I o of the southern continent is N better qualified than ...

In

ARGENTINA

I

No nation of the southern continent isbetter qualified than Argentina to re-buke the stupid jest that refers to the

Latin-American countries as opera bouffe re-publics. It has a domain one-third the sizeof the United States, or as large as the ter-ritory lying east of the Mississippi, withTexas added, stretching from tropic heat toantarctic cold, and possessing a frontage onthe Atlantic as extensive as our own coast linefrom Portland, Maine, to Key West, Flor-ida. It has over 500,000,000 acres of its1,185,840 square miles of area available forthe cultivation of life-sustaining products anddistributed over vast, treeless, well-wateredplains, every one of which is easily accessibleto the seaboard with the simplest of railwayconstruction. These plains have no such

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natural obstructions to transportation as ourAlleghanies or Rockies, and have for theirproduce a much shorter haul to the Europeanworld of consumers.

Argentina has the further advantage ofover 18,000 miles of up-to-date railways ra-diating from its port cities, and five river sys-tems, one of which, La Plata, the outlet forthe waters of the ParanI and Uruguay, issecond only to the Amazon anong the world'sgreat rivers. It. is 180 miles wide at itsmouth, and pours into the Atlantic a floodgreater by eighty per cent. than that cast bythe Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico.

The timber regions of the country are richin structural and cabinet woods. It has agrazing industry that ranks second only toAustralia in sheep, second only to the UnitedStates in cattle, and second only to the UnitedStates and Russia in horses. In 1910 it ex-ported to Europe 190,480 live animals and$180,000,000 worth of frozen beef, mutton,pork, hides, and other animal products. Itstotal foreign commerce amounted to $702,-664,810 in value. It has an agriculturaloutput that places it in the first rank of ex-porters of maize and linseed, second to Rus-

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sia in the export of wheat, and among theleaders in corn, a soil that can grow stillgreater quantities of sugar, tobacco, rice, al-falfa, grapes, fruits, yerba mate (Paraguaytea), olives, corn, barley, and oats, besidesmedicinal, textile, and tinctorial plants, en-abling her to export more foodstuffs, includ-ing meats and grains, than any other nationon the globe—a productiveness so great thatfarms are measured in some sections by thesquare league, instead of by the paltry acre,as with us, and grains are sold by the metricton of 2205 pounds, instead of by the bushel.Its mountains contain profitably workable de-posits of gold, silver, and copper, and oil hasbeen found in paying quantities.

It has a metropolis and seaport (its cap-ital, Buenos Aires) reckoned as the secondLatin city in the world, possessing a popula-tion of over a million and a quarter, andadorned with buildings, parks, surface im-provements, and evidences of wealth andculture that stamp it as one of the finest citiesof the Western Hemisphere.

It has a stable and enlightened government,constituted on the same general plan as ourown, and advancing rapidly to a near ap-

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proximation to our own in efficiency. It hasa history rich, in its later years, in traditionsof statesmanship and patriotism, bearing onits roll of honor the names of such statesmen,soldiers, educators, and executives as Be!-grano, San Martin, Alvear, PuyrredOn, Riva-davia, Mitre, and Sarmiento, names worthyof special reverence among a people familiarwith the standards set by Washington andLincoln. In a word, with all this materialgreatness, and such a record of energetic andenlightened adaptation to world progress,Argentina may, in the not distant future,turn the jest against its northern perpetra-tors; for & country with a population ofseven millions, which could feed two hundredmillion people and give lodging to half thatnumber, is a competitor to be reckoned withseriously in the struggle for commercial su-premacy.

Such, then, is the country of superlativesthat opens up before the visitor who entersat its gateway, Buenos Aires, and breathesin the wholesome, equable breezes from thepampas—the vast green plains that stretchaway for hundreds of miles in three direc-tions; he agrees at once that the City of

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Good Airs was well named by Pedro deMendoza when he planted his ill-fated settle-ment on its site in 1585.

It is to be regretted that this wide-awake,rapidly growing community buys so muchmore largely in the European markets thanours. In 1910, of the total amount they paidfor imports ($851,770,056), our share wasonly $48,418,892. But then, as they pointout, they are our competitors in the marketsof Europe. Their cereals and beef and hidesand wool have no place in the United States,a country that produces and exports the samethings, and they manufacture no articles thatwe want; so it is only fair that they shoulddeal with those who buy of them. When itcame to a question of who should build theirlast two big battleships, however, they did fa-vor our shipyards with the contracts. Bothof these are of the super-dreadnought typeand have already been launched.

The Parisian is pleased to say, "Paris isFrance"; with even greater significance maythe Buenos Airean say that Buenos Aires isArgentina. Out of his pride in his great city,the Porteuio will tell one that Argentina reallyhas but two parts, as a matter of fact: the

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one, Buenos Aires; the other—all the rest ofthe country—called EL Campo (the Camp),regardless that he includes in this sweepingassertion such other railroad centers andports as Rosario, La Plata, Paraná, Tucu-mm, Córdoba, or Bahia Blanca—all of themcities exceeding fifty thousand in populationand one of them, Rosario, exceeding one hun-dred thousand. And, indeed, the Bonarensesmay well be proud of their metropolis. One-fifth of the country's inhabitants is absorbedinto its teeming life of industry and luxury;it is the crystallization of all that this mod-ernized young giant stands for in the worldof commerce; it is the greatest Spanish-speak-ing city in the world.

Its dominant position was not achieved,however, without years of contention withother centers of industry in the country. Dur-ing the three hundred years of Spain's stiflingeconomic policies in this, once the agricul-tural unit of her golden empire, Argentinamade small progress. The settlementsfounded in Santiago (1558), in Tucumin(1565), and in Córdoba and Santa Fe(1578), by the immigration of Spaniardsfrom Peru, Chile, and the early settlement

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of Buenos Aires, all led an isolated andneglected existence during the colonial periodup to the year 1776, when Spain, awakenedfrom her dream of endless mineral riches inSouth America to a realization of the im-portance of the fertile country of La Plata,and erected it into a separate viceroyalty, in-dependent of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Theviceroys, freed from the poisoning influenceof Andean gold lust, did much to develop asense of nationalism among the scattered ag-ricultural centers. With the growth of thisnationalism, the protests against Spain's re-pression increased until 1810, when the peo-ple asserted their right to an unrestricted,independent national life. May twenty-fifthof that year is their Fourth of July, and isperpetuated to-day in the name of the superbAvenida de Mayo in their capital city.

During the formative period that followed,Argentine politics revolved chiefly about thequestion of Unitarianism or Federalism -whether the rich and progressive province atthe gateway of the nation (Buenos Aires)should form a separate unit of government,or remain part of a confederation and be ac-corded the leading role in national affairs

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that its importance merited. In 1862 fed-eralism prevailed and the integrity of theArgentine Republic was assured, under thepresidency of General Mitre. The capitalwas later removed from Santa Fe to BuenosAires and the latter city erected into a fed-eral district (of some sevebty square miles)somewhat similar to our own District of Co-lumbia. The capital of the Province of Bue-nos Aires, however, is La Plata, a few milesdistant from the national capital, on theshores of the great river.

This period marks the beginning of thereal history of the Argentine nation. Underthe enlightened statesmanship of BartoloméMitre and Sarmiento, the two chief figuresin Argentina's rapid development from thispoint, the great influx of British and Germancapital began. Immigration was encouragedfor the working of the fields; a solid founda-tion was given to educational development;railroads were constructed, and the machineryof government made adequate to the vig-orous strides of the solidified nation. In theshort space of time that has passed since1881, over two billions of dollars of Britishand German gold have been invested; some

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eighteen thousand miles of well-equipped rail-ways have been constructed, almost whollyby English capital; immigration has doubledthe population of the country so that nowhalf its present inhabitants are foreign-born—during the last ten years alone two mil-lions have come in—and a thorough systemof education has been perfected, embracing,among all sorts of primary, military, and in-dustrial institutions, three great universities,one of which, at Buenos Aires, graduatedover five thousand young men last year and,with the University of Cordoba (founded in1618), ranks with Harvard and Yale. In1910 they celebrated the centennial anniver-sary of their independence with a superbindustrial exposition that was a revelationeven to themselves, and festivities that aresaid to have cost $20,000,000.

The city of Buenos Aires has not thepicturesque environment that adds so muchto the natural beauty of the cities of Rio deJaneiro and Mexico, nor the harbor capac-ity of New York; nor are its culture andcivic personality, perhaps, as deep-rooted asin Boston; it makes little pretension to thearistocracy of blood boasted by the still a-

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sentially Spanish Lima; nor has I

it yet at-tained such distinction as a national centerof art, literature, and music as has the Bra-zilian capital. It may be best compared withChicago, for it is conspicuously modem, itspresent development having been begun andachieved within the last quarter of a cen-tury, although the city itself is nearly fourhundred years old, and is the industrial com-plement of an agricultural and pastoral ac-tivity even greater than that of our MiddleWest. Indeed, its banks and clearing housesare said to transact quite as much businessas those of Chicago.

The docks of Buenos Aires, like those ofour great lake city, are most impressive; theyrepresent an outlay of $50,000,000. Onlyfifteen years ago the visitor was bundledashore in a rowboat and deposited on amarshy beach. Now his vessel enters one ofthe numerous basins of the vast dock sys-tem and confronts row upon row of massivemasonry and cement wharves, behind whichspreads a network of railway lines. In thebackground are public gardens with floweringbushes and statuary to beautify the approachto the city. For mile after mile, flanked by

99


a seemingly endless procession of great trans..Atlantic ships and up-river produce boats,these docks stretch their length, not in a se-ries of slips, as along the congested water-front in New York, but so arranged that thevessels can moor broadside to them and havetheir cargoes loaded or unloaded by enor-mous traveling cranes; and, without, lying atanchor in the river awaiting their turn fora berth, are many more—for this giant en-terprise, with towering grain elevators and averitable forest of powerful cranes, alreadyfails entirely to satisfy present needs. Theyare not only to be extended but so enlargedthat they will accommodate vessels of theheaviest draft.

Not even the New York wharves withtheir vast commerce give such a picture ofvivid bustle. The big German "Cap" boats—Cap Ortegal, Cap Frio, and the rest;French, Spanish, and Italian liners withchampagne, aperitives, opera companies, auto-mobiles and immigrants—always immigrants;Newcastle freighters unloading bolted sec-tions of steel bridges; up-river boats ladenwith yerba maté or fragrant oranges fromParaguay, and the aristocrats of these seas,

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the Royal Mails from England—all con-tribute to the pell-mell, reminding one of theblurred babel of tongues that whispers acrossthe decks of the world's ships in the drowsypassage through the Suez Canal.

And, parenthetically, a most telling com-mentary on our indifference to Argentinepossibilities lies in the fact that of the manythousand vessels that transferred cargoes atthese docks in 1910, only four bore the starsand stripes; whereas, prior to our Civil War(which, of course, absorbed our merchant ma-rine)—in 1852—there were in the harbor ofBuenos Aires six hundred vessels flying ourflag, or more than double the number fromall other nations combined. In those days theinfluence of our people over the commerceof the southern half of South America waspredominant. A Pennsylvanian, WilliamWheelright, was looked upon as its father.

On leaving the docks and driving up intothe city, the visitor is at once impressed withthe fact that Buenos Aires is not so whollywrapped up in the purely material as is ourcommercial center on Lake Michigan. It hasbroadened along more msthetic lines and iscultivating the graces, not alone the sordid

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features, of cosmopolitanism. In the newerparts, particularly in the fashionable suburbof Belgrano, the buildings and shaded boule-vards and beautifully landscaped parks re-semble rather those of Paris; although it isnot behind our own big cities in public utili-ties. Even in the business district there areno skyscrapers or elevated railroads to dis-turb the harmony of the architectural scheme;not even the usual promiscuous, blatant ad-vertising posters are permitted to be dis-played until they have been censored by theproper official, and when approved they areaffixed to ornamentally tinted and paneledbillboards, erected for the purpose. So keen,indeed, are the Bonarenses to enhance thebeauty of their city that a prize is offeredeach year for the handsomest structure to beerected. And yet there is much that is pos-sessed of the charm of antiquity. The occa-sional glimpses of blossoms and foliage onegets through doorways opening into the court-yards, or patios, of the old Spanish housesis most refreshing in the midst of so muchthat is modern.

It is from Paris, too, that they have ac-quired their culture, and their taste in dress

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and amusements and in literature and art.They buy their clothes in Paris and sip theirFrench liqueurs in the cafés in true Parisianstyle, and they are entertained by opera andcomedy companies from the best Parisiantheaters. They have absorbed into their citylife an Italian colony that exceeds in num-bers the population of Genoa, and moreSpaniards than could be crowded into To-ledo, besides a multitude of British and Ger-mans and a goodly sprinkling from the restof Europe, and even Asia. Having taken somuch from France and Italy, and beingSpanish in descent and in speech, the over-tone of the city is distinctly Latin, whiletheir industrial and governmental institutionsbear the mark of the Anglo-Saxon. Next tothe Italian and Spanish, the British colony isthe largest. Then follow the German andthe French. The North Americans are smallin number; less than three hundred respondedto a recent effort to organize a North Amer-ican Society.

The Bonarenses, however, like the deni-zens of the Camp, are intensely patriotic andpassionately insist upon a recognition of theirown distinct personalities. They are the Por-

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teños of the great Argentine nation. Nordo they and their compatriots throughoutthe country welcome the inference that theyare Spanish; they are Argentine. One asksa child of the streets whether he speaks Span-ish or Italian. He answers haughtily (in theformer language): "At home we all talk Ar-gentine." Strangely enough, their jingoismis not offensive; it is displayed with anamiable candor that is quite disarming. Notsatisfied with being Argentine from top totoe, they seek to Argentinize even the tran-sient guest. The rabid Argentinism of thePorteno, and his success in amalgamating thekaleidoscopic horde of Europeans and Asiat-ics living in his city, is illustrated by the an-swer of another youthful immigrant who,unable to deny that he was born in Genoa,murmured apologetically, "I was so little."

One of their leading daily newspapers,La Prensa, which has the handsomest news-paper building in existence, displays itspatriotism by devoting a large part of itshome to public uses. At its own expense itprovides physicians and a consulting room,where the poor can have medical attentionfree, a law office where those who cannot af-

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COLON THEATER, BUENOS AIRES.

ARGENTINA

ford to pay for it can have legal advice, anexcellent museum of the manufactures andproducts of the country, a free technical li-brary for the use of students, a large hailfor public meetings, a charming salon desfête., in which literary, scientific, and chari-table entertainments are given. This paperhas a circulation of more than 150,000. Sohave La Nación and La Argentina, the twoother big morning dailies. There are 225periodicals published in the capital all to-gether.

In this most cosmopolitan of cities the for-eigners foregather in little worlds of theirown. Most are represented by newspaperspublished in their own languages, most haveclubhouses, more or less pretentious. Onthe same evening one season recently "TheMerry Widow" was produced in Spanish,French, and Italian in as many differenttheaters; and there are all sorts of places ofamusement where foreigners can enjoy them-selves, each after his own fashion—from animmense artificial ice skating rink (a veryfashionable resort, by the way) to a tropicalcoffee house, from a golf or race course toa pool room or bowling alley, from the most

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attractive and elegantly equipped of modemcafés to a little French domino parlor orGerman beer saloon, from a magnificentopera house to a cheap vaudeville or moving-picture theater. It is said that the fore-most European artists are as likely to visitArgentina as the United States, and oftendo, and that many, of all but the first rankin their own countries and who do not cometo North America at all, visit Buenos Airesregularly and present European successeslong before they are seen in New York.

Their great opera house, the Colon, thatcost $10,000,000 and occupies a whole square,is one of the most beautiful in the world.There is none in New York or Chicago, orany of our cities, to compare with it. It is ofFrench design and built of stone, and the in-terior is finished in white marble, gold-bronzeornamentations and rich red drapery and up-holstery. It is not quite as large as theMetropolitan in New York, but, as in theMetropolitan, the two lower tiers of boxesare occupied by the families of the "FourHundred," for their grand opera down thereis just as much of a social function withthem as it is with the smart set in our great-

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eat city; and, as their season is in July andAugust—winter months with them—not afew of the singers that are heard at the Met-ropolitan later on are heard there in theirseason. Above the boxes are two balconiesand a gallery where the gods congregateand howl for encores for all the world likeour own. It appears that they are not veryfond of Wagner and the German music, theseBonarenses, but are keen for the Italian andFrench; so, aside from the opera, competentFrench and Italian companies are broughtover every year for long engagements atother theaters. Also there are French operacomique, Italian farce, and English musicalcomedy companies, French café chant antEnglish music hail and our own vaudevilleentertainers without end, and dramas, evenShakespearean occasionally, and the otherclasses of performances, following each otherat the many theaters continually.

Club life is one of the most attractivefeatures. The Britishers (the heaviest in-vestors of foreign capital), of course, havetheir inevitable cricket, polo, and races—atHurlingham, near the city—and have erecteda substantial country clubhouse, devoted

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largely to the ritualistic five o'clock tea. Thescene on the broad verandas and well-keptlawns is brilliant in the afternoon, with thewhite lace gowns of the women and the whiteflannel and broadside panamas of the men.As the guest looks on at the leisurely gameof cricket and tea—for these rites are sol-emnized together by the comfortable Briton—he can easily imagine himself at Shanghai,Hong Kong, Singapore, or Cape Town,where the same function is taking place at thesame hour of the day, on club grounds almostidentically the same, and to the accompani-ment of the same elaborate conversation:"Well played, old chap." The Germans,Italians, and Spanish also have luxuriousclubhouses, and for the transient visitor theClub de Reddentes Estranjeros affords adelightful retreat. There is even a big, hand-some building for the Y.M.C.A.

Among the fifty or more social organiza-tions in Buenos Aires, the Jockey Club is theArgentine cercie par excellence. Its homeon Calle Florida is of a splendor unsurpassedin clubdom. The guest who is fortunateenough to enjoy its courtesies will be im-pressed by the perfect taste and sumptuous-

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ness of its appointments; the superb marblestairway, the banquet hail, and the famouspictures and sculptures are equaled in butfew of the palaces of Europe. Its wealth,derived from an initiation fee of $4000 andannual dues of $1500 for each member, anda "rake-off" of ten per cent. of the amountswagered at its racetrack, together with gatereceipts, accumulate so rapidly that it is asource of genuine embarrassment to the gov-erning board.

A short time ago the dub voted to de-vote its surplus to the purchase of a dozenblocks in the heart of the city, the idea be-ing to transform the tract into a beautifulboulevard. It would have cost nearly $14,-000,000 in our money. The project wasabandoned, not because of the cost, but onthe ground of impracticability. During theracing season, held under the auspices of theClub at Palermo Park, the Porteno is seen athis best. Paris gowns and picture hats aredisplayed in profusion in the grandstand,lawns, and luxurious victorias and automo-biles that line the course, and with the correctdress and animation of the men, and theprodigality everywhere in evidence (last sea-

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son $25,000,000 was placed on the horses),the scene takes on an aspect truly Parisian.

As might be expected in such a vigorouslymodem city, the severest of the restrictionson social intercourse familiar in Latin capitalsare here impatiently thrust aside. In the fiveo'clock parade of the fashionables that wendsits way toward the beautiful Palermo Parkon Sundays, there are no closed carriages ordark mantillas to conceal the allurements ofthe sefioritas, although many may still hud-dle demurely at the sides of their duefiaswhile they distribute the most decorous ofsmiles among their eager acquaintances ofthe opposite sex. Here palm-bordered Sar-miento Avenue is crowded with carriages andmotor cars six, often eight, rows deep, twostationary in the center and two moving oneither side, in which ride as smartly gownedwomen as may be seen anywhere in America.In the same throng glinpses may be caughtof reigning music-hall \ favorites, at whosesides are usually to be found care-free horse-men' just in from the Camp, mounted onsuperb stallions heavy with silver trappings,and generally with an air of somewhat lesssophisticated enjoyment of the event

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M.

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JOCKEY CLUBS GRANDSTAND AT THE RACE TRACK.

ARGENTINA

There is a prodigality about the Portenoin his pleasures that staggers the visitor fromthe North. Backed by an almost limitlesswealth from cattle ranch or plantation, hescatters his pesos with a princely hand. And,of course, there is the obverse of the picture.There is the under world here, peopledlargely by immigration from the centers ofEuropean unrest, in which there is to befound an extreme of destitution. This is thebreeding place of anarchistic ideas, that fre-quently find expression in violence and thatare surely becoming one of the city's mostserious problems.

The zest for amusement among all classesfinds many outlets. Strolling along the CaMeFlorida, or the Calles Cangallo, Esmeralda,Cuyo, Maipó, and other well-paved, brilliantlyilluminated streets of the theater district,after the fever of the business day has sub-sided, one drops in at the "English Bar," the"Bierhalle," "Confiteria," or "Café Parisien,"and is sure to find a compatriot to join himin the refreshment of his predilection. Or,for the more solid enjoyment of dinner, thevisitor, whether Ffench, North American,Briton, or Turk, can find his favorite national

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dishes excellently served—at the RestaurantCharpentier, where an orchestra, really good,will for the moment take the homesickParisian back to his native boulevards; orat the "Sportsman," where the North Amer-ican is beguiled from his nostalgia bySousa's marches, perhaps, or by biogTaphpictures of steeple-chasers and Orientaldancers; or at Monsch's Restaurant, whichspecializes in the Briton's needs—where, witha look of acute understanding, the head waiterwill permit the guest to select his own Eng-lish mutton chop or steak from the glass-doored ice chest.

The outdoor café life is not as well known,so narrow are the streets; even Calle Flor-ida, which is the essentially fashionable shop-ping street of the central town, is lamentablynarrow. With the exception of the Avenidade Mayo, which runs from the plaza con-taining the Cathedral and President's palaceto the new chambers of Congress, and dividesthe city into its northern and southern sec-tions, and the Avenida Alvear, which leadsfrom the main part of the city to PalermoPark, flanked with costly homes and inter-spersed with gardens and plazas that lend a

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wealth of verdure and flowers to the broadavenue, the streets are so narrow that in thebusiness section vehicles are required by cityordinances to move in the same direction,down one street and up the next. But in thissplendid, stately Avenida de Mayo of hers,which, except in appearance, has the charac-teristics of the business part of New York'sFifth Avenue from Madison Square to thePark, Buenos Aires has a thoroughfare thatrivals Rio's Avenida Central in beauty, and,with its finer hotels and cafés and Frencharchitecture, possesses even more of the at-fractions of & Parisian boulevard.

Buenos Aires is not a city that calls forthe usual precautions taken by travelers. Allthe creature comforts may be had here, al-though, it must be confessed, at a cost greatlyin excess of prices familiar to North Amer-icans. There are good physicians and den-tists, and no less than sixteen hospitals—oneof which, the British Hospital, is a mag-nificently equipped institution, and the onepatronized by the American colony. Thereare electric street cars (which carried 125,-000,000 passengers last year), splendid trainsthat carry passengers in thoroughly modern

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and well-served coaches to almost every partof the settled country, first-class carriages,taxicabs, hotels, department stores, and shopsof every description.

H

Leaving the capital for a general tourthrough Argentina, the visitor will soon cometo appreciate the Porteños division of therepublic into the two parts: Buenos Aires andEl Campo. For the greater part, the Campis a vast plain, covering five hundred millionacres of fiat, fertile soil, with scarcely a nat-ural hillock higher than those thrown up bythe ants, and no depression more markedthan those which the cartwheels have plowed—stretching from horizon to horizon, north,west, and south—vast, silent, and awe-inspir-ing in the majesty of its enormous extentand productiveness—the calm, inexhaustiblebosom which suckles the prodigious infant onthe Plata.

These pampas are the homes of the es-tanciero8, the name given to the masters ofthe great breeding ranches and plantations.Some possess eat and as that are really feudal

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in extent; one, in Patagonia, is as large asthe State of Rhode Island. Their homes andoutbuildings are about the only objects thatgive a human touch to the mile upon mileof cattle ranges, of green maize and goldenwheat, of purple alfalfa and vivid blue lin-seed flower, unless one comes upon the blackmud hut of the colono, or small farmer whoworks the field on shares. An occasionalclump of man-planted trees may also be metwith, and on the fringe of the pampas are afew widely scattered Indian settlements; butthere is little to modify the metaphor of theocean so universally used to describe thesealmost limitless plains. Even the seagullssweep inland for hundreds of miles to add toits effectiveness. When the very heart of thecountry is reached, the traveler may scan thehorizon from every point of the compass andknow that in every direction what lies beyondis exactly the same.

The seasons, which are much like our own,although exactly the reverse in their occur-rence, bring their appropriate activities. Dur-ing the busy harvest period the Camp takeson an aspect of bustle which convinces thetraveler that this great business republic has

215


cast the word "mañana" (to-morrow) for-ever from its "bright lexicon of youth." Har-vesting machines cutting a swath, not fouror six, but fourteen feet in width throughthe wheat fields, threshers with powerfulblasts that pile the straw in great stacks,and on the ranches the great armies ofhorned cattle add the convincing touch to thescene of prosperity.

"A recent census," says the Bulletin of thePan American Union (July, 1911), "showsthat in Argentina there are over 29,000,000bovine cattle, 7,500,000 horses, about 500,000mules and 800,000 asses, over 67,000,000sheep, almost 4,000,000 goats and 1,403,591pigs, with a total value of about $700,000,-000, gold. . . . It is an interesting factthat all the animal food so abundantly sup-plied by this country is the result of stock-ing this incomparably rich land with animalsintroduced from European sources. In pre-Columbian times the only domestic animalspossessed by the natives were the alpaca andHama. The alpaca was grown for its flesh andits fleece, while the llama was used as a beastof burden. In 1585 the Spaniards broughtin horses and asses, and, shortly afterward,

216

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bovine cattle were taken to Asunción (Para-guay) by a Portuguese. In 1569 four thou-sand head were distributed along the regionsof the Rio de la Plata. Sheep came later.At one time, when the natives were exceed-ingly hostile, a few horses and asses wereabandoned on the pampas, and from thatstock have descended the innumerable herdswhich to-day cover the almost limitless plains;

but during recent years Argentinahas imported the best animals obtainable andhas bred with the direct intention of improv-ing the stock as much as possible."

With the cattle rides the gaucho, the cow-boy of the pampas. Dressed in smart poncho(a sort of cape, with a hole for the head togo through), and bright-hued zon&bachos, orwide Turkish trousers, tight-fitting boots,and sombrero, and sitting astride his sad-die, richly ornamented with silver, he pre-sents a sight worth seeing. To the gauchothe Camp is indebted for its only romanceand picturesqueness; he has given to it itssongs and tales of adventure, its tragediesand the brightness of its life. Lithe andgraceful, he is a consummate horseman andrivals his Texan counterpart in feats of

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horsemanship and skill with the lasso. Heis proud, simple-minded, and faithful in hisfriendships, but when aroused to anger by aslight or by deceit, he is as elemental in hisvengefulness—for there is a strain of the oldfierce Tupi-Guarany in the blood of most ofthem—as the early types of his race whoranged the pampas during the so-called me-diteval period of Argentine history. Need-less to say, he has contributed his quota in thewars of the republic and has furnished theinspiration for many a stirring drama in theliterature of the country.

The story of the pampas and the life andhabits of their workers and of the denizensnature has sent to share in their richness, hasbeen told by many writers of our day, notablyby W. H. Koebel, an Englishman, in his re-cently published "Modem Argentina." Itis the story of a great country and a greatbusiness enterprise that is fast spreading itsactivity farther and farther north, west, andsouth—to the north, toward the still savageChaco country and the mountainous provincesof Jujuy, Salta, and Catamarca; to the west,toward the Andean uplands, and southwardto the federal territories in the region that

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was once referred to on the maps as Pata-gonia. Gradually the cattle ranch is beingpushed farther afield to give way to agricul-ture, while the ranehmen in their turn arepenetrating the field of the timber industry.

There is practically no village life in Ar-gentina; there is no middle class between thelordly estanciero and the laborer. The verynecessary element of the small farmer, work-ing his own independent property, is grad-ually being introduced, as the owners of thegreat estates are beginning to subdivide theirholdings. When this new element shall havebeen thoroughly absorbed into the common-wealth, and the nation shall have acquireda "voile," the prosperity of Argentina willbe assured for all time. The developmentof the country is still in its infancy; foryears to come there will be room for anincreasing influx of capital and men whocan take part in the most modern and great-est wealth-producing enterprise on the globe.So far the English and Germans are thechief among the foreign capitalists who havesought out this present-day Eldorado. Thebetter acquaintance with Argentina and theother countries to the south of us, so intel-

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ligently and industriously fostered by the PanAmerican Union at Washington, will, it is tobe hoped, induce a North American financialinvasion of Argentina, an invasion that willbe more than welcomed by the "Yankia" ofthe South.

The traveler who takes the seven-hundred-mile journey westward through the Camp,luxuriously housed in the coaches of theGreat Western Railroad, comes upon a dif-ferent scene and a different life when hereaches the ancient city of Mendoza in thefoothills of the Andes. Here it was that SanMartin recruited and organized his Army ofLiberation, the army with which, emergingsuddenly from its isolated hiding place, hestartled the world by his crossing of theAndes to fall upon the unsuspecting Span-ish. Mendoza is now the center of the wineand fruit industry. It is a thriving, well-supplied little city, with a population of be-tween thirty and forty thousand, comfortablehotels, a theater, and a broad boulevard ofits own, overhung with trees and named forthe great revolutionary leader, where theyhave their band concerts and afternoon car-riage parade just as they do in Buenos Aires.

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Only here, in their rather more dusky com-plexions, lots of the raven-haired, black-eyedoccupants of the carriages show traces of In-than descent.

The development of the wine trade is inkeeping with the phenomenal progress of therest of the country. Although the great bulkof the product is not of the highest quality,the presses turn out each year enormousquantities that bear the labels of Bordeaux,Burgundy, Moselle, and Muscatel, producedfrom the very best imported vines. Otherfruits have been found to grow equally wellin this section: peaches, pears, and plumsreach a high state of culture, while apples,quinces, and cherries do very well. It is theboast of the Argentino that his country iscapable of producing every conceivable kindof fruit, and it is not an idle boast.

At this point—Mendoza—a change of caris made to the less comfortable narrow-gaugeroad that takes the traveler through thefastnesses of the Andes. The route leadsfirst through the peach orchards and vine-yards, with the snow peaks easily distin-guishable in the background. The MendozaRiver, fed by the melting snows on the moun-

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taM tops, tumbles along its way and iscrossed and re-crossed many times en route.Distant about one hundred miles, one comesto the Puente del Inca, the famous naturalbridge spanning a chasm one hundred andfifty feet in width, about which are many na-tive legends of Incarial times, for the bridgeformed part of the great system of roadsbuilt by the Incas. A little farther on, mount-ing to a still higher altitude, the station ofLas Cuevas is reached, the last stop in Ar-gentine territory, and the entrance to thetunnel through the mountain, half a mile be-low the Uspallata Pass—an engineering featdeserving of a chapter by itself. The eleva-tion here is in excess of ten thousand feet,and the scene one of impressive grandeur,fascinating in the kaleidoscope of color thatfloods the gorges and the giant peaks.

Above, at the Cumbre, as the pass at thetop is called, if one forsakes the comforts ofthe passenger coach for mule-back, he canview the now world-famous "Christ of theAndes," a bronze figure of the Prince ofPeace rising to a height of twenty-six feetabove its massive granite pedestal. It waserected to commemorate the peace treaty that

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brought to an end the long-continued dif-ferences between Chile and Argentina. Grow-ing out of the boundary dispute, this con-troversy had become more and more acute asthe long-neglected Patagonian territory in-creased in promise. The boundary, finallyfixed in 1902, by Sir Thomas Holdich's com-mission, runs along the summit of the An-dean ridge. On the base of the monumenta tablet bears the words: "Sooner shallthese mountains crumble to dust than thepeople of Argentina and Chile break thepeace to which they have pledged themselvesat the feet of Christ the Redeemer."

From Carácoles, the Chilean terminus ofthe tunnel, the Transandino-Chileno carriesthe traveler to the station of Los Andes.From here to the port city of Valparaiso,Chile, the route is over the Chilean StateRailroad, which is of standard gauge andpasses through some rich and fertile valleyson its way toward the Pacific.

IIII

To the east of the Cordilleras, and southof the river Negro, stretches the territory

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long known as Patagonia, first in swellingplateaux and then flattening out into a con-tinuation of the upper level pampas. Thisis now the scene of Argentina's advancingsheep industry. For Patagonia, east of theAndean summits, and the east half of Tierradel Fuego were awarded to Argentina bythe boundary arbitrator, King Edward VII,following the report of Sir Thomas Holdich'scommission, and is now divided into the Fed-eral Territories of Rio Negro, Chubut, andSanta Cruz. The land of Patagonia, sonamed by the early explorers from the bigfeet (pata goat) of the Tehuelche Indians,is now reached by steamer to Punta Arenasin Magellan Strait, the southernmost cityon the globe, for the railways of Argentinahave not yet penetrated this country to anyconsiderable extent. In climate it rangesfrom the temperate to extreme cold, like thatof northern Michigan in the winter months.From the time of Darwin, who first tookthe country out of the category of terraincognita, Patagonia has lost most of itsmystery and is now being settled by the di-verted immigration from Buenos Aires. TheScots, English, and Germans have taken up

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large allotments of land, and many New Zea-land sheep men have come over to add theirskill to the leading industry. There are alsocolonies of Boers and Jews.

The Fuegian Archipelago, at the south-em extremity of South America, covers aterritory as large as Nebraska. A tortuous,wind-swept labyrinth of waterways separatesthe hundreds of islands that constitute thisgroup. The largest is Tierra del Fuego,half as large as Illinois. It is divided lon-gitudinally between Chile and Argentina, byfar the larger and more valuable portion hav-ing been awarded to the former by the RoyalArbitrator. The name was given to the archi-pelago by Magellan, when he saw the trailsof smoke from the signal fires of the nativeswho followed his epoch-making course throughthe strait that now bears his name. Very lit-tie of the Fuegian country is under cultiva-tion, although thousands of sheep graze overits rich valleys and verdant plains. Thesouthernmost point, Cape Horn (in Chileanterritory), is a monster rock, bleak and for-bidding, against which the antarctic stormsbeat with such terrific force that, in the olddays of sailing vessels, it was called the head-

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stone of the mariners' most populous grave-yard.

A vastly different scene awaits the travelerwho penetrates into the tropical wilds of thenorthern territories of Argentina. Goingaboard one of the fine steamers of NicholasMihanovitch—the kings of the river traffic—at Buenos Aires, the traveler follows thecourse of the Paraná, which is the main waterhighway of 'Argentina. The trip will takehim through the richest provinces of theCamp, past the busy miniature Buenos Aires,the city of Rosario, which is the port ofshipment for the grain of this region, andup into the tropical scenery and mystery ofthe Chaco and Misiones territories, openingup vistas of prodigious natural growths andriotous beauty, differing in every way fromthe somber majesty of the Fuegian country.The Chaco and the territory of Formosa,adjoining it on the north, are still almostwholly occupied by uncivilized Indians. Upto the present time this region has been ex-ploited chiefly, for the wood of the quebracho(qui-bra-hacha - axe-breaker) tree, whichyields the best quality of tannin and timber

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for railroad ties; it is richer in the formerproduct than any other tree yet discovered.

The picturesqueness of the Paraná Riverscenery along its upper courses has excitedenthusiastic descriptions from all the trav-elers who have penetrated this marvelouscountry. A thousand miles up the river, inMisiones, near the point where Argentina,Paraguay, and Brazil meet, are located thefamous Iguazd Falls. The great cascade,fifty feet higher and with a lateral extent1250 feet greater than Niagara, lies in themidst of a primeval forest. The enormousvolume of water bursts through a series ofthickly wooded islands with a roar that is allthe more impressive to the spectator becauseof the solitude that reigns throughout thisscantily populated region. The hand of manhas done nothing here—no attempt has beenmade to harness the mighty power; naturehas been left alone to revel in. utter abandon.

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