Part 36

There is a place called Washington and another called Lincoln in the Argentine Republic, but the newest thing in the way of towns is La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Ayres. Until within a few years that province, having more than half the population of the entire country, has considered itself entitled to rule the rest, as far as the Government was concerned, and the outlying provinces have had nothing to say about it, being regarded as insignificant dependencies of the city and State of Buenos Ayres. They tried to secede, but were whipped into the Union; but as immigration has come into the country the population of other provinces outnumbers Buenos Ayres, and often in Presidential campaigns the contest depends upon a geographical issue. Roca, the recent President, is an outside man, and the Buenos Ayrians determined to prevent his inauguration or overthrow his government; but to mollify them he announced a great scheme of building a new capital at Government expense. There was no time to lay out a town site and let it grow up in the ordinary way, so the President sent to the United States and had five hundred houses manufactured to order and shipped down here, like a box of toys, all ready to put up. A location was selected on the pampas, all the revolutionary leaders were let into the speculation, war was averted, and a brand-new city sprang up on the prairie, like a bed of mushrooms, almost in a single night. Two or three millions of dollars were spent by the Government, but the President considered that the cost of the town was much less than would have been the cost of the war that was averted; plenty of money was put into circulation, all the laboring men in the country got lucrative employment, and, as in the old-fashioned storybooks, everything came out happily in the end. These houses were made in Brooklyn and Chicago: a New York firm got the contract. There was so much haste and carelessness in their construction that they do not wear very well, and are no credit to their builders.

The gaucho (_gowcho_) of South America is the most interesting character on the continent, and if the writers of tales of adventure could get at him, he would afford them as much material as the Crusader of the Middle Ages or the North American savage. The Spanish colonies have produced no Fenimore Cooper or Mayne Reid, and such a writer as Ned Buntline is unknown to South American literature. Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack would die of mortification if their horsemanship and endurance were placed in comparison with that of the genuine gaucho of the pampas, and even the centaur of mythology would blush with envy.

The gauchos are the descendants of the aristocratic Spanish dons and Indian women; for the grandees and hidalgos who once ruled these colonies did not hesitate to seek the society of the Pocahontases of the Guarani race. They are at once the most indolent and the most active of human beings; for when they are not in the saddle, devouring space on the back of a tireless broncho, they are sleeping in apathetic indolence among their mistresses or gambling with their chums. Half savage and half courtier, the gaucho is as polite as he is cruel, and will make a bow like a dancing-master or thrum an air on the native mandolin with the same ease and nonchalance as he will murder a fellow-being or slaughter a steer. He recognizes no law but his own will and the unwritten code of the cattle-range, and all violations of this code are punished by banishment or death. Whoever offends him must fight or fly, and his vengeance is as enduring as it is vigilant. The statute of limitations is not recognized by him, and he will kill an enemy he has not seen for a quarter of a century. He never shoots or strikes with his fist, and his only weapons are the short knife, which is never absent from his hand or his belt and is used at short range, and the lasso, which is not only an implement of his trade but an instrument offensive and defensive.

A fight between gauchos always means murder, and it is the duty of him who kills to see that his victim is decently buried and the widow and orphans cared for. The widow, if she pleases him, becomes his wife or his mistress, and the orphans grow up to be gauchos under his tutelage. He is as superstitious as a Hindoo, and an inveterate gambler. When he is not asleep or in the saddle he is always engaged at quaint games of chance that are his own invention, and are known to no other race in the world. He is peaceable when sober, but a reckless dare-devil, regardless of God and man. When he is drunk he is a fiend incarnate, for a howling savage is like a prattling child when compared to a drunken gaucho. As brave as a lion, as active as a panther, with an endurance equal to any test, faithful to his friends, as implacable as fate to any one who offends him, he has exercised a powerful influence upon the destiny of the Argentine Republic, and kept that nation back in civilization until his influence was overcome by an increased immigration of foreigners. The gaucho has never taken any part in politics except as a soldier, and as such, under a leader that he will obey, he is without an equal in either civilized or savage fighting.

The Argentinians once had a gaucho President, Don Manuel Rosas, who ruled the country with a despotism of iron and blood for twenty-two years (from 1830 to 1852), and even now is seldom referred to without a shudder, for the marks of his cruel hand are still visible, and the ancient aristocracy still feel the sting of blows he inflicted upon them. He was the son of a wealthy Spaniard of the same name, who exercised a patriarchal sway over the peons that looked after his flocks and herds; and as the young Rosas grew up, the old man gradually yielded to the stronger will of the son, until the latter became a sort of gaucho leader, and commanded a regiment of them in the war of 1829 against the Indians. So powerful did he become that it was an easy step from the chieftainship of the gauchos to the Presidency of the Republic--a self-appointed Dictator, the head of an absolute despotism which existed for nearly a quarter of a century, in defiance of the constitution and the laws.

Rosas was a compound of the arrogance and stubborn superstition of the Spanish race and the cruelty and craft of the Guarani Indians, whose blood he inherited through his mother. He maintained his power by the loyalty of the gauchos, of whom the people of the towns lived in terror. With an inflexible will, with the cunning of a fox and the courage of a lion, with egregious vanity and arrogance, and a perpetual distrust of every living being except his daughter Mannileta--the only person to whose influence he ever

submitted or for whom he ever showed any affection--he ruled like a savage chieftain over the entire southern half of the continent, from Paraguay to the Strait of Magellan, relying solely upon the terror which his own cruelty and that of his gaucho lieutenants had inspired among the people. Blood flowed by his command as freely as water, and the extermination of those who opposed him was the policy under which he perpetuated his power. No citizen of the Argentine Republic or Uruguay felt himself safe. No man went to bed at night with any confidence that he would be alive in the morning; for neither friendship, relationship, nor even obscurity, was a shield from assassination. Rosas only ceased to murder when the great fear he had inspired paralyzed the people and rendered them absolutely prostrate to his will. He spared neither age nor sex. Even his oldest friend, a man who had been more than a father to him, and was supposed to be his confidential adviser, was murdered in cold blood by the _masorqueros_, the secret assassins or Danites on whom he relied to execute his atrocious designs. The official history of Buenos Ayres gives the following estimate of the numbers who died through the caprice or vengeance of the tyrant Rosas: poisoned, 4; executed by the sword, 3765; shot, 1393; assassinated, 722; total, 5884. Add to this the number slain in the constant struggle to overthrow his despotism, 16,520, and we have an aggregate of 22,404 victims to the ambition of a gaucho chief.

An idea of the arrogance and conceit of the man can be formed from the fact that the money coined during his administration was stamped with his portrait and the inscription “Eternal Rosas.” But he was not eternal, and was overthrown in 1852 by General Urquiza, escaping from the country with his daughter at night, both in the disguise of English sailors, and finding refuge on board the _Centaur_, an English man-of-war.

But the day of the gaucho is passing. Immigration and civilization have driven him to the extreme frontier, where nowadays he can only be found in his full glory. Like the North American Indian, he decays when domesticated, and a tame gaucho is always a drunkard, a loafer, and a thief. Civilization saps his vitality, quenches his spirit, and lowers his standard of morals. In his native element he will not steal nor do a mean act, but when he becomes a resident of a town he will rob a dog, and there is no end to his maliciousness. Few of the race have ever acquired land, and even at the present day he despises the _estanciaro_, who will not depend upon the public domain for pasturage. So the gaucho has to keep moving, faster and faster, to get out of the way of barbed wire fences and the restraints of civilization. A few years hence he will disappear or assume more of the character of the North American cow-boy. Even now, in the more settled portions of the country, the word gaucho has become a word of reproach, and is applied to worthless characters who live by cattle-stealing, and correspond to the rustlers of the United States.

The language of the genuine gaucho is a mixture of Spanish and the Guarani Indian tongue, and his food is beef and _yerba mate_. At every _rodeo_, or “round up,” there is a great feast, at which many good things are set forth; but the ordinary diet of the race consists of ribs of beef roasted on a spit before the fire, and eaten without salt or bread, while the ordinary drink is the Paraguayan tea, which is sucked through a tube. The gaucho lives like the Indian--gorges himself when he has plenty of food, or goes for days without eating; but he always has his mate cup with him, and the yerba contains a great amount of nutrition. He usually has a habitation in a hut at the headquarters of the estancia upon which he is employed, and there he keeps his family and goes on feast-days, for he is enough of a Catholic to keep as close a reckoning of the ecclesiastical calendar as the archbishop himself. He has no regard for the Sabbath, but recognizes every religious anniversary of the Church by leaving his cattle on the range and going to headquarters, where he spends the day in drinking, dancing, gambling, confessing his sins to the padre, cock-fighting, and testing horsemanship with his companions. These feast-days never end without a murder, and often more than one.

When dressed in his full regalia the gaucho’s appearance is picturesque; with his swarthy face, long hair, and long mustaches, he would create a sensation in any guise, for his physique is perfect, and his swagger as bold as that of a buccaneer or a bandit chief. The gaucho woman is said to be beautiful when young, but at twenty-five or thirty she is a dirty, unkempt slattern, with bleared eyes and tangled hair, and wears nothing but a soiled and faded gown, and perhaps a pair of brass or silver ear-rings. When she is a maiden the gauchos will kill each other out of jealousy, but when she becomes a wife or a mistress she is kicked about the camp, beaten, and abandoned at her master’s will.

All the finery in the family goes on the husband’s back and saddle. In place of trousers he wears a chiropa and calconcillas. The former is a square piece of cloth, drawn about the thighs and fastened around the waist with a belt. It descends as far as the knee, from which the rest of the leg is covered with the calconcillas--a wide pair of cotton drawers, handsomely and gaudily embroidered, and ornamented with two or three wide frills. The feet are incased in a pair of _botas de potro_, made of the skin of the leg of a colt rubbed until it is as soft as buckskin. The heels are decorated with a pair of immense iron or silver spurs weighing a pound or so each.

Instead of the sombrero and velvet jacket of the Mexican cavalier, the gaucho wears a hat of pita fibre--such as is commonly known as a Panama hat, and which may have cost him as much as would a dozen cattle--and a poncho. But in his saddle lies his wealth, for all his savings and gambling gains go to decorate that emblem of his trade. Silver ornaments for bridle and saddle are legal tender in exchange for anything salable wherever the gaucho goes, and what is his seat by day and his pillow by night he always uses as a sort of savings-bank. I have seen saddles worth a thousand dollars, with solid silver stirrups, pommels, and ornaments weighing as much as a man. A pair of silver spurs are worth anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars, according to their size and the workmanship upon them. Stirrups of solid silver, made in the form of a heelless slipper, are very common, and the belles of the cities of the Argentine Republic consider them essential to a riding costume. Stirrups are often made of brass, and when highly polished add a unique feature to the accoutrements of an Argentine caballero. His belt is usually covered with a string of silver dollars, and all his buttons are of silver.

The Argentine poncho is a great institution, and if some fashionable swell in New York would set the style by wearing one, it would add greatly to the comfort of our people, as well as to their convenience. There never was a garment better adapted for out-of-door use, and particularly for plainsmen or those who are much in the saddle. It is a blanket of ordinary size, with a slit in the centre through which the head goes. It rests upon the shoulders, and its folds hang down as far as the knee, allowing free use of the arms, but always furnishing them and the rest of the body with protection. In summer it shields the wearer from the heat of the sun, while in winter it is as warm as an ulster, and in rainy days takes the place of an umbrella. The native is never without it, summer or winter, afoot or on horseback, at home or abroad. It stays by him like his shadow, and serves him as an overcoat by day and as a blanket by night.

Ponchos were formerly made of the hair of the vicuña, an animal which is a sort of cross between the camel and the antelope, and is found in the Bolivian Andes. Before the Conquest vicuña skin was the royal ermine of the Incas, and none but persons of princely blood were allowed to wear it. A vicuña poncho is as soft as velvet, and as durable as steel. You can find plenty of them in the Argentine Republic and in Chili that have been, like grandfather’s clock, in the old families for two centuries or more, and have been handed down with the family jewels as heirlooms. They never wear out, and, like lace, improve with age. But genuine vicuña ponchos are hard to get, and very expensive, costing often as much as a camel’s-hair shawl, as the animal is becoming scarce. The color is a delicate fawn, and will not change when wet, which is a sure test of its genuineness. Most of the fine ponchos worn nowadays are made of lamb’s-wool in Manchester, England, and cannot be distinguished from vicuña except by experts; but tons after tons of a common sort, made of cotton and wool, of gaudy colors, are now imported annually, and answer the purpose of the gaucho just as well, while the bright tints please his taste better.

The gaucho always carries tobacco, cigarette paper, flint, and steel. He is an inveterate smoker, but confines himself to cigarettes, which he rolls at full gallop. He does everything on horseback, when he chooses--eats and sleeps, catches fish, carries water from the well in a pitcher or urn on his head, and even attends mass on horseback--at least, the nearest he ever gets to the altar is to ride up to the door of a church and sit in the saddle while the service is being celebrated.

A gaucho child is put into the saddle at as early an age as an American child is put into breeches. When he is eight or ten years old he will ride anything less than a tornado; and after he reaches his growth, if he is thrown from a horse he is disgraced forever; nothing he can do will recover for him the respect of the community. He is an ostracized and despised creature, as hopelessly lost as a fallen star.

The animals the gauchos ride are splendid native stallions, as swift as the wind and as enduring as time. Fifty or sixty miles a day is a gentle jaunt, for a well-bred pampa horse will gallop from sunrise to sunset without throwing a fleck of foam. During the recent war against the Patagonian Indians a gaucho courier made six hundred miles in forty-eight hours with only four changes of horses.

One of the sports of the gauchos is “breaking horses,” cruel and dangerous, like all their amusements. Two gauchos mount, and taking positions forty or fifty yards apart, at a given signal start at a full run and come together breast to breast, like two battering-rams, with a shock that often kills the animals, and nearly always unseats one or both of the riders. Another is called “crowding horses.” Two mounted gauchos place their stallions side by side, and crowd them against each other to see which will yield. A third game is to place across the entrance to a corral or other enclosure a bar about as high as a horse’s head. The gaucho mounts, retires to a distance of forty rods or so, rushes to the entrance at full gallop, and, without checking the speed of his horse, leaps out of the saddle when the bar is reached, throws himself under it, and regains his seat, passing under the bar without touching the ground.

The skill with which the gaucho handles the lasso is an everlasting source of wonder. While at full gallop he can throw a coil of raw-hide with as much accuracy as an expert rifleman can crack a glass ball, and will catch a running cow or sheep or hog, lassoing the horn or foot or head at will. Duels with the lasso are often fought, the contestants throwing nooses at the heads of each other, sparring and dodging like pugilists, until one or the other is caught and dragged out of the saddle. If the duel is an earnest one, as often occurs, and the gauchos are determined, the man who is caught is often dragged, with a noose around his neck, behind a galloping horse until the life is choked and pounded out of his body.

The Argentine Republic will some day become a formidable rival of the United States. It has vast natural resources similar to ours, and is developing them rapidly. It has a magnificent fluvial system like that of the Mississippi, fertile plains like those of Illinois and Iowa, boundless pampas stretching for twelve hundred miles to the mountains, and affording pasturage for millions of cattle, horses, and sheep, like the prairies of Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico. Towards the north, into Paraguay, which, although an

independent State, is a tributary to the Argentine Republic, are lands that will produce sugar, cotton, rice, and other semi-tropical staples like those of our own sunny South. There is also an almost unlimited supply of timber, hard and soft woods, easy of access, within reach of mighty streams; and the forests are greater than man knows, for they have never been measured. The latitude of the Argentine Republic corresponds with that of the United States; its climate is similar to that of our great West, and the people have an activity, an enterprise, and a patriotism that remind the North American of home.

Where rivers do not run the people are pushing railroads, and in a few years they will have a railway system second only to that of the United States. They are offering tempting inducements to settlers, and immigration is very large. The increase in population during the last fifteen years was one hundred and fifty-four per cent., while that of the United States was seventy-nine per cent. From Germany, Norway, and Switzerland, but especially from Italy, come ship-loads of hardy, thrifty, industrious men every week, and the passenger mole at Buenos Ayres resembles Castle Garden. The Government aids and encourages immigration more than does ours. The immigrant vessel that arrives at New York is required to pay “head-money” on every passenger it brings. At Buenos Ayres the vessel receives “head-money” from the Government as an inducement to bring passengers. The fare from Europe to the river Plate, or the Rio Plata, that great stream which divides the continent, is about the same as to the United States; and although I do not believe that the class of immigrants which arrives there is equal in intelligence and the other qualities that constitute good citizens to that which comes to the United States, every family arriving means so many more acres developed and an increase of population. They do not at once become citizens, as in this country. This is particularly the case with the Italians, who seldom take out naturalization papers. Foreigners are allowed to vote at municipal elections, and therefore the temptation to citizenship is not so strong; but nevertheless they go to make up the body politic, and as they are exempt from military service, the country is always sure of having its fields tilled and its crops gathered, whether there is a war or not.

In 1882, 51,503 immigrants arrived at Buenos Ayres from Europe; in 1883 the number increased to 63,242; in 1884, to 92,700; in 1887, to 138,000. In 1888 it was estimated that over 600,000 foreigners had settled in the country during the preceding ten years, and it is known that the population of the city of Buenos Ayres has doubled since 1872.

The greater portion of these immigrants are Italians, who go directly into the agricultural regions, take up land, and cultivate small but increasing farms. Some are Germans and Scandinavians, but more are French. The latter usually settle in the cities, and become small tradesmen or servants. Large numbers of English, Scotch, and Irish capitalists are securing estancias, and raising sheep and cattle upon a large scale. It is estimated that ten million dollars have been invested in this way within the last three years, and one Englishman alone has expended a million. The usual plan, as in the United States, is to organize companies, with headquarters in London, Glasgow, and other large cities, and send out capable superintendents. The cattle interests of the Argentine Republic, like those in our country, will ultimately be controlled by a few large corporations.

The colonization plan is popular there, and so far quite successful. Within the last five years 1,126,000 acres of land have been taken up by colonies, representing a population of 82,000 souls, mostly Italians and Swiss. The English and German immigrants will not colonize. The railroad development of the country is very rapid, and lines are now being constructed in various directions from Buenos Ayres and other commercial centres.