicinity we counted a dozen tall chimneys of sugar factories.
We reached the city about ten o’clock.
It was founded about the time that Sir Walter Raleigh was looking for Eldorado. Here in 1816, the Argentine Congress passed their Declaration of Independence. Here Belgrano won a great victory over the Spanish armies that had descended from Peru to crush the Argentine patriots.
The Tucuman station, a large modern affair, was chiefly interesting because of the picturesque character of the luggage that was lying about the platforms. Chairs and cots, pots and pans, spring mattresses, and hen-coops, all bore evidence to the fact that this is still a young country into which new settlers are coming, and that the Railroad Company has the good sense to make it easy for people to travel with all their possessions. Everything was checked and went in the luggage-van, as a matter of course, instead of being handed over to “slow-freight” or rapacious express companies, as with us.
Most of the immigrants were Italians from Genoa and the north of Italy. A few came from Galicia, the home of Spain’s most sturdy peasantry. Neither immigrants nor residents wore picturesque costumes. Even the Gauchos are dressed in civilized raiment and bear little resemblance to the South American Indian of our dreams. It is too progressive a country to allow its clothes to get in its way.
The facts relating to Buenos Aires and Argentina are at every one’s elbow so it is all the more astonishing how ignorant the average American is regarding the great metropolis of the southern hemisphere. We are very fond of telling stories of our English cousins who imagine that our western states areoverrun with wild Indians and desperadoes. And we think it inexcusable in them to judge from the frequent press reports of lynchings and “hold-ups” that we are an uncivilized, lawless people. Yet we judge the Argentino just as hastily. Not only are we quite ignorant of his material progress, we also frequently slander him for having an “unstable government.” “Revolutions” or struggles for governmental control occur, it is true, but they do not amount to much and hardly deserve the exaggerated reports of them which are published abroad. In a country that has been bound together by such a network of railroads as Argentina, making it possible for the government in power to send its troops rapidly wheresoever it will, the habit of playing with revolutions is sure to die out. In the old days when transportation was slow and difficult, it was possible for a popular leader to gather a considerable band of followers and prepare to march on the capital before the government knew of his existence. Such uprisings, however, are necessarily the work of days or weeks, and it is becoming more and more difficult to bring them to a successful issue. As an evidence of the more stable condition of the government and as showing how Argentina has recovered from the setback which it got at the time of the failure of the Baring Brothers, it is well to note that in the ten years between 1895 and 1905, the foreign trade of Buenos Aires more than doubled, growing to more than half a billion dollars annually.
AtTucuman we left the broad gauge of the British-built Buenos Aires and Rosario R. R. for the metre gauge of the North Central Railway, an Argentine Government line, that runs to Jujuy and has recently been continued northward to La Quiaca, on the Bolivian frontier. The distance from Buenos Aires to La Quiaca is 1150 miles. Of this we had done 700 miles in the first twenty-four hours. The last 450 miles required another twenty-four hours, divided into two daylight periods, as sleeping-cars are not run on the North Central R. R. In this stretch the elevation rises from thirteen hundred feet to twelve thousand feet, and the journey lies entirely in the Argentine Highlands.
Our train was mixed passenger and freight. The locomotive was a “Baldwin” and the cars were made in Wilmington, Del. We had, besides, an excellent dining-car that seated sixteen people and provided a table d’hôte meal served in the usual Spanish style. The third-class passengers, however, patronized the enterprising women who sold flat loaves of bread, hard-boiled eggs, and native drinks at the stations where we stopped.
Not long after leaving Tucuman, we passed through a tunnel, the first one in eight hundred miles.Rather a different experience from my journey in Venezuela, from Caracas to Valencia, where in the course of an hour we passed through sixty-five tunnels, one every minute!
With many windings we climbed up into the hills. Grass became scarcer and cactus and mimosa trees more common. We passed a small flock of goats. Dust and sand came into the train in clouds. Occasionally we passed lofty whirlwinds, but none of them troubled us. The humidity to-day was very much less, being under forty per cent. The streams seemed to be very low. We saw a few locusts.
At many of the stations were carts drawn by mules harnessed three abreast, with a loose rope-tackle that is characteristic of this hilly region. The houses of some of the more well-to-do were built of corrugated iron and wood, but most were made of mud. As it was the dry season, the cots were usually out of doors.
The evidences of prosperity at Ruis de los Llanos consisted of new stucco buildings of attractive construction with arcades in front and courtyards in the interior, a modern application of old Spanish architectural ideas. Other buildings were nearing completion, to accommodate the bakers and grocers who supply thequebrachocutters. There are great forests ofquebrachoon the plains of the Gran Chaco to the east and northeast. The wood is extremely hard and very serviceable for railway-ties. Owing to the difficulty that is experienced in cutting it, it has earned for itself the sobriquet of “axe-breaker.” It is the chief article of export from this region. Thebark is shipped to tanneries as far away as California.
At Matan, another important station, there was a new hotel, the “Cosmopolita,” a clean-looking Spanish inn, near the railway station. Near by lay huge logs ofquebrachoawaiting shipment. The hills were well wooded, and we saw a number of agave plants and mimosa trees. Firewood is shipped from here to the treeless Pampas. Here we noticed, for the first time, riding-boots of a curious fashion, so very corrugated that we dubbed them “concertinas.” They are much in vogue also in southern Bolivia.
At Rio Piedras, where a dozen of our third-class passengers alighted with many baskets and bundles, we heard the familiar hum of a sawmill. Near the track were morequebrachologs. A burly passenger who had joined us at Tucuman, ready dressed and prepared for a long horseback ride, left us here. With a large broad-brimmed hat, loose white jumper, large baggy white cotton trousers, and “concertinas,” he came very near being picturesque. Throwing over his shoulder a pair of cotton saddle-bags well stocked with interesting little bundles, he walked slowly away from the train with that curious shuffling gait common to those who spend most of their lives in the saddle.
Not far away we saw some newly arrived American farm machinery, a part of the largest item of Argentine imports from the United States.
During the course of the afternoon, we wound out of the hills far enough to be able to see far over the plains to the east. Here there was more vegetationand some corn growing. On the left were jagged hills and mountains. The temperature in the car about four o’clock was eighty-five degrees. Our altitude was about twenty-five hundred feet.
As we went north through hot, dusty valleys, climbing up into the foot-hills of the Andes, the faces of the loiterers at the stations lost the cosmopolitan aspect that they have in and about Buenos Aires. We saw more of the typical Gaucho who is descended from the aboriginal Indians of the Pampas and bold Spanish cattle-drivers. Tall in stature, with a robust frame and a swarthy complexion, he possesses great powers of endurance and is a difficult person to handle. His tendencies are much like those of the fast disappearing American “cow puncher,” but he has the disadvantage of having inherited a contempt for manual labor and an excessive vanity which finds expression in silver spurs and brilliantly colored ponchos. His territory is rapidly being invaded by hard-working Italians, more desirable because more dependable.
Near Juramento the country grows more arid and desolate. A few scrubby mimosa trees, sheltering the white tents of railway engineers, offered but little welcome to intending settlers.
Just at dark we reached Guemes, where we were obliged to change cars. The through train from Tucuman goes west to Salta, the most important city of the vicinity. We arrived at Jujuy shortly after nine o’clock. A score of ancient vehicles were waiting to take us a mile up into the town to one of the three hotels. We went to the Bristol and foundit quite comfortable according to Spanish-American ideas. That means that the toilet facilities were absent, that the room had a tile floor, and that there were beds and chairs.
In the morning we got up early enough to look at the town for a few minutes before leaving on the semi-weekly train for La Quiaca.
Jujuy was built by Spanish settlers a generation before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and still preserves the white-walled, red-tiled-roof aspect of the old Spanish-American towns. Lying in a pleasant, well-watered plain, a trifle over four thousand feet above the sea, it is attractively surrounded by high hills. Beyond them, we caught glimpses of lofty barren mountains, the summits of the Andes. The near-by valleys were green, and there is some rainfall even in the dry time of the year. Although Jujuy produces a large amount of sub-tropical fruit, it really owes its importance to its strategical position on the old trade route to Bolivia. It is the last important town on the road because it is the last place that enjoys a salubrious situation. For centuries it has been the natural resting-place for overland travellers.
In fact, these northwestern highlands of Argentina, Jujuy, and Tucuman, were first settled by emigrants from the mountains of Upper Peru now called Bolivia, of which they form the southern extension. Their political and commercial relations were with Potosí and Lima rather than Buenos Aires. The great prosperity of the mining regions of the lofty plateau created a demand for provisions that couldnot be met by the possibilities of agriculture in the semi-arid irrigated valleys of southern Bolivia. Beef and other provisions could most easily be brought from the fertile valleys near Tucuman and Jujuy. The necessity for some better animal than the llama, to carry not only freight but also passengers, caused a demand for the horses and mules which, raised on the Argentine Pampas, were brought here to be put into shape for mountain travel, and were an important item in the early fairs.
When the railroad came, Jujuy was for many years the northern terminus. This only added to the importance of the town, and increased the reputation of its annual fair. But with the building of the continuation to La Quiaca, its importance is bound to decrease. However, it will always be a favorite resort for Bolivians seeking a refuge from the rigors of their Thibetan climate. We met many families in southern Bolivia who had at one time or another passed the winter season here.
Before leaving the Bristol we succeeded in getting eggs and coffee only with considerable difficulty as the train was due to leave at seven o’clock, and the average Spanish-American traveller is quite willing to start off on a long day’s journey without even a cup of coffee if he can be sure of something substantial about ten or eleven o’clock.
When we arrived at the station, we found a scene of great confusion. The line had been running only a few months, and many of the intending passengers were not accustomed to the ways of railroads. An official, and his family of three, had spread himselfover one half of the car, with bags, bird-cages, bundles, rolls, and potted plants. He filled so many seats with his impedimenta that several of the passengers had to stand up, although that did not worry him in the least. Had we known how much luggage belonged to him, we should have dumped it on the floor and had a more comfortable ride, but unfortunately we did not discover how greatly he had imposed on everybody until the end of the day.
From Jujuy the train climbs slowly through a valley toward a wonderful vista of great mountains. At 6000 feet the verdure disappeared, the grass became brown, and on the barren mountains a few sheep and goats were trying to pick up a living.
The railway had a hard time overcoming the difficulties of the first part of the way. The grade is so steep that for some distance a cog road was found to be necessary. In the first one hundred and fourteen miles, the line climbs up 8000 feet to an altitude of over 12,000 feet above sea-level.
Notwithstanding the newness of the road and the steepness of the grade, we carried with us an excellent little restaurant car that gave us two very good meals before we reached La Quiaca.
The cog railway begins at Leon at an altitude of 5300 feet and continues to Volcan, rising 1500 feet in a distance of eight miles. At Volcan there is supposed to be a mud volcano, but, as was pointed out some years ago by Mr. O’Driscoll in the “Geographical Journal,” there is no volcano at all. It is simply a mud avalanche, that comes down after unusually heavy rains from the rapidly disintegrating hillside.Although not a volcano, it is nevertheless a difficult problem for the engineers. It has already completely submerged a mile or two of track more than once.
This is on the line of the proposed Pan-American railway from New York to Buenos Aires. With a sufficiently vivid imagination, one can picture a New Yorker of the year 1950 being detained here by a mud-slide which will have put the tracks over which he proposes to travel two or three feet under ground. It is to be hoped that he will not be obliged to stay at the local inn where Edmund Temple stopped on his journey from Buenos Aires to Potosí. Temple was aroused in the middle of the night by a noise under his bed as if of a struggle between two animals. To his astonishment (and to that of the reader of his charming volumes) he “discovered, by the light of the moon, a cat eating the head of a viper which she had just subdued: a common occurrence I was informed, and without any ill consequences to the cat, however venomous the snake!”
Some effort had been made to plant a few trees in the sandy, rocky soil around the station of Volcan, which is not far from the mud-slide. They seemed, however, to be having a hard time of it, although, at a ranch near by, quite a grove of eucalyptus trees had been successfully raised by means of irrigation. The mountains round about are very barren and gave evidence of being rapidly wasted away by erosion, their summits assuming many fantastic forms.
Twenty miles beyond Volcan is Maimará, wherethere was further evidence of irrigation in the valley, the trees and green fruits being in marked contrast to the barren hillsides.
As the road ascends, the country becomes more and more arid. Cactus is common. Sometimes it is used as a hedge; at other times, by being planted on the top of a mud-fence, it answers the same purpose as a barbed wire.
Great barren mountains on each side continue for mile after mile, making the scenery unspeakably dreary. Judging by the northward inclination of the cactus and the trees, the prevailing wind is from the south.
Some of the valley is irrigated, but there is little sign of life anywhere. Nothing grows without irrigation. In the days before the railway it was absolutely necessary to have alfalfa and other animal fodder grown near the post-houses that supplied travellers and freight-carriers with shelter at night. This business has, of course, fallen off very much in the past few months, yet just before reaching Humahuaca we stopped at Uquia, where enough hay is still raised to make it worth while to bale it and ship it north to the barren plateau beyond.
Late in the afternoon, we saw a group of llamas, but they are not at all common in this region.
At Tres Cruces, 1052 miles from Buenos Aires, we reached our highest elevation, something over 12,000 feet. It was a dreary spot with scarcely anything in sight except barren mountains, the two wire fences that everlastingly line the railroad tracks, and the mud-walled railroad station. The little “hotel”looked like an abandoned adobe dwelling in Arizona, and the region bore a striking resemblance to the unirrigated part of our new southwest. Erosion has cut the hillsides into interesting sections of shallow gulches and semi-cylindrical slopes. The only green things to be seen are occasional clumps of bushes like sage-brush.
From here to La Quiaca, sixty miles, we maintained about the same altitude, although La Quiaca itself is 500 feet lower than Tres Cruces. We had, in fact, surmounted the great plateau of the Andes. South of us lay the desert of Atacama; to the north the arid valleys of southern Bolivia and the Bolivian tableland. East of us, beyond many intervening ranges and the steep slopes of the eastern Andes, lay the Gran Chaco of Bolivia and the valley of the lower Pilcomayo with its wild Indian tribes and its tropical forests. To the west lay the still higher Andes of the great Cordillera, some of whose peaks rise at this point to an altitude of twenty thousand feet. Notwithstanding these interesting surroundings, the extreme bareness of this desolate region reacts on one’s enthusiasm.
We reached La Quiaca just before nine o’clock. The railroad offices were still incomplete, as the line had only been opened to traffic for a month or two. The old town of La Quiaca, a small mud-walled affair two miles away from the railroad station, is destined soon to be deserted for the thriving young settlement that is springing up near the terminus of the railway. There are two “hotels.” Ours, the 25 de Mayo, had only just been opened. In fact, its exterior walls had not yet received their proper coat of whitewash and stucco.
All day long we had been travelling through an extremely sparsely populated region, so dry, high, and inhospitable as to dispel any idea that this railroad can rely upon it for much traffic. In fact, the line was built by the Argentine Government, not so much to open up this part of the Republic as to tap the mining region of southern Bolivia, with the idea of developing Argentina’s foreign commerce by securing in Bolivia a good market for her food-stuffs and bringing back in return ore to be shipped to Europe from the ports of the Paraná.
An agreement was entered into between Argentina and Bolivia whereby Bolivia was to extend her system of national railways southeast from Oruro to Potosí and thence due south to Tupiza, fifty miles north of the Argentine boundary. The Argentinos on their part agreed to continue their railway north from Jujuy to Tupiza. By the time they reached La Quiaca, however, the English Company that owns the rich Oruro-Antofagasta line became alarmed lest such an arrangement as was proposed would interfere with their profits. By some means or other, the Bolivian government was persuaded to change its plans and decide to build the national railways so as to connect with the Antofagasta line rather than with the Argentine lines. This breach of faith on the part of the Bolivianos was naturally resented not only in Argentina but also by the southern Bolivianos themselves who would be much more benefited by having good connections with Buenos Aires than with the Chilean seaboard.
As a result of this difficulty, the Argentinos, at the time of my visit, had not carried their railway beyond the frontier. This makes La Quiaca the outfitting point for mule-trains that now start here with merchandise destined for the cities of southern Bolivia.
A stage-line has been opened, running once a week to Tupiza, where it connects with stages for Uyuni on the Antofagasta line and Potosí. This stage-line was owned and operated by that same energetic Scotchman, Don Santiago Hutcheon, who used to run stages between La Paz and Oruro before the completion of the Bolivia Railway. By great good fortune, we found him in La Quiaca where he had arrived that day on one of his own stages.