Part 34

The first impressions of the traveller are unfavorable, and you wonder what possessed the Spaniards to locate this capital where it stands. But Buenos Ayres is like Topsy--it simply “growed.” The first man who came was Juan Diaz de Solis, in 1515. He discovered the Rio de la Plata, and was murdered by the Indians. Then came the famous Sebastian Cabot, who explored the country as far up the river as Paraguay ten years later, and was followed by Pedro de Mendoza in 1535, who obtained permission from the Spanish Government to equip an expedition to subdue the country, provided--as was always the rule in the Pickwick Club--he did the same at his own expense. Mendoza came with eleven hundred men, went ashore where he first saw land, established a camp as a basis of operations, and from the purity of the atmosphere called it Buenos Ayres, or “good air.” He had no intention of founding a city at this location; his purpose was to rest there a while and keep a base of supplies, until he had found a path to the mythical El Dorado, which was supposed to lie somewhere in the interior of South America.

The approach to Buenos Ayres, which stands about one hundred miles above the mouth of the Rio Plata--or “the river Plate,” as it is more commonly called by English writers--is perplexing to navigators, as the mouth of the river is beset with mud-banks and sand-bars--accumulations that come down from the interior of the continent upon the swift waters, and, like the shoals in the Mississippi, are constantly shifting. The voyage from the Strait of Magellan to the place is not a comfortable one, and the captain is always glum and anxious. When it is calm weather he is nervous, and keeps his eye on the barometer for fear of a gale; and when the gale comes, as it does about three or four days in a week, the jokes of the passengers do not appear to entertain him. These gales are called _pamperos_, and sweep across the pampas of Patagonia with the violence of a tornado. Many a brave ship has gone down a victim of their fierceness, and the sailors are as much afraid of them as of the tempests which haunt Cape Horn.

Our captain was unusually anxious, because we had a priest on board. Ever since the days of Jonah there has been a superstition among sailors that clergymen always bring bad luck, particularly a Catholic priest. In trying to discover why the forebodings over a priest should be greater than those over a Protestant parson, the conclusion is reached that it is because the priest wears the sign of his office in his apparel, and is thus more conspicuous. Many captains of sailing-vessels will not take clergymen as passengers under any circumstances, always protesting, of course, that they do not share the common superstition, but basing their objections upon the ground that it would demoralize the sailors. A missionary to one of the South American countries waited in New York for over three months to get passage by a sailing-vessel, and although several started in the mean time for the port he wanted to reach, he was finally obliged to go on a steamer by way of England. The steamer was lost in a storm off the coast of British Guiana. He and other of the passengers were saved in the life-boats, but the chief mate and several of the seamen were drowned. This superstition prevails among sailors of all races, but the Spaniards are the most sensitive to it, as they are to omens of all kinds. The Spanish seamen believe that if the decks are wet by the sea the first day out, they will have fine weather for the rest of the voyage, and for this reason they often leave their moorings in a storm when skippers of other countries would wait for fair weather. There is scarcely a tar in the Spanish service who cannot find some significance in every incident.

Through the Strait of Magellan and up the east coast of

South America vessels are followed by myriads of sea-birds--albatrosses, Mother Carey’s chickens, and a beautiful species of the gull variety not found elsewhere, known as the “cape pigeon.” Their plumage is beautiful, of the purest white, mixed with the most intense black, and nature has clothed them so warmly for the severe climate in which they live that their skin is as thick as fur, and is used for the manufacture of robes and rugs. More than a hundred breasts of these birds are needed for an ordinary sized robe, however, so that they are a luxury few can afford. I saw in Montevideo a mass of tiny feathers, black and white, as fine and soft as eider-down, that was lined with scarlet silk, and cost two hundred and fifty dollars. Nothing more beautiful could be imagined. Robes made of the breasts of ostriches are lovely enough, but one of cape-pigeons’ breasts is passing lovely.

The sailors catch them by throwing overboard a long piece of coarse twine and trailing it in the wake of the ship. As hundreds of the birds are constantly sailing along the surface of the water, they get tangled in the cord and are drawn in, but it requires as much dexterity to get them aboard as to land a lively trout. Sometimes brass or tin tags are tied to their necks, with names and dates scratched upon them, when they are released. The officers of our ship reported that upon a previous voyage they got a bird with one of these tags on, bearing inscriptions showing that it had been caught twice before. They gave the little stranger another indorsement and let him go. The albatrosses of the southern hemisphere are very large, sometimes measuring ten and twelve feet from wing to wing; but they are worthless, and are stupid, awkward birds, that often dash themselves against the side of a ship from pure stupidity.

There is no port of importance between Punta Arenas, in the Strait, and the river Plate except Bahia Blanca (White Bay), near where the United States astronomical expedition made its observations at the last transit of Venus. The entire coast for fifteen hundred miles is barren of civilization, except the cabin of some hardy frontiersman, who has set up a ranch and is waiting for the country to grow down to him.

Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, lies a few miles below Buenos Ayres, on the other side of the river, and vessels usually touch there, for it is a place of great commercial importance, more accessible to shipping and more favorably located in every respect than the latter city, which lies stretched along a low sandy bank seven or eight miles beyond the anchorage of ships. There is no harbor at Buenos Ayres--not even an excuse for one--and it is beyond the power of human genius to give vessels direct access to the city. The water is so shallow that they anchor seven, eight, and ten miles out, and are loaded and unloaded by means of flat-bottomed lighters, which are towed back and forth. Two or three times a week during the winter, when a pampero is blowing, the water is carried out to sea by force of the wind, and these lighters are left high and dry upon a beach over which they were floating a few hours before. Then they have to be unloaded by means of carts on wheels eight to ten feet in diameter, which are driven into the water until nothing can be seen of the mules that draw them but their indignant noses and nodding ears. It is amusing to see the heads of these mules sticking out of the water at an elevation which must be very uncomfortable, but one they are used to. Passengers who arrive on these occasions are transferred from the ship to a lighter, then to a mule-cart, and sometimes are carried ashore on the back of a stormy Italian, who never fails to swear by all the saints and the Virgin that the man on his back is the heaviest he has ever carried, and demands more than the regular fee for extra baggage, so to speak. Lacking confidence in the sincerity of the cargador, the passenger will promise him heaven and earth and the sea if he will not drop him into the water, and then fights it out when he gets safely ashore.

Notwithstanding the commercial disadvantages of Buenos Ayres, it is the most enterprising, prosperous, and wealthy city in South America--a regular Chicago--the only place on the whole continent where people seem to be in a hurry, and where everybody you meet appears to be trying to overtake the man ahead of him. It is all bustle and life night and day, and is so different from the rest of South America that the traveller is more impressed than he would be if he came direct from the United States. Elsewhere people always put off till to-morrow what they are absolutely not compelled to do to-day. In the other countries mañana (manyana) is king, and mañana means to-morrow, but in Buenos Ayres the idea seems to be that the liveliest turkey gets the most grasshoppers, and everybody is trying to get as many as he can. Merchants do not shut up shop to go to dinner, as is the rule elsewhere in Spanish-America, and morning newspapers are not printed on the afternoon of the previous day. To do as much as possible this week, and a good deal more, is the motto, and that accounts for the progress of the republic.

And it is a republic, not only in name but in fact. There is no bossism there, as in other Spanish-American countries. Every man is a sovereign, and he will not permit the soldiers to count the votes. There is always a good deal of a rumpus during election times, and the defeated party often raises a revolution, but since the tyrant Rosas was overthrown, no man has attempted to bully or oppress the Argentine people.

Our knowledge of the Argentine Republic amounts to little more than we know of the Congo State, and the man who goes there from the United States is kept in a state of astonishment until he leaves. Then, as he sits on shipboard and reflects over what he has seen, he cannot find an exclamation point big enough to do justice to his description of the country. The Argentinians think it is wicked indifference on our part to know so little about them, for the surprise of the few American visitors wounds their self-esteem. They are a proud people, like all the rest of the Spanish race, and, unlike some nations, have many things to be proud of. They know all about us. There are many men in the Argentine Republic who can tell you the percentage of increase in population, industry, and progress in the United States, as shown by the latest statistics, but how many people in the United States are aware that that country is growing twice as fast as ours? How many members of the Senate or the House of Representatives at Washington, how many members of the Cabinet or Justices of the Supreme Court, know that the increase of population in the Argentine Republic during the last twenty-five years has been one hundred and fifty-four per cent., while in the United States it has been only seventy-nine per cent., and that Buenos Ayres is growing as fast as Denver or Minneapolis?

The people are right when they assert that their country is the United States of South America, and there is nothing else that they are so proud of. They study and imitate our institutions and our methods, and in some cases improve upon them. You can buy the New York dailies and illustrated papers at any of the news-stands in Buenos Ayres, although they are six weeks old, and the people purchase and read them. They understand the significance of the cartoons in _Puck_, and read _Harper’s Magazine_ and the _Century_. Blaine’s book and Grant’s Memoirs are on sale, and the issues of our Presidential campaigns are as well understood as their own local squabbles.

The greatest benefit to be derived by a traveller in the countries of South America is to make him think well of his own; but, nevertheless, his vanity receives a severe shock when he comes to the Argentine Republic, and discovers how little he knows of what is going on in the world.

The succession of surprises that greet one on either hand keep him reminded of his own ignorance. It is perfectly natural, however, because we have no communication with the Argentine Republic, and have not had since the day when steam was substituted for canvas as a motive power on the sea. There was a time when we almost monopolized the commerce of that country, but during our civil war the ships were withdrawn, and the sailors went into the navy. Then when peace came all hands were called to the development of our own resources, and we were so busily engaged in building railroads, opening up farms, establishing ranches, working mines, and erecting new towns and cities in the great West, that we forgot that there was anybody to be looked after in South America. Twenty-five years ago our knowledge of the continent was pretty good, but we have learned nothing since. Our geographies read as they did then, our histories have not been rewritten, and our maps remain unaltered. But in the mean time mighty changes have been taking place among our neighbors that have escaped our attention. They have been growing as we have grown, and instead of a few half-civilized, ill-governed people upon the pampas of the Argentine Republic, a great nation has sprung up, as enterprising, progressive, and intelligent as ours, with “all the modern improvements,” as house agents say, and an ambition to stand beside the United States in the front rank of modern civilization. While we have been occupied with our own internal development, the European nations have gone in and taken the commerce to which we by the logic of political and geographical considerations are entitled.

Twenty-three lines of steamships connect the Argentine Republic with the markets of Europe, and from forty to sixty vessels are sailing back and forth each month. In the harbor of Buenos Ayres, or in what they call the harbor, are dozens of steamships and scores of sailing-vessels, showing every flag but that of the United States; for an American steamer never goes there, and only occasionally a bark or brigantine, chartered at New York or Philadelphia, with a cargo of lumber or railway supplies. Nearly all the goods these people buy of us are sent by way of Europe, as mails and passengers usually go, and very little is bought in the United States that can be purchased elsewhere. The reason for this is very plain--we have no transportation facilities, while those afforded for trade in Europe are as regular and convenient as exist between Liverpool and New York.

And this trade is worth having. The Argentine Republic imports nearly one hundred million dollars’ worth of manufactured merchandise every year, of which about one-third is from England, one-fifth from France, one-fifth from Germany, while the United States comes in at the tail-end of the list, along with Sweden, Denmark, and Chili. While England sent $35,375,628 worth there in 1885, we sent $7,000,000 worth, mostly lumber, railway locomotives and cars, and agricultural implements. While she sent $7,000,000 worth of cotton goods, we sent $600,000 worth; while she sent nearly $7,000,000 worth of hardware and other manufactures of iron and steel, we sent about $500,000 worth; and so on, down through the list of manufactured articles in which we, with equal transportation facilities, can compete with any nation on the globe. Our goods are more popular there, as everywhere in South America, so popular that the manufacturers at Manchester and Birmingham imitate our trade-marks, and send cargoes of merchandise which appears to have been produced in the United States, but never got nearer to Yankeeland than Liverpool.

There is not a country in all the world so deserving of attention as this, and particularly of our attention, for the time is drawing near when we must confront the results of its enterprise in the markets of the world. In its resources as well as in the character of its people it resembles the United States. Here are found pampas like our prairies, rich and fertile in the lowlands, and covered with fine ranges as they rise in mighty terraces from the Atlantic to the Andes; while in the foot-hills of the mountains are deposits of gold and silver similar to those of Colorado, whose wealth is yet untold. In the north is a soil that will produce cotton, rice, and sugar, like Louisiana and Texas; then come tobacco lands, like those of Virginia and Tennessee; then, as the temperature grows colder towards the south, are wheat and corn fields, as yet a tithe of them untilled, but suggesting Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. This vast area, as vast as that which lies between Indiana and the Rocky Mountains, is furnished with natural highways even more tempting to navigation than the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri rivers, and which find their sources in forests as extensive as those that shelter our great lakes.

Already the pampas produce wheat enough for domestic consumption and 9,000,000 bushels for export, and the production is increasing with the greatest rapidity. Nearly 100,000,000 sheep--more than are owned in any country of the world--are grazing on the ranges, and producing 200,000,000 pounds of wool for export; already beef and mutton are sent to England in refrigerator ships at prices cheaper than we can compete with, and few of our people know it.

A mistaken notion prevails everywhere among the American people about the social and political condition of the Argentine Republic, as well as about its commerce. There are banks at Buenos Ayres with capital greater than any in the United States, and occupying buildings finer than any banking-house in New York, palaces of marble and glass and iron. The Provincial Bank has a capital of $33,000,000, and $67,000,000 of deposits. It does more business than any one of our banks, and more than the Imperial Bank of Germany, being exceeded by but two banks in the world. The National Bank has a capital of $40,000,000, another has $8,000,000, another has $7,000,000, and several have $5,000,000. If we compare the banking capital and deposits of the Argentine Republic with those of the United States we find that they amount to $64 per capita of population there, and only $49 per capita with us. They have a Board of Trade and a Stock Exchange, where business is conducted upon the same plan as in New York or Chicago, and with as great an amount of excitement.

There are more daily papers in Buenos Ayres than in New York or London--twenty-three in all. Two of the dailies are published in the English language, one in French, one in German, and one in Italian; the rest are in Spanish. There are two illustrated weeklies, one of them comic, and three monthly literary magazines. The leading daily, _La Nacion_, is a great blanket-sheet larger than the New York _Evening Post_, and has a circulation of thirty thousand copies. The expression of opinion in the newspapers is as free as with us, and the editors are not under such restrictions as in other of the South American republics. There is a peculiar law of libel, and editors charged with this offence are tried by what is called a jury of honor, a sort of arbitrating committee, who decide upon the justice of the facts stated. Sometimes they compel the publisher to apologize, but more often console the complainant with advice “to grin and bear it.” The telephone and electric light are used extensively as in the United States, there being two telephone companies, and the manager of one told me that the number of instruments engaged is larger in proportion to population than any city in the world.

There are nine prominent theatres in Buenos Ayres, giving performances every night in the week, including Sunday, a permanent Italian opera, and a permanent French opera bouffe. One of the theatres is English, with all the plays given in that language, another is French, and a third is Italian; the rest are Spanish. There is a curious innovation in theatre and opera management in Buenos Ayres, which might be imitated by managers in the United States. The first gallery, or what we call the “dress circle,” is reserved exclusively for ladies, and no gentlemen are admitted. There is a separate box-office and entrance, and ladies who desire to attend but have no escorts are thus given an opportunity without being subjected to the annoyances suffered if they go in the usual way. They can ride to the private entrance in street-car or cab, and be as safe from the impertinence of loafers as if they had a dozen brothers or husbands around them. These galleries are almost always filled, which is the best evidence of their popularity and the success of the system.

Buenos Ayres has its parks, boulevards, and race-courses, like other modern cities; in fact, there is nothing in the line of civilized amusements that it is without. Everybody keeps a carriage and nearly everybody rides. Nowhere in the world are horses so cheap, and the stock as well as the equipages are very fine. A good pair of carriage-horses, the very best, can be had for one hundred and fifty dollars, and saddle-horses that are equal to any in the world can be purchased for thirty or forty dollars. The Argentine horseman invests his money in silver-mounted saddles and bridles, and a riding-gear with solid-silver stirrups, heavily mounted saddle, etc., is worth between four and five hundred dollars. All the swells have them, and the ladies who ride are similarly mounted, having a beautiful stirrup in the form of a slipper, often of solid silver. The parks and boulevards are crowded with haughty dons and ravishing señoritas during driving hours, and present a very brilliant and attractive scene.

The two Argentine Universities, under the patronage of the Government, are among the best in America, and rank with Yale or Harvard in curriculum and standard of education. They have large and able faculties, many of them Germans, with four branches, namely, law, medicine, engineering, and scientific, and the ordinary classical course. The library has about sixty thousand volumes, representing the literature of all languages, and the museum is quite extensive. The public-school system is also under the patronage of the Government, under a compulsory education law, and includes all grades from the kindergarten to the normal school. The distinguished ex-President of the Republic, Dr. Sarmiento, who was formerly Minister to the United States, is the especial patron of education, and it is his ambition to make the school system of the Argentine Republic the finest in the world. He studied the educational systems of all our States, and finally adopted that of Michigan for his own country.