Journeys and Experiences in Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile

by Henry Stephens · English · Gutenberg #44692 · 794,808 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Journeys and Experiences in Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile

Author: Henry Stephens

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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

[Illustration: Henry Stephens, Ph.D.]

[Illustration: Locust Pest in Argentina

Estancia, Santa Isabel, Province Buenos Aires]

[Illustration: Snow in the Tropics

Plaza Pringlés, San Luis, July, 1913]

[Illustration: Reflection of Aconcagua Volcano in the Clouds above
Valparaiso

This rare phenomenon is occasionally seen in April and September at
dawn. The mountain itself is invisible from Valparaiso.]

JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES IN ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, AND CHILE

Including a side trip to the source of the Paraguay River
in the State of Matto Grosso, Brazil, and a journey
across the Andes to the Rio Tambo in Peru

HENRY STEPHENS

Harvard, A.B., Vienna, Ph.D.

FIRST EDITION

The Knickerbocker Press
New York
1920

TO
MR. H. L. MENCKEN, OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
WHO IS CONSIDERED TO BE AMERICA'S FOREMOST CRITIC
OF LITERATURE I GLADLY DEDICATE THIS BOOK OF TRAVELS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

MONTEVIDEO 1

Experience in landing. Population of the city. Conservativeness
of the inhabitants. Gambling establishment at Playa Ramirez.
Train ride to Colonia.

CHAPTER II

BUENOS AIRES 21

Population of the city. Streets and architecture. High cost of
living. Hotels. Beverages. Street beggars and vagabonds. Mariano
Moreno College. Habit of not bathing. Jews. La Plata.

CHAPTER III

SAN LUIS 62

Appearance of the city. Capitol. Plazas. Hotels. Neighboring
country. Character of the natives. Train ride to Mendoza.

CHAPTER IV

MENDOZA 78

Viticulture. Fruit growing. Wheat. Population and appearance of
the city. Earthquake of 1861. Cerrito de la Gloria. Hotels.
Aconcagua. Cacheuta. Across the Andes. Arrival in town of Los
Andes.

CHAPTER V

SALTA AND TUCUMÁN 101

Train ride to Salta. Lerma Valley. Province of Salta. Chuchu
fever. Population of the city of Salta. 20th of February Club.
Churches and San Francisco Monastery. Population of the city of
Tucumán. Capitol. Governor Padilla. Heat of the city. Hotel
Savoy. Kirwin the photographer. Villa Nougués.

CHAPTER VI

CÓRDOBA 130

Province of Córdoba. Description of the city of Córdoba. Great
number of consumptives. Breweries. Streets, religious edifices,
and hotels. Sierra de Córdoba. Cosquin. Locust pest. Rosario; its
hotels. Pergamino. Mercedes.

CHAPTER VII

ASUNCION 155

Train ride from Buenos Aires. Population of Paraguayan districts
and towns. Don Eduardo Schaerer. Currency. Colonnades. Pavement
of Asuncion's streets. Oratory of Lopez. Climate, rains, and
reptiles. Madame Lynch. Hotels. Mangrullo Cemetery. Market-place.
Cigars. Low cost of living. Asuncene womanhood. Unmorality.
Ypacara-i.

CHAPTER VIII

TO THE SOURCE OF THE PARAGUAY RIVER 195

River scenery. Villa Concepcion. San Salvador. State of Matto
Grosso. Corumbá. Lawlessness. By water to Cuyabá. City of Cuyabá.
Huber. Detour to source of river. Bog and pool. Huber becomes
ill; his death. Diamantino. Return to Buenos Aires by river.
Yerba maté.

CHAPTER IX

SANTIAGO 226

Republic of Chile. Central Valley. Longitudinal railways. Paucity
of factories. Breweries. The Chileno. Illegitimacy. Fiesta of the
Angelito. Reception in Santiago. Compactness of the city; its
streets. Installation of the president. Military parade. American
ambassador. Hotels. High death rate. General Cemetery. Apoquindo.

CHAPTER X

BATHS OF CAUQUENES. CHILOÉ ISLAND. LAKE NAHUEL. HUAPI 263

Rancagua. Baths of Cauquenes. Hostelry. Horseback ride to Los
Lirios. Linares. Panimávida. Araucania and its native
inhabitants. Temuco. Valdivia. Osorno. Fire at Osorno. Ancud.
Castro. Lake Llanquihue. El Tronador Puella. Puerto Blest. Lake
Nahuel Huapi. San Carlos de Bariloche.

CHAPTER XI

CHILLÁN. ASCENT OF THE VOLCANO CHILLÁN 312

Description of the city. Hotel de France. Earthquake. Chillán
Viejo. Birthplace of O'Higgins. Journey to Las Termas de Chillán.
Establishment of Las Termas. Gambling. Episode of the
administrator's brother. Snowfields and glaciers. Eruption of
volcano. Don Vicente Mendez U. Curicó.

CHAPTER XII

NORTHWARD TO ANTOFAGASTA BY RAIL. COPIAPÓ, ANTOFAGASTA, AND 347
IQUIQUE

Greenberg's adventure. San Felipe. Jahuel. Palm groves. Choapa
Valley. Illapel. La Serena. Vallenar. Oasis of Copiapó.
Retrogressant provincial capital. Professor Platner. Desert.
Prosperity of Antofagasta. Strict prohibition laws. Bubonic
plague. Pestilential Tocopilla. Description of Iquique.

CHAPTER XIII

ARICA TO ILO OVERLAND, VIA TACNA, TARATA, AND MOQUEGUA. MOLLENDO 387

Dr. Petit. Morro of Arica. Dispute between Chile and Peru over
Tacna and Arica. Architect Pitaud. Description of Tacna. Peculiar
architecture. Hotel Raiteri. Don Santiago Carmona. Caplina
Valley. Ascending the Andes, Tarata. Parish priest. Tales of
buried treasure. Hacienda Carmona. Ticalco and Sama Valleys.
Stupidity of Peruvian jefe politico. Ilabaya. Dishonest cholo and
Prat's spree. Don José Vergara. Moquegua. Ilo. Stinking Mollendo.
Arrival at Callao.

CHAPTER XIV

LIMA 434

Architecture of Callao. Mixed population of Lima and its seaport.
Origin of Lima. Rimac River. Interesting city. Its population.
Confusion of street names. Concepcion Market. Religious edifices
and procession of El Milagro. Hotels and cafés. Difficulty in
getting money changed. Crookedness of post office officials.
General Cemetery. Viceroys of Peru.

CHAPTER XV

ACROSS THE CORDILLERA TO THE RIO TAMBO 470

Departure from Oroya. Across the Cumbre. Tarma. Valley of the Rio
Palca. Huacapistana. Tropical vegetation. Swinging bridges. San
Ramon. La Merced and the Chanchamayo River. Chuncho, Campas, and
Cashibo Indians. Perené Colony. Down the Ucayali. Iquitos. Head
hunting Indians.

CHAPTER XVI

BUSINESS PROSPECTS IN ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, AND CHILE 496

Knowledge of Spanish and of the Latin character a necessity.
Companies should be fully capitalized. Wheat belt of Argentina.
Argentina poor in fuel and in minerals. Zona del Riego. Flour
mills and beef canning factories. Stock raising and great
ranches. Tannic acid factories. Grafting politicians. Breweries
and sugar mills. Yerba maté industry in Paraguay. Bright outlook
for Chile. Topography of the country. Nitrate, minerals, and
viticulture. Breweries. Enamel works. Railroads of Chile. Great
need of good hotels.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Henry Stephens, Ph.D.
Locust Pest in Argentina
Snow in the Tropics
Reflection of Aconcagua in the Clouds above
Valparaiso _Frontispieces_
Colonia, Uruguay 19
Congress Building, Buenos Aires 23
Buenos Aires Types 25
Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires 27
Mr. Oliver H. Lane 29
Calle Bartolome Mitré, Buenos Aires 31
Fireman and Policeman, Buenos Aires 33
Zoölogical Garden, Buenos Aires 35
Scene on the River at Tigre 53
Station of the Southern Railway, La Plata 55
Old Railway Station, La Plata 56
Bank of the Argentine Nation, La Plata 57
Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires, La Plata 58
Allegorical Statue of La Plata 59
Unfinished Cathedral, La Plata 60
Plaza San Martin, Mercedes 63
Street in San Luis 65
Bank of the Argentine Nation, San Luis 66
Capitol, San Luis 68
Matriz Church, San Luis 70
Estancia near San Luis 73
Statue of San Martin, Mendoza 84
Avenida San Martin, Mendoza 85
Monument to the Army of the Andes, Mendoza 89
Waiting for the Train at Cacheuta 94
On the Terrace at Cacheuta 95
Thermal Establishment at Cacheuta 97
One of the Diversions at Cacheuta that is neither
Bathing nor Gambling 98
Steps at Cacheuta Leading from the Railroad
Station to the Hotel 99
Güemes 107
Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, Salta 109
Tomb in Cemetery, Salta 113
Calle Mitre, Salta 116
Capitol, Tucumán 121
Calle Laprida, Tucumán 123
Residence of Dr. Juan C. Nougués, San Pablo 127
Country House at Villa Nougués 128
Northern Market, Córdoba 133
Cathedral of Córdoba 137
Residence of Martin Ferreyra, Córdoba 138
Church of Santa Teresa, Córdoba 139
Zoölogical Garden, Córdoba 141
Corner of Plaza San Martin, Córdoba 142
Bridge on Road to Dique San Roque 144
Courthouse, Rosario 147
Street Scene, Rosario 148
Plaza 25 de Mayo, Rosario 149
Street Scene, Rosario 150
Calle San Nicolas, Pergamino 151
Plaza 25 de Mayo, Pergamino 152
Street in Mercedes 153
Scene from Railroad Station at Villa Rica 162
Casa de Gobierno, or Capitol, Asuncion 167
Drawing Showing Construction of Colonnades on
a Paraguayan Building 170
Cabildo, or City Hall, Asuncion 171
Plazoleta del Puerto, Asuncion 172
Calle Palmas, Asuncion 173
Calle 15 de Agosto, Asuncion 174
Street Scene, Outskirts of Asuncion 175
Mangrullo Cemetery, Asuncion 184
Street Scene, Cuyabá 205
Street Scene, Outskirts of Cuyabá 206
Source of the Paraguay River 213
House in Diamantino where Huber Died 220
Diagram Showing Idea of Central Valley of Chile
in Relationship to the Andes Mountains and
the Coast Range, with Course of Streams 227
Scenery, Central Valley of Chile 229
Village Scene, Central Chile 230
The Valdivia Breweries Company, Valdivia 233
Santa Lucia Hill, Santiago 239
General View of Santiago from Santa Lucia Hill 241
Alameda, Santiago 242
Calle Huerfanos, Santiago 243
Modern Residence on the Alameda, Santiago 244
Calle Ejercito Liberador, Santiago 245
Fountain in Santiago 247
President Don Juan Luis Sanfuentes of Chile with
Cabinet 248
Monument of Don Pedro Montt, Cementerio Jeneral,
Santiago 249
View Looking West on Compañia Street from
Estado at the Plaza de Armas, Santiago 251
Cathedral Street, Santiago 252
Mapocho River near Santiago 256
Street in Nuñoa, Chile 261
Plaza O'Higgins, Rancagua 264
Calle Bresil, Rancagua 265
Street in Rancagua 266
Gorge of the Cachapoal at Baños de Cauquenes 268
Main Street of Linares 277
Panimávida 278
Bridge over the Malleco River at Collipulli 283
Street in Temuco 287
Plaza de la Republica, Valdivia 289
Calle-Calle River at Valdivia, Showing Flour
Mills 291
Street in Valdivia 292
Riñihue Landscape, Southern Chile 293
Osorno 295
Scenery on the Railroad between Osorno and
Puerto Montt 297
Indian Belles, Chiloé Island, Chile 301
Lake Todos Santos from Petrohué 304
Puella 306
El Tronador, Chile 308
San Carlos de Bariloche 311
Plaza O'Higgins, Chillán 314
Calle Roble, Chillán, Looking East from Calle
Arauco 315
Street in Chillán 316
Market Place, Chillán 317
Scene at the Station at Pinto 322
Post Station at La Dehesa 323
Harvesting Scene at La Dehesa 324
Mountain in the Renegado Canyon, Chile 325
Corral of Las Trancas 326
Forest in the Province of Ñuble, Chile 327
Scene on the Road to Termas de Chillán 328
Termas de Chillán 329
Casuchas at Termas de Chillán 330
Mr. Henry Stephens 333
Mr. Hugo Gumprecht 333
View towards the Argentine Frontier from the
Slopes of Volcano Chillán 334
Glacier Covered with Fresh Snow on the Volcano 335
Rim of the Crater of Volcano Chillán During
Eruption 337
Snow Fields of Volcano Chillán 337
From the Slopes of Volcano Chillán 339
Savedra, Gumprecht, and Prat on Lava Fields of
Volcano Chillán 339
Mountain Scenery and Waterfall at Las Trancas 343
Church in San Felipe 348
City Hall, San Felipe 349
Street in San Felipe 352
Street in Almendraz 353
Jahuel 356
Ocoa 359
Street in Vallenar 362
Alameda in Copiapó 363
Monument Erected in Honor of Atacama's Illustrious
Dead, Copiapó 364
Main Street of Copiapó 365
Main Street of Copiapó 366
Outskirts of Copiapó 367
Hovels on the Outskirts of Copiapó 368
Cemetery, Copiapó 369
Plaza Colon, Antofagasta 374
Provincial Capitol Building, Antofagasta 375
Street in Antofagasta 377
Street in Tocopilla 380
Cemeteries at Tocopilla 382
Street in Iquique 384
Street in Iquique 385
Cemetery, Iquique 386
Custom House, Arica 388
Street in Arica 389
Capitol Building at Tacna 392
Street in Tacna Showing Earthquake Proof Houses 393
Calle Bolivar, Tacna 394
Fountain in Tacna 395
Unfinished Cathedral in Tacna 396
Style of Tacna Architecture 397
Old Residence, Tacna 398
Street in Tacna 399
Calle Miller, Tacna 400
Alameda, Tacna 401
Street in Tarata 406
Street in Ilabaya, Peru 423
Alameda, Moquegua 426
Street in Moquegua 428
Street in Moquegua 429
Callao Harbor 435
Puente Vieja, Lima, as Seen from the Bed of the
Rimac 438
Calle Huallaga, Lima 440
Plaza Italia, Lima. Vendors of Bread 441
Plazuela de la Inquisicion, Lima 442
Boulevard in Lima 444
Façade of San Augustin Church, Lima 447
Procession of the Milagro, Lima 449
Cercado Church, Lima 460
Tomb of the Goyeneche Family, in the General
Cemetery, Lima 461
Mr. Kurt Waldemar Linn of New York 462
Mr. Linn of New York Rising out of the Tomb
Erected in Honor of the Peruvian Heroes of
the Pacific War, 1879-1882 463
Corpse Bearer, General Cemetery, Lima 464
Putting a Coffin into a Niche, General Cemetery,
Lima 465
Llamas at Casapalca 474
Tarma, Peru 477
Cemetery, Tarma 479
Argentine Plazas. Plate No. I 521
Argentine Plazas. Plate No. II 523
Chilean Plazas. Plate No. III 525
Map Showing Route Taken by Author _At End_

Journeys and Experiences in Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile

CHAPTER I

MONTEVIDEO

In my former book, _South American Travels_, I made a statement
relative to the pronunciation of the word "Montevideo" as follows:
"Many foreigners make the mistake of pronouncing the name of the
city with the accent on its penultima 'e'. Each syllable should be
pronounced alike, with no distinction made as onto which syllable
the accent falls." I have since found out that I was wrong, and am
convinced so by my losing a ten-dollar bet with a gentleman relative
to the pronunciation of the Uruguayan metropolis. Montevideo has its
accent on the penultima. The word is derived from the Latin "_Montem
video_" the final _m_ in _montem_ having been dropped to facilitate
pronunciation. Its site was first discovered by Magellan in 1520, and
as the 493 feet high dun-colored _cerro_, which dominates the western
side of the harbor on whose shores the city is now built, appeared on
the occidental horizon, somebody at the bow of the ship yelled out,
"Montem video" ("I see a mountain"), which words gave the city its
present name. It can be safely assumed that the man at the bow who
uttered the Latin exclamation was a priest or a friar because who
amongst a crew of sailors and adventurers would have a knowledge of
Latin unless it was a man who had taken Holy Orders? The Spaniards
and Portuguese in those days never embarked on any expedition without
taking some of these gentry along.

Montevideo is sometimes called "Queen of La Plata" on account of its
cleanliness, haughty reserve, and aristocratic appearance; more often
has it been styled "Modern Troy" due to decades of internecine strife,
anarchy, revolutions, and a Ten Years' War. Now that there has been
quietude for several years, with prospects of continued peace, it is
unfair to its inhabitants to liken it to the prehistoric city at the
southeastern end of the Hellespont.

Several times during the years 1915 and 1916, I visited Montevideo,
having made occasional trips from Buenos Aires, but an episode
connected with my last advent on Uruguayan shores will take an
indefinitely long time to erase it from my memory. It was like this:

On February 17, 1916, I had embarked on the Lamport & Holt steamship
_Vestris_ at La Plata for Montevideo to bid farewell to friends
returning to the United States. The steamer was scheduled to sail from
Montevideo at 2 P.M. the next day.

When that time came I was in the dining room, and was so engrossed in
a conversation that appealed to me that I never heard the ringing of
bells and the blowing of whistles that denote that an ocean leviathan
is about to get under way. Suddenly an acquaintance, Mr. Lynn B. Packer
of Norwich, N. Y., ran into the dining room calling out: "The ship is
in motion, Stephens, we are in for it!" We both ran up the stairs and
onto the deck. True enough, the _Vestris_ was sailing but at a snail's
pace, and the anchor was being pulled up. The lighter containing the
visitors had left and was now but a black speck behind the breakwater.
Not even a fishing boat was in sight. We ran to the port side, and saw
a few hundred feet away a rowboat in which were two men pulling away.
We yelled to them and waved our handkerchiefs; they stopped. We took
off our coats and waved them also; they swung their rowboat around
and rowed back towards us. A steward and a couple of sailors got a
rope-ladder which they hung over the railing of the deck, and down
this Packer and myself clambered, and jumped into the rowboat which had
now reached the sides of the _Vestris_. The two men of the rowboat now
pulled out to let the ocean liner pass by, so as not to get caught in
the vortex of water caused by the propellers.

The sea was rough; a leaden sky cast a gloomy canopy over the leaden
water; to the left rose the dun-colored cerro crowned by its prison
and lighthouse. In the background nearly two miles away, seemed to rise
in tiers, the somber buildings of drab Montevideo, the twin towers of
the cathedral, the Gothic steeple of a church, and a large rectangular
pile at the water's edge, which was formerly the university, being
silhouetted against the sky line. Black hulls of ships, merchantmen,
and freighters flying the flags of most civilized nations, besides the
interned German ships of the Kosmos Line, dotted the harbor and the
open sea outside of the breakwater, but we were at least half a mile
from the nearest one of them.

We now began to size up the two boatmen. They were a villainous
looking pair. The one who acted as the boss was an undersized man about
thirty-five years old. He wore a black moustache, and about two weeks
stubble of beard. His hair was unkempt, and white mucus had collected
at the corners of his mouth and eyes. He stunk of garlic, and his
clothes were dirty and greasy. His companion was a tall and slender
man, a few years his junior. His appearance was likewise unkempt,
although his long face, covered with pimples, was clean shaven, except
for an occasional straggling whisker on his chin which his razor had
overlooked.

The boss boatman, knowing me to be a North American, attempted to
converse with me in English, but his knowledge of that tongue was
so execrable that he soon had to desist; he knew but a few words of
Spanish. By mixing lingoes we made ourselves understood and he informed
me that he was a resident of Rio de Janeiro, of which city he was a
native, and that he was at present employed as a doctor on a Brazilian
passenger ship in Montevideo, and that his regular trips were from
Manaos on the Amazon to Montevideo, touching at all the seaports; his
comrade, he informed me, was a Paulista and was the Marconi operator on
the same ship. Both had been making a visit to the different ships now
anchored in Montevideo harbor, having had chats with the doctors and
Marconi-men of said ships, and were returning to their own vessel when
hailed by us.

This yarn I refused to believe, for no man that I had ever seen had
a more unmedical appearance than the boss boatman; moreover instead
of attempting to row us to the docks, both men were rowing towards
the Brazilian vessel, which we were approaching, and which belied its
title of a passenger ship, having more the appearance of a freighter.
The sea, as I said, was rough, and I yelled to the boatmen to swing
around as I had no desire to be carried into the South Atlantic in an
open boat; my misgivings were not so much on account of the elements,
as for the thought that I became obsessed with, namely that these two
vagabonds were trying to shanghai us, endeavoring to get us aboard
the Brazilian ship. Montevideo, Valparaiso, and Callao are noted as
tough ports, where shanghaiing is rife, and many of these stories were
brought to my mind. To Packer, who lay reposing in the stern, I told
my doubts. He replied that he had been thinking the same thing for
some time. I told him the best thing for us to do would be to ask for
the oars so that we could row back to shore ourselves; in case the
boatmen refused, to rush them, and lay them out. He said he was game
for a fight but refused to row, giving some excuse which I interpreted
in meaning that he was too lazy. I had nothing but a pocket knife with
me, and in case of a fight, meant to plant the blade in some vulnerable
spot in the anatomy of the boss boatman, whom I took to be the boss
villain.

We had gradually been drifting out in the open sea, and the waves were
becoming rougher. These were also unpleasant thoughts, especially since
during the last few minutes the Brazilians had developed a streak of
laziness. Packer gave me a wink which was the cue, and I asked for the
oars. Great was my astonishment and also relief of mind, when instead
of refusing my request which would have brought on a sanguinary fight
with possible loss of life to one or more of us, the boss boatman
handed me the oars. The Paulista, ready for a siesta, even though the
sea was rough, dropped his oars beside his comrade, and turned over
on his side for a snooze. All alone, with no help, I had to row the
three occupants back, as each refused to labor any more. It took me two
hours, hard pulling, before we again reached the dock at Montevideo.
Believing that the "doctor" stunt was a lie, and that both were sailors
from the Brazilian vessel, I offered the boatmen a piece of change for
their aid in bringing us to terra firma, for unless they had taken us
in their rowboat we would by this time be well under way for Santos.
The boss boatman was indignant and informed me that I was insulting
him. I then handed out some silver to the "Marconi" operator; he was
on the point of accepting it, but withdrew his hand at a growl of
disapproval from the "doctor."

"You had better have some refreshment," I said to them, leading the way
to a nearby bar. They followed me and seating themselves at the same
table with us, ordered some raspberry soda. This was astonishment No.
2, for I could hardly conceive such villainous-looking rascals imbibing
anything milder than one hundred proof whiskey.

"See this ring," quoth the Fluminense, turning a finger to me so
that I could see within the gold setting, a black stone in which was
chiselled the image of a serpent: "It denotes the cult of Æsculapius.
Most Brazilian doctors wear them. I have been on the same ship for
three years. Here is my card." The man pulled a book out of his pocket
similar to a lodge pass-book at home, and true enough I saw that he was
telling the truth, and that he really was a bona fide physician.

We must have sat at the table for about fifteen minutes, when the
Marconi operator got into a row with the waiter, whom he claimed
overcharged him the day before on a dish of ice cream. The waiter
called the proprietor and a big rumpus occurred. It wound up by the
Paulista pulling a fist full of nickle-in-the-slot machine slugs out
of his pocket and hurling them with great force into the face of the
outraged proprietor. Before he could recover his astonishment, both
Brazilians "beat it" in the direction of the docks. Packer and I,
anticipating trouble, also "beat it," but up the hill. No man likes
to chase another up hill. In case any reader of this article should go
to Montevideo, and would like to know where this particular café is, I
wish to inform him that it is situated at the southwest corner of the
streets, Rampla and Alzaibar.

That same night as I was standing on the Plaza Matriz in front of
the Hotel Lanata, I was accosted by a very clean-looking gentleman,
immaculately dressed in black, wearing spats, and carrying a small
cane. I thought it was a case of mistaken identity and was about
to pass on, when to my amazement I recognized the doctor. The
transformation was complete. He could now pass for a boulevardier while
before he had the air of a cutthroat. He informed me that he had rowed
back to his ship, changed his attire, and had returned to shore by a
motor boat.

The city of Montevideo has about four hundred thousand inhabitants
exclusive of suburbs, and stretches over quite an area of land, due to
the broad streets and lowness of its houses. It is built around the
harbor and also along the Atlantic Ocean which is separated from the
harbor by a hill in the shape of a whaleback. At the western end of the
harbor is the cerro which marks the mouth of the La Plata and which is
the only hill worthy of the name until that of Lambaré is reached one
thousand miles up the river, the landmark for Asuncion. The whaleback
is the business part of the city, although the shopping district has
now a tendency to spread more eastward. The gradient to the top of
the whaleback on which lies the Calle Sarandi, one of the principal
streets of the city, is gentle, but yet I have several acquaintances
who refused to walk it, preferring to go from the docks to the Plaza
Matriz in a taxicab. One of these men is Mr. Oliver H. Lane, formerly
of Washington before that city was made "dry," but who, because that
calamity befell the National Capital, moved to Boston. One day in
December, 1915, he, Packer, and I started from the docks uptown on
foot. After we had gone two blocks, Lane planted his back against the
wall of a building and said:

"What do you take me for? Do you think I want to walk to Paraguay?"

As there were no taxicabs around, Packer and I were obliged to walk
about three-quarters of a mile to the Plaza Matriz to get one to return
for Lane, whom we found in the same identical spot with his back still
against the wall.

Montevideo ranks according to the tonnage of vessels entering and
clearing its harbor as the ninth port in the world, surpassing all
South American cities in this respect. Until about fifty years ago,
it was the metropolis of the La Plata watershed. About that time
Buenos Aires passed it, and to-day the population of the Argentine
metropolis is four times larger. Montevideo has a fine harbor; Buenos
Aires has none. The Uruguayan back country is richer than the country
behind Buenos Aires. Montevideo has a wonderful climate, cool,
invigorating, with a fresh breeze always blowing; Buenos Aires has
a humid, enervating, somewhat depressing climate. With these natural
superiorities, one would think Montevideo would outrank Buenos Aires
but not so. Buenos Aires has always had a spirit of progression, which
has become contagious and has spread to Rosario, and to Bahia Blanca;
Montevideo has always been conservative, entirely wrapped in herself,
indifferent to other cities. Uruguay, which is the smallest republic in
South America, has an area of only 72,210 square miles, not as large
as the province of Buenos Aires alone. Of its population of 1,042,668
inhabitants, one half live within a radius of twenty miles from the
center of the city of Montevideo. The difference between Buenos Aires
and Montevideo is so great that it is difficult to realize that they
are separated only by a night's run of 190 knots.

The topography of the city is a succession of low hills which flank
the harbor. They continue to the cerro, seven miles around the
semi-circular harbor, and on their sides and summits are built a
succession of villages not included in the incorporation limits of
Montevideo. On the cerro rise the whitewashed houses of the town of
Villa del Cerro, while at its bottom slopes near the La Plata mouth
there is a large eucalyptus grove of dark green color, a landmark for
many miles at sea.

There was but little building done in Montevideo between the years 1912
and 1916; in fact I could see no change, although I have no doubt but
that the population is increasing on a normal scale. The monotony of
the appearance of the residential streets is impressing. Each street
has the same cobblestone pavement; on each street there are sycamore
trees between the pavement and the sidewalk; the houses are mostly the
same, one and two stories high, built of the same material and offering
absolutely no contrast in architecture, in size, or color to the
thousands like them in the Uruguayan metropolis. This same condition
must have existed since the Colonial times, because one writer, whose
book written about 1830 I recently read, said in his description of
Montevideo that on account of the great similarity of the houses and
absence of street numbers, drunken men frequently mistook houses of
other people for their own and entered them at different times of the
day and night causing much embarrassment and confusion.

The residences of the wealthier inhabitants do not have this monotonous
uniformity. They are villas, set back from the street in large gardens
and lawns, enclosed by low brick walls. In architecture they are light
and resemble the houses of the aristocracy of Rio de Janeiro. Compared
with the palatial homes of the Buenos Aires millionaires they are
inexpensive. The Avenida Agraciada is the main residential street, but
the Avenida Brazil in the suburb of Pocitos has many fine homes, some
of which are the summer abodes of Argentinos who like to spend the
hottest months of the summer by the seashore. The very finest mansion
in the city is on the Plaza Zabala, the loafers' park, in the business
section on the whaleback, and not far from the docks. It is owned by an
Italian who wished to have his residence near to his place of business.

The main shopping streets are Sarandi and Rincon. These are parallel
and are but one block apart. The Avenida 18 de Julio, like the Avenida
de Mayo in Buenos Aires, is the parade street. It is a beautiful broad
avenue about a mile and a half long, and runs eastward from the Plaza
Independencia. Seven blocks up it is interrupted in its course by
the Plaza Libertad, formerly named Sagancha. It is one of the finest
streets in South America. Many of the streets have old Indian names
peculiar to the country such as Timbo, Yaro, Tacuarembo, Yaguaron, Yí,
Cuareim, Ibicui, Ituzaingo, Guarani, etc. It is pleasant to see this
change in street names after a sojourn in Argentina where in each city
the nomenclatures of the streets never vary, with the omnipresent San
Martin, Tucumán, Córdoba, Corrientes, La Rioja, and many others.

Montevideo and its suburbs on the ocean are the great bathing resorts
of South America and are visited annually by more people than Mar del
Plata, the latter place being exclusively for the rich. On account
of its proximity to Buenos Aires, it is resorted to daily by great
numbers of tourists, who make the night trip across the La Plata River.
Pocitos is the most popular bathing resort. The poor natives do their
swimming from the rocks on the ocean front near the heart of the city.
They are invariably garbed _à la_ Adam, and are visible by all the
occupants of the electric tramcars that pass along that shore. The most
aristocratic beach in Montevideo is the Playa Ramirez but people do
not flock to that section as much for bathing as they do for gambling.
Everything goes in Montevideo. The exclusive and expensive Parque
Hotel at the Playa Ramirez, the show place of costly raiment, and of
sparkling gems which embellish the figures of their wearers, has in
connection the finest gambling house in America, roulette and baccarat
being the attractions. The Parque Hotel, which was formerly under the
management of a naturalized United States citizen, Edward Aveglio, is
now under the same management as the Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires, and
is considered to be one of the best seashore hotels in South America.
It is patronized largely by Argentine aristocracy.

The gambling establishment, probably after those of Monte Carlo and
San Sebastian the most luxurious edifice of its kind in existence,
opens at 5 P.M. and closes at 7.30 P.M. It reopens at 9 P.M. and closes
at 2 A.M. A fee of one peso ($1.04) is charged to enter. One peso is
the lowest permissible play on any single number at roulette and one
hundred pesos is the highest. Unlike the Argentine roulette wheels
which have a 0 and a 00, this one has but a single zero which gives the
player (or rather the victim) one nineteenth of a better show to win,
if successful.

The same class of crowd that graces most European casinos is seen
here at its zenith. There is present the nervous individual, who
wants the public to think he has a system. To make them believe it, he
pretends to study a chart and makes pencil notations. When he loses,
he mutters an unintelligible exclamation. There also grace the scene
fat dowagers with paste diamond necklaces. Some women who have wasted
their allowance on bridge and poker, and are now in the clutches of
the moneylender, come here to attempt to retrieve their fortune on
one final coup, in most cases their swan song. Bankers, diplomats,
millionaires, and cabinet officers from Buenos Aires, a president of
one of the Latin republics are to be seen. Young fops are in evidence,
not to play, but to ogle the raft of glorious girls always to be found
in propinquity to tables of chance.

The casino does a great bar business in champagne cocktails to the tune
of forty-one cents a glass. This champagne cocktail, regardless of its
high price, seems to be one of the favorite strong drinks there. The
soft drink that tickles the palate of the Montevideanos is a nauseating
concoction named _palta_. It is made of orange juice, pineapple juice,
sugar, and the yolk of an egg; to it is added siphon water. It is
then stirred, and served in a large goblet. I tried some of it as an
experiment and am sorry that I did not stick to beer, for the egg that
the mixologist used in my palta was rotten. In R. Bibondo's Brazilian
coffee house on Suipacha Street in Buenos Aires, I once received a
piece of cake in whose making a rotten egg was likewise used.

Although the Grand Hotel Lanata cannot be called first-class in any
respect, excepting the restaurant which is the best in the city, it
is far better for the unaccompanied male visitor to stop there than at
the Parque, on account of its central location. It takes twenty minutes
by electric car to reach the Parque from the Plaza Independencia. It
costs $1.20 to reach it by taxicab. The Grand Hotel Lanata of Ximines
and Santamarina is in the central part of the city on the Plaza
Constitucion (formerly called the Plaza Matriz) and is convenient
for shoppers and sightseers. The Oriental near the docks is a good
hotel, but the glass-roofed parlor and lobby is malodorous from poor
ventilation. Other good hotels are the Colon, Barcelona, and Florida
Palace. Regarding the last-mentioned place, I must state that its
proprietor is a Brazilian who does not draw the color line as to his
clientele.

Worthy of interest are the cathedral, the Solis theatre, the central
market, the colonnaded buildings on the Plaza Independencia, the new
university, the central cemetery, and the Uruguaya brewery.

The cathedral is a twin-towered and domed majestic structure on the
Plaza Constitucion with an elaborately decorated chapel. Four golden
suns (the sun is the emblem of Uruguay) are painted on an azure
background on the wall beneath the dome. The rays of the natural sun
above, penetrating the yellow and blue skylights of the dome, cast
weird and ghostly lights in the interior.

The Uruguaya brewery is on the Calle Yatai, to the west of the center
of the city, but nearly two miles from the downtown business section.
It is best reached by electric tramcar. The reason for a visit to it is
the large beer hall like the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, and whose replica
is to be found nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere. There are
large bare tables, with chairs and benches. The visitor sits at one of
these. He need not give an order for no sooner is he seated than a full
schuper of foaming elixir is placed in front of him. When he has had
enough, he turns his empty mug bottom up, otherwise it is a sign that
his thirst has not been quenched and that he is in line for another
one, which is immediately set in front of him.

The specialties of Montevideo are the polished agates and stones common
to Uruguay. These are found in abundance in the department of Minas,
and although expensive are fine souvenirs. No tourist should visit
the city without taking some away as they make admirable gifts to
friends at home. They are made into paper weights, paper cutters, stamp
holders, buttons, etc. The best ones are dark blue; next come the smoky
gray. Also beautiful, but cheaper, are the brick red ones, and those
that are a combination of black and white.

A beautiful pink lily graces the lawns of the Avenida Agraciada. In
shape it is like our common orange red milk lily but unlike the milk
lily which grows in racemose clusters on a single stalk this Uruguayan
lily has but one blossom. It is hardy and should thrive in the United
States.

A gastronomic delicacy of Montevideo is the lobster which is caught on
the Uruguayan littoral, and which is seldom to be procured in Buenos
Aires restaurants.

Montevideo vies with Rio de Janeiro as being one of the cleanest cities
in the Western Hemisphere; like Rio de Janeiro, its taxicabs and
public automobiles for hire are the best in the Western Hemisphere.
The Montevideano drivers are reckless, and one day while out driving
in the suburbs in a hired motor car, the chauffeur tried to drive his
machine through a narrow place with the result that he drove into a
five-mule-power wagon and smashed the left headlight and dented the
hood for his pains. Returning by the same road shortly afterwards,
he met the same wagon, and angered drove into the mules for revenge.
This caused much annoyance as the mule driver, not knowing that the
automobile was a public vehicle; believed that it belonged to me and
that I had set the chauffeur up to this nefarious trick. The latter,
being a cur, stood safely to one side while I and the teamster had
the altercation. Although we nearly came to blows on account of the
chauffeur's scurvy stunt, the latter never opened his mouth to help me
out of the difficulty.

The Uruguayan metropolis is the congregating place of desperadoes,
ruffians, and other gentry of similar character from Argentina, and
other nations. They loiter about the entrances of the disreputable
saloons and sailors' dives and by their drunken actions and foul
speech make it impossible for a respectable woman to pass down any of
the streets near the docks without an escort. Argentina, glad to be
ridden of this class of social outcast, makes no effort to extradite
them unless they have committed some major crime. Here in Montevideo,
they "raise hell" and scarcely a day goes by without the newspapers
mentioning some murder, assault, or burglary that has taken place.

One of these gentry, a Cockney, evidently mistaking me for one of
his kind, approached me one day as I sat in front of a café under the
colonnades in the Plaza Independencia, and asked me for a job. He said:

"I ham not a bit particular what kind of a job it be," and drawing near
to my ear, he let his voice drop as he spoke: "I hax no questions. If
there be hanybody you'd like to put out of the way, Hi'm the man to do
it."

Not many people traveling between Montevideo and Buenos Aires ever
think of making the trip otherwise than on one of the palatial steamers
of the Mihanovich Line which ply between the two ports in a night's
run. The luxurious steamers _Ciudad de Buenos Aires_ and the _Ciudad
de Montevideo_, and the smaller but admirable _Londres_ and _Lisboa_,
are in the height of the season jammed with passengers nearly to
overcrowding. Tired of gazing upon the sluggish and muddy La Plata
River and eager to see the Uruguayan landscape, I decided to make the
trip by rail as far as Colonia and thence make the twenty-five mile
crossing to Buenos Aires on one of the smaller boats.

Colonia, capital of the department of the same name, is 153 miles
distant by rail from Montevideo. Trains run thrice a week only, on
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, making the return trip the next day,
and their running time is seven hours and fifteen minutes, the speed
including stops being slightly over twenty-one miles an hour.

I left Montevideo on the Central Railroad one morning at 6.15 A.M., and
thirty-five minutes later entered the department of Canelones at the
large village of Las Piedras. The landscape during that short distance
and even as far as 25 de Agosto, where the department of San José is
entered was a monotonous succession of low rolling hills, with low,
long red brick and whitewashed _estancia_ buildings set back from the
country roads, at the edge of eucalyptus and pepperberry groves. Herds
of fat cattle and sheep browsed in the pastures tended by shepherd
boys with long-haired dogs. Between Las Piedras and 25 de Agosto a
small city was passed. Its name is Canelones and was formerly called
Guadelupe. It is the capital of Canelones and lies to east of the
railroad between it and a river named the Canelon Chico. The rivers,
Canelon Grande and Canelon Chico give the name to the province.

25 de Agosto is nothing but a railroad junction with some repair shops.
The main line of the Central Railroad runs north to the Brazilian
frontier at Rivera, and is here joined by the branch that goes westward
to Colonia. The department of San José which is now entered, presents a
different aspect than Canelones for the trees which had hitherto been
present in abundance around the estancias, had now disappeared. The
country had become more rolling, and to the westward a low range of
hills appeared on the horizon. As far as the eye could see, a canopy of
yellow dried prairie grasses bedecked the parched and blistered soil,
sweltering beneath the scorching rays of the hot February sun. All
over this seething landscape, roamed at will, half wild cattle, long
and gaunt. It is as much as a man's life is worth to venture on foot
amidst a herd of these Uruguayan cattle. They seldom attack a horseman,
knowing that he has them at an advantage, but the foot traveler should
be wary, for the quadrupeds know the tables are turned, and will
charge and gore him to death on sight. Birds of the genus Struthio,
spoken of as ostriches, but which in reality belong to the branch named
cassowaries, as they have three toes instead of two like the ostrich,
and no tufted tail feathers like the latter, mingle with these nomadic
cattle; so does the timid deer, unafraid and on terms of comradery, for
it is only against man that these beasts have animosity.

The city of San José, one of the largest in Uruguay, whose population I
imagine is about fifteen thousand inhabitants, is reached at 9.11 A.M.
It is pleasantly situated on a river of the same name at the base of
some high hills, which rise at the west of the city. The town itself
is intersected by the railroad which in a Uruguayan city is unusual as
most are generally at quite a distance therefrom. At Mal Abrigo, which
is reached about an hour after leaving San José, the railroad branches
out again, the other one going to Mercedes, a pleasant city on the
Rio Negro, and the capital of the department of Soriano. Continuing
on the Colonia line, we enter the department of Colonia and keep on
till we reach a small place named Rosario which is the junction for
another branch line to a La Plata port named Puerto del Sauce. Colonia
is reached at 1.30 P.M. Connection is made with small boats of the
Mihanovich Line which sail one hour later, making the crossing to
Buenos Aires in three hours to the tune of $2.89.

Colonia is a fine little town with about eight thousand inhabitants
lying directly across the La Plata River from Buenos Aires from which
city I imagine it to be about twenty-five miles distant. It is cool,
with a fresh breeze generally blowing and, owing to this, is much
visited by the inhabitants of the Argentine metropolis as a health and
summer resort. It has two good hotels, the Esperanza and the Ruso.
Besides the boats that ply daily between Buenos Aires and Colonia,
there are excursion steamers Sundays; also those that make nightly
trips returning at an early hour of the morning. The reason for this
last mentioned service is that in Uruguay gambling is permitted, and
at San Carlos, near Colonia and reached by a narrow gauge railway, is
another casino where the click of the ball as it revolves on the disk
of the roulette wheel disturbs the nocturnal air.

My friend Packer had an obsession for this kind of pastime, and
many were the nightly visits he made to San Carlos. On one of these
trips, while watching the game in the casino, an Englishman had made
a considerable winning, but owing to his inability to converse in the
Spanish language, the croupiers were endeavoring to cheat him out of
his winnings. He appealed to Packer, who helped him out and got his
money for him. On the trip back to Buenos Aires that same night, he and
Packer were seated opposite to one another in the dining-room. Packer
tried to enter into conversation with him. The Englishman puckered up
his lips and said: "I no speeka Engleesh." He deserved to be thrashed.
It is a very common occurrence in most countries of South America,
especially in Argentina for Englishmen to try to hide their nationality
and pass off as a native. Why they do this odious act, I do not know,
but any foreigner no matter how ignorant he is, can always spot an
Englishman by his mispronunciation of the language he is trying to hide
himself under.

[Illustration: Colonia, Uruguay]

A syndicate was formed with $800,000 capital to start a bull ring
at San Carlos. It would have undoubtedly been a great money-making
transaction drawing innumerable people from Buenos Aires, but the
socialistic government of the Banda Oriental, as Uruguay is frequently
spoken of, very wisely put a ban on this cruel sport.

CHAPTER II

BUENOS AIRES

Buenos Aires which should have been named Malos Aires, on account
of the enervating, depressing humidity of its summer climate when
the thermometer sometimes registers as high as 104° Fahrenheit, and
when not a breath of air is stirring, is a city of nearly 1,750,000
inhabitants and rivals Philadelphia towards being the third in
population in the New World. This capital of Argentina, built upon
the west bank of the muddy La Plata River in latitude 34° south is
the entrepôt and distributing point for all merchandise and goods
that enters and leaves the vast territory which comprises the La Plata
system and in fact of all southern South America east of the Andes. It
is a city of marble statues, of elegant public buildings, of sumptuous
palaces, of parks and boulevards, and is often spoken of as the "Athens
of America." It is also a city of narrow streets, of _conventillos_
(poorer class tenements) teeming with Hebraic and Sicilian life, of
confidence men, lottery ticket vendors, Greek and Syrian peddlers,
fugitives from North American justice, bewhiskered Irish bums, and
Galician Jews reeking of garlic, adorned with corkscrew sideburns.
Down its avenues parade the same sort of crowd seen in Naples, also the
pompous banker, the bespatted fop with slender cane, the staid business
man, the artizan, beggars galore, and a galaxy of prostitutes, both
Iberian and _criolla_.

The most remarkable thing about Buenos Aires is how fast one can get
rid of one's money with so little received for it in return. Everything
costs half as much again as what it should, with the possible exception
of clothes and shoes. Meals, hotel rooms, beverages, lingerie,
photographic material, drugs, theater admissions, and in fact nearly
everything under the sun is sky high. The entertainments for a stranger
to indulge in are but few and mediocre. It is every day the same
routine after the first week of novelty of sight-seeing has worn off.
Unless in Buenos Aires on business, the stranger absolutely kills time
unprofitably by getting into a rut from which he does not extricate
himself until it is time for him to sail for home. He finds himself
two or three times a day at the same table in front of the same café,
watching the same people promenade by, the only variation being an
occasional visit to a burlesque show, the race track, the post office,
or to the zoölogical garden.

[Illustration: Congress Building, Buenos Aires

This is the finest building in South America. It cost $20,000,000. All
the marble for its facing was imported from Italy]

In a previous book, I stated that the sycamore trees on the Avenida
de Mayo were sickly and did not think that they would live. I first
saw them in January, 1913. In December, 1915, when I again beheld
them, I was astonished at their appearance. They were a third again
as large, and they begin to show prospects of becoming elegant shade
trees. The subway was completed in 1914. It begins at the Plaza de
Mayo, on which square the Casa Rosada, or Capitol, faces, and continues
underneath the Avenida de Mayo to the mile-distant Congress Building,
thence underneath the next parallel street to the north, Rivadavia,
the bisecting thoroughfare of the city, to the Once railroad station,
the terminus of the Western Railway. An extension runs three miles
farther to a section of the city named Caballito. Caballito is the name
that the Naón estancia went by years ago before the city grew up. The
part of the city where the estancia once stood still retains the name.
Compared to subways in other cities, this one of Buenos Aires is poorly
patronized. It resembles the Budapest subway, more than it does the New
York or Boston ones, and its cars make but little better speed than do
those in the Budapest tube. Cab fare and taxicabs are cheap, which are
undoubtedly some of the primal causes of the subway's not excessive
patronage.

After his first few days in Buenos Aires, when the novelty of a strange
city had worn off, a friend and brother Elk, Mr. Oliver H. Lane,
remarked to me:

"Buenos Aires looks to me just like a big Italian city. Her Avenida de
Mayo, however, is a poor imitation of the Parisian boulevards."

In the first respect, I agree with him. The architecture of the
buildings, the attire of the male inhabitants, the way the moustaches
are trimmed, the cafés, the _toscanos_, the wax matches, the lottery
tickets, the dirty paper money, the confectionery stores, the ice
creams, and the beggars all savor of the Lavinian shores. In the second
respect I cannot agree with him. The Avenida de Mayo is physically
somewhat similar to the Parisian boulevards, but in character it is
widely different. If it is supposed to ape them, it is then a poor
imitation, but so different is it in most respects, that as a first
impression I would only call it a physical imitation. The oftener and
the longer one sits in front of the cafés and watches the people pass
by, the further apart he draws the comparison of this street to any
street in the world. I would designate the Avenida de Mayo as original.
The buildings that flank it are much taller than those of Paris; the
street is also considerably narrower than those in the French capital;
the crowd that parade the sidewalks is also not the same.

[Illustration: Buenos Aires Types]

Rivadavia is the street which runs at right angles to the La Plata
River, and continuing westward into the country, divides the city into
two parts, its intersectors having different nomenclatures south of
it than they have north. For instance, a cross street has the name
Santiago del Estero south of it, and Talcahuano north of it: another is
named Piedras south of it, and Esmeralda north of it, etc. In the old
section of Buenos Aires, where the buildings are almost entirely given
up to wholesale and retail trade, the streets are exceedingly narrow. A
decade and a half ago, in order to give the people a breathing space,
and to relieve the congestion of traffic in this part of the city,
houses one half a block south of Rivadavia were torn down, and the
Avenida 25 de Mayo was put through. It starts at the Plaza de Mayo
on which is the Capitol, and ends at the Plaza Congreso, on which is
the new white marble Congress Building, the finest and most expensive
building in all South America. The length of this boulevard is about
one mile.

Architecturally the exterior and façades of the Buenos Aires
buildings are as fine as any in the world; the style of architecture
predominating is original, but the contagion has spread, and the new
structures of Montevideo, Rosario, and Mar del Plata have copied the
ornate and domed style that is preëminently Bonaerense. In order to
compare the architecture of Buenos Aires to that of another city,
let us choose Paris or Vienna because the Argentine capital is a city
that is fundamentally European. Although more beautiful in buildings
than either Paris or Vienna, it can hold no comparison to them in the
massiveness and solidity of the edifices in either of them. Nearly
all the buildings in Argentina are built of the poorest imaginable
brick, loosely fitted together, but little mortar having been used.
To these is given a coating of plaster, which on the façades is
worked into ornaments. On account of the climatic effects on the cheap
material, these buildings in a few years' time take on a weather-beaten
appearance. On account of the poor foundations on a muddy soil, many
structures sink after a few years.

[Illustration: Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires

This view is looking west from Calle Santiago del Estero]

With the exception of the modern steel and trussed concrete edifices,
the old patriarchal houses of the colonial times and days of the early
republic are the best built. Hundreds of these are to be seen to-day
on the side streets. They have marble-paved, glass-roofed patios onto
which open the doors of the parlor, dining room, and living rooms.
These rooms are likewise dependent on the patio for their light. Behind
the first patio is generally a second one, open to the sky, but on
rainy and on sunny days decked with an awning. Here sit the family in
their leisure hours; from this patio open the doors to the bedrooms.
A small garden is invariably at the rear; the kitchen and servants'
quarters are in its proximity. The handsome villas and private
residences of the wealthy inhabitants differ but little in architecture
from the same class of buildings the whole world over. It must not be
imagined that because the material and construction are poor that they
are cheap. They cost nearly double to build what their duplicates would
be in the United States. Brick, stone, iron, sand, lime, and lumber are
much more expensive than at home.

The cost of living in Buenos Aires is higher than in New York, with
the exception of some articles I have already named. The hotel rates
are, however, cheaper. On the Avenida de Mayo, Calle Florida, and Calle
Callao, the show streets, one is obliged to pay Fifth Avenue prices
for articles purchased; on the side streets the same goods are much
cheaper. The average native does not patronize the show places. At
any of the Avenida de Mayo cafés, a small cordial glass of Benedictine
costs twenty-one cents. At one of the side-street _almazens_ (grocery
stores), which have a dispensary, the same glass costs nine and one
half cents. A pint of Guinness' stout at the Hotel Savoy costs sixty
cents; at the Avenida de Mayo cafés it sells for forty-three cents,
while in the almazens it can be bought for twenty-six cents.

[Illustration: Mr. Oliver H. Lane

This photograph was taken on roof garden of the Hotel Majestic]

Regarding hotels, Buenos Aires has some very fine ones. Most have table
d'hôte service, which in Argentina is taken in preference to meals à la
carte, for most of the guests take their rooms _en pension_ unless they
intend to make a short stay only.

The Plaza Hotel, which is the best known and widest advertised, is
operated by the Ritz-Carlton Company. It was built by the banker
Ernesto Tornquist and leased to them. It is nine stories high, and cost
nine million pesos ($3,843,000.00). Its rates are excessive for the
service rendered. The rooms are small, its location is not central,
and there is nothing to it that gives it the tone of comfort to be
had at the other hotels, although the cuisine cannot be improved upon.
Imagine paying twenty-five dollars a day for a small room with bath and
vestibule, lunch and dinner, but not including breakfast. The Plaza is
in much demand for private balls and teas, and is also much patronized
by North American commercial travelers who wish to make a splurge,
and impress their prospective customers with their own importance, or
with the importance of the firm which they represent. An incident that
happened in connection with this hotel should be mentioned.

[Illustration: Calle Bartolome Mitré, Buenos Aires

Looking east from Calle Florida]

When Naón, the Argentine ex-ambassador to the United States, on a
recent trip home wrote to his family asking them to get suitable
apartments for him, his sister had a talk with the manager of the
Plaza Hotel. The latter, seeing a chance for a hold-up, told her that
Naón could have a certain apartment for five thousand pesos ($2135.00)
a month. This figures out $71.17 a day. Naón refused to consider the
matter and engaged a much better suite at the Hotel Majestic at a much
cheaper rate. A month or so afterwards, while attending a reception
at the Plaza extended to him by the American Universities Club, the
manager servilely approached him, and asked him where he was staying.
Upon Naón answering that he was stopping at the Majestic, the manager
spoke deprecatorily of the last-mentioned hostelry, and told him he
would do much better for him at a lesser price at the Plaza. Naón said
that he should have done so in the first place, but on account of his
trying to hold him up, he would not stop at the Plaza if he should put
the whole hotel at his disposal free of charge.

The two best hotels in Buenos Aires, to my notion, are the Majestic and
the Grand.

The Majestic is on the Avenida de Mayo, at the northwest corner
of Calle Santiago del Estero, which is but two blocks from the
Plaza Congreso. It was opened in 1910 at the time of the Argentine
Centennial. It was rented that year by the government to house the
foreign diplomats attending the celebration. The prices are reasonable;
the rooms all have baths, and most of them are suites with parlors.
The meals are table d'hôte and the food and service are excellent. The
building is seven stories high, has a roof garden, and a corner tower.
The parlors and writing room are on the third floor and are lighted
from a skylight at the top of the five-story courtyard of pillared
balconies. The Majestic is the residence of many foreign ministers and
their families; of people of wealth and culture; and of the commercial
representatives of the best European firms. It is no show place, but a
hotel of quiet refinement.

[Illustration: Fireman and Policeman, Buenos Aires]

The Grand Hotel, good but expensive, is on the main shopping street,
the narrow Calle Florida, one block north of the Avenida de Mayo in
a very noisy part of the city. The narrowness of the streets makes
the rooms dark. The Palace Hotel, a large establishment on the Calle
25 de Mayo, is well spoken of. It overlooks the Paseo de Julio and a
beautiful park at the river's edge, but the class of people and stores
always to be found in the neighborhood of the docks makes the location
poor. Among the older of the modern hotels which are also good are
the Paris, with a large restaurant and café, the Cecil, the Splendid,
and the Esclava. The España, patronized by Spaniards, is a lively and
excellent place with an à la carte dining room. It is a good place for
the single man to stop at; also the Galileo and the Colon are first
class, clean, and have good restaurants. The Colon is owned by the
Gontaretti brothers, who are likewise proprietors of the Hotel Regina
at Mar del Plata. It has in connection the best confectionery store in
Buenos Aires, that of Dos Chinos.

Of all the Buenos Aires hotels, the biggest fake is the Savoy, which
is owned by the da Rossi Company. It is on the southeast corner of the
streets Callao and Cangallo, but two blocks from the Plaza Congreso.
It was opened in 1913, at which time the current talk was that the
district in which it is situated was going to be the best in the city.
The prices are exorbitant, the food is poor, and the rooms are dirty.
As in all the large Buenos Aires hotels, the prices here are made
for the guest according to the financial judgment the scrutinizing
manager passes on him. The waiters in the Savoy are veritable robbers,
and there are two prices for drinks, and for the use of the billiard
table, the North Americans having the benefit in being obliged to pay
the highest of the two prices. They tried to "put one over" on "yours
truly" on the price of wet goods one day when the writer was playing
pool with some friends. The waiters had evidently forgotten that they
had sold me a couple of bottles of Guinness' stout the day previous at
a reduction of forty centavos (17 c.) a bottle under the price they now
anticipated that I would pay. An argument followed in which I won out,
but only after I had threatened them with a cessation of visits in case
they insisted on making me pay the excess tax that they had imposed
upon me.

The Bonaerense restaurants are usually connected with the hotels,
although there are many that are not. Among the best of the latter are
the Rotisserie Sportsman, Charpentier's, and the Petit Jardin. Aue's
Keller, the Kaiserhalle recently opened by the employees of Aue's
Keller, and the Bismarck are German restaurants and beer halls. There
are many Italian restaurants, that of Paccatini on Calle Moreno a few
doors east of Calle Piedras being quite popular.

[Illustration: Zoölogical Garden, Buenos Aires]

The cafés are excelled by none in the world either in size or in the
expense of their equipment. Life in them is not as animated as in those
of Vienna, Budapest, or Paris, and they close about 1.00 A.M. They are
not patronized much by women, nor do they display moving pictures on
their walls as in Rosario. They are solely rendezvous for people who
enter them to talk or drink; many have antiquated billiard tables.
Among the best are the cafés Paris, Colon, and Tortoni, all on the
Avenida de Mayo.

As the Argentinos are not as a rule solely addicted to the frequent
imbibing of strong drinks, soft drinks such as _refrescos_, lemonade,
beer, coffee, and tea play an important rôle in the dispensing of
liquid refreshment at cafés. The average Argentino suffers from
gastric, digestive, and intestinal ailments, not so much from
overeating alone as from his utter inability to use discretion in
drinking. For breakfast he will have coffee; before lunch he will
drink a couple of vermouths with bitters, which he designates as
an appetizer. (His favorite bitter is a sickening, sweetish syrupy
liquor of Buenos Aires manufacture named Aperital.) At lunch he will
either consume a pint of wine or a quart of beer, to be followed by a
postprandial cup of strong coffee and a liqueur. In the afternoon, he
will imbibe a bottle of mineral water and two cups of tea. The dinner
beverages, the same as at luncheon, consist of beer or wine, coffee and
cordial. After dinner, which is eaten at half-past seven or at eight
o'clock, he feels "filled up" on food and liquid and has no immediate
desire for alcoholic refreshment. He now prefers to sit in front of
a café and watch the crowd pass by, but he would look out of place
occupying a seat without paying for anything, so he orders a dish of
ice cream and a refresco. A refresco is a syrup either of currant,
strawberry, raspberry, or grenadine flavoring, covering an inch in the
bottom of a tall glass, to which is added either plain or soda water
and cracked ice. An hour after partaking of this, he orders a whiskey
and soda followed by a duplicate or a triplicate, unless he switches to
beer. He caps the whole mess off by a cup of strong coffee.

The Porteño (so is called the inhabitant of Buenos Aires, and which
means Resident of the Port) is also a heavy eater. For luncheon and
for dinner, he is apt to eat seven courses, four of which are meat
and fish, and it makes no difference to him if the fish comes after
the meat or before it. The dinner tables of the private houses have
white slates on which is written with a black lead pencil the names of
the dishes in the different courses as at a table d'hôte in a hotel.
In this way it leaves no surprise nor conjecture as to which the next
course will be. Maté is passed around in the afternoon. This vile tea,
brewed from yerba maté, an herb indigenous to Paraguay, the southern
states of Brazil, and the Argentine Territory of Misiones, is poured
into a gourd and is drunk through a metal tube with a spoonlike head,
closed and perforated with little round holes, named a _bombillo_.
But one person drinks maté at the same time. When he finishes this
"slop" the servant takes both gourd and bombillo away from him and
fills the former for the person sitting next to him. Two rounds of
it are generally partaken of. This maté drinking, although said to
be absolutely harmless, is such a habit with the native women of the
poorer classes that they prefer it to a husband. At Tucumán, while
I was there, three such wenches got into a fight and one had her
ear bitten off. While at the police station she started wailing; the
police thinking she was howling about the pain tried to soothe her. It
transpired that she was wailing because she left some maté boiling on
the stove at her home and nobody was left there to tend to it.

The Café Tortoni is on the north side of the Avenida de Mayo between
the streets Piedras and Tacuari. It extends back to Rivadavia. It
is the oldest café in Buenos Aires and is owned by a nonagenarian
Frenchman, Monsieur Curutchet, who is on the job morning and night
and is still active, although the management of the establishment
is in the hands of his son, M. Maurice Curutchet. It was in front of
this café that my acquaintances came at least twice a day, and from
a marble-topped iron table beneath the street awning we observed
Bonaerense life to great advantage as it paraded by. We soon became
so accustomed to the different passers-by, many of whom went by at the
same time each day, that we soon knew the vocations of many of the folk
that were but atoms in the large population of the great city.

There was a subway exit but a couple of rods from our table, and it
was astonishing to see how people when they had reached the top step
would stop and pant. It was not a deep subway, but so physically poor
is the average Porteño of the middle classes on account of abuse of
living that he soon becomes exhausted. He does not live long, and many
men of forty are like men at home of sixty. The crowd that continually
passes does so with quick step, neither looking to the left nor to the
right, but straight ahead, serious and never smiling. I noticed this
and remarked to an acquaintance about it.

"They are evidently thinking," said he, "of how they can swindle
somebody out of ten cents."

The Porteños appear to be a sad folk, and if one sees somebody smile
or hears a sound of laughter on a Buenos Aires street, you may be sure
that an Italian or a Spaniard is present. Latins from Europe that
come to Argentina soon become like natives, depressed, excitable,
and despondent. Many Argentinos of the cities wear black straw hats
instead of white ones, which still further enhances the funereal
appearance of the men. This is a sign of mourning, similar to the black
arm bands that were in fashion in the United States a decade ago.
I know a Philadelphia jackanapes who wanted to follow the custom of
Buenos Aires, and seeing the great number of men wearing black hats,
bought one not knowing that it was a token of respect for the departed
relatives. He returned to his country evidently never knowing his
mistake.

The beggars, street fakirs, and peddlers on the Avenida de Mayo are
terrible. No city in the world has so many. Neither Naples nor Las
Palmas can compare with Buenos Aires in proportion in this respect.
A man seated at a table in front of a café is never free a minute
from annoyance from this rabble. Children from five years old up to
octogenarians of both sexes systematically make multi-diurnal rounds
up to the different cafés. Some are insulting. A narrow shouldered
young man, a mixture of degenerate and of cigarette fiend, came to a
table where I was seated and offered some chewing gum for sale. Upon
my refusal to buy any, he backed up a few steps, started calling me
names, and then walked away. A few hours later I met him accidentally;
he wilted when he saw there was no escape. I grabbed him by the coat
collar and nearly shook the eye teeth out of him. I at least put the
fear of God into him.

The street urchins have a habit of making the rounds of the different
tables and if you are not watching, steal the cracked ice from the dish
in which it is kept in front of you to put into your glass of refresco,
according to your desire. I caught one such boy doing this trick to
me, and slung the contents of a water pitcher at him which caught him
squarely, giving him a drenching. Near by was seated a well-dressed
Argentino who took the boy's part, and started to call the police. As
a foreigner, especially a North American, has no rights in Argentina,
I thought it best to walk away.

There are milk depots stationed at various parts of the city and along
the Avenida where a person may enter and for ten centavos (.042) buy
a liter of milk either fresh or cooked. These belong to La Martona
and other companies. Two ragamuffins one night entered the milk depot
at the northeast corner of the Avenida de Mayo and Calle San José and
begged some cracked ice from the waiter behind the counter. Upon his
refusal to comply with his request one of the boys expectorated in
a gallon jar of fresh milk that stood at one end of the counter, and
which was for sale to prospective customers, and then ran out. Do you
think the man behind the counter threw the milk out? I should say not.
He merely took a large spoon, skimmed off the expectoration, and went
about his business as if nothing had happened. I sat in a chair and
watched three other customers, who came in later, be served from the
same jar.

The lottery ticket sellers are the greatest nuisance. They used to
annoy Mr. Lane something fierce. Packer, a man named Brown, and I
noticed it so we put up several jobs on him.

There was a legless man who made the rounds of the cafés, being wheeled
from place to place in a perambulator by an individual who might easily
as to appearance be associated with the Black Hand. The cripple who
was a middle aged, unkempt ruffian had a multitude of lottery tickets
for sale, and was so persistent that he would absolutely refuse to go
away until he had displayed all his wares. He seemed to take particular
delight in tormenting persons who were anxious to have him move on. A
few seconds before he was ready to be wheeled away, he would open up
a torrent of abuse upon the person who refused to buy from him, and in
this propaganda he was ably seconded by his comrade of Black Hand mien.
Mr. Lane was of a nervous disposition and I do not believe the Canadian
Club highballs he occasionally indulged in were any amelioration
to this condition. He therefore was considerably annoyed with this
particular persistent vagabond and his equally villainous confrère.
They "got on his nerves." We, noticing his odium for this duo, one
day when Mr. Lane was absent, hired the two vagabonds to come to him
every time they saw him seated in front of the Tortoni and refuse to
leave until ordered to do so by the police or the waiters. A few days
afterwards while walking along the Avenida, I saw Mr. Lane seated in
front of the Café Madrid, which is a block from the Tortoni.

"What are you doing over here?" I asked.

"The Tortoni is getting too much for me; I never saw so many vagabonds
in my life as there, so I changed places. The service and the goods
are no good here; I've tried this place three days and can't stand it.
I prefer the Tortoni but if that legless hobo ever tries to sell me a
lottery ticket again, I am going to tip him out of his perambulator
into the street even if I hang for it. I believe I shall hire the
waiters at the Tortoni to give all the street peddlers a thrashing."

Mr. Lane did so. The waiters cuffed up several of the human pests, and
the policemen arrested a few others, so for about a week everybody was
free from molestation by the riffraff. Then they gradually came back to
their usual haunts.

There was a woman who continually made the rounds soliciting alms by
showing the bare stump of an arm severed about six inches from the
shoulder. This harridan would take delight in walking between the
tables of the restaurants while people were at dinner and expose this
gruesome sight spoiling appetites.

Another nuisance was a woman about thirty-five years old who had once
been comely. She sold lottery tickets and was also terribly persistent.
She carried in her arms a baby while a young child clung to her
skirt. Although this woman was a nuisance, I never thought her to be
disagreeable, but for some reason Mr. Lane took an aversion for her
which could be classified in the same category as the detest he had
for the legless ruffian. One day while being pestered by this woman,
he made a grab at her tickets, crumpled them up and slung the whole
outfit in the street. He was sorry for it afterwards and gave her a
peso to ease her. The next day, while Mr. Lane was absent, one of our
associates called the woman aside and gave her two pesos if she would
continue to display her lottery tickets to Mr. Lane. She accepted the
proposition and did so much to his annoyance. This woman had for a
husband a whiskered Irish bum. He would come several times a day to
the subway entrance and make her hand over the proceeds of her sales
to him. He had a staff of women selling tickets and his sole occupation
was to make the rounds collecting money from them.

There are many Irish bums in Buenos Aires, men past middle life who
years ago became stranded in Argentina having deserted sailing vessels
and who have never had the price nor the desire to return to the Old
Country. They are strong, powerful men physically, unkempt with long
beards; their clothes are a mass of rags and teem with vermin. Their
daily occupation is to walk along the Avenida begging alms which
goes for strong drink. At night they sleep in the doorways and in the
gutter. One such man made his rounds on the Avenida about nine o'clock
every night. Every time he passed our table at the Tortoni, Mr. Packer
would give him some money, on one occasion the sum being a peso. As
the man had begged in Spanish, we did not know his nationality until
a certain incident happened. One particular night, Mr. Packer was
without funds when this hobo came around, and told him so. The bum
sarcastically imitated Packer and then broke out into such a tirade
of profane and obscene invectives and abuse in the English language,
but with a strong brogue, that I am afraid the apostles turned over in
their graves.

The policemen of Buenos Aires are efficient. They are mostly of Indian
descent and come from the far provinces. They seldom make an arrest
for misdemeanors for there are but few street quarrels when compared
to the cities of the United States. They occasionally disperse a bunch
of young beggars who return to their posts as soon as the "cop" has
vanished. At night they make the drunken bums vacate the street benches
whither they have repaired to sleep off the fumes of Geneva gin, which
in Spanish goes by the name of _ginevra_. Quite a few incidents happen
in the lives of the Bonaerense police, of which here are a couple:

On the Calle Peru there is an old policeman, beloved by nearly
everybody. The storekeepers in the neighborhood of which he is the
guardian of the peace hold him in such high esteem that at every
Christmas they take up a collection for him. For some unknown reason, a
North American named Woody, who represented the Case Implement Company
"had it in" for him. Mr. Woody was accustomed to partake of too much
John Barleycorn and when in his cups always abused this man in strong
profane English. After awhile the old policeman caught on that he
was being made the target of abuse which he could not understand, so
one day changed beats with a big native Argentino policeman who was
of Irish extraction. At evening Mr. Woody came along, as usual, much
under the influence of liquor. The fumes of alcohol having dimmed his
eyesight, he was oblivious of the shift that had been made. Seeing the
policeman, he opened up with his tirade. The Irishman let him continue
until Woody was weak from lack of breath and exhausted vocabulary.

"Have yez finished?" the cop then asked him.

Woody astounded at hearing the policeman thus address him, stammered an
affirmative.

"Then, by Jaysus, come with me!"

Mr. Woody spent the next eight days in jail until his friends learned
of his predicament and bailed him out.

The other incident is this:

One of my friends was seated one evening in front of the Tortoni
when a policeman approached him and asked him in Spanish if he spoke
English. My friend answered in the affirmative and the policeman told
him to wait there a minute and walked away. Presently the guardian of
the law reappeared with a young Englishman who could speak no word of
Spanish. He said he was a sailor from a boat that sailed that midnight
and becoming lost did not know how to get to it. He came on an electric
car to the Avenida de Mayo and all that he knew about the line was
that it bore a board on which was printed the name "Cinzano." Now this
is the name of a vermouth which is widely advertised in Argentina,
and he mistook the vermouth sign for the name of the street. After
considerable difficulty, his ship was located.

One afternoon, while walking down the Avenida with Mr. Atwood Benton of
Antofagasta, Chile, we saw a crowd collected and on passing by noticed
that a grown man was slapping a little girl and dragging her around
by the hair. Not a man in the crowd had made any attempt to prevent
this outrageous scene, but all stood by with smiles of mirth on their
faces. Mr. Benton made a rush through them and grabbing the man by
the nape of the neck gave him a sound beating and held him while I
called a policeman. When the rabble saw what Benton did, they raised
an earsplitting cheer of "bravo" for him, yet none of the cowardly
bunch dared interfere for fear of a poignard stab. A newspaper reporter
chanced by, shook Mr. Benton by the hand, congratulated him upon his
bravery, and asked him for his card as he wished to put it in his
newspaper next day. Mr. Benton put his hand in his pocket and extended
him a card which he thought was his own, but when the newspaper article
came out in the _La Nacion_ the next day, it happened that Benton
had made a mistake and had handed the reporter a card of Mr. Percival
O'Reilley of Concepcion, Chile.

With the exception of the policemen, one sees but comparatively few
mestizos or people of mixed white and Indian blood in Buenos Aires,
when compared to the inhabitants of other Argentine cities, yet
there are plenty, many being in the employ of the government. Dark
complexions are not as popular in Argentina as light ones; therefore
many of the _criollos_ or natives whose facial characteristics
are those of the original inhabitants of the land, beseech the
photographers to put chemicals on the plates so as to make their
visages come out light in the photograph. The descendants of Indians
are called Indios; negroes are called Negros and Chinamen, Chinos.
Many of the mestizos are nicknamed Chinos. All these words are terms of
approbation and it is funny to hear an enraged descendant of an Indian
call a white person an Indio or a Chino.

There is in Buenos Aires a fine opera house, the Colon, and there are
many other theaters, but the most patronized by the male public are
the burlesque shows, the Casino and the Royal. The attraction for the
men in those places are the "pick ups" that abound in the foyer, making
these music halls clearing houses for loose moral femininity. There is
no more vice in Buenos Aires than in any other large city, but there is
a peculiar system in vogue there which is original.

A woman passes down the Avenida with a basket of flowers on her arm.
She approaches the boulevardier seated at a table and offers to sell
him a flower. He buys one and as he stretches out his hand to pay her,
she slips him a card bearing the address of a brothel but refuses the
money. These women are the hirelings of the brothel proprietresses.
Often the _dueñas_ as these proprietresses are called do the florista
act (flower selling). One night, while seated in front of the Tortoni,
a famous dueña named Carmen came along and pinned a tuberose on an
army officer. A minute later, a rival dueña named Matilda passed by and
seeing the tuberose on him, knew who pinned it there. She tore it off,
and pinned on him a carnation. Carmen now returning from a neighboring
table saw the trick and a battle royal like between two enraged tigers
ensued. When the police put a stop to it, the two dueñas, scratched up,
and with dishevelled hair, were obliged to make for the subway, holding
up the remnants of their torn clothing by the middle lest they should
drop off.

Among the fine buildings of Buenos Aires are the custom house and the
Central Argentine Railway station at Retiro. This mammoth building,
not yet completed, is the largest and finest railroad station in South
America. This honor was formerly held by the Luz station in São Paulo,
Brazil; that of Mapocho in Santiago, Chile, being second. The new
Central of Córdoba Railway station is also fine.

There are in Buenos Aires but few skyscrapers in the North American
sense of the word, a fifteen-story building being the tallest. It is
the new arcade on Calle Florida and is the largest in America. It ranks
fourth in the world in ground-floor area; those of Milan, Naples, and
Genoa being greater. There is a thirteen-story apartment house; the
Otto Wulf Building is twelve stories high, and there are probably a
dozen other buildings that exceed in height ten stories. There are any
number of seven-, eight-, and nine-story buildings.

In Buenos Aires there are a great number of so-called Brazilian
coffeehouses where about five o'clock afternoons people repair for
coffee and ice cream. _Casata_ ice creams are a favorite. They are a
mixture of flavors, and these coffeehouses specialize in two flavors
of coffee ice cream in the same brick. The best known of these
establishments are those of Huicque and of Bibondo.

The zoölogical garden is the finest that I have ever had the pleasure
of visiting, as far as the collection of animals is concerned, but the
botanical garden is much inferior to that of Rio de Janeiro. Palermo
Park, the great corso for automobiles, is well kept up but does not
take my fancy on account of the light shades of green common to all
trees of the Argentina flatlands. The brilliant and variegated greens
of the trees of the province of Tucumán are lacking.

As to manufacturing, Buenos Aires is nil. There is but one brewery
within the city limits, that of Palermo, whose product is vile. There
was a so-called automobile factory which bought parts and assembled
them, but it had to go out of business. There is not much future
for manufacturing unless iron ore is found in paying quantities in
Argentina. Without iron and without coal in Argentina, but little
can be done although there are several large oil fields in Northern
Patagonia. Rosario is a better commercial city than Buenos Aires,
but the latter will always keep on growing and retain its lead as the
metropolis of South America.

An institution of learning worthy of mention, and which I visited while
in the Argentine metropolis is the Colegio Nacional Mariano Moreno. It
is located at 3755 Calle Rivadavia, and is one of the best institutions
of secondary learning extant. The course comprises six years, the first
year corresponding to the ninth grade in North American schools, and
the last year being the same as the sophomore year in our universities.
It is therefore more like a German gymnasium than a North American
high school, although it differs from both in the election of courses.
Here no Latin nor ancient languages are taught, but other subjects
such as fencing and drawing are substituted. A good rule of the
institution which is under the able management of the rector, Dr.
Manuel Derqui, grandson of a former president of Argentina, is that no
students under fourteen years are allowed to enter, no matter how their
preparatory attainments are. This tends to set a better standard to
the instruction, although a younger one sometimes manages to slip in.
Their age upon graduation is at least twenty. A diploma will give the
graduate entrance to any of the Argentine universities of which there
are four besides that of Buenos Aires, the others being in La Plata,
Córdoba, Sante Fé, and Tucumán.

What would seem strange to us is that the Mariano Moreno College is a
government institution, having no connection at all with the state of
municipality. The interior of the building, with its unprepossessing
façade of four stories belies its external appearance. Its depth is
the whole length of the block. It has a swimming tank and baths both
for the instructors and students. The whole place is kept remarkably
clean. The spirit of competition and advance is very strong among the
students. Some of their mechanical drawings, the best ones which are on
display on the walls are like the work of experts. A student invented
an adjustable and movable drawing board which has been adopted by the
drawing classes all through the republic. The department of physics is
a marvel, although the chemical laboratory falls short of that of some
private schools in the United States, namely that of Hackley School,
Tarrytown, N. Y. I was informed, however, that the Mariano Moreno
College does not specialize in that science, for those that desire to
get a knowledge of chemistry go to the technical schools. A feature of
the college is a recreation room for the professors and instructors in
the basement. Its walls are hung with pictures painted or drawn by the
professors. The enrollment of students is about 1500 exclusive of 700
who are taking a university extension course. The faculty consists of
about 150 members.

While speaking about Buenos Aires, a few words must be said about its
inhabitants and their habits. The Porteños of the higher classes differ
but little from those of the same social sphere the whole world over,
excepting that they are more effeminate than the inhabitants of our
country. Many of the men have perfumed handkerchiefs, and affect the
Italian style of moustache. The men of the middle classes, in attire
ape the aristocracy, but their habits are infinitely more dirty. With
them a bath is an event. When these Argentinos take a bath they splash
water around and make a great noise about it so that the people the
other side of the partitions can hear them at their ablutions. They
also spout and snort and make a great noise every time they wash their
faces, especially if anybody is looking. This also applies to certain
men who mingle in the highest social circles. I know a man of great
prominence in Buenos Aires who every time he took a bath would tell
everybody he chanced to meet about it. He met me one day on the street
as I was coming out of the Majestic Hotel.

"How are you?" I asked as a customary form of greeting.

"I'm feeling fine," he replied. "I just had a nice cold bath."

A few minutes later as we were walking down the Avenida we met another
acquaintance.

"Good morning, Señor ----," quoth the third party. "You are looking
fine to-day."

"No wonder," answered the first Argentino, "for I have just gotten out
of the bath tub."

"How strange, I also have just had a bath."

The habits of the middle and lower classes throughout Argentina are
very filthy. Clean toilets are unknown outside of a few of the best
hotels and cafés of Buenos Aires and a few of the other large cities.
In the Hotel Colon in Buenos Aires, two men were hired constantly just
to keep the toilet clean and they did this job well.

The men of the lower classes bathe more frequently than those of the
upper and middle classes and some are really fine swimmers. These are
mostly Italians, Spaniards, and natives who do the work and are the
backbone of the Argentine nation as they have not become affected by
contact with those of the middle classes.

There are in Buenos Aires many Jews of Galician origin. Their ghetto
is on the streets, named Junin, Ayacucho, and Ombú, but they are
likewise scattered all over the city. Many wear corkscrew sideburns,
which they smear with grease and fondle lovingly as they converse
with you. These vile Kikes are mostly in the lottery ticket and retail
tobacco business. They have native employees whom they send out on the
street to hawk lottery tickets on commission. This lottery business
is overdone. There are too many drawings. One takes place every week
and it is only occasionally that there is a drawing with high enough
premiums to make it worth while purchasing them. Lottery is a good
institution if properly regulated, but the annoyance that everybody is
subjected to in Buenos Aires by the peddlers of the tickets soon makes
a person wish that such an institution did not exist. Not only are the
tickets of the Benificencia Nacional sold about the streets, but also
those of the Province of Buenos Aires which has drawings at La Plata,
those of the Province of Tucumán, those of Córdoba, San Juan, and even
of Montevideo.

These Buenos Aires Jews are the lowest class of riffraff. Their nasty
children peddle strings of garlic from door to door. The adults are
always gesticulating and trying to cheat the stranger.

Regarding the morals, the average Porteño of the middle class cannot be
called immoral. He is unmoral because he never had any morals to begin
with. His conversation invariably takes a lascivious turn which shows
how his thoughts runs. Seduction, feminine figures, adultery, etc., are
his favorite themes of conversation.

Many of the women of Buenos Aires are beautiful. Nowhere have I seen
such fine-looking women, excepting in Santiago, Chile, and in Budapest.
They carry themselves well and also know how to dress. Their figures
and taste are such that they can make the poorest material look well
on them. Their average stature is that of our North American women;
most of the young Porteñas are neither fat nor slim, but medium. They
have wonderful black eyes and well developed busts. It is rare to
see a poor figure. It really is a treat to sit in front of a café on
the Avenida and watch them walk by. There was one beautiful girl that
took the fancy of every man that saw her. She worked in an office and
every day at noon she would pass the Tortoni; she would repeat this
again about five o'clock in the evening. This girl was about nineteen
years old and the dainty way she tripped along absolutely unconscious
of her grace made the men rave about her. One noon as she walked by
bound for home, I followed her a quarter of a block behind her. My
intentions were to find out where she lived and try to arrange to get
an introduction because she quite fascinated me. I found out that she
lived with her parents on Calle Montevideo. I had a friend who lived
in the block beyond her in Calle Rodriguez Peña, but unfortunately
when I called on him to arrange for an introduction, I found out that
he was on a business trip to northern Argentina and was not expected
back for a month. As I intended leaving in a few weeks, I was doomed to
disappointment and had to swallow my chagrin and content myself with
gazing at her from the table in front of the Tortoni when she passed
by.

The amusements of Buenos Aires are few. Of course there are some
very high-class dance halls with restaurants in connection such as
Armenonville, but the hours are too late when life begins there.

The race track of the Jockey Club is the best in the world, and
races are held every Thursday and Sunday, but one soon gets tired of
continually going to the races. The betting is by mutuals. There are
some baseball and cricket teams in Buenos Aires which hold matches
and games on Sunday afternoons. The players are English, American,
and Canadian residents of Buenos Aires who clerk in the banks and in
the great importing houses. The article of baseball they put out is
ludicrous, and they draw no attendance. A good primary school at home
could trim them.

[Illustration: Scene on the River at Tigre]

The pleasantest of all pastimes in and about Buenos Aires is boating
at Tigre. This little town, the Argentine Henley, is twenty-one miles
north of the capital and is reached by half-hourly service by the
Central Argentina Railway. Strange to say at this time of writing
(1917) no electric line has yet been built between the two places.
Tigre is on the Las Conchas River where it empties into the Lujan,
one of the tributaries of the La Plata. It is thronged on Sundays by
crowds from the city, who besides rowing and canoeing, also take in the
pageant from the awninged verandas of the Tigre Hotel.

Most Argentinos do not care much for North Americans although they are
invariably polite to them. It appears that there is a chord of jealousy
somewhere against our nation. Some of this gentry have the gall to
think that Argentina is the greatest nation on earth and these ideas
are taught them in school. I have known inhabitants of Buenos Aires who
believe that Argentina could whip the United States in a war, although
most of them have an unwholesome fear of Chile. The British nation
was not especially popular with Argentina because in 1833 it took
the Falkland Islands from them. In 1916 Great Britain seized a couple
of Argentine vessels which it claimed were taking contraband to the
Central Powers. An anti-British demonstration occurred on the streets
of Buenos Aires most of the participants in which were students.
Several were cut by sabers in the hands of the police but this affray
did not prevent roughnecks from yelling at Americans and calling them
names, mistaking them for Englishmen. I unfortunately was a victim of
these insults, as I was driving one night in the Plaza de Mayo. Even
though Great Britain was not popular, neither was Germany a favorite as
can be testified by the depredations on property of German ownership.
On the night of Saturday, April 14, 1917, a street mob attacked the
offices of two German newspapers, _La Union_ and _Deutsche La Plata
Zeitung_, and broke all the windows. This same mob also demolished the
delicatessen store of P. Warckmeister at 555 Calle Sarmiento. A few
months later, following Count Luxburg's iniquity, the mob wrecked the
Club Aleman, and tried to burn it.

Thirty miles south of Buenos Aires, is La Plata, the capital of the
Province of Buenos Aires and which has a population of about 120,000
inhabitants. Till 1880 the city of Buenos Aires was the capital of the
province of the same name, but in that year it detached itself from the
province and became the Federal Capital. The province, now lacking a
capital, decided to build one, and a site having been chosen and the
plans for the laying out of a city having been approved of, the city
of La Plata was formally founded and created capital of the Province
of Buenos Aires, November 29, 1882. In 1885 the population of the city
was 13,869. The census of 1909 gave it 95,126 inhabitants while that of
1916 gave it 111,401; the total for the commune being 136,026.

[Illustration: Station of the Southern Railway, La Plata]

La Plata is a dull, sleepy city of broad streets and low houses of
light brown and cream-colored hues, with little shade. The sun's hot
rays scorch the pedestrian as he walks over the sizzling pavement of
the ultra-quiet and tomblike town. I have known people who, however,
prefer La Plata to Buenos Aires, but I cannot comprehend how a person
can live there and not die of ennui. It is laid out much on the order
of Washington with broad angling avenues cutting off slices of square
and rectangular blocks.

[Illustration: Old Railway Station, La Plata]

The most artistic building in the city is the station of the Southern
Railway. It is an œuvre of M. Faure-Dujarric, the Frenchman who was the
architect for the grandstand of the Jockey Club at Palermo Park. It is
a long and narrow white edifice with an artistic façade surmounted by a
dome of bright green tiles. Its restaurant is said to be the best in La
Plata, although I cannot verify this statement. La Plata used to have
another railway station, even larger than the present one, and more
centrally located. Why it was abandoned I never knew, but it stands
downtown on one of the principal squares, absolutely deserted, its long
dun-colored façade an eyesore to passers-by.

[Illustration: Bank of the Argentine Nation, La Plata]

Some of the largest and costliest edifices in the republic are in
this capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, but nearly all are
weather-beaten and appear much better in photograph than they do in the
original. In many cases the stucco has fallen off in places, exposing
the rough red bricks of poor quality. Some of the façades are stained
and blackened by exposure but nothing has been done to remedy them. The
whole city is evidently laid out on too grand a scale, and something
was started that is hard to finish. The Capitol, the governor's
residence, the city hall, the Argentine theater, the courthouse, and
many other buildings are far too large for the present need of the
city, and by the time La Plata has grown to a size where such buildings
will be adequate (it is doubtful if it ever will) they will have long
been out of style and antique.

[Illustration: Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires, La Plata]

[Illustration: Allegorical Statue of La Plata]

Even the cathedral, if completed, would be too grandiose. It was
started years ago, but is at present in the unfinished state as is
shown in the accompanying photograph. The money gave out, and to-day it
stands on an important plaza, a hideous frame of cheap brick, bearing
no similarity to the elegant place of worship it was intended to be.
This tendency to start to erect a fine building, get it half up, and
then neglect it, is characteristic of all countries where Spanish rule
has once dominated. For instance, in the same way is the Matriz church
in Chillán, Chile, the Oratory of Lopez in Asuncion, the church of the
Encarnacion at Asuncion, a church in Posadas, one in San Luis, and the
most striking example of all, the church of the Sagrada Familia in
Barcelona, Spain. In the plaza in front of the unfinished cathedral
are some marble statues, the best of which is that representing the
great Argentine river system and named La Plata. It is an allegorical
female figure with a horn of plenty from which are spilling fruit and
vegetables, while beneath her are bundles of wheat.

[Illustration: Unfinished Cathedral, La Plata]

The diocese of La Plata, which comprises the Province of Buenos Aires
and the territory of the Pampa, is the richest in Argentina. It was
created in 1896, and has as a bishop, Dr. Juan N. Terreno, who has
held that office since 1900. This man is a great power in Argentine
politics.

There are numerous large banks in La Plata, the largest of which is
that of the Province of Buenos Aires. Regarding hotels, the best is the
Sportsman with good restaurant. The restaurant of the Hotel Argentina
is second class. The food is greasy and is sprinkled with flies which
become ensnared in the meshes of the oil in which the ragoûts and
filets literally float.

Outside of the Museum of Natural History which has an admirable
collection of fishes, the zoölogical garden, the wonderful eucalyptus
avenue, and a charming park, there is in La Plata nothing to interest
the stranger.

The city owes its importance to its port Ensenada, about five miles
distant and to which is dug a basin where ships laden with grain and
canned meats sail for North America and European ports. From here also
in order to avoid the congestion in the Darsenas and in the Riacheulo
at Buenos Aires, passenger ships sail, notably the Lamport & Holt Line,
which keeps up a direct passenger service between Buenos Aires and New
York. On this basin are two large beef-packing establishments, that of
Armour and that of Swift.

CHAPTER III

SAN LUIS

The average stranger coming to the United States to see the country
very seldom pays a visit to an obscure state capital. The very contrary
to this is what I did after I had been but little over a week in
Buenos Aires, as I maintain that the only way to see a foreign country
properly is to avoid the show places and get out among the people in
the smaller cities. Knowing that San Luis was but a short distance
from the main line of the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway between Buenos
Aires and Mendoza, and is reached by one through train daily in each
direction, I decided to stop off there.

I left Buenos Aires at three o'clock one afternoon when the thermometer
registered 100.4° Fahrenheit and was soon traversing the flat landscape
remindful of the valley of the River Po. The white, cream-colored
tile-roofed houses, the small vineyards and vegetable gardens, the
long rows of Lombardy poplars, and the oxen hitched to the wagons on
the country roads presented a picture that could just as well be that
of northern Italy as that of the Province of Buenos Aires. Nearly
everywhere in eastern Argentina where the country is well settled,
the landscape is decidedly Italian, due largely to the presence of
the trees indigenous to the Po Valley, originally brought there by
immigrants from that part of Europe.

[Illustration: Plaza San Martin, Mercedes]

The train I was on was a very poor one, the first-class compartments
being no better than third-class ones in Germany. Thirty-four miles
out of Buenos Aires, we reached the town of Pilar, which lies a short
distance north of the railroad. Its station is the terminus of the
Buenos Aires suburban trains. Eight miles farther on is seen on the
crest of a rise of ground to the south, the insane asylum of Open
Door, a model of its kind. The method employed for the treatment of
the patients is freedom from restraint, with the privilege to do what
they please as long as they keep within bounds. The originator of this
method of handling the insane believes that by allowing them to follow
out their whims, they will eventually become tired of them, and that
the confinement of the demented prisoners tends to aggravate their
condition. This theory which he put into practice has had good results.

Mercedes, seventy miles from Buenos Aires, with a population of thirty
thousand inhabitants, is the junction of three railroads, the Central
of Buenos Aires, the Western, and the Buenos Aires Pacific. It is
one of the oldest cities in the republic and is the stamping ground
of Irish settlers who drifted in here a few generations ago and have
become rich. Unlike most Argentine cities, its streets are numbered.
Chacabuco, one hundred and thirty-one miles from the capital, was
reached about 7.30 P.M. It is a stock-breeding center and is in the
midst of a rich agricultural district. One hundred and seventy-nine
miles from Buenos Aires is Junin, an important small town from which
leads a branch of the Central Argentina Railway to Pergamino and
Rosario. The place was formerly called Fuerte Federacion from a fort
on the Salado River. As late as 1876 it was attacked by Indians, the
last attack having been made on December 10th of that year under the
leadership of Pincen. The Indians were badly defeated and fled, leaving
behind all the stock they had stolen on the way. A man from Junin who
sat directly across the table from me in the dining car informed me
that farm lands in the neighborhood of his city were selling at as
high as three hundred pesos a hectare. That would make common prairie
land worth there fifty dollars an acre. During the night we crossed a
corner of the Province of Santa Fé at Rufino where the dining car was
taken off. The train then traversed the southern part of the Province
of Córdoba and entered the Province of San Luis in the early morning.

[Illustration: Street in San Luis]

Excepting the capital, Villa Mercedes, which was reached at 7 A.M.,
is the only place of importance in the Province of San Luis. It is a
well laid out little city with a fairly good hotel, the Marconi. It
was here that I was met by J. D. O'Brien of Detroit who remained with
me for some time in the capacity of servant. He had been gymnasium
steward on the _Vauban_, and not liking the British ship's officers,
took French leave at Buenos Aires, and decided to try his luck in
Argentina. I needed a servant as I had considerable baggage so decided
to hire him. He dropped his grip over the railing of the ship's deck
one night when nobody was watching, and fearing arrest because he had
quit the ship after signing a contract to make a round trip, thought
it would be better to get into the country until after the _Vauban_
had sailed. Therefore I had him precede me on the journey, he going
to Villa Mercedes the day before. Dr. M. de Iriondo, president of the
Bank of the Argentine Nation, had given me a letter to the manager of
its branch bank in Villa Mercedes, but unfortunately I did not stop off
there.

[Illustration: Bank of the Argentine Nation, San Luis]

There was a remarkable change in temperature compared with the previous
day, because it was now cool and windy. The country that we now
traversed was very much like that of eastern Wyoming, only the soil was
better. There seemed to be a lack of water. Cattle grazed the endless
pampa; here and there buttes and mountains rose from the plains, their
sides covered with coarse grass and sagebrush. At the wayside stations
were halfbreeds in ponchos, strong, good-looking fellows. Presently the
mountains came down to the railroad track and we were in a sort of an
oasis watered by the Chorillo River.

San Luis, the capital of the thinly settled province of the same name,
is 493 miles west of Buenos Aires. It is a poor, unpretentious, and
uninteresting town of fifteen thousand inhabitants with nothing to
attract the ordinary tourist. Its buildings, with the exception of a
few on the main streets, seldom attain a height of over one story and
are for the most part built of coarse red brick, which here sell for 28
pesos ($11.96) a thousand. Many of these brick buildings are plastered
over, but most are not, giving them but a half finished appearance on
account of the poor masonry. The original idea of the man who builds a
house in most of the cities of the republic is to eventually have the
brick stuccoed over, but it is frequently the case that his money gives
out, before he gets that far, and he has to forego that luxury. There
is also a considerable number of adobe buildings. These are mostly
in the outskirts of the city. I also saw a few huts in the outlying
districts whose roofs were thatched.

There are no large fortunes in San Luis although my informants told me
that there might be one or two men who could boast of possessing the
equivalent of one million pesos paper ($427,000.00). There are only
seven automobiles in the city, two of them being Cases; two are Fords.
The only one that I saw was of the last-named manufacture. When asked
if the governor of the province, Señor Juan Daract, possessed one,
I was told he was too poor to own one, although his monthly salary
is 750 pesos paper ($320.25). This would make his yearly salary from
governmental sources $3843.00. I was surprised to see horses sell so
cheaply, mediocre hack ones bringing only thirteen dollars apiece. Good
mules averaged about thirty-two dollars each.

[Illustration: Capitol, San Luis]

None of the streets of the city are paved. On the main one, San Martin,
there are several good buildings, the Bank of the Argentine Nation
being the best. It is the newest. The post office, the Federal Court,
and the custom house are also possible, although they are but one story
high. Nobody should overlook the Casa de Gobierno or Capitol, which is
in a class by itself. Its Renaissance façade, which faces the Plaza
San Martin, and its side which faces one of the main streets contain
sockets for nine thousand electric light bulbs. When the building is
lighted up in all its external brilliancy, the electric meter which
controls the other lights of the city has to be shut off because the
electrical plant has not power enough to keep them both going at the
same time. So much money was expended on the lavish decorations of the
Capitol that there was not enough left to furnish the building.

The two large plazas, Pringles and San Martin, each contain an
equestrian statue in bronze erected to the memory of the heroes of
their nomenclature. General Pringles, the popular local hero, was born
here. The square that bears his name is the handsomest in the city.
It is bordered by giant pepper trees whose fragrance perfumes the air.
Facing it is the huge unfinished brick basilica, the Matriz, the white
dome of which is a landmark for quite a distance, and is visible from
all parts of the city. By the side of the Matriz on the Calle Pringles
stands a small algorroba tree scarcely twenty feet high. It is enclosed
by an iron railing and is held in much reverence by the inhabitants
of San Luis, because to this tree, the Guerrero, General José de San
Martin, tied his horse in 1816 on his westward march to Chile, where he
overthrew the Spanish dominion at the battles of Chacabuco and Maipu.

There is an interesting old church in San Luis, that of Santo Domingo.
It is of Mission style of architecture, and in many respects is similar
to San Gabriel Mission near Pasadena, California. Taken as a whole, San
Luis differs much from most Argentine cities. Its buildings are of a
decided Spanish colonial type of architecture. The city has an antique
appearance and is nearly gravelike as to tranquillity.

[Illustration: Matriz Church, San Luis

The tree in the distance is an algorroba. To it San Martin tied his
horse in 1816 on his westward march across the Andes to Chile]

When I stepped out of the fine spick and span, five-year-old depot, I
was in a dilemma regarding which hotel to go to. My guide book, which
I never trust, and which I only look at when I desire to kill time,
favored the Español; the landlord of the Marconi at Villa Mercedes
recommended to O'Brien the Royal; the sleeping-car conductor on the
train praised the Comercio; the cab driver extolled the Mitre, so
thither I went. The German photographer, Streich, whom I met later in
the day, boosted the Pringles, whose landlady is German.

The Mitre, which is owned by Perez and Iglesias, is leased to two
brothers whose prenomens are Pedro and Juan; nobody seems to know their
patronymics, although many persons seemed to be on intimate terms with
them. I later found out that their surname is Negera. When the fat,
loquacious cab driver stopped in front of their one-story hotel, he
announced my arrival by bawling out "Pedro!" The person addressed came
slouching out of the barroom, unkempt and unshaven, and despite the
earliness of the morning fairly drunk. He reeked of alcohol. I thought
he was the porter until differently informed. Several times in the
course of the morning he came into my room out of curiosity, each time
making an excuse. In the early afternoon he sobered up, shaved, and
donned a tuxedo. Drunk or sober, Pedro was a worker. He waited on the
table, tended bar, made the beds, swept the rooms, and assisted in the
cooking, besides doing errands for the guests. I never saw a better
hotel man. The rooms opened onto the patios and were kept scrupulously
clean, excepting the privy, and even that was much cleaner than in most
rural South American towns. The chickens had taken refuge in it to keep
away from the lean cats, which eyed them voraciously. Several times
I had to drive a yellow cat out of my bedroom. The food would hardly
remind an epicure of the menu of Oscar of the Waldorf-Astoria, but as
there were many people eating it in the long rectangular dining room
with its twenty-five-feet-high ceiling, I imagine it was wholesome.
Despite the coldness of the weather (the temperature was no more than
60° Fahrenheit, a drop of 40° from the temperature of Buenos Aires
the day before) flies abounded in my bedroom and in the country were
myriads of locusts.

Speaking of the yellow cat that persisted in occupying my bedroom,
Argentine and Chilean animals have a penchant for human society. They
seem to take delight in crawling under the beds and other furniture,
and no matter how often they are driven out they persist in returning.
A peculiar incident of this nature befell an acquaintance of mine, Mr.
Osmond of Rosario. Mr. Osmond has lived many years in Argentina and
his business frequently takes him into the Campo, as the flat, endless
pampa is called. On one occasion he stopped at an inn no different from
the general run of inns found in all the small towns of Argentina. A
fat sow entered his room from the patio as he sat writing. He drove
her out. Several times during the afternoon he had to repeat the
performance as the sow was bound to occupy his room. As he lay asleep
that night he was awakened by a rumpus beneath his bed, and lighting
a candle to find out the cause of the nocturnal disturbance of his
slumbers, discovered that the sow had crawled under his bed and had
given birth to a litter of pigs.

[Illustration: Estancia near San Luis]

The country in the immediate neighborhood of San Luis is extremely
fertile, although sometimes it only rains once in a year. The Chorillos
River, which rises in the Sierra de San Luis, is dammed, and the water
is drawn off by conduits. The main dam is seven miles east of the
city and I drove out there to see it. The road passes by the barracks
and continues by fine fields of blue blossomed alfalfa in which fat
cattle and horses are grazing knee-high. There is a primitive park on
the left of the road in which is an artificial lake, on which swains
enjoy taking their innamoratas for rowboat rides. A crude attempt at
initiating a zoölogical garden is borne out by two pens, one of which
contains a three-footed hen, the other one being the prison of two
sabors, or Argentine lionesses from the Sierra de San Luis. A stranger
is surprised at the number of fine-looking saddle horses met on the
roads. Nearly everybody rides horseback, many with good grace and ease
of movements. The gentry use English saddles; the poorer classes use
those of Moorish type. The cab drivers as well as the horsemen gallop
their animals through the streets at a mad pace.

The air of San Luis is healthy and invigorating. I was surprised to
note the great number of old people to be seen in the city and its
environs. In this respect it is exactly the reverse of Buenos Aires.
The men and women are fine looking; the girls are beautiful with
their laughing black eyes, their faces brown from the sun and wind,
with a touch of rosiness to their cheeks; their figures are likewise
good. Argentinos and Spaniards alike call the native-born criollos
or criollas, according to sex, the word meaning Creoles. It is by no
means a word of contempt. There is quite a strain of Indian blood among
the inhabitants. Seeing some dark-skinned people by the roadside, I
asked my driver if they were Indians. He laughed as he answered: "Son
Criollos como yo. Son cristianos." ("They are natives like myself. They
are Christians.") The word Indio, meaning Indian, is one of contempt
and applies only to the members of the pagan and uncivilized tribes.

There is much natural wealth in the mountains of the province, gold,
silver, and sulphur, but nobody cares to take the initiative about
exploiting them. The unsettled country greatly resembles the unfertile
parts of California, it being a wilderness of mesquite, chaparral, wild
sage, and juniper. There is also much cactus, the varieties ranging
from the prickly pear to the Spanish bayonet. Everywhere that water
strikes the ground, wild flowers and vines spring up in rank confusion,
the wild cucumber being common. One of the native bushes has pods on
it like a bean, about the same size and shape, but rather oily. Of the
fruit trees, the apricot is cultivated; grape vines grow to a large
size, but their fruit is inferior to that of Mendoza.

Although the inhabitant of the central provinces of Argentina is
invariably of mixed blood, and is lacking in the culture of the
inhabitants of the cities, he is more of a gentleman than the majority
of those who belong to our select aristocracy. He is patient but by no
means humble. Expecting no money remuneration for extending a favor
or a courtesy to a stranger, he will willingly go out of his way to
do so, but spoken to gruffly, will have nothing more to do with him.
In San Luis I asked a cab driver where there was a good barber shop.
The one he pointed out was filled, so I went out in search of another
one. He saw me and driving down the street, overtook me, and offered
to drive me to another one. Arrived at my destination, he refused any
remuneration. The son of Pedro Nogera, the hotel proprietor, acted as
porter. Upon paying my bill, which was trivial when compared with the
services rendered, I offered the boy a small tip. He refused, saying
that I had paid for what I had received. Who is there in such stations
of life at home that would refuse a tip? Most would be angry if it was
not given, and if the sum was too small, would go off grumbling. One
of the peasants of San Luis that I consider a gentleman was my regular
cab driver. Born in San Luis, he had never been out of the province.
His name is Antonio L. Rójo. In appearance he is of large build,
somewhat coarse, and inclined to stoutness. For the sum of one and a
half pesos (61 c.) an hour, he agreed to drive me whenever and wherever
I wished to go. Although inclined to be loquacious, he showed none of
that grossness and vulgarity of character that our cab drivers are apt
to demonstrate. This man knew his position and was most attentive in
showing me the points of interest of the city and neighboring country.
He was also well read in politics but never knocked. Occasionally he
would stop and pick from the roadside fruit or flowers indigenous to
the country to show me what grew in the neighborhood of San Luis. Upon
leaving San Luis, I gave him a tip of five pesos ($2.14). This at first
he refused to accept and only took it finally by my literally forcing
it upon him. He was so delighted with the money that he took a railroad
trip to Balde, nine miles distant, to visit some relatives, and on the
way offered to spend some of it to treat me.

Shortly after leaving San Luis, westward on the railroad to Mendoza
there is seen to the south the large brackish Lake Bebedero; it keeps
in view a considerable distance. The short cut of the Buenos Aires
Pacific skirts its southern end. The second station west of San Luis
is Balde, a collection of straw and brushwood huts, the abodes of the
peasants. One well, which supplies the whole community, has been sunk,
water having been struck at a depth of 2119 feet. It is artesian.
Fifty-one miles west of San Luis, the Desaguadero River, muddy and
deep, lying in a chasm between high clay banks, is crossed. This river
forms the boundary line between the provinces of San Luis and Mendoza.
The country is a flat wilderness of mesquite which grows much larger
than in our southwestern States, probably on account of the superiority
of the soil, which here is a light clay. There is a considerable amount
of alkali, but not in so marked a degree as in the western plains of
North America. The mesquite, which grows to a great size, some of the
trees having veritable trunks, is chopped and is used as cord wood and
also as fuel on the freight and passenger trains.

La Paz, not to be confounded with the Bolivian metropolis, nor with
the Entrerieno town of the Paraná River, is reached shortly before
one o'clock in the afternoon on the daily passenger from San Luis to
Mendoza. It has two thousand inhabitants and is seventy-four miles west
of San Luis and eighty-eight miles east of Mendoza. It is important
for here begins the cultivated zone which extends as far as the Andes
and which is known as the Zona del Riego. The estancia limits and
the country roads are all bordered by Lombardy poplar trees, planted
closely together. Our North American farmer who plants his fence trees
a rod apart would be astonished to here behold them a yard apart.
Notwithstanding their proximity to one another, they here attain a
goodly height. Some pest seemed to have attacked many of these trees.
Many of the leaves were turning brown and the trees dying. It is
a curious fact that where this species of tree abounds, goiter is
prevalent among the inhabitants. In northern Italy, parts of Hungary
and Croatia, and in certain sections of the United States where there
are many Lombardy poplars, people are seen with this affliction.

CHAPTER IV

MENDOZA

From Dr. A. R. Davila, proprietor of _La Prensa_, South America's
largest newspaper, I received a letter of introduction to one of
Mendoza's best known and wealthiest men, Dr. Juan Carlos Serú, a lawyer
and country proprietor, who resides in a fine residence at 1055 Avenida
San Martin. I went to see him to pay my respects and from him obtained
some valuable information.

Up to the present time viticulture has been the staple industry of the
Province of Mendoza, the landscape being covered with vineyards as far
as the eye can see. This business has been on such an increase that it
has now reached its climax for Mendoza wines have not been exported out
of the country to any extent. With the opening up of Neuquen Territory,
which is likewise adapted to the growing of grapes, the market will be
more than flooded and there will not be much future in the business
unless there should be a large export trade. Steps have already been
taken to introduce Mendoza wines into Brazil which have so far met with
success. Since the European war, the price of grapes has dropped and
many of the small proprietors have been forced to the wall. The large
ones and old established firms have managed to reap the profits. The
value of the vineyards all depends on their proximity to a railroad
or to the city of Mendoza. Dr. Serú owns seventy hectares of vineyard
two stations distant from San Rafael, a wine producing district in the
southern part of the province, which he values at three thousand pesos
paper to the hectare; this would bring the value of a vineyard at the
height of its production to approximately $512.40 an acre.

One of the largest _bodegas_ (wineries) is that of Tomba y Sella in
Godoy Cruz, a suburb of Mendoza. It was originally a private concern
owned by Antonio Tomba. A scrap among the heirs caused a division
and it is now a stock company with Domingo Tomba as president and
the largest shareholder. The wine is kept in cement casks. The most
famous bodega, although not one of the largest, is that named Trapiche,
owned by the Benégas Brothers, situated about three miles southwest of
Mendoza. It has agencies in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba, Tucumán,
Bahia Blanca, and in Paraná. One of the brothers lives in Buenos Aires
where he conducts show rooms and a sales agency at 420 Calle Florida,
while the others live in Mendoza, supervising the manufacturing end.
I went to their bodega with Mr. Serú and was shown through the whole
institution by the manager. The vineyard comprises 538 acres. The
winery at the time of my visit was about filled and has the following
capacity:

_Casks_ _Liters_ _Total liters_
4 100,000 400,000
2 40,000 80,000
20 30,000 600,000
60 20,000 1,200,000
44 10,000 440,000
30 8,000 240,000
20 5,000 100,000
--- ------- ---------
180 213,000 3,060,000

To this must be added 9000 barrels of 200 liters, total 1,800,000
liters, which brings the grand total to 4,860,000 liters capacity.
These 9000 barrels mostly contain a brand of red wine named Reserva
which sells for $51.24 a barrel. The wine sold in the bottle is 7/10
of a liter for it takes 280 bottles to fill the barrel. Perkeo of
Heidelberg surely would have had a high old time if turned loose in the
Trapiche wine cellars. Seven-tenths bottle of ordinary Reservada which
retails in Mendoza at ninety-seven cents is selling now in Italy among
the Mendocino Italians, who have returned home on account of the war,
at $1.76. The Benégas Brothers manufacture seventeen brands of wine
and two brands of unfermented grape beverage. The manager, who showed
me around, must have thought I had a saintly countenance, for when I
left the institution, instead of handing me some wine to sample, he
poured out for me a tumbler of grape juice. I do not want the readers
of this book to draw the conclusion from this that I left Mendoza
without refreshing myself with some of the real article. The Tomba
is the largest of all the bodegas, and there are many larger than the
Trapiche; the Barra Quero being one of them.

Not only do the Benégas Brothers manufacture wine and grape juice, but
they have lately installed a cold-storage system at their plant for the
preservation of grapes which are sent to Buenos Aires and other parts
of the country to be eaten in the élite restaurants and in the homes
of the wealthy. One kilogram (2⅕ pounds) of table grapes from their
vineyards retails in Buenos Aires from 56 cts. to $2.14 according to
their quality.

Dr. Serú, seeing the results obtained from viticulture in this province
was one of the first men to conceive the idea of growing fruit for
canning as has been done in California. On his estate near San Rafael,
he had some canned which he sent to Buenos Aires to compete with some
articles from California. His product was found to be superior and
to-day he has one of the best fruit _fincas_ in the republic. Gath y
Chaves, the great department firm which has branches in every large
town in the republic have decided to accept, for their trade, no
other brands than his. This is a big feather in his cap because Gath
y Chaves is the largest firm of its kind in South America. Dr. Serú is
now endeavoring to get North American capital interested in Mendocino
lands for he is of the opinion that fruit will eventually supersede
viticulture. Fruit lands average about $51.24 an acre; orchards of
plums, apricots, peaches, and pears, six years old, will cost the
purchaser $683.20 an acre. These figures are nearly exact regarding
their present worth (1917), and if anybody who reads this book goes to
Mendoza, not knowing conditions there, they should not be bluffed by
other figures as these are nearly correct, they having been given to me
by viticulturists and fruit growers of repute.

Mendoza has been hit rather hardly in the question of labor for three
thousand Italians alone have emigrated from the province to return home
on account of the European war. Business is now at its lowest ebb, but
of all the provinces of the republic, it has undoubtedly the brightest
future. It is going to be a great granary, and wheat is going to play
an important part in its exports. Everything is grown by irrigation,
and it has been found that grain grown this way there doesn't rot or
soften as it does in other districts under similar conditions. Under
ordinary conditions, the wheat yield in Mendoza is fifty-two bushels
to the acre; that of the whole republic is only twenty-three. A man on
an experimental farm grew ten acres that averaged seventy-six bushels
to the acre; figures that I had hitherto thought impossible. There is
no flour mill in the province; neither is there one in the neighboring
province San Juan. Sr. Emilio Vogt, manager of the Molino del Rio de
la Plata, the largest flour mill in Argentina, which has a capital of
$14,945,000, tells me that a flour mill either in Tucumán or in Mendoza
would be a profitable investment. One with a daily capacity of 30 tons
would cost 300,000 pesos ($138,100.00). It would need 200,000 pesos
($85,400.00) extra for working capital, bringing the total to 500,000
pesos ($223,500.00). He says he would guarantee a mill like this to
make forty per cent. annually on the original investment. It would
have all it could do to supply Mendoza city alone. Vogt says that in
the flour business in Argentina, everything depends on the freight.
The grain belt at the present time is midway between Buenos Aires and
Mendoza. Wheat is shipped to Buenos Aires to be ground and the flour
then shipped back over the same rails and beyond to Mendoza. This cuts
a big hole in the profits. Since Mendoza is destined to be a great
wheat country, the grain won't have to be shipped far to the mill if
one is established there.

The city of Mendoza according to the census of 1916 had 59,117 human
inhabitants. Its neighbor, Godoy Cruz had a population of 16,021.
The canine population of both of these cities outnumbers that of the
human in a proportion of at least three to one. Only two dogs out of
this vast number are of any consequence and they are on exhibit in the
zoölogical gardens. The other dogs are not worth the powder to blow
them up.

With the exception of Buenos Aires, Mendoza is undoubtedly the finest
city in Argentina and is the liveliest of the provincial capitals. It
is a beautiful place with many broad avenues bordered by symmetrical
rows of sycamore, plane, and linden trees. All the streets of the
newer part of the town are well paved with rectangular cobble stones.
Between the road and the sidewalk are ditches paved with round polished
stones and spanned by bridges under which rivulets of muddy water flow.
I have been told that in this respect, Mendoza bears a similarity to
Guatemala. The sidewalks are paved with tile of various somber colors
and designs. The residences are mostly one story in height built of a
brownish brick or of adobe and stuccoed. The town presents an extremely
verdant and refreshing appearance largely due to the murmuring of the
running water that is everywhere.

The Plaza San Martin, the principal one, though to me not as charming
as the Plaza Pringles in San Luis, is the finest in the republic. In
its center is a large equestrian statue of the guerrero, San Martin,
looking towards the Andes. From its center, eight walks, the tile
paving of which cost the city forty thousand dollars, radiate, the four
center ones containing little islands of flowers. The corners of this
plaza which are sunk about two feet below the level of the street are
round. In this neighborhood much of the activity of the city centers
for here are the Grand Hotel, Hotel Bauer, the cathedral, the Spanish
Bank of the River Plate; the Bank of the Province of Mendoza (a huge
building in construction); the Bank of the Argentine Nation and the
Municipal Theater. Nearby is the post office.

* * * * *

There is another plaza, that of Independencia, which is still in
an embryo state. It contains four city squares and when finished is
expected to be a masterpiece. Work of grading is now in progress but it
is being done so slowly that I conjecture the year 1920 may not witness
its completion. In the meantime horses graze on the tall grass and
alfalfa that will be eventually dug up to be planted to trees and lawn.
This is supposed to be the exact geographical center of New Mendoza and
on it faces the capitol and governor's residence. Both these edifices
are but one story in height; the former covering an entire block.

[Illustration: Statue of San Martin, Mendoza]

The city is divided into nearly equal parts by a broad avenue, that of
San Martin, formerly the Alameda which runs north and south.

* * * * *

These two parts are called by the distinctive names of Mendoza which
is the western section and Old Mendoza, the eastern one. Old Mendoza,
which I think contains the greatest population is in the form of a
trapezoid, while the new city is that of a square. The old city was the
part that existed before the earthquake of 1861. It was nearly totally
destroyed and has been rebuilt again. The best to do inhabitants
instead of repairing their ruined homes, laid out plans for a new and
better city with wide streets and spacious parks. It is this new part
that to-day is the most important. Old Mendoza with its one-story,
primitive adobe buildings, in some respects resembles San José de
Costa Rica, although it is not nearly as fine and clean a city. Its
streets are treeless and most of them are never paved. The poor element
lives here. The old plaza with its dirt walks, which was formerly the
center of the city, is a full mile from that of San Martin. The ancient
crumbling unstuccoed adobe pile which was the pristine city hall is
now an almshouse. There are no residences in Mendoza which can be
termed palatial, that of my acquaintance, Dr. Serú being the best. It
is a two-story structure on the wide and shadeless Avenida San Martin,
hemmed in on both sides by shops. The residence of Domingo Tomba at
Godoy Cruz is the finest house in the province, but it is in a poor
location, on the busy and dusty plaza of that small city.

[Illustration: Avenida San Martin, Mendoza]

Regarding the earthquake in Mendoza, "Until 1861," writes Dr. Martin
de Moussy, "the Province of Mendoza was not aware of the terrors of
an earthquake. The violent shocks that had at different times agitated
the Chilean provinces seemed to lose their intensity on going over the
chain of the Andes. The inhabitants only knew slight tremblings of
the earth previous to then. March 20, 1861, one of the most violent
earthquakes ever recorded destroyed in a few seconds the city of
Mendoza and buried one-half of its inhabitants under its ruins."

At 8:30 P.M. that night, the town was totally destroyed by one of
the most violent earthquakes ever experienced. The sky was perfectly
clear; the atmosphere quiet; the greater part of its inhabitants at
home, although some of them were enjoying a walk in the Alameda and
on the plaza. Suddenly a subterranean noise was heard, and at the
same moment before there was time to escape, all the public buildings
and private houses were falling in with a tremendous crash. The walls
fell outward and all sides of the rooms and the roofs came down in
the center so that the inhabitants, both those who were inside the
houses and those who were on the streets were all buried beneath the
débris. The movement was first undulatory from northwest to southeast
and afterwards seemed to come from below upwards. Its violence was so
great that in the gardens many people fell down. In the Church of San
Augustin, where mass was being held, only one person escaped alive. He
was a drunken man asleep in the vestibule. The pillars fell in such
a way that he was uninjured. Fire started by broken lamps and from
kitchen braziers. The débris of the earthquake clogged the canals and
started a flood. Food ran short and the stench of the corpses which
could not be taken from the ruins was awful. The fire raged ten days.
When everything was normal again, it was estimated that at least ten
thousand people perished. The _Almanaque del Mensajero_ gives the total
number of victims at fifteen thousand. The shocks were continued at
frequent intervals until the end of May. There was a suggestion to
rebuild the city on some granite hills known as Las Tortugas but old
ties and affections pervaded so a new city was built directly west
of the Alameda which is now the Avenida San Martin. The ruins of the
churches of San Francisco and San Augustin should be visited.

The Parque Oeste (West Park) which its name indicates is in the western
part of the city. It is built on a scarcely perceptible general slope,
and to my idea out-rivals that of Palermo in Buenos Aires, it being
more natural and rustic. It is not yet entirely completed, but that
part of it which is, nearly attains a perfection. It is spacious and
its broad avenues, cross lawns planted to trees indigenous to the
country. There is a fine music pavilion and a zoölogical garden there.

Westward from this park and past the hospital in the course of
construction, a broad road bordered by year-old Carolina poplar trees
takes one to the mile distant Cerrito de la Gloria a 1300 foot hill
which rises abruptly from the desert Pampa. Its eastern slope is
planted to eucalyptus, various generi of cactus, pepperberry, and other
trees and shrubs. Dependent on water which is forced through a conduit
to the top of a hill, they have in the three years of their existence
here attained a marvelous growth on what was formerly a barren waste.
Serpentine automobile roads with no balustrades coil upwards around
the hill. It would be no place for a joy ride. A driver in very sober
senses drove off the road in broad daylight in August, 1915. The only
occupant of the victoria beside himself was a young girl. They both
saved their lives by jumping but both the horses rolled over into the
ravine and were killed.

[Illustration: Monument to the Army of the Andes, Mendoza]

The summit of this hill is crowned by a gigantic monument of
granite and of bronze erected in 1914 by the Argentine Republic in
commemoration of the Army of the Andes which crossed that giant barrier
and defeated the Spaniards at Maipu and at Chacabuco in Chile. It was
unveiled on the centennial day on which the army left Mendoza. The
monument is a Goddess of Victory looking northward. (It was northward
through Villavicencio that San Martin's army went.) The granite
pedestal formed from three huge blocks of massive rock has embedded in
it a bronze bas relief, depicting the cavalry, artillery, and infantry
of that time with the famous general and his officers and also a
reception given to the liberators after their victory. On top of the
bas relief is shown the number of men comprising the conquering army,
classified as follows:

_Superior Officers_ _Officers_ _Soldiers_
Artillery 4 16 241
Infantry 9 124 2,795
Cavalry 4 55 742
Militia 1,200
Engineers 120

Total 5310 men including 212 officers. There were 9191 mules and 1600
horses. The names of the heroes dear to the Argentine and Chilean
public are engraved on one bronze plate in order as follows:

San Martin
O'Higgins
Las Heras
de la Plaza
Conde
Cramer
Alvardo
Zapiola
Beltran
de la Quintana
Condarco
Cabot
Paroisien
Freire
Mansilla
Zentena
Arcos
Martinez
Guiraldez
Lavalle

As to hotels, Mendoza can boast of none that are first-class according
to the standard of those of the average European or North American city
of its size, although the Jewish hotel of Emilio Lévy which tries to
be international and neutral (but which is not), is the best. It is
named Grand Hotel San Martin but in colloquial conversation the suffix
San Martin is usually left out. Lévy is an Alsatian Jew as well as are
his immediate entourage of hirelings and some of the printed sheets
of German atrocities in this European conflagration that his clerks
distribute on the dining-room tables and in the corridor are evidence
to show the wandering Briton or Frenchman that his money is solicited
even though he may receive kosher food for it in return. The rooms are
large and clean, most of them opening on to a patio as is the custom
of the hotels in provincial Argentina. The food is good but I am sorry
to say that it is lacking in quantity as well as in variety. Three
years ago, while I was in Mendoza, this same hotel set a fine meal and
a large one but one must take into consideration that the greater the
variety of food as well as the quantity, the greater is the cost, and
Jews are always out for the money. The Apulian bartender knows how to
draw a nice schuper of Quilmes beer, but I am told that the barman of
the Hotel Bauer across the plaza on the Calle General Necochea keeps
his draught beer better. The only serious objection I have to the Grand
Hotel is its middle class Yiddish clientele of all nationalities who
stare rudely at the other guests and while eating, wave their forks and
knives as they loudly explain some anecdote.

The Hotel Bauer, patronized by Teutons, runs largely to café and
barroom which are the only departments of this institution in evidence
from the street. The dining room and the bedrooms are in the rear, but
the bedrooms are small. The Hotel Italia is "free and easy." They have
a regular rate but if a person brings a woman companion to his room who
is not his wife or of any consanguinity, he is charged double.

Mendoza is no smokers' paradise. Cigars dry up in the dry atmosphere
and become as crisp and brittle as tinder and as dry as powder. As to
amusements, there are none save a few cinematograph shows and a bagnio
named Petit Eden. One of these moving picture shows was showing films
of the Willard-Johnson fight. It was such an attraction that the place
was jammed. I had seen no moving pictures of the fight as yet, although
I wanted to, as I had witnessed the genuine article in Havana. I was
dumbfounded at the finale after the twenty-sixth round to see my visage
conspicuous in the foreground displayed upon the white canvas, as I did
not know that I had been within range of the camera while at the fight
in Havana.

The Province of Mendoza is rich in mineral springs due to the volcanic
Andes. The most famous of these springs is that of Villavicencio
about sixty miles northwest of the capital in the fastnesses of the
mountains. It was through here that San Martin marched his army on his
way to Chile. He came out at the point where the railroad now lies at
the farm of Uspallata. The Mendoza agents of the Argentine Brewery have
bought the spring and transport its waters in bulk to Mendoza where
they bottle it.

To the north of the Province of Mendoza lies the Province of San Juan
with an area of 33,715 square miles. It together with Mendoza and San
Luis, formerly formed the Province of Cuyo which belonged to that part
of the Spanish dependencies that were governed from Santiago, Chile. In
character, San Juan is much like Mendoza although it has less fertile
lands. This is due to the fact that while Mendoza has three rivers
which serve to irrigate it, San Juan has but one. San Juan is noted for
the superior quality of its figs which here thrive to perfection. Its
capital city is also named San Juan. It is ninety-eight miles north of
the city of Mendoza and is reached by the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway
which here has its terminus. It is a small town of 14,595 inhabitants
with shady streets and of ancient appearance. Most of its houses are of
adobe. It is also the seat of the bishopric of Cuyó. The bishop is José
Américo Orzali who has held this post since 1912.

Leaving Mendoza westward, the narrow gauge Transandine Railway runs
parallel to the canal of the Mendoza River and crosses it twice.
Several kilometers out, the snow-capped peaks of the Andes are
visible, among them Aconcagua, South America's highest mountain and
extinct volcano in Argentina near the Chilean line. This great height
of twenty-four thousand feet was first ascended by E. A. Fitz Gerald
after several efforts, but since then it has been scaled several times,
there being guides at Puente del Inca to take mountain climbers to the
summit.

[Illustration: Waiting for the Train at Cacheuta]

Twenty miles from Mendoza, we enter the defile of the Mendoza River,
and are in the midst of the Andes. I left the train at Cacheuta,
where at that thermal resort, I put in forty-eight hours. There are
hot springs at Cacheuta and a small establishment was built as they
were found to contain qualities beneficial for rheumatism and kindred
ailments. The trade of the place increased until it became necessary
to drill holes into the ravine bottom to pump the hot water out for
baths. The patient is apt to get worse for the first five days after
the beginning of this treatment, but then gets better and improves
until the course is completed. The Gran Hotel Cacheuta is a sumptuous
and luxurious affair built on the style of which we are erroneously
led to believe is Cliff Dweller architecture like the Hotel El Tovar
at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. I was not long there before I
found out that the main attraction of Cacheuta was not the baths but
instead roulette and nickel-in-the-slot machines. The first mentioned
game was in full swing; a separate building was given over to that
form of joy producer. Chips cost a peso apiece, except for the three
dozen, red and black, and odd and even, where a five-peso chip must be
thrown on the green cloth. Little girls not more than twelve years old
watch their beplumed and besapphired mammas win or lose. Long-robed
priests wander back and forth, occasionally placing a bet where their
holy inclination tells them to; vermouth glass in hand, they are seen
in the barroom to walk up to the products of Mills and of Caille and
to the tune of a twenty-centavo piece watch for their luck. In the way
of scenery and other attractions besides the bath there is nothing at
Cacheuta to divert one's time. It is a society place for gambling and
a place for rest for the tired business man. It is wonderful, however,
to see what man has done in a place not favored by nature. The barren
mountains obscure the view in all directions; the sandy soil can
bear no vegetation. Here and there are to be seen the corrugated iron
huts of the railroad workmen in front of whose doors their numerous
brown-skinned offspring are playing. Through the whole scene runs the
turbulent Mendoza River, muddy with silt and sand.

[Illustration: On the Terrace at Cacheuta]

Not far above Cacheuta is Potrerillos, where it is pleasant to see a
speck of green. Steers graze in alfalfa fields enclosed by tall poplar
trees. A stock company was formed to bore a tunnel two kilometres
through the mountains to the plain, deviate the stream from its
course by running it through this tunnel and which once through, would
irrigate new lands. As it would also render waste the lands now under
cultivation, the wine growers and agriculturists served an injunction
on this company stopping them in their undertaking. The tunnel is
completed, but it is a hundred to one shot nothing will ever come of it
for the company tried to steal the river.

[Illustration: Thermal Establishment at Cacheuta]

[Illustration: One of the Diversions at Cacheuta that is Neither
Bathing nor Gambling]

The whole trip to Santiago over the Andes so often described is one
of great scenic beauty on the Chilean side where the descent is very
abrupt and where one can look down the whole length of the valley
of the Aconcagua River which is cultivated where nature will allow.
That on the Argentina side is grand with the giant peaks in the
neighborhood, and also awe-inspiring, but it is apt to be tedious.
The last stop of importance in Argentina is Puente del Inca, where
there is a thermal establishment and electrical works. Here there is
a natural bridge under which the Mendoza River flows and which gives
the place its name. High up on the mountain side are curious groups
of rocks which from the valley appear like people praying. They are
named the Penitentes. The crest of the Andes is pierced by a tunnel at
an altitude of 10,364 feet. This tunnel is 9848 feet long, 5460 feet
of it being in Argentina and the remaining 4388 feet being in Chile.
It takes eight minutes to run through it on the train. In the winter
time when snow blocks the passes so it is impossible for trains to
run, travelers between Argentina and Chile ride through this tunnel on
horseback. About 1500 feet above the tunnel at the summit of the Cumbre
there is a statue of Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor), seen by me
on several occasions as I have crossed the mountains on horseback. It
was designed by the Argentine sculptor Matteo Alonso. It is of bronze
and is over twenty-nine feet in height. It was unveiled at a mass said
on the top of the Cumbre in March, 1904, as a monument of perpetual
peace between Argentina and Chile in the presence of the presidents of
the two republics. There had been a scrap over the boundary question
and both countries were on the verge of war. It was a case of one being
afraid and the other dare not, Chile probably holding the pole. Chile
was unable to obtain a loan and therefore war was averted. The image
of Christ with his arms extended is looking southward and the boundary
line of the two countries runs through His center. Since the traffic on
the Cumbre has greatly lessened on account of the tunnel, this bronze
Christ has fallen into neglect. Storms have knocked the cross out of
his hands, and in many ways have damaged it. The Chilean mozos who
cross the Andes to work in the electrical works at Puente del Inca, use
this statue as a target when they pass by it and when I saw it, it was
quite pock-marked with the bullets from their revolvers. One hundred
meters north and one hundred metres south of the statue are two iron
poles named "itos" which demark the boundary.

[Illustration: Steps at Cacheuta Leading from the Railroad Station to
the Hotel]

The poor travelers still go over the Cumbre. They hire mules for fifty
pesos Chileno apiece ($4.90) at Los Andes, leaving there early in the
morning long before daybreak and arriving at the Argentine station of
Las Cuevas in the afternoon in time to catch the afternoon train to
Mendoza.

At Santa Rosa de los Andes down the valley of the Aconcagua at an
altitude of 2698 feet, we changed trains for here we reached the broad
gauge of the Chilean State Railways. It is a pleasure to be able to
travel again in clean and comfortable cars. Those of Argentina are
terrible; they are dirty, old, and worn. The toilets are dirty and the
lavatories are generally lacking in towels. In Chile are Pullman cars
of American manufacture; the locomotives are local, or are made in
Germany. I came from Cacheuta on the special car sent by the Argentine
Government to convey the special ambassadors and envoys with their
distinguished guests to the inauguration ceremonies and installation
of the new President of Chile, Sr. Luis Sanfuentes, who succeeded
Sr. Ramon Barros Luco, whose term expired December 23, 1915. This
party included Romulo S. Naón, special ambassador, Colonel Carlos
S. Martinez, military attaché, Captain José Moneta, naval attaché,
Sr. Iriondo de Irigoyen and Sr. Albert d'Alkaine, secretaries to the
Embassy and myself. Brazil was represented by Senhor Luis Martins
de Souza Dantas, special ambassador. Portugal sent her minister
to Argentina, Colonel Botelho, a very quiet miniature old man and
his military attaché, Colonel Martin de Lima, a middle-aged small
gentleman. At Los Andes, we were met by the welcome committee of the
Chilean government, its units being the pick of the land politically,
socially, and from rank in military and naval affairs. After being
photographed and presented with flowers by comely maidens dressed in
white, who came to greet us and who sang a song especially composed for
our honor, we were escorted to a private train where we were dined and
wined on the way to Santiago.

CHAPTER V

SALTA AND TUCUMÁN

Mr. William Boyce, of the Chicago Saturday _Blade_, made a trip to
Tucumán and wrote a chapter about it in his book, _Illustrated South
America_. This book I read with pleasure and determined that I should
visit that city if ever an opportunity presented itself. One morning,
armed with credentials and letters of introduction to prominent
personages in the far provinces, I boarded the train for Tucumán. Two
railroads connect Buenos Aires with Tucumán, the Central of Córdoba
and the Central of Argentina. I traveled by a train that runs over the
rails of the latter.

Mariano Saavedra, 288 miles north of Buenos Aires is the town where the
River Plate scenery ends, and the vast, monotonous plains begin. Up to
here through the broad expanse of corn fields, whose limits are bounded
by the horizon; past funereal towns of unpointed red brick buildings,
the open doors and windows of which have the aspect of morgue entrances
and apertures; past mournful cemeteries of blackened crosses; and
past peasant houses embowered in groves of weeping willows, the dirty
tri-weekly express train sped us by in a cloud of stifling, blinding,
eye-smarting, ear-filling dust. At Mariano Saavedra we come to the
unbounded, limitless plain of coarse green grass on which myriads of
cattle graze. This, the province of Santa Fé, is the true plain of
Argentina. From history and from fiction we imagine the great plains
to be the central and the southern provinces, consisting of what is
geographically the western part of the province of Buenos Aires, the
Province of San Luis, and the territory of Pampa. This is not the
true fact. In all these geographical divisions are rolling hills, and
streams in deep-lying canyons. Here in Santa Fé, I doubt if there is a
single hill. A broad landscape, dry and dusty but by no means rainless,
and yet fruitful, meets the eye of the traveler. A dark cloud on the
horizon approaches, and when overhead breaks into a swarm of locusts,
which in many instances destroy in a single day the whole untiring
year's work of the farmers. They are not such a pest as they were in
former years, but yet a terrible scourge.

At 10:30 P.M. the town of Ceres is reached. This place, a railway
division point, is built at the corners of the provinces Santa Fé,
Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero, the last-named province being
that which the train now enters and which it takes all night to
cross. Do not imagine that this dusty, smoky town is named after the
Goddess of Agriculture. It is a synonym of all that is evil among
human inhabitants, namely overwhelming dust, locomotive smoke, and
locusts which dart through the empty windows of the coaches like hot
coals, and are pulled out of ones food, beer, hair, pockets, and even
underdrawers, of all sizes and shapes from three inches downwards,
never failing to expectorate a dark brown sputum, like tobacco juice
but purulent.

I sat in the dining car with a young dentist named Hallmann, of German
birth but who had an American diploma. He resides at Santiago del
Estero where he made twenty thousand dollars at his profession during
the last two years. There is only one other dentist in that city,
an American, but Hallmann says the latter has no trade because he is
drunken. He told me that in Santiago del Estero he was always obliged
to accept cash before he pulled a tooth on account of the swindling
tendency of the natives. Several months later, I accidentally met
Hallmann on the Avenida in Buenos Aires. He had made enough money in
Santiago del Estero and was on his way to Philadelphia, where he had
formerly practiced, to open up an office.

The Province of Santiago del Estero has an area of 39,764 square miles
and a population of 264,911. It is a plain varying from 450 to 550 feet
above sea level. Its climate is extremely hot. Most of the surface of
the soil is covered with a dense brush of mesquite and quebracho trees,
which are cut into cordwood and used as fuel on the locomotives. The
capital city is Santiago del Estero, frequently spoken of in Argentina
as Santiago. It is an antiquated city of seventeen thousand inhabitants
and is one of the oldest towns in the republic having been founded in
1553 by Francisco de Aguirre on the Dulce River. It is the seat of a
bishopric, which was created in 1908. The present incumbent is Dr. Juan
Martin de Yañiz y Paz. On account of its isolation, Santiago del Estero
has not prospered as it should have.

The inhabitants of the Province of Santiago del Estero are mostly
dependent for a livelihood on the sale of quebracho. This wood which
rarely attains a growth of thirty feet is of a deep red color and is
used as a dye wood. Its supply seems inexhaustible but its export is
now at a standstill on account of a slump in the market. It thrives
in dry climates for in this province where it frequently goes for
a stretch of seven months at a time without a rain, it attains its
perfection. The northern provinces of Argentina have it over its
southern neighbors in the fact that no matter how dry the country is,
if it lies within the proper altitudes it is forested.

I have heard the Province of Tucumán spoken of by Argentinos as having
a tropical climate. Such is not the truth, but it is, in climate,
the nearest approach to the tropics of any of the other Argentine
provinces, with the exception of the lowlands of Salta that lie
within the La Plata watershed. All nations are apt to exaggerate their
endowments of nature, therefore one should not too sharply criticize
the Argentinos when they speak of Tucumán as tropical. The Germans call
part of Saxony, "Sächische Schweiz," when it bears no more resemblance
to Switzerland than does a pot of ink to a bucket of milk. The
Uruguayans love to style their land "The Greenland of South America,"
and even the Paraguayans call their mountains the "Himalaya Mbaracayu."
The only similarity of Tucumán to the tropics is the excessive heat in
summer, and the prevalence of fevers, the most noteworthy being a form
of malaria, named _chuchu_ which is also in Santiago del Estero, Jujuy,
and Salta. A more fever-free country is hard to imagine from the lay
of the land, yet I am sorry to say that the Argentine Board of Health
statistics belie it. Malaria is one of the foremost death-causing
ailments in northwestern Argentina. I would, however, class these
provinces as being healthy, as there are no other epidemics excepting
an occasional sporadic outbreak of smallpox.

Entering Tucumán province from Santiago del Estero, the scenery
abruptly changes from the quebracho thicket to large open fields of
sugar cane. It was summer when I visited it and the cane was nowhere
near its growth. Compared with Cuba, the soil is poorer, the cane
sicklier, and the establishments smaller. It is a go-between Cuba and
the other islands of the West Indies.

From the city of Tucumán northward the scenery is beautiful. Seated
in the dining car of the narrow gauge Central Northern Railroad
with an overflowing glass of Rubia beer in front of me, and gazing
at the fleeting landscape, I was entranced by the works of God. An
endless forest of hardwood, with magnificent spreading tops, yet
too small to make saw timber, formed an excrescence on the reddish
clay thicker than bristles on Tamworth swine. The undergrowth is
thick like that of southern Chile, but here nature is like that of a
warmer clime. No towns and but few farmhouses are visible, yet this
is a populous country. The houses are hidden away in the forest, and
their owners make their living by stock raising, their herds roaming
at random in the woods. High green mountains grace the landscape,
their lower reaches wooded, while their tops uplifted above the tree
line are verdant with grasses. They are like the Paraguayan mountains
in contour, domed or serrated but never flat. The rainy season is
from December to April. Then the country looks its best. Under such
conditions I saw it. The seven months from May through November
constitute the dry season, and I was told that then the landscape has
a dreary appearance owing to its parched dryness. The cattle seem to
thrive even then. They are gaunt, rawboned creatures and even when fat,
a man can nearly hang his hat upon their haunches. They have great
endurance and are driven across the northern passes into Chile where
they sell for nineteen cents a pound live weight. Even with their great
shrinkage en route there is quite a profit to this. In the Province
of Salta where land cannot get irrigation, it is worthless except
for cattle raising owing to the seven months' drought, as water is
absolutely necessary for their crops.

To the stations, on the approach of the train, lean dogs and fat sows
come, and standing on the platform in front of the dining car, they
look longingly at the windows, and with barking and squealing let their
presence be known. These animals know exactly what time the trains
are scheduled to arrive and depart, where the dining car stops, and at
which end of the dining car the kitchen is. This sagacity comes from
intuition covering a long period. They are at every station and are
especially noticeable at the stop named Virgilio Tedin. The cook and
waiters never throw them anything, but instead occasionally douse them
with the contents of a bucket of dish water. The passengers are more
compassionate, and always throw a piece of biscuit or bone at these
animals who pounce upon the castings with squeals of delight. The
dogs are afraid of the sows, which although fat are of good fighting
material.

[Illustration: Güemes

A typical town of northern Argentina]

Güemes, a town of two thousand inhabitants is the junction for Salta
and for Jujuy. Although Salta is on a branch line and Jujuy is on
the main one, all through trains go to Salta for it is the largest
place. For Jujuy, you have to change. Jujuy, the capital of the
small province of the same name, is a miserable, squalid place of six
thousand inhabitants, in a hot but healthy valley. It used to have
twenty thousand people in the Colonial period, when it was the outpost
of Spanish civilization of the La Plata provinces; it then did a brisk
trade with Bolivia. The town has no future. Midway between Güemes and
Jujuy is the junction of Perico from which place a railroad extends
in a northeasterly direction to Oran, in the province of Salta. This
is also an old place with many houses in ruins. It has but twenty-five
hundred inhabitants and is a shell of its former opulence. It now has
a good future because a railroad is being built to connect it with
Formosa on the Paraguay River, and much timber and tropical products
will be brought in to be exported. Now Oran exports oranges and
bananas. Another old Colonial town of crumbling houses is Santiago del
Esteca near Metan, a station of the Central Northern Railroad south
of Güemes. Santiago del Esteca lies in the midst of a thick forest and
communication with the outside world is carried on over a rough wagon
road. The Central Northern Railroad ends at La Quiaca, the frontier
station at the Bolivian boundary line. From Jujuy northward it is
a gradual climb to Abrapampa, over thirteen thousand feet above sea
level and then a drop of about three thousand feet to the terminus.
The railroad is in some places rack and pinion but the trip for scenic
beauty affords but little interest to the tourist for it is over bleak
and barren mountains. The trip from Buenos Aires to La Paz, Bolivia,
can be made in one week, owing to the excellent stage-coach service of
a Bolivian company connecting La Quiaca with Uyuni on the Antofagasta
to Bolivia Railroad.

Live hogs in northern Argentina are shipped in the baggage cars of
passenger trains, although there seems to be plenty of empty swine
wagons. The animals are trussed up by a noose slipped over their
snouts, drawn tightly and slipped around their front feet which are
bound; the rope is then extended to their hind feet which are already
hobbled. I saw half a dozen of these creatures bound this way being
taken from the baggage car at Güemes and laid in the sun on the depot
platform, when the thermometer stood at 108° Fahrenheit in the shade.

On the spur to Salta the first stop is Campo Santo, meaning "holy
ground" or "cemetery." I am told that it is very appropriately named as
the fevers here are exceedingly common and are of great virulence.

He who has been to Argentina and has failed to see the Lerma Valley
is to be pitied. I have been told that the Cauca Valley in Colombia
is one of nature's rare masterpieces, and I would like to have it
compared with that of the Lerma by somebody who has seen both. Midway
between Güemes and Salta we reach the Lerma River, and the high wooded
hills narrow down to a defile, coming to the water's edge in some
places which necessitates the train in some places to pass through
tunnels. An occasional charcoal burner's hut is seen, but no other
habitations. Suddenly the defile ends, the river is crossed, and a
long valley several miles wide is entered, its whole floor in a high
state of cultivation and dotted with farmhouses. Near at hand are green
foothills, which afford pasture for stock. Behind are wooded mountains.
The whole panorama is beautified by the high Andes to the west and
north whose summits are capped with perpetual snow. The city of Salta
is approached; its many towers and Gothic spires, together with its
setting at the base of wooded mountains, brings to one's mind visions
of cities of Central Europe.

[Illustration: Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, Salta]

The Province of Salta has an area of 62,184 square miles and had
185,643 inhabitants according to the last census, that of 1914. It is
divided into twenty-one departments which are analogous to the counties
of our states. There is a great variation of soil and climate ranging
from barrenness and frigidity in the high Andes to exuberant vegetation
and torrid heats in the department of Oran. The principal industry
is the exportation of stock into Chile. A railroad to Chile seems to
be the want of the inhabitants. They say that if one were built to
Antofagasta, they would need no trade with the rest of Argentina for
then all their exports would be sent north by the Pacific boats, and
their imports from the United States would be brought in that way,
saving a great expense in freight. This is only too true. Argentina
is willing that such a railroad should be built, but the Chilean
Government has refused permission on the grounds that there would be
a great exodus of population from their barren northern provinces to
the fruitful country across the Andes, namely Salta and Jujuy. There
has always been more or less enmity between Argentina and Chile over
a national boundary dispute regarding the limits of the Province of
Salta, whose productive soil the first-mentioned country is jealous
of. The question once nearly precipitated a war and the statue of the
Cristo Redentor is a monument of the pact of peace.

Whenever nature bestows opulence on a country, it invariably endows it
with setbacks. This it did in Salta by giving it fevers and venomous
snakes. The chuchu fever is the commonest disease and although not
so prevalent as in the Province of Tucumán, it is here in a more
malignant form. It is conveyed by the bite of the mosquito and much
resembles ague, excepting that the body is racked by pains, each day in
a different place. It is supposed never to leave the system, quinine
availing but little. It weakens the heart and in this way death is
caused, but only after several or more years. Some people never have
it, and, by the healthy looks of the inhabitants and by the number of
aged people to be seen in Salta, I do not believe its effects are as
dangerous as is claimed. Among the snake family there are some venomous
species, notably the viper and the cascabel. The bite of the latter is
synonymous with sure death.

The city of Salta, whose population is estimated at twenty-eight
thousand exclusive of a garrison of two thousand soldiers, is one of
the best built cities and, for its size, one of the liveliest towns
in Argentina. Its streets are paved with creosote blocks as in Paris;
it has an electric car system and all the progressive improvements.
Its buildings are modern two-story structures, and old houses of the
Colonial period with ornate carved wood entrances. On February 20,
1813, General Arenales defeated the Spaniards on a plain north of the
town, and a few years ago at a Centennial to celebrate the event, a
handsome monument of stone with bronze martial bas-reliefs, surmounted
by a female statue of Liberty holding aloft a cross, was unveiled on
the battle ground and is regarded by the Saltenos as the pride of their
town. The principal plaza of the city is named in honor of the hero,
Arenales, and a monument is soon to be placed on the brick base in the
center of this square which formerly was graced by a squat obelisk. The
principal club of the city is likewise named after the victory, its
nomenclature being the 20th of February Club. This edifice faces the
plaza and is by far the most modern building in Salta; it is the only
building in the city that is three stories high. Many cities of half a
million inhabitants cannot boast of so fine a club regarding interior
furnishings. The wood carving, which is of Salta oak and cedar is of
native workmanship; the Saltenos are famous in that art and I doubt
if anywhere woodcarving by hand is done better. The parquet flooring
of the club ballroom makes the visitor gasp with amazement when he
is told that the work and the wood are all local. On the furniture of
this club, which is even equipped with a gymnasium, no expense has been
spared. The ballroom chairs of Marie Antoinette style are upholstered
with silk, and the massive candelabra are of the choicest Venetian
glass. The toilet room, I am pleased to relate, is one of the very few
that I visited in Argentina that is kept clean.

The buildings around the Plaza Arenales are all arcaded, but the only
one of architectural interest is the old Cabildo, or city hall, of
Spanish times. It is a low, squat, long structure of massive walls
and with rounded arches forming the arcades. A low, pointed tower
rises above the center. The lower floor of this building is now given
up entirely to stores while the upper ones are leased for dwelling
purposes.

[Illustration: Tomb in Cemetery, Salta]

The Hotel Plaza of Ramon Terres is a two-story building at the
northeast corner of the square and, although it is by no means a St.
Regis, it is good enough for Salta. Unfortunately most of the bedrooms
face a glass-roofed courtyard, which besides making them dark, does
not allow the entry of much fresh air. The pillows are so hard that
the guests are apt to wonder if they are stuffed with brickbats. One of
the curious figures that haunted the hotel café was a very old, tall,
and thin gentleman of a decidedly noble and dignified appearance. His
hair which was abundant, and his well-trimmed beard were silvery white.
His clean features, neat black clothes, and derby hat would deceive a
person into believing that this old man was a retired Scots professor
or German scientist. There was something uncanny about his appearance,
for I had never before seen so well-groomed and active a man of an age
that I imagined him to be; it was as if he had long ago passed the age
limit in which old men die, and yet decided that he would remain on
earth a good spell yet. He was always one of the last persons to leave
the cafés nights, and the first to enter them mornings; he made the
rounds with regularity, and always had a drink before him. I asked the
Spanish bartender who he was:

"He was once a very rich man who made his money by cattle dealing
in Chile. He spent most of it and now is on an allowance from his
relations. He has been in Chile over one hundred times trading stock,
and is thinking of going again soon. He is an expert horseman. He is
over one hundred years old, and," said the waiter in a confidential
undertone, "he is a devil with the women. He chases after all
the servant girls and has lewd designs on the chambermaid." This
chambermaid, by the way, was terribly good-looking, with dark brown
eyes, and rosy red cheeks. I admired the old man's choice.

Salta has some remarkable religious edifices. It is the see of a
bishop, who has a palace adjoining the cathedral. The diocese was
created in 1806 and comprises the provinces of Salta and Jujuy. The
present bishop, José Gregorio Romero, has been the incumbent only
since 1915. The inhabitants have the reputation of being very devout,
although I observed that all the Catholics with whom I was brought into
contact with in Salta, ate meat on Friday. This also applies to the
clergy. In the rich, cool, and lofty cathedral, there is a shrine with
an image of the crucified Savior, which has a most peculiar history.
Years ago there was found on a lonely beach in Chile, two boxes, which
had evidently been washed ashore from an unknown shipwreck. One was
labeled with the address of a person in Córdoba, and the other was
addressed to a Señor del Milagro in Salta. On being opened, the box
destined for Córdoba was found to contain an image of the Virgin, while
that for Salta contained the Christ. His halo is of wrought gold, and
the cross on which He is nailed is of iron. As there was no such person
in Salta as "del Milagro," the church appropriated the image which is
known as the Cristo del Milagro, and is shown by the sexton.

Two of the oldest churches are those of Merced and of San Bernardo.
The church of the Candelaria has the finest façade with a detached
campanile, but the most interesting of all is the church and monastery
of San Francisco. The cloister has massive walls, seven feet thick.
It houses fourteen brown-robed monks of the Franciscan order. Most of
them were an unwashed, unkempt lot; the quantity of empty wine and beer
bottles in the kitchen yard bore testimony to many libations on their
part. The whole monastery is a maze of halls, porches, passageways,
staircases, cupolas, belfries, cells, courtyards, and gardens. This
confusion arose because a new part was added each time the growth of
the monastery warranted it. Into the large garden is turned nightly
a large bloodhound, kept ugly by being constantly fed on raw meat.
This is to prevent the townspeople from scaling the walls to steal the
luscious fruit and grapes which the monks cultivate. In the daytime
the dog is kept chained up, but only two or three of the inmates are
on friendly enough terms with this modern Cerberus to approach it.
The tall campanile of San Francisco is the highest church tower in
Argentina.

[Illustration: Calle Mitre, Salta

This is the main street of the city]

I had a letter of introduction from Dr. Manuel de Iriondo, president
of the Bank of the Argentine Nation and one of the most prominent men
in the republic, to the manager of the Salta branch, Señor Francisco
Pereyra. I have never met a finer gentleman that Señor Pereyra. Not
only did he wine and dine me at his own residence, but he went at
great length to entertain me, introduce me to his friends, to the
mayor of the city, to the governor of the province, took me out for
automobile rides, and when I left Salta loaded me with literature, both
statistical and historical of the province and city. Señor Pereyra made
me a present of a hardwood cane, the tree from which it is made being
indigenous to the Province of Salta, and named San Antonio. Mariano
Posse is the name of Pereyra's eighteen-year-old brother-in-law who is
going to Buenos Aires in a year to study medicine. I tried to persuade
the young man to come to the United States to take a course in one
of our universities, which I think will eventually materialize. At
the time of this writing, Señor Pereyra has left Salta and is manager
of the Bank of the Argentine Nation at Catamarca, the capital of the
Andean province of the same name. He had recently, shortly before
leaving Salta, the misfortune to lose by death, his wife, an estimable
lady. I met Dr. Waldino Riarte, a friend of Señor Pereyra's. Both men
were originally from Tucumán. Dr. Riarte is one of the wealthiest and
highest standing men in the province, to which position he rose through
his own efforts. One of the Salteno's with whom I became acquainted
was Dr. Sola, a graduate of the Ohio State University, class of 1904.
He has not been in the United States since he graduated. He was sent
there to study, by the Argentine Government, and liked it so well that
he wants to go back to the United States. He was anxious to hear the
results of the collegiate football games for the past few years, as he
played on the 'varsity while attending Ohio State.

"Chopp" (pronounced _schop_) is a coined word supposed to be the
Spanish translation of the German word _schoppen_. Its nearest English
equivalent is our coined word "schuper." Under the arcades of the
old Cabildo, a German has established a saloon which he has named "El
Bueno Chopp," meaning "The Good Schuper." A native seeing the volume of
business which came to the thrifty German, thinking that it all came
from the name he gave his place, hung out a sign styling his liquid
refreshment emporium, "El Mejor Chopp," which means "The Best Schuper."
It happens that in this latter resort, it is impossible to get draught
beer in schupers, as the proprietor deals only in bottled goods. He
does a poor business compared to that of the German.

In the Bueno Chopp saloon where I would occasionally go for a libation,
I met a Dantziger named Holzmann. He inquired of me the names of
the North American magazines most widely read by the higher classes
of women, whereupon I told him the _Ladies' Home Journal_, Harper's
_Bazaar_, and others, giving him their addresses. He later confided
to me that the reason for his asking was that he wished through their
columns to make an announcement that he intended to get married and
he wanted a North American woman for his wife. He said he had taken a
passion for women of that nationality, and would accept no others. This
passion, I found, had developed from his having become enamored of the
photograph of one of our well-known society queens that is frequently
flaunted before our eyes in the newspaper columns of the Sunday
supplements. Holzmann told me that when he resided in East Africa, he
occasionally gave his former wife, when she was unruly, a beating with
a hippopotamus hide whip; so I see what sort of fate is in store for
his American bride.

Salta years ago had a brewery owned by a man named Glueck. Through
mismanagement it failed. The city has 120 automobiles which speaks well
for a town of its size and isolation in South America. The wine grown
there is supposed to be the best in Argentina, although there has been
little done towards putting it on the market.

While I was a guest of the Pereyras' I witnessed a novel sight. After
dinner a bat was turned loose in the dining room. This phyllostome
Señor Pereyra kept in a large cage and occasionally turned it loose to
eat the mosquitoes which are a curse to Salta.

Midway between Salta and Tucumán is the station of Rosario de la
Frontera near which are some famous mineral baths. It is quite a winter
resort and its waters are bottled and sold all over the republic. Palau
is the name of the most widely distributed brand. These waters are
naturally carbonated, but are not as strong as Apollinaris or White
Rock. One of the finest waters in Argentina is that of Ghino from
Tucumán province. It is somewhat like Vichy in taste but is slightly
medicated. Its sale, however, is unfortunately local.

The Province of Tucumán derives its name from a legendary Indian
cacique named Tucuma, who is supposed to have lived in the plain of
the Rio Monteros which flows through the province and which joins
the Rio Salí near the city of Tucumán. It is the smallest province of
Argentina, having an area of only 8926 square miles. Three-quarters
of its surface is level, the remaining quarter which is the western
part being hilly and mountainous. Tucumán is the most densely settled
portion of Argentina, its population being, according to the census of
1914, 373,073. On account of this density of population the Tucumános
like to call their province "The Europe of Argentina." In most of the
republic the railroads preceded the settlers; here and also in Salta
this is the reverse, for the settlers in these provinces came first. In
1560 the Viceroy of Peru, to whose dominions this part of the country
had belonged, declared Tucumán an independent state. It then comprised
what are now the geographical divisions of Santiago del Estero,
Tucumán, Catamarca, Salta, Jujuy, and Córdoba. In 1782 Salta, Jujuy,
and Córdoba were separated from it. In 1821 Catamarca and Santiago del
Estero followed suit.

The capital city, also named Tucumán, was founded September 29, 1565,
by Diego de Villarroel at the confluence of the Salí and Monteros
rivers. In 1585 it was moved to the site that it now occupies. It
is situated near the middle of the province, at an elevation of 1453
feet above sea level. The city itself has a population of about one
hundred thousand inhabitants, but it is a distributing point for a
much greater population for at no great distance from it are numerous
towns, large sugar factories with their colonies of workmen. In shape
the city is nearly square. It is eighteen blocks long from north to
south and fourteen blocks wide from east to west. The streets are wide,
and the newer ones, especially the boulevards which bound the limits,
are lined with trees, sycamores being in the majority. Four blocks
west of the eastern city limits is the Plaza Independencia, the center
of mercantile, religious, and diverting activity. On it stands the
cathedral, another church, the capitol, at least ten large cafés, and
a couple of moving picture shows, while in the neighborhood on a street
named Las Heras are the best shops.

Las Heras, an east and west intersector, is the main business street,
although the one which parallels it one block to the south, and
which is named Calle 24 de Setiembre, is the street which divides its
intersectors into different nomenclatures in the manner of the Calle
Rivadavia in Buenos Aires. South of Calle 24 de Setiembre, the streets
that cross it have different names than the elongations of them that
run north of it. On Calle Las Heras are the important banks. The next
business streets in order according to their commercial worth are
Mendoza, which parallels Las Heras one block north of it, Laprida, and
Maipu, the two last named being cross streets. Calle Maipu is devoted
to second class-shops; the third-class shops and the slums, which are
vile, although not so vile as the slums of Córdoba, are at the extreme
western end of Las Heras near the Central of Córdoba Railroad station.

The religious edifices, although their external appearances are
imposing and have double towers and domes of light blue porcelain tile,
are not worth visiting unless to pray in, as their interiors offer no
more artistic attractions than thousands of their kind elsewhere.

The capitol is by far the finest building in the city. It is
three stories high on the outside, and four on the inside (for the
courtyards are sunk one story below the street level), and occupies a
considerable area. It is by no means the finest capitol building that
I have visited, but as it is the newest, having been just completed,
it is probably the best equipped. Though it is built in the business
section of the city where it cannot show off to its best advantage, it
however, makes the capitol at Lansing, Michigan, look like 30 cents. In
Argentine, as it is almost impossible to get marble, all the provincial
capitols are built of brick, solidly, so as to stand forever. The
Argentine brick is not pleasing to the eyes, as it is rough. To
embellish the buildings of this material they are given a coating of
drab stucco cement.

[Illustration: Capitol, Tucumán]

I visited the Governor, Dr. Ernesto Padilla, a tall, handsome, affable
man about forty years old. He is quite an archeologist, and in a
room adjoining his private office in the capitol he has installed
his private collection of Indian antiquities of the province. It is
a most remarkable collection of pottery, ornaments, etc. Near Tafí
a large stone has been recently discovered with Indian scrolls,
hieroglyphics, and drawings. A North American photographer residing in
Tucumán went out to see this stone. With chalk, he outlined the rather
indistinct drawings and then took a photograph of it. This photograph
is reproduced on pages 635 and 637 of my previous work, _Illustrated,
Descriptive Argentina_.

Dr. Padilla introduced me to General O'Donnell, the military commander
of the province. A curious fact is that this general cannot speak the
English language, having been born in Argentina. I held a letter of
introduction to Señor S. A. Wyss, manager of the Hilaret y Cia sugar
mill at Santa Ana, the largest in South America, and also one to Mr.
Stewart Shipton, manager of the Corona mill at Concepción. Both mills
are several hours' distant from Tucumán, and in trying to catch the
train for Concepción, I went to the wrong depot. Dr. Padilla afterwards
told me that it would have been useless for me to have gone to either
of those places, because there were sugar mills much nearer to the
city. He wrote me a letter of introduction to Señor Alfredo Guzman,
the richest man in the province, who has a mill at a town also named
Concepción, which is only a twenty minutes' drive from the capital. He
likewise wrote me a letter to Dr. Juan C. Nougués, who has a mill at
San Pablo, which I visited. There are two kinds of sugar districts in
the Province of Tucumán, one on the plains like that of Señor Guzman's
estate, and one in the hills like the one at San Pablo.

Tucumán is a hot place, both climatically and morally. In the latter
line are the Crystal Palace and the Moulin Rouge, while in the former
line, the thermometer often rises above the comfortable point. The
night I arrived it registered 106° Fahrenheit in the shade. It was so
hot that I thought I would cool off by walking down the Calle Laprida.
The one-story houses are so constructed that in front of each window
an iron balcony extends to the sidewalk; the railings of these are
of wrought iron, or marble. Here sit the belles on hot summer nights
airing themselves. They certainly need to, for as I strolled down
the street the stench that was wafted from them to me was nearly
asphyxiating. It is the odor that is present in the summer when the
human body is unfriendly to soap, water, and the scrub brush. Some of
these beauties sat behind shutters in the darkness, but I was aware of
their presence, although I could not see them.

[Illustration: Calle Laprida, Tucumán

Behind the iron balconies, such as has the house on the left, the women
of Tucumán are seated on hot summer evenings airing themselves]

In 1914, there was founded in Tucumán a university, at the head of
which is Dr. Juan B. Teran. So far, the university is incomplete,
for of the five departments of instruction which it will have when
completed, only two are at present running. These are the pedagogical
department, and that of mechanics, agriculture, and chemistry. The
latter has an agricultural experimental station near the city, at
present in charge of a North American, Dr. William E. Cross. Its
chemical and bacteriological laboratory is the best in the republic.
The University of Tucumán to-day is more like a polytechnical institute
and agricultural combined than that which we generally think of by the
word "university."

As to hotels, Tucumán has one of the best in South America, the Savoy.
It, together with two separate buildings, one a roulette casino, and
the other a large theater, is the property of the Da Rossa Company,
a Portuguese syndicate. The Savoy is leased to a Frenchman, R.
Eluchand, and is managed by Señor Scheindl formerly of Vienna. It is
Mr. Scheindl's sister whose portrait appears on the Austrian twenty
crown note; she was supposed to be the most beautiful girl in Austria.
The Savoy is a large affair of 116 rooms, most of which have a bath
in connection. It is on the Boulevard Sarmiento in an excellent but
not central location. It is finely equipped, and is like a palace with
its large courtyard enclosed by pillared balconies. The hotel has been
a "white elephant" because it is too fine for the city. Mr. Scheindl
tells me that in the hotel line, the Tucumános always want something
for nothing, and when the inhabitants give their big balls at the
Savoy, he either runs behind or else only breaks even; otherwise, if
he insisted that they pay what he thought would be just, they would
boycott him in the future. The other hotels which are in the central
part of the city are the Europe, the Paris, and the Frascati, the
first mentioned being the best. The Frascati is owned by the Palladini
brothers, one of them, Attilio, having been former manager of the
Savoy. When I knew Attilio Palladini several years ago, he was the
courier of the Parque Hotel in Montevideo, and quit it to be head
portier of the Hotel Savoy in Buenos Aires.

In Tucumán itself, there is nothing of interest for the sightseer.
It is only a large commercial town in a fine agricultural district
dependent on the sugar industry. Contrary to the fabrications the
stranger will hear elsewhere in Argentina knocking it, saying that it
is a fever hotbed, it is a sanitary place for the person that has the
price to indulge in mineral waters as beverages, for its own water is
not potable, owing to the sediment and dust that it contains. Talking
with business men about investment of capital in Tucumán, there does
not seem to be much encouragement in the manufacturing line. A flour
mill would undoubtedly pay, and there is a splendid opportunity to
start a steam laundry, as there is a constant complaint about the
present one. It does its work poorly and charges exorbitant prices. It
is said that a small ice plant in one of the neighboring towns, which
would supply the wants of the inhabitants of the thickly inhabited
districts, would also pay. A brewery has started in Tucumán, named
the Cerveceria del Norte (Northern Brewery). It is controlled by
the Quilmes people and has a large enough capacity to supply entire
Argentina if necessary. Its brands of beer from light to dark are
Rubia, Tucma, and Oran. Rubia is very palatable.

I became acquainted with a photographer in Tucumán, Mr. Henry A. Kirwin
of New York. He came down here as a photographer eight years ago, and
wants to get back home. He says it is much easier for a man to get down
there than to get back. He seems to have a fair business, photographing
machinery at the different mills and at the railroad yards at Tafí
Viejo. Many of his photographs of family groups have yellow chemicals
smeared over the faces of the clients on the plates. I asked him

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