The great Silver river; notes of a residence in Buenos Ayres in 1880 and 1881;

NOTES OF A RESIDENCE

IN

BUENOS AYRES

' THE

GEEAT SILVEE EIVEE

NOTES OF A RESIDENCE IN BUENOS AYRES
IN 1880 AND 1881

BY SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, BART., K.C.M.G.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

PARTLY FROM SKETCHES BY R, S, WILKINSON, C.E

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1887

All rights reserved

PRESERVATION
COPY ADDED
ORIGINAL TO BE
RETAINED

FEB 0 2 1993

TO

EGBERT EARL OF LYTTON

THESE PAGES ABE INSCRIBED
BY AN OLD FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE

135028

PBEFACE.

IN these days of universal travel great would be
the presumption of the writer who should aim at
recording something absolutely new about any of
the accessible regions of the earth. These recol-
lections of a few months' residence in so well-known
a region as the Eiver Plate cannot, therefore, in
any way pretend to novelty.

For the convenience, however, of those who
may be tempted to look through the pages of this
book, I may state that if it contain anything ap-
proaching the ' adhuc indicium ore alio* with which
Horace prayed to Bacchus to inspire him, it will
be found in some account of a journey to the
little-frequented upper reaches of the Uruguay,
where I had occasion to visit the sites of several
of the strange, mysterious Jesuit settlements that
flourished up to the middle of the last century
on the banks of that majestic river. Here,

a2

[8] PREFACE

I venture to think, I have struck on a par-
tially unworked vein. Possibly, too, what I have
said of Argentinia in general as a field for the
European, and more particularly for the British,
settler — especially since such large tracts of its
most fertile soil have been wrested from the Indian
tribes — may not be very generally known. I may
also justly claim that my sojourn at Buenos Ayres
coincided with events which could not but exercise
a decisive influence on the fortunes of the country,
and of which I was bound to be a close and
attentive watcher.

Nearly six years have elapsed since I left
Buenos Ayres, and in that interval the Eepublic
has passed through the trying ordeal of a change
in the Presidency without any disturbance of the
public peace. The evil spell seems to be broken,
and the prospects of the country have notably
improved in every way, while its material deve-
lopment has made immense strides.

The predictions I ventured upon as to its pro-
gress have, in fact, been more than borne out.
The number of immigrants pouring in every year
has fully trebled, and such has been the addition
to the population of the city of Buenos Ayres
alone that, in the course of four years, it has risen

PREFACE [9]

from 300,000 to 400,000 souls. The mileage of
the railroads open to traffic has more than doubled.
Already the locomotive reaches the very foot of
the Andes, and the day is fast approaching when
it will be possible for the traveller to pass uninter-
ruptedly by rail from the shores of the Atlantic to
those of the Pacific. The capitals of the Chilean
and Argentine States will thus be placed within
three days' journey of each other. A new and
much shorter mode of access to Australia being
thereby thrown open, the entire country will be
brought more and more within civilising in-
fluences.

That a highly prosperous future is assured to
the Argentines can no longer be doubted. The
pacified and consolidated Eepublic is happily
launched on its career among the nations, and of
its well-wishers none can be more sincere than
the writer of this slender record of a too brief, but
in every way pleasant and interesting, sojourn on

its hospitable soil.

H. E.

March 1887.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Journey out — Arrival and first impressions .... 1

CHAPTER II.

A destructive hurricane — Causes of the late civil war, and re-
miniscences of the siege — Palermo — Rosas and some of his
atrocities 1 5

CHAPTER III.

Sunday at Buenos Ayres — Church parade — Charm and merits of
the Portenas — The young generation and the old — The gay
world abroad 34

CHAPTER IV.

Presidential inauguration — Leve"e at the Pink House — Diplo-
matists in difficulties — Buenos Ayres both dethroned and
exalted — A popular fete , . . . . . .48

[l2] CONTENTS

CHAPTER Y.

PAGE

Railway development and its effects — The Indian scourge — A
trial trip on the ' Great Southern ' — New pueblos of the camp
—The Gauchos 68

CHAPTER VI.

Immigration — The foreign communities . . . . 95

CHAPTER VII.

Belgrano — My garden and its neighbourhood — Saavedra . . 122

CHAPTER VIII.

Departure on a trip up the Uruguay — The ' Cosmos ' — Fellow-
passengers — Martin Garcia . . . . .... 142

CHAPTER IX.

Concordia to Monte Caseros — A special on the Eastern Argen-
tine— A Government colony 154

CHAPTER X.

Uruguayana — River scenery — Sunday at Itaqui .... 168

CHAPTER XI.

Up stream to Santo Tome* — A wood-cutting station . . . 182

CONTENTS [13]

CHAPTER XII.

PAGE

Santo Tome* — Wholesale destruction of Jesuit buildings — San
Mateo — A tropical clearing 191

CHAPTER XIII.

Brazilian town of San Borja — Contrast between order in Rio
Grande and lawlessness of Corrientes — Lynch law in Entre-
Rios . 201

CHAPTER XIV.

La Cniz — Wreck of the Jesuit missions 216

CHAPTER XV.

Slight historical sketch of Misiones — Paso de los Libres . . 224

CHAPTER XVI.

Salto Oriental — The Great Rapids — Paysandii — Down stream to
Buenos Ayres ... .... 234

CHAPTER XVIT.

Summer in Buenos Ayres 246

CHAPTER XVIII.

Summer in the Pampa — Beauty of the climate— Wildfowl
shooting 267

[14] CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIX.

PAGE

South American politics — The war on the West Coast — Conflict- "
ing claims to Patagonia and the Straits of Magellan — Pro-
spects of the Chileans and Argentines . . . . . 287

CHAPTER XX.

The Carnival at Buenos Ayres— The Battle of the 'Pomitos'—
Round the churches on Maundy Thursday .... 300

CHAPTER XXI.

Valedictory — Charms and amenities of South American life—-
What the foreign settler has to expect . . . . . 320

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGR
SUNDIAL AT LA CRUZ— A RELIC OP THE JESUITS . . . Title

THE PARK AT PALERMO 28

OLD QUINTA OP ROSAS . . . ~. . . . to face 30

PLAZA VICTORIA AND CATHEDRAL ... „ 60

BUENOS AYRES GAUCHO 94

VILLA AT BELGRANO to face 124

PISHING ON HORSEBACK „ 146

WOOD-STATION ON THE URUGUAY . . . ,, 186

' PAISANO ' OP SAN BORJA . . . . . ... 215

LAGUNA WITH FLAMINGOS . . . . . to face 27 '8

or THE
UNIVERSITY

OF

THE

GEEAT SILVEE EIVEE.

CHAPTEE I.

JOURNEY OUT — ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

So FAR we had had the fairest, but hottest, of
weather. We had gone on board at Pauillac on a
cloudless August day, and every mile we steamed
had placed us more hopelessly at the mercy of a
pitiless sun. We had been broiled at Vigo and
Lisbon, stewed at that most unenviable of French
possessions, Dakar, baked brown at Bahia, and,
but for one cool night up in the clouds at Petro-
polis, had had no respite from the insupportable
heat which radiated from every part of our steamer,
roomy though she was, and fast though she sped
through the oily waste of waters on her way to
the southern hemisphere. Now, however, we had
reached that hemisphere, and it was mid-September
of a tempestuous spring. From overpowering light

2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. I.

and heat we rushed suddenly into gloom and
drizzle and broken cross seas. At night we came
in for a tremendous tossing, and by morning lay
labouring in the very trough of it. Our hitherto
cheery, though somewhat noisy, fellow-passengers
—mostly French or Italian — all knocked under at
once ; the crowded saloon became a perfect desert,
and with every port closed below, and the deck
above untenable, we passed two as cheerless days
as I have ever experienced at sea.

These magnificent Messageries boats, be it said
en passant, carry a great top weight in their hur-
ricane-decks, and the lurches our steamer gave
from time to time were positively alarming. It
might have been a comfort to know that we were
somewhere off the mouth of the Eiver Plate, and
thus near our journey's end, had not that comfort
dwindled down to nothingness on a confidential
whisper from the friendly agent des pastes — our
neighbour at breakfast-time — that the commandant
had been unable to take a good observation for two
whole days, and, except by dead reckoning, knew
practically nothing of our exact whereabouts. So
we slowed down, and sounded the fog-whistle, and
bumped and rolled all day long — the second day
— and tried to derive some satisfaction from the
commandant's complete change of demeanour. A
terrible rouge this commandant, who hitherto has

CHAP. T.] ROUGH WEATHER OFF THE PLATE 3

shown exquisite good taste and gallantry in airing
his mostly unsavoury views, political and religious,
for the special delectation apparently of a bonny
little French Legitimist bride who sits next to him
at meals, and who — brave little woman — is going
out with her husband on a sheep-farming venture
somewhere on the Uruguay Eiver. Very quiet and
silent now, the commandant, and clearly much
exercised, and though the victim of his delicate
pleasantries cannot benefit by the contrast — the
poor soul is curled up in her berth somewhere
below — it is quite a relief to see him so subdued.
But the poor man has, in truth, had a bad time of
it on the bridge for the last twenty-four hours,
feeling his way along this treacherous coast.

Towards dusk it gets smoother ; there is a
slight break in the clouds, and, through the murky
atmosphere around us, one of the men on the look-
out is believed to have espied a light, which should
be that on Cape Santa Maria marking the entrance
to the Eiver Plate. And so, a couple of hours
later, it turns out to be, much to the general satis-
faction. One by one the passengers emerge from
their cabins, and a more cheerful tone once more
pervades the lighted saloon. For a number of us,
too, it is the last evening on board ; and even to the
most enthusiastic lover of the ocean there must
come, I suspect, some sense of deliverance after a

B 2

4 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. I.

long three weeks of ship life and its many dis-
comforts.

Early in the morning we bring to at the outer
anchorage of Monte Video, the town itself remain-
ing shrouded from sight in a chilly fog not un-
worthy of Gravesend. It is still blowing very hard,
and the shallow, peasoup-coloured water has fretted
itself into such a condition as makes it no easy
matter for the tugs and steam-launches to come
alongside to take off those who, like myself, are
going on shore. There is no more abominable
roadstead than that of Monte Video in a pampero,
and it is fortunate for me, therefore, that I am
expected here, and am fetched away, and comfort-
ably landed, by a powerful little steamer belonging
to the Captain of the Port.

Monte Video, which I had already visited some
years before in lovely weather, certainly did not
look its best on this occasion. Its long, straight
streets, swept by a pitiless blast and driving
showers, were perfectly empty ; and I was thankful
for refuge at the house of a most hospitable friend,
who kindly entertained me till late the following
afternoon, and, in exchange for my budget of
home news, gave me alarming accounts of the
ravages said to have been already made by the
storm, which had been raging now for a couple of
days. It was only on my arrival at Buenos Ayres

CHAP. I.] LANDING AT BUENOS AYRES 5

that I was to hear of its full effects. The
weather moderated a good deal during the night,
so the ' Cosmos ' being advertised to sail at six
the following evening up the river to Buenos
Ayres, I took my passage in her, and after a com-
paratively smooth voyage was at my destination
shortly after daybreak.

The morning was raw and gloomy, a low,
leaden sky making but a dismal background to
the long line of buildings, broken here and there
by towers and cupolas, which, with more favour-
ing accompaniments of light and atmosphere, give
the city so deceptively imposing and alluring an
aspect. No time, however, was allowed me for
more than a hasty glance at it, for here again kind
friends were on the look-out for me, and I was
speedily put on shore, by British oars and under
British colours, at the end of one of the two long
black piers that crawl out, like a crab's claws, over
a quarter of a mile of ooze and slush, and are
easily accessible only at high water. Fortunately
the tide was full at the time, and I was thus spared
the graduated ignominy of removal from boat to
cart, and from cart to men's shoulders, which not
so long ago constituted the only mode of landing.
Even now, at very low water, a string of red carts
on very high wheels can be seen meandering out
to the boats and lighters.

6 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. I.

A short drive over very rough pavement, past
a big square of considerable pretensions, and along
a couple of narrow, and for the early hour suffi-
ciently bustling, streets, brought me to the hotel,
where rooms had been engaged for me. Immense
rooms, with vulgar, tawdry decorations and would-
be luxurious furniture, but looking on to a dull
yard, and so utterly sunless and cheerless that I
was driven out of them by sheer cold. The next
day. after paying a most exorbitant bill (I break-
fasted and dined out, and was charged some seven
pounds simply for a night's lodging and my servant's
food), I was glad to remove to another inn and
more modest apartments, which at least had a tiny
fireplace, where, towards evening, I just managed
to make a semblance of a blaze, and could do
without my great-coat. The temperature, fortu-
nately, soon became milder ; nor could the cold, as
long as it lasted, be really termed severe, since it
hardly exceeded freezing-point at night-time ; but
nowhere had it seemed to me more penetrating —
the fact being that nowhere, as I knew by past
experience, is less provision made for meeting it
than in these South American cities.

What were my first impressions of the place
in which for an uncertain period — possibly some
years — my lot was now cast ? Very mixed and
ill-defined, and not altogether favourable, I fear.

CHAP. I.] STIR AND GAIETY OF THE TOWN 7

Certainly at first sight it appeared by no means
dull. All around the Bolsa, or Exchange — the
heart, as it were, which sends the life-blood
coursing through the big money-making city —
there was plenty of stir and bustle ; throngs of
eager, keen -eyed men elbowed their way along the
pavement, or stood in knots at the street-corners,
talking loud and volubly with much gesticulation.
The full throbs of life and business were every-
where so audible, that clearly the town could not
be charged with dulness or torpor.

Nor did these brisk crowds of men of many
tongues and tribes — Italians and French, Basques
and Spaniards, and Germans and Irish and English
— seem by any means indifferent to the amenities
of existence. They swarmed in the numerous
coffee-houses and restaurants — pale, but tolerably
faithful copies of Parisian cafes, with Gascon
waiters and dames de comptoir ; the many places of
entertainment — circuses and skating-rinks, public
gardens and theatres and music-halls — all throve
with their custom. Absorbed as they all appeared
to be, and were, in trade and speculation, and well
girded up in the race for wealth, they were all
equally lovers of pleasure, spending their money
fully as freely as they made it, and living high and
well.

For much of this I was of course prepared ; but

8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. i.

one or two traits soon struck me as standing out
from the rest. These sharp, bustling men of busi-
ness never seemed in any particular hurry, as men
do in the wear and tear of great commercial
centres elsewhere, but appeared always to have
plenty of leisure on their hands. They all seemed
to take things easily, and there was none of that
high pressure visible about them which with us
makes time synonymous with money.

Another thing ! Cosmopolitan as they were —
a perfect macedoine of races — it struck one at once
that they mingled but little, and formed very dis-
tinct and separate communities, living side by side
in perfect harmony, but with relatively little fusion,
in the city in which so many of them had settled
for good. Most of them too, as one soon learned,
were still dwelling as strangers among the Argen-
tines, and showed themselves, as a rule, singularly
indifferent (excepting as regards criticising them)
to the public concerns of the country of their
adoption. This indifference, or rather, perhaps, lack
of sympathy, was the most remarkable feature of
all, and was attended with important, and indeed
very unfortunate, results, as events had quite
recently shown.

The inhabitants, however, I could not, of
course, presume to judge of in any degree at first
sight. Their buildings and houses, private and

CHAP. I.] ASPECT OF BUILDINGS 9

public, the outward traits and lineaments of their
city, I might with less temerity attempt roughly to
take stock of at once, subject to future correction.
Here my first impressions were, I fear, disap-
pointing, and, unfortunately, I had to a great
extent to abide by them. I had, it is true, heard
much of the sumptuous dwelling-houses, and even
of the public edifices, erected here of late years,
and was thus possibly led to expect more than I
found. The Exchange, the Banco Ipotecario or
Mortgage Bank, the Cabildo (Town Hall) — then in
course of restoration and improvement — the Post
Office, are all very creditable and fairly handsome
buildings — especially the last-named — though more
striking, perhaps, than perfect in taste. As to
private houses, the Florida and the streets adjoin-
ing are graced with the facades of a good number
of what, in auctioneer jargon, may be termed
' desirable mansions ' — marble-fronted and with
several stories. Both style and materials of these
have for the most part been imported from Italy,
and, unlike wine, have not improved with the long
sea voyage. Showy and effective enough some of
them are. but they somehow convey the impression
of mere frontages run up with nothing behind them
— like the sham villages raised on the progress of
Catherine to the Crimea — and are certainly not to be
compared with half a dozen houses I could mention

IO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. I.

in another South American capital. The shops, too,
on the ground-floor of some of these magnificent
private abodes, are real blots, showing that their
owners were not solely guided by considerations of
art and comfort in their erection. Indeed, one is
almost tempted to ask oneself whether, like the con-
verse of the skeleton at Egyptian banquets, they
may not be kept on the premises to remind their
luxurious masters not of whither they are going,
but of whence they came. Nevertheless, Buenos
Ayres is, on the whole, to be congratulated on the
dwellings of her wealthier citizens, and on a blazing
summer's day the eye is charmed, as well as relieved
from the trying glare, by a passing glance into one
of their cool marble patios (inner courts), redolent
of the most fragrant of flowers, and bright with
groups of graceful girls.

At the same time, the plan on which the city
is laid out, and which is common to most South
American towns, deprives it of nearly all character,
and is to my mind exceedingly wearisome. The
town is a huge chess-board, with almost mathe-
matically even squares, formed by one set of
interminable narrow streets which run north and
south from the riverside far into the boundless
plain, crossed at regular intervals by another set
of exactly similar streets which stretch east and
west a long way into the open country and

CHAP. I.] WASTED OPPORTUNITIES I I

abruptly lose themselves there. The houses seem
somehow to come to a sudden ending, without the
toning-off or preparation which in other places is
to be found in outskirts or suburbs. Towards
Flores and Belgrano a zone of quintets and gardens
marks the approach to the city, but in most other
directions it rises up all at once and takes you
unawares, and you pass, without transition, from
the original wilderness superficially tamed into
acres of flimsy bricks and stucco piled up only
yesterday. These, however, are familiar aspects
throughout the Western Hemisphere, where most
things look painfully crude and sudden and
shoddy by the side of nature, hushed, as it still
seems, with the unbroken solitude of centuries.
Nowhere do man and his handiwork appear so
restless and so immature, or mother earth so
crowned with the majesty of ages and so perfect
in her repose.

Commandingly placed on a kind of natural
embankment above the mighty stream, and with
illimitable level space for extension behind it, never
perhaps had a great maritime capital grander or
healthier site assigned to it than Buenos Ayres. It
is aggravating, therefore, to find it such a city of
wasted opportunities. For the primitive design
of the town and the narrowness of its streets its
Spanish founders are of course answerable ; but

12 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. I.

these mistakes have been so perpetuated as it
expanded to its present large area,1 that it now
appears as if, like Hamburg or Chicago, it could
attain transfiguration through nothing short of the
stern ordeal of fire.

Far more serious, however, than cramped
thoroughfares, with side pavements barely four
feet wide, past which a stream of tramway cars
sweeps dangerously near, are the total absence of
any port, and the almost total neglect of drainage
and water supply. The want of a port has been
most justly described as a ' national calamity and
disgrace/ and it is dreadful to reflect on the tax it
entails on a trade which probably now amounts to
little less than twenty millions sterling a year.
Several schemes have been devised and loans con-
tracted for the purpose ; but the money raised has
been squandered or diverted to other uses, and
still the city is harbourless, and inaccessible within
ten miles to any ocean-going steamer.2

So is it, too, with the draining of the town.
Although the fall of ground to the river is, for so
flat a country, providentially ample, no attempt

1 Some seven or eight years ago this was put at 1,200 hectares, or
about three thousand acres. It must have increased considerably
since then.

2 The charges for lighterage have been reckoned as equal to one-
third, and sometimes even to one-half, of the total freight from
Europe.

CHAP. I.] PERILS OF WANT OF DRAINAGE 13

was ever made to turn it to account till a few years
ago. Elaborate drainage- works and water-works
in connection with them were then commenced,
but were soon suspended, owing to some dispute
with the contractors, and are left unfinished to the
present day. It is devoutly to be, hoped that they
may speedily be taken up again, for, meanwhile,
the soil remains saturated with the accumulated
sewage of centuries, and every year, as the hot
season sets in, Buenos Ayres lies invitingly open to
some such scourge as the cholera, or the yellow
fever, which swooped down, upon it in 1867 and
1871, and wrought such havoc as had hardly been
known anywhere since the Great Plague of London.
Indeed, the strong winds and violent storms which
periodically sweep the vast plain around the city,
and the powerful draught of air produced by the
immense body of water that rolls past it, alone
preserve it from an annual recurrence of plague
and pestilence, and render it habitable under con-
ditions of insalubrity too frightful to dwell upon.
For even the water, beyond that which is daily
fetched in carts from the turbid river, comes from
old surface wells sunk here and there in all direc-
tions, and, however carefully filtered, is utterly
unfit for anything but cooking, so that in the
thirstiest of weather one has to take refuge in
Seltzer and other aerated drinks — with or without

14 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAI>. i.

accompaniments — and dare not risk indulging in a
cool draught of the pure element.

Such, roughly stated, are the principal counts
of the indictment which the most impartial of new
comers cannot but lay to the charge of Buenos
Ayres, and they are serious enough in all conscience.
It is a relief to dispose of them at once, and, having
done so, to feel free to record one's many pleasant
and interesting reminiscences of the aspiring Argen-
tine metropolis ; for aspiring it is in most senses,
and decidedly so in the best. Day by day it is
mending its ways and treading with firmer steps in
the path of rational progress.

It so happened that the turning-point in its
existence, and in that of the country of which it
then became the recognised head, almost coincided
with the writer's visit. These fugitive notes, written
in all friendliness, in some measure bear, therefore,
the impress of what he then witnessed. Through
bitter strife, and even bloodshed, the young nation
had at last reached a unity till then denied to it ; the
golden portals of peace and concord lay wide open
before it, and beyond them a domain such as has
seldom fallen to the lot of any race of men. How
would the thrice fortunate inheritors use the gifts
lavishly bestowed upon them ? Time alone would
show this ; the friendly observer could only note
what means and resources they had of turning
their inheritance to good account.

CHAP, ii.] STRICKEN HERDS AND FLOCKS

CHAPTER II.

A DESTRUCTIVE HURRICANE — CAUSES OP THE LATE CIVIL WAR,
AND REMINISCENCES OF THE SIEGE— PALERMO— ROSAS AND
SOME OF HIS ATROCITIES.

THE wild pampero had finally wasted its fury,
leaving behind it a tale of inland wreck and
damage almost unparalleled in the records of tem-
pests in even these storm-swept regions. The
papers were full of its ravages, and a piteous tale
they told of the hecatombs of poor dumb creatures
it had immolated in its destructive course.

A heavy fall of snow, such as had not been
known so far north for years, had accompanied the
hurricane. Following upon an unusually prolonged
drought, it had found the shelterless flocks and
herds in a weakened condition from insufficient
pasturage, and had absolutely overwhelmed them.
The story told was everywhere the same. Horses
and cows and sheep had feebly fled before the
bitter blast with its frozen arrows, and sought
refuge in the infrequent hollows and dips which
occur here and there in the endless level expanse,
instinctively huddling together for mutual warmth

1 6 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. II.

and protection. Every ditch was filled with them ;
up against the fences, or on the verge of the
plantations which rise above the country at rare
intervals (and are hence picturesquely termed
monies) , they had gathered in dense masses of hun-
dreds, till there they had fallen at last and been
buried in the icy drift. In many places the poor
beasts were found closely packed by the edge of
some watercourse or some laguna, whither they
had staggered in their agony and terror, and where
they had finally lain down in the attempt to reach
a last drink. I had, myself, ghastly evidence of
the accuracy of these accounts a short time later,
though at first the computations made of the loss
of animal life found me incredulous, I confess,
swelling daily as they did by thousands, till it was
reckoned that over a million of beasts of all kinds
had perished in a few brief hours. In that short
space of time the province of Buenos Ayres had
been turned into an open-air shambles, and ruin
sown broadcast far and wide.

Soon there arose the question of what should
be done with the innumerable carcases strewn all
over the country — and with the near approach of
the hot season a very serious question it was.
The evil, however, was on so gigantic a scale that
before long it was felt that there was no dealing
with it radically. These mountains of flesh could

CHAP, ii.] VALUE OF PLANTATIONS lj

not be buried, and still less burned ; so, after con-
siderable discussion, it ended in their being left to
the winged scavengers and to the purifying cur-
rents of the air. For a time the market was
glutted with hides and horns, but to this day the
myriad skeletons of the victims lie in many places
bleaching where they fell on those terrible Sep-
tember days. But even the severest calamities
have their uses — ' ill blows the wind that profits
nobody ' — and this disastrous storm did important
service by turning attention to the necessity of
planting more freely all over the estamias, so as
to provide places of refuge for the stock in wild
weather. If this plan should be systematically
carried out, it will before long in every way bene-
ficially transform the aspect of the country and
improve the climate, besides greatly increasing the
value of the property invested in land.

There is a peculiar edge and freshness in the
air after these furious but cleansing tempests, and
with them comes a buoyant sense of renewed life
and spirits surpassing anything I had ever expe-
rienced elsewhere. In so brilliant and exhilarating
an atmosphere as that which succeeded the chilly
rain and vapours of the first few days, Buenos
Ayres seemed to me, for the time, fully to deserve
the somewhat deceptive abbreviation which alone

c

1 8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. n.

has survived out of the pious designation l origi-
nally bestowed on it by its founders. On the
earliest of a series of absolutely perfect spring
days, I sallied forth under the guidance of a much
esteemed friend on my first ramble through the
city. From the extreme upper end of the Florida,
where he had his lodgings, a few yards brought us
to the Eetiro, which of late years has been trans-
formed into a kind of public garden. A few
shrubberies and clumps of trees affording but
scanty shade, half a dozen benches, and an eques-
trian statue of General San Martin — the counter-
part of that which decorates the Alameda of
Santiago de Chile — here occupy the site of the
bull-ring of Spanish days.

The spot brings unwelcome recollections to the
ordinary Englishman still wedded to old-fashioned
notions of national honour and prestige. Here
Whitelock's regiments made their last stand, and
here, full of fight and well intrenched in the pre-
cincts they had stormed, they received the news of
their chiefs disgraceful capitulation, and with it
the order to withdraw. Often have I sat on one
of those benches and pictured to myself the sullen
retreat of the victorious and unbroken battalions,
and have dreamed of what might have been, had
they only been allowed to hold what they had taken.

1 La Santisima Trinidad de Buenos Aires.

CHAP. IT.] AUSTRALIA THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 1 9

Within easy distance of the beach and of the
light-draught vessels of the expedition, and com-
manding the city from their almost impregnable
lines, they might well have maintained themselves
till the first shock of the repulse of their comrades,
almost defencelessly massacred in that deadly
parade march2 through the murderous streets —
the most insane operation to which British troops
were ever, perhaps, committed — had been over-
come, and their commanders were able calmly to
face a position which was anything but irretriev-
able, since not more than one half of the force had
been engaged. Consider only what might have
been the results. The treasures of these vast
regions wrested for good from the blighting in-
fluences of Spanish misrule ; the quick, impul-
sive colonial race steadied and energised by the
infusion of English blood, trained from its infancy
to English habits, of thought and action, and
nurtured in rational English notions of freedom ;
the grateful soil enriched and fertilised by British
wealth and industry ; in short, a second, and fully
as bounteously endowed, Australia started on her

2 The general order given for the entry of the troops into the city
expressly enjoins that the men should march in without any flints to
their firelocks. It is impossible to read this and other statements in
the proceedings of the court-martial on General Whitelock without
feeling that that commander's imbecility well deserves to be called
by another name.

c 2

20 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. IT.

career within three weeks' sail of the British
shores. And if, in the course of that career,
independence should have become the final lot
of the young nation fostered by our care — that
crowning consummation achieved without any of
those hideous interludes through which it had
to pass under Eosas and others before attaining
its present liberties and comparative prosperity.
So might this ill-planned, and most shamefully
mismanaged, expedition have brought, instead of
disgrace to our arms, manifold blessings to both
invaders and invaded. But it was riot to be, and
the gallant colonists were to be left to exult in
their triumph. One great good they at least
derived from it, in the proud consciousness of
strength which shortly after nerved them to cast
off a debasing servitude. And with this final re-
flection, even the Englishman of ridiculously obso-
lete patriotic sentiments may calmly pass along
streets christened in memory of the crushing defeat
of his countrymen, and, if so minded, gaze with
equanimity on the captured standards that droop
mournfully from the arches of Santo Domingo.

But it is high time I should leave my bench,
and, with it, the digressive train of thought into
which I have allowed it to entice me. From the
Eetiro several roughly paved inclines lead down to
the level of the river. Passing in front of the old

CHAP. II.] ON THE ROAD TO PALERMO 21

Cuartel de Patricios, of repulsive associations,3 now
an infantry barracks facing the public walk, and
skirting the Hotel de los Inmigrantes — a long low
building where, under the excellent arrangements
recently introduced, the poorer immigrants are
housed on first landing, and where they are given
the necessary directions as to their future move-
ments and chances of employment — we follow one
of these slopes, and soon find ourselves opposite
one of the stations of the Northern Eailway, which
runs to Belgrano and San Isidro, and on an avenue
running parallel with that. line. Commanding, as
it does, charming views of the town and river, this
road might, with a little care and outlay, be made
into a magnificent marine parade. At present, it
is but a thoroughly neglected country road, full
of deep ruts and holes, flanked here and there by
low drinking-shops and ship-chandlers' stores, and
forming altogether a very mean approach to the
Park, a couple of miles further on, which is the
favourite resort of Argentine society.

As we were trudging along this very uninviting
thoroughfare, my attention was called by my com-
panion to a row of workshops and sheds on the
right-hand side, belonging to the gas company, if I

3 The original building was erected in 1702 by an English com-
pany to whom the Spanish Crown had granted a monopoly for the
importation of slaves into the colony.

22 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. II.

remember right. I was wondering what his object
could be in making me cross over to look at them,
when he led me up to an ordinary wooden paling^
between three and four feet high, which stood a
little way back off the road and barred the en-
trance to the works beyond. The top rail of this
paling, originally straight, had, for a distance of
some yards, been roughly hacked into the jagged
shape of a saw, the task having apparently been
attempted with some very clumsy instrument.
' You see that,' said my friend ; ' but I am sure you
will never guess how it was done.' I admitted
that I was at a loss, when he pointed out to me
marks of erosion all over the deep notches of this
kind of wooden fringe, and explained that it was
the work of the horses that had been tethered
there during the recent siege. The wretched
brutes were in such a starving condition that with
their strong teeth they had almost gnawed through
this stout piece of timber fully six inches thick.
No sight could more forcibly convey an idea of the
straits to which, for a short time, the beleaguered
city had been reduced. Not that, in a country
where animal life is relatively of such small ac-
count, the famishing state of cavalry horses and
beasts of burden could by any means be taken as
a proof that equal privations had been undergone
by their masters. Still, the Buenos-Ay reans had

CHAP. II.] INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE 23

no doubt been sorely put to it themselves ; and as
for their horses, kept pent up in the town lest they
should be turned to account by the enemy outside,
my friend told me he had himself frequently seen
the poor brutes staggering along the streets till
they dropped down never to rise again.

A little further on, we came upon another re-
minder of the siege in the stumps of a considerable
willow plantation, stretching from the road down
to the river, which had been cut down as interfer-
ing with the practice of a battery posted there to
shell the vessels of the attacking force. Little
real damage comparatively was done by the big
guns of these ships, with the exception, oddly
enough, of the day on which — mainly by the ex-
ertions of the foreign representatives — an armistice
had been agreed to by the contending parties. On
that day the commander of one of the gunboats,
noticing signs of an infraction of the truce, in work
carried on by the townspeople in the earthworks
raised on the Eetiro, fired several shells in that
direction which did terrible execution, killing two
and wounding seventeen harmless passers-by —
much to the terror and indignation of the nume-
rous foreign residents,

My friend had had special opportunities of
noting the incidents of this curious siege — or, more
accurately speaking, blockade — and had much

24 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. n.

that was interesting to relate about it. That
month of June 1880 will long be remembered in
the annals of Buenos Ayres, and a heavy responsi-
bility must ever rest with those of its leading men
who, in the rash venture to break away from the
Union, brought such defeat and humiliation upon
the city. It would be entirely out of place here to
attempt to enter into the origin and history of this
brief but sharp bit of civil warfare. Its character
and bearings were only imperfectly understood
abroad at the time, and, like the rest of South
American politics, they have little interest for the
world at large. It is sufficient to say that the
struggle bore a distant resemblance to the gigantic
contest which, twenty years before, had convulsed
the great republic of the North. Leaving aside
the purely North American question of slavery, the
proximate causes of both were indeed identical.
Like the states of the Southern Confederacy, the
province of Buenos Ayres seceded and fought for
hegemony. Either it would continue to lead the
Union, or it would live alone. On their side,
the National Government, representing the bulk of
the confederated provinces, fought to prevent a
disruption of the Union, and to put an end for
good and all to the pretensions of the metropolitan
province, and of those who ruled it.

The Provincial Government, in throwing down

CHA.P. II.] BUENOS AYRES IN DIFFICULTIES 25

the glove, seem to have singularly miscalculated
both their own forces and those brought to bear
against them. They had above all counted on
the defection of the National navy, and in this
they were altogether deceived. The power of the
purse, successfully used on former occasions, this
time proved utterly unavailing. The naval com-
manders of the Eepublic were, to their honour,
proof against all temptation, and their vessels
pitilessly faced the contumacious city, effectually
cutting it off from all contact with the outer world.
On the land side, too, the National leaders collected,
with remarkable speed, forces sufficient to complete
the rigid circle of investment, and were ready by
the end of June to storm the lines of the besieged.
The position of the Provincial Government soon
became desperate. Not only were their means of
defence very limited, but they were maintaining
themselves in a city, one half of the population of
which were foreigners practically indifferent to the
contest (though some of the better class may have
had Provincial leanings), and all, at any rate,
impatient of its disastrous results to their trad.e
and occupations. It may, with almost absolute
certainty, be said that any future outbreak of
internal discord in these regions would be sternly
checked at once by the foreign element. In this,
as in most other respects, the controlling power of

26 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. n.

the foreigner must make itself felt more and more,
and it is only matter of surprise and regret that
the wholesome forces he represents should not
have asserted themselves sooner, and spared the
Eepublic its most recent and, it is to be hoped,
final civil war.

After some sharp fighting on the road to Mores,
where the Eemington rifles of the Nationals did
considerable execution, the beleaguered Executive
yielded to the voice of reason and the friendly
pressure of foreign diplomacy, and the bases of a
capitulation were soon arranged.4 Matters might
have gone far worse than they did for the citizens
who had been kept during those few weeks
' stewing in their own juice.' The greatest perils
they escaped were indeed internal ones, for, with
the withdrawal of the local police force — a fine
and very efficient body of men, who were at once
drafted into the city battalions — the town lay very
much at the mercy of bands of rough Gauchos
brought in by the ' secesh ' land-owners from their
estates, not to speak of the scum of the foreign
population — low Neapolitan and Gascon and
Basque.

Credit is specially due to the thousands of poor
Italians who swarmed in the town for their orderly

4 The veteran General Mitre took a leading and very honourable
part in these negotiations.

CHAP. II.] BUENOS AYRES IN DIFFICULTIES 27

conduct in times of great temptation. A certain
proportion of them were induced to join the
Provincial forces, and, being placed in the first line
at the outposts towards Flores, were the principal
victims of the engagement there ; but the great
bulk continued quietly to follow their avocations,
and gave no trouble whatever. Much of this was
owing to the internal organisation of the vast
Italian colony, which is in some respects very
complete, and was turned to excellent account by
the consul-general, a man of admirable judgment
and great influence with his countrymen. The
foreign men-of-war collected in the river for the
protection of the several communities were, for
the most part, anchored at too great a distance
to afford any real succour, though measures had
been concerted for landing a combined force from
them in case of emergency. Their commanders,
however, worked very harmoniously together, and
did their best not only for their own countrymen,
but also for the natives. Among others the first
lieutenant of one of H.M.'s gunboats volunteered
to do a chivalrous bit of service one night. He
undertook to convey the wife of the admiral in
command of the National besieging squadron from
the town, where she no longer felt in safety, to her
husband's ship. The trip proved a venturesome one,
for by some mistake the boat was not recognised,

28 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. 11.

and was fired at several times — fortunately without
effect — before reaching her destination, the admiral
little knowing that his guns were directed at his
own wife.

Beguiling the time with this and other anec-
dotes of the siege, my friend soon brought me to
the park at Palermo, or, as it is formally desig-

THE PARK AT PALERMO.

nated, the Parque 3 de Febrero. Here, as in other
South American capitals, there is a curious pro-
pensity to name streets and squares and public
walks after certain dates in the national history.
Thus at Buenos Ayres we have 25th of May Street,
and llth of September and 16th of November
Squares, and July Promenade, all commemorative

I UNIVERSITY J

CHAP. II.] AN ARGENTINE HYDE PARK**" 2Q

of notable incidents in the brief Argentine annals.
But these infant nations have so short a record
of independent existence — unfortunately for the
most part made up of ugly pages of civil strife and
tyranny and sedition — that there is every excuse
for their making the most of their anniversaries.
Besides, has not the grande nation itself set them
the example in its Eue du 29 Juillet (such a mean
little street, by the way) and its Eue du 4 Sep-
tembre ? Historical dates are at any rate more
picturesque, and reveal a more fertile imagination
than the bald, matter-of-fact ordinals by which
our North American cousins have chosen to dis-
tinguish their streets and avenues.

This Palermo, replete with sinister memories of
the ruffian reign of Eosas, is now the Bois de
Boulogne or Hyde Park of the Argentine metro-
polis, and in the glare of its shadeless main avenue
— lined with stiff, half-grown, stagy palm-trees,
planted by President Sarmiento in emulation of
the groves of the Botanical Gardens at Eio de
Janeiro — the gay world of Buenos Ayres congre-
gate on Sundays and fiestas to display their last
Parisian finery and feed on dust and gossip. The
walks beyond have been turned into a feeble,
though meritorious, attempt at a zoological garden,
and elsewhere within the precincts of the park
there is a race-course and a tir aux pigeons. Here,

3O THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. n.

too, the British residents have made a very fair
cricket-ground, on which they have periodical
matches. The Portenos 5 are not a little proud of
their Park, and on the whole the place is neat and
pretty enough, and is laid out with considerable
taste. It is, however, of such recent creation that
as yet it lacks depth and umbrage, and lucus a
non lucendo can certainly not be applied to its
meagre groves and sparsely shaded alleys. Nor
can I quite forgive President Sarmiento for his
palm-trees. It seems to me that by their associa-
tion with torrid wastes and rocky sun-baked
heights they intensify, as it were, the already pain-
fully arid aspect of all things in a region where
the eye longs, above all, for the rest and relief of
foliage.

The old quinta of Rosas — now utilised as a
cadet- school — looks as if it had undergone but
little change, and with a slight effort of imagina-
tion one can picture to oneself a barbaric caval-
cade of armed men — decked out with the flaming
crimson he fancied so much and imposed, under
severe penalties, on both sexes as a kind of livery
— sweeping up to the approach, and in their midst,
drawn by mules, the bullet-proof, closely shut cha-
riot of the Dictator. From this plain, low, un-

5 ' Inhabitants of the Port.' The appellation commonly given to
the Buenos- Ayreans.

CHAP. 31.] ROSAS AND HIS ATROCITIES 3!

pretentious building, half villa and half farm-
house, issued forth the sanguinary decrees which,
in the words of an eloquent Chilean writer,6 turned
the whole Eepublic into a huge slaughter-shed.
Here the capricious and cynical tyrant feasted and
intrigued ; here the comely Manuelita flirted and
held her court ; and here, too, she pleaded for,
and saved, many a poor wretch doomed to de-
struction. These insignificant, harmless-looking
walls could vie in tales of cruelty and perfidy with
the most blood-stained of mediaeval fortresses.
There is, no doubt, much exaggerated legend
about Eosas and his deeds,' but his worst and
most undeniable crimes have fastened on the local
imagination in a singular manner. I was present
one day at a discussion between husband and wife
as to the exact age of the latter — a most charming
woman, who, rightly assured of her good looks,
could indulge in the confession of more years than
she showed. 'There is no use in contesting the
point,' she finally said ; ' I was born on the day on
which the Caciques were hanged/ And then she
explained how her birth had been accelerated
by the shock and thrill of horror of the news,
brought to her father's house, of the traitorous

9 Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna : ' Bajo Rosas y sus capataces, la
Repiiblica Argentina file" toda entera una inmensa ramada de
matanza.'

32 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. n.

execution of some Indian chiefs whom the Dictator
had invited to a solemn palaver at Buenos Ayres,
and whom, after parading them with mock honours
through the city, he had caused without any
warning to be run up seance tenants on gibbets
suddenly revealed to their terrified gaze under the
portico of the cathedral. Surely a hideous tale,
rivalling the worst traditions of an Almagro or a
Carbajal.

We leave this maison de malheur behind us,
gladly shaking its dust off our feet, as it were, and
soon come in view of the penitentiary. This is a
very massive and altogether creditable building,
due, like most else of what is excellent here, to the
enlightened rule of Sarmiento, and it has the repu-
tation of being extremely well managed, which is
more than can be said of other Argentine gaols.
Even here the memory of Eosas and his misdeeds
pursues us, for the governor of the prison happens
to bear the same name as the victim of the
blackest of all his crimes — the unfortunate girl
whom the tyrant mercilessly caused to be shot
under the most hypocritical pretence of morality
and with attending circumstances of absolutely
fiendish atrocity,7 and whose death, like that of

7 The lady in question, who was of very respectable birth, and, I
believe, of English extraction, had been seduced by an unprincipled
priest, her confessor. The erring couple were, under some barbarous

CHAP. II.] AN ARGENTINE VIRGINIA 33

Virginia, filled the cup of popular wrath to over-
flowing, and is said to have greatly hastened his
downfall.

It was getting quite dark when we reached the
Belgrano road, and re-entered the city that way.
The gas-lamps were being lighted, and, as we
walked along, the open windows on the ground-
floor of the houses, which reach almost down to
the pavement, afforded us, behind their bars, in-
discreet views of the inhabitants gathered at the
evening meal. In the shadow of the entrances
girls and men stood laughing and talking ; the
millinery shops in the busier thoroughfares were
full of female custom ; the whole town had entered
on its evening spell of gossip and jest, of music
and shopping and aimless fldnerie. We turned
into the Cafe de Paris, and, over a late dinner,
talked of many things far away and far behind us
— of anything but Buenos Ayres.

ecclesiastical law, condemned to death, and the sentence ruthlessly
carried out, the Dictator refusing to grant a reprieve to the wretched
woman although she was enceinte.

34 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ill.

CHAPTEE III.

SUNDAY AT BUENOS AYRES — CHURCH PARADE — CHARM AND
MERITS OP THE PORTENAS — THE YOUNG GENERATION AND
THE OLD — THE GAY WORLD ABROAD.

SUNDAY — the harsh clang of the bells at the church
of the Merced hard by has been dinning the fact
into my ears at painfully short intervals ever since
early morning. Even on week-days the ringing
in the churches seems almost continuous, but just
now my neighbour round the corner is calling to
high mass with unusual vigour and persistence.
From the balcony of my rooms at the inn I have
a good side-view of the edifice, which bears evident
signs of having been recently done up, and albeit
of respectable age — it was the church of the
ancient nunnery of the Merced up to the suppres-
sion of the monastic orders by Eivadavia in 1826

has an essentially modern air that somewhat

detracts from its dignity, but agrees with its cha-
racter as the fashionable place of worship. A
scaffolding is still erected against one of its flanks,
and here only the other day the ancient walls

CHAP, m.] CHURCH PARADE 35

yielded up, it is said, an ugly secret. The work-
men engaged on the repairs unexpectedly came
upon a walled-up recess, containing human bones
and a skull with long flowing hair, which only too
clearly revealed the sex of the wretched victim,
who, in the bad old colonial days, must have been
consigned there to the horrors of a living tomb.
As I survey the building now, its spick-and-span
look utterly belies so sombre a past, the metal on
its cupola and the fresh white of its frontage and
turrets gaily standing out, in full glare and glitter,
against the deep blue sky overhead and the hot
street below.

Hackney-coaches and private carriages come
clattering past the corner, and deposit their freight
of bright silks and lace, and airy bonnets and
flowers, at the gate of the railed enclosure, oxparvis,
in front of the main entrance, in passing quickly
up to which the fair wearers have to run the
gauntlet of a double row of their admiring country-
men, faultlessly attired in tightly fitting garments
of the last Parisian cut. One by . one the vivid
patches of colour vanish into the shadow of the
porch, many of the men following them in, but a
large proportion preferring to lounge on outside in
the company of their papelitos till the function
within is over.

The subdued drone of the organ and a faint

D 2

36 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. in.

odour of incense presently stray forth and mingle
with the pungent tobacco and the languid chatter
of the idlers. After about half an hour the women
begin to stream out again — walking more leisurely
now, and with no attempt at demureness — preening
their gay plumage in the sunshine, and in no way
shrinking from persistent stares and comments
uttered indiscreetly loud. They have come well
prepared to be scanned and surveyed, and are
intent on getting as full value as they can in return
for their milliner's bills ; they look very smart,
many of them are. extremely pretty, and all feel
that they ' are fair to see ' and can well face the
closest inspection.

To ordinary English ideas there is, of course,
something utterly opposed to good taste in this
crowd of well-dressed men blocking up the passage
to a house of prayer, let alone the levity of their
attitude and the coolness of the remarks that freely
pass between them. One of the local British
papers (innocently ignorant of certain London
places of worship that might be named) periodi-
cally lashes itself into honest John-Bullish fury
over these scenes at the doors of the churches ; in
reality, however, it is but a very harmless matter,
and has at any rate the merit of a complete
absence of hypocrisy. The women, of course, do
not object to the custom, or they would not put up

CHAP, in.] PRETTY LADIES 37

with it. The truth is that, in spite of the apparent
excess of familiarity or absence of respect which
might be inferred from such over-plainly expressed
admiration, they are rightly assured of the perfect
esteem in which they are held by their admirers.
On the showing of these same gallants — simple,
honest fellows many of them, for all their Don
Juanesque posturings — they are to be credited
with the very best of characters, make capital
housewives, and are devoted, though perhaps all
too indulgent, mothers.

In many ways the Portenas are certainly most
attractive, and bear out the well-established repu-
tation for good looks which they enjoy all over
South America. They are, as a rule, above the
average height, and have remarkably good figures,
with pearly skins and such naturally fine com-
plexions that there is absolutely no excuse for the
adventitious self-adornment in which they too fre-
quently indulge. Not a few of them have fair
hair and blue eyes, and altogether depart from the
commonly received type of Spanish beauty. Un-
fortunately they often become prematurely stout,
and all too soon lose the supple grace of motion
which is one of their greatest charms. There are
few daintier sights than a young married woman
or girl, belonging to the best class of society here,
passing along the pavement with light elastic tread

38 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. in.

and just a soupqon of undulation in her trim waist
and neatly gathered petticoats, walking erect with
well-poised head and with a full consciousness of
the supremacy — in these countries most unques-
tionable and unquestioned — of her sex. Perfect
assurance without boldness, and an engaging air
of coquetry devoid of all minauderie or affectation,
show her to be not only at her ease, but well able
to take good care of herself, though quite ready to
welcome the homage which is her due. Incessu
patet non dea sed pulclierrima nympha. There is
little of the goddess about the lady, but she
suggests at first sight much of what is most capti-
vating in woman. It is a passing impression in
every sense of the word, but none the less pleasing
for all that.

The women of the higher classes here certainly
strike one at once as decidedly superior to the
men. The fact is that in communities such as
these woman is as the salt of the earth, and that
whatever aristocratic sentiment has survived in
these democracies has taken refuge with the fair
sex, and there fortunately asserts itself with many
of its refining influences. It is thus no doubt in
a varying degree throughout the Western world.
The sincere, although somewhat exaggerated, culte
of womanhood which is so* striking a feature in
North American life, was doubtless at its origin

CHAP, in.] PROGRESS OF EDUCATION 39

but a willing tribute paid by the men to something
which, in their ordinarily rough, hard, unbeau-
teous lives, they liked to feel was higher and
better than themselves. What, indeed, might not
society with our sturdy cousins in the North have
become but for their charming, highly cultivated
women ? There is a good deal of the same feeling
towards their womankind among the Argentines
of the better class, though a native jealousy, in-
herited from Spanish, or more properly Moorish,
sources, denies the married ladies here some of the
absolute freedom enjoyed by their sisters in the
United States. The influence of the eternel feminin
is, however, none the less very considerable, and
the pretty ladies of Buenos Ayres have even been
credited with a leading part in the recent political
events of their country.

I think it may almost be said that the women
of the upper orders have benefited more largely
than any other class by the immense progress
made here of late years in all educational matters.
Not that the average course of studies they now
go through is by any means as complete, or as
judiciously directed, as it might be, but that their
early" training is so different from that of their
mothers and grandmothers. Above all, young
girls of good family *are no longer left, as was the
evil old Creole custom, almost exclusively to the

4O THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. in.

debasing care of dependents — frequently half-
castes, if not pure Africans — and are, at the most
critical period of their lives, surrounded and
guided by salutary home influences which were
relatively unknown to their parents. Many of the
young ladies, too, h^reH3eefl~par4ly-. educated in
Europe, or at schools conducted on European
principles, and have acquired a degree of informa-
tion and accomplishments far surpassing anything
to which the more primitive generations that pre-
ceded them could pretend. As a result of this,
an almost painful contrast may be noticed in the
manners and conversation of ladies of the same
family ; the maturer generation appearing in every
way inferior, not only in general knowledge, but
also in refinement and habits of the world. One
of the most charming and valuable elements of
society is thus to a great extent missing here
(although its absence is, of course, only transitory)
in the controlling example and influence of older
women of experience and cultivation ; and this, no
doubt, contributes to give to social intercourse an
outward aspect of frivolity and exclusive pleasure-
seeking.

The elder ladies seldom mix in society, or, if
they do, keep well in the background — treated by
their belongings with invariable kindness and re-
spect, but content to remain in timid self-efface-

CHAP. III.] ANCIENT DAMES 41

ment. In looks and dress- many of them belong
to an entirely different age, and unconsciously
make admirable foils to the brilliant modernism of
their progeny. To the observant stranger there is
something pathetic in one of these poor old dames
huddled up with antiquated finery on a sofa in
some corner of the room, where the talk and
clatter and music around leave her all unheeded ;
dreaming, she may be, all the while of bright and
simpler days when she sat surrounded by doughty
heroes of Oribe's or Urquiza's levies, proud to re-
ceive the circling mate at her hands or to listen to
the thin tinkle of her guitar. It is, indeed, a far
cry from those artless melodies to the latest diffi-
culties by Prudent or Gottschalk ; in the interval
a brand-new world has sprung into life, and been
civilised, as it were, by steam. The placid old
head may well shake over it, and feel unable to
take it all in.

With this perfect holiday weather all Buenos
Ayres is afoot, and most of it thronging to the
public Park ; and in the course of an afternoon
stroll up and down the Florida and Calle San
Martin, and along the Avenue of the Eecoleta to
the church and cemetery of that name, one has an
excellent opportunity of surveying the gay world
as it whirls past, on its way to Palermo, in private
carriages or crowded, open tramways. All classes

42 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. III.

here sensibly avail themselves of the latter mode
of conveyance, and the cars are at all times full of
well-dressed ladies. The system is worked on the
whole with much precision, both as to speed and
regularity. On account of the narrowness of the
thoroughfares, the trams are laid in single lines up
one street and down another, and there being thus
but few points of junction or intersection at
which the cars have to wait, considerable distances
are performed at a round pace, with only just
sufficient slackening to take in female passengers
and children, or infirm people. There is no halting
for the male sex. The cars are mostly drawn by
active little mules, which trot along gaily at a
great rate, the men stepping in and out so nimbly,
even when the carriages are in full swing, that
accidents are of rare occurrence. Altogether
these tramways are an excellent institution, besides
having proved a very paying concern. For its
size, Buenos Ayres is said to be the best trammed
city in the world, and on such a day as this the
cars go past in an almost continuous stream, the
dull heavy rumble of the wheels and the ringing
of the bell — with now and then a sharp dis-
cordant bray from a kind of cow-horn blown in
warning at the principal crossings and street-
corners — forming a kind of running accompani-
ment to existence from early morning till far

CHAP, in.] TRAMS VERSUS COACHES 43

beyond dewy eve. There is no getting away from
the sound, except in some of the side streets, and
it is not a little trying to one's nerves till they
become inured to it.

It is a singular fact that, although so numerous
and generally used, the trams have by no means
decreased other vehicular traffic. At the same
time they have certainly succeeded in making it
well-nigh excruciating. To be mercilessly jolted
along an endless street, when late for dinner, with
one wheel in the middle of the ill-paved track and
the other outside it, and at every hundred yards
to have to make room for the cars by charging the
rails, as one would a hurdle (only at an obtuse
angle), is an experience not easily to be forgotten.
So vivid are my recollections of it, that I for one
am for resisting to the utmost the attempts of
the tramway companies to spoil the best part of
London. Carriages and trams can hardly to my
mind coexist in harmony and comfort, and here,
where they no doubt manage to rub on together,
they do so on conditions with which our public at
home would never put up. This, however, only
makes it the more surprising that so many private
carriages of various kinds should still be kept at
Buenos Ayres. Statistics published some four
years ago put them at 800, and to these must be
added at least 200 hackney-coaches. Eeckoning

44 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. in.

at an average of five the members of each family
using a private carriage, this, in a population
of 300,000 souls, would give one out of every
seventy-five persons as in a position to indulge in
this luxury, and would convey some idea of the
length to which it is carried. Some two genera-
tions back every Buenos Ayrean of good standing
was content to ride, while now he takes good care
to be driven, leaving horse exercise to the inferior
classes, from the Basque milkman down to that
proverbial being — in this country a proverbe en
action — the beggar on horseback.

Down they rattle along the slope of the Eecoleta,
all bound to the Park with the soft Sicilian name.
Eoomy French barouches, de chez Binder, with full
complements of pretty people leaning back in the
shade of brightly tinted parasols, the soft folds of
their gay dresses overlapping the carriage sides
and bulging up in the centre, so as to give the
whole conveyance the effect of one of those huge
Genoese nosegays put on wheels, the neat little
heads and tidy bonnets nodding above like flowers
on taller stems ; big mail-phaetons, with under-
sized horses driven by the gilded youth of the
place, sitting bolt upright like men in buckram ;
dapper little broughams, with more effete occu-
pants of the same class ; and a good sprinkling
of high-wheeled tilburies, much affected by the

CHAP. TIL] SOUTH AMERICAN TURN-OUTS 45

brokers who live down Flores way, and used by
them on week-days when they come into town < to
go on 'Change.' A very few equestrians — one or
two on ambling horses, or caballos de paso ; these,
however, are fast going out of fashion — as, indeed, is
all riding, except in the ' camp,' l where the centaur
traditions of the race are still fully kept up.

The whole defile conveys an impression of
lavish wealth and display guided by imperfect
canons of taste, and in this respect the remoter
Chileans seem to me to outstrip these more acces-
sible Argentines. There are, or there were some
years ago, at Santiago a few turn-outs that could
well have passed muster in Hyde Park or the
Bois de Boulogne. Here there is nothing of the
kind. Either the horses are badly harnessed or
ill-matched, or the liveries are ill-made, or the
carriages are painted the wrong colour ; there is
always something wrong somewhere. Then the
coachmen arid footmen all wear beards, or at least
a moustache, a clean-shaven face being looked
upon in the domestic class here as a degrading
badge of slavery.

The show to-day, however, is, I am assured,
relatively a poor one. The elite of Buenos Ayres,
its more exclusive class, still smarting under a

1 I protest against this barbarous Anglo-Spanish term, but in
writing of this country it is difficult altogether to avoid it.

46 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. III.

sense of defeat, have withdrawn to their tents and
for the present do not show in public. Just now
they are in the full winter of their discontent, for
the transfer of the Presidential powers is close at
hand, and in a few days more the man whose
election drove them to war and secession will
assume office, and the measure of their overthrow
will be indeed complete. Those, however, who
know the place best bid one hope that this ran-
corous spirit will wear away ere long ; and at an
evening party given a night or two ago at one of
the leading houses on the Government side, signs
of a rapprochement between vanquished and victors
are said to have been visible.

Meanwhile the light begins to fade and a slight
mist rises up from the river — these early spring
evenings are chilly and treacherous — and now the
holiday-makers come pouring into town again.
The streets, which seemed quite deserted an hour
ago, awaken once more to their customary bustle
and rattle ; the windows and balconies are full of
stay-at-home folk watching their friends go by with
many a nod and salutation ; at the gateways of
every other house the carriages are setting down
or dropping people ; there are effusive partings
and greetings at the entrances to the patios, with
an accompaniment of rustling silks and quick short
sentences and laughter rising strangely clear above

CHAP. HI.] EVENING GAIETIES 47

all the street clatter ; at each step one gets odd
little glimpses into the everyday habits of a life
spent, as it were, almost in the open gaze — simply
and unaffectedly and without trace of arriere-pensee
— and in so many ways curiously foreign to our
own rigid, and somewhat narrow, ideas of propriety,
above all to the holy horror in which we hold all
demonstrations in public.

Very soon all these artless, loud- spoken people
will be at their dinners — that sacred meal taking
place here at the fairly civilised hour of from six
to seven ; the clubs and restaurants will be full,
and two hours hence so will be the numerous
theatres and places of amusement, where all will
meet again — or in each other's houses at tertulias,
to which one may drop in unbidden. Thus will
close for the day the round of gaiety in this
sociable little Transatlantic world, of which it can
hardly be said, as in the title to the witty French
play, ' Qu'on s'y ennuie.' Certainly if one does, it
is not for lack of opportunities to the contrary.

48 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP.

CHAPTEE IV.

PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION — LEVEE AT THE PINK HOUSE —
DIPLOMATISTS IN DIFFICULTIES — BUENOS AYRES BOTH DE-
THRONED AND EXALTED — A POPULAR FETE.

THE accession to office of the new President was,
as I have said, imminent, and, important as such an
occurrence is at all times in republican communi-
ties, the grave series of events which had followed
upon the nomination of General Eoca gave an ex-
ceptional interest and significance to his assumption
of power. General Eoca, no doubt, mainly owed
his election to the reputation he had acquired by
the well-planned campaigns against the Indians,
which had led to the conquest of the Eio Negro,
and had added twenty thousand square leagues to
the territory of the Eepublic. But he was still
better known as the subduer of two rebellions, the
last of which had been directed against his own
election. To the Buenos-Ayreans, above all, who
had so bitterly opposed his elevation to the supreme
magistracy and had so recently succumbed to his
strategy, he might well appear in the light of a

CHAP, iv.] THE TWELFTH OF OCTOBER 49

stern conqueror bent on revenge. It seemed as if
the dread shadow of the sword were once more
about to descend on the path of the easy-going,
money-seeking metropolis ; as though under the
hollow disguise of legal constitutional forms the evil
days of militarism were again at hand. A vague
uneasiness pervaded all classes, and men watched
for the 12th of October with much distrust and
heart-sinking, for on that day the outgoing Presi-
dent was to resign his powers into the bands of
his successor, in the presence of Congress assembled
in solemn session.

The morning came rouiid — fair and cloudless,
ushering in the new reign with floods of sunshine.
From an early hour the whole population was astir,
and thronging the streets which lead to the Plaza
25 de Mayo, where stand the House of Congress
and the Casa del Gobierno, or Government House,
and filling them with true Southern movement and
ebullition. But, although things bore outwardly
the most cheerful and festive aspect, it was well
known that the battalions that lined the roads and
hemmed in the surging crowd had been strength-
ened in the last few days from outlying garrisons,
and it was whispered about that, in the dead of the
previous night, a number of the more hot-headed
opponents of the National Government had been
quietly arrested, and at the same time the printing-

E

5<D THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

presses of the principal opposition journals seized
and placed under lock and key. Sinister rumours
were soon afloat that these high-handed proceed-
ings were due to the discovery of a plot to assassi-
nate the new President, and there was considerable
anxiety as to what the day might bring forth.
There was much exaggeration in these reports.
In reality, the measures taken, although sharp,
were purely precautionary. The Government may
have had, or affected to have, intimation of some
design to disturb the public peace ; but, at any rate,
the few persons whom they thought it prudent to
detain were set free again in less than twenty-four
hours, and the hostile papers allowed to appear- as
usual the next morning.

The building where Congress holds its sittings
is small and insignificant, and barely affords room
for a few hundred persons. On this occasion
every nook and corner in and about it is crowded
to excess. A numerous, but by no means imposing,
assemblage is packed inconveniently close in the
dark, stuffy Hall of Session itself, the sombre effect
of the mass of Congressmen and spectators, all
clad in plain black clothes, being only just re-
lieved by a few — a very few — ladies' dresses
(society sulking, as before observed, in opposi-
tion), a sprinkling of military uniforms, and the
gold embroideries and decorations of a dozen or so

CHAP. IV.] THE NEW PRESIDENT 5 1

unfortunate foreign diplomatists, who have donned
their official attire in honour of the solemnity, and
look uncomfortably out of keeping with these
severely simple surroundings. The heat is per-
fectly suffocating, and the function, with the indis-
pensable speeches that form part of it, seems
interminable ; and is decidedly uninteresting up to
the moment when the hero of the hour steps
forward to take the oath and deliver his inaugural
address to the representatives of the nation.

The new President is a young-looking man, of
middle height and spare delicate build, prematurely
bald, with thin fair hair at the temples, and slight
beard and moustache. At first sight his is a
refined rather than a powerful face ; it bears,
however, an unmistakable stamp of determina-
tion, and there is a glitter, as of steel, in the cold
grey-blue eye. What perhaps strikes one most
about it is an air of great lassitude and a deadly
pallor. The General has only just recovered from
severe illness ; but his health is at no time robust,
and he has something of that dim look of depres-
sion and apathy so noticeable in the third Napoleon,
and which, to those who knew, told so sad a tale.

His demeanour on this trying occasion is singu-
larly impassive. Standing there, as he does, at this
perilous but triumphant hour, with the fortunes of
his country just placed in his grasp, it is impossible

E a

52 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

to discern in the worn, colourless countenance the
slightest vestige either of exultation or disquietude.
Clear proof there is here, at any rate, of no ordi-
nary nerve and self-control. He begins reading
his address in a low voice and in studiously
measured tones ; but when he reaches the passage
which expresses his unalterable resolve to use, to
the utmost, the powers vested in him for the
repression of any attempt against the unity of the
nation, and calls upon all to support him in the
task, there is a sudden vigour — almost a ring of
defiance — in his accents that goes straight home
to the listeners. Short, fierce bravoes answer his
words ; in an instant he is in complete sympathy
with those whom he addresses, and receives full
consecration as the man appointed to do a certain
thing, and who, it is felt, is both willing and able
to do it with an inflexible determination. Alto-
gether the President scores a success of the best
kind. None but the most confirmed cavillers can
deny that the sky-blue and white scarf1 sits well
and gracefully on this pale, quiet soldier of unas-
suming but resolute mien. A feeling as of relief
after great tension spreads through the densely
crowded audience, and when the General bows and
withdraws, to the sound of the National Anthem—

1 The presidential insignia (banda presidential), of the national
colours, worn diagonally over the shoulder like a grand cordon.

CHAP, iv.] LEVE"E AT THE PINK HOUSE 53

a poor, commonplace melody struck up by a mili-
tary band outside — the entire assembly rise to
their feet and again cheer him right cordially.

There is no time to be lost now for those who
would get across to the Casa Rosada^ or Pink (a
very dirty pink) House, at the opposite and further
end of the square, whither the President, in the
Government coach, surrounded by a cavalry escort,
has gone to hold his first official levee and receive
the congratulations of all who choose to attend.
The police, for some inexplicable reason, will not
allow any carriages to enter the square for the
purpose of taking up at the Hall of Congress, so
that all, without exception, have to make their
way across on foot — our foreign friends like the
rest — the result being that the envoys of some of
the biggest Powers of the earth are reduced to
elbow their way, in their official frippery, through
the very rough, and decidedly irreverent, throng,
amid the cheerful banter of the rising generation
of citizens, and are thus placed in a most awkward
predicament. But there are worse difficulties in
store for the worthy diplomatic body, and the
privileges and dignity supposed to be attached
to it.

On leaving the House of Congress, they form,
with their respective attaches and secretaries, to
some extent a compact group representatively

54 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

covering the best part of the globe ; but a buffet
here and a push there soon break them up into
separate and geographically incorrect knots, so
that they ultimately reach the entrance to the
Government House split up into the most frag-
mentary condition, sans neighbours, sans allies,
sans everything, like a Congress that might have
issued forth distractedly from some diplomatic
Tower of Babel. As they severally straggle up to
the entrance, with feathers ruffled, both literally
and figuratively, they hail with joy the well-known
faces of a couple of Government functionaries
who have been told off to look after them. " A
fresh courage now pervades the nations ; one by
one they rally at the foot of the rickety old
wooden staircase, and prepare to ascend it, and to
make an imposing entry in corpore. Their experi-
ences in the open, however, are as nothing com-
pared with what awaits them here.

Every inch of standing room on the narrow
stairs is flooded by a torrent of hijdd ~$el^j£tis? of
all ages and all ranks and conditions, working
their way up as best they can ; they hang in
clusters over the banisters, and some of them are
almost climbing them astride in acrobatic fashion.
In vain the friendly officials strive, partly by force,
partly by expostulation, to clear a passage for the

2 Natives ; literally, sons of the country.

CHAP, iv.] DIPLOMACY NONPLUSSED 55

dignitaries committed to their care. The crowd,
to say the truth, is wedged so tight that it is
hardly possible for it to yield, even if it would ; but
there is not the slightest inclination on its part to
do anything of the kind. Meanwhile the cry is
' Still they come,' fresh contingents surging in from
the outside and effectually cutting off all retreat.
There is nothing for it but to go forward. By
dint of desperate efforts, some of the unfortunate
big-wigs contrive to hoist themselves through this
mass of struggling, unlovely, and all too pungent
humanity, as far as the first landing. Here there
is a door leading into a waiting-room, which one
of the officials aforesaid, with great presence of
mind, opens, quickly and unceremoniously shoving
in his charges and closing the door upon them.
Not exactly a dignified predicament this for their
Excellencies, but better than having their coats
torn off their backs. A flurried conference is, no
doubt, now held by the indignant and perturbed
plenipotentiaries, at which the resolve come to is
probably the prudent one not to attempt any more
battling with fate and a rampant democracy, for
they beat a retreat, and get home as best they can
through a suite of empty government offices and
so out at a back door. They thus wisely escape
the additional slights which await one or two more
adventurous spirits of their number who have

56 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. IV.

persevered in the attempt to reach the apartment
where the President, looking dead beat, poor man !
patiently stands shaking hands with his fellow-
citizens as they file past him. There is a story
told of the Papal delegate — a most courteous and
highly esteemed ecclesiastic, who took a very lead-
ing part in the mediation which terminated the
late civil conflict — being treated with the greatest
rudeness and contumely, not by the rough un-
tutored crowd, but by functionaries who ought to
have known better — an unpleasant experience he
shares with the representative of a leading Pro-
testant Power who, by an odd juxtaposition, is
doing his best to help him through the throng.

Altogether the reception ends, as far as the
foreign representatives are concerned, in a scan-
dalum magnatum, and ultimately, it is said, leads
to a very sharp correspondence with the Argentine
Foreign Office. No doubt the Government are to
blame for not making proper arrangements for
the reception of the diplomatists who have come
officially to congratulate the new head of the State
on the part of their respective Governments ; but
a severe regard for etiquette is hardly to be ex-
pected in these young republican countries. No
deliberate disrespect has, of course, been intended,
although with the regret somewhat charily ex-
pressed there may mingle just a shade of malignant

CFAP. rv.] DIPLOMACY NONPLUSSED 57

satisfaction — what the Germans call Schadenfreude
— at the discomfiture of effete monarchies and
aristocracies in the person of their representatives
in all their official splendour. At the same time, I
must say that, in my humble opinion, uniforms are
decidedly out of place at these democratic func-
tions, only making those who wear them unde-
sirably conspicuous, and needlessly exposing them
to disagreeable incidents such as the one just
related.

It must, too, in fairness be added that the
building in which these receptions take place is
utterly unsuited for the purpose. It is a tumble-
down concern of very mean proportions, built on
the site of the old Spanish fort of the Trinidad,
which was held by Beresford and his small force
for some weeks, and where he was finally forced
to capitulate. In those days the square on which
it stood bore the unpretending name of Plaza de
Perdices (Partridge Square),3 and game and poultry
were sold on the spot where now General Belgrano
curvets on high, on his charger, in imperishable
bronze. There is some talk of pulling down this
old Government House and replacing it by an
edifice of greater dignity which would not con-

3 It is now called Plaza 25 de Mayo, from the date on which
Buenos Ayres first proclaimed itself independent of the Crown of
Spain.

58 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

trast so unfavourably with the massive and very
handsome general post office recently erected next
door — to my mind by far the most satisfactory
public building in Buenos Ayres.

The passing excitement which had been pro-
duced by the presidential inauguration very soon
wore away, and the city resumed its ordinary
aspect and occupations. But for the state of
siege, which was maintained for a short time
longer, things in general might be said to have
returned to their normal condition, and certainly
no outward trace of the recent civil dissensions
was discernible.

The new administration, however, in no way
relented in their policy of unification. A most
important step in that direction had already been
taken in the shape of a bill laid before Congress
for the incorporation into the national army of all
the forces hitherto kept on foot by the provincial
governments, those governments being further
forbidden to raise in future any new local corps
under whatsoever denomination. The measure
was unquestionably a wise and necessary one, for
among the many evils entailed on this country by
a Federal system originally, and, most unfortu-
nately, borrowed from the United States, this right
of the provinces to provide themselves with mili-
tary forces of their own was perhaps the greatest.

CHAP, iv.] BUENOS AYRES DECLARED THE CAPITAL 59

It had been all along a fruitful source of civil war
and discord, and had more than anything else
contributed to make the Confederation the pan-
demonium of military tyranny and the prey of
contending chieftains and factions it had been for
so long a period. It remained, of course, to be
seen how far the other provinces would acquiesce
in a measure really directed against Buenos Ayres,
but which involved such a curtailment of their
own State rights and autonomy ; but the general
current in favour of national consolidation was so
strong that no very serious opposition was to be
apprehended.

For the province of Buenos Ayres it was a
bitter pill to swallow ; but far worse was the Act
of Congress by which the city was federalised and
declared^j£LJ)£^he--peimanent japit.al of thp whole
republic, the provincial authorities being required
IxThand it over to the National Government, and to
provide themselves, as soon as possible, with a new
home elsewhere. Practically Buenos Ayres had
already been the national metropolis for a number
of years, but, remaining at the same time the seat
of the powerful government of the province, she
had grown to look upon herself as the arbiter and
mistress of the Confederation ; granting, it is true,
hospitality within her walls to the central authori-
ties of the nation, but taking good care in return

60 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. IV.

to make her influence felt in their councils. In-
deed, at times it might well have been doubted
which was the stronger of the two — the President
of the Eepublic or the Governor of the Province
ttms residing side by side.

This proud position Buenos Ayres was now
called upon to surrender at one stroke, while her
own authorities were ejected from her midst and
driven to seek shelter in some obscure third-rate
town. The province, in fact, was simply asked to
submit to decapitation for the benefit of the nation
at large. Legal forms were, however, so far
respected that the decision of the National Con-
gress was submitted to the Provincial Legislature
for ratification. The debates on the question
came on late in the month of November, and ex-
tended over a week, although their result was a
foregone conclusion. The small minority who
opposed the surrender in the Chamber of Depu-
ties spared no oratorical efforts, one of their
number speaking on three successive days. In
the small hours of the morning of the 25th the
division was finally taken, and the Senate having
already unanimously adopted the bill, the de-
thronement of Buenos Ayres on the one hand,
and her exaltation on the other, became accom-
plished facts. A glowing presidential proclama-
tion announced the event and its momentous bear-

CHAP, iv.] TE DEUM IN THE CATHEDRAL 6 1

ings to the population, and set apart the 8th of
December as a day of general public rejoicing.

For December, in this hemisphere, read June.
The festive day, when it came, brought with it
great heat and insufferable glare and dust. Grate-
fully cool and restful to the eye it was, therefore,
under the lofty arches of the cathedral, where a
solemn thanksgiving ushered in the appointed
festivities. This cathedral is a very spacious
structure, surmounted by a cupola some hundred
and thirty feet high, and is profusely decorated
inside in the debased style of florid ornamenta-
tion prevalent in Italian and Spanish churches of
the middle of last century, at which period the
present edifice was raised on the site of the de-
cayed fabric first designed by Juan de Garay in
1580. A somewhat heavy portico with marble
columns, crowned by a sculptured pediment,
adorns the front facing towards the Plaza Victoria,
and at first sight vaguely recalls the Church
of the Madeleine in Paris. It is a fine building
on the whole, but, although it has been extolled
as the grandest of its kind in South America, is
not to be compared with the cathedral at Lima.

The Te Deum, chanted at full length and with
due solemnity, in the presence of the President and
all the principal authorities, both National and
Provincial, was followed by a still longer pulpit

62 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

oration delivered by a brawny friar from some
distant province in the interior, Catamarca or
Tucuman, in great repute for his eloquence.
There was something about this swarthy, uncouth
monk, of half-military aspect, which brought to
mind those of his brethren who, some sixty years
before, had trudged with the liberating armies
across the giant Andes down into the smiling
Chilean valleys beyond, and, by lending the coun-
tenance of the Church to a contest waged against
the Most Catholic King, had helped to secure for
its clergy so strong a hold on the affections of the
people. Of that influence there is, in truth, little
left in these days ; but the South American priest-
hood nevertheless showed much sagacity in the
attitude they at once assumed towards the revolu-
tionary movement against Spain, and for a time
reaped very substantial benefits from it.

The preacher gave us what was in reality a
political address, couched in rudely effective and
somewhat barbarous language — oddly interspersed
here and there with short extemporary prayers —
and dealing with recent events from the strictly
national autonomist point of view. For a discours
de commande, such as might have been preached
by one of Louis XIV.'s chaplains before the Grand
Monarque, it wras not amiss, and must have been
highly gratifying to the chief listener. To other

CHAP. IV.] MILITARY PARADE 63

ears it may have been less grateful, for it con-
tained decidedly uncomplimentary, and perfectly
uncalled for, allusions to monarchical principles
and monarchical States. Our distinguished foreign
friends — for whose comfort the most perfect
arrangements had this time been made — were
destined, it seemed, not to escape the amari
aliguid in some form or other at the public func-
tions they had to attend.

After the religious ceremony there came a
march-past of the troops. Those favoured persons
who had been asked to witness it from the win-
dows and balconies of the Town House, or Cabildo,
which stands at right angles to the cathedral and
overlooks the Square of Victory (so named from
the triumph over Beresford and his diminutive
army), followed the President thither on foot
through the protecting lines of the soldiery. The
force assembled was not a large one — probably
some four or five thousand men — but the ' attenu-
ated battalions ' had a decidedly martial air, and
went by with a swinging step, their bronzed skins
and lean, wiry frames plainly showing hard service
and excellent condition. With their red-trousered
uniforms, which are almost exactly copied from
that of the French infantry, they might well have
been taken for African troupiers just home from
Algeria. Altogether the force, though far from

64 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. iv.

smart — especially the cavalry and artillery — looked
very serviceable and workmanlike, and the cheers
the men gave as they filed past showed how well
affected they were to their chief. If closely
analysed, their ranks would no doubt have shown
a curious medley of nationalities, and a good many
of their officers were of foreign extraction, amongst
others one of their most distinguished leaders
bearing a good old English name. It was well
that the review lasted but a short time, for the
powerful midday sun seriously affected several of
the men, one poor fellow being struck all of a
heap, and falling down just in front of the Cabildo.
Fortunately the troops were rapidly dismissed to
their quarters, and spectators of all classes were
glad to get away from the fierce white glare and
to take refuge at home in carefully darkened
rooms.

The full glory of the fete was reserved for the
evening, and I must say that I have seldom seen
anything prettier or more striking in its way.
Again the Square of Victory — the old Plaza
Mayor — was the centre of attraction. It was
most effectively lighted up with garlands and
pyramids of coloured lanterns, intermingled with
devices of gas which followed the outlines of the
surrounding buildings, wound in luminous spirals
round the central obelisk, and cast their refrac-

CHAP. IT.] A POPULAR F£TE 65

tion on the diamond spray of the large fountains
adjoining. Several excellent military bands re-
lieved each other at intervals, and filled the air
with familiar strains from Marchetti or Verdi —
just the kind of melodies for a popular fete ; while
above the whole was spread out a canopy of
deepest, blackest blue, all quivering with the
glitter of stars innumerable — the Southern Cross,
and all the myriads that bear it company in this,
the richest, half of the celestial chart.

The large square — so big that although illu-
minated a giorno, its contours were softened by
distance and lost in a more subdued radiance —
was filled to overflowing with sightseers. It was
no easy matter to elbow one's way through so
dense a crowd, especially in the neighbourhood of
the fountains, where, to the sound of orchestras
placed on raised platforms, dancing was going on
vigorously ; but there was no kind of hustling or
roughness, no rude horse-play or signs of intoxi-
cation. Nothing could be more orderly or good-
tempered than this really vast assemblage, left to
look after itself, and with but little visible police
supervision. In the stillness of the warm breathless
night the hum of the many voices formed a deep
continuous bass to the bright clear tones of the
wind instruments, while now and then a loud crash
of brass or a roll of drums covered the whole, to

F

66 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. IY.

be presently succeeded by a shrill peal of female
laughter, alternating with some quick Southern
exclamation in Basque or Italian. Wandering
through the serried throng, with one's cigar as an
indispensable protection against all too powerful
whiffs of onion and garlic, it was amusing to note
the variety of idioms that struck one's ear in turn.
Every tribe and nation under the sun, excepting
those of the Eastern world, seemed represented
here, and you were able at once to realise the
intensely cosmopolitan character of the population.
However much I at all times dislike a crowd, this
one at least offered infinite variety and interest.
For the outpouring of all the humbler classes of a
busy and populous capital, nothing could less re-
semble the mobs we are wont to see and dread on
similar occasions at home. The inference could
hardly be avoided that this difference of demeanour
was greatly due to the keener sense of self-respect
and personal dignity which is one of the best
points of republican training. To this, however,
must in fairness be added the habits of greater
sobriety that distinguish Spaniards and Italians of
the lower orders. At any rate, the result was a
really exemplary crowd, and, but for the intense
heat and the wearying process of wandering round
and round in a relatively confined space, I might
have been tempted to linger on much longer.

CHAP. IV.] A POPULAR F&TE 67

It was high time, however, to think of effecting
a retreat, so, after a last glance at the gaily draped
windows of the Municipality, filled with beautifully
dressed ladies, on whom the patriotic inscriptions
in flaring gas that ran just beneath them beat
crudely, and almost indiscreetly, I wended my way
home along streets which looked like continuous
arcades of light. This was perhaps the prettiest
and most original feature of the whole illumination,
and was produced by the simple device of stretch-
ing across from roof to roof, at frequent intervals,
slender arches of gas-piping from out of which
sprang the jets enclosed in small globes. Between
the darkness of the sky above and of the houses
beneath, these looked like strings of opals hanging
in mid-air, and had quite a fairylike effect.

F 2

68 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. T.

CHAPTEE V.

RAILWAY DEVELOPMENT AND ITS EFFECTS — THE INDIAN SCOURGE
— A TRIAL TRIP ON THE * GREAT SOUTHERN' — NEW PUEBLOS
OF THE CAMP — THE GAUCHOS.

THE excellence of its soil and climate, which has
done so much to attract immigration, and a con-
figuration of ground which seemed specially to in-
vite railway construction, have been main factors in
the sum of material development hitherto reached
in this country. Of the actual Argentine railway
system it may fairly be said that it has been created
by English enterprise and English capital, although
to a French engineer of the name of Einguelet is,
I believe, due the credit of having laid down the
oldest of the existing lines — the Western of Buenos
Ayres, running to Chivilcoy and Lobos — the first
section of which was opened barely twenty-five
years ago. The Provincial Government of Buenos
Ayres, be it said by the way, work this line them-
selves, and do so very creditably, their management,
and especially their freights, contrasting favourably
with those of some of the other railroads.

CHAP. V.] PIONEER LOCOMOTIVES 69

Certainly the progress achieved in this direc-
tion in the space of less than a quarter of a
century is in every way remarkable, some fifteen
hundred miles having already been handed over
to traffic, and about nine hundred more being now
in course of construction — a liberal allowance for
a population not exceeding three millions. But
here — as in other young countries — the locomotive
precedes population instead of following it, plung-
ing like a pioneer into the wilderness and creating
its traffic as it goes.

Villages and towns spring up in its wake with
mushroom growth, and stud in an incredibly short
space of time, those vast empty tracts which on the
map were marked before only with the sites of
former Indian encampments or a few simple names
indicative of barbarian chase or travel. Such
picturesque appellations as ' the one-eyed deer,'
' the ten trees,' ' the red mule,' ' the tiger's head,'
are rapidly swamped by patriotic dates, or the
titles of National triumphs which their founders
love to bestow on the aspiring new pueblos of the
desert.

The process of settlement and colonisation is, of
course, a much slower one than in the newer regions
of countries like the United States or Canada, where
there are denser masses at the back to feed the
necessary full stream of immigration and impel the

JO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. V.

more adventurous forward ; but it is nevertheless
surprisingly rapid. To the West and South, more
particularly, the iron horse is penetrating more and
more deeply into the ancient patrimony whence
only yesterday the redskin was cast out, never to
return.

Perhaps no greater contrast can be conceived
than the sudden change from the old methods of
locomotion to the new. In old-world countries
the railways were preceded by a more or less
organised system of posting, which, in Western
Europe especially, had almost attained perfection.
Here the engine is the immediate successor of the
bullock-cart, or at best of the lumbering galera or
diligence. It may in fact be said that within the
last century the means of communication had
rather deteriorated than improved — certainly in
the more distant provinces. Previous to 1776,
when Buenos Ayres was erected into a separate
viceroyalty, the intercourse between the province
and the centre of government in Peru made it
a necessity to keep open some direct mode of
approach across the entire breadth of the continent
from sea to sea. Thus in those days, when the
Audiencia Eeal, the supreme tribunal for all these
regions, had its seat six hundred leagues away at
Chuquisaca (now become the capital of Bolivia
under the name of Sucre), a delegation from it

CHAP, v.] JUDGES' CIRCUIT IN THE OLDEN TIME 7 1

travelled backwards and forwards periodically
every five years over roads which lay through the
now almost impenetrable fastnesses of the Gran
Chaco, the home of the Tobas and other fierce
Indian tribes.

The worthy magistrates moved across slowly,
but in perfect safety, with an imposing retinue,
and a whole posse of advocates and procuradores,
clerks and alguazils, under the escort of an armed
force, and as majestically returned when they had
disposed of the arrears of judicial work that accu-
mulated between their progresses, granting, let us
hope, a speedy delivery to the poor wretches whose
fate or fortunes had been at stake all through the
dreary interval. Along these routes too — for such
were the almost incredible fiscal arrangements of
Spanish colonial rule — travelled the entire pro-
ceeds of the local customs, which had all to be re-
mitted to Lima, whence were brought in exchange
all that numerous class of Spanish goods which it
was strictly prohibited to import through any other
emporium. These old tracks, which stretched
across the barren plains of Santa Fe and were
hewn through the thorny thickets of the Gran
Ohaco, have long been obliterated, and some of
the more recent exploring expeditions sent to the
last-named region, with a view to establishing

72 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

a permanent trade route to Bolivia, have met there
with a tragical fate.

The thin glittering lines of steel have not yet
penetrated thus far, but in other directions they
reach a long way into the old Indian territory, and
the trains are whirled smoothly along almost in the
same furrows which, but a few years back, marked
the rastrilladas of the warriors of Namuncura and
Pincen.

These rastrilladas , which may still be traced in
many parts of the Pampa, were the rough-worn
tracks along which the mounted savages habitually
advanced in their raids and incursions. The com-
monly received idea of the order of Indians on the
march is the single file to which they have given
their name, but it is erroneous. The wild horsemen
rode indeed singly, but in close echelon, one rider
following the other at a short distance to the right,
so as to leave each man's bridle-hand perfectly free.
Seen coming towards one from afar, the formation,
as it has been well described, seemed that of a
mounted Macedonian phalanx, while in shape it
in reality resembled a set of Pandean pipes. On
these rastrilladas as many as forty furrows may be
counted, showing the frontage of the advancing
column. In this order, followed by troops of
spare horses and raising huge columns of dust as
they rode, the savages came sweeping over the

CHAP, v.] THE INDIANS FINALLY CRUSHED 73

plain in their moonlit night-marches, till by .dawn
of day they had broken into some pueblo slumber-
ing in fancied security within the frontier line,
murdering or ravishing the wretched inhabitants,
and vanishing again into the desert, with their spoil
and their captives, long before the sun was high
and the alarm could be given to the nearest fort
or guardhouse.

At last came the final day of retribution in the
campaigns, first planned by Alsina,1 but carried out
by Eoca, in which the tribes were systematically
and remorselessly hunted down, and their shattered
remnants driven either across the Eio Negro or to
the foot of the Cordilleras, some of the principal
Caciques and leaders — among others the redoubt-
able Pincen — being carried away into captivity,
and such of the tribesmen as were not shot down
sent to work on the sugar estates in Tucuman, or
drafted into the Argentine army and navy.

The capture and final destruction of the tribe
of the Cacique Catriel, among others, has been
admirably described in the 'Eevue des Deux-

1 In 1833 Rosas commanded in person an expedition, the object
of which was to occupy the whole Pampas as far as the line of the
Rio Negro. He established his head-quarters on the Rio Colorado,
his lieutenants sweeping the country up to the Chilean frontier.
This military promenade was not followed up, though the terror it
struck into the Indians kept them quiet for a good many years
(Mulhall, Republicas del Plata).

74 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

Mondes' by M. Ebelot, who, a few years ago,
contributed to that periodical a series of very
interesting sketches of life on the so-called Argen-
tine frontier, by which is meant the artificial line
of defence which had been raised against the
Indians of the Pampas some years before the finish-
ing stroke was dealt to them. Specially severe
punishment was awarded to this tribe, on account
of the breach of faith it had committed in ab-
sconding from the cantonments in which it was
located under Government protection near Azul,
and betaking itself again to the lawless life of the
desert. This same Catriel, by the way, is the only
chieftain who is ever known to have indulged in
the luxury of a carriage, for which every genuine
Indian professes the greatest contempt. During
his long residence near Azul — then only an ad-
vanced border post, but now one of the most
important stations on the Great Southern of Buenos
Ayres Eailway, and the head of its proposed
extension to Bahia Blanca — he had got so used to
that form of locomotion, that when he raised the
standard of rebellion and fled to his native wilds,
he did so in a splendid equipage borrowed from
some unsuspecting landowner of the neighbour-
hood.

The entire change produced within a few brief
years by the conquest, and by the immediate

CHAP, v.] DEGENERATE SAVAGES 75

extension of railroads and opening up of the
country that followed it, is so wonderful that, in
order to realise it — and that only in a faint degree
— one must almost imagine to oneself railway
enterprise in the United Kingdom as already exist-
ing in the days of Eob Eoy and his caterans, and
its civilising and subduing effects being brought to
bear on the Highlands before 1715. I need not
add that, in venturing on so bold an illustration,
nothing is further from my thoughts than to set
up any comparison between the stout-hearted clans-
men who gathered round Charles Edward, and the
licentious, half-tamed Gauchos of the border lands
— still less the debased barbarians who have been
so recently swept off* the Argentine map.

There was indeed little left of the ' noble
savage' about the Indian of the Pampas in the
decadence that preceded his final expulsion. Even
those among the tribes which, like the more distant
Pehuenches, were of Araucanian origin, had sadly
degenerated from the formidable warriors sung by
Ercilla. They had lost all the bolder traditions of
savage warfare, and had sunk to the level of mere
marauders, though their inborn ferocity too fre-
quently showed itself in cowardly murders com-
mitted on the defenceless. Unfortunately their
tolderias, or encampments, served as a refuge to
the more lawless elements among the native Argen-

76 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. V.

tines or Gauchos, and they were often led, as well
as instructed in the use of firearms, by deserters
and criminals flying from justice. Still, considering
the paucity of their numbers — Catriel's tribe, for
instance, was only reckoned at 900 lances some
two years before its destruction — and the poorness
of their armament, it seems almost a national
disgrace that they should have been allowed to
hold their own so long, and indeed to derive
tribute, as they did, from the treasuries of civilised
communities like Santa Fe or Buenos Ayres. It is
the more surprising because, like their kinsmen in
North America, they were an 'expiring race, and at
the time of their final overthrow had been reduced
to a state of semi- starvation by the iron barrier of
the frontier, which put an end to cattle-lifting on a
large scale, and prevented their replenishing the
herds of horses which alone made them formidable.
The internal dissensions, which so long distracted
the Confederation and paralysed its energies, must
account for the lack of vigour shown towards
these intolerable savages, and the radical manner
in which they have now been dealt with is a
happy augury that this country has at last reached
the era of stable, well-ordered government.

General Eoca's campaigns at one stroke added
some 20,000 square leagues, or something like
140,000,000 acres, to the domain of the Ke-

CHAP. T.] LAND CONQUESTS

public, and these immense tracts were forth-
with thrown open to the settler. The original
Government price demanded for a square league
of land2 (upwards of 6,600 acres) was 400 hard
dollars, equal to about 70£. Much of the land
was at once snapped up at that price, and
it has since so increased in value that in some
districts — especially those to the west and south-
west of Azul, which were almost immediately
tapped by the Great Southern Eailway — it is
already worth from 2,000/. to 3,OOOZ. a league.
Bound the old Indian centres of Guamini and
Sauce Corto, good land is at present let at up-
wards of 200Z. a year per league, on short leases
of at most three years. All this country, which is
now well covered with cattle farms, was a wilder-
ness in the hands of the Indians barely eight years
back. Much of the land is of the highest quality
for pasture, and the climate being very temperate
and admirably adapted to European constitutions,
these new districts can be highly recommended
to English settlers bringing with them sufficient

2 In 1878 a loan of 1,600,000 hard dollars was decreed, in bonds
of 400 dollars each, which entitled the subscriber to one square league
in the conquered regions. The cost of the expedition was to be
defrayed by this loan. I am indebted for much of the above, and
other valuable, information to a report by Mr. Egerton published in
the series of commercial reports by H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy
and Legation for 1881.

78 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

capital to purchase and stock a league or" two. A
large extent of country has, however, been already
taken up.

Shortly after my arrival at Buenos Ayres I had
an excellent opportunity of seeing for myself how
railroads are laid down in these regions. A new
extension on the Great Southern system, from
Dolores to a place called Chacabuco, was almost
ready for traffic, and, before handing it over to the
Government inspectors, the manager and engineers
of the line were about to make a trial trip over
it, in which they kindly asked me and one or two
friends to accompany them. -The important district
to be opened up by this branch railway extends,
in a straight line from Dolores, over more than
one hundred miles to the south coast, and contains
some of the best land in the province of Buenos
Ayres. The Great Southern, which is favourably
known to the investor in England, is, I need not
say, a purely British undertaking, and noteworthy
for its success and able management.

We started at about three o'clock in the after-
noon from the chief terminus of the railway, which
is situated quite at the end of the town, near a
very large square (Plaza de la Constitucion) that
serves as the principal market for the wool from
the southern districts. Here may be seen row
upon row of the immense wains or wagons in

CHAP. Y.] OFF ON THE GREAT SOUTHERN 79

which the fleeces are brought up to town — great
Noah's arks, mounted on formidable wheels that
have groaned and creaked over many a long mile
across the Pampa, and covered with tilt roofs made
of hides stretched across wooden frames. Our
train was simply composed of an engine and tender,
to which was attached a long saloon car, furnished
with unusually wide leather cushions on either side
that made up into most comfortable beds. The
saloon could, if required, be turned into separate
compartments by curtains drawn across it, and,
without having any pretensions to luxury, made
as capital a travelling-carriage as could be desired.
There is no need, however, to describe it any
further, for it figures in one of the most popular
narratives of yachting adventure that have been
given to the world of late years.

We were off for forty-eight hours at least, and
the capacious hampers that were stowed away in
a corner of the carriage showed that our hosts did
not intend us to starve on the road. We quickly
settled into our places, the favourite cocktails of
these regions were duly handed round, and we
soon shook down into an extremely cosy party.

Gliding smoothly out of the station, we soon
attained a very fair rate of speed, and when we
were clear of the town, and had left behind us
Lomas de Zamora — a favourite health resort snugly

8o THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

embosomed in plantations of poplar and paraiso
and peach-trees — and a few other suburban stations,
such as Glew and Lanus and Temperley, which
are all called after the principal neighbouring
estancieros, we plunged into the great empty plain,
and at once fully realised its character. It was
like spinning across a billiard-table, so green and
so level was it on either side, the telegraph posts
alone breaking the field of vision as they whizzed
past us in what seemed to be a helter-skelter race
for the town. In the zone more immediately sur-
rounding Buenos Ayres there had been signs of
husbandry in the market-gardens, and in the fields of
maize and wheat and flax that broke the monotony
of the meadow-land ; but agriculture soon ceased,
and we got into continuous pastures thickly covered
with cattle and sheep and horses. These rich
pastoral tracts lasted as far as Altamirano, some
fifty odd miles from town, at which point the main
line divides into two branches, the one running to
the right down to Azul, and the other to the left
on to Dolores. We pulled up here for a minute
or two, and then ran straight into Chascomus, doing
the entire seventy-five miles without a single stop-
page but for this one slight break.

After Altamirano the country had so far changed
its aspect that it showed fewer flocks and herds,
and thus betokened less occupation. The land

CHAP. V.] CHASCOMUS 8 1

here, however, is not so much cut up as it is round
the city, and the stock on it is less conspicuous,
having a larger expanse to roam over. The clumps
of trees on the line of the horizon, which mark the
sites of the estancias, were somewhat wider apart,
but as yet sufficiently numerous. Still, we were
passing into newer regions, and by very fine grada-
tions the settled camp was roughening into the
vast solitudes beyond.

At Chascomus we were to dine, and while our
repast — a very excellent one — was being got ready,
we went up to a terrace on the roof of the station,
and in the last rays of sunset surveyed the bound-
less prospect, the dull flatness of which was here
relieved by the shining waters of a large lake at
some short distance from the town, celebrated for
its pejereyes — an excellent little fish, in size and
flavour much resembling our smelt, that fully
deserves the regal title bestowed on it, so superior
is it to the mostly tasteless finny tribe which
peoples the Argentine rivers. We dined luxuri-
ously by candle-light in the spacious waiting-room
of the station, and then returning to our special,
made another straight run of fifty-six miles through
the dark to Dolores, which was to be our night
quarters.

The Great Southern Company have rented a

82 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. V.

good-sized house here for their engineers working

on this extension, where I and my friend E

were put up in clean, whitewashed rooms, the re-
mainder of the party going to the local hotel, where
their rest was by no means unbroken, to judge
by the account they afterwards gave us of their
nocturnal experiences. Having reached Dolores
late in the evening and left it again at a very early
hour next day, the place remains almost a blank
in my memory ; but the impression I gathered of it
in driving down to the station was of the dullest of
small provincial towns, and as dismal a sojourn as
is bound to be a place named, in good old Spanish
orthodox fashion, after Our Lady of Sorrows. Its
terminus, however, where we waited for some time
in the ear]y sunlight while our special was getting
up steam, showed it to be the centre of consider-
able traffic, the sidings being filled up with trucks
laden with the first wool of the season and other
produce of the country-side. There are some very
large and flourishing estates in this neighbourhood,
among others the immense estancia of Anchorena,
which extends over miles between Dolores and the
sea. In this, and still more in the adjoining
partido (department) of Chascomus, the foreign
element gathers very strong, the Scotch and Irish
being especially numerous. The country is well
watered by the Salado and Samborombom rivers,

CHAP, v.] CHEAP RAILWAYS 83

and agriculture is by degrees supplanting pure
stock-farming.

Our inspection tour began at this point, and we
therefore now proceeded at a very leisurely rate,
feeling our way, as it were, carefully along. At
frequent intervals we came to a standstill, the
engineers getting out and walking a few hundred
yards along the metals. The rails are made of
steel, and rest on iron sleepers (of the Livesey
pattern, if I am not mistaken), these being much
cheaper than wood in this timberless country ; and
on a bowling-green line like this they are laid
down with wonderful rapidity and at very little
cost. I have not got the exact figures, although
they were given me at the time, but they struck
me as quite remarkable. The older portions of
the Great Southern system cost over 8,000/. per
mile, while the outlay on this extension did not, I
believe, reach 4,000/. per mile, or something like
one tenth of the cost of some of our best-known
railways. On this side of the river Salado, how-
ever, it was all plain sailing, there being no real
engineering work to be done.

In between our frequent halts we put on an
extra spurt, and, during one of these, by far the
best way of judging of the line and the country it
passed through was to take one's seat on the cow-
catcher in front of the engine. This we did by

G2

84 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

turns, and it was both a novel and a delightful
sensation to feel oneself propelled into vacant space
through the keen morning air across the boundless
prairie. It was the next best thing to an early
gallop, with the additional excitement of charging
now and then into troops of horses that scampered
away on the line in front of us, at the sound of our
warning danger-whistle, and scattered right and
left just as we were upon them.

The plains now appeared decidedly emptier
and less full of life than they had been before
Dolores, and the monies of the estancias were less
frequent. That they were amply stocked, how-
ever, was proved by the bones of the victims of
the great hurricane that had swept over these
regions a month before. Shortly after leaving
Dolores, my eye was attracted by the carcass of
one of these poor creatures, which was lying across
a shallow ditch by the side of the permanent way.
A few yards further on I noted another, and yet
another, and, the sight producing a sort of morbid
fascination, I took to counting them. Watch in
hand, I reached something like four or five hun-
dred of them — I forget now which — in the space
of three quarters of an hour, when I got wearied
and gave up the gruesome task I had set myself.
All these lay within a very short distance — at most
a couple of hundred yards — of the line, and of

CHAP, v.] MAIPtf 85

course only on the side I was watching. Stock of
all kinds, though mostly cows, and in every stage
of decay — from the dried-up carcass to the clean-
picked skeleton. Some of these poor remains
were still singularly well preserved, and lay in
groups of two and three in pathetic attitudes ;
others again had taken strange twisted shapes in
their last contortions. Altogether it was a piteous
sight, and showed that there was little exaggera-
tion in the accounts first published of the extent
of the disaster.

By eleven o'clock we had reached Maipii, a
station about halfway to Chacabuco and thirty-
five miles from Dolores. Here we stopped for
some time, and breakfasted sumptuously in our
car. The place is a good specimen of the new
centres of population that seem to crop up by
enchantment wherever the railway reaches. Al-
though only a year or two old, it is already
marked out in regular streets, with high-sounding
names, running at right angles from a central
plaza. Like the generality of these pueblos nuevos,
it has no doubt sprung from a few huts gathered
round a pulperiaB on some old wagon track across
the Pampa, where, probably, first a wheelwright

3 The pulperia is a kind of combination of provision-shop and
public-house, which supplies the wants of the population in the camp
for miles round.

86 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. V.

and then a carpenter had squatted and found
employment. When placed like this in a pro-
mising locality, the primitive hamlet soon expands
into a village. Authority then steps in and sends
down an agrimensor, or Government surveyor, to
lay it out in approved fashion and measure the
various allotments. Next appear law and disci-
pline in the persons .of a juez de paz and a
commissary of police. The place having thus
acquired official dignity is considered entitled to
a church and a school, and the priest and the
schoolmaster now come on the scene, though for
yet a while the school-benches may remain empty
and the church have no worshippers. But the
whole system being a forcing one, these are quite
secondary considerations. In this^ embryo con-
dition the new pueblo may continue to vegetate for
a short time and then relapse into nothingness, or
it may suddenly develop into a busy local centre :
everything depending on the quality of the land
that surrounds it. Maipu is said to be favoured in
this respect, and possibly has a future.

At present it is hardly a cheerful-looking spot.
The conditions attached by law to the grant of
any building lot are that it should be enclosed, and
a house constructed on it, with a proper side-walk
towards the street, within a year from the date of
the concession. As few of the settlers have suffi-

CHAP, v.] MAIPU 87

cient capital to build at once such a house as is
contemplated by these somewhat ambitious regula-
tions, the difficulty is often turned by running up
a structure which in size and shape resembles
an enlarged dog-kennel, and surrounding it by a
rough enclosure of adobes (sun-dried bricks). The
effect of a lot of these pigmy, whitewashed cabins,
standing each in its little square, in formal rows, is
decidedly depressing, and of such the half-dozen
carefully designed and duly christened streets of
Maipii are largely made up. There is, of course,
a sprinkling of bond fide houses, mainly round the
plaza, and &fonda, or inn, as well as the indispens-
able almacen, or general store for food and drink,
and a tienda (shop) or two, where the Gaucho can
procure his simple requirements, such as the most
ordinary house utensils and rough tools and imple-
ments, as well as the gaudy clothing and horse-
trappings to which he is partial, and the various
articles that go to make up the ponderous recado,
or native saddle. Here, however, as elsewhere,
the picturesque in dress is rapidly disappearing,
dingy trousering and common cotton shirts taking
the place of the bright chiripa and graceful
poncho.

As is Maipii so is Chacabuco, which we reached
early in the afternoon after an easy run — the names
of the two pueblos, by the way, recalling the twin

88 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. V.

triumphs of General San Martin in Chile. A break
with four horses and a couple of carriages were
waiting for us, and conveyed us, over excruciatingly
bad roads, to the inn where we were to dine and
sleep. The sky had been lowering since midday, and
we had hardly got to our quarters when it began
to rain — a steady downpour that left no prospect
of amendment for the rest of the day. Under these
circumstances there was no attempting to see what
Chacabuco might have to show, and one had to
possess one's soul in patience indoors, although the
' Hotel Libertad ' was not precisely the kind of inn
one would have selected for taking one's ease. It
had its resources, however, and, fortunately for
some of us, a billiard-table among others. Pre-
sently a galera came rumbling up to the door and
landed a stray passenger or two, and as the after-
noon wore on the choicer spirits of the place
dropped in one by one.

In these small localities the fonda is the general
rendezvous for gossip or local business. Here the
estanciero meets the country woolbroker or cattle-
dealer and strikes a bargain with him over a glass
of hesperidina, and here, between two games of bil-
liards, the village medico prescribes for his patients.
The sala — dining-room, smoking-room, and billiard-
room all in one — is in fact a kind of club, where,
after the evening ordinary, the company settle

CHAP. V.] A WAIF FROM MONTE CARLO 89

down to cards till late into the night. The Gaucho
is an inveterate gambler, and, next to horse-racing
and cock-fighting, play is his favourite excite-
ment.

I had an instance here of the people one un-
expectedly comes across in the remotest regions.
Early in the evening a youngish man, in well-cut
European clothes that had long seen their best
days, sauntered in and stood watching the players
with evident interest. Under pretence cf asking
for a light for his cigarette he soon got into con-
versation with the younger men of our party, with
the clear intent of getting them to join in the
game. Failing in this he presently sat down to
the table himself. He was evidently no native,
spoke several languages, and had all the manners
of good society. We were not able to find out his
name, beyond the familiar ' Don Pedro,' or ' Don
Juan,' by which he was addressed, so put him
down as a Polish refugee count; but we afterwards
heard from the civil landlord that he was a nightly
guest and lived more or less on his play. Clearly
a waif from the Homburg or Monte Carlo gaming-
tables, whom it was curious to find stranded in this
pays perdu.

But by far the most characteristic time for
seeing one of these pueblos of the camp is on a
Sunday or church festival, when the wild gentry

9O THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. v.

of the neighbourhood for miles round come riding
in for the day. Outside the fonda the gaily ca-
parisoned horses are tied up to the palings in a
row, or their fore-feet hobbled in true Gaucho
fashion. The sola and every other available place
inside are full of smoking and drinking and card-
playing, the venue being now and then changed
to the square round the corner, where a horse-race
has been got up on the spur of the moment. To-
wards evening the fun grows fast and furious, and
ends with singing and dancing to the noisy accom-
paniment of squibs and rockets. Fortunate is it
when the revels do not culminate in a drunken
brawl, with knives unsheathed, and murder, or at
least manslaughter. By daybreak the carousers
are off again, galloping wildly back, too often with
empty pockets, to the distant ranchos, where the
poor drudges that stand them in stead of wives
have been watching listlessly for their return,
without any attempt at employment all through
the weary hours, beyond preparing the indispens-
able meal or looking after the squalid offspring of
these manage* interlopes — almost the only ones
known in the camp.

This is no place for attempting to go at length
into the manners and customs of the half-tamed
children of the Pampas, which have been described
with true French finesse and gift of observation

CHAP. V.] GAUCHO HOME LIFE , 9!

by M. G. Daireaux, of the ' Union Frangaise ' of
Buenos Ayres, in some charming sketches he con-
tributed to that paper.4 It may, however, be said
that among the unlovely homes of the peasantry
of most countries none perhaps is more dreary
or repulsive than that of the Gaucho — if home it
can properly be called, having in most cases for its
basis an illicit union with a poor creature devoid
of all feminine charm or grace, and steeped in
utter ignorance and slovenliness. The typical
Gaucho woman, in fact, has little of her sex beyond
her untidy garments and sharp tongue ; and but
for the powers of endurance which enable her on
occasion to vie with the men in the hardest work,
such as sheep-shearing or cattle-driving — in the
saddle she is of course at home from her infancy
— and a certain rough fidelity that makes her stick
to the chance partner with whom, after many a
previous experience, she has finally mated for good,
she. has no redeeming qualities. Of things above
these she has neither knowledge nor instinct, and
it is no wonder, therefore, if her companion is
driven from her cheerless society by sheer ennui to
seek a solace elsewhere in drink and debauchery.

4 I gladly take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebted-
ness to this gentleman and his brother editor, M. Ebelot, for many
traits of local character I have put down in these pages. M. Daireaux
is, besides, the author of a very interesting volume, entitled Euenos
Ayres, la Pampa, et la Patagonie.

Q2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. T.

It is difficult to say who is to come to the rescue
of these hot-blooded, untutored men, who, for all
their vices, attract sympathy by their fearless
bearing and a certain native dignity and courtesy.
The priest has never had any hold on their dark
heathenish homes, for the pure Gaucho has but the
faintest tinge of Christianity, his religion being
made up of childish and degrading superstitions,
mainly derived from Indian sources ; the school-
master so far has hardly reached him, and he has
yet to be redeemed if he is to be worked up into
a useful element in the new fabric of civilisation
that is growing up around him. The National
Government have an arduous task. before them in
this direction.

We left Chacabuco early in the forenoon, after
a sleepless night, as far as I was concerned. The

accommodation being very limited, E and I,

with another of the party, had shared a three-bedded
room, the ceiling of which proved to be anything
but water-tight. It rained steadily all through the
night, and the walls and the floor of beaten earth
became so damp that it was very like bivouacking
in a wet ploughed field. The beds, however, were
clean, and the worthy Basque landlord, who. by the
way, had managed to give us a very fair dinner,
eked out by the provisions we had brought with
us, was most attentive, and in ordinary weather

CHAP, v.] ON THE WAY BACK 93

one might be worse put up than at the Hotel
Libertad.

The heavy downpour on this stiff, clayey soil
had made the roads almost impassable, and it was
with the greatest difficulty, and at imminent risk of
upsetting, that our team contrived to drag us up
the slope that led to the embankment where our
train was waiting for us. Our inspection being
now over, we made very good time, and, including
stoppages at the water -stations., covered the two
hundred and odd miles in about nine hours. We
loitered somewhat at the Eio Salado, a few of us
getting out and crossing the iron railway bridge — a
fine work — on foot'. It was blowing a stiff pampero
after the rain, and the structure seemed to sway in
the violent gusts that swept up the river — which
here is broad enough and runs between two steep
banks — so that it was rather giddy work getting
across, there being no footway, and the swirling cur-
rent below being visible in between the bare rails
and sleepers. On a slight rise above the stream a
biggish estancia house was pointed out to us as be-
longing to a rich family, a most tragical event in
whose history is commemorated by the handsome
church of St. Felicitas, erected some years ago in the
Santa Lucia suburb of Buenos Ayres ; — a wild tale
of Southern passion and revenge, the full par-
ticulars of which were given me afterwards.

94

THE GREAT SILVER RIVER

[CHIP. v.

Soon after dark we reached the city, and parted
with much regret from our kind entertainers of the
Great Southern, and especially Mr. C , the ener-
getic and muy simpdtico manager of that eminently
prosperous line.

BUENOS AYRES GAUCHO.

CHAP, vi.] FOREIGN INFLUX 95

CHAPTER VI.

IMMIGRATION — THE FOREIGN COMMUNITIES.

ACCOEDING to a calculation made in February 1881,
the city of Buenos Ayres at that period contained
upwards of 270,000 inhabitants. It was ascer-
tained on the same occasion that the population
was increasing at the rate of over two and a half
per cent, a year, more than 13,000 souls having
been added to it in two years. The increment was,
of course, largely due to the steady flow of immi-
gration which is rapidly converting the Argentine
metropolis into the most composite, if not cosmo-
politan, of cities.

But, in addition to this influx from abroad,
other causes had been at work in the same direc-
tion for years before. I take up a book of statistics,
published under Government supervision some ten
years ago, and find there the following figures,
derived from the general census of the Eepublic
taken as far back as 1869. The population of the
town was reckoned at that time at a little under

96 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

180,000 souls, of whom only one half were put
down as Argentines. Of the other, or foreign
half, nearly one half again were Italians, another
quarter being made up, in almost equal numbers,
of French and Spaniards, and the last quarter
of half a dozen other nationalities, among which
British subjects figured for some three thousand,
and Germans for some two thousand.

The most startling fact, however, revealed by
the figures from which I am quoting was that,
while the excess of males over females in the
entire population was in the proportion of five to
four, the females among the purely Argentine
population outnumbered the males in the ratio of
about seven to five. It appeared, in fact, as if the
native population, left entirely to itself, must ere
long have reached a point that would almost, if I
may permit myself the pleasantry, have justified
the introduction of polygamy or Mormonism, had
not the foreigner providentially stepped in and
restored the proper balance between the sexes.

But this was not all. It further resulted from
these figures that the births among the foreign
inhabitants were fully three times more numerous
than among the natives, and this without counting
the children born of foreign fathers and Argentine
mothers. It was likewise shown that of the ille-
gitimate births that took place two-thirds were to

CHAP. VI.] INFANT MORTALITY 97

be put down to the natives. Finally it appeared
that the death-rate among infants (parvulos) had
attained the alarming figure of fifty per cent. ; a
fact which, it need hardly be pointed out, was in
undeniable correlation with the preceding data as
to the large proportion of illegitimate unions.
Everything, therefore, went to show that an alarm-
ingly steady process of deperdition was going on
in the native race — accelerated, no doubt, by the
ravages of civil war and pestilence, but mainly due
to the fearful waste of infant life resulting from
ignorance and laxity of morals.1

I hasten to apologise for these dry statistics,
than which nothing can be more repugnant to the
general reader ; but the figures I have used illustrate
in a remarkable manner the rapid transformation
taking place in the country, and more especially in
its capital. Under the conditions they indicate,
and which have been intensified by the marked
increase of immigration in the last few years —
probably half a million of intending settlers having
landed here in the course of the last decade — the
bond fide Argentine element must necessarily sink
to a minority ; and though all children, of whatever
nationality, born on the soil are claimed as Argen-
tines, the character of the Buenos-Ayreans of the

1 The mortality seems, according to an official statement, to be
greater among infants of the male sex.

H

98 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

future cannot but be essentially modified by so
large an infusion of foreign blood.

Up to the present time, as I have hinted before,
the foreign communities have kept very much to
themselves, and, unlike the settlers in the United
States, have not blended with, or been absorbed in,
the native population. It is both easy, therefore,
and interesting to note their distinctive traits and
individual character.

The sons of Italy — mostly Neapolitans or Ligu-
rians — take by a long way the first rank as to
/numbers among them. They are pouring in now
/at the rate of over fifty thousand a year, and
' although a considerable percentage of them return
to their homes after having made a little money,
those who remain behind are so many and so
ubiquitous as to have already given their stamp
to the city. Chiefly recruited from the humblest
classes, they are numerous rather than influential,
and, thus far, constitute a kind of dormant force,
which might, however, at any moment assert itself,
and have to be reckoned with by the natives, who,
up to the present time, have kept both government
and administration almost exclusively in their own
hands. The Italian colony have indeed at their
head a highly intelligent and respectable class of
merchants, shipbuilders, lawyers, and so forth ; but
the great mass are labourers and artisans, and take

CHAP. VI.] THE ITALIAN COMMUNITY 99

to a variety of useful industries and occupations.
Together with the equally laborious Basques, they
almost monopolise the river coasting trade, and
their boats ascend the mighty affluents of the Eio
de la Plata far up to the remoter borders of Brazil
and Paraguay. Both in town and country they
are largely employed in the building trade,
as masons and as bricklayers.2 They-are expert
gardeners and agriculturists, they work as navvies
on the railways and as porters in the towns,
making themselves thoroughly useful wherever
they go, and giving a bright example of thrift
and persevering labour.

There is, of course, a rough element amongst
them, and the better class contains not a few un-
quiet spirits whom political discontent or advanced
social views have impelled to seek a refuge here.
The great name of Garibaldi, and the traditions of
his strange romantic career in these regions, no
doubt originally contributed to attract them hither.
They are almost all organised in philanthropic-
clubs and benevolent societies, which, under the
cloak of charity and mutual help, are said not

2 ' A friend of mine/ says Mr. Egerton, t who bought land in a
distant part of this province — but lately in Indian possession — told
me that the Italian bricklayers made their appearance there nearly as
soon as the person whom he had sent to take possession, and at once
offered to build his house, the soil being in most parts of the province
suitable for making flat bricks.'

H 2

IOO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vr.

entirely to exclude political aims and aspirations ;
but they are nevertheless always ready to acknow-
ledge the authority of the official representatives,
consular or diplomatic, of their country, and, in
the hands of the able men whom the Italian
Government have generally employed here, their
very organisation affords a valuable means of con-
trol over them. One of the most respected of
these officials explained to me one day that in
cases of emergency he had only to send for the
presidents of these associations, some of which
reach very far down in the social scale, and talk
matters over with them, in order to secure the
most complete harmony in the colony. There is
no doubt that this method was most beneficially
resorted to during the recent civil commotions.

The love of country strongly pervades this well-
ordered and praiseworthy community. Striking
evidence of this was given on the occasion of the
death of King Victor Emmanuel. The entire colony
then turned out in full force and marched in pro-
cession, with their national flags and the banners
of their several associations, to the church where a
funeral service was held in memory of the first
sovereign of United Italy. Although formed in
serried ranks, they took up a dozen of the cuadras,
or blocks of 150 yards square, into which the city
is divided, the dense column extending to upwards

CHAP, vi.] THE BOCA 10 1

of a mile in length. In the same way they gathereji , , , ,
in their thousands at the death of "Ge&e'ral <jFari*K;'
baldi. These imposing displays of organised force
on the part of a foreign, however peaceable,
element residing in their midst are said to have
greatly impressed the native population and au-
thorities.

Some parts of Buenos Ayres, and more particu-
larly the outlying districts of Barracas and the
Boca, are in fact almost exclusively Italian. The
Boca — so called from its being built at the mouth
of the Riachuelo, a small river that falls about five
miles from the city into the Eiver Plate — might,
with its swarming population of shipwrights and
fishermen and carpenters, be to all appearance a
suburb of Naples or Genoa. A tramway, as well
as the railroad to Ensenada, unites it to the city,
and it well repays a visit. The stream, which for
many years literally ran with the gore and was
choked with the offal of the thousands of beasts
slaughtered in the adjoining saladeros, has been
canalised since the terrible visitation of so-called
yellow fever 3 that afflicted the city in 1871,4 and

3 It is very doubtful whether this plague can be properly termed
yellow fever. Its reported importation from Brazil was never, I am
assured, actually proved, and it is far more likely to have originated
in local causes.

4 These saladeros, where as many as 10,000 head of cows and
mares were sometimes slaughtered in one day, were then closed by

IO2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

the origin of, which was attributed to its putrid
waters., • XtV> ,its quays the craft employed in the
river traffic are moored in such numbers as almost
entirely to conceal the channel, and you wonder,
as you walk along and scan all these closely
packed barques and schooners which are dis-
gorging baskets of fruit or bales of yerba mate,
or taking in cases of wine and beer and preserves,
how they will ever manage to get out and slip
away into the broad waters beyond. It is a
singularly bright and busy scene, and, were it not
for the uniforms of a vigilante (policeman) or two
who are lounging on the quay, might well be laid
in some Italian seaport. The shouts and vocifera-
tions of the men at work, the names and inscrip-
tions on the ships and stores, the whole character
and colouring of the scene, foster the illusion. A
more perfect bit of dear, untidy, picturesque
marina is hardly to be found on all the fair
Ligurian coast, or on those still lovelier shores
where ' Vesuvius shows his blaze.'

Adjoining the Boca are the populous suburbs
of Barracas and Santa Lucia ; the latter standing
on a gentle slope which leads to the higher level
of the town. The lower part of Barracas, with its
great warehouses of hides and wool, is likewise

the authorities, and transferred to Ensenada and other distant points
(Mulhall, RepiiUicas del Plata).

CHAP, vi.] A FAMILY TRAGEDY 103

almost purely Italian ; while the upper part, as
well as Santa Lucia, principally consists of villa
residences belonging to rich natives. Here stands
the striking church built in expiation of the murder
of Dona Felicitas Alzaga. It was pointed out to me

by E , who told me its story, which, although

of comparatively recent occurrence, is fast growing
into a dark and mournful legend of the past.

The victim was a young and very beautiful
creature, belonging to one of the best families of
the country, who had been made to marry against
her will — her affections being already bestowed
elsewhere — a man much older than herself who
owned a very large fortune. She was soon released
from this ill-assorted union by the death of her
husband, who left the whole of his immense
property at her absolute disposal. With her re-
covered freedom and the fortune that made her
independent of all control, her thoughts naturally
turned to the man whom she loved, and she shortly
became engaged to him.

Meanwhile, however, another admirer, a man
not of the best repute, began persecuting her with
his attentions, and repeatedly urged her to marry
him, though she as persistently refused him.

One evening he called at the house at Santa Lucia
and asked to see her alone. She left an aunt, who
lived with her, in the dining-room where they were

104 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. VI.

having their evening meal, and went to join him in
the drawing-room upstairs. What passed between
them at this interview no one can tell ; but before
long two shots were heard, and the aunt and ser-
vants running up in alarm found the wretched
girl and her assassin dead or dying, the villain still
holding a revolver in his hand. There is some
obscurity as to the manner in which he came by
his death, one version being that the accepted
lover came in on hearing the fatal shot fired, and
at once avenged the deed, the theory of suicide on
the part of the murderer being allowed to obtain
currency in order to screen the avenger. In the
grounds of the house where the terrible crime was
committed, the heirs of the victim erected this
beautiful church to her memory.

But to go back to this cursory review of the
foreign communities. The next in numbers and
importance are the French and Spanish, and these
two have a common bond in the Basque element
from both sides of the Pyrenees, of which they are
largely composed.

The Basques form so conspicuous a group by
themselves that they are well entitled to separate
mention. They furnish one of the most energetic
and valuable ingredients to be found among the
many races and nationalities which are represented
here. As a rule, they come out with their families

CHAP, vi.] THE BRAWNY BASQUE 1 05

and household goods, and resolutely settle down to
their work without any of the animus revertendi
with which a number of their fellow-immigrants
arrive here. It is indeed curious to note how
kindly these men from mountainous regions take
to the insipid plain. Their natural bent is towards
cattle-tending and rural industry, and as dairymen
they have secured one of the most lucrative branches
of the latter, and are almost the only retail vendors
of milk and butter. The figure of the brawny
lechero, with his typical flat blue beret, perched
astraddle between his milkcans on a very sorry
steed, and ambling on his rounds along the streets
and country roads, is the first that strikes one on
landing. The Basque also works, however, at
rougher and more repugnant trades, and, thanks to
his great physical strength, his services as a for-
midable slaughterer and cuartero5 are both highly
prized and highly paid in the staple industry of
the country. A simple and somewhat dull race of
men, of frugal habits and few wants, the Basques
have a marked capacity for patient toil of all kinds,
and in some instances have amassed considerable
wealth as a reward for their industry. Among
other things they are capital gardeners. I had

5 Cuartero is the technical designation given in the saladeros to
the peon who, after the beast has heen felled and half cut up by
the desnucador (literally neck-, or nape-breaker), finally dismembers
its carcass with the axe.

106 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

one in my employ for some time who was the most
painstaking and hardworking of men, but, alas !
too, the dirtiest. He was devoted to his flowers,
and such fustiness in constant contact with such
fragrance was a standing puzzle to me.

The Basque immigration — which is said to
have greatly fallen off of late as regards the
French side of the mountains — is of old standing
in the Eiver Plate. The first of them must have
come out within a very few years of the declara-
tion of independence, and at once have shown
great enterprise, for, as early as 1826, they are
reputed to have founded the now rising little town
of Tandil, far away in the south, in what was then,
and remained till quite lately, a purely Indian
zone. Possibly they may have been attracted
thither by the range of hills which traverses that
district and the old Indian territory as far as
Curamalal, under the name of Sierra de Tandil
and Sierra de la Ventana, and is the only excres-
cence to be found on this side of the continent
from the Eio de la Plata down to the Straits of
Magellan. These hills contain, by the way, that
singular phenomenon of natural equilibrium, the
piedra movediza, or rocking-stone — a huge boulder
which stands on end and sways to and fro with the
least breath of wind. Mulhall states that Eosas
tried to throw it down by harnessing ' a thousand

CHAP, vi.] A PATRON SAINT DEGRADED IOJ

horses 'to it ; all the king's horses and all the
king's men failing in the attempt as utterly as
they did in their more laudable efforts on another
occasion.

Talking of Eosas, the Basques of French natio-
nality had evil times to go through, with the rest of
their countrymen, in the days of that Dictator, with
whom everything that was French was in great
disfavour, on account of the hostile attitude taken
up towards him by the July monarchy. In one of
his craziest moods he actually issued a decree for
the solemn military degradation of the old patron
saint of Buenos Ayres, St. Martin of Tours, on the
ground of that warlike apostle of the Gauls being
a Frenchman — which, par parenthese, he was not,
having been born in Pannonia, or, as we should say
now, Austria. He likewise habitually headed his
proclamations (printed in flaming red characters)
with : ' Death to the Unitarian 6 savages ! Death
to the filthy (asquerosos] French ! Death to the
unclean pig (chancho inmundo), Louis-Philippe ! '

After the tyrant's fall in 1852, the immigration
from France took a fresh start, and at present the
French hold an important rank among the foreign
communities. There are probably some 40,000 of

6 There is no need to remind the reader that the Dictator was the
incarnation of Federalism as opposed to the consolidation of the
different states under one national government.

1O8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

them in the town and province of Buenos Ayres,
and the natural leaning of the natives being towards
French forms of civilisation and luxury, the capital
has in consequence acquired, in some respects, a
decidedly Parisian aspect. The community stands,
too, on a much higher level than other offshoots
from the mother country elsewhere. Physicians
and lawyers, professors and literary men find a
ready welcome and lucrative employment here,
and help to imbue the Porteno upper class with
French modes of thought and French habits and
tendencies. The principal shops for articles of
dress or furniture and the many other require-
ments of a rich and luxurious class are, as a
matter of course, kept by Frenchmen, as are also
most of the numerous confectioners' shops, restau-
rants, and hotels — the last, I am bound to say, doing
them but little credit. French capital is, besides,
invested in a variety of undertakings, such as
carriage-works, dyeing-works, steam grinding-mills,
manufactories of linseed and other oils — none of
them on a large scale, but all fairly profitable.
Bieckert's Brewery, on the other hand, is a very
big concern indeed, conducted on the model of the
largest establishments of the kind in Europe, and
capable of turning out thousands of dozens of beer
a day. At the foot of the slope on which it stands
is a large public garden, where a charity fair —

CHAP. YT.] THE FRENCH COLONY IOQ

called c la fete de St.-Cloud,' after the well-known
popular fair near Paris — is held every year, the
very large proceeds of which are divided among
the different philanthropic associations, of which,
like the Italians, the French have a most credit-
able show.

French industry in this place has been seriously
threatened since 1870 by German, and more re-
cently Italian, competition, but it still manages to
hold its own ; and in fact the whole history of the
community goes some way to prove that it is a
fallacy to look upon the Frenchman abroad as
being wanting in the spirit of enterprise or dis-
inclined to the exertions which have made other
settlers so valuable in new countries. The French
Basques were among the first to devote their atten-
tion to the improvement of the breed of almost
wild native cattle. They were also the first to
export the rough native wool, which at that time
(in 1842) was considered so worthless as only to
fetch five centimes (a halfpenny) a kilo, and now,
thanks of course to an immense improvement in
quality, is worth from one to two shillings in the
place of production. It is claimed too, with what
reason I cannot say, that M. Antoine Cambaceres,
a relative of Napoleon's Arch-Chancellor, was the
originator of the saladeros.

The natives of Spain are numerous, both in the

IIO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vr.

town and province, but owing to their close affinity
with the indigenous element they are scarcely to
be distinguished from it. Many of them are small
shopkeepers or publicans, and most of the pul-
perias (country taverns) in the camp are owned by
them. They are also great market-gardeners and
tillers of the soil. Besides those who settle in the
country, without, however, giving up their natio-
nality, there is a large migratory class — chiefly
Catalans — who of late years have taken to coming
out for the spring and summer field-work of
this Southern Hemisphere, going back again in
time to resume the same labour in their native
homes. Many of the Southern Italians come out
in the same way, the new line of steamers from
Genoa carrying them backwards and forwards at
extremely low rates. These adventurous husband-
men thus obtain lucrative employment all the year
round, at the cost, it is true, of a journey of three
weeks twice a year across the broad Atlantic.7

The Germans have a rising community out
here, wnich is well looked after by the official
representatives of the empire, and presents the
creditable national traits of concord and good-
fellowship which are generally to be met with

7 Mr. Egerton, in his report before quoted, states that the return
third-class fare in these Italian steamers costs about 14£v the men •
coming out here in October and going home in March.

CHAP. VI.] THE GERMANS III

among the sons of the Fatherland in foreign
countries. They are engaged almost exclusively
in trade, and can therefore scarcely be accounted
as colonists in the same sense as the Basques or
the Italians, or our own people from the Three
Kingdoms. The German sticks jalmost entirely
to the towns, where he trades very carefully,
making considerable profits against a relatively
small expenditure, and leading a life of studied
self-denial, relieved by cheerful social meetings at
choral unions, gymnastic clubs, and such like, which
do much to keep up the tone and harmony of the
community. A quiet, unobtrusive, but by no
means uninfluential body of men, who steadily act
up to the punning precept inculcated by the Iron
Chancellor on one of his diplomatists whom he was
sending out to South American regions :- — 4 to seek
trade and beware of (international) difficulties '
(suchen Sie Handel, aber ja keine Handel!)

This, I much fear, tedious survey of the foreign
communities must be concluded with our own
people, who, obeying, it would seem, the same
influences that keep the different nationalities out
here apart in so marked a manner, themselves form
three distinct groups, and have to be separately
classed as English, Scotch, and Irish. And here one
is at once bound to give precedence to the Irish,
who, besides being the most numerous, are unques-

I 1 2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

tionably the most successful, of all our settlers in
the Eiver Plate. In some respects indeed they are
more prosperous than any of the other foreign
bodies. There are among them men who, having
originally come out with scarcely a shirt to their
back, are now the owners of league upon league
of well-stocked land, and rank with the largest
proprietors in the country. The Irish were the
first to take seriously to sheep-farming out here,
and they have so successfully developed that branch
of rural industry that it is claimed that their flocks
produce one half of the wool which is exported
from this province. Yet, barely forty years ago,
the sheep was looked upon as relatively worthless,8
and to Irishmen is mainly due the credit of having
reclaimed that valuable animal from the contempt
and degradation into which it had fallen. The
native breed had so degenerated under the neglect
of three centuries,9 that among the Gauchos not
only was the wretched sheep utterly despised as an
article of food, but no better use was found for
him than to kill him — after stripping him of his
fleece — in order to dry his carcass and throw it
as fuel into the brick-kilns. To this day, it may
be observed, the prejudice against mutton still

8 As recently as fifteen years ago the current value of sheep was
about half a crown a head, and of cattle sixteen shillings a head.

9 It need not be pointed out that the sheep, like the ox and the
horse, was introduced by the Spaniards.

CHAP, vi.] PROSPEROUS IRISH 113

survives among the pure natives, whose exclusively
meat diet consists entirely of beef.

There is little doubt that the Irish oweJiheir
fortunate beginnings in a great measure to the
good influence and judicious direction of their
clergy. Submissive as they always have been to
the voice of their pastors, they were positively
blessed in some of the priests who first came out
with them. One of .them, Father Fahy, seems to
have wielded much the same kind of authority
over them one reads of in the story of the mission-
aries who accompanied the first French settlers in
Canada, or of the Jesuit fathers who, much about
the same time, began to work such wonders among
the Guaranis of Paraguay and the adjacent regions.
Father Fahy appears not only to have been the
trusted adviser of many of his countrymen, but to
have constantly acted as their banker and agent,
and, owing to his shrewd counsel, their investments
became from the outset so profitable that prosperity
seems never to have deserted them since. The Irish
have, in short, proved as great a success and as
valuable an element in the Eiver Plate as they have
been in so many ways a failure in North America.
They own almost entire districts in the north and
centre of the province of Buenos Ayres, where
they have endowed chaplaincies, and founded
schools of their own with libraries attached to

114 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

them ; and altogether they present an aspect so
different from that of their brethren in ' the dis-
tressful country ' at home, that one cannot but
think that a providential outlet is offered to them
in these regions. A distinguished compatriot of
theirs, who is one of the principal church digni-
taries at Buenos Ayres, warmly advocates their
coming to this country, and a short time ago
undertook a journey to Ireland with the view of
furthering emigration from thence on a large
scale. He did so in part at the instance of the
national Government, who are very desirous to
induce more Irish settlers to try their fortunes on
Argentine soil.

In so well-to-do a community there is but small
scope for political agitation. The little Ireland
we have out here, although intensely national in
feeling, is by no means disloyal. An attempt made
a short time ago by an emissary from the Fenian
organisation in the United States to form a centre
in this country entirely failed. Nor has the Land
League, so far, been more successful in its efforts to
obtain funds and support from hence. There is
good reason to believe that the priests at once set
their faces against all such schemes.

It would, at the same time, be absurd to pre-
tend that the national movement finds no response
among the Argentine Irish. Indeed, the leading

CHAP. VI.] THRIVING SCOTCH I 1 5

foreign newspaper, which is in well-known and
able Irish hands, lately opened its columns to a
subscription in aid of the Parnell Defence Fund.
It so happens that one of the contributors to this
fund, an Irish estanciero on the borders of the pro-
vince of Santa Fe, had the full significance of the
movement forcibly brought home to him shortly
afterwards by threatening letters from his Irish
tenants demanding a reduction of rent, which
were soon followed up by the burning down of
buildings and stacks on his property.

Next to the Irish come the Scotch, who, as a
rule, have done well, as they do wherever they go.
The majority of them are prosperously settled in
the southern part of this province, though a certain
number who tried their hand in Northern Entre-Eios,
and lighted there upon pastures not so well suited
for sheep, have not been as successful. The Scotch,
above all, count in their ranks some of the most
distinguished estancieros in the country — men who
from the beginning devoted themselves to improv-
ing and refining the native breeds by the importa-
tion of the choicest stock from Europe, and have
thus produced herds and flocks that can compare
with the finest of their kind anywhere.

The Englishman must come last, I fear, on the
list, and take rank after his fellow-subjects of the
sister kingdoms. Not that he has been wanting in

i 2

I 1 6 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vr.

those qualities which everywhere else have made
him the prince of colonists. On the contrary he
was to be met from the first at the advanced posts
and in the most exposed situations, tilling the
ground and raising cattle, rifle in hand, in the evil
days when the Indian plague was still at its worst.
But the very daring of his first ventures in some
instances led to disastrous, and sometimes tragical,
failure, as in the massacres at Fraile Muerto.

, Many of the young Englishmen who were first
tempted to com^~mit were perhaps scarcely fitted,
by birth or education, for a hard life of unremitting
toil and severe privation. Some of them went
home in disgust, while, of those who struggled on,
not a few took to drowning their cares in whisky,
or cana* or fell into the toils of the native chinas?
and speedily sank to the level of the ordinary
Gaucho. These failures threw for a time an
unfavourable light on English immigration, and
somewhat checked it ; but though the English
hardly form a compact and flourishing community
as clearly marked as in the case of their Irish and
Scotch fellow-subjects, they hold their own both in
trade and farming. Of their great services as
engineers and railway contractors enough has been

1 An inferior kind of white rum made from the sugar-cane and
imported from Brazil.

2 The name commonly given to women of the lower orders,
mostly of half Indian descent.

CHAP. VI.] ALL-PERVADING FOREIGNER 1 1 7

said elsewhere. In Buenos Ayres itself all the
Queen's subjects now happily amalgamate more
and more in literary and debating societies, or for
purposes of sport, as in the cricket and boating
clubs, or in philanthropic institutions, like the
British Hospital or the Charitable Fund — the latter
of very recent foundation. Only the other day,
too, the entire community, without distinction of
class or country, united in giving a thoroughly
magnificent reception to the flying squadron with
the young princes.

More than enough has been said to show how
important and all-pervading the foreign element
has become in this republic. When it is further
considered that its peaceful invasion commenced
barely thirty years ago, and that already two-thirds
of the soil, in this province of Buenos Ayres alone,3
may be safely said to be in its hands, some idea
will be formed of the rapidity and extent of its
conquests. Previous to the advent of the new-
comers, most of the best land was held in immense
estates by the descendants of the original colonial
owners, who either dwelt on it in very primitive
fashion, without any attempt at improving it or
developing its resources, or, if — as was frequently
the case — they preferred the charms of city life in

3 The area of the province is 63,000 square miles, or more than
one half of that of the entire United Kingdom.

1 1 8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

Buenos Ayres, left it, like the old Eussian Boyards,
to the mismanagement and rapacity of their stewards
and major-domos. With a few exceptions these
large properties have now been broken up, and
have passed into the hands of the foreign colonists.
The transfer of real property, and with it the
transformation of this province in particular, has
in fact been almost complete, and it coincides with
the enlightened rule of President Sarmiento (1868-
1874), which did more than anything to attract the
vast influx of productive capital and productive
labour, thanks to which a country, which up to
then was relatively poor and torn by internal dis-
sensions, has been launched on its present career
of peace and great promise. For not only has the
foreigner the greater part of the soil and of the
commerce of the country in his hands, but he
controls the exchanges, regulates the markets, and
provides the capital for nearly all the industrial
and financial undertakings that have been started
of late years.

Such being his means of influence and the
material stake he holds in the country, it seems
at first sight unaccountable that he should abstain
so carefully from any interference in its public
affairs. The explanation is not far to seek.
Although the Constitution admits all aliens to the
same civil and municipal rights as natives, only

CHAP. VI.] THE NATURALISATION QUESTION I 19

those who have become naturalised citizens are
eligible for office under the State or are entitled to
sit in the National or Provincial Legislatures. The
immigrant is thus practically debarred from any
share in local politics, and he has hitherto only too
gladly kept aloof from the party intrigues and the
corrupt wire-pulling by which they are too often
characterised. It may be questioned now whether,
in justice to their interests, the foreign commu-
nities should rest content much longer with such
a state of things. Eecent events have shown that
the era of civil contention cannot with absolute
certainty be said to be closed for good, and it might
perhaps be well that the leaders of the foreign
bodies should claim the full privileges of citizen-
ship, and frankly throw in their lot with the
country they have adopted and are fashioning
more and more with their hands. Their weight
would be infallibly thrown on the side of order
and concord, and would be more than sufficient
to check the restless spirit of change, and the
tendency to military pronunciamientos which still
survive among the natives and have ever been
the bane of that strange Spanish race, so incom-
prehensibly made up of noble, indeed heroic, quali-
ties and glaring weaknesses and defects.

The local press has itself lately started a dis-
cussion as to whether the time has not come

I2O THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vi.

for modifying the naturalisation law, so as to in-
duce a greater number of immigrants to apply for
Argentine citizenship. Some writers go the length
of proposing that naturalisation should be to a cer-
tain extent compulsory after a given period of
residence. The Government are wise enough to
withhold their countenance from these projects.
A very high official, with whom I conversed on
the subject, told me that he would consider it
highly impolitic to touch the question at present,
for it would only check the immigration of which
the country still stands in such need. The persons,
he said, who were in favour of, to some degree,
forcing the Argentine nationality upon foreigners,
always quoted the example of the United States,
which was absurd. Great numbers of those who
emigrated from Europe did so to avoid the burdens
of military service, and they naturally went to,
and became citizens of, a country where no such
service was required of them. This he believed
to be one of the main causes of the United States
being the favourite resort of the European emi-
grant. When this country could show a clear era
of twenty years' peace, the same inducements
would exist for emigrating to it and adopting its
nationality. But this could not be expected at
present, with the unfortunately well-founded repu-
tation of the republic for disorder and civil strife.

CHAP, vi.] THE NATURALISATION QUESTION 1 2 1

A period of peace and quiet would modify all
that, and meanwhile the sons of foreigners born
on the soil brought fresh blood into the nation
and certainly became very patriotic Argentines.

These remarks struck me by their fairness and
candour. At the same time, it must be borne in
mind that the number of foreigners over here is
already so large that they are unquestionably
viewed with suspicion by the natives, and an
attempt to confer the full rights of citizenship
on them by some comprehensive measure would
probably meet with considerable opposition.

Nevertheless, the foreign question must surely
ere long come to the front. There is some talk of
a so-called gathering of the Latin race on the
occasion of the projected Italian National Exhibi-
tion to be held here. It is said— of course with
some exaggeration — that the different Italian,
French, and Spanish societies and corporations
will take that opportunity to march past to the
number of from eighty to one hundred thousand.
It is difficult not to believe that at no distant
period the destinies of this country must be in
great measure controlled by other races than the
native.

UNIVERSITY

122 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vil.

CHAPTEE VII.

BELGRANO — MY GARDEN AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD — SAAVEDRA.

I WAS of course anxious to be out of stuffy quarters,
in what was at best a second-rate inn, as soon as
possible. Unfortunately it is no easy matter to
lodge oneself in Buenos Ayres, and summer now
drawing on apace I was strongly advised to look
for something suitable outside the town.

Even there, however, the choice is almost
limited to one or two places like Flores or Bel-
grano, which, although at some distance, are prac-
tically suburbs of the city, so conveniently are
they joined on to it by trams and railways. There
is a still greater difficulty in getting a furnished
house, which, in my case, was an absolute necessity,
as I had come out altogether in light marching
order, reckoning with some certainty on my resi-
dence in the Eiver Plate not being a very lengthy
one.

One fine Sunday afternoon in October I started,
in company of mine own particular friend and

CHAP, vri.] BELGRANO 123

adviser, in quest of what I needed, and, having
previously explored Flores in vain, we bent our
steps towards Belgrano, taking one of the tram-cars
that run to that place from the Plaza Vittoria up
the Florida. I had heard of two houses there
which had lately been in the occupation of mem-
bers of the British community and seemed likely
to suit.

After ascending the busy Florida and skirting
the gardens of the Eetiro, the tram plunges into a
poorer part of the town, passing along interminable
streets, lined with low houses devoid of any cha-
racter, till it emerges on a broad and ill-kept
highway, and, after a run of five or six miles or
so, terminates in the main street of Belgrano. The
first house we went to see in this thoroughfare
proving not available, we struck across into
narrower streets of villa residences, all laid out
as usual at right angles, and running towards the
barranca or cliff — if cliff a shelving height of some
fifty feet can be rightly termed — on which the
town is raised in full view of the giant river, the
banks of which lie about three quarters of a mile
off. These villas, or quintas, are each of them
enclosed by crumbling walls of sun-dried bricks,
with here and there an aperture revealing the
buildings and grounds within. Besides these dead
walls, most of the streets are lined with trees, so

124 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHIP. VII.

that the whole place, with its sombre, neglected
avenues, in which hardly a soul is to be seen
stirring, at first conveys the impression of a large
necropolis, the frequent cypresses which rear their
funereal heads above the enclosures still further
lending themselves to the lugubrious fancy. Passing
glimpses, however, through gateways or gaps in
the walls, reveal a wealth of flower-beds inside
these dismal enclosures. The porticoes and house-
fronts are thickly hung with the brightest of
creepers — the scarlet and purple bougainvilleas,
the wistaria, or clusters of banksia roses — and the
air is full of the rich scent of the double jessamine
and the magnolia. As yet it is too early, according
to the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere, for the
gardens to be at their best — mid-October answer-
ing here to mid-April — but the abundant rains of
spring have made what green there is singularly
fresh, and have kept down the dust, in which
all will soon be smothered for months. Passing
through cuadra, or square upon square of these
depressing avenues, we at last get to the edge of
the barranca, which forms a natural terrace, fringed
with a row of much more cheerful quintas. whose
frontages face freely riverwards, or rather ocean-
wards — for such is the effect produced to the eye
by the huge and ever-changing estuary.

A corner, one-storied house here, surmounted

A VILLA AT BELGRANO.

CHAP. VII.] MY HOUSE 1 2 5

by a low square turret, is the one to which we
have been directed, and at first sight it seems to
be the very thing we seek. Its present occupier
happens to be at home and at leisure. The rooms
are convenient in size and number, as well as com-
fortably furnished, and as everything as it stands
— including plate, crockery, and linen — can be had
on fairly reasonable terms, the bargain is concluded
in a very few minutes. The house, by the way,
is not without a history, having been built by
an Argentine who had held very high office in
the State, and who spent his last days under its
roof. It has a charming marble portico, divided
from the pavement by an elaborate ornamental
iron railing, and, above all, a delightful enclosure at
the back — half flower-garden and half orchard — a
peep into which at once puts an end to any doubts
I may have had as to the excellence of the arrange-
ment I have entered into. A broad, stone-flagged
verandah, resting on wooden pillars and partly
covered in by a trellised and vine-clad roof, runs
along the back of the house and leads de plain pied
into this garden, which has no trees of any great
size to show, with the exception of a few fine
acacias and laburnums and a couple of magnificent
magnolias, but is laid out in trim narrow walks,
bordered by luxuriant flowering bushes sufficiently
high to afford ample shade from any but a vertical

126 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vn.

sun, and with its wealth of roses and heliotrope
and verbena is as fragrant a little spot as can well
be imagined. There seems to me to be a special
sweetness in the scent of South American flowers,
just as on the other hand there is a decided want
of flavour in South American fruit. My garden to
be is at the same time a most abundant orchard,
stocked with strawberries and currants and rasp-
berries, not to mention numerous cherry and pear
trees. A Basque gardener attached to the house
keeps the bright cheerful spot in very fair order.

Why, I wonder, away here at the Antipodes,
does it remind me so of the fatal garden in ' Faust ' ?
Yet it somehow does, and in the long moonlit
evenings, as I lounge and muse in my verandah,
and watch the tremulous shadows cast by the tall
currant-bushes across the white, glistening paths,
I a] most expect to see the pair of lovers come
round that turn by the magnolia tree, a silver ray
just glancing off the tresses of Gretchen as she
passes on, with bent head, listening to the words
murmured into her all too ready ear.

But these dramatic reminiscences might almost,
I fear, lead to the conclusion that my jardinet h as
a stagy appearance: its characteristic charm to me,
as well as the reason of its conjuring up the scene
of that far-off German love-tragedy, on the con-
trary being a certain prim formality, a simple old-

CHAP. VII.] MY GARDEN 127

world air which would well befit that quiet nook,
nestling in the shadow of frowning medieval
ramparts, where Frau Martha doubtless had her
garden and her Laube, and whither the orphan
neighbour's child must have come back day after
day with heavy heart to dream and weep when
' her rest was gone,' poor soul ! for ever.

One real eyesore the place, on the other hand,
contains, in the shape of a large ornamental
fountain of cast-iron of most pretentious design,
which, besides being a wretched sham to begin
with — since it is waterless and does not perform
its proper functions — is utterly out of proportion
and harmony with its surroundings. A memento
this of the original owner, by whom it had no
doubt been ordered from Europe for the adorn-
ment of some public square, and finally forgotten
here without even trouble being taken to turn
it to useful account. But queer stories could be
told of similar and more lavish orders for ' works
of art ' given abroad, and of the fate which some-
times attends them.

Another and more pleasing feature my garden
has, which, however, is likewise not in keeping
with the mise en scene of that tragic story, playing,
as it does, under sober Northern skies. In the
hottest hours of the day, when even the shrill
cicada holds its peace, there will flash across the

128 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vii.

broad patches of sunlight what seems the sparkle
of a gem. Keep quite still and watch, and you
will see it again. There it goes darting over the
path into that pear-tree. Some humming-birds
have built their nest in a corner of the garden, and
the timid little creatures show themselves now and
then, though very seldom. So far south as these
latitudes I believe them to be rather an uncommon
sight, and, at any rate, they invest my modest little
cabbage -garden with an air of tropical splendour
it certainly could not otherwise pretend to.

Against these brilliant little beings must be set
the leaf-cutting ants, who, to the despair of my

Basque gardener and of his ally E , who takes

a deep interest in the garden, play the very mischief
with it. These extremely destructive, but remark-
able insects carefully build their nest — an enormous
one — in the most inaccessible places underground ;
in this instance under the foundations of the house.
The only way of driving them out and getting rid
of the plague is by constantly pouring tar down
the holes — when you have found them, which is
no easy matter — by which they issue forth from

their stronghold. E did this persistently, and

finally succeeded, but not till after they had ac-
complished wonders of destruction in their way.
The little rascals entirely stripped a pomegranate
tree in one single night. They worked divided in

CHAP, vil.] NOISOME DENIZENS I 29

two bands ; the leaf-cutters proper going up the
tree and letting the strips of leaves fall down, while
the carriers below picked them up and bore them
away on their backs to the granary.

One more feature of the garden, and I have
done. The house, as I have said, is not in the
least raised above its grounds at the back, but
on a complete level with them, which is in many
ways a serious drawback to it as a habitation. In
the not unfrequent days of wet pampero — dirty
pampero (pampero sucio\ as it is termed — or in the
still more evil days when it blows from the north
and it rains in torrents for hours together, the broad
verandah is more than half flooded, the water
reaching the doors of some of the living-rooms,
and a hot, steamy dampness pervading the whole
house, to the ruin of one's clothes and especially
one's boots. But the rooms are thereby exposed
to far more repulsive inroads than those of damp
and mildew. One night, just as I had got into
bed after one of these heavy downpours, I was
disturbed by a horrid sound — half bark and half
croak — which clearly proceeded from somebody or
something inside the room. I struck a light, and,
after a careful search under the bed and the furni-
ture, at last traced the unearthly sound to a corner
where stood a large clothes-basket, near the outer
door, which had only been shut late in the evening.

K

130 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vn.

I moved this basket aside, and to my utter horror
and disgust found myself face to face with an enor-
mous spotted yellow toad — certainly as big as the
inside of a soup-plate — which had strayed into cap-
tivity, and was uttering these mournful appeals for
delivery from behind the rampart which shut it
in, like the ' buck-basket ' of that other noisome
creature the fat knight of Windsor. I seized a
stick and drove the loathsome monster out into
the garden, which, as a set-off to its other denizens,
the dear little pica/lores, unfortunately harboured
plenty of his fellows, though I never again got
sight of any of such portentous size and hideous-
ness.

One of these violent storms from the north in
summer is a thing to be remembered. The sheets
of water that come down perfectly straight, all
through the day and night, without a break, are
accompanied by equally continuous thunder and
lightning, which seem to work their way right
round the heavens and to box the entire compass.
The thunder is one unceasing muffled roll, out of
which burst sudden fierce claps of deafening vio-
lence ; the lightning playing meanwhile almost un-
interruptedly at every point of the horizon, and
leaping forth now and then into a great scorching
flame, which for a moment lights up the whole
world with a lurid blue and yellow. The darkness,

CHAP, vil.] A DUST-STORM 1 3 1

too, is very striking, and almost equals that of a
dense London fog ; while the heat seems to increase
rather than to yield with the storm, and one sits
as in a prolonged vapour-bath, with the most
trying sense of physical prostration and depression
of spirits. These storms, in fact, do not in the
least clear the atmosphere, and relief only comes
when the wind veers round to the south-east, and
brings with it a renewed feeling of vigour and
elasticity, as marked as were the languor and de-
jection before.

Far more appalling, however, than these tem-
pests of rain must have been the dust-storms, which
now, thanks to the enormous increase of cultiva-
tion, have almost ceased to visit the neighbourhood
of Buenos Ayres, but in the memory of the older
residents used periodically to sweep over that city.
It so happened that, going into town by train one
sultry afternoon to attend to some business, I came
in for a small sample of what one of these tor-
nados must have been like. As we drew near the
terminus, I noticed a remarkable bank of cloud of
inky blackness, which hung very low down over
the city in a south-westerly direction. I got out
at the Eetiro station, and before I had walked up
the short distance of some eight hundred yards
to the house I was going to at the top of the
Florida, the blackness had already spread nearly

K 2

132 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vil.

over the entire sky, while the air, which up to
then had been strangely and oppressively still and
motionless, was agitated by sudden gusts of wind
of great violence.

On reaching the door, and before turning in to
go upstairs, I could see that the neighbours in
the houses opposite were all busy fastening their
windows and shop-doors. In a couple of minutes
more the darkness had deepened to such an extent
that it seemed to be a rapid dying-out of the very
principle of light. The buildings over the way
faded almost out of sight, the room in which I
stood was as dark behind me as if the shutters
had been closed, and a moving mass of solid,
and yet impalpable, matter whirled mightily past
the windows, and, as it went by, seemed to fill
up all space. This lasted, fortunately, only for a
very short time. The wind ceased as suddenly
and completely as it had risen, and presently
shifted round to the south-east, and in less than an
hour all was bright and clear again. The tables
and furniture, meanwhile, were completely covered
by a thick layer of the finest dust, and this work
of a few minutes sufficiently showed what must
have been the effect of one of these visitations of
old on the inhabitants, kept pent up for hours in
their dwellings, with everything tight closed and
barred, and as good as stifled by the whirlwinds of

CHAP, vil.] THE BARRANCA 133

tangible Cimmerian darkness rushing in through
every hole and crevice, which could only be com-
pared to the rain of ashes that engulfed Pompeii,
or the dread simoom by which so many a stout
caravan has been overwhelmed.

The range of low sandy hillocks, rising at the
most some fifty or sixty feet above the water-level,
on which Belgrano stands, must in former times
have marked the wash of the great river which,
ages ago, receded from it, leaving an intervening
space or valley, in some parts from one to two
miles broad. These heights are, in fact, the abrupt
edge of the huge plateau which stretches away to
the rear and finally merges into the boundless
Pampa. Punning with varying elevation, and in
broken outline, from the outskirts of the city to
the waters of the Tigre, some thirty kilometres off,
this paltry ridge produces, by sheer force of con-
trast, all the effect of a range of real hills or cliffs-
From the railway, that skirts its base, it offers
indeed a decidedly picturesque appearance. Sub-
stantial old Spanish manor-houses, with square white
towers that remind one of the casini of Northern
Italy, or more modern villas with terraced gar-
dens and colonnades all covered over with vines,
crown the summit at frequent intervals and in
well-selected spots, each one standing in its little
grove or clump of trees, with sloping orchards and

134 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vn.

meadows straggling down the hill. All these rural
retreats get the full benefit of the river breezes,
and on this account, and from their being within
easy reach of the stores and offices in town, are
much sought after by the foreign business com-
munity. Were the railroad that works the district
only better managed — and although an exclusively
British undertaking, it was in my time, I am sorry
to say, a rare specimen of how things ought not to
be done, what with its unpunctual trains, dilapi-
dated rolling-stock, heavy tariff, and irrational
time-table — there is little doubt that this neigh-
bourhood would be still more thickly peopled.
As it was, the morning and late afternoon trains
were crammed with passengers going to and from
their daily business in hides and wool, and the
traffic at those hours would have done credit to
any suburban line in one of our great mercantile
centres at home.

The prospect one has from these houses perched
up on high is, for so essentially unpicturesque a
region, decidedly pleasing. In fine weather, when
I did most of my reading and writing seated at a
marble table under the front portico, the scene
that lay stretched out before me when I looked up
from my work was certainly not without attrac-
tions. Half a dozen very large ombusf the only

1 Pircunia dioica, according to the nomenclature given in the

CHAP, vu.] LOOKING RIVERWARDS 135

indigenous tree that grows to any size in the
Pampa region, studded the broken foreground and
gave a park-like aspect to its declivity. These
trees make up for their utter worthlessness as
timber by the beauty of their spreading foliage
and their strangely gnarled and rugged trunks.
They are frequently quite hollow — mere shells of
trees, harbouring legions of ants and other insect
tribes — the soft, white, fibreless wood being hardly
fit even for making matches : in fact, splendid
shams that would scarcely be tolerated in any but
so treeless a country as this, although, with their
weird and tortured shapes, they are worthy of the
pencil of a Dore, and would make admirable studies
for some enchanted forest such as the ' wild woods
of Broceliande.' At the foot of the hill a pretty
villa or two with brilliant flower-gardens are
grouped round the railway-station, the line of rail
itself being marked by a green fringe of paraiso
trees and stunted willows and eucalyptus, with ceibo
bushes all hung with bright scarlet flowers. Beyond
this, again, comes a long flat reach of rank grass,
with shallow pools of stagnant water here and there,
stretching down to the edge of the gleaming river.
A straggling settlement of low, whitewashed cabins,
and of ranchos thatched in with branches, lies

official handbook of the republic compiled for the Philadelphia
Exhibition.

136 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vil.

scattered all over this low, swampy ground, and
between them roam and browse at their free will
a seemingly countless number of cows and horses.

But the ocean-like river itself, and the constantly
changing sky above it ; the splendour of the sun-
sets ; the wondrous colour of the deep-blue arch
mirrored in the smooth majestic tide, or the wild
shadows cast on it by tempest-driven clouds ; the
fiery glory of noontide on the burnished waters, or
the marvellous transparency of the cool starlit
nights — in these was the one never-failing attraction.
Nor were life and movement wanting to complete
the picture. The outlook over the river took in
all the outer anchorage of Buenos Ayres where
lay the big ocean-bound steamers ; all the inter-
mediate expanse of dancing, glistening water being
crowded with white-winged craft speeding to and
from them with living freights of traders . or emi-
grants, or cargoes of hides and tallow and wool.
It was a bright and busy scene, and I might well
have gazed at it with placid content but for those
big hulls in the far distance, which, one by one,
moved off and sank ' beneath the wave ' on their
way back to the land whence I had so lately come
— not all too readily perhaps — and where I had
left all I cared for and thought of as I gazed.

There is no denying that life at Belgrano was
on the whole contemplative, and would have been

CHAP, vil.] THE TIGRE 137

slightly monotonous but for the frequent visits to
town and an occasional excursion along the line
to San Isidro or on to the Tigre, which helped to
diversify it.

The latter spot is the head-quarters of the
Buenos Ayres Boating Club, and in hot weather
it was delightful to run down there in the fore-
noon and spend the day sculling lazily upon the
river, which, with its numerous creeks and chan-
nels and the countless green islands embosomed in
its placid waters, is the freshest, most restful spot
I know of in the whole of the Eiver Plate region.
It is the abode, too, of myriads of wildfowl, and
as such the paradise of the Porteno sportsman.
Much bigger game used to frequent it, and up till
quite a recent period the jaguar, or tiger as they
miscall him here, found his way down from the
Gran Chaco to these waters in such numbers as to
give his name to the district. It is now infested
by nothing more dangerous than a plague of
mosquitos, of exceptional size and ferocity, that
must be a terrible drawback to the many charm-
ing quintas built here of late. Nevertheless it is
thickly inhabited, among others by the French
colony of Buenos Ayres, and up the quiet reaches
of the river are to be found restaurants and buvettes,
kept by enterprising French Basques, with shady
gardens down by the water's edge, where one can

138 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vii.

land and indulge in afriture or a matelote not un-
worthy of the He de Croissy or other Parisian
suburban water resorts.

The walks in and around Belgrano itself are
unfortunately few and insufferably dusty. The
small town, besides its lonely grass-grown streets,
has the usual plaza, with a cabildo, or town hall,
which was the headquarters of the besieging forces
during the late troublous times, and a big church,
distinguished by a cupola of most ambitious pro-
portions, fondly believed by the natives to be second
in size only to the dome of St. Peter's. Either
from lack of funds or a dying-off of religious zeal,
the building remains in an unfinished condition,
looking forward possibly for its completion to the
day when Belgrano shall have established its claim
to the honour it is competing for with several
other townships of becoming the new capital of
the Buenos- Ayrean province.

One of my most frequent stretches when the
worst heat of the day was over was to a place
called Saavedra, distant a couple of miles off. A
ragged, ill- defined high road led to it across a wrild
bit of common, and thence along an avenue
bordered by a row of eucalyptus trees of recent
growth, and by the shrubberies of a few tenantless
country-houses. At one part of this road it was
advisable to walk fast and hold one's breath, for

CHAP, vrr.] SAAVEDRA 139

here stood one of the many noisome slaughtering
sheds that form part of an industry which, although
a source of great riches to this country, at the
same time has a brutalising influence on the inhabi-
tants, and at any rate, far and wide, taints the pure
health-bringing breezes. At a corner, a little past
this matadero, the road turned sharp round to the
right by a sluggish canal, and, after a few hundred
yards, brought one abruptly to a large public
garden surrounded by a wet ditch.

Of all places of its kind this park or garden is,
I think, the dreariest and most depressing I ever
beheld, and when I came upon it unawares for the
first time it produced upon me almost an uncanny
impression. So oddly is it placed here, and so
entirely without raison d'etre, on the verge of the
open half-desert country, in this quiet rural district
a good many miles away from the town, that it
looks as if it might have been left there years
before by some community that had been driven
out of the neighbourhood by war or pestilence.
In fact, to stumble upon it like this was, in a very
mild way. to experience the sensations of the
traveller who, in the midst of primeval woods,
suddenly falls in with the ruins of some long-
forgotten city. In reality it is simply a striking
instance of the wanton manner in which money is
thrown away in these regions ; for having, it is said.

140 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vir.

cost DO less a surn than 120,000/.,2 it has already,
thanks to its uselessness, more even than to neglect
and consequent decay, acquired the forlorn aspect
of some bankrupt and deserted Cremorne or Vaux-
hall. Its tangled, untended shrubberies, and dismal,
meagre walks of paraiso and Italian poplar, deco-
rated at intervals with plaster casts of statues with
maimed limbs and defaced features, are melancholy
to a degree. In the centre of a kind of quinconce,
surrounded by benches, there stands a moss-grown
monument erected in memory of the godfather of
the place, Cornelio Saavedra, who was one of the
leading men in the struggle for independence, and
the first of the native governors of the country.
In another open space further on there is a tumble-
down stand for an orchestra, and a dilapidated
merry-go-round. Besides a couple of artificial
lakes half choked with weeds, the extensive grounds
are intersected by sluggish watercourses, spanned by
rickety rustic bridges leading to deserted kiosks and
summer-houses, which the lizard and, I doubt not,
the slimy toad have long made entirely their own.
At a cottage lived in by the custodian there
are indeed refreshments for sale, but this, as far as
my experience goes, is the only sign of the gardens
being a place of any resort. I used to go thither

2 Fifteen million dollars (paper currency) according to Mulhall —
Manual de las RepuUicas del Plata.

CHAP, vii.] SAAVEDRA 1 41

frequently in my walks in the late afternoon, and
scarcely ever met a soul. In fact there was to me
a curious charm, which I can with difficulty account
for, in the utter loneliness of the spot. In the low,
slanting rays of the setting sun I have often wan-
dered about by its green moat, amid a perfect
nebula of midges, and watched the shadows creep
over the darkening plain, with not a sound to
break the stillness beyond the shrill chorus of
innumerable frogs, and now and then, perhaps,
a snatch of song — one of those strange, quavering
South American ditties — the Indian grafted on to
the Spanish — always plaintive, and always in a minor
key — sung quite softly to himself by some young
fellow who had come out there with his china for a
quiet evening stroll. It felt — what in truth it was
to me — like standing at the outer edge of the world,
and one's thoughts and fancies had ample scope to
roam as they listed over the silent solitudes.

But the sun has almost touched the low
horizon, a slight shiver passes through the
poplars and wakes us from our dreams. It is time
to trudge home to one's evening meal through the
all too short twilight of these latitudes. By the
time we reach Belgrano the night has almost closed
in, and the lamplighter is going his rounds through
the quiet sleepy townlet.

I42 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. viu.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEPARTURE ON A TRIP UP THE URUGUAY — THE ' COSMOS ' —
FELLOW-PASSENGERS — MARTIN GARCIA.

EARLY in November I was asked to join a party
about to visit the Upper Uruguay. The opportu-
nity was an excellent one — indeed unique. The
river was unusually full, and a light- draught
steamer, which had just been placed on it, would
take us up, on a trial trip, far beyond the course
of the few boats that ply on its higher waters.
Our party, too, was as pleasant a one as could be
got together amongst Englishmen in these regions :
our creature comforts had been carefully con-
sidered : we should have the steamer all to our-
selves, as yet unpolluted by traffic — and what such
pollution is, let those say who have ever journeyed
up the Eiver Plate and its mighty affluents : we
should see a country but seldom visited ; every
possible temptation, in short, being placed before
me, I gladly accepted the invitation.

And first as to our party. We were ten in all,

CHAP, viii.] OUR TRAVELLING PARTY 143

four of whom joined us after we left Buenos Ayres,
and, though we did not include in our number
any ' remarkable men,' like those paraded for the
benefit of Martin Chuzzlewit, our pursuits and
avocations were sufficiently various to make us
agreeable and interesting company to each other.
Commerce and engineering, railway enterprise and
farming — all the main sources of wealth in this
promising country — were represented among us ;
not to mention a couple of officials — fairly intelli-
gent, travelled men, who, we venture to hope
without presumption, made themselves as pleasant
on the whole as the general run of the British
tchinovnik.

We left Buenos Ayres on a Thursday morning
in my old friend the ' Cosmos,' which was to take
us up as far as Concordia, some 220 miles from the
Argentine capital, and, as I had to join the steamer
in town from my suburban station on the Northern
Railway, I was obliged to make a very early start.
My train sped along through the flat meadow-land,
with on either side a thin border of weeping- willow
and paraiso and eucalyptus, relieved here and
there by the lovely red blossoms of the ceibo tree,
till presently it slackened as we drew near the
station of Palermo. After stopping here to take
in and set down a few passengers, we went on and
soon reached the outskirts of the town, passing the

144 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vin.

gasworks and the — as yet, alas ! unfinished — water-
works, and in a few minutes more were deposited
at the Central Station, within fifty yards of the
passenger mole and of a narrow belt of public
garden where Italian and Argentine democracy
have joined hands in raising a marble statue, of
the clever realistic school of modern Italy, to the
arch-conspirator Mazzini. ' Agli Argentini ospiti e
fratelli gli Italiani ' is inscribed on one side of the
pedestal, and on the other ' A Mazzini gli uomini
di sua fede.' At the further end of the garden
stands, raised on a meagre little pedestal, a far
less imposing effigy of Christopher Columbus — the
moral almost to be drawn from it being that, with
his countrymen over here, in this enlightened nine-
teenth century of ours, the genius of revolution and
destruction^ more highly honoured than that of
discovery. But these be the pet gods and heroes
of our passionate half-instructed democracies — not
the strong man of simple earnest faith, who, sailing
into the unknown ocean, ended by doubling the
patrimony of mankind ; but rather the mystic
plotter, steeped to the lips in treason, who from
some safe retreat sent deluded victim after victim
to the dungeon or scaffold — all in the hallowed
name of freedom. Alas, poor freedom ! and alas,
poor Columbus !

This garden, by the bye, which bears the name

CHAP, viil.] PASEO DE JULIO 145

of Paseo de Julio, in memory of the date of the final
declaration of national independence, was first
laid out by Eosas, and must be put down to his
credit as one good deed at least. It is but a
narrow strip running a short distance along the
river front, but, small as it is compared with the
original design of its founder, who would have
made it something like the Villa Eeale at Naples,
it is a pleasant little oasis by the waterside. It
contains some good trees and shrubs — beautiful
mimosas with yellow and scarlet threads ; Japan
medlars, splendid magnolias, and luxuriant castor-
oil plants ; and the views 'of the town and road-
stead one has from it and from the long pier
beyond are extremely striking. Owing to the
peculiar conditions of the trade in this place,
caused by the absence of any harbour in which
larger vessels can unload, the traffic carried on
from the beach by means of boats and carts is
busy in the extreme, and the sight one gets of it
from the two long jetties, which form a kind of
inner haven, is one not to be forgotten.

At high water the big lanchas, or lighters, get
within easy reach, and an armada of smaller boats,
laden with goods and passengers, plies between
them and the shore ; but when the tide is low,
their place is taken by huge carts, on monster
wheels, drawn by several mules or horses, the

L

146 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. Tin.

driver perched on the shafts, that wade out, like
so many bathing-machines, through the slush a
long way beyond the pier ends, where the barges
lay bobbing up and down waiting for them with
idle, flapping sails. When this traffic is in full
swing, the slimy foreground looks in fact like some
great amphibious fair full of animation and colour,
the sun shining on the bright red of the carts, and
on the white of the canvas and of the piles of linen
which a tribe of washerwomen are making believe
to cleanse in the turbid little pools of water that
are scattered all along the shore. From out of,
this busy scene there rises a cracking of whips
and jingle of mule-bells, mingling with the more
distant cries of the boatmen hauling in or setting
their sails. Nor is the circus element wanting to
this fair, for on either side of the jetties the fisher-
men are going out to their morning work — not
wading, nor in boats, in ordinary piscatorial
fashion, but on horseback, and often standing on
the backs of their horses. Thus they advance two
by two, in double line, each man holding up one
corner of a gigantic seine-net, some three hundred
feet square, the furthest end of which is sunk
well out of depth, and then dragged again in
shore, the more distant horses, with their acrobatic
riders, having often to swim for it on their return.
But there is no lingering this morning to take

CHAP. YIII.] THE 'COSMOS' 147

in all the curious features of this charming scene,
which I have often watched before in my afternoon
strolls on the passenger mole. The ' Cosmos ' is
blowing her dismal fog-whistle with a persistence
peculiar to these river-boats ; so w~e hurry down
the steps, and are quickly pulled on board by two
stout Basque boatmen. We greet our companions,
are shown to our cabin on the upper deck, stow
away our luggage, and soon are under way.

Our steamer is the crack ship of the company
named Mensajerias Fluviales, whose seat is at
Salto on the Uruguay, and the founder of which
is a shrewd French Pyrenean of the name of
Rives, better known in these waters as Don
Saturnine. A big undertaking he has made of it,
and next to his own native habits of thrift the
intelligent co-operation of two British partners
does not make it prosper the less. Certainly it is
conducted on highly economical principles. It is
indeed whispered of the head manager that he is
not above counting over the soiled linen at each
journey's end, and we half suspect him of weighing
the food placed aboard, so accurately is it calcu-
lated, as to quantity, to keep the passenger from
starving, and as to quality, effectually to quell his
appetite — except he be what Mr. Hardy, in one of
his cleverest books, calls ' a nice unparticular man.'
But these are minor matters. The ' Cosmos ' is a fine

L 2

148 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vm.

steamer, well adapted for her work, and luxuriously
fitted up, and reflects credit on her British builders
and the British flag she sails under.

When we have had our last gaze at Buenos
Ayres, which looks at its best as seen from the
river, and are well in mid-stream, with no sign
of land on either side, we begin to take stock of
our fellow-passengers. They seem as uninterest-
ing as they are numerous ; but one family, or
rather tribe, composed of a benevolent-looking
old gentleman with a shiny bald head, a round
dozen of exceedingly fat women, and a boy, some-
how attract one's attention in a perverse sort of
way. First one attempts to count them — but never
succeeds, for just as they have been carefully ticked
off on one's fingers' ends, another turns up so un-
distinguishable from the rest that one is at a loss
to tell whether she has already been reckoned, and
so has to begin all over again. Then, as to size,
which is the fattest and greasiest ? — a still fatter
and greasier one upsetting the award just as it has
been carefully arrived at. On the whole they are
harmless people enough in their way (though
rather trying at meals, when they indulge in
alarming knife-jugglery), and, excepting when they
show signs of sea- sickness — hardly surprising, con-
sidering the amount of tight -lacing they must have
undergone — they are extremely cheerful. They

CHAP. YIII.] MARTIN GARCIA 149

sit on deck and chatter unceasingly, without as
much as an attempt at working or reading, and
they all worship the boy. The latter, a brat of
about eight years old, in a South American edition
of a Highland costume, is, of a slightly exuberant
race, the most irrepressible infant specimen I ever
beheld. From the moment we start, till late at
night, when I lose sight of him with the comfort-
ing assurance from the captain that he is to be put
on shore with his sisters and his cousins and his
aunts somewhere in the small hours of the morn-
ing (to be melted down in the nearest graseria,1
brutally suggests one of our party), this dreadful
boy never for a second stops yelling, and singing,
and dancing the fandango, and going through
the most extraordinary clown-like antics, nor do his
female relatives tire of admiring him, periodically
clasping him to their capacious bosoms and pass-
ing him on like a sort of loving cup. A boy to
exasperate the greatest lover of children, and to
whom, one cannot help uncharitably thinking, a
gentle switching would be of the greatest benefit —
and, Lord ! as Mr. Pepys might have said, the
good it would do him !

About one o'clock we sight Martin Garcia — the
Gibraltar of the Plate, as it has been modestly

1 Establishment for melting down the carcases of the sheep and
oxen slaughtered in the mataderos.

150 .. THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. TUT.

termed — and soon pass close to the southward of
it. A big Argentine flag floats over some low
buildings — barracks and storehouses — and a few
guns are in position on the barren, treeless shore.
These defences are, it is said, not strictly in con-
formity with existing treaties, like some fortifi-
cations that might be quoted in very different
regions ; but the Brazilian Government, while out-
wardly protesting against them, must have laughed
in its sleeve, having known all along that the
narrower, unfortified passage between the island
and the oriental (Uruguay) coast — the so-called
Canal del Infierno — although supposed to be navi-
gable only with small craft, in reality affords a pas-
sage for much larger vessels. What fortifications
there are on Martin Garcia are of no formidable
order, and bring to mind the bitter saying attributed
to an Argentine statesman, who, being asked why
he did not put the island in a proper state of defence,
replied that he knew no one ' above one thousand
ounces ' (about 3,000/.) to place in charge of it.
Fortunately nous avons change tout cela, as was
conclusively shown by the perfect staunchness of
the national forces during recent events.

There are a number of convicts here who are
kept usefully at work on the stone quarries which
have furnished the pavement of the streets of
Buenos Ayres — such as it is. The island has also

CHAP, vm.] AN INDIAN ST. HELENA

been used of late years as a prison for the principal
captives made in the last Indian campaigns. It
became in fact the St. Helena of the famous
cacique Pincen, the bravest and wiliest of the
desert chieftains taken by Eoca : and one can
picture him to oneself fretting out his Indian soul
as he gazed on the waste of waters, haunted
by the memories of his barbarian reign on that
other, inland, ocean the Pampa, and — in the
splendid words of Manzoni, which, allowing of
course for the difference between the injiniment
grand and the injiniment petit, are in some ways
so applicable here that I cannot refrain from
quoting them — conjuring up

1 Le mobili

Tende, e i percossi valli,
E il lampo dei manipoli,
E F onda dei cavalli,
E il concitato imperio,
E il celere obbedir.'

But our stay here is very brief. A boat comes
off from the shore to pick up mails, and we quickly
move on again, not stopping till about four o'clock
at a place called Higueritas, or Palmira, on the
Uruguayan side.

There is nothing to be seen here, and we begin
to be troubled with doubts as to the real merits of
the trip before us. Nor does anything of note
occur till after dark, when the lighting of the

152 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. vni.

deck-saloon with the electric light brings our
party together again over a rubber of whist. As
an advertisement in this land of progreso the light
no doubt answers well enough, but I can hardly
imagine anything more disagreeable than its
flickering, unsteady, cold glare in the confined
space of a cabin ; so, not playing whist, I take
refuge from it in the darkness outside, and leave
my book — a volume of Eugene Labiche's plays —
behind me. Great is my amusement when,
presently returning, I find it in the hands of a
stern-looking, middle-aged Spanish female, who is
reading it attentively with knitted brows. After
some time she guesses I am the owner, and returns
it with the simple words : ' Es frances ! ' I should
think so, my good woman ! Palais Eoyal French
of the most perfect kind ; ' Edgar et sa bonne ! '
I wonder how she liked it and what she made of it !
But the fog-whistle begins screeching again,
and a small steamer comes alongside to fetch
passengers and cargo for the town of Mercedes,
a favourite watering-place of these regions, situ-
ated some three or four hours up the Eio Negro.
This operation takes some time, and not very long
afterwards we stop again off Fray "Bentos, which
boasts of a monster saladero, and is yet more dis-
tinguished as the home of the highly scientific and
renowned, but to my mind villainous, compound

CHAP. VITI.] FRAY BENTOS 153

known as 'Liebig's extracturn carnis.' The nature
of the operations carried on here is clearly enough
revealed by the whiffs that come borne to us on
the night breeze. We are, however, to some ex-
tent inured to this, for even in the balmy shade
of our own garden similar incense has occasion-
ally been wafted to us from the mataderos all
round the city. Once more, to borrow the vigor-
ous and terrible words used by Vicuna Mackenna
in speaking of it under the rule of Rosas, this
country is literally a huge slaughter-shed, making
the air hot and heavy with the smell of blood,
and men callously unconcerned at its sight. A
profitable trade and occupation for a nation
doubtless, but one that keeps alive in it those
inborn human instincts of cruelty and savagery
which in our older civilisation have long been
curbed and softened down. One of the ugliest
traits of the uneducated native of these countries
is his perfect indifference to the sufferings of
the brute creation ; his comparative disregard of
human life is, with such a training, not unintelli-
gible. We are not sorry now to turn in, in search
of slumbers which are sadly broken into by the
steam-whistle as we stop at Concepcion and Pay-
sandii, and, later on, by the effusive farewells of
our jabbering fat friends as they are passed down
into the boat that lands them at their journey's end.

154 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCORDIA TO MONTE CASEROS — A SPECIAL ON THE EASTERN
ARGENTINE — A GOVERNMENT COLONY.

A LOVELY morning, not all too hot, brings us on
deck again after the luxury of a capital bath, for
which we are indebted to our worthy and obliging
skipper, who hails from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and,
although he has spent his life in these regions,
sticks manfully to his British nationality and Bri-
tish habits. The night has wrought a favourable
change in the aspect of the river. The stream
hardly exceeds two miles in breadth, and its banks,
now clearly visible on both sides, have become
higher, more especially on the Uruguayan side.
On the Argentine shore, too, the level pasture-lands
derive character from a thin belt of palm-trees
which runs, for miles and miles, at some little dis-
tance from the river and parallel to it, at intervals
almost as regular as those of telegraph-posts. The
monies of the estancias seem richer in wood than in
the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, and several

CHAP, ix.] ' C1VILIZACION I BARBARTE ' 155

large estates are pointed out to us on either side,
some of which are owned by Englishmen, one of
them being under the management of a gentleman
who later on joins our party at Concordia.

After breakfast, as the sun gets high, I weary
of looking across the glare on the water and follow-
ing the sails of the Italian schooners that are
beating up stream close under the shore, and for
a change take to the eloquent pages of Sarmiento's
Civilization i Barbarie. I am deeply immersed in
them when my attention is called to a bluff or
headland, of exceptional boldness for this tame
river scenery, known as the Mesa de Artigas,
respecting which a ghastly legend is told of the
partisan general of that name having, during the
War of Independence, flung all his Spanish prisoners
from thence into the broad current below — sewed
up in hides, adds one source of information. There
is little in the tale that is surprising to those who
have heard anything of the savage ferocity of the
time and of the race ; but the interruption happens
to chime in so well with Sarmiento's epic, and
somewhat complacent, narration of the exploits of
the ruffian whom he has strangely chosen for his
hero in the person of Facundo Quirogua ; of that
hero's barbarian contempt for all civilisation, of his
insolence and ignorance, of his cold-blooded cruelty
and brutal viciousness, that I cannot help closing

156 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

the book with something like disgust. It is all
the more vexing to be brought into so unchari-
table a frame of mind, that, independently of the
extreme beauty and charm of the pages in which
the ex-President depicts the poetical and picturesque
aspects of the Pampas, I have just been in-
debted to him for a very hearty laugh over the
parallel he draws — surely not seriously ? — between
the party fights of Davilas and Ocampos in Eioja
(a remote and obscure province, to this day pro-
bably not numbering one hundred thousand souls)
and the struggles between the Orsini and Colonnas
of mediaeval Eome ! But it is a singular faculty of
South American writers honestly to see all things
American through a magnifying-glass. Especially
is this the case with their short and generally
disagreeable national histories, insignificant inci-
dents in which are in perfect good faith put on a
level with events of real moment in the annals of
the world. But, the full materials of history being
as yet wanting to these countries, the most must be
made of that which is available.

The first stage of our journey is now near its
end. At about half-past two we sight Concordia,
the houses of which being scattered for some
distance along the bank make it appear a far
bigger place than it is in reality, a slight bend in
the river throwing the remoter houses of Salto on

CHAP. IX.] CONCORDIA 157

the higher opposite shore into the same prospect
and the whole producing the effect of a good-sized
city rising in tiers from the water's edge. Con-
cordia itself has about seven thousand inhabitants,
of whom thirty-three per cent, are said to be
Italians. Our attention is at once arrested by a
large building, not unlike a church with two square
towers, from which the British and Argentine
colours float on high in happy harmony. This, we
are told, is the terminus of the Eastern Argentine
Eailway, the bunting on it being displayed in
honour of our party. As soon as we have dropped

our anchor, the manager of the line, Mr. S ,

comes on board to welcome the friends he has
among us and take us ashore. Our landing having
been effected, and, what is far more important, that
of our packages — some thirty odd in all, save the
mark ! and deeply interesting from a victualling
point of view — we are driven to the station up a
grassy slope, and then along glistening, pebbly
roads, which, on closer inspection, are seen to be
full of rough agates, and onyxes, and cornelians.
The air is keen and fresh and has a smack of our

English downs, and we readily believe Mr. S

when he assures us that Concordia is a singularly
healthy spot. A smart-looking special train is
waiting for us in the station — which, by the way,
is far more substantially built than the majority

158 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

of similar buildings in this country — so, after a
hurried lunch, we climb into the saloon-carriage
and are off.

Our carriage is built on the model of those in
use in India, with round wooden shades, in shape
like coal-scuttle bonnets, painted white and blue,
projecting over the windows ; but our speed is
plain honest British, for, starting at four o'clock,
we get over the 99 miles that divide Concordia
from Monte Caseros in very little over three hours.

As we rattle along, Mr. S , who goes with

us as far as Chajary — the halfway station — gives
me some account of the vicissitudes of the Eastern
Argentine Line, which, after a hard and patient
struggle for existence, is now, according to him,
developing hopeful signs of prosperity.

Like almost all the railway undertakings to
which this country is indebted for so much of its
progress, it belongs to an English company, of
which Mr. Ashbury was, I believe, the founder.
Its main scope and intention was to connect the
lower and the upper sections of the Uruguay, the
navigation of which is effectually interrupted by
the rapids of Sal to Grande above the towns of
Concordia and Salto. This it, to some extent, does
now, though it would far more completely accom-
plish its object but for the suicidal competition of
an opposition line running parallel to it on the

CHAF. IX.] RAILWAY STATISTICS 159

Uruguayan side of the river. It seems hardly
credible that, in regions so sadly in need of rail-
way communication as these, capital which might
be beneficially employed elsewhere should be
foolishly embarked in rival schemes that can but
damage each other. But this is not the only
instance of aberration in railway enterprise to be

noted hereabouts. Mr. S , nevertheless, takes

a sanguine view of the undertaking for which he has
done so much. He thinks the tide of ill-luck has
turned for it, and quoted to me the steady advance
it shows from 1877. when it was worked at a loss
of 10,000/., and 1878, when that loss had decreased
to 4,OOOZ. ; to 1879, when it yielded 1,20(M., and the
current year, when a clear return of 10,000/. may
be expected from it.

But, faut de la statistique, pas trop rien faut.
I turn to the window, and am at once made aware
that the country we are speeding through has a
decidedly different aspect from that of the ' camp '
of Buenos Ayres, which happens to be the only one
I am as yet acquainted with. It has considerable
undulations, and is not unfrequently broken by
deep arroyos running down to the Uruguay, the
steep sides of which are clothed with dense thickets
of espinillas and other tree-like shrubs, among
which the ceibo hangs up its clusters of richest
scarlet ; here and there, too, it is dotted with

l6o THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

clumps of larger trees, of the ever picturesque
ombu chiefly, while further afield the palm-trees
skirmish in open order across the swelling ground.
There is none of that oppressive sense of un-
broken distance here ; even the gentler undula-
tions affording a rest to the eye, and allowing the
mind to trick itself with the hope of agreeable
little surprises lying in wait for one in the dips
beyond the range of vision. Still it is wild and
steppe-like enough, in all conscience, though by no
means devoid of life. A rancho here and there ; a
mounted herdsman pausing on a knoll ; number-
less cattle and horses roaming freely about ; a
troop of buzzards rising ponderously behind the
bushes ; a hawk or two swiftly swooping down
from above — and yes ! by Jove ! not a hundred
yards from the line — three ostriches trotting away
with wings extended and craned necks, scared by
our rushing, whistling train. Such are some of the
pictures framed in by our window-sash as we glide
along. Yet these vast solitary tracts are all taken
up ; though agriculturally, or rather pastorally,

speaking (Mr. S still obligingly informing us),

the land is not to be highly commended, the grasses
being as yet too coarse for sheep, and requiring to
be fined down by cattle. What few flocks we note
on it are the property of Irish sheep-farmers, and
are not as good ventures as those of their country-

CHAP, ix.] COLONISTS IN TROUBLE l6l

men in other parts of the Eepublic, especially in
the northern districts of the Province of Buenos
Ayres.

Shortly before five we slacken and draw up at
the crossing at Chajary, where we take in water, and

are sorry to part with Mr. S , whom business

compels to return to Concordia. We get out to
stretch our legs and have a look at the place, which
seems to have nothing to show beyond the meanest,
un tidiest of human habitations — in painful contrast
with the square, substantial, English-looking station,
round which they straggle in squalid lines. Chajary
is a Government colony of recent foundation, and,
from what we hear of it. far from a thriving one.
It is made up of a mixed, heterogeneous lot of
Germans, Swiss, Belgians, and Italians — mostly
petty tradesmen and mechanics, with no idea of
farming — who have been put down here in the
heart of distant Entre-Eios to try their fortunes at
purely agricultural work. In addition to the inex-
perience they bring to their task, these poor people
have had a full share of the trials to which both
agriculturists and stock-farmers are so terribly
exposed in this country, and which, be it said en
passant, are all too lightly glossed over in the
flaming incentives to immigration with which the
press — more especially the foreign press — of Buenos
Ayres at this time more than ever abounds. Their

M

1 62 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

first year was one of exceptional drought, followed
by two consecutive years of that truly Egyptian
plague, the locust. This year they have contrived
to save their wheat crop and are just able to subsist.

Mr. S , who takes an active interest in them,

and has been endeavouring to help them in every
possible way, tells me he allows them the lowest
Government freights, and even sends them bands
of music to enliven and draw purchasers to the
periodical fairs at which they seek to get rid of
their produce. But their utter helplessness and
inertness discourage his best efforts ; nor are their
prospects likely to be improved by what one hears
of the action of the Government inspector of the
colony.1

Grouped round the station and watching our
train with a languid curiosity, they certainly gave
me the impression of a dejected, inelastic lot. The
most conspicuous figure amongst them was a tall
German doctor, with long sandy hair and ragged

1 Other Government colonies have fortunately been more pro-
sperous than the one mentioned above, not to speak of the numerous
and well-known settlements founded by private enterprise in the
provinces of Santa Fe, Cordova, and Buenos Ayres. Among others
there is at Olavarria, in the south of the latter province, an interesting
colony of Russian Mennonites, who are said to be doing remarkably
well, although some unfortunate delay occurred at first in handing
over to them the title-deeds of their lands. I had no opportunity,
however, of visiting any of these settlements during my residence in
the country.

CHAP, ix.] COLONISTS IN TROUBLE 163

beard, spectacles, a very dirty wisp of a quondam
white necktie, and splendid jack-boots of bright
yellow leather that might have reminded one of
Wallenstein's Lager had they not been so much
more suggestive of Eenz's circus. The man's face
was familiar to me, for I could remember its almost
exact counterpart in the medical authority of one
of the best-known Swiss water-cure establishments.
As for this fruit sec of some German university, he
certainly did not believe in hydropathy in any
form as applied to himself, to judge by his linen,
his tipsy talk in atrocious Spanish, and his general
air of beeriness. But the guard sings out : ' All
on board, gentlemen ! ' and off we are again.

Our original number of seven had now been
raised to ten by the adjunction of two railway

engineers and an estanciero. Mr. B , one of the

first named, has been specially employed on this
line for some years, but is still quite a young man,
and is gifted with a flow of spirits that soon makes
him the life and soul of the party. He is as full
of keen humour and fun as I am assured he is of
professional knowledge, and I am specially grate-
ful to him for much hearty amusement during the
trip I am chronicling. Indeed, it seems almost
unfair that such social talents as his should be
buried for any length of time in these South
American wilds. His brother engineer, Mr. W ,

M V

164 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. ix.

is employed on the wicked rival scheme across the
water, and we are therefore bound to look upon
him as a secret enemy, and to assume that, under
a mask of undeniable cheeriness, he is darkly
plotting against the prosperity of the Eastern
Argentine. He is, however, so ready a draughts-
man and caricaturist that he is far more likely
to be taking mental notes of our several physical
weaknesses and peculiarities.

This being on the whole essentially an engineers'
expedition, I might well have introduced here a few
complimentary remarks about the British engineer
in general, ' coupling them,' as they say of toasts,
with the senior engineer of our party, a man of
great experience, and a thoroughly genial as well
as instructive companion (we dubbed him ' the
amiable and experienced ' on this trip) ; but I will
content myself with observing — although it may
well seem a truism to those who travel as much as
I do — that nothing can be more creditable, and
from a national point of view more satisfactory,
than the achievements of our C.E.'s in this country,
as indeed all the world over, or more pleasant than
their company. All honour, I say, to them as a
body.

We were now rattled along at an increased
rate, no longer having any train to cross, and, as
the light decreased, our whistle was sounded almost

CHAP, ix.] MONTE CASEROS 165

unceasingly to drive the straying horses and cows
from the line, which seems to have a perverse
fascination for them, for they scamper off just as
the cow-catcher is upon them. One wretched
mare runs it too fiDe and is knocked over — a
piteous sight — her poor little foal just getting clear

of us. Mr. B told us that not far from here

they ran into a lion (read puma) a few weeks ago,
and killed him on the spot. By the time we had
crossed the limits between Entre-Eios and Cor-
rientes it was getting 'dark, and soon afterwards we
reached the terminus at Monte Caseros, where an
excellent dinner — if anything, too copious — was
waiting for us. This Monte Caseros, by the way,
may pride itself on being the site of the crowning
victory gained by General Urquiza on the 3rd
of February, 1852, over the forces of Eosas, and
which decided the fall of the Dictator. A memo-
rable day for this country, and indeed for mankind,
which never, in our times, witnessed a more brutal
tyranny.

After having done full justice to the meal pro-
vided for us, we got into our saloon carriage again,
and a ten minutes' run on an extension lately com-
pleted to a point called the Ceibo on the Uruguay
Eiver, brought us abreast of the ' Mensajero,' which
lay waiting for us, with her steam up and lights in
all her cabins, presenting a very festive appearance

1 66 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. IX.

in the dark sultry night which had now closed in.

Mr. B at once took us on board and showed

us all over the little vessel — a miniature copy of
an American river- steamer — with a not unnatural
pride, for she is really more his work than that of
the well-known firm of builders who are answer-
able for her. She was sent out from England in
pieces, altogether making up some seven hundred
packages, and put together here, a work of several
months. As she stands now she has from beginning
to end cost about 8,000/., and may perhaps prove
rather an expensive bargain, not quite answering
all the expectations entertained of her. Of this,
however, it is needless to speak, and certainly, as
far as I am concerned, I was so comfortable on
board that I can record nothing of her but praise.
While our things were being transferred to
her, the moon had risen and revealed the propor-
tions of the little creek in which we were moored.
The gleaming water looked invitingly clear and
cool, but we were assured that it was full of alligators
and of a kind of electric eel (gymnotus), called here
rayo, or lightning, of the effects of contact with
which very curious and unrelatable stories are
told. It was getting late, however — towards the
witching hour of twelve — and when once we were
fairly under way and had glided into the main
stream, I was glad to withdraw to my berth in the

CHAP. IX.] UNDER WAY 167

stern of the vessel, where, although tired, I lay
awake a long time, watching, through the open
door, the shower of sparks driven from our wood
fires by the cool south wind, and which formed a
fiery network across the broad silver band of
moonlight outside.

1 68 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. X.

CHAPTER X.

URUGUAY AN A — RIVER SCENERY — SUNDAY AT ITAQUt.

IJST the early morning we stopped off Uruguayana,
a town in the Brazilian province of Eio Grande do
Sul, and came to an anchor close into the shore.
It had rained heavily in the small hours, and when
I put my head out of the cabin door to survey the
place, I saw before me a perfect sea of mud, be-
yond which the shelving ground grew harder as it
rose, half a dozen miserable ranches filling up the
middle space, the dreary, uninviting prospect being
bounded by a few ordinary flat-roofed houses backed
by a curtain of green trees. Behind this, and
not visible from where we lay, extends the town —
at one time a tolerably flourishing place, now
slowly recovering from the effects of the Para-
guayan war. It was well spoken of by those of
our party who visited it, but I myself was not
tempted to do so. The position it occupies is a
very strong one, and was seized upon and stub-
bornly held for a considerable time by a Para-
guayan division, which finally surrendered to the

CHAP, x.] ARTLESS NATIVES 169

Emperor of Brazil in person. The unfortunate
commander of this force was ruthlessly shot by
Lopez on his return to Paraguay.

So deep was the mud on the beach, that the
only mode of approach to and from our steamer
was by a series of planks laid on trestles, at the
end of which a cart, on immensely high wheels and
drawn by three mules, waited to receive passengers
and convey them up the slimy slope to the town on
the top of the ridge. While I was having my bath
below, one of these vehicles came jolting down
with a load of natives intent on visiting our vessel,
and, the bath-room being devoid of window-blind
or curtain, they must have had an excellent view
of my toilet operations, which, indeed, seemed to
gratify them. Later on, too, when they were go-
ing the round of the ship, they paused one by one
at the window of the cabin where I was dressing,
saluting me most amiably, and audibly expressing
their approval of the arrangements of my quarters,
which, I must say, were quite luxurious, and in-
cluded a mosquito net of a delicate pale blue !
Harmless people, who, for all their rusty black
clothing and stove-pipe hats, have not as yet got
much beyond the initial, fig-leaf stage of civilisation.

As the hours wore on, the beach became more
alive. Coloured women, with long, black, plaited
hair, scanty clothing, and gaudy kerchiefs, lazi]y

1 70 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. x.

emerged from the ranchos and hung out a few
white rags to dry in the bright morning sun ; naked
little boys came racing down through the slush,
from which their brown bodies were barely distin-
guishable, and paddled about in the turbid stream
with yells and shrill laughter ; a yellow, wolf- like
dog trotted up to the water's edge and watched
them, whereupon they pelted him and pursued him
halfway up the slope ; a Gaucho, with striped
poncho and broad-brimmed hat, heavy silver spurs
and stirrups, leading a spare horse, rode down to
the riverside, where he dismounted, and, clamber-
ing into a boat, shoved off for the opposite shore,
swimming his cattle in tow behind him ; presently,
too, a Brazilian officer of some rank — to judge by
the amount of gold lace on his uniform — came
ambling down on a dun- coloured charger and rode
majestically backwards and forwards taking a stern
survey of our brand-new craft.

It was amusing enough to note these humours
of the place from under the shade of the awning,
but I was principally interested in watching two
small schooners that were moored side by side close
astern of us. The French tricolour showed them
to be Basque boats, and their business was scarcely
less evident than their nationality. In the triangle
formed just here by the meeting of the three terri-
tories of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentine Corrientes,

CHAP, x.] BASQUE SMUGGLERS 1 71

the facilities for smuggling are so great that half
the population live by contraband. My Basque
friends had probably no other errand up the river.
At this early hour they were just emerging from
the dark little cabins where they huddled together
at night beneath the poop. The first to show was
a young woman with delicate features and the be-
coming national fichu tied round her head. She at
once set about lighting a fire and preparing the
morning meal ; next a curly, half-clad urchin
crawled out from under a heap of tackle, and
then, one by one, three men appeared, yawning
and stretching their arms — one of them doubtless
the husband — but which, it was difficult to say, for
they were all young, and seemed to form one family.
A shaggy white dog completed the tableau, which,
with all the loose gear and casks and chests strewn
about the decks, and the wet sails drying in the
sun, was effective enough, and kept me amused till
breakfast time, after which we made a fresh start,
crossing the river to the Corrientes side to the town
of Paso de los Libres, or Eestauracion, as it is
officially designated.

We did not feel tempted to inspect this very
meari-lookiog pueblo more closely, but, one of our
party having to go ashore to attend to some busi-
ness with the local authorities, we were detained
here for some time, being invaded during our

172 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. X.

enforced stay by a crowd of noisy, unmannerly
natives who insisted on being shown all over the
ship. The amazed remarks of these unsophisticated,
but extremely disagreeable, people at the fittings and
arrangements of the steamer, and still more at the
rapidity with which we had performed our journey?
were diverting enough in their way. They could
not believe that we had left Buenos Ayres but
little more than forty-eight hours before. We
were heartily glad to be rid of their vulgarity and
noise and chatter, and to find ourselves this time
fairly on our way up stream.

Truly a perfect afternoon ! As the sun began
to decline on the Correntine shore, a cool, south-
easterly breeze sprang up, just giving a crisp curl
to the broad, swift current against which we were
steaming. We hugged the Brazilian side, keeping
about a stone's throw from the water's edge. The
bank was high enough here to cast a grateful shade
over our course, and now at last, too, it began to
show a far more vigorous vegetation. A few forest
trees stood out here and there from the thick, rank
undergrowth, and presently, when they became
sufficiently frequent to form substantial patches of
real sylvan scenery — how grateful to the eyes of
the dweller in Buenos Ayres ! — revealed a clothing
of strange creepers and parasites ; soon too we
could discern air plants swinging from their boughs,

CHAP. X.] RIVER SCENERY 173

and coils of brilliant flowers wound around their
stems. Downwards the shrubs and plants came
creeping into the dark, cool water, mingling with
the rushes and slender, willowy bamboos, pushing
their tangled roots far out into the stream, and
forming charming, mysterious little pools that
looked so deliciously inviting that one longed to
stop and wade into them and sit down in their
eddies in the shade of the broad-leaved plants
that wove a green roof above them, the swift tide
bathing one's feet and the smooth, glossy foliage
fanning one's brow. In these tiny bays the amber
stream rushed in and out at such a pace, that it
was possible to realise how rapid and mighty was
its current — a sadness coming over one as one
watched each bright little wavelet hurrying on
from its first home in the beautiful upper waters,
where it had been warmed by tropical suns and
had reflected the glories of tropical scenery, only to
be lost in the turbid, shallow flood — gigantic, yet
devoid of grandeur — hugest of drains, rather than
of streams — which bears the delusive name of the
Silver Eiver.

To our left the whole expanse of water — all
but the narrow shaded belt through which we
held our course — was glowing in the slanting sun-
rays, a mirror of burnished gold framed in by the
low western bank of emerald green, all pasture

174 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. x.

without a tree or shrub to break its level line.

This, Mr. B assured us, was in a great measure

due to the ingenious fiscal legislation of Corrientes,
which levies a tax of one patacon on every tree
that is planted in the province. Perhaps the most
striking features of the scene were its stillness and
the almost complete absence of animal life. We
had dreamed of alligators basking on reaches of
sun-baked mud, and had not even quite despaired
of a glimpse of a jaguar slaking his thirst at the
stream's edge, but, beyond a few startled water-fowl
that rose from among the reeds in front of us, we
beheld not a living creature. A large-sized duck or
two, of the breed called patos reales, strong of wing
and of gorgeous plumage ; a heron poised on a big
stone above the current ; a kingfisher skimming in
and out of the rushes, were literally all we saw.
Nothing but the silent, tangled woodland stretch-
ing far back, and growing, we liked to fancy, into
those virgin forest solitudes of Brazil which hide in
their recesses the rarest beauties of creation. It
was something to imagine to oneself these things
as being concealed by the verdant curtain past
which we were gliding, even though we beheld
them not.

At dusk we came in sight of the twinkling
lights of Itaqui, a place of some consequence,
where the Brazilians have their principal naval

CHAP, x.] ARRIVAL OFF ITAQUI 175

station on this river, and where they own an
arsenal. Some time before coming to an anchor,
we distinguished the lights at the mastheads of
their monitors, and now as we neared the town,
which is built on the cliff-like river-banks, we
could see the inhabitants gathered in knots in the
fading light, in front of their low-roofed dwellings,
and watching our unexpected advent with evident
interest. Soon they began letting off rockets in
true South American sign of welcome. But it was
too dark to land that evening, so we most of us
remained on board and sat down to the rubber of
whist over which our ' amiable and experienced '
was nightly called upon to preside. One or two
of the younger members of the party, however,
made an exploring expedition on shore, and pre-
sently returned with half a dozen queer-looking in-
dividuals, whom B introduced as artists of the

' compagnia drammatica Italiana,' which was touring
it in the principal towns of Eio Grande. There
was a ' lean and hungry ' look about these gentry
which did not say much in favour of the nightly
receipts they made ; and they not only looked
hungry, but unquestionably were so, and it was too

absurd to see the incorrigible B ply them with

ham sandwiches, with mustard half an inch thick,
which they swallowed with watering eyes and beads
of perspiration on their foreheads — perfect internal

1 76 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. x.

sinapisms some of them must have been, all
mustard and no ham ! Poor wretches ! though
they may have thought the food peculiar to these
indiavolati Inglesi, they seemed to appreciate its
substantial qualities, and washed it down with so
much beer that it at last became somewhat difficult
to get rid of their uproarious cordiality.

Sunday morning broke in with a cloudless sky
and intense heat. The dwellers in Itaqui, barring
our dramatic friends, keep early hours and rise
with the lark, and we were hardly dressed before
our deck was invaded — literally swept this time —
by visitors of the fair sex — one a decidedly hand-
some girl — with endless trains and square-cut open
corsages of brightest blue and pink. But fairer

sights than these were in store for us. Mr. E ,

who was the botanist and horticulturist of our
party, had stolen a march on us and made at early
dawn a raid on some of the Itaqui gardens, whence
he returned triumphantly with a plant, among
others, which seemed to me one of the most per-
fectly beautiful objects I ever set eyes upon. It
may — I suppose so, at least — be classed among the
cannce family, but none of us ever remembered to
have seen it before. It had a grape-like cluster of
buds — each in shape and size something like a small
elongated plover's egg — of a white so dazzling and
so glossy that they seemed made of porcelain or

CHAP, x.] A FAIRY FLOWER 177

the purest wax, the opening of the bud being
tinted with a blush of the loveliest pink. Two of
the buds had burst open and revealed a cup-like
flower of a brilliant orange colour with pink
streaks. In its loveliness it seemed almost unreal
— a dream of a flower or the flower of a dream.

This discovery Mr. E had made in the

garden of a Brazilian lady, who had kindly told him
he might dig up one of the plants to take away with
him. After breakfast, therefore, he and I sallied
forth in search of it. Climbing the barranca, and
walking some little distance up a hot dusty road,
we got into one of the main "streets — if so it could
be called — of the town, and soon found ourselves
in the praqa, or public square. To our left was a
diminutive, barn-like building, evidently very old,
and surmounted by a rough kind of cross, which
had probably been one of the original Jesuit chapels
of the country. Next to it stood a curious structure
composed of two wooden posts and a cross beam,
which at first sight bore a ghastly resemblance to
a gallows, but, as we afterwards discovered, had
filled the office of bell tower. The bell was gone,
and the disiised chapel had long been replaced by
the much larger church which faced it at the
upper end of the square, its doors thrown wide
open, gaily dressed women passing into it and
groups of men loitering about it, as is the custom

N

178 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. X.

on feast-days in all these southern latitudes. While
we were crossing the praqa, a female school de-
bouched into it from one of the side streets and
filed into the church straight up to the altar, to
the right of which it halted in column, remaining
in that formation, as we presently saw, all through
the service.

We did not then enter the building ourselves,
mass not yet having begun, but passed on to the
garden of the beautiful flower, which was situ-
ated just beyond. A quiet, thin Brazilian woman,
with a pale olive complexion, and dressed in a
loose white wrapper, greeted us on the threshold
of the house and accompanied us into the garden,
which lay behind : a mere strip, into which, I grieve
to say, all the rubbish and refuse of the dwelling
seemed to have been shot indiscriminately for
months past. Close under the wall, in a corner of
this uninviting pleasaunce, grew the fairy plant,

and while E was engaged in digging it up,

our gentle, mild-visaged hostess insisted on present-
ing me with some lovely gardenias, several large
bushes of which grew hard by. It was all I could
do to prevent her from plucking all the flowers.
We soon took leave of this simple, civil creature.
Whether it be due to languor, induced by greater
warmth of climate, or not, these Brazilian women
have more repose of manner, and thus to an

CHAP, x.] BRAZILIAN MARINES 1 79

English eye seem, at first sight, better bred than
their more joyous, impulsive Argentine sisters.

As we again entered the square, a company of
marines marched up, to the sound of a bugle, and
halted just outside the church. Here it was first
put through a summary sort of drill by a very
small officer with an exceedingly big voice and
great sternness of aspect, after which there was a
kind of inspection of arms and accoutrements, which
gave us an opportunity of ourselves examining the
men. A fine lot, scrupulously clean and well clad,
but curiously made up of negroes, mulattos, and
whites, while their armament apparently varied as
much as the shades of their skins, including the
last pattern of Henry-Martini as well as the obso-
lete muzzle-loader. Suddenly they came to atten-
tion, the word of command was given, and filing
off by twos they marched into the church, the
bugle blaring away in front and not stopping till
they were drawn up in two ranks across the build*-
ing. Four files of men were told off as altar-guard,
and the rest grounding their arms, the service began.

We had followed them in and watched the
scene with some curiosity. The church was big and
bare, with whitewashed walls and a rough roof of
rafters of hardwopd ; but there was no lack of
brilliancy in the altar, with its coating of sky-blue
and gold, its tinsel ornaments and garish draperies,

x 2

l8o THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. x.

and the chromolithographic daubs that hung on
either side of it ; plenty too in the dresses of the
women, who, not affecting the black church-going
garb of Spanish countries, were clad in the brightest
and crudest of colours. The noontide blaze came
streaming in from the open doorway, lighting up
all this flaring frippery, against which the central
figure of the officiating priest stood out with some
grandeur — a tall, brawny half-caste, with a power-
ful, melodious voice and considerable dignity of
manner. There were no chairs or benches, so
the women stood or knelt in little radiant groups
all about the stone-flags ; further back the men
lounged carelessly, twirling their straw hats in
their hands, their white clothes shining in sharp
contrast to their dark skins ; two or three dogs
strayed in and chased one another undisturbed in
and out of the worshippers ; an old negress feebly
tottered past and cast herself down, repeatedly strik-
ing the pavement with her forehead. It was but
a shabby, commonplace scene on the whole, for
all its local colouring, and my thoughts had strayed
away to distant and more decorous services, when
of a sudden there came the tinkling of the bell, and
down the men dropped on one knee on a carefully
spread-out pocket-handkerchief ; down the female
school squatted on their haunches, and there arose
— not the muttered accents of the priest, but the

CHAP, x.] A MILITARY MASS l8l

loud, high-pitched voice of the small lieutenant,
followed by the braying of that dreadful bugle. It
was altogether too startling and incongruous — not
to say grotesque — to have any but an irreverential
effect, and thus it went on throughout the celebra-
tion, each solemn portion of which was marked by
the word of command, with more too-tooing, and
the ring of the rifles as they were grounded or

brought to the present. From the church E

and I took a stroll through the white glare of the
streets till we reached some thick orange groves
in the outskirts of the town, where we sauntered
up and down, moralising and botanising, till it was
time to go on board again. The heat at our moor-
ings was most oppressive, and we were very glad
to get out of it and find ourselves once more in
motion on our way up the river.

1 82 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xi.

CHAPTEE XI.

UP STREAM TO SANTO TOME — A WOOD-CUTTING STATION.

Two Brazilian passengers had been allowed to em-
bark here for San Borja. This special favour — for
our trip was essentially private, and we formed what
the Germans term einegeschlossene Gesellschaft — we
suspected they owed to our comisario, or purser, a
very perky, self-satisfied young native, whom we
all disliked, and snubbed accordingly. We thought
his asking these people a great piece of imperti-
nence, the result being that our cordiality to the in-
truders was not excessive, although B jocosely

would have it that one of them was at least a Conde
and a near relative of the Duque de Caxias ! (this
in honour of one of our party who was known to
have a slight failing for persons of rank), and when
asked on what terms he had come on board, de-
scribed his position as that of a first-class forward
passenger, who was allowed the use of the spar-
deck and the privilege of talking to the man at the
wheel. Coals of fire were to be heaped on our
heads before long by the poor Conde !

CHAP. XI.] SILENT WOODS 183

A breeze sprang up soon after we started, and
we had just such another glorious afternoon as the
day before, the vegetation yet further improving as
we advanced, and acquiring a more marked sub-
tropical character. The bamboos grew thicker and
higher, and large timber, in the shape of the lapacho
and the angito and other hardwood trees, began to
abound. For a long time we kept close to the
Brazilian side, gliding on through the same stillness
almost under cover of the overhanging boughs.
The hushed woods somehow brought to my mind
the closing words of one of Lenau's most perfect
sonnets. Their silence was as ' that peace which
parted for ever from the earth in the first dawn of
Paradise.' 1

So great was still the scarcity of life, that every
living thing we caught sight of became an object
of interest, and was at once noted down. I amused
myself for some time following the tactics of a
couple of herons who Hew away in front of us and
alighted on separate branches of the same tree,
where they grotesquely faced each other like two
sentries, craning their long necks to the utmost and
balancing themselves with flapping wings, till we
drew nearer and they again took flight, to roost

1 ' Mahnt mieh leise an den Frieden,
Der von der Erd' auf immer 1st geschieden
Schon in der ersten Paradiesesfriihe.'

184 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xr.

again in the same fashion a few hundred yards
further ahead. At a bend in the stream we came
upon a wide reach, studded with low wooded
islands, which closed in the prospect and imparted
to the fast-flowing river the placid semblance of a
lake. Here we steered across to the Misiones shore,
which, now, was as thickly wooded as the side we
had left. A clearing was to be seen here and there
beneath the trees, and, in one of the arches thus
formed, we just took in the motley figure of a soli-
tary Gaucho peering curiously down upon us ; but
for miles and miles his was the only human form
we set eyes on. Now and then a bigger arch of
foliage came in view, spanning the green waters of
some arroyo that broke through the river-bank,
and affording a vista of infinite depth and mystery
that sorely tempted us to stop and explore its re-
cesses. There were spots here that seemed ex-
pressly made for the jaguar, or the alligator, or the
carpincho (water-hog), but we had to content our-
selves with the sight of a huge lagarto (lizard),
whose scales glistened in the sun on the sandy
beach.

We were now short of fuel, and hugging the
western bank we passed up a narrow channel be-
tween it and one of the islands in search of some
woodcutters' huts. Here we slackened our speed,
and were able to gaze more leisurely on the

CHAP, xi.] TROPICAL VEGETATION 185

charming prospect before us. The stream
hardly wider than the Thames above Maidenhead,
and though the woods that cast their purple shade
across it, and left but a silver track in its centre,
were not to be compared for loftiness or massive
leafiness with glorious Cliveden, there was such an
infinite variety in their foliage ; each tree, with
its rich drapery of creepers and twisting tendrils
and swinging air-plants, formed such a vegetable
wonder in itself; beneath, there was such an in-
tricate growth of flowering shrubs and under-
wood, such a wealth of humbler ferns and reeds
and grasses, that nature seemed really to have ex-
hausted every form of vegetation in clothing the
banks that hemmed us in on either side. On the
topmost branches of two, almost contiguous, trees
that reared their heads beyond all this greenery,
we noted a group of vultures and a few large
parrots of brilliant plumage. Further on, two
Italian boats, that were drifting down the current
under easy sail, mingled their slender masts with
the nearer boughs, and imparted to the scene the
human element which had been almost painfully
absent from it. These enterprising craft beat far up
the rapid river with their more or less illicit cargoes,
bringing down in exchange sugar-canes and mate
from the great yerbales in the upper districts of
Misiones. Their owners are mostly countrymen of

1 86 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xi.

Columbus, and worthy of his name, for they pro-
bably reach further into the heart of the continent
than the men of any other European race.

At last our call for fuel was answered favour-
ably, and we stopped on the Argentine shore close
under a steep bank of red soil, strewn with logs
of wood, up which we scrambled as soon as a plank
had been laid across for us. There was a clearing
above, with two or three rough log-buildings occu-
pied by the owner of the place — an Italian, who
had settled here and taken unto himself an Argen-
tine wife, by whom he had a numerous and appa-
rently increasing family. We found this meritorious
matron seated on a bench under the pent-roof of
the principal rancho, airily attired in not strictly
spotless cotton garments, and approaching her,
with all the exaggerated demonstration of respect
for the sex which, to the European, seems one of
the many notes forcees of Transatlantic life, we
craved permission to visit her domains. She re-
ceived our approaches with perfect ease and dig-
nity, and with a sweep of the hand invited us to
be seated and to consider the house as ours. We
squatted down anyhow on planks of sawn wood
and stumps of trees, but with something of the
feeling attending upon a solemn audience, and
underwent what seemed to me an endless amount
of palaver in choice Castilian, B , who is con-

CHAP. XL] TROPICAL VEGETATION 1 87

sidered muy fino by the natives, acting as spokes-
man for the party.

These belles manieres in the wilderness were too
much for me, and I soon strolled away, my ex-
ample being speedily followed by the rest, and had
a ramble through the chacra that extended behind
the hut. It was wonderfully wild and pretty ; half
plantation and half garden, all cut out of the
primeval woods, with tracks just wide enough for
the low bullock-carts that brought the felled tim-
ber to the edge of the river-bank. The luxuriance
of the vegetation in these narrow winding paths,
and more especially the abundance of creepers
with brilliant clusters of purple and yellow and
white, was truly wonderful ; but a sickly damp-
ness and steaminess in the air and dark slimy pools
beneath the trees were not without their warn-
ings, especially at this hour of sunset, and for
my part I was not loth to get on board again. It
was long past dusk before we left our moorings, as
we had to take in as many as 2,400 logs of wood,
the charge for a hundred of these being, I was
told, six Bolivian reales, or about half-a-crown.
Their clatter as they were hurled from above on to
our iron deck, together with the stifling heat and
a perfect plague of mosquitoes, made us rejoice at
being in motion again, this time en route for Santo
Tome, which we reached about nine o'clock, after

1 88 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP xi.

stopping for a moment off San Borja to land the
Conde and his companion. A few straggling lights
showed us where lay this ultima Thule of our ex-
pedition, but we could distinguish nothing further
from our steamer, the night being excessively dark
and threatening a storm, which broke over us with
tropical violence just about daybreak.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, B ,

with the younger and more adventurous of our
party, went ashore, and somewhat mysteriously
found his way to a regular Guarani dance, of which
he afterwards gave us a highly graphic description.
It took place in a pulperia (half inn, half public-
house), in shape resembling a long, low barn, very
sparingly lighted, round the walls of which sat or
crouched such of the company as were not footing
it on the floor of beaten earth. The men were
all Gauchos of pure Indian or Guarani blood, and
each one had brought his girl with him. The ball-
dresses seem to have been of the simplest and
airiest description, consisting of the long Indian
chemise and a single petticoat, the feet of the
young ladies being bare, and their very perfect
and voluptuous figures, untrammelled by stays or
whaleboned bodice, showing to the greatest ad-
vantage and temptingly yielding to the pressure of
the arm that encircled their supple waists. The
men were all armed, and kept strict watch and

CHAP. XL] ARGENTINE MESOPOTAMIA 189

ward over their respective belles, but they never-
theless showed some hospitality to our friends by
allowing them to take a turn in the Paraguayan
dance called the Palomita, which is something like
a very slow waltz or redowa.

At this entertainment B made the acquaint-
ance of an intelligent young Argentine, belonging
to one of the leading Corrientes families, whom he
brought on board next day, and who gave us an
interesting account of a journey of exploration he
had just been making through the interior of that
province and of Misiones, and across them from
the river Parana to the Uruguay. A great portion
of this vast Argentine Mesopotamia is relatively
unknown, and he assured us that even the accurate
and painstaking Petermann was out in his topo-
graphy of it. As an instance of this, on his map,
the great Laguna of Ibera is represented by a
chain of smaller lakes, the fact being, said our
friend, that it is one vast sheet of water — half
swamp, half lake — some forty leagues, or 120
miles, in length. The bosom of these mysterious
waters is said to be covered with floating islands,
which, on examination, would no doubt be found
to be acres of reeds and rushes and other aquatic
plants, the queen of which is the colossal Victoria
regia, similar to those which choke the current
of the rivers of equatorial Africa. In the Indian

THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xi.

imagination these islands were peopled by a race
of elves or fairies, whose habitations, says Mulhall,
are sure enough visible to this day in the large
conical mounds, upwards of three feet high, built
by ants.

Throughout this region, which has now in
many parts relapsed into the primitive, trackless
wilderness, may yet be seen, at intervals of about
fifteen miles, the remains of the old Jesuit settle-
ments. The jaguar and the ounce crouch in their
lairs where, a hundred years ago, stood the thriving
plantations and haciendas of the mighty company.
But we were soon ourselves to witness marked and
saddening traces of their intelligent and beneficent
rule, and of the comparative barbarism that has
succeeded it.

CHAP, xii.] SANTO TOM£ IQI

CHAPTEE XII.

SANTO TOME — WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF JESUIT BUILDINGS —
SAN MATEO — A TROPICAL CLEARING.

AT Santo Tome, as at Uruguayana, the beach had
become a perfect quagmire after the torrential
downpour that had deluged our deck at daybreak ;
but a thoughtful friend, who' afterwards turned out
to be the Correntine explorer mentioned above,
had obligingly sent horses to the landing-place for
us, and ' the amiable and experienced ' and I
gladly availed ourselves of them. Santo Tome is
built some little way back from the river on higher
ground, beyond the reach of the floods produced
by the rapid rises, or freshets, to which the Uruguay
is subject, and which are so considerable as some-
times to amount to twelve feet in the course of
a single night. Its well-chosen site, like those of
the other places of similar origin we visited, bears
witness to the sagacity of its Jesuit founders.

Picking our way across the swampy ground,
and cantering up a steep and muddy chemin creux,
we soon reached the brow of the hill and the

1 92 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xir.

inevitable plaza, where we had hoped still to find
substantial remains of the old Jesuit church, for

we were assured by B that he had, a couple of

years before, seen part of the stone walls, which he
described as over fifteen metres high in some places
and thick in proportion. Not a remnant of these
is now left standing, and the administrador de
rentas (collector of revenue) of Santo Tome — a
forward and loquacious individual, of the French
commis-voyageur type, who had joined us and
volunteered his services as cicerone — informed us
that they had recently been pulled down by order
of the municipality, and sold off as building material
at six reals a cartload.

Although this enlightened body had certainly
done their work very completely, it was still possi-
ble to trace something of the outlines of the edifice
in its foundations, which crop out among the
orchards and enclosures and from between the
dense flowering bushes — nature, cedilitate adjuvante,
having most triumphantly reasserted her rights,
and made a tangled wilderness of colour and ver-
dure of the space where church and college once
reared their massive buttresses. These buildings
had evidently occupied a large extent of ground,
and beneath them ran considerable vaulted pas-
sages— now choked up with rubbish, but still
accessible in some places — which have been ran-

CHAP. XII.] WRECK AND RUIN 1 93

sacked time after time in futile search for the sup-
posed buried riches of the fathers. Martin de
Moussy, in his Description de la Confederation
Argentine, states that these excavations led to the
discovery of veins of quicksilver in the soil ; but I
did not hear that this find had ever been turned to
account. The only trace of ornament we lighted
on was a large fragment of red sandstone, adorned
with a rude carving of a passion-flower, and bear-
ing the date of 1717, which may have formed part
of the keystone of one of the arches. A bell, with
the older date of 1688, still hangs on a gibbet-like
framework outside the modern church in the plaza.
We lingered for some time on the knoll, strewn
with all this wreck, which commands a fair view
of the rolling country beyond and of the ravine-
like dell which leads abruptly down to the landing-
place. The river, just below, was concealed from
sight, but some few miles further up it took a sud-
den turn and revealed its gleaming waters.

It required but little imagination to conjure up
the peaceful, but highly picturesque, scenes which
must have been witnessed by these solitudes on
great Church festivals. The broad bosom of the
stream furrowed by an armada of canoes that came
floating down with the Indians of the more distant
haciendas ; the forest paths resounding with the
tramp of the village communities marching to the

o

194 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xir.

sound of tambourine and fife ; 1 along the leafy
lane at our feet a winding procession of maidens
and children bearing palms and banners and chant-
ing hymns — all pressing onwards to the ridge above,
where stood the great church, with portals flung
wide open, and silver bells bearing their summons
far and wide ; its high altar in a blaze of tapers
and decked with the rarest of flowers ; while
through the dusky reverent crowd passed the

f Jesuit fathers — half priests, half governors — prac-
tical, keen-eyed men of the world, who had tamed
these savages and reclaimed them from their
native barbarism and sloth, trained them to re-
munerative labour, and taught them a Christianity
which, whatever may be thought of its soundness
and purity, became very life and light to these

^children of darkness and superstition. While
summoning up these pictures, one could not but
be reminded that at this very time a fresh edict of
proscription had gone forth against these sagacious
trainers of infancy and infant races, and that they
were being cast out of the city which the poet of
the day^ in a crazy flight of patriotic vanity, terms
la ville-soleil, la cite-lumiere.

In the midst' of these musings I was interrupted

1 Moiissy and other writers, in their accounts of the Jesuit mis-
sions, all state that music was much encouraged among the Indians
by the fathers.

CHAP. XII.] A PHILISTINE IN THE DESERT 195

by our self-constituted guide, Don Manuel C ,

who proposed to take us to where was still preserved
an ancient benitier that had belonged to the church.
We assented, and, after riding half a mile along a
narrow lane, came to a rough rancho, in the back-
yard of which was deposited this relic. We had to

enter the enclosure in single file, B riding

immediately behind me, and Don Manuel behind
him. The latter had already revealed a more
than ordinary capacity for tall-talk, but now of
a sudden he charmed my ears with the following

exquisite sentence addressed to B , although, of

course, intended for us dwellers in the great Buenos
Ayres. ' Yes ! ' he said, with a sigh, ' I see how it
is ! Ya lo veo ! Cansados de palacios, Ustedes
vienen d las ruinas d buscar nuevas sensaciones I ' 2
The poor ruins simply consisted of a block of red
sandstone, hollowed out into the shape of a trough,
and I much fear now subjected to trough-like uses.
It had evidently held the holy water, but the only
remarkable feature about it was the conduit fitted
to it, which, in place of lead, was made of solid
silver. But the simplicity of this relic of the past
only enhanced the sublimity of a remark worthy to
be classed with the finest sayings of the great
Monsieur Prudhomrne, or the still greater Monsieur

2 < Weary of palaces, you come to these ruins in search of new
sensations.'

o2

196 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xn.

Perrichon. It reminded me, somehow, of the story
of a friend — an extremely shy man — who, on the
occasion of some ceremonial, had been sent for,
much to his distress, in the State (glass) coach of
the Eepublic. As he sat in this very handsome
vehicle, in a thoroughly uncomfortable frame
of mind, feeling very much as if he made up a
Lord Mayor's Show all to himself, he addressed
some harmless complimentary remark to the high
official deputed to escort him, about the upholstery
of the coach, which was of a tender blue and
white — the Argentine colours — and was not a little
startled by the majestic reply he received : ' Si,
Senor ! muy simpdticos son los colores de nuestra
landera nacional ! ' 3

When the ruins had sufficiently retremped our
moral fibre, enervated by the Capuan delights of
Buenos Ayres palaces, we turned our horses' heads
and rode down the hill by the side of a very pic-
turesque, tangled quebrada, or ravine, in the re-
cesses of which lay a sugar-mill. Sugar planting
is as yet in its infancy in these regions ; but there
seems little reason to doubt that it may prove a
highly profitable speculation, and that the lowness
of water freights to Buenos Ayres — not more than
forty shillings per ton — ought to enable the planter

3 'Yes, sir! most sympathetic are the colours of our national
tanner!'

CHAP, xn.] SAN MATEO 197

to compete successfully with sugar grown as far
inland as Tucuman and brought mainly by rail to
the port of shipment. On my return to Buenos
Ayres I heard of considerable tracts of land having
been purchased on the river, not far from Santo
Tome, for the account of a company about to try
the experiment.

A council of war was now held on board as to
our future movements. We were somewhat divided
in opinion ; I, for my part, being desirous to push
up the river as far as possible. Some risk, how-
ever, attached to our doing so, on account of the
very sudden falls to which the Uruguay is liable.
It appeared, too, that our steamer was not insured
for any point beyond Santo Tome. More cautious
counsels prevailed, therefore, and, at the suggestion
of the Correntine explorer, who had accompanied
us on board, it was agreed that we should content
ourselves with going a few miles further up to the
island of San Mateo (erroneously set down as a
pueblo on Petermann's map), where we could re-
plenish with fuel, and whence, in the afternoon, we
might start on our journey home.

Steaming close to the Argentine shore, up a
wide reach with numerous islands, we presently
stopped alongside the woodcutting station, and,
after a stiffish scramble up a bank of sticky red
clay — which, by the way, proved fatal to poor

198 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XII.

B 's nether garments — found ourselves in the

midst of a charming specimen of tropical clearing.
The owner, a tall old Brazilian of extremely polished
and dignified manners, in features not unlike the
pictures of his respected sovereign, came forward
to greet us, and led us inside his enclosure, which
contained half a dozen huts, neatly put together with
bamboos and strips of bark, and clustering under
the shade of a gigantic ombii-tree. We were at
once surrounded by two or three generations of the
old gentleman's family, all more or less en desha-
bille. The ingenious get-up of one small half-
naked urchin, who came up to me confidingly
with a bunch of flowers, made an impression on
me. He had on a garment apparently made from
an old tail-coat, sewed up round his waist, and cut
out in front like a fashionable dress-waistcoat — so
that he seemed to be in evening clothes, his little
brown body serving for a shirt-front — and a dirty
little cotton smock hanging halfway down his thin
bare legs.

Besides felling wood and sawing planks, our
host grew some sugar and mandioca. A rough
kind of apparatus for manipulating both these was
erected in front of the huts, but the women were
busy crushing maize for the favourite dish of these
regions called the maza-morra^ which once furnished
the Dictator Eosas with one of the apelike tricks

CHAP. XII.] A FREAK OF ROSAS 199

he loved to play on those whom he either feared or
hated. The victim on this occasion was the British
Minister, Mandeville. Eosas was expecting him one
evening at his house at Palermo, and had instructed
his daughter to stand pounding maize in the veran-
dah when she saw the Englishman coming. The
courteous Mandeville, finding pretty Manuelita en-
gaged in this menial labour and showing signs of
fatigue, offered to relieve her in her task, which,
' after compliments,' as they say in Indian episto-
lary style, she allowed him to do ; Eosas, who had
been watching for this, suddenly coming on the
scene, with his usual train of courtiers and bravos,
to whom he childishly showed off the envoy of a
great Power employed in servile labour under his
roof.

Before leaving this very picturesque scene,
which, in many respects, reminded me of one of
my favourite boys' books, the Swiss Family Eobin-
son, our botanists managed to secure several re-
markably fine air-plants and orchids. One of the
latter grew out of the fork of the ombii some twenty
feet off the ground, whence it was brought down
by one of the woodcutters — a pure-bred Guarani
— who climbed, or rather walked, up the almost
perpendicular trunk in regular monkey fashion,
holding on by his big toe while he carefully dis-
lodged the plant.

2OO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xii.

It was now late in the afternoon, and much to
my regret we made our final start from San Mateo
down stream, only stopping for a few minutes
opposite Santo Tome to land our explorer. The
river was so full and the weather so perfect that it
was truly tantalising not to take a run at least as
far up as San Xavier, which is situated, about
sixty miles above, in the centre of the great
yerbales? in a district which in the Jesuit times
yielded ample revenues, but now is seldom visited
except by some stray Italian smuggler. Our
engineers, however, shook their heads, so there was
no help for it.

We were in a land of exceptionally beautiful
sunsets, but this evening's was specially lovely,
with softest tints of tender lilac and dove-coloured
grey such as I don't remember to have ever seen
before. We stood on deck, watching the amber
light die out in the west in most delicate grada-
tions, till we were driven by the heavy dew to
take refuge in the saloon. To-night, for the first
time since I had left Buenos Ayres, I was very glad
of a blanket.

4 Plantations of the Paraguay tea whence the mate is made.

CHAP. XIII.] SAN BORJA 2OI

CHAPTEE XIII.

BRAZILIAN TOWN OP SAN BORJA — CONTRAST BETWEEN ORDER
IN RIO GRANDE AND LAWLESSNESS OF CORRIENTES — LYNCH
LAW IN ENTRE-RIOS.

SHORTLY after daylight we slowed down, and before
long were off the landing-place of San Borja.
This small Brazilian town, situated some seven or
eight miles inland, is of Jesuit creation, though
not so old as Santo Tome, having been founded
about sixty years later, in 1690. It has an old
church, which we were particularly anxious to see,
as it was said to contain certain curious mecha-
nical figures of saints, which, in the days of the
Fathers, were made to roll their eyes or nod their
heads for the benefit of the credulous Indians.
We landed here by appointment with the poor
4 Count,' who had volunteered to send carriages to
meet us. This time we had to clamber up a long
canoe, which lay at an excessively steep angle up
the bank and made a capital ladder. Above, we
came upon springy turf stretching far in front of
us, and, at a rise in the ground, saw, with no little

2O2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xm.

compunction, our ill-used, but unresenting, friend
in person waiting for us with three very queer,
shaky-looking conveyances. Into one of these—

a kind of buggy — Mr. T and I climbed. A

heavy, square-built mulatto boy seated himself on
the footboard between our knees, and, with a yell
and a crack of his whip, started the pony at a
sharp canter. This did very well as long as he
kept to a sort of rough track marked across the
plain, but he soon took to devious courses across
country, plunging in and out of heavy ruts and
puddles, and plastering us from head to foot with
mud, and jolting the very breath out of our bodies.
Our remonstrances he simply answered with a jeer
and a broad grin. At last I could stand it no
longer, and seizing the young beggar by the scruff
of the neck gave him a good shaking, after which
he drove more carefully. The drive to San Borja
was otherwise thoroughly uninteresting. We met
one or two solitary paisanos on horseback, ambling
across the open country — one of whom was fully
done justice to by the skilful draughtsman of our
party, and might have been the knight of the
woeful countenance on his native plains of La
Mancha — and crossed a couple of long, low bullock-
carts drawn by a perfect procession of oxen. The
air was as fresh as on an early English summer
morning, and the sky above a speckless blue.

CHAP. XIII.] SAN BORJA 2O3

Three very large storks came sailing over our
heads in single file and doubled backwards and
forwards, escorting us most of the way.

San Borja struck me at once as quite different
from any Argentine place of the same size I had
as yet seen, and reminded me most of a small town
in one of our West Indian islands. The houses
are long and low and carefully whitewashed, with
sashes to the windows as in England ; the negro
interest is fully represented ; and when, at a turn
of the street, I espied a warrior in scarlet, the
illusion became complete. We were speedily rattled
into the praqa, one side of which is taken up by
the church we had come to see, the barracks stand-
ing at right angles to it.

The building used at present as a church is
built into the ruined remains of the more ancient
edifice, which bulge out upon the square and form
an imposing approach or forecourt to it. The
original structure must have been of very con-
siderable proportions, and had probably been
wrecked in the great war between the Spaniards
and Portuguese at the commencement of the
century, when the latter conquered the whole of
the territory belonging to the Misiones which was
situated on the eastern bank of the Uruguay. The
present place of worship scarcely deserves a visit,
but we were bent on seeing the miraculous images,

204 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xm.

which a slovenly, ill-favoured priest volunteered to
show us. He led us down some steps behind the
altar into a dark passage, where, by the light .of
a taper, we simply found a number of life-size
wooden statues, painted in what had been the
brightest colours — of Italian origin I should think,
and possibly dating back to the beginning of last
century — but all made of solid, honest walnut- wood,
in no way hollowed, and innocent of any internal
clockwork. Such images, in short, as may be
seen in any Italian village church, and which, all
over South America, are still borne in procession
on high festivals. I could well remember such a
procession, in the great Alameda of Santiago de
Chile, on Good Friday — and a beautiful sight it
was, with such surroundings of colour and light
and scenery, that even the poor images, carried on
high in all their tawdry finery on rolling platforms
or on men's shoulders, and tottering and staggering
as they went, detracted nothing from its solemnity.
Of all the rude, uncouth statuary which was now
shown us, the only figure worth looking at was an
entombed Saviour, the carving and painting of
which was not without a certain amount of pain-
fully realistic vigour and effect.

We soon had enough of this ecclesiastical pro-
perty chamber, and gladly emerged into the ugly
whitewashed church and the sunshine that poured

CHAP. XIII.] FRONTIER LANCERS 2O5

down upon the double row of massive broken
walls beyond it. The old bells were still hanging
outside on the usual gallows-like framework, the
largest bearing the date of 1723, with the inscrip-
tion ' In oppido Sancti Car oil* From the church
we went on to the barracks close by, a low, vaulted
building which had been used by the Jesuits as a
college. The troops quartered here were a squa-
dron of frontier lancers, both showily and sensibly
attired in a loose scarlet serge tunic, or blouse, with
a belt, baggy white trousers, and a white shako.
Besides their lances, they were armed with Westley
Eichards carbines, and both men and officers
had a decidedly smart appearance. Their arms
and accoutrements were well kept, and altogether
they looked quite fit to give a good account of any
Argentine raiders who should attempt crossing the
water. The Brazilian Government keep a respect-
able number of troops in this frontier province of
Eio Grande do Sul, echelonne'd all along the river,
which, during the greater part of the eighteenth
century, was the scene of ceaseless warfare be-
tween the colonial forces of the rival Crowns of
Spain and Portugal. A deeply rooted antagonism
still survives between the subjects of the Empire
and the citizens of the neighbouring Eepublic, and
may very possibly some day lead to fresh conflicts
on the battle-fields of old.

206 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xin.

Although San Borja is but an insignificant
bourgade with a few hundred souls, its clean, sober,
and fairly thriving aspect conveys to the mind the
idea of its forming part of a well-organised State
and an orderly community. I was assured that
there exists a striking contrast, in this respect,
between the whole of this southernmost province
of Brazil, and the specially lawless and disturbed
Argentine provinces which are divided from it by
the Uruguay. It would be too much to attribute
the apparent prosperity and contentment of the
people to their attachment to the monarchical form
of government under which they live, for this very
province of Eio Grande is said to be the head-
quarters of the Brazilian Eepublican party, and to
be ripe for secession from the Empire ; but it is
difficult not to believe that the order and security
of life and property, which are as manifest here as
they are wanting in the districts across the water,
are in some measure due to the stability and un-
questioned authority of the Executive. Notwith-
standing this, there is no denying that a general
impression exists that the present Emperor's de-
cease, whenever that occurs, might be the signal
for a disruption of the huge Brazilian State. It
will be, I venture to think, a great misfortune not
only for Brazil, but for the South American con-
tinent at large.

CHAP. XIII.] CATERANS IN CORRIENTES 2O7

On our return to our steamer, we acquired
painful confirmation of the anarchical condition
of Corrientes from the companion of the Count,
whom we had taken up the river with us two days
before from Itaqui, and who had now come on
board again to beg for a passage back to that
place. We found the poor fellow in a state of
most pitiable excitement and distress, and with
tears in his eyes he assured us he was now a
ruined man. He had only just heard that a razzia
had been made on some land he owned over the
water on the Argentine side, and all his cattle and
horses driven away by a party of marauders pro-
fessing to act under the orders of the Provincial
Government. There is little doubt that, since the
recent overthrow of the Mitrista party in Cor-
rientes, the adherents of the rival faction which
came into power have added wholesale spoliation
to proscription throughout that province. The
live stock on many of the larger cattle-farms has
been swept away by organised bands of caterans,
and driven over the border, there to be sold.
Some well-known persons at Buenos Ayres itself
have even been publicly charged with being im-
plicated in a nefarious speculation of this kind.1

1 Agents were said to have been sent to buy up, at ridiculously
low prices, a number of the stolen cattle. As every animal on an
Argentine estate is branded with its owner's mark, there can be no
manner of doubt as to its origin.

208 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XIII.

But far more serious than these acts of political
brigandage is the amount of crime which, in these
distant provinces, has been actually traced to the
local government functionaries. During my resi-
dence in Buenos Ayres, no less than thirty murders
of Italian subjects in Entre-Eios and Corrientes
were reported to the Italian Legation in the course
of six months, and, of these, nineteen were the work
of persons in authority. In one instance an entire
family of twelve persons was exterminated, under
circumstances of peculiar atrocity, by the Juez de
Paz (justice of the peace) of a place called
Curuzii-Cuatia, in Corrientes, and his two sons.
Other crimes were brought home to excise officers
and commissaries of police, and in no instance
were the criminals brought to punishment, all the
efforts of the Central Government to cause justice
to be done being frustrated by the much more
powerful Provincial influences. The independence,
not to say insolence, of the local authorities went
so far that on the Central Government transmitting
to the Government of Corrientes a copy of an
official note from the Italian envoy at %Buenos
Ayres, commenting on the crimes committed with
impunity on his countrymen, the Governor sent
for the resident Italian vice-consul, and desired
him to let his chief know that he would not put
up with such language, and that in the event of

CHAP, xm.] AN ANECDOTE OF LYNCH LAW 209

any of the persons whose punishment was de-
manded being arrested, he would use his pre-
rogative and pardon them, rather than allow
them to be condemned.

We talked over all these matters at breakfast,

and B gave us an illustration of the lawless spirit

reigning throughout these regions in an anecdote
of Lynch law in Entre-Rios, which, although some-
what lengthy and revolting in its details, I will
repeat, as nearly as I can, in his own words.

He told us that he was in charge, a few years
before, of the works on a bridge over the Mandi-
rovi Eiver, on the Eastern Argentine line, which
had been swept away by the floods and was being
rebuilt. Late one summer evening an engine
arrived at the north side of the river, for the pur-
pose of taking him and another engineer up the
line at daybreak the following morning. There
was an encampment on the further bank of at
least 200 workmen of all nationalities, and as it
was frequently necessary to cross the water during
the execution of the work, a ferryman had been
hired ^or that purpose, who, besides, made his
profit out of chance passengers. On the arrival of
the engine, the engine-driver and fireman got into
the boat in order to cross over to the encamp-
ment ; but the wood -passer, who accompanied
them — a steady, well-conducted Frenchman, who

p

2IO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xin.

seems to have been a, favourite with the engineers
— not having any money with him, hesitated
about using the boat, till assured by his compa-
nions that its owner was engaged by the Company
at a fixed salary to convey their servants back-
wards and forwards. On reaching the opposite
bank, the ferryman, notwithstanding this, claimed
un real (2^d.) from him, and a considerable alter-
cation took place between the two men, at the
end of which the poor Frenchman skulked away,
and, having no place to pass the night in, sat
down upon some empty barrels outside a pulperia,
where he soon dropped off to sleep. Meanwhile
the boatman — a Brazilian negro of a very low,
repulsive type — fetches his gun, draws the old
charge, reloads with ball, and, at a distance of ten
paces, shoots the sleeping man through the heart,

killing him instantaneously. B , who, with the

other engineer, had turned into a railway wagon
for the night, was roused by the report ; but shoot-
ing and stabbing were of such common occurrence
amongst the various gangs of navvies, that he at
first resolved to wait till the morning to know
what new outrage had been committed. He was
soon, however, knocked up by the engine-driver,
who told him what had occurred, adding that they
had secured the murderer and tied him up, and
wanted to know what was to be done with him.

CHAP. XIIL] AN ANECDOTE OF LYNCH LAW 2 1 1

The fellow had been taken to a little hut on the
edge of the river-bank which served as an office.

6 Here,' 2 said B , ' I found all the foremen,

timekeepers, and others assembled, with revolver
in hand, cursing and spitting at the repulsive -
looking object, and each man particularly anxious
that he should be allowed the privilege of des-
patching him.' The proper steps were, neverthe-
less, taken, and an engine ordered to be got under
steam to convey the prisoner to Federacion, a
small town two leagues off, there to be handed
over to the authorities. ' This pleased the prisoner
very much, as, having money, he knew perfectly
well that he could procure his release.' ' I re-
turned to the hut,' continued B , ' after giving

my orders about the engine, and found that, in the
general discussion which ensued, we unanimously
agreed that the pathway in front of the hut was
very narrow, and would be rather a dangerous
place should the prisoner slip whilst being con-
ducted to the train, and also, that, failing any such
mishap, it would be equally unpleasant should he
attempt to jump from the engine whilst crossing
a sixty-foot iron bridge between Mandirovi and
Federacion.

' The most indignant of the crowd was our

8 The passages in inverted commas are taken from a written account
obligingly furnished me afterwards.

p 2

212 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xm.

cook (a North American nigger), who busied him-
self particularly in tying the fellow up.' This
roused suspicion, and it was found that the knots
were so tied that with the least effort they could
be burst asunder, and further that the cook had
contrived to give the prisoner a knife. ' At last
the engine was ready, and the bulk of the men
were grouped about waiting to see the prisoner
embark ; but unfortunately on " the narrow path "
one of our men gave him a push, which sent him
down the bank into about thirty feet of water,
bound hand and foot. We watched this revolting
spectacle without any other feeling than that of
having performed a duty. The nigger cook made
an attempt to save the man, and was also pushed
into the river for his pains, and had great difficulty
in saving himself. I was very much struck by
the cool manner in which the prisoner went into
the water without a single exclamation, and even
managed to swim for about half a minute. Half
an hour after the occurrence we sent out a boat to
search for him in the dark, and came to the con-
clusion that he had made his escape and hidden
himself in the woods on the opposite bank. After
burying the Frenchman, we took a stiff glass of
brandy-and-water and retired for the rest of the
night.

c On the third day after the event, and during

CHAP, xiii.] AN ANECDOTE OF LYNCH LAW 213

a thunderstorm, the body of the murderer rose to
the surface, made a turn round his old boat, and
then floated down stream. Shortly afterwards two
" Napolitanos " were seen to take the corpse out
of the river, rifle the pockets, and throw it in
again. Then came the chief of the police to in-
vestigate the case ; but, finding that the murderer
had been the owner of the boat, he quietly took
possession of it and passed a verdict of " Ley de
Lynch." So the affair ended.

' For some weeks the corpse was seen sus-
pended by the waistband to some bushes on the
river-bank, with face, hands, and feet completely
devoured by the fishes. During this time we were
very much inconvenienced by having to bring
water from the neighbouring banados? as no one
cared to drink the river water, and also by the
vicinity of so disgusting an object. On the other
hand the Napolitanos rather approved of it, as
such fishing was never known before or after in
this river. They were at it day and night, and no
doubt looked on the nigger as ground-bait.

' This is a very ghastly narrative,' concluded
B , ' but I can assure you that the affair im-
pressed the remainder of the men to such an extent
that not another murder was committed, while
before they had been of almost nightly occurrence.'

3 Low lands permanently covered with water.

214 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP xni.

We now reached Itaqui, where we lay for the
best part of an hour, while some of our party dis-
coursed the local authorities about the future trips
of the ' Mensajero,' which is intended to perform a
regular service to this and other ports up stream.
Here we parted, with great expressions of cor-
diality, from the Count and his unfortunate com-
panion. The Count, it seems, is engaged in trade,
Itaqui being the seat of his business. He is a
most good-natured, civil creature, and long may
he flourish and live happily in his far-off home
by the bright, flowing river ! In one respect he
seemed to us an enviable man, for we saw him
very warmly greeted on his return by an ex-
tremely attractive person, whom we of course
assumed to be his Countess, and whose graceful
profile was hit off very successfully by our artist.

Just before we started, a Brazilian man-of-war's
boat drew up alongside, with the commander of
one of the monitors, who had come to visit one of
our officials. He was in full uniform, with cocked
hat and spotless duck trousers, and looked very
spick-and-span — indeed, by no means unlike a
smart English naval officer. Unfortunately he
spoke nothing but Portuguese ; but we learned
from him, through an interpreter, that the Brazi-
lians take good care to keep up a naval force in
these waters sufficient to ensure the command of

CHAP. XIII.]

CRICKET AT ITAQUI

the river, Itaqui being their principal station.
Their officers are much given to copy English
ways and customs, and they had even started a
kind of cricket — which, I confess, I should have
been rather curious to see. In fact, one of our
party, a member of the B.A.C.C., on his return to
Buenos Ayres, sent them a set of cricket imple-
ments of British manufacture.

A ' PAISANO ' AT SAN BOKJA.

2l6 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xiv.

CHAPTEE XIY.

LA CRUZ— WRECK OF THE JESUIT MISSIONS.

AT half-past four we drew up opposite La Cruz —
another place of Jesuit foundation, which we had
been told was worth a visit — and went on shore in
the dingy. Our road was up a gradual incline,
and was skirted most of the way by rough enclo-
sures made of rubble and the debris of older build-
ings, with here and there a larger block of red
sandstone let into them. A little further on we
came upon two biggish decapitated pillars of the
same material still standing by the roadside. At
the end of the rise we found ourselves in what is
left of La Cruz — a good-sized plaza, of irregular
shape, surrounded by a few very poor-looking
houses and garden walls, and at its southern end

the site of the ancient church. According to B ,

the front of this edifice was still partly standing a
few years back, a fact corroborated by Mulhall,
who speaks of La Cruz as the only Jesuit mission
still in a perfect state of preservation. But quite

CHAP. XIV.] A GUARANI ANDREAS HOFER 21 J

recently, as at Santo Tome, a utilitarian munici-
pality has quarried out the ruins or turned them
into cash. In their stead we found a very humble,
barnlike building, devoid of all ornament and
character, and without any decoration inside be-
yond a few hideously grotesque attempts at fresco-
painting. A modern belfry-tower, of some pre-
tensions, which, for a wonder, afforded orthodox
shelter to the bells, overtopped the church and
gave it a still more ignoble aspect.

Yet La Cruz, founded in 1629, had been one
of the chief and most richly endowed centres of
Misiones. The territory belonging to its juris-
diction extended to a considerable distance on both
banks of the river, Itaqui being one of its depen-
dent estancias. It was finally sacked and ruined
in 1817 by the Portuguese Brigadier-General
Francisco das Chagas, in a protracted struggle
against the remnants of the Indians of Misiones, led
by a half-breed — a native of Santo Tome — of the
name of Andres Tacuary, better known as Andre-
cito, who, like his namesake Hofer in the Tyrol,
seems to have fought for the independence of his
country long after it had been abandoned to its
fate by its former masters. For upwards of two
years this humble guerilla leader maintained an
unequal struggle, with varying success, against the
disciplined forces of Portugal, till he was finally

2l8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xiv.

made a prisoner in 1819, and taken to Kio, where
he died in captivity. In the course of this desperate
contest das Chagas utterly destroyed the settle-
ments of Yapeyii, Santo Tome, San Jose, and
others, and is reported to have carried off from
them sixty-five arrobas weight (about 2,300 Ibs.)
of church plate and ornaments, all made of solid
silver. Some of this spoil is said now to adorn the
Imperial chapel at Eio de Janeiro.

Although all vestiges of the body of the Jesuit
church had been ruthlessly removed, its ample
frontage was clearly marked by the rows of
broken stone steps which had led up to it. The
destruction of the college, and other buildings
grouped around it, is not as yet so complete,
massive remains of masonry still extending back
for upwards of a hundred yards. A few palm-
trees and fruit-trees growing in the midst have
turned these shattered refectories and cloisters into
pleasant gardens.

Clambering over a low wall we found ourselves in
what had been the spacious court of the college,
in the centre of which still stood, erect and un-
scathed, a solitary sundial of red sandstone fashioned
in the shape of a pillar. It bears the date of March
27, 1730, with a monogram of the Virgin and the
Sacred Heart beneath it. A little oven-bird (hornero)1

1 These interesting birds build their nests — made of a rough lump

CHAP, xiv.] GOOD WORK OF THE JESUITS 2IQ

had made its nest of clay at the summit, and sat
fearlessly watching us from above.

I will confess that this rude fragment of a past
by no means so remote, awakened in me an interest
deeper than that of mere curiosity. Tout est relatif,
but, however insignificant it may be deemed, the
story of the labours and achievements of the dis-
ciples of Loyola in these innermost recesses of
the continent is to me a singularly picturesque
and fascinating one. The saddening reflection of
how utterly the tide of intelligence and practical
civilisation brought in by them has receded from
these regions, to be replaced by a barbarism trans-
parently veiled under the least attractive forms of
modern democratic teaching and so-called progress,2
gave this homely relic of a wise and beneficent
theocracy a pathetic interest out of all proportion
to its value or importance. I could not but re-
member that the poor sundial had marked many
hours of patient, humanising toil, and witnessed
energies which, even if misdirected, aimed at
improving and raising the lot of a benighted and

of clay, with a division in the centre leading to a sort of secret chamber
— as far away from the ground as possible. For this purpose they often
select the top of the telegraph posts, where they become, of course, a
nuisance. Such is their industry, that in the course of a single night
they are said to make a fresh home for themselves in the place of the
one pitilessly knocked down the day before.

2 ' Corrientes,' said an intelligent Argentine to me one day, ' is
more than a century behind Buenos Ayres in civilisation.'

22O THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xiv.

downtrodden people. The golden age of the
simple Guarani was unquestionably under Jesuit
rule, and it may be doubted whether the proud
privileges of Argentine citizenship now enjoyed by
the remnant of the race have brought to it ad-
vantages to be compared with the benefits of the
firm and peaceful sway under which its forefathers
throve and multiplied.

Meanwhile it so happened that one of the
periodical manifestations of Argentine political life,
in the shape of an election, was affording a passing
excitement to La Cruz. We were crossed on the
square by a number of mounted Gauchos — of a
truculent type almost extinct in more civilised
Buenos Ayres — armed with lances, and booted and
spurred, and all adorned with sashes and ribbons
round their hats of the bright crimson which, in
the days of Eosas, was the badge of Federalism,
and had to be worn by man, woman, and child
under the severest penalties. These ill-favoured
gentry were leisurely riding home, after voting in
the church of La Cruz that morning for the electors
about to nominate the new Provincial Governor.
An < intelligent native,' who joined us and gave us
the benefit of his experience of the place, told us
that about seven hundred voters had come in for
the purpose from all parts of the Departamento.
Some of these scowling paisanos may possibly

CHAP, xiv.] SETTLEMENT AT LA CRUZ 221

have been lineal descendants of the Charriia
Indians, a peculiarly fierce tribe who gave the
early Spanish invaders much trouble and inflicted
serious disasters upon them.

Moussy says that the old settlement at La Cruz
formed a parallelogram of four hundred metres, or
three-fourths of a mile, surrounded by walls of
rough, uncemented stone. Its limits coincided in
fact with those of the plateau on which it stood,
and it is easy even now to trace them. From the
plaza which crowns the plateau the ground slopes
imperceptibly all round to where this circum-
vallation had been raised. ' Beyond this, it takes
a sudden dip to the river on one side, and on the
others to the boundless, treeless plain, at the ex-
treme verge of which, at a distance of at least
a dozen miles, stand out three curiously shaped

cones, simply known here as los tres cerros. B ,

who had visited them, said they were pyramids
of grass-grown granite some four hundred feet high,
according to his description not unlike the tors
which form so striking a feature of some of the
Somersetshire valleys.3

It was getting towards evening when we re-

3 Mr. Hutchinson, in his ' The Parana, and South American
Recollections,' quotes a letter from Bonpland suggesting that these
hills should be explored for quicksilver, which in his opinion they
contain.

222 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xiv.

traced our steps to the landing-place, being joined

on the way by our horticultural friend E ,

laden with lovely gardenias which he had got out
of one of the gardens in the plaza. He told us he
could not persuade the poor woman who presented
him with them to accept any money, till he happily
suggested to her that it might be applied towards
a cinta para la ninita.4 Perhaps one of the most
pleasing traits of South American life, due no
doubt to the deeply ingrained republican sense of
equality and its accompanying self-consciousness,
is a repugnance to remuneration for anything save
real labour. The more trifling services are ren-
dered freely and with an easy grace, and the odious
institution of vails and tips is almost unknown.
En revanche one has to put up with a trying
amount of familiarity and hand-shaking, and I
remember being much amused by the experience
of a friend who, a short time after his arrival, was
stopped one day in the street by a Frenchman, who
shook him warmly by the hand, and passed on with
a tender inquiry after his health. He knew the
man's face well enough, but could not for the
life of him put a name to it till some time after
they had parted, when it dawned upon him that it
was that of a Gascon chiropodist whose services he

4 A sash for the little girl.

CHAP. XIV.] A FRIENDLY CHIROPODIST 223

had required a few days before. His impulse was
to run after the man and tell him ' Sachez bien que
ce n'est pas ma main que je vous donne, mais rnon
pied ! ' but these happy inspirations unfortunately
always come too late.

224 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xv.

CHAPTEE XV.

SLIGHT HISTORICAL SKETCH OF MISIONES — PASO DE LOS LIBRES.

LA CEUZ being the last Jesuit settlement we visited,
a slight and hurried sketch of the history of the
Missions may perhaps not be out of place here.
The Order first turned their attention to the terri-
tories watered by the upper affluents of the Uruguay
and Parana as early as 1580,1 barely fifty years
after their first conquest (1537) by Martinez Irala,
the founder of Asuncion, which city remained for
nearly a century the capital of all the Spanish
possessions in these regions. It is an astounding
fact, by the way, and most characteristic of the
fearless self-reliance of the invaders, that, a mere
handful as they were, they should, instead of con-
tenting themselves with fastening upon the coast-
line, have at once boldly sailed up into the heart of
the continent, and established their centre of govern -

1 According to some authorities the first missions were established
even earlier than this (in 1557) by Father Field, an Englishman, and
Father Ortega, a Spaniard.

CHAP, xv.] AN INDIAN EXODUS 225

ment at a distance of some two thousand miles
from the sea, which was their only secure base.
The daring spirit of adventure that marks the
exploits of the first Spaniards in America has, in
truth, never been surpassed, and of their leading
pioneers none showed themselves more intrepid
than the Jesuit fathers.

We first find them in the old province of
La Guayra, between the Y-Guazu and Tiete
rivers. Their stay here was, however, but of
short duration, all their earlier settlements having
been destroyed between 1620 and 1640 by the
Paulists, or Portuguese of San Pablo, and as many
as 60,000 of the Indian inhabitants carried away
into slavery. In 1631 a Father of the name of
Montoya led an exodus of 12,000 persons of both
sexes, flying from the inroads of these people,
whose savage brutality had gained for them the
nickname of ' Mamelucos.' The fugitives embarked
in seven hundred canoes, says the chronicler, and
floated down the Parana as far as the big fall of
Maracayii, whence they dragged their boats by
portage roads through the woods, re-embarking
further down, and finally reaching in safety the
Missions on the banks of the lower river.

The full prosperity and definitive organisation
of these Missions properly date from the middle
of the seventeenth century, when the Order owned

Q

226 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XT.

thirty- three large establishments, or Eeductions, of
which eleven were situated in the territory now
known as Paraguay, and which became the nucleus
of that State ; the remaining twenty-two occupying
the Mesopotamia formed by the Parand and Uru-
guay, and extending on the left bank of the latter
river into what is at present the Brazilian province
of Eio Grande. The Jesuits brought the whole of
these vast tracts into cultivation, and parcelled them
out in large estancias and plantations, on which
they not only employed the native Guarani tribes
in the most profitable branches of tropical hus-
bandry, but trained them to every variety of
manual labour. In the large workshops attached
to all their settlements, the indigenes were taught,
besides the more ordinary trades and handicrafts,
some of the higher industrial arts, such as watch-
making and printing, and working in precious
metals, and even painting and carving in wood and
stone. Jealously guarded from all intercourse with
the outer world, their establishments were, in fact,
thoroughly self-supporting, and supplied all the
requirements of the population. In their schools,
too, the Indians received a very fair amount of
elementary education, certainly superior to what
was current in those days in the rest of the Spanish
dominions. It would be tedious to enter into any
detailed account of their laws and administration,

CHAP, xv.] FATE OF THE 'CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC' 227

or of their agrarian system, which has given rise to
many controversies, and unquestionably had some
curious communistic traits : a certain proportion of
the lands belonging to each settlement being held
and cultivated in common by the inhabitants, as in
the Eussian mir. Although much has been written
about this ' Christian Eepublic,' as it has been
called, hidden away in the heart of the continent, a
certain mystery will ever attach to its history and
institutions. But on one point the testimony of
even the most bitter adversaries and detractors of
the Order is unanimous — the flourishing condition,
namely, to which they brought the Indians under
their care. To the fame of their prosperity and
riches they, no doubt, in a great measure owed
their fall ; but its immediate cause arose out of
the Treaty of Madrid of 1750 between Spain and
Portugal, by which a great portion of the territory
of Misiones was ceded by the former to the latter
Power. This cession was made in exchange for the
colony of San Sacramento, or Golonia as it is now
called, founded by the Portuguese in 1692, exactly
opposite the city of Buenos Ayres, and which had
become the centre of a gigantic system of contra-
band, extremely irksome to the authorities of the
strictly guarded Spanish territories on the southern
shore of the Plate. Although the existence of this
Portuguese outpost was as inconvenient as it was

Q 2

228 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xv.

galling to Spanish pride, the equivalent offered for
its cession is characteristic of the absurdities of the
Spanish fiscal policy, since, to stop the smuggling
carried on by means of this one port, Spain sur-
rendered a large portion of the productive terri-
tories at the back of it. The treaty, however,
was likewise in a great measure directed against
the Fathers. Under article 16 of the instrument,
all the missionaries and their flocks — then reckoned
at upwards of 30,000 families — were to be turned
out and located elsewhere in the Spanish posses-
sions.

The Jesuits resisted the treaty by force of arms.
Their people had been trained to military exercises
to defend themselves from the Mamelucos and
their allies the fierce Tupi Indians, and this had
indeed furnished one of the accusations made
against the Order of meditating designs disloyal to
the Crown of Spain. Under the leadership of the
valiant cacique Sepe Tyarayu, the Guaranis made
a stout resistance to the Portuguese charged to
occupy their territory, and, although nominally
subdued in 1756, took to the woods, whence they
continued to harass the invaders, cutting off their
convoys and smaller detachments of soldiers. This
war is said to have cost the Portuguese twenty- six
millions of cruzados, or upwards of six millions
sterling. The treaty which led to it was annulled

CHAP. XT.] THE FATAL EDICT 2 29

in 1761 ; but meanwhile Ponibal, exasperated by
the resistance of the Fathers, had expelled their
Order from Portugal in 1759. In Spain, too, the
storm, which had long been brewing, now burst
upon them with full force, a royal edict of April 2,
1767, banishing them from the whole of the Spa-
nish dominions. The distrust and jealousy of the
colonial authorities, together with the hostility of
the regular monastic orders, no doubt hastened
this measure and overcame the sympathies of the
Court, which were rather in favour of the Jesuits.
The Marquis Bucarelli was sent out as Governor
to Buenos Ayres to carry out the decree, and did
so with unsparing rigour. The Indians appear to
have been driven to despair by the expulsion of
their rulers and teachers ; Moussy prints a touch-
ing letter from the Cabildo (municipality) of San
Luis addressed to Bucarelli in February 1768,
imploring that the Fathers might be allowed to
return to them. They were, however, handed
over to the mercies of Spanish civil administrators,
who, to curb their independent instincts, resorted
to corporal punishments, carried their children
away to be educated or put out to service at
Buenos Ayres, allowed the colleges where they
had been instructed to fall into ruins, and applied
to them the treatment awarded to the Indians of
all the encomiendas. If the testimony of statistics

230 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xv.

is to be relied on, the effect of these measures on
the population soon showed itself in an appalling
manner. The contest with Portugal, together with
severe visitations of small-pox and measles, had
reduced their numbers, at the date of the edict,
from 140,000 to some 110,000 souls. Thirty years
later, in 1796, they were reckoned by Azara —
certainly no friend of the Jesuits — at barely 30,000.
The War of Independence and the devastations of
das Chagas and his Portuguese completed the ruin
of the province of Misiones. Yapeyii, its former
capital, which at the time of Azara's account still
had 5,500 inhabitants, is said now to be buried in
dense and almost impenetrable wood. Of the con-
dition of Santo Tome and La Cruz we had ourselves
opportunities of judging.2

Not only here, but all over South America, the
fruits of the edict, as regards the native races, were
the same, the Jesuits having everywhere interposed
themselves between the gentle, docile Indians and
the brutalities of the civil power. In fact, next to
the edicts of proscription against the Jews and
Moors, this decree was perhaps the most unwise
and disastrous in its consequences that ever issued
from that strange Spanish council which, by an

2 D'Orbigny, writing fifty years ago, estimates the entire population
of Misioues at 3,000. It has no doubt increased to some extent in the
last few years.

CHAP. XV.] PARAGUAYAN HEROISM 23!

absolutely inscrutable design of Providence, was
for three centuries allowed to misgovern and
ransack the New World at its wrong-headed,
blundering will. In our own time the Paraguayan
war has afforded convincing proof of the genius
of organisation and administration of the Order.
The traditions of implicit obedience and devo-
tion implanted in the Indians of Paraguay by
the Jesuits, alone enabled the tyrant Lopez to
make a defence which can fairly be described as
heroic. Almost the entire male population perished
in the defence of the country. A census taken
three years after the close of the contest showed
that the number of inhabitants had dwindled from
upwards of 1,300,000 souls down to 220,000, of
whom not 30,000 were grown men.3 History con-
tains no ghastlier record of the results of war.

We lay for the night off Uruguay ana. It was
our last evening on board, and rather a noisy one,
enlivened by songs and Christy Minstrel choruses,
during one of which even the most staid of our
officials were seen marching round and round the
saloon to the tune of the ' Mulligan Guards ! ' — much
to the discomfort of the whist-players. In the

3 The figures, which I copy from the Statesman's Year Book, are
as follows: A Government enumeration made in 1857 showed a
population of 1,337,439 souls. An official return made at the begin-
ning of 1873 puts the entire population at 221,079, comprising 28,746
men, 106,254 women over fifteen years of age, and 86,079 children.

232 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XT.

morning we crossed over to Paso de los Libres — the
Passage of the Free. 'What free?' I ask. To

which the ever ready B at once replies : ' Los

libres de derechos ' (the free of duty), in allusion to
the smuggling propensities of the place. With its
high-sounding name it is but a mean, uninteresting
spot, though graced by a monument to the eminent
botanist Amedee Bonpland, the companion and
fellow-worker of Humboldt, who, after a chequered
existence, during some years of which he was
forcibly detained in Paraguay by the Dictator
Francia, withdrew to this place, where he married
a china, and died in 1858 : a sad and sombre
ending to a life of brilliant scientific research.
At Yatay, in the immediate neighbourhood of Paso
de los Libres, or more correctly Eestauracion, was
fought one of the earliest and most sanguinary
actions of the Paraguayan war, in which a small
force of Paraguayans was defeated, after an ob-
stinate struggle, by three times its numbers of
Allied troops. Lopez's soldiers did no harm to the
place, but at Uruguayana on the opposite shore
they committed great ravages.

During our stay here we were again invaded
by the natives, one of whom considerably dis-
gusted us by doing the honours of the ship and
coolly asking his companions whether they would
not take some refreshment : < Non tornara Yd. un

CHAP, xv.] A VILLAGE BELLE 033

cafe?' just as if he had been in some public
eating-house instead of on board a private steamer.
As a set-off to this pestilent fellow, we had among
our visitors an extremely pretty, ladylike girl,
with auburn air and delicate features that curi-
ously reminded me of a family which has fur-
nished London society with some of its principal
beauties. As she stood afterwards on the shore
with her friends, watching our craft as it moved
off and got under way, one felt half sorry to leave
her behind with the boors of her dull Argentine
village. But in no country, are the women of the
better classes so superior to the men in every way
as in this.

234 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP XYT.

CHAPTEE XVI.

SALTO ORIENTAL — THE GREAT RAPIDS — PAYSANDtf — DOWN
STREAM TO BUENOS AYRES.

STEAMING against half a gale, which makes the river
very rough and seriously impedes our downward
progress, we pass, about three o'clock, an obelisk of
stone, raised at the end of an island on our left,
which marks the boundary between Brazil and
Uruguay. At half-past four we reach the creek at
Ceibo, where we bid adieu to the ' Mensajero,' and,
as yet an unbroken party, get into the special
which is waiting for us. We run through to
Concordia without a break, drawing up at the
station as the clock strikes half-past eight. There is
not much time to be lost if we would get to Salto,
on the opposite bank, that night ; so we part very

reluctantly from Mr. S and B and two

others of our party, and find our way, in the broad
moonlight, to the landing-pier, where a good-sized
cutter, kindly detailed for our service by the
Captain of the Port, is waiting to take us across.

CHAP, xvi.] SALTO 235

It is a longisli pull of more than an hour
against the stream, so that by the time we land and
are walking up the steep and ruggedly paved
streets of the town, it has got late, and certainly
seems so to our supperless company. The streets
are silent and empty and the house-fronts un-
lighted. What life there is in these small South
American towns, concentrates after dark in the
patios at the back of the houses, whence issues
now and then some hackneyed scrap of Verdi
strummed on a jingly piano. At last we espy
lights in a good-sized building on the left-hand
side, which we rejoice to find is the inn we are in
search of. Tired and hungry as we are, both food
and beds seem to us perhaps exceptionally luxu-
rious ; but the fact is, that the Hotel Oriental at
Salto is so far superior to any establishment of the
kind we are acquainted with in the Eiver Plate,
that it deserves more than a passing commendation.
Its proprietor is a Gascon, who so thoroughly
understands his business that we wonder he does
not attempt a greater field of action than is afforded
by a remote town of the Banda Oriental, by coming
to teach Buenos Ayres what hotel-keeping ought
to be.

Salto, seen by daylight, has a decidedly bright,
cheerful look. It is a considerable provincial centre
for this part of Uruguay, besides being the terminus

236 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvi.

of the Alto Uruguay Eailway (our opposition line),
and above all the seat of the prosperous ' Mensaje-
rias Fluviales ' Steamship Company, who have their

dockyard and workshops here. Mr. W , whose

residence it is, very kindly volunteered to do the
honours of the place. We strolled with him down
the main street, which has a few very well-built
houses with one-storied fronts — lavishly decorated
with marble — and inner patios bright with flowers,
giving evidence of considerable wealth. Our ci-
cerone, who seemed to be on bowing or nodding
acquaintance with the entire population, amused us
by the distinguishing appellations he gave some of
these sumptuous dwellings. One was the house of
forty thousand cuernos (horns), and further on that
of thirty thousand — which, being interpreted, meant
that the young ladies whose homes they were had
the credit of being heiresses to that number of
cows. Of other houses he told us very different
and terrible things. A villa on the opposite shore,
overhanging the river, had a tradition attached to
it worthy of the ' Tour de Nesle.' Men were said
to have entered it alive and hale after dark, and
left it again — as did Marguerite de Bourgogne's
lovers — ' damp, uncomfortable bodies,' drifted
away by the stream ; so, at least, it was whispered
by the mauvaises langues of the place. But such
things should be forgotten — like the scandals of

o,
UN!

CHAP. XYI.] ON THE WAY TO THE RAPIDS 237

King Arthur's court which some severe provincial
dame blamed Mr. Tennyson for raking up.

The falls of the Uruguay are the great lion of
Salto, and from them the place derives its name.
The managers of the Eiver ^Navigation Company
most obligingly offered us a steam launch to take us
up to them, so we proceeded thither about noon, in
a broiling hot sun. Although I can hardly con-
scientiously recommend the excursion to others, it
is not without interest. Of course the aspect of the
falls must vary considerably with the volume of
water in this singularly capricious river, but I am
inclined to think that the title of Grand Leap (Salto
Grande) given them is a piece of Castilian grandilo-
quence, and that they are never much more than
rapids on a very great scale, though as such none
the less obstructive to navigation. After steaming
up the current for an hour and a half under a
merciless sun, we left our launch at a point just
below the falls where an arroyo disgorges itself into
the river between two steep banks, under cover of
one of which there lay a biggish schooner bound
upwards, and arrested in its course by a sudden
subsidence of the stream ; it was partly unloaded,
and may have been there for weeks, and have
weeks to remain there yet. We ascended the op-
posite bank, and took a rough cut across fields
covered with vivid patches of the scarlet and purple

238 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvi.

verbena Tweediana ; l the river to our right was
hidden from view by a wooded slope. A short
half-hour's walk, over very uneven ground, brought
us to the head of a kind of ravine, looking down
which we had a complete prospect of what we had
come to see.

A wilderness of shallow, troubled water was
the general impression at once conveyed. The
mighty river, vexed and hindered in its progress by
a long succession of step-like reefs, had spread it-
self out over an immense area, breaking its way in
lines of foam through the narrow channels worn by
its action, and eddying in the deeper places with a
force that made the water appear to be seething
upwards from concealed caldrons. The great slabs
of dark, slimy rock which remained uncovered in
the midst, or were simply trickled over by the
surging flood, literally swarmed with water-fowl,
drawn to the spot by the fish that lay temptingly
in view in the shoal water 'all round. The entire
long -billed tribe — cranes and herons and storks of
every variety — stood there in serried files, watching
their chance with a terrible earnestness — undis-
tracted by the myriads of restless gulls which circled
above them uttering their plaintive, wearisome cry.
These professional fishers must have had a won-

1 So called from a Scotch gardener of the name of Tweedie, who
has the credit of having discovered the plant some fifty years ago.

CHAP, xvi.] A DECORATIVE FOUNTAIN 239

derfully good time of it, for even from the height at
which we stood we could see their prey darting
about in the yellow current, while now and then
some big creature — probably a dorado* — would
leap out and flash for a second through the sun-
shine.

Our return down stream was made pleasant by
a southerly breeze, but the scenery was monoto-
nous and lifeless in the extreme, the only object of
interest being a large eagle which followed in our
track for some time along the sparsely wooded bank.
We got back in time to take a drive with Mr.

W through and all round the town, which is

scattered up and down hill over a considerable ex-
tent of ground. As compared with Argentine places
of the same size, it is exceedingly trim and neat in
appearance, and has all the outward signs of pro-
sperity. An unusually artistic fountain decorates
its central square, and is remarkable for its orna-
mentation of rough agates and cornelians. I had
already noticed a number of these stones in the
roads at Concordia ; they are exported in consider-
able quantities to Germany, where they are turned
into those thousand knicknacks in the shape of
bonbonniereS) trays for cigar-ashes, &c., which make
up the cheap rubbish of the stalls at every German

2 A kind of inferior salmon — poor eating, like most of the fish in
these rivers.

240 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYI.

watering-place. Oberstein, on the railway from
Forbach to Bingerbriick, is, I am told, the chief
centre of this industry.

We got back from our drive at sunset, at -the
hour when the ninas, rich or not in cows, sally
forth for their evening stroll in groups of three
or four, or lounge gracefully in the doorways of
their houses. Along the side walks resounds the
sharp tread of the gallants who reconnoitre the fair
ones as they pass, twirling a waxed moustache, and
blowing clouds of doubtful fragrance from their
cigarettes. A hum of female voices and subdued
laughter fills the quiet streets and the pretty square,
where the benches under the acacia trees are all
tenanted — mostly by country folk, men in ponchos
and chiripas, and sallow-faced chinas, with coils of
coarse black hair twisted round their heads or
hanging down their backs. The plashing of water
from some fountain in an inner patio falls refresh-
ingly on the ear, for the day has been unusually
sultry, and an unpleasant steaminess still pervades
the sun-scorched streets. Fortunately there are
cooling drinks and a cool terrace at the Oriental,
where we pass our last evening at Salto in pleasant
talk over the condition of the country.

Things have again become somewhat critical in
the Banda Oriental since the resignation of Colonel
Latorre. It is barely six months since that officer

CHAP. XVL] JUSTICE IN THE BANDA ORIENTAL 241

took the almost unexampled step of voluntarily
surrendering his dictatorial powers, with the quiet
remark that he found his countrymen ungovern-
able, and already the withdrawal of his firm hand
is showing its effects in a marked increase of crime
and lawlessness. His rule, whatever its faults, was
marked by unsparingly even-handed justice. Mr.

W told us of an atrocious murder committed,

a short time back, on a wealthy landowner in this
department by some persons who were staying
with him as his guests. The assassins, seven in
number, were men of position— one of them a
colonel in the army. Latorre made short work of
them, and, after a summary inquiry establishing
the facts of the crime, had them all shot with-
out further trial. This rough-and-ready style of
justice is unfortunately the best suited to a state of
society where personal influence and position, aided
by corruption, make a fair trial almost impossible,
and, in many cases, assure impunity to the offen-
der. A still simpler mode, employed on occasion,
of making punishment certain consists in blowing
out the brains of the prisoner, and announcing in
the public prints the next day that he tried to es-
cape and was shot in the attempt ' by sergeant so-
and-so.' There seems little doubt that towards the
end of Latorre's regime a security almost unknown
before reigned throughout the Banda Oriental.

R

242 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYI.

We were sorry to leave Salto, but berths had
been bespoken for us in the ' Jupiter,' and business
besides made our return to Buenos Ayres impera-
tive. Our start had to be made at ' the incense -
breathing hour of cock-crow,' to borrow from the
pet phraseology of a well-known Buenos Ayres
paper. I don't know about the incense, but at
that hour the courtyard of our hotel, with its beds
of flowers, both smelt and looked delightfully fresh
and sweet in the early sunlight. We left it, laden
with orange blossoms and gardenias, three mag-
nificent bushes of which latter plant, fully four
feet high, grew in the centre, shedding their fra-
grance all round. On board the steamer we

parted from Mr. W , after obtaining from- him

a promise of contributions from his clever pencil ;
and a short run brought us abreast of Concordia

where Mr. S came off to take leave of us with

the Captain of the Port, Don Mariano C , a very

gentlemanlike man, whose brother is an officer

of high rank in the Argentine navy. Mr. S

gave us an interesting account of Don Mariano's
wonderful escape from death, when quite a lad,
in 1846. He was shut up, with other political
prisoners belonging to families obnoxious to Eosas,
in a room into which the mashorqueros 3 of the

3 The Mashorca was a club, or secret society, of terrorists devoted
to Rosas, who on occasion furnished the instruments of his private

CHAP, xvr.] THE MASHORCA 243

tyrant were let loose one day with orders to spare no
one. The bloody work was done most effectually ;

young C -, who alone was riot mortally, though

severely, wounded, swooning away and being left
for dead with the rest. On recovering conscious-
ness he so wrought on the pity of one of the
guards, that the man helped him to conceal him-
self till sufficiently recovered to effect his escape.
We legitimately pride ourselves on affording an
asylum to all political refugees indiscriminately ;
but I confess it is to me a trying reflection that
the author of an endless catalogue of atrocious
crimes, of which the above was but a sample,
should have lived and died in not unhonoured
exile on our shores.4

There is little left to relate of our run down
the river. The ' Jupiter ' was well stocked with
passengers, mostly of an undesirable kind, one

revenge. The ruffians whom they employed were often recruited from
among the butchers in the saladeros.

4 The writer of an interesting book, recently published, on Italian
emigration to these countries (A. Marazzi, Emigrati : Studio e Racconto)
professes to give the exact number of the victims of Rosas during part
of his rule, from 1829 to 1843, According to these tables of blood
(tavok di sangve), as he calls them, 22,404 persons died a violent death
during that period. From these must be subtracted 16,520 whom he
puts down as having fallen in battle, the remaining five thousand
eight hundred and odd having, by his account, had their throats cut
(sgozzati), or been stabbed, or shot, in cold blood with, but more gene-
rally without, the mockery of a trial. These figures seem monstrous
and are probably much exaggerated, but at no time, and in no country,
was political assassination carried to greater lengths.

B 2

244 TIIE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYI.

of whom had a peculiar way at meals of sticking
his toothpick — a very formidable one — behind his
ear, like a clerk's pen, during the intervals .of
using it. I have seen a good deal of this sort of
thing in different countries, but this seemed new
and original. The only place we stopped at for any
length of time was Paysandii, of ox-tongue celebrity
—a name which cannot but be familiar to travellers
by the Metropolitan Eailway, being placarded all
over its carriages. The quays here have a lively
look of bustle and activity ; it is remarkable, too,
for a church of considerable architectural preten-
sions, which obtrudes itself offensively on the sight.
After staring, in spite of oneself, at this exceed-
ingly ugly building, it was a relief to have one's
attention drawn off by an inn hard by it, humor-
ously dubbed by its proprietor ' Hotel Inaparcial ' —
surely a charming name, suggestive of even-handed
fleecing all round. Here, as well as at Concepcion,
we took in numerous bales of wool, which were
stacked high above the deck-cabins, in somewhat
dangerous proximity to the funnel. When one
had heard of the fate of some of the first boats
started on these rivers, it was pardonable perhaps
to feel a little nervous on the score of fire, and this
was especially the case when, darkness having set
in, one could see the sparks flying about all this
combustible stuff. The night was very dark and

CHAP, xvi.] PLAGUE OF MOTHS 245

close, with a wonderful play of sheet-lightning on
the horizon, portending a heavy storm from the
south-west. For some time I sat reading in the
saloon, while the others played whist, till we were
all driven out by a sudden irruption of innume-
rable large white moths, which almost put out the
lights, and flapped about one's face and ears in the
most insupportable manner. The tables and cush-
ions were completely littered with them in a few
minutes, and they fell in such quantities on the
deck outside as to make it quite greasy and slip-
pery. I have noticed the same curious phenome-
non at Buenos Ayres, immediately before a thunder-
storm, but never to such an extent as on this
occasion.

When we were called early in the morning, at
our journey's end, it was drizzling and blowing
hard — a regular pampero sucio. Seen through the
driving mist and rain the mole of Buenos Ayres
might have been the old pier at Hungerford Bridge,
and we felt far indeed from the verge of the tropics
we had trodden so lately. But we were home
again for one thing, and had letters and news from
the real home afar off to look forward to ; nor was
I personally disappointed, since, in the budget that
awaited me, I found assurance of no very prolonged
stay at this — to me in many respects the wrong
— end of the world.

246 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvii.

CHAPTEE XVII.

SUMMER IN BUENOS AYRES.

SOON after my return to niy country abode the full
summer heat set in. Nowhere, I think, have I
suffered more from it than at Buenos Ay res. Not
that the temperature rose as high as I have known
it do elsewhere, though during the hot months of
December, January, and February the thermometer
frequently ranged between 80° and 90° in the shade,
but that the atmosphere was so loaded with mois-
ture, that even the night breezes seemed to have
passed through steam before reaching me in my
verandah, and to have lost all their freshness.

In the narrow, ill-ventilated streets of the city,
one of course felt this damp heat much more, and
the nights there were sometimes absolutely suffo-
cating. As I had to go into town two or three
times a week on business, I generally used my friend

E 's lodgings as a pied-d-terre there, especially

on mail-days. E , who is the soul of hospitality,

had a couple of rooms at the disposal of visitors,
and in one of these a lit de sangle, or trestle-bed,

CHAP. XYIL] HOT NIGHTS 247

was put up for me whenever I wanted it. This
primitive kind of bed, which used to be common
enough in France, is known in native parlance as
a catre, which a cheery Irish skipper ' in the Queen's
navee,' who also much frequented these diggings,
charmingly rendered into ' cataract.' I have the
misfortune to be but a poor sleeper at the best of
times, and although, next to a hammock, I could not
have had a cooler crib, my cataract developed into
a perfect Niagara, and I tossed through so many a
restless night in it that I soon became painfully
familiar with all the nocturnal and early morning
sounds of the city. We generally dined late, in
the open air, in the pretty patio of the Foreign
Eesidents' Club, under the spreading branches of
a large tree, with lovely purple and white blossoms,
the name of which I tried in vain to discover ; and
afterwards adjourned for our cigar to a public

garden, a few doors from the house E lived in,

where there was a very fair orchestra, and occa-
sionally a Spanish zarzuela company.

They kept late hours at this place, and long
after I had left it and turned in, the strains of some
waltz, with a rumbling accompaniment from the
numerous trams and carriages that passed the door,
followed me through the breathless night, and kept
me awake well into the small hours. Towards
morning, when it got perceptibly cooler, and I at

248 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XTII.

last managed to snatch a little rest, the reveille at
the barracks on the Eetiro some distance off broke
through the stillness of the ' dark summer dawns '
and woke me again, not altogether unpleasantly.
First came a bugle call, quite by itself, and then
a sudden burst from the full band with a few bars
of a quaint old inarch which had evidently been
handed down from Spanish days ; then the bugle
again, and all was still once more. Presently, with
the first streaks of light, there appeared on the
scene my pet enemy, in the shape of a big brown
bird — the property of the old German landlady of
the lodging — whose cage was hung up against the
wall of ihe patio outside. Ornithologically I believe
him to have belonged to the interesting family of
thrushes ; although, unlike his congeners, he ap-
parently had no gift of song of his own. or had lost
it in captivity. On the other hand, in some evil
moment, he had been taught a fragment of a tune,
which he repeated with most damnable iteration
from earliest dawn till late at night ; a curiously
aggravating little scrap that broke off with a dis-
sonance on a suspended note, as if the poor bird
got out of tune there, and, having once gone wrong,
could not pick up the rest of it.

I can hear it now, in C natural : d g e ; edge;
edge; c d d g? The final g was a regular
note of interrogation, and seemed to say : ; Oh

CHAP, xvii.] AN ENCHANTED PRINCE 249

bother ! how does it go ? Do please come and
help me ! ' It worked considerably on my nerves
at first, I confess, and rather made me feel like
wringing the bungling songster's neck, but after a
time I got not only used to it, but somehow per-
versely interested, and longed to help the poor
little captive out of his difficulties. If there be any
truth in fairy tales — and who that knows Grimm
and Andersen does not wish them true ? — surely, I
thought, here might be the hero of one of them.
This wretched, dingy, iterative bird must be some
unfortunate enchanted prince — for local colour's
sake I would say an Indian cacique, were not those
chieftains so dreadfully unattractive — whose de-
liverance turns on his picking up the right note, and
singing out his little tune to the end. How hard
he seemed to try ! — now and then varying it with
a touching little quirk or fioritura, but always
breaking down at that same fatal place. But alas !
there was no helping him ; for

Fairies have broke their wands,
And wishing has lost its power.

Our naval Paddy offered a good round sum for
him, but nothing would induce old Frau Bauer to
part with him ; and there, no doubt, he goes on
hopelessly singing to this day, up in his cage
against the blistering white wall, with the fierce
South American sun beating down upon him.

250 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYII.

Hutchinson says somewhere in one of his books
that the first noises which attract attention in South
American cities are the sounding of bugles and
ringing of bells, and this I found to be painfully
true. Here, however, to the discordant jangle from
many church towers must be added the shrill voices
of a perfect plague of newspaper boys, who, long
before any rational being can possibly get up any
interest in the news of the day, are abroad all over
the town crying out their wares still wet from the
printing presses. ' El Nacional ! ' ' La Patria Argen-
tina!' shout these horrid urchins, with a vigour that
at first almost takes the stranger in, and makes
him weakly believe there may be some portentous
information in the sheets thus noisily hawked
about.

The number of daily papers that appear here
is quite out of proportion to the population, and is
the more surprising that not one of them has any-
thing like an extensive circulation. According
to a foreign journalist of the place, there are at
most two, out of some thirty of them, with a
sale exceeding 3,000 copies. The same authority
reckons the newspaper-reading public of Buenos
Ayres at not more than 40,000, of whom nearly
one half belongs to the fair sex and can therefore
take but a small interest in the political contro-
versies of the hour. Journalism, however, here,

CHA?. XVH.] NATIVE AND FOREIGN PRESS 251

as in the mother country, is a trade that carries
distinction with it and not unfrequently leads to
office and power, and the smart editor of to-day
may well hope to be the minister of to-morrow.
Some of the native papers, as the ' Nacional ' for
instance, are no doubt very ably written; but
the purely local, or at any rate strictly Ameri-
can, topics they deal with, as a rule, make them
dry and uninteresting reading to the ordinary
stranger.

The foreign communities have of course news-
papers of their own. The Buenos Ayres ' Standard'
is too well known out of this country to need
mention, and it is sufficient to say that it is edited
with conspicuous talent and just a shade of
Hibernian eccentricity. Of the two principal
French papers, the ' Union Francaise ' is in the
hands of editors of remarkable ability and literary
skill, and often contains valuable matter. The
unreasoning dislike it shows of England and all
that is English — and which is exaggerated by its
very inferior colleague the ' Courrier de la Plata '
— is on the other hand quite curious, and indeed
surprising on the part of such highly intelligent
and polished writers as those on its staff. The
foreign local press has so great a field and so
useful a mission before it in this country, that it
seems as if it should, above all, seek to direct and

252 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvn.

enlighten public opinion and keep itself well above
any petty prejudice or passion.

But to return to my friend E 's lodging.

Frau Bauer was quite a character in her way. She
had originally gone out years before to Caracas, and
had resided there for some time. Under a grim,
almost forbidding, aspect the poor woman concealed
a naturally sentimental disposition, which I suspect
to have been crushed and soured in her younger
days, and she was the kindest of souls. She had
been driven from Venezuela by repeated revolu-
tions, having had many people killed in her house
there, and had come on — almost from the frying-
pan into the fire — to this place, where she hired
the upper story of a small house, and underlet it

to lodgers. Besides E , who occupied nearly

the whole floor, and in whom she took the most
motherly interest, her only other tenant was a quiet
German music-master, who was out all day, but in
the evening practised the piano steadily, and, so to
speak, relieved the enchanted prince. Fortunately
his room was at the back, looking over the inner
yard, so that he did not trouble us much.

The waiting at this queer but delightful phalan-
stere was done by two juvenile Italians : a bonny
little girl of fifteen of the name of Teresa, with
lovely brown eyes and brilliant teeth and com-
plexion— sadly untidy, I fear — who helped the Frau

CHAP. XVIL] A PRECOCIOUS LAD 253

in the house and kitchen, and was a very superior
kind of Marchioness ; and a Genoese lad of about
the same age, who answered to the name of Jose, and

was E 's body-servant — a capital, hardworking,

steady boy, but the most conceited, self-satisfied
young rascal I ever saw. The lad's naive, solemn

ways so tickled E 's sense of humour that my

friend had quite let him take him in hand, and
young Joseph did exactly as he liked with him. The
origin of his bumptiousness could be traced to the
time of the siege, when he had been put in charge
of a set of signalling flags which were run up on the
flat roof of the house for communication with the
men-of-war in the river ; and the boy, from working
them, had got to think that he was actually in
command, and had accordingly become full of self-
importance. He was suspected of hoisting the
signals occasionally on his own hook, and of even
having brought the captain — our Paddy friend — on
shore when he was not wanted. Jose's only weak-
ness was the bowling-ground next door, whither
he adjourned whenever he had a chance. He was
especially great there on Sunday afternoons, when
I sometimes amused myself watching him from a
balcony that had a side view of the ground. It
was highly comical to see the impudent little rascal
looking on, with a critical air, at a game between
half a dozen great hulking compatriots of his, and

254 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYIT.

offering remarks on the play, which were apparently
received with perfect respect and deference, such is
the power of self-assertion. The only person who
stood up to him, and treated him with the good-
humoured disdain a girl generally has for a boy of
her own age, was pretty little Teresita. Poor Jose
was but a puny stripling and anything but mus-
cular, and, in his unbounded self-confidence, some-
times tried his hand at carrying or lifting things
that were much beyond his strength, when little
Teresita, who was as strong as a horse and as straight
as an arrow, would pounce upon him and contemptu-
ously whisk away the burden he was struggling
with in vain. Those must have been bitter moments
for poor Jose* !

Such pleasant breakfasts we had in the back
dining-room opening on to the balcony that ran
around the yard, as in ancient hostelries. It was
quiet here, and comparatively cool, away from the
clatter and glare of the street. The high dead wall
opposite, that shaded the yard, was relieved by the
green and pink of a few oleanders in big tubs ; on
the top of the flat roof a row of snow-white pigeons
glittered like silver against the intense blue above ;
along the sunlit passage comely, bright-eyed Tere-
sita came tripping with a dish of pejereyes or the
vaterlandische Schnitzel, which was solemnly re-
ceived at the door by the important Joseph. Sud-

CHAP, xvii.] A BIRD IN THE MANGER 255

denly there was a white flash across the sky and a
whirr, as in the courtyard of Sultan Bayazid, and
the whole flock of pigeons alighted round the
platter, which was put out on the balcony, for their
daily meal. I think I then realised for the first
time how thoroughly unamiable these birds can be,
for all their soft cooing and tender ways. There
was amongst them one who always made for the
platter first, and when he had fed voraciously —
taking savage little runs in between at any other bird
that ventured near — would deliberately squat down
in the dish and spread himself well out so as to
prevent any one from getting at it. The rest of
the company for a time timidly watched him in a
circle at a respectful distance, till at last, after much
fluttering of wings and strutting to and fro, half a
dozen of them screwed up their courage to the
necessary pitch, and, making a simultaneous rush
at this gluttonous bird in the manger, expelled him
for good. There was a deal of negotiation, how-
ever, before it came to action, and considerable
arguing of the 'just you go forward and I will
follow' type, such as may be occasionally heard
when more important bipeds are getting up coali-
tions.

But I hasten to bring these intensely personal
recollections to a close, as otherwise the most
indulgent of readers might well turn upon me as

256 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvn.

did the grumpy old Prussian general on the gushing
young aide-de-camp who was riding out with him
to the manoeuvres at break of day. ' Look, Herr
General, exclaimed the- enthusiastic youth, ' how
lovely is the sunrise ! ' ' Sunrise ! ' growled back
the old warrior ; ' don't bother me with your
private affairs ! ' ( Was, Sonnenaufgang ! Lassen
Sie mich init Ihren Privatangelegenheiten in Ruh /)

Of a summer evening the whole population
turns out into the streets, and from sunset till nine
or ten the centre of the town is as thronged with
well-dressed foot-passengers as the Passage des Pa-
noramas at Paris, or the Burlington Arcade on a wet
day in the season. The great delight of the Porteno
feminine world is to go shopping (ir d las tiendas) at
that hour, the shopping being generally but a pretext
for a display of the last pretty dresses and for
seeing and being seen. After seven o'clock the
streets are so full that even the uncompromising
trams — themselves crammed with passengers —
have to crawl along at a foot's pace like a London
four-wheeler. Fashion, here as everywhere else,
has set certain arbitrary bounds within which its
votaries may alone indulge in this evening saunter,
and these comprise at most a couple of hundred
yards of the Florida and Calle San Martin, on either
side of the point where those streets intersect the
equally frequented Eivadavia and Victoria, This

CHAP. XVII.] LADIES SHOPPING 257

limited space, as any visitor to Buenos Ayres would
remember, is the very heart or kernel of the city.
The ninas (girls), as the young ladies are uncere-
moniously termed here, make up parties to go on
these so-called shopping expeditions, and slowly
promenade, in groups of five and six, up and down
this narrow beat, till one wonders how their high-
heeled shoes can carry them any longer. It is
their only form of exercise, and they never seem to
tire of it.

At this hour, as has been well observed,
charming woman and an equally delightful free-
and-easiness reign supreme- in the streets. There
is scarcely any bowing or lifting of hats; the
merest acquaintances address each other quite
naturally by their Christian names, as if they were
near relations ; and the smartest nina of them all
thinks nothing of shaking hands with the gentleman
who is attending to her behind the counter, or of
bestowing a languid attention on the insipid com-
pliments with which he interlards the bargain.
The narrow foot-pavements are blocked up by a
stream of young women with high-pitched voices,
laughing and chattering and fanning themselves,
and altogether as much at their ease as in their
own drawing-rooms at home. As for the men, the
right thing for the gommeux of the place is to lean up
against the walls and in the doorways of the houses

258 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XTII.

and shops, or line the outer edge of the pavement,
the ladies filing past quite unconcernedly between
this double row of not over-respectful admirers.
It is not a very edifying custom, but so generally
recognised and long established as to be practically
harmless, though somewhat startling to a new-
comer. A clever and observant French writer
handles it sharply, and describes it as ' an inso-
lent lane of lighted cigars, loose remarks, and
at times unseemly greetings.' 1 This is severe lan-
guage, though in some measure not uncalled for.
The ladies are primarily to blame, of course, it
resting with them to command and insure the out-
ward respect which is their due, and which must
always be forthcoming whenever they take pains
to exact it.

No doubt, however, the Argentine youth of
the period is a highly irrepressible creature ; and
this owing mainly to unwise parental indulgence.
He is too often emancipated at an age when, under
European arrangements, he would still be strictly
kept to his studies in the schoolroom at home, or
in some public academy away from home. Boys
of thirteen or fourteen are allowed here a liberty
scarcely granted with us to lads several years their
seniors, and, as a consequence, put on, when

1 ' Deux hates insolentes de cigares allumes, depropos libres, et tfapos-
trophes quelquefois malstantes.'

CHAP, xvii.] PRECOCIOUS YOUTHS 259

barely twenty, all the pretensions of full-grown
men of the world. A natural physical precocity
intensifies, of course, the evil. Society is thus over-
run with immature youths of indifferent manners
who are too often puffed up with ill-digested
knowledge, or primed with the crudest theories,
and have experienced neither the wholesome,
subduing discipline of public school life, nor the
more refining influences of sound home- teaching
and example.2 Parental, like all other, authority
has not escaped the effects of democratic institu-
tions, as understood and practised by these neo-
Latin races. Parents and cliildren associate on a
footing of equality which almost degenerates into
an easy camaraderie. In part this is due to a
certain inequality of level, as regards education,
between the older and the younger generation, for
the extensive system of public instruction of which
the Argentines are justly proud is of very modern
growth, and nearly entirely the work of President
Sarmiento. From young men thus brought up, and
whose training has been almost purely that of the
intellect, it would be idle to expect any old-fashioned
regard for age or sex. The irreverential and sadly

2 The Buenos- Ayrean collegian, like the externe in French Lycees,
only attends school for a certain number of hours a day, and out of
school is left to do very much as he pleases.

s 2

260 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XTII.

sceptical youth of the day is bent above all on
securing his share of the goods and pleasures of
this world, though wellnigh weary of them, as it
were, before fruition.

A sombre, unattractive picture this, but for
the most part drawn by far more competent
hands than mine. Its uglier features will soon,
it may be safely predicted, disappear. Greater
maturity in the nation will generate more sterling
qualities and produce a more equal level in the
various classes of all ages composing it. The
young generation, now pardonably intoxicated
with a knowledge placed to its hand as it were
yesterday, and which was in great measure denied
to that which preceded it, will gradually make
room for soberer, more thoroughly educated suc-
cessors ; the daily increasing contact with more
perfectly trained European races will do the rest.
As elsewhere, society will insist on what is due
to it, and become its own policeman. But of the
old-world customs and courtesies — may-be super-
stitions— so cherished and' valued by us, little can
be expected ever to take deep root in this soil.

Wandering as I am about the streets, it must
be well understood that to the streets most of the
above strictures are intended to apply. There
exists here a remnant of thoroughly high-bred,
old-world society, which, in self-defence, keeps

CHAP, xvii.] AN OASIS 26l

very much to itself, and is by no means easy of
access even to the stranger who comes out furnished
with good introductions. It was my good fortune
to become acquainted with some of the families
composing it. One of the most charming of these
owned an estate on the Western Line of Buenos
Ayres, some twenty miles out of town, and of a
hot Sunday afternoon it was pleasant to run down
there for dinner.

A well-appointed wagonette, with a light roof
to it and open at the sides, met visitors at the
station, which takes its name from the owner of the
property. The house — a spacious rambling villa,
with numerous outbuildings — stands in the midst
of well-kept shrubberies, and is approached by an
avenue that leads up to a wide sweep of gravel in
front of the main door, dividing the building from
that very rare article out here — a large, though
somewhat unkempt, lawn, encircled by lofty pop-
lars and paraisos, dating back a good many years,
whose tops rustle in a perennial breeze even on
this stifling afternoon. The estate has been held
by its present proprietors for upwards of a century,
having come to them, I believe, through a match
with one of the descendants of Don Juan de Garay,
the real founder of Buenos Ayres,3 on whom the

3 Two anterior settlements made by Diego Garcia in 1530, and
Pedro de Mendoza in 1535, were destroyed by the Querandi Indians.

262 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvn.

Crown of Spain conferred vast possessions in this
neighbourhood after a crushing victory over the
Indians, which, from its sanguinary character, was
called Matanzas (or ' the slaughter ' par excellence),
a name that has extended to the entire depart-
ment.

Passing from the crowded, dusty train into all
this peaceful verdure, one experiences at once a
sensation of real country freshness which has be-
come quite unfamiliar. The great rough lawn, all
starred with daisies and buttercups, naturally leads
one's thoughts homewards to where ' the dewy
meadowy morning breath of England ' is ' blown
across her ghostly wall ; ' but the thick, rustling
curtain that screens it carries me back in quite
another direction, far away over the Andes, to the
wonderful avenues of giant Lombardy poplars,
meeting overhead like vast and dim cathedral
aisles, that stretch across the sunburnt plains of
Chile. The trees there, closely planted in double
and treble rows, form a perfect wall of foliage, and
under the cover of their impenetrable shade one
may ride for miles in the hottest hours of the day,
the scorching light filtering, as it were, through
folds of green gauze, and tracing leafy patterns
on the thick carpet of sand that deadens the
horse's hoofs.

The same grateful sense of refuge from heat

CHAP, xvii.] AN OASIS 263

and glare came over me on being shown across
the dazzling white colonnade into the cool twilight
of a lofty room that opened out of it. From a
corner of this spacious apartment two figures, clad
in soft white summer dresses, came forward through
the half-light to greet the arriving guests. Charm-
ing apparitions both of them: the one very dark
and the other as strikingly fair — the latter being
one of the married daughters of the house. It
was by no means my first visit here, but there is
a simple natural grace about these South American
ladies which would put the very shyest of Britons
at his ease and dispel all insular mauvaise honte.
As it is yet early in the afternoon, I almost suspect
our fair entertainers of having indulged in a slight
siesta in their cool, carefully darkened corner pre-
vious to our arrival ; but all their native animation
has come back to them now, and they make me,
and the friend who has accompanied me, thoroughly
welcome in perfect French, with just a pretty tinge
of Southern accent. Presently other members of
the family drop in and join our circle, the men all
dressed in well-cut white clothes, and we while
away the time with music and conversation till the
heat has subsided enough for an adjournment to
the garden, where a few misguided members of the
party start a fantastic kind of croquet — an abomi-
nable game which, by the way, I am glad to see,

264 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvn.

is exploded everywhere else. The two ladies who
first received us are both very good musicians,
especially the fair (doubly fair) one, who has been
extremely well taught, and plays Chopin, among
other things, remarkably well. The men meanwhile
— a grave judge and a senator amongst them — stroll
away to an immense tank in a secluded part of the
grounds, into which they plunge one after another
and disport themselves like so many light-hearted
schoolboys out for a holiday. A couple of car-
riages are presently brought round, and in the
crimson glow of a glorious sunset we are taken
for a drive all about the place, and across the flat,
here highly cultivated, plain that encompasses
this verdant retreat : the ladies driving, and hand-
ling the reins with perfect ease, and a caval-
cade of children of all ages escorting us on their
ponies.

The effect produced from the very first by this
large family-gathering — for there are three or four
married sons and daughters — is that of perfect con-
cord and of truly delightful domestic relations ;
and this becomes still more apparent when we all
meet round the dinner-table, the venerable master
and mistress of the house not appearing till then.
The affectionate, but somewhat ceremonious, respect
with which this charming old couple are treated
by all reminds me rather of what may be seen in

CHAP, xvii.] OLD-WORLD FAMILY LIFE 265

French family circles of the best class than with
us, and there is a kind of courtly, Faubourg-
St.-Germain grace, combined with a patriarchal
simplicity, about the whole thing, that leaves the
most pleasing impression. Our host, who is a
grandee in his way — one of the very few who could
fairly pretend to such a title in this thoroughly
new and carefully levelled society — is old enough
to belong almost to colonial days. He still keeps
open table, a custom which was universal in the
olden time, but is now confined to the houses of a
few of the greater estancieros. Leaving aside its
hospitality, the habit contributes to maintain some-
thing of the ancient bond between patron and
clients, and is almost the last and most commend-
able vestige of the social arrangements that ob-
tained under Spanish rule.

The old-fashioned circle is in fact growing
narrower day by day, and closing up more and
more. Of families such as this, which, without
making the least pretension to aristocracy, pre-
serves and hands down the best aristocratic tradi-
tions, but few are left. Like its ancestral domain,
it seems to be an oasis of freshness and health in
the midst of the feverish wastes of speculation and
pure money- seeking that surround it. One cannot
but desire that such as it may continue, for yet
awhile, to leaven and lighten the heavy dough of

LIBR4,
or THE

f UNIVERSITY )

266 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvn.

an almost exclusively mercantile, stock-jobbing
community, which, not having grown up like ours
among older forms, is too apt to live after canons
of its own not altogether attractive or commend-
able.

CHAP. XYIII.] AN INVITATION 267

CHAPTEE XVIII.

SUMMER IN THE PAMPA — BEAUTY OF THE CLIMATE — WILDFOWL
SHOOTING.

I HAD been asked several times by a friend and
fellow-countryman to his estancia, some eighty
miles south of Buenos Ayres — a model place in
every way deserving a visit — and towards the
middle of January, the heat continuing without
abatement and trying me very much, I made up
my mind to accept the invitation, and wrote to pro-
pose myself. ' Come at once, by all means,' was
the cordial reply. ' I have a few of our mutual
friends staying with me, and you will be doubly
welcome. I hope, too, to show you better beef

than our friend gives me credit for.' This,

in allusion to a standing joke against the writer of
the letter, who is one of the most careful and
successful stock-breeders in the River Plate, and
the owner of the famous Negrete breed of striped
merinos ; the fact certainly being that in a country
raising cattle in myriads, and felling it in heca-
tombs, and among a population which gorges itself

268 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XTIII.

on meat,1 the rarest thing possible is a tolerable
beefsteak.

The assertion may well sound paradoxical, but
all those who have resided for any length of time at
Buenos Ayres would admit its truth. The beasts
which are brought into town have too often been
driven, with little mercy, over very long distances,
and reach the market in a condition that makes
them almost unfit for food. Stall-feeding, too, being
hardly ever practised, even on the most expensively
managed estates, prime meat, such as we are
accustomed to in Europe, is quite the exception.
No one was better aware of this than my good
friend the estandero, and he was, accordingly,
rather sensitive on this point. He was, .never-
theless, as good as his word, and his beef was of
a keeping with the rest of his arrangements — that
is to say, excellent. There is no occasion, how-
ever, for dwelling at length on his hospitality,
which is well known far beyond the limits of the
Eiver Plate, and has been already done ample
justice to by other pens than mine.

It takes about five hours to get over the

seventy odd miles to Y , the station to which

I was bound on the Great Southern. People are

1 It Las been reckoned that the consumption of meat of the in-
habitants of Buenos Ayres (the town) is at the rate of 2 Ibs. a day per
head.

CHAP. XVHT.] SOUTH AMERICAN ' BUMMELZUG ' 269

seldom in a violent hurry in this country, and take
their travelling easily like everything else, and it
seems to matter little to the general public whether
they reach their destination a couple of hours
sooner or later. For one thing, it is not so long
since they performed their journeys on horseback,
or over impossible roads in a slow-paced coach, and
locomotion at fifteen miles an hour may well seem
to them speedy enough for all practical purposes.
Most of the passengers, too, are connected in
some way or other with agricultural or pastoral
industry, which of its nature can only be pursued
leisurely, the seasons, in their immutable course,
marking out the work to be done with a routine
which admits of little hurry or impatience. There
are no manufacturing or industrial centres to take
men backwards and forwards in hot haste with
watch in hand ; nor is there, of course, any travel-
ling for mere pleasure's sake. Even the feminine
element is almost entirely wanting, and, with the
exception of now and then the wife or daughters
of some landowner going up to town for their
shopping, very few ladies are to be met travelling
by rail. The trains, with their mixed bucolic
freight of farmers and peones, smart estancieros,
Italian labourers in fustian, burly Basque shep-
herds and swarthy Gauchos in ponchos and broad-
brimmed straw hats, go dawdling along through

270 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP, xviir.

the changeless plains in the most approved Bum-
melzug fashion, pulling up every twenty minutes
or so at some station without much apparent
reason. It is hot, drowsy, and, ^above all, dusty
work. The country never varies, and with the
map in one's mind's eye one can almost imagine
oneself being roused, after so many more hours of
it, with 'Straits, of Magellan! — Ten minutes for
refreshment ! — Passengers for Cape Horn embark
here ! '

A good-sized covered break, with four smart
bays, was drawn up alongside the station, with
mine host on the box, and away we merrily went
over the level springy turf in an evening breeze
which appeared singularly refreshing to me, coming
as I did from the damp depressing heat of the
town and its neighbourhood. The real beauty of
the climate can only be thoroughly appreciated
away from the turbid waters of the Plate and its
moisture-laden atmosphere. The clear, dry air of
the Pampa, even at this torrid season, always
excepting the days when the abominable north
wind comes sweeping down from the tropics,
imparts a sense of health and vigour to each
breath one draws in, and inclines one to credit the
somewhat startling assertions which are gravely
made respecting the longevity of its inhabitants.

According to a tabular statement, contained in

CHAP, xvm.] CENTENARIANS 271

a semi-official publication which I have had occasion
to quote before, the general census of 1869 showed
the number of centenarians in the Eepublic to be
234, or one in 7,422 of the population, and, of
these, twenty-six were put down as having attained
the age of one hundred and twenty and upwards.
As if this were not enough, it was added that
of 468 old people, described as of unknown age,
one half at least might be assumed to have out-
lived a century. What would the late Sir George
Cornewall Lewis or Mr. Thorns have said to these
figures ? Without impugning in any way the good
faith of the enumerators of the census, some
doubt may be fairly expressed as to the perfect
accuracy of the old colonial church registers on
which they relied. On the other hand, if to
breathe the most invigorating air and lead the most
monotonous and uneventful kind of existence can
contribute to prolong the span of human life,
there is no denying that the native of the Pampas
enjoys both in perfection. Certainly one gets an
occasional glimpse of some ancient crone, squatting
on the bare ground outside a sordid hovel, whose
wrinkled brown parchment skin may well have
been mummified by a hundred summers. There
died, too, a short time ago, at Buenos Ayres, an
old itinerant negro pieman — a well-known cha-
racter— who " was reputed to have served in the

272

THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

Spanish ranks at the close of the last century, and
passed for being at least a hundred and six when
he sold his last pie and went 'where the good
niggers go/ Be this as it may, by the end of the
rapid, exhilarating drive of eight miles or so from
the station to the house, I already feel a good deal
younger and fresher ; and a hearty welcome from
my fellow-guests, followed by a pleasant dinner
and evening, puts me altogether in better case
than I have been in for weeks past.

We are up almost by daybreak the next morn-
ing, ladies and all — and ready for that most
enjoyable of all things in hot weather in the
Pampa, the early ride before breakfast. A con-
fidential pony has been provided for me, and more
showy, but equally reliable, mounts for two young
ladies whom our host, a capital horseman, is per-
fecting in equitation. The mother of one of these,
a charming person, is likewise of the party, so that
we naturally resolve into two groups, the sedate
and the more frolicsome one.

The girls, with their escort, gallop away ahead
in open order, charging the small ditches with
which the ground is furrowed here and there, and
doing a little mild steeple-chasing. We follow at
a more moderate pace, but even our staid animals
eagerly sniff the morning breeze, and impatiently
shake their bits as they trot or canter along. No

CHAP, xvili.] THE PRAIRIE AT SUNRISE 273

wonder, for the going through the cool air, over
this even, elastic soil, is simply perfect.

No words — certainly of mine — can convey an
adequate idea of the beauty and freshness of the
prairie at this early hour. The young sun, but
just now risen like ourselves, floods the low and
perfectly level horizon with a flush of pink and
yellow light. At once you realise the full force of
the well-known, hackneyed image which compares
the boundless expanse of plain to an ocean solitude,
for the effect is truly that of sunrise out upon the
waste of waters. The fiery disc emerges from
what seems a sea of verdure, all burned and brown
though everything be in reality, and in its slanting
rays the tip of each blade of green, the giant
thistles with their rose-purple crowns, the graceful
floss-like panicles of the Pampa grass (paja corta-
dera), just touched by the breeze and all glittering
with dew, undulate before the eye like the succes-
sive sparkling lines that mark the lazy roll of the
deep in the dawn of a tropical calm. The sky
above, of a most lovely pale azure and of wonder-
ful transparency, has not yet deepened into that
almost painful hue of crude cobalt it acquires in
the full blaze of the noontide. In the west the
vapours of night have not entirely rolled away,
while down in the dips and depressions of ground —
canadas as they call them here — and over the reed-

T

274 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

fenced lagunas, a thin blue mist still lingers, and
mingles deliciously with the various subdued tints
of brown and green around. This tender tonality
lasts but a very short time, the sun shooting
upwards with a speed and force that at once
completely transform the picture ; the searching
agencies of light revealing it in its true parched
colours, and reducing it to a burning arch above
and a scorched and featureless flat below. The
fresh, rippling ocean turns into a weary wilder-
ness staring up at a breathless, pitiless sky.

Hardly less striking than the waking up of the
great plain is the stir of bird and insect life that
accompanies it. The air is full of buzzing and
chirping, and of the flutter of wings. So thickly
is the Pampa peopled with birds, that it quite pro-
duces the effect of an open-air aviary. Brilliant
little creatures, with red or yellow breasts, zorzals
and cardinals, magpies and oven-birds, dart in and
out of the grass and bushes in every direction,
while, in the higher regions, numerous hawks and
kites hover ominously over these tempting pre-
serves. All this feathered tribe are singularly fear-
less and unconcerned at one's approach, the only
exception being that well-known abomination of
the sportsman in the Painpa, the spur-winged
plover. This insufferable creature, who, as Mr.
Darwin somewhere says of him, appears to hate

CHAP, xvm.] THE SCOLD OF THE PAMPA 275

mankind, swarms all over the prairie, and pursues
one with a loud and discordant cry which is exactly
rendered by his common name of teru-tero. He is
really a very handsome bird, with glossy black and
lavender plumage tipped with green and purple,
but, like much lovelier beings one has occasionally
met with, his beauty is quite marred by his harsh,
unmusical voice and fro ward ways. He is both
the spy and the scold of the Pampa. Being too
worthless in himself to stand in danger of being
shot, his one idea seems to be to spoil sport. As
soon as he gets sight of you, he sets up his shrill,
wearying note, and follows you pertinaciously about,
of course warning all the game around of your
approach. Altogether an odious bird, who, to
quote Mr. Darwin again, fully deserves to be
hated.

Long before eight o'clock we are all back again
at the house, where, after a refreshing bath and
breakfast, we lounge and sit about through the hot
hours of the day in the cool patio, with its colon-
nade, and well of icy water in the centre, sur-
rounded by flowering shrubs ; or in the shade of
the charming garden and park-like grounds which
our host and the preceding owner of the property
have conjured up by degrees out of the primitively
treeless waste. The monte immediately round the
place covers a large extent of ground, and is un-

T 2 '

276 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

usually thick and luxuriant, the Australian gum-
tree, willows, acacias, and Scotch firs all thriving
here to perfection, and forming walks and avenues
such as I found nowhere else in this country.
From a distance, the plantations have all the ap-
pearance of a great wooded hill, and are visible for
miles round. The grass on the lawn and under
the trees is singularly green and tempting, though,
as I soon found to my cost, it will not do to yield
to one's natural inclination and lie down on it.
One very sultry afternoon I strolled out into the
garden with a book and a cigar, and, selecting a
cosy shady nook, flung myself down on the close
velvety turf. For a short time it was delightful,
and I was just on the pleasant borders between a
day-dream and a siesta, when, of a sudden, a vio-
lent irritation about the calf of my left leg sent me
into a sitting posture again, like a clown in a pan-
tomime, and soon set me tearing my skin in the
most indecorous fashion. I closely inspected the
place, but could see no trace whatever of a bite,
and, being at last driven nearly wild, went to con-
sult my friend. c Ah ! ' said he, ' I should have
warned you of the bicho Colorado, which has evi-
dently been at you.' It is difficult to form any
idea of the degree of irritation produced by these
villainous little insects. They are a bright red, as
their name implies, and no bigger than a pin's head,

CHAP, xvm.] WILD DUCK AND ' BATITU ' 277

and are, I fancy, very much akin to the jigger of
West Indian fame. I was kept awake, and in a
perfect fever, for several nights by the bite, and
even for months afterwards was liable to returns of
insupportable itching in that one particular spot.
With the exception of these plaguey little crea-
tures and the annoying mosquitoes — less trouble-
some here than in town — the Pampa is singularly
free from noxious vermin of all kinds. Only one
deadly species of viper (the vibora de la cruz) is to
be met there, as well as the venomous tarantula.

Our day generally ended in a long drive over
the estate, which is upwards of six leagues square.
We took our guns with us, and now and then as
we passed one of the small lagunas that abound in
the plain — mere saucers full of water, a foot or two
deep, with a few reeds and tufts of Pampa grass
round them — the shooters jumped out and let fly
at a stray wild duck or so. Our host is, I think,
the best and quickest duck-shot I ever met, and
I have seen him bring down birds in this way
at almost incredible distances. He was no less
good at batitu, a kind of golden plover, which, when
in season, as at this time, is the best eating possible.
Before taking wing, these birds creep warily under
cover a long way on the ground, from which it is
difficult to distinguish them, and it requires a great
knack of snap-shooting to hit them when they

278 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP, xvili.

show across some open space, or rise where you
least expect them. We used to go after them
across country in a light gig which had a strong
tendency to tilt over, and to shoot well from so un-
steady a platform was anything but easy. It was
capital sport in its way.

What, however, I believe to be simply unsur-
passed, is the wild-fowl shooting in the lagunas,
even at this time of the year, when the water in them
is low and many of tjie birds have gone away further
south. Some fifteen miles from the estancia house,
there is a great shallow sheet of water, covering a
good many acres, where I had an afternoon's sport
that I shall never forget. We started soon after
breakfast on our way thither — the whole party — on
a charming day with fleecy clouds and a cool wind
from the south-west. One of our young ladies now
and then took a turn at the ribbons, and we trotted
along gaily, our host sounding an occasional blast
from a bugle, at the startling sound of which the
herds of cattle browsing around pricked up their
ears and came charging down to within a few yards
of us. Presently, as we reached the crest of a
slight, rise in the ground, the big laguna lay
stretched out before us, what water there was in
it glittering in the sun in large patches, in between
the tall rushes and sedge that half cover it. In the
foreground there was a large open space, half mud

CHAP, xvill.] LAGUNA SHOOTING 279

and half water, and there I at once saw the exact
living reproduction of one of the coloured plates
to Burrneister's Descriptive Physical Atlas of this
country — a column of flamingos gravely stalking
over the wet ground in double file, like a red-
coated- sergeant's guard marching up Pall Mall.
There were at least twenty of them together — a
sight to move the most blase of sportsmen.

We jumped down, and, after taking out and
hobbling our team, leaving the ladies and non-
shooters to unpack the luncheon-baskets, my host
and I crept down the slope as fast as ever we could.
There was not a scrap of cover between us and the
birds, so that, long before we could get anywhere
within shot, the flock showed signs of disturbance
and began flapping their big wings, and then, with
a mighty whirr and a great trumpeting, rose from
the ground and were away like a fiery cloud. We
gave them a parting salute, and then went well
over our knees into the marsh, and stood there for
a good two hours or more, crouching in the tall
reeds, and, I can honestly declare for myself, blaz-
ing away most of the time as fast as we could load.
It is no exaggeration to say that, at intervals ol
perhaps five minutes, flight upon flight passed over
my head, frequently well within range, and that
the barrels of my breechloader got so hot that I
had several times to stop and forego some excellent

280 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

shot. The birds rose out of the marsh like fire-
works in every direction : strings of wild duck of
half a dozen species ; clouds of sandpipers and
teal ; bronze ibises — beautiful birds with glossy
dark green and copper plumage — shooting past
like arrow-heads, which they exactly resemble in
their flight ; herons and cranes innumerable ; and
then, flying in serried column and wheeling with
great precision, came past again a squadron of the
gorgeous flamingos, their scarlet wings all glow-
ing in the sun. Although by no means accustomed
to this bewildering sort of shooting, I managed to
knock over a certain number of birds of one kind
and another, but lost most of them, as they gene-
rally fell among the rushes some way off, and we
only had one dog with us, who remained with my
companion at the other end of the marsh.

Meanwhile it was getting long past the hour
appointed for lunch, so I reluctantly left my post
to join my friend. We had just met, and were
comparing notes about our bags, when another
troop of great birds came over us with a pink flash,
but so high up as to be quite out of range it
seemed to me. My friend, nevertheless, called out
to me to shoot, so I let fly both barrels, and, to my
great joy, a mass of pink feathers came down with
a heavy thud and splash some twenty yards off — a
splendid specimen of that rare and lovely bird the

CHAP, xvin.] LACUNA SHOOTING 281

roseate spoonbill (platalea ajaja). This, with a
couple of flamingos, was the principal item of our
very mixed but satisfactory bag. With more guns
and dogs, and a few Gauchos on horseback to drive
the birds into the marsh again, we might have shot
any number.

The only drawback to this wonderful shooting
in the lagunas is the black ooze in which one has
to stand motionless for so long, and which, when
stirred up, is most offensive, being in fact full of
decayed vegetable matter. There is an old pre-
judice in favour of these brackish lagunas, on
account of the Indians having always sought out
their neighbourhood for their encampments, whence
it is argued that they are a sign of good land.
The most competent authorities now assert this to
be a fallacy, the lazy savages having simply kept
to these natural reservoirs for their cattle and
horses sooner than be put to the trouble of dig-
ging wells. Good water can be got everywhere in
abundance by boring a few feet below the surface,
and, on properly managed estancias, each puesto 2
into which the estate is divided has now its primi-
tive biblical well, with a great leather manga —

2 The puesto, or post, is the space allotted to so many hundred or
thousand head of sheep or cattle, placed under the supervision of the
puestero, whose hut, with its clump of peach trees and paraisos, is a kind
of miniature estancia house.

282 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

sleeve or bag — attached to it, from which the pre-
cious liquid is poured into the watering-troughs.

It was getting towards dusk as we neared the
house on our return. The queer little owls who
do sentry duty over the biscacha holes were sitting
out on their mounds, and, as we went by one of
these, we got sight of the biscacha itself. One of
the ladies expressing some curiosity about them,
our host pulled up short, and was off the box in a
second. He ran on a few yards, and then rolled
over the quarry just as he was hopping into his
den. A very large-sized one, bigger than the
biggest hare, and with long grey whiskers and
vicious-looking fangs — quite a different creature
in appearance from what one expected so harmless
a rodent to be like.

We had been somewhat disappointed in not
finding any black-necked swans that day, so my
friend promised to show me some before I went
back to town. He accordingly drove me one
afternoon down to the river Salado, which runs, as
it were, in a trench it has cut for itself through the
plain, between steep banks some thirty feet high.
Within a few yards of the river we left our trap,
and crept carefully through the low bush till we
reached the verge of the bank and could see the
stream beneath us, and, in a bend of it a little
higher up, a flock of the splendid birds we were

CHAP, xvm.] AFTER BLACK-NECKED SWAN 283

after. We now had to crawl some distance with-
out any kind of cover, till we got within shot,
when, just as we were in proper position, some-
thing startled the flock and they were on the move.
Twice we were baulked in the same manner, but
at last got a fair chance.

Bang, bang, from my friend : a bird falling to
the first shot just as it was taking wing, and luckily
dropping on our side of the river. Bang, bang,
again from both of us : a second bird being badly
winged when halfway across, but still managing
to struggle on to the further bank. Just as he
reached it a final shot from me, and he lay quiver-
ing in the reeds. My friend now let slip his pet
retriever, who was trembling all over with excite-
ment, and in a few bounds the plucky brute was
down the bank and had plunged into the water.
He swam straight across, and grappling the dying
swan brought him over, quite forty yards through
a strong current, and laid the noble bird — a full-
grown male — at our feet. It was a gallant per-
formance and deserved recounting. Each of the
birds weighed fully twenty pounds, as we soon
found out when we had to carry them back to our
trap.

Between these shooting and other excursions
in the neighbourhood — among others to a very
fine native estancia, situated on the banks of the

284 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xvm.

Salado, with unusually well-kept gardens sloping
down to the stream, where we were most sumptu-
ously entertained and were shown some valuable
stock lately imported from Europe — time passed
so rapidly and pleasantly that the fortnight's holi-
day I had allowed myself came to an end all too
soon. I can only wish all visitors to the Eiver
Plate as delightful an experience as I had of mid-
summer in the Pampas.

The dismal and decidedly repelling effect pro-
duced at first by the weary sameness of the prairies
soon passes off, and makes room for a sense of
their indefinable charm, somewhat saddening in its
nature, and to my mind akin to that of music in a
minor key, the soughing of the wind among forest
tops, or the lulling cadence of the waves breaking
on our northern shores. No doubt the clue to
these impressions is to be sought in the fact that
nowhere else perhaps, except in sight of the un-
changeable but ever-varying ocean, or face to face
with mountain solitudes, do you find yourself put
so directly in contact with nature in her primitive
and more solemn aspects.

Only a few miles off the beaten track and you
are at once in the midst of scenes that have mani-
festly remained unaltered from the period when —
according to the latest and most plausible theory
put forward — the great diluvian bed of the Pampas

CHAP, xvill.] ANTEDILUVIAN MONSTERS 285

was formed by the gradual denudation of the rocks
of the Cordilleras. The huge plateau, raised inch
by inch during the countless roll of centuries, con-
tains in its subsoil unimpeachable evidence of its
original features having rigidly endured through-
out the process, in the remains of the extinct fauna
of prehistoric ages that lie thickly imbedded in it
at a certain depth, or have been found in crusted
in the face of its river-banks — literally like the
plums in a slice of cake, if so homely a comparison
be permissible.3 Across the same plains where
now feed and wander remunerative herds and
flocks — only at a much lower ]evel — the mega-
therium, or that other monster sloth the mylodon,
dragged its uncouth giant limbs, and the original
Andalusian jennet, from which spring the now
innumerable troops of native horses, was preceded
ages before by the hippidium, or fossil horse — the
genuine, hitherto accounted fabulous, unicorn.
Dig, in fact, but a certain number of feet below
the surface, and you come upon a crowded ante-
diluvian world.

Nowhere in these solitudes has the. human race
left any trace of its passage. While those other
analogous waste spaces of the Old World — the

3 The museum at Buenos Ayres contains a remarkable — indeed,
I believe unique — collection of these remains, admirably arranged by
its distinguished director, M. Burmeister.

286 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XYIII.

steppes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia — have
witnessed the rise and fall of empires, or resounded
with the tread of conquering hordes from Attila to
Tamerlane, these wildernesses have not a single
day of history to place on record.

This is especially striking to the traveller from
the Eastern Hemisphere, accustomed everywhere
to see that harmonious blending of landscape and
human handiwork which makes up our ideal of
scenery, and in which shattered monuments, and
other countless works, point back to centuries of
human genius and activity. In these mute, in-
glorious wastes man counts for nothing, and thus
it is that the mixed races which, barely three
hundred and fifty years ago, entered upon this
vast estate, still seem to be new-comers and hardly
as yet children of the soil. The tread of the Bed-
skin is too light to have left any mark, and the
wild prairie, stretching from sea to mountain, over
some twenty thousand geographical miles, preserves
the same aspect it must have worn when first the
sun shone down upon its utter void and loneliness.

CHAP, xix.] BAD NEWS FROM LIMA 287

CHAPTER XIX.

SOUTH AMERICAN POLITICS — THE WAR ON THE WEST COAST —
CONFLICTING CLAIMS TO PATAGONIA AND THE STRAITS OF
MAGELLAN — PROSPECTS OF THE CHILEANS AND ARGENTINES.

CONSIDERABLE political excitement was caused
about this time at Buenos Ayres by the news that
came to hand from the Pacific coast. The contest
which had been going on there for upwards of
eighteen months, between Chile on the one side
and Peru and Bolivia on the other, was again
raging fiercely after a short lull — caused by vari-
ous abortive attempts at mediation on the part
of neutral Powers. Late in January it became
known that the Chilean forces had totally defeated
the Peruvian army covering Lima, in a series of
most sanguinary engagements, and had trium-
phantly entered that capital.

The intelligence produced a feeling very much
resembling consternation, for the great majority
of the Argentine public had from the first sym-
pathised with the Peruvians, and, if the language
of the local press was to be trusted, the nation had

288 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

been restrained with difficulty from going to the
assistance of Peru. So complete a victory not
only made Chile undisputed mistress of the west
coast, but, in Argentine eyes, greatly endangered
the political equilibrium of South America. The
success of Chile was, besides, all the more unwel-
come and alarming to the Argentines, that, for
some forty years past, they had themselves had a
serious dispute of their own with their Transandine
neighbours about the Straits of Magellan and the
huge deserts of Patagonia, to which both countries
laid claim ; the Chileans, however, having already
nine points of the law in their favour through
their long- established settlement in the Straits at
Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point. It had several
times come very nearly to a breach between them
respecting these highly unenviable possessions ;
but, fortunately, nothing but ink had thus far
been spilt in the dispute — that, however, in suf-
ficient quantities to float the navies of the two
countries.

To prove their respective cases each claimant,
in turn, had appealed to the vague and conflicting
cedillas, or decrees, by which the Spanish Crown
had, from time to time, portioned out its unwieldy
territories between the various viceroy al ties esta-
blished in its South American dominions ; and the
archives of the mother-country, as well as every

CHAP, xix.] THE DISPUTE WITH CHILE 289

other available source, had been ransacked in
search of materials for the controversy. The
erudition displayed on both sides in the matter
was, in fact, overwhelming, and, one might al-
most say, typical of the extent and aridity of the
regions contended for.

The two Governments fortunately showed great
tact and moderation, and, throughout the discus-
sion, professed themselves ready to submit their
pretensions to arbitration before finally resorting
to arms, as was, indeed, provided for by a treaty
between them signed as far back as 1855. The
press in both countries, on the other hand, took
up the question very warmly, and did not a little
to envenom it. So that now, here at Buenos
Ayres, with the additional irritation produced by
the Chilean successes, there was some risk of the
popular excitement being raised to a dangerous
pitch and forcing the hand of the ruling powers.
As if to add fuel to the flame, a report was
sedulously spread about that the Chileans had
been guilty of a wholesale massacre of the Italians
serving in the Peruvian ranks, whom they had
made prisoners in the battles before Lima. The
story had been officially declared by the Italian
minister at Santiago to be a complete fabrication,
but nevertheless a large open-air meeting was de-
liberately called to protest against these pretended

u

THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

Chilean outrages. This ill-judged attempt to rouse
the passions of the powerful Italian community,
and through them to bring pressure to bear on the
Government, luckily found but little echo, and fell
as flat as it deserved. Equally imaginary atroci-
ties have, nearer home, produced much greater
and more enduring mischief.

Amidst all these passionate declamations, one
voice — that of a true sage and patriot — was raised
in warning tones, which, no doubt, appealed suc-
cessfully to the reason and better feelings of his
countrymen. ' The first duty of all,' wrote the
ex-President Sarmiento in one of the leading
Buenos Ayres papers, ' is to turn the people away
from the abyss into which those who preach war
to them would lead them ; ' and he then went on,
with trenchant irony, to propose that a prize
should be instituted for the writer, either Chilean
or Argentine, who should distinguish himself
above all others as ' the most brutal instigator to
war.'

In a letter which he addressed on his seventieth
birthday to a distinguished Chilean statesman, and
which was likewise made public,1 the bitterness
of his feelings and of his disenchantments was
poured out yet more fully. Passing in review

1 These letters appeared in the Nadonal in February and March

1881.

CHIP, xix.] SARMIENTO ON HIS COUNTRYMEN 291

the whole of Spanish South America, he said :
4 Columbia and Venezuela afford no cause for
pride to Columbus and Venice whose names they
disfigure. Paraguay, Peru, and Bolivia have all in
turn been annihilated, and, no doubt, with good
reason. As for Uruguay, it is in a most rickety
condition ; while Ecuador has organic defects that
deprive it of all vital force. There remain stand-
ing only Chile and the Argentine Eepublic, and
these two are possibly on the eve of a Pelopon-
nesianwar.' He went on to argue that, rather than
let it come to such an extremity, Chile ought to have
the self-denial not to insist on the entrance she
claimed into the Atlantic, and, should waive her
rights in the Straits and in Patagonia.

He then proceeded with singular frankness
to express his views not only of his immediate
countrymen but of the whole Transatlantic Spanish
race. 'I do not,' he said, 'believe in Spanish
America as affording the proper stuff (materia
idonea) wherewith to constitute nations. There
exists, in my opinion, in this America of ours a
morbid principle that will always drive her to rend
herself to pieces. We are an apoplectic race ; we
are suffocated by excess of blood. Nevertheless, a
well- organised Chile and a regenerate Argentine
State, with its population and riches and industry,
still leave a ray of hope.' ' But,' he added, ' so

F 2

2Q 2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

unbounded is my belief in the public folly, and
such the sad experience we have been accumu-
lating, that I expect but little from our better
judgment.'

I have ventured to quote at length these re-
markable words of the illustrious Sarmiento,
because they throw a curious light on the political
condition of the Spanish American countries
at that period ; and because, although evidently
written under the influence of an exaggerated
pessimism, nothing so severe has ever yet been
penned as to the, thus far, disappointing results
achieved by the young nations of that new world
which it was Canning's boast to have called into
being to redress the balance of the old. The
ex-President, in the purity of his patriotism, is,
indeed, very unfair to the Spanish South Ameri-
can race, and especially hard on his immediate
countrymen and their Chilean kinsmen. The
weary controversy about the Patagonian deserts
was shortly afterwards brought to an equitable
settlement which left Chile in possession of the
rights she had acquired, and, at the same time,
preserved to the Argentines the eastern entrance
to the Straits, and all the regions on that side, to
which they were clearly entitled, if only on geo-
graphical grounds. The peace of South America
has remained undisturbed, and there is every

CHAP, xix.] NEW POLITICAL COMBINATIONS 293

prospect of the two promising nations which
occupy the most southern part of that immense
continent peacefully developing into great wealth
and prosperity.

It is, however, an undeniable fact that within a
very recent period — owing in great part, no doubt,
to greater facilities of communication and closer
intercourse — the international aspect of South
America has altered considerably, and the politics
of the continent have entered into an entirely new
phase. The several States built up on the ruins
of the Spanish dominion, after leading for half a
century separate and isolated existences, marked
chiefly by internal troubles and dissensions, have
come into direct contact on various questions, prin-
cipally of a commercial or economical character —
for of such was really the origin of the recent
struggle on the Pacific coast, beginning in a dis-
pute over a few beds of nitrate and developing into
a struggle for empire — and have resolved them-
selves into artificial, and to some extent antago-
nistic, groups. Chile, engaged in a tremendous
contest with her two nearest neighbours to the
north, and viewed with no friendly eye by the yet
more northern Colombians and Venezuelans, saw,
for instance, in Brazil an eventual ally in case
of need ; while the colossal empire which, on its
side, lives in constant distrust of the adjoining

294 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

Argentines, equally looked across the Andes for
support.

As a result of this political transformation .of
the continent, discussions respecting the balance of
power and the value of alliances have become as
familiar to the politicians of Santiago and Buenos
Ayres as they have too long been to us in Europe.
M. Sarmiento, by the way, is very severe on the
authors of these disquisitions, and cannot forgive
all these children of Spain for so soon forget-
ting their common origin, and falling out among
themselves and seeking to form coalitions like so
many effete monarchies of the Old World. In the
main h.e is right ; for if the heirs to these vast and
scantily peopled territories, parted from each other
by gigantic mountain ranges, trackless wildernesses,
or mighty rivers, cannot live in peace and harmony,
there is indeed an end to all dreams of a millennium
upon earth.

But there is no reason to take so desponding a
view of the future of the continent. Its two south-
ernmost States — leaving the Brazilian monarchy
outside— deserve in any case to be classed apart
from the sister republics, for they contain in abun-
dance the elements of vitality and rational progress.
Chile, for her part, has triumphantly issued forth
from an ordeal under which many a maturer and
more powerful State might well have succumbed.

CHAP, xix.] CHILEAN PROWESS 295

On the eve of the declaration of hostilities, the
Chilean military forces — wisely kept down to a
minimum by a governing class which above all
things dreaded militarism, with all its attendant
evils and dangerous temptations to those in power
— were barely composed of three or four thousand
men. In less than two years they had grown into
disciplined armies numbering upwards of sixty thou-
sand ; and after a series of brilliant victories, by sea
and land, the Eepublic had crushed both its adver-
saries and had for the second time dictated terms
of peace in the capital of .the most formidable of
the two Powers leagued against it. The question
of supremacy on the west coast, which, forty years
before, had already given rise to a war ending in
the occupation of Lima by the Chileans after the
victory of General Bulnes at Yungay, was, as far
as can be foreseen, settled for good.

Some digression may, perhaps, be permissible
here about this remarkable contest. Thanks to the
remoteness of the scene of conflict and a general
indifference to South American affairs, the Chilean
successes passed relatively unheeded in Europe.
Yet few more remarkable warlike operations can
be cited, extending as they did along a coast-line
of such immense length, and ending in the capture
of the enemy's chief city, at a distance of some
thirteen hundred miles from the original base of

296 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

operations. It is true that from the moment Chile
acquired complete command of the sea, after the
collapse of the gallant naval defence made by the
Peruvians, she everywhere carried her base with
her ; but the efforts she made were none the less
prodigious, considering the almost complete mili-
tary unpreparedness of the country, and its scanty
population. Her victories are greatly attributable
to the energy and unity of purpose of a powerful
class-government, or oligarchy, and can best be
compared to those of Venice or Genoa in their
most palmy days. A nation that could achieve
such results, and, after achieving them, disarm and,
following the great and noble example given by
our own American kinsmen, turn its sword into a
ploughshare and at once revert with all its energies
to the arts of peace, has undeniable stuff in it, and
a future that affords little anxiety. Let our stal-
wart offspring in the South Pacific look to it ; for
facing them, under the frowning shadow of the
Andes, there lives a people of singular vigour and
resource, with whom they may some day have to
reckon.

The Argentines, distracted on the one hand b'y
endless civil contentions — chiefly arising out of an
unworkable federal system — or racked by the most
intolerable of tyrannies, have been unquestionably
outstripped by their neighbours in the task of

CHAP, xix.] ARGENTINE PROSPECTS 297

forming a well-ordered commonwealth, where law
and authority command universal respect, and the
transmission of the supreme power takes place
without cavil or question. Their start in the race
of progress among South American nations has
thus been very seriously retarded. Nor have they
been braced up to it, as were the Chileans from
the outset, through the labour entailed upon them
by their limited soil and the neglect of their former
Spanish masters. The very extent and abundant
natural resources of the regions that fell to the
Argentines — a striking contrast to the narrow strip
of territory in which the Chileans are pent up
between sea and mountain — from the first disin-
clined them to exertion. Like the indolent inheri-
tor of vast and productive estates, they felt no call
upon them to work at improving their patrimony.
Unlike the Chileans, who, from growing barely
enough wheat for their own consumption, were
able in a few years to supply the wants of Cali-
fornian and Australian gold-diggers, the native
Gauchos kept to the primitive pastoral ways of
their fathers, and, but for the impetus given them
from abroad, would have been content to this day
to remain a nation of herdsmen.

The Argentine, therefore, starts late, as has
been said, but with such natural advantages that,
now that he has realised the full magnitude of his

298 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xix.

prospects, his national destiny cannot but be bright.
Bid of the Indian curse, and, it is to be earnestly
hoped, of the still greater bane of recurring civil
commotion, and daily strengthened by an infusion
of fresh blood, he is now setting himself to make
the most of his inheritance. Like the heedless,
sluggish young giant he has hitherto been, he is
stretching his limbs and testing his sinews, in view
of the work before him. Without subscribing to
the sanguine prognostications of those who assign
to this country as commanding a position in the
southern hemisphere as is held by the United States
in the northern, a prosperous future may safely be
predicted for it, and — as was somewhere cuttingly
said of another country — having a future, it can
well afford to wait.

But, in order to work out the destiny so clearly
intended for them by Providence, and become a
great agricultural and commercial community, in
many points resembling and rivalling Australia,
the Argentines require, above all, concord at home
and peace abroad. Having fortunately escaped
the dangers of a war with Chile, it is to be hoped
that they will equally steer clear of any embroil-
ment with Brazil about Uruguay. If they are
able to maintain themselves both in external and
internal peace for a series of years to come, their
citizens will by that time have acquired such a

CHAP, xix.] ARGENTINE PROSPECTS 299

degree of general well-being, as must insure last-
ing tranquillity to the republic, by making its
preservation the common interest of all.

Already signs are not wanting of the leading men
amongst them having realised the truth that there
are more paying things than pronunciamientos and
civil wars, even to those who come victors out of
them. Something of the Yankee spirit of business
is rapidly descending upon Argentine society, and
directing the energies of its politicians to more
lucrative occupations than party intrigue or bar-
rack conspiracies. Power and office themselves
are no longer aspired to so much for their emolu-
ments and patronage, as for the opportunities they
afford of participating, on remunerative terms, in
the many undertakings which are needed for the
development of a new country. Even the half-
tamed, semi-chivalrous Gaucho is being inoculated
with the utilitarian notions of the age, and is fast
being converted into the 'cute citizen of an aspiring
democracy.

3OO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

CHAPTEE XX.

THE CARNIVAL AT BUENOS AYRES THE BATTLE OF THE

' POMITOS ' — ROUND THE CHURCHES ON MAUNDY THURS-
DAY.

WITH the last weeks of summer the town began
to fill again. There were few signs, so far, of
returning sociability, the Porteiio gay world not
having yet quite recovered its equanimity ; but
one was led to hope for better things. Not that I
personally pined for social gaieties, being on the
whole of the opinion, so pithily expressed by one
of the sagest of our statesmen, that life would be
quite endurable but for its pleasures. My native
friends, however, were kindly desirous that I
should see the Queen of the Plate at her best and
merriest. ' Wait,' they said, ' for the Carnival, and
we will then show you what we can do out here in
that line.'

I must own to what — after the admission I
have made above — may well seem an inconsistent
weakness for Carnival ; by which I mean the good
old-fashioned celebration of it, so rapidly disap-

CHAP. XX.] THE 'JOURS GRAS' AT PARIS 30!

pearing everywhere, but which, as it so happens,
figures among my earliest recollections ; and I was,
therefore, not loth to renew acquaintance with its
time-honoured, frolicsome features. Carnival is
indeed fast losing ground in all the countries of
Latin race which through centuries faithfully ac-
knowledged its sway and followed its rites. In
thoughtless, pleasure-seeking Paris, the King of
Misrule has long been dethroned, and his worship
and traditions may almost be said to be extinct.
The ahcient observance of the jours gras, with their
shoals of maskers in the streets ; above all, the
tawdry, barbaric procession 'of the fatted ox, with
its bodyguard of corpulent, ivy-crowned, ancient
Gauls in flesh-coloured tricots, brandishing harm-
less clubs ; its bedraggled squadron of mousque-
taires, in cotton velvet, mounted on screws from
the Cirque Franconi ; and its car of fat Olympian
goddesses, shivering under an icy February shower
— all these are things of the past. Gone, too, are
the countless impudent pierrots, who thronged the
pavement and swarmed round the endless string of
carriages, crawling in double file up and down the
muddy boulevards, with merry freights of dominos
and debardeurs ; the deafening fanfares de chasse ;
the great vans full of saucy, free-spoken Uanchis-
seuses ; the coarse, pungent wit and ribaldry which,
after culminating at night in the mad frolic of a

3O2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

dozen masked balls, at as many theatres — from the
stately old opera-house down to the Delassements
comiques — ended in the dreary dawn of Ash Wed-
nesday with the now legendary descente de la
Courtille.

Those whose first juvenile reminiscences reach
back to the days of the Citizen King cannot easily
forget their carnival saturnalia. To say the truth,
but little splendour or pageantry attended them,
and as a show the whole institution had sunk to the
commonplace level of the bourgeois reign. But the
rollicking tumult and frenzy surging through the
narrow streets of the dissolute old city — not as yet
Haussmannised and cast into gilded imperial fetters
— were astounding and thoroughly contagious ;
while the humours of the merry-makers were so
frank and insouciant in their license, that even to
the most censorious of spectators it could not but
be a clear case of honi soit qui mal y pense.

In those sunny towns on the Eiviera, where
Carnival has since taken temporary refuge, like
many another exiled potentate, his revels are of a
much more subdued and exclusive character, suited
to and presided over by the rich and idle who flock
thither in quest of health or pleasure. Whatever
rowdy or plebeian element there may be about
them is swamped in the dainty crowds, armed
with the fragrant spoil of a thousand gardens, who

CHAP. XX.] CARNIVAL IN ITALY 303

promenade up and down the quays of Nice or
Cannes bandying nosegays and pretty speeches.

So, too, in the great Italian cities, where,
notwithstanding the essentially popular and demo-
cratic character of the rejoicings, the upper ranks
of society still take the lead in them, and side
by side with the humble facchino or lazzarone
in disguise, may be seen magnificent cars — great
fortresses on wheels — manned by masquerading
princes and marquises of the best blood of Italy.
It may, indeed, be doubted whether, but for this
patronage, the festival would not rapidly fall into
disuse. Even in its birthplace — Eome — it has
already been shorn of its most striking features,
such as the barberi and moccoletti, and is mainly
kept alive by committees formed among the in-
habitants to encourage its celebration for the good
of trade. From a great national holiday of free
fun and license it has almost degenerated into an
advertising device for attracting foreign visitors —
to the chief benefit of innkeepers et hoc genus
omne. Carnival with us in Europe having, in
fact, ceased to be popular with the masses, is fast
going the way of everything that is picturesque —
national dress and customs, great periodical fairs,
pilgrimages and Church processions, and all the
rest.

Here in the New World, on the contrary, the

304 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

institution is still held in great honour, though at
Buenos Ayres it no doubt owes much of its vitality
to the numerous French and Italian residents, who
all take part in it with thorough zest and spirit.
In some measure its traditions have been imported
by these foreigners, and through them naturalised
on Argentine soil. Nevertheless, when the festivi-
ties of which I had heard so much finally came
round, I was, I confess, at first somewhat disap-
pointed in them. The Corso of which they pro-
perly consist, seemed to me hardly equal to its re-
putation, though, as Corsos go, it certainly was a
very big affair indeed. From an early hour on
Shrove Tuesday, the tram-cars ceased running in
the three or four principal streets, which were to
be kept clear for the holiday-makers : a triumphal
arch, erected overnight at the top of the Florida,
marking the limits of the course at this end of the
town. Crowds of pedestrians — only a sprinkling
of them masked or in any way disguised — were
astir along the line much before noon, but two
o'clock had already struck when the first carriage
or two with maskers passed the windows whence I
was reduced to watch the sight — for, as ill luck
would have it, I had hurt my foot and was unable
to move about freely. This first modest instal-
ment was soon followed by others, and in a short
time the Corso was in full swing.

CHAP. XX.] CARNIVAL SOCIETIES 305

The defile, as I viewed it from my coign of
vantage, outwardly reminded me a good deal of
the old Boulevard scenes, though it struck me as
very deficient in the Paris fun and entrain. The
double stream of vehicles was perfectly unbroken,
although it must have extended over three miles
or more. With the exception of a few private
carriages belonging to the irreconcilables of society,
every available conveyance in the town seemed to
have turned out for the occasion, from the diminu-
tive mule-cart of the costermonger to the roomy
barouche full of showy dominos. At intervals, in
this interminable string, came the great cars of the
different comparsas, or carnival societies, which
take part every year in the festivities. There are
something like eighty of these, most of them off-
shoots of the local French and Italian political and
charitable associations. The appellations they give
themselves afford some clue to their composition
and tendencies. Mingled up with commonplace
' Stars of Italy,' or 'Kome,' and ' Daughters of
Peru ' — or names clearly denoting harmless merri-
ment, such as the ' Inhabitants of the Moon,' the
'Cheerful Lunatics' (Locos Alegres), or the 'En-
fants de Beranger ' — came the ' Freethinkers/
(Libri Pensatori), the 'Grandchildren (nietos) of
Garibaldi,' the ' Persecutors of Loyola,' and the
'Mysterious Ones' (los Misteriosos) — a terrible,

x

306 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. XX.

lugubrious company the last, in whose secret rites
figure no doubt skulls and crossbones and all the
gloomy paraphernalia of deadly conspiracies. Be-
tween two and three thousand persons are said to
be enrolled in these carnival clubs ; a number
which in itself gives some idea of the extent to
which the celebration is carried.

Some of the huge cars, or rolling platforms,
towering up to the level of first-floor windows,
and drawn by as many as six horses, were most
elaborate in their way, representing vessels with
their crews, or forts duly garrisoned by mediaeval
warriors. Others affected an Arcadian simplicity,
or were of a purely carnivalesque type — carrying
shepherds and shepherdesses, grotesque pantomime
figures, niggers innumerable, or groups of hideous
masks recalling the infernal regions. The most
characteristic feature in the procession was the
marked predilection shown for ecclesiastical mum-
mery, in derision of course of Holy Church and
her clergy. Here the bitterly anti-clerical Italian
element revealed itself strongly.

But though large sums of money must have
been spent on all this display, there was little that
was either picturesque or original about the show
or the dresses, nor was there apparently much
genuine gaiety or animation in the proceedings. At
a moderate estimate, some hundred thousand people

CHAP. XX.] ORDERLY CROWDS 307

were taking part in, or looking on at, this gigantic
Corso, but the immense, orderly concourse showed
hardly any signs of excitement, and, except for the
music of a few brass bands and the hum of the
mighty crowd, there was so little noise or racket
that the whole thing practically went off in dumb
show. This is partly due to the grosser ' barbari-
ties of the South American Carnival/ as Hutchinson
rightly calls them, being of late years strictly pro-
hibited. In lieu of the bombardment with flour or
confetti which is customary in all Italian Corsos,
the popular amusement here formerly consisted in
drenching the passers-by ' with water thrown in
basins, or indeed in pailfuls, from the windows
and flat roofs of the houses, and this abominable
diversion having now been put a stop to, nothing
has, so far, replaced it.

Towards sunset, when the Corso terminates
officially, the ranks of the procession thinned con-
siderably, most of the holiday-makers going home
to dine, and I was able to hobble down the street
to my own dinner at the club. The lull or truce
lasted for a couple of hours, after which the whole
festival burst out again in full force, and this time
fairly delighted me by its go and spirit. The
official carnival was over, and made way for a
reign of unbridled fun and merriment.

Almost all the carriages had now disappeared,

x 2

308 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

though, from time to time, a belated car came
rattling by, all hung with coloured lanterns, or
aflame with torches that threw a red glare over
the house-fronts. It was now the turn of the pe-
destrians, and they entirely filled up the thorough-
fares, brilliantly illuminated by the windows on the
ground-floor of the houses, which were thrown
wide open and disclosed rooms all lighted up
a giorno with lamps and wax-candles, as for an
evening party. Limping up the densely packed
Florida to a friend's house to which I was asked,
I passed through the best part of this striking
scene. The crowds in the street — men, women,
and children — were all armed with a supply of
small elastic syringes, filled with perfumed water,
with which they were vigorously assailing each
other. It was, however, a strictly observed rule
that only the men should attack the women, and
vice versa. Even under the roof to which I had
fondly looked for shelter, I found myself so merci-
lessly dealt with by a dozen friendly dominos, that,
with damaged shirt-front and utterly ruined collar,
I became reckless, and soon plunged again into
the fray outside.

In order to convey any idea of the originality,
and indeed the beauty, of the scene, it should be
explained that the rez de chaussee windows of the
Buenos Ayres houses are fitted, as a rule, with iron

CHAP, xx.] THE BATTLE OF THE ' POMITOS ' 309

bars, like prisons, and the floors of the lower
apartments raised only a few feet above the level
of the pavement. Each suite of rooms, brilliantly
illuminated, as I have said, and full of masquera-
ding folk — mostly pretty women and girls in fancy
attire — thus formed a cage-like kind of little stage
by itself, a sort ' of animated waxwork show on
a platform, every incident on which was plainly
visible to those outside. Some of the houses were
being formally besieged by the people in the
streets, who clung to the window-bars, and ex-
changed point-blank shots with the company
inside. Little frightened shrieks and peals of
female laughter resounded on all sides, the women
throwing themselves with heart and soul into the
medley, and the brio and gay confusion of the scene
were beyond all description. For three or four
hours the battle of the pomitos — as they call these
small syringes — raged furiously everywhere ; in
and out of the houses, in courtyards and doorways,
along the pavements and in the balconies ; the
combatants being utterly regardless of age or
beauty, and young and old of all ranks equally
joining in this universal game of romps. I myself
saw the smartest of evening frocks and the love-
liest of white, gleaming shoulders as ruthlessly
drenched in this rough pastime as might have
been in return the commonest of shooting-jackets

3IO THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

and their owners. The ladies, all dressed in light
summer clothes, on this fortunately balmy summer
night, must in fact have been wet to the skin.

To add to the movement and tumult, numerous
companies of persons in disguise passed visiting from
house to house, and brought fresh reinforcements
to the fray. Some of the men had guitars with
them, and paid for their footing by singing songs
or declaiming impromptu verses, while both men
and women went from group to group, chaffing and
intriguing their acquaintance. Every door was
thrown freely open to these unbidden guests, who
came and went without question, after being
hospitably entertained at the refreshment-tables
which were laid out for all comers. In the
drawing-room of one of the highest Government
officials, a silent, masked figure, in a dark domino,
quietly watching the proceedings from a corner,
was pointed out to me as the President of the
Kepublic.

It was long past midnight before the gigantic
frolic came to an end, and the Portefios, high and
low, recovered their sober senses and went to
their beds, and, it is to be hoped, dry sheets. The
perfect good-temper and frank gaiety with which
this absurd syringomachia — to coin a name for it
— was carried on, were above all praise, not a
single unpleasant incident marring the diversions

CHAP, xx.] THE BATTLE OF THE- ' POMITOS ' 3! I

of the day. Of course the custom in itself seems
very barbarous, and cannot be defended on any
rational grounds, but, as practised at Buenos Ayres,
it certainly gives rise to one of the prettiest and
most thoroughly original popular fetes it is possible
to conceive. Some notion of the scale on which
the favourite carnival amusement is indulged in
may be formed from a calculation made that some
500,000 dozen, or six millions, of pomitos had been
sold during carnival time, at twelve reales, or
three francs, a dozen, the sum expended on them
amounting to something like 60,000/.

Besides these public festivities, the Buenos
Ayres carnival is celebrated for its great masked
balls, the most fashionable of which take place in
the fine rooms of the Club del Progreso. The
Portenos pride themselves very much on these
fetes, and I should hardly be forgiven were I not
to mention them. To my mind there is something
oppressively dismal and gruesome, or, as the
Germans would say, unheimlich, in a large masked
crowd promenading up and down in a limited
space, and the falsetto voices adopted for conceal-
ment grate unpleasantly on my nerves. I will
confine myself, therefore, to endorsing the local
opinion of these entertainments, that they are the
most brilliant of their kind given in South America.

Lent passed away — not over-rigidly kept by

3 1 2 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

the Portenos — and Holy Week came in its turn.
Maundy Thursday is here the great day for visiting
the churches, so I went the round of them like all
the world. As in duty bound, I began with the
Cathedral, where both the crowd and the heat
were prodigious, as also the va-et-vient of the
visitors, most of whom simply passed up one aisle
and down the other, and so out again, without
any attempt or pretence at performing their de-
votions.

The first thing that struck one on entering the
church was an immense violet funeral veil, with a
great crimson cross in the centre, drooping all
over the high altar and suspended from the arch
above. With the exception of one of the lateral
chapels, which had been turned into a tall pyramid
of blazing tapers, the vast building was very
sparingly lighted. A few women were squatting
on the carpets laid down along the side aisles, and
through them the long string of spectators had to
thread their way in the gloom. One of these aisles
was almost blocked up by a large school of girls,
in mazarine blue dresses with very broad collars,
big straw hats, and blue ribbons to match, who
were devoutly kneeling in double column, and
reminded me of my Brazilian friends at Itaqui.
By far the greater number of visitors were, of
course, women ; many of them very smartly dressed

CHAP. XX.] CHURCH-GOING OF OLD 313

ladies, with what I would venture to term an un-
seasonable display of brilliant colours.

In this respect, however, the charming Portenas
are simply following in the footsteps of their
mothers and grandmothers, only with greater
moderation. The fashion of making a great dis-
play of new dresses on this Thursday of Passion
Week is of very ancient standing. In a character-
istic sketch of local manners and customs I find
that, down to five-and-twenty years ago, it was
still the right thing for the ladies to attend church
on that day in full evening dress, with low neck
and short sleeves, pearls or' diamonds, white satin
shoes, and the Spanish mantilla — either black or
white — draped over one of those gigantic, beauti-
fully carved tortoise-shell combs which may be
seen in old paintings. In this attire — the matrons
in ruby or violet velvet, and the unmarried ladies in
bright silks — the Portenas of high degree repaired
to church, each household attended by a negro
page, of eight or ten years old, who carried the
family prayer carpets (alfombras] on his arm, and
was stuck into a showy livery with a big gold-laced
hat. The boy's business, on reaching the place of
worship, was to unroll the carpets on the bare
flagstones at a given signal, when all the family
fell on their knees, with the decked-out monkey
close behind them and praying with them. This

3H THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

throwing down of carpets required some skill and
was a ticklish affair, observes my petty chronicler ;
for if, by any mischance, the rugs impinged on
those of the neighbouring household, the result
was a slanging match between the rival imps, with
much vituperation from their respective young
ladies — to the great scandal of the faithful — the
whole thing frequently ending in a bitter family
feud. The little nigger-boys have long since dis-
appeared, and so too has the mantilla — the more's
the pity — although for a long time the clergy
insisted on it as the only proper church-going
head-gear, and pronounced bonnets and hats and
feathers to be perfect abominations. The mania,
which is simply a black shawl taking the place of
the mantilla, and worn over the head like a hood,
is now almost entirely confined to the lower orders.
In Chile this mania was still de rigueur in church
with all classes a few years ago, and, as coquettish]y
draped by the pretty Santiaguinas, was most be-
coming and effective.

Following the gaudy stream, as it poured out
of the church into the great open square, I came
past the arcade beneath the Cabildo, where I
paused for a moment, my curiosity being roused
by a small crowd that had gathered there. Two
or three policemen seemed to be on duty at the
spot. On drawing nearer I found that the attrac-

CHAP. XX.] PAINFUL IMAGES 3 1 5

tion consisted of a colossal group of painted wooden
figures, raised on a small stand decorated with
plants and flowers, and composed of three person-
ages. It aimed at telling that saddest and most
human of divine stories, the bearing of the Cross.
Of the painfully grotesque rendering of it, it is
difficult to give any idea. The central figure —
larger than life-size, and bending beneath the weight
of the accursed tree — was clad in a flowing robe of
threadbare violet velvet, tied round the waist by
a heavy gilt girdle. On the long, coarse, matted
hair was placed the crown of thorns, whence issued
three great gilded rays, or more properly horns,
in lieu of glory. Behind stood the sorrowing
mother, in full regal costume, the lavishly spangled
crimson cloak suspended from above the head in
mania fashion, and the head itself crowned with a
diadem, or aureola, of similar rays. In the back-
ground, the beloved disciple in a long garment of
faded sky-blue. The effect of this group, when one
came suddenly upon it in the broad daylight, was
startling, to say the least, though there was a naive
realism about the poor staring faces, bedaubed with
pink and vermilion and ghastly white, which was
not without force.

I was unconsciously musing over the singular
corruption of taste, let alone doctrine, which has
brought the old Church to setting up these great

316 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

tawdry dolls — for to the dignity of idols they
scarcely rise — as objects of adoration for its chil-
dren, when I was roughly roused by the voice of
one of the vigilantes. 4 Hats off ! ' called out this
guardian of the peace, at the same time unceremo-
niously touching me on the shoulder. I obeyed,
of course, and, as I moved on, noticed that at the
foot of the group was hung up a wooden bowl, into
which the passers-by, crossing themselves and kiss-
ing the golden girdle as they passed, threw their
small offerings. Some one at least was to derive
benefit from this exhibition, though whether it
would be the sick and the poor was open to
question.

I continued my rounds through the streets,
which bore an unusually quiet aspect, hardly any
carriages and but few tram cars being visible in
them, and the latter being prohibited from ringing
their bells or blowing their horns. The half-
dozen churches I went into afforded very much the
same sights. Of fervour or devotional feeling
there was but little trace ; all these well-clad
people, who passed in and out in a continuous
stream, having evidently come because it was the
right thing, and, when they had shown themselves
and made their genuflexions, hurrying away again
to the next shrine further on. Somehow I was
profanely reminded of the staircases at London re-

CHAP, xx.] CHURCH DECORATION 317

ceptioris, in ascending which you meet your friends
' going on ' elsewhere.

San Ignacio, a dark little edifice in Calle Bolivar,
is the place of worship most affected by the fashion-
able world. It was originally Jesuit property, and
was twice occupied by the Order, who were finally
expelled from it by Eosas, whose quarrel with them
is said to have arisen out of their refusal to let him
hang up his portrait in their sanctuary. At the
Franciscan church there are still some cloisters,
tenanted by the last remnant of monks tolerated at
Buenos Ayres. A waxen friar was seated at the
entrance, at the receipt of custom, so lifelike that
it was hardly possible to distinguish him from his
flesh-and-blood brother who was collecting alms at
another door of the building.

For the rest, the decorations and ecclesiastical
furniture of all these churches struck me as ex-
tremely meagre and shabby. The Spaniards, in
fact, left no real art behind them. In this domain,
as in all others, their rule over the continent was
barren and unprofitable. In fairness, too, it must
be observed that from the first days of the con-
quest, the Church in South America, not unnatu-
rally, sought to adapt its outward forms and cere-
monies to the understanding of the simple, credu-
lous races with which it had to deal.

Latterly it has fallen on evil days in all these

3l8 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xx.

countries, and has lost not only power but, so to
speak, caste. For some time after the end of the
struggle for independence, in which a number of
the national clergy had taken an active part, the
Argentine Church preserved her prestige and influ-
ence ; but the suppression of the monastic orders
by Eivadavia, and a series of similar measures
directed against the clerical immunities and privi-
leges, soon sapped her authority, and reduced her
to comparative impotence and penury. Much of
her great power in the colonial days she had owed
to the fact that her priesthood was largely recruited
from among the better classes, scarcely any other
career being at that time open to the young Creoles
of respectable families. Thus it was that so many
of the clergy, both regular and secular, ardently
threw themselves into the movement against the
mother country ; and it is a remarkable circum-
stance that of the twenty-nine names appended to
the Declaration of Independence, signed at Tucu-
man on July 9, 1816, twelve are those of ecclesi-
astics, of whom two were friars.

With the new era of freedom and equality, the
young Argentines deserted the Church for other
professions, and principally for the law. Nowa-
days the priesthood is chiefly taken from among
the most ignorant classes, and is regarded with little
reverence or affection. Whether the country has

CHAP. XX.] CASSOCK AND GOWN 319

benefited, as much as might be supposed, by this
wholesale exchange of the cowl or cassock for the
advocate's gown, may perhaps be fairly questioned.
The earlier Argentine history would be a blank and
harmless page but for the restlessness of briefless
barristers and disappointed military men. A Pre-
sidential Decree of November 30, 1880, addressed
to the Department of Public Instruction, frankly ex-
presses the view that training for the bar is already
amply provided for in the national universities, and
the law faculties of Santa Fe and Tucuman, 'without
its being necessary to grant greater facilities to that
profession, which already weighs, unequally and
disastrously, in the public education and public life
of the country.'

THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xxi.

CHAPTER XXI.

VALEDICTORY — CHARMS AND AMENITIES OP SOUTH AMERICAN
LIFE — WHAT THE FOREIGN SETTLER HAS TO EXPECT.

THE period fixed for my departure from Buenos
Ayres now drew very near. I had foreseen for
some time past that my stay in the Eiver Plate
would only be of short duration ; but when it came
to saying farewell to the friends I had made there,
and taking final leave of an interesting country
which there was but little likelihood of my ever
revisiting, I could not but feel unfeigned regret.

There is an unquestionable charm about South
American life, with all its imperfections. Many
of the artificial restrictions and social prejudices
which hamper and fence in every-day existence
under our old-world arrangements, are almost un-
known here. What may be wanting in refinement
or external polish is made up for by a certain
largeness of views and a refreshing absence of con-
ventionality. In the modes of thought and the habits
of these new-born communities, there is something
of the contemptuous generosity of youth. It is as

CHAP, xxi.] BRIGHT SIDE OF EQUALITY 321

though, having inexhaustible funds to draw upon,
they could afford to treat as trifling many things
to which, in our own condition of society, with
its set and complicated forms, we are perhaps
accustomed to give an undue importance. Life
hence derives attraction from being so much more
easy and unconstrained, and you experience, so to
speak, a sense of greater elbow-room and of more
ample breathing-space. Even those who are least
enamoured of the hollow creed of absolute equality,
which is the very essence of the so-called free in-
stitutions of most modern democracies, and in fact
stands them in stead of substantial liberties but
little understood or prized in themselves, must
grant that the belief in it generates a healthy self-
respect and corresponding habits of mutual con-
sideration, thus imparting a certain simple dignity
and frank cordiality to the relations between all
classes. With fully as marked a disparity of lot
and fortune as elsewhere, rich and poor, great and
small, somehow seem to rub on more comfortably
together.

But these are considerations on which it is in
no way my purpose to dwell. I would rather re-
cord my tribute to the genuine, warm-hearted
hospitality which distinguishes the Spanish Creole
race, and of which I had, as it happened, special
opportunities of judging. I can never, for instance,

Y

322 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHA.P. xxr.

forget the kindly welcome and discriminating sym-
pathy with which I met on my first arrival in Chile,
under personal circumstances which, for a long
time, rendered all social intercourse distasteful to
me ; the discreet attempts made to entice me out
of my seclusion, the many thoughtful little acts be-
tokening, both real friendly interest and thorough
nice feeling. During my residence at Buenos
Ayres, too, I received nothing but the greatest
kindness from all those with whom I came in con-
tact. The banal Spanish locution which invites
you to consider your host's house as your own, is
no empty form of speech with these genial South
Americans. They are only too ready to provide
in every way for the stranger who has the good
fortune to secure their good-will, and their offers
of service are sometimes almost embarrassing.
As a trifling, but characteristic, trait of excessive
open-handedness, I may mention that, during my
residence at Santiago, I frequently found, on call-
ing for my bill at the Union Club, that whatever
I had ordered had already been paid for by some
one of my kind friends. I remonstrated in vain
against this distressing form of hospitality, which
practically led to my not using that excellent and
well-appointed establishment as much as I other-
wise would have done.

Not the least of my regrets, in turning my

CHAP, xxi.] UNDEVELOPED WEALTH 323

back for good on Argentinia, was not having had
time to see more of the interior of the country,
and especially having been unable to visit the so-
called upper provinces. I had made every ar-
rangement for an excursion to Cordova, whence I
hoped to push on as far as Tucuman ; but at the
last moment my plans were upset, and I had to
give up the journey. I therefore saw nothing of
the venerable and picturesque old city which, for
upwards of two centuries, was the main seat of
learning throughout these regions, and is, to this
day, honoured by the scientific labours of the
National Observatory, placed under the direction
of that distinguished astronomer Doctor Gould.
Nor did I see the Garden of South America, as
Tucuman has been called, with its wonderful
woods of laurels clothing the first slopes of the
lower cordillera, which from thence rises, stage
upon stage, to the giant Andine range. Some of
the trees there, according to De Moussy, measure
over twenty feet in girth. It is only by visiting the
upper provinces that one can acquire a complete
notion of the vast and manifold resources of these
magnificent regions ; of their undeveloped riches
in mines and timber and products of all kinds,
which so far lay dormant, and are waiting, as it
were, for the magic touch of capital to turn them
into tangible wealth.

324 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xxi.

Nevertheless, Tsaw enough thoroughly to realise
the great capabilities of the country, and to per-
ceive what a tempting opening it offers to the
European settler. And this brings me to a point
which, in the closing pages of even such slight
personal reminiscences as these, I cannot entirely
leave untouched. Can these countries of the
Eiver Plate, and more especially the territories of
the Argentine Eepublic, be altogether honestly re-
commended to English settlers ?

The answer to this plain question is, I fear, by
no means an easy one. If the statements of the local
press, and more especially of certain of its foreign
organs, were to be received with absolute faith, there
could be little doubt as to the easy success and pro-
sperity that await the foreign immigrant on the banks
of the Great Silver Eiver. It so happens, however,
that there is at the present time a studied attempt
to write up the country, with the laudable object
of attracting to it more of the stream of European
immigration than has yet flowed this way. It is
not only mere hands that are wanted — however
much these must be welcome, as in all new com-
munities ; the aim is principally to secure a better
class of colonists, and with them some accession of
national wealth. A feeling is growing up that there
has been more than enough of the needy influx
from Italy and the Basque Provinces, and that

CHAP, xxi.] CLASS OF SETTLERS WANTED 325

what is now wanted is not so much the immigrant
as the settler ; not the poor Southern labourer or
boatman, who has been driven from his home by
hard times and heavy taxation, and brings with
him little beyond his thews and sinews and his
capacity for heavy toil; but rather the small
farmer, or the younger son of respectable family
— if possible, from Northern European regions —
who, while seeking to improve his own fortunes,
will contribute some capital to the general store.
The object in contemplation is in every way legiti-
mate and praiseworthy, but the advocacy employed
to further it may perhaps be said to be to some
extent misleading. Only the brighter sides of the
picture are held up to view by those who, to use a
vulgar phrase, are cracking up the country, while
a veil is carefully thrown over its darker aspects.

To those in England who may be allured by
the prospects so temptingly displayed, I would say :
Come out by all means, but do so with your eyes
well open. Bear in mind that if there is much
that is good here, there is not a little that is evil.
No better field probably exists for patient self-
relying industry, backed by a moderate amount of
capital ; but whoever comes here to settle and
try his hand at farming or stock-breeding in the
Pampas, must first of all be prepared for rude
contests with uncontrollable natural forces, in

326 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xxr.

the shape of destructive tempests and desolating
droughts, plagues of locusts and wide-spreading
murrain. Nor should he forget that, however
great may be the attractions of a life of active
exercise, diversified by sport, on the great salu-
brious plains, most of the charms or refinements of
civilised intercourse are utterly wanting to it. In
this respect the trial is a severe one, and it in a
measure explains the painful failures of some of
our countrymen to which I have alluded else-
where.

Above all, the intending settler should be ready
to face the relative insecurity of life and property
in the more out-of-the-way districts in which he
will have to seek his fortunes. The spirit of order
is no doubt acquiring greater strength, and the
authority of the central government is establishing
itself more firmly, day by day, throughout the
country. But in times of commotion — and it
would be unwise to reckon on such never recur-
ring again — lawlessness and organised pillage (as
recently shown in Corrientes) are only too frequent,
and unchecked, when not connived at, by the local
authorities. Even in ordinary times the efforts of
the central government to punish outrages, and
procure redress for the injured, are often rendered
futile by the clumsy Federal arrangements under
which a "population of barely three millions is

CHAP. XXI.] OUTLAWS OF THE PAMPA 327

saddled with the burden of fourteen separate pro-
vincial governments, each composed of an execu-
tive, a legislature, a judicature, and all the other
branches of a separate administration. The in-
dependence of these provincial authorities is still
far from nominal, and to their tender mercies the
stranger is practically left.

Nor can it be too well understood that, at the
best of times, life, in the wilder and more remote
parts of the country, is rendered peculiarly unsafe
by the numerous dangerous characters who princi-
pally infest the borderlands till recently in Indian
occupation, but are not unknown in districts which
have been reclaimed for a much longer period.
Many of these men are escaped convicts, or crimi-
nals flying from justice, or deserters who prefer
outlawry to an enlistment which in many ways
recalls the brutalities of the pressgang.

These malefactors, or rebels against social order,
who have taken to the wild savanna — where, up
to the other day, they found a refuge with the
native tribes — are all classed under the expressive
generic name of c Gaucho malo,' and almost in-
credible stories are told of their ferocious instincts
and depraved appetite for blood. A highly re-
spectable chaplain, who was well acquainted with
the Argentine prisons, gave me a terrible instance
of this in the confession made to him by one of

328 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xxi.

these men, who had been caught in the very act
of murder and condemned to penal servitude. The
fellow stated that, having lost his way one evening
in a violent storm, he came across a miserable
ranc/w where he resolved to ask for a night's lodg-
ing. The only occupant of it was a lonely old
cMna, who charitably welcomed him and at once set
about preparing for him such food as she could
provide out of her wretched store. As she was
kneeling on the ground at his feet, and stooping to
light the fire, the sight of her poor old neck
stretched out before him tempted him so irre-
sistibly— this, mind, was the man's own deliberate
statement — that, seizing hold of the hatchet she
had been using to cut the wood, he deliberately
chopped off her head, and then seating himself on
the prostrate corpse completed the interrupted
preparations for supper. There a patrol casually
passing by, and also driven in by the weather,
found him and seized him red-handed. What a
scene of devilry! The assassin weltering in the
blood of his victim, and drinking himself stupid,
while the storm raged all round.

Shortly before I left Buenos Ayres two Scotch
sheep-farmers were barbarously murdered at a
place called Naranjitos, on the borders of Cor-
rientes and Entre-Eios, by some Gauchos who had
ridden up to the door of their hut and asked

CHAP. xxi. j RISKS AND RETURNS 329

for shelter for the night. In this case, however,
the crime was committed for plunder, and was of
a common type well known all over the country,
while it is a strange and sinister trait in these out-
laws of the Pampa — as illustrated in the instance
given above — that many of them are not robbers
by profession, but desperate characters, at war with
all mankind ; given to killing for killing's sake,
and taking a positive pleasure in shedding blood.
There exist probably no more murderous brutes
on the face of the earth.1

When all this has been said, there remains the
comforting reflection that the British settler is
everywhere well able to take care of himself, and
is not to be deterred either by tempests or ruffianism.
What I would chiefly point out, then, is that those
who hear of, and are tempted by, such large returns
as fifteen per cent, and upwards on capital invested
in cattle- or sheep- farming ventures, should not
forget that so high a percentage denotes propor-
tionate risks, let alone very serious discomforts.
On the other hand, with the bright examples of
success that could be quoted — even in the case of
men who have exchanged our Australian colonies
for these regions — it would be absurd to deny that
the field open here to persevering energy, tempered

1 ' Tous tuent/ says an intelligent foreign observer, ' souvent sans
raison, sans mobile connu.'

Z

330 THE GREAT SILVER RIVER [CHAP. xxi.

by a reasonable amount of prudence, is in many
ways admirable. Pure agriculture, too — as yet in
an incipient stage — promises very well in the older
and more civilised districts, and it has yet to be
shown that it may not be made as remunerative
as stock-breeding under far more tempting con-
ditions.

To sum up. If the intending settler must not
reckon too much on the fostering care of a strong
Government, or the protection of laws impartially
and firmly administered, he will, in return, be very
little interfered with — except in times of political
trouble — and will enjoy the complete independence
so greatly prized by the Anglo-Saxon. He will
thus be able quietly to shape his fortunes, and, in
doing so, will have the satisfaction of materially
contributing to the progress and consolidation of
the country he has chosen for his abode. It is a
land of infinite resource and promise, and, whatever
may have been the past faults of its rulers, to ruin
it would be, as has been happily said, a triumph
of human perversity.

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