Chapter XVI: Front Matter (16)

Ex-President Sarmiento is the leading advocate of the higher education of women in South America, having gained his advanced ideas while Minister to the United States. He was an intimate friend and regular correspondent of Mrs. Horace Mann, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other prominent women in the United States, and imbibed from them the theories of the equality of the sex which their lives have been spent in demonstrating. Through his instrumentality some forty American girls, graduates of Vassar, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, and Western institutions, have been employed under liberal contracts by the Argentine Government in the normal schools and female seminaries of the country, and their success has been phenomenal. These teachers receive salaries varying from one hundred to one hundred and sixty dollars per month, and are placed in positions, social as well as professional, which they could not hope to acquire at home. In every instance they have conducted themselves with the most commendable dignity; and although some of the economists in Congress and in the newspapers are grumbling over the large salaries they receive, they are treated with the greatest distinction, and are entertained by the Government in a manner that our own educational authorities might well imitate.

One of them had a misunderstanding with the Papal Nuncio not long ago, which caused an immense amount of excitement. He attempted to interfere with the management of her school, on the ground that she was proselyting the children to Protestantism. She gave the envoy of his Holiness the Pope to understand that she was running that institution, and when he brought the case to the attention of the Government she defended herself with such success that the President of the Argentine Republic sent him his passport and advised him to take the next steamer for Rome. The archbishop interfered, and he was summarily banished also. Since then the Pope has been without an ambassador in the republic, but the Yankee school-ma’am is solid with the Government and the people, and goes on teaching heresy.

A Brazilian who went to Cornell University for an education married an Ithaca girl, and took her back to Brazil, where he is engaged as a civil engineer. There are a good many young Spanish-Americans with English wives. More of the men go to England than to the United States for collegiate training, for the reason that the English universities advertise down there, while the American colleges do not. There is no necessity for the Argentinians to send their sons away for learning, as their educational system is as good as our own, and the most expensive in the world, with the exception of Australia. The amount expended by the Government for educational purposes is $10.20 per pupil annually, while in the United States it averages only $8.70, in Germany $6.00, and in England $9.10. There are thirty colleges and normal schools for the higher education of men and women in the republic, with 430 teachers and 6710 students, and 2726 public schools with 6214 teachers and 201,329 pupils, in a total population of less than 4,000,000.

The Government of Chili, which attempts a close competition with the Argentine Republic in matters of education as well as other modern improvements, has contracted with fifty young ladies from Germany to manage its female seminaries and normal schools at much lower salaries than the Yankee school-ma’ams receive.

The Argentinians have made as rapid advancement in the way of charity and philanthropy as in education, and one finds throughout the country as many benevolent institutions as in New York or other cities of the United States in proportion to the population. There are hospitals, dispensaries, homes for the indigent aged, orphan asylums, blind, and deaf and dumb asylums, insane asylums, public libraries, free art schools, and all sorts of institutions founded by benevolence and liberally endowed. There is a Board of Health enforcing strict sanitary regulations, the streets are swept every night, the police are admirably organized, the public buildings and parks are lighted by electricity, and all the features of modern civilization have been introduced into the political and domestic economy. The plantation owners mostly reside in Buenos Ayres, and have telephonic wires between their offices and estancias. Instead of yelling “ Hello!” into a telephone, they say “Oyez, oyez!” as our bailiffs do when they open court.

The post-office of Buenos Ayres handled 20,000,000 packages in 1885, which is pretty good for a city of 434,000 inhabitants, and its progress is no better illustrated than by the increase of mails. In 1865 only 1,000,000 pieces were handled by this office, and in 1875 only 7,000,000, while during the first six months of 1887 over 16,000,000 pieces passed through the office. There is a mail leaving and arriving for and from Europe nearly every day, but all mail for the United States goes and comes by way of Great Britain, because of the lack of direct steamship communication.

There are three gas companies with 240 miles of pipe, lighting 26,000 houses or stores, with 3300 street-lamps. There are 32 miles of paved streets, 40 miles of sewers, some of which are large enough for a railway-train to pass through. There are 1100 licensed hacks, and 2715 licensed express-wagons; five street-railway companies, with 93 miles of track, carrying 1,850,000 passengers monthly. Between tramways and public carriages the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres spent an average of $8.00 per capita for city locomotion in 1885.

Throughout South America all the dentists and many of the photographers are immigrants from the United States, and if there is any one among them who is not getting rich he has nobody but himself to find fault with, because the natives give both professions plenty to do. Nowhere in the world is so large an amount of confectionery consumed in proportion to the population as in Spanish America, and as a natural consequence the teeth of the people require a great deal of attention. As a usual thing Spaniards have good teeth, as they always have beautiful eyes, and are very particular in keeping them in condition. Hence the dentists are kept busy, and as they charge twice as much as they do in the United States, the profits are very large. In these countries it is the custom to serve sweetmeats at every meal--dulces, as they are called--preserved fruits of the richest sort, jellies, and confections of every variety and description. Many of these are made by the nuns in the convents, and are sold to the public either through the confectionery stores or by private application. A South American housewife, instead of ordering jams and preserves and jellies from her grocer, or putting up a supply in her own kitchen during the fruit season, patronizes the nuns, and gets a better article at a lower price. The nuns are very ingenious in this work, and prepare forms of delicacies which are unknown to our table.

At a dinner-party I attended dessert was brought in in a novel form. A tray which appeared to be filled with hard-boiled eggs was placed before the hostess, who gave each guest a couple, and poured over them some sort of a syrup or dressing. In a strange country the tourist is always on the lookout for odd things; but this seemed to cap the climax--hard-boiled eggs for dessert at a swell dinner-party. But it was soon discovered that the white of this bogus egg was _blanc-mange_, and the yolk was made of quince jelly, egg-shells being used for moulds. This was an idea of the nuns, and one of their ingenious fixings.

The atmosphere is so clear as to be admirable for photography. The Spanish-American belle has her photograph taken every time she gets a new dress, and that is very often. The Paris styles reach here as soon as they do the North American cities, and where the national costumes are not still worn there is a great deal of elaborate dressing. The Argentine Republic is one of the few countries in which photographs of ladies are not sold in the shops. Elsewhere there is a craze for portraits of reigning beauties, and the young men have their rooms filled with photographs of the girls they admire taken in all sorts of costumes and attitudes.

There are in South America a great many physicians and surgeons from the United States, and they usually, if worthy, have a more extensive practice than the natives. There is an excellent field for female physicians here, and it is at present unoccupied. In most of the countries of South America a physician is not permitted to see a lady patient except in the presence of her husband, and many women die for lack of attention. The social laws are inflexible in this respect, and many women will suffer torments rather than expose themselves to criticism by receiving treatment from male practitioners. No woman, except she be of the common laboring class, will visit the office of a physician, and as fees for attendance at their homes are very high, many suffer and die from neglect based upon motives of modesty and economy. There is only one lady physician that I know of in South America, and she is practising with great success in Guatemala. Others might secure equal advantages in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Brazil; but it would be necessary for them to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Spanish language, and secure favorable introductions before hanging out their shingles. These introductions might be obtained through the American consuls and legations, or from merchants of social and commercial standing. There is a strong prejudice against the professional employment of native women, but the American ladies who have come to South America as teachers have not only been cordially received but in many cases have been lionized. In many of the aristocratic families American girls are employed as governesses, and are treated with great deference. Mrs. Barrios, the widow of the late President of Guatemala, had three New York ladies in her family--one as a companion for herself, and the other two employed in the nursery. In Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic, and other countries French and English governesses are common, and in fact there are few others employed, as the native girls who would accept such positions lack the necessary education.

There are two notable Boston men in Buenos Ayres--notable, however, for different reasons. One is Samuel B. Hale, the most prominent merchant and capitalist in the country; and the other is D. Warren Lowe, _alias_ Winslow, editor of the _Buenos Ayres Daily Herald_. There is no man in all South America more respected and beloved, or who possesses the confidence of the people to a greater degree than Samuel B. Hale. He came in 1829 from Boston to do a little trading, and has since remained, amassing an immense fortune, and now, at the age of eighty-two, looks back upon such a career as few men are permitted to contemplate.

Although we of the United States have very little to do with the Argentine Republic nowadays, the pioneers of that country were Americans. In 1826 William Wheelwright, of Pennsylvania, was wrecked upon this coast, and found his way to a small town named Quilmes, barefooted, hatless, and starving. He remained in the country, and forty years later built the first railroad in the Argentine Republic--from Buenos Ayres to Quilmes. But in the mean time he had done still greater service in establishing the first steamship line between Europe and South America--the Pacific Steam Navigation Company--which now has a monopoly of the traffic on the west coast, and sails vessels from Panama through the Strait of Magellan to Liverpool. In 1839 Mr. Wheelwright foresaw the immense trade these countries were capable of developing, and went to New York to present his scheme to Aspinwall, Garrison, Astor, Vanderbilt, and other capitalists, but they rejected it. He then went to England, where he secured the necessary capital, established his line, and turned the whole course of South American commerce from its natural channel. Every one connected with the company has made a fortune, and dividends of fourteen and fifteen per cent. are still paid. In 1852 there were in the harbor of Buenos Ayres six hundred vessels from the United States--more than double the number from all other nations combined. Now only two per cent. of the shipping annually reaching that harbor belongs to the United States. Both Chili and the Argentine Republic have erected fine monuments to Mr. Wheelwright, the father of their foreign commerce and their internal improvements, for he built the first railway in Chili as he did in the Argentine Republic.

Another citizen of the United States, Thomas Lloyd Halsey of New Jersey, introduced sheep and cattle. The Spaniards had a few domestic animals before the independence of the republic, but Mr. Halsey established the first ranch. Now there are over ninety million sheep and thirty million cattle in the country. Both Wheelwright and Halsey are dead; but Mr. Hale, who was contemporary with them, and was the pioneer commission merchant and importer, still lives. His immense business interests are now in the hands of Mr. Pierson, his son-in-law, also a Boston man, who went out as a clerk thirty years ago; and the husband of another daughter represents the London banking-house of Baring Brothers in Buenos Ayres.

In the old days Mr. Hale bought wool and hides and furs in the Argentine Republic and in Uruguay, and shipped them to Boston. The vessels returned loaded with cotton goods and Yankee notions of all sorts, which were exchanged for the produce; and this system of barter went on until the War of the Rebellion, when most of the vessels were withdrawn, and the tariff on wool made it unprofitable to ship the chief product of the republic to the United States. Then Mr. Hale turned his attention to the European trade, and did a very large business in exporting and importing until about 1880, when he sold out to Mr. C. S. Bowers, also a Boston man, and retired from the market. He still purchases large quantities

of wool and hides for shipment to Europe, but does not import any longer, and he devotes most of his attention to loaning money and dealing in standard securities. In addition to his commercial business, Mr. Hale owns and manages some of the largest estancias in the Argentine Republic, having several hundred thousand sheep and sixty thousand cattle. He is famous for his hospitality and generosity, and many of the philanthropic institutions of the country have enjoyed with him the financial results of his successful career. He has also been active in the promotion of public enterprises and in encouraging steamship lines, and is not only the oldest and most prominent merchant, but is regarded as the leading public benefactor.

The social condition of the Argentine Republic is as much advanced as its commerce, and the old customs are rapidly dying out. The education of girls has become popular, and the young ladies are no longer restricted in their association with men, as in other Spanish-American countries. Formerly, if a young man fell in love with a girl, he told her father or grandmother about it, which was about as satisfactory as kissing through a telephone. Under the new regime etiquette gives him the privilege of telling the old, old story into the girl’s own ear, and it appears to work just as well for all concerned.

It is the only country in South America in which girls can go out riding with their lovers, or receive them at home as they do in the United States. The supposition that it is unsafe to leave a woman alone with any man but her husband or father does not exist in the Argentine Republic, except among some of the families of the ancient Spanish aristocracy which still adhere to the old tradition.

One finds a good deal of club life in Buenos Ayres, there being as many as seven fine club-houses, most of which have all the modern improvements, with reading-rooms attached, in which are found newspapers from all parts of the world.

Their restaurants and cafés are as good as the average in New York and London, and the people being epicurean in their tastes, caterers import delicacies from all parts of the world. Lobsters and Spanish mackerel are brought in refrigerator ships, and Southdown mutton from England, with all sorts of delicacies from France. One day I saw a negro going through the streets with a large tray on his head, containing a leg of mutton, a haunch of venison, Spanish mackerel, lobsters, shrimps, and oysters, and a printed placard upon his back announcing that dishes of this sort were served daily at the Maison de Paris.

The hotels are not good. They are up to the average in South American cities, but do not correspond with the other evidences of advancement in Buenos Ayres. They have no regular rates, but charge each guest as much as his appearance and manners suggest he can afford to pay. When they get hold of an American, as citizens of the United States are always called, they bleed him to the last drop. “I thought you Americans never disputed a hotel-bill,” a Boniface said to me one day, when I had expressed my indignation at his charges. “We always expect Englishmen to, but Americans never,” and he shrugged his shoulders as if my conduct was a disgrace to my country.

The steamers which run from Buenos Ayres to Montevideo and up the river to Paraguay are, to the surprise of every traveller, as fine and gorgeous as those on Long Island Sound--great, splendid palaces with no end of gilt and gingerbreadwork, with stewards and cabin-boys in livery, wine-rooms, smoking-rooms, bands of music, and all that sort of thing. There are two lines in active rivalry, and they are trying to see which can set the finer table. The bill of fare is as good as that of a first-class hotel in New York, and two kinds of wine, claret and Rhine wine, are served without extra charge. On each steamer are three or four swell cabins, called bridal chambers, each being fitted up without regard to expense, and containing all the flub-dubs that can be crowded into them, including pianos and sideboards, with well-filled bottles of wine and brandy in the rack, all included in the price of passage, which is double that of the ordinary cabin. The swells always take these cabins when they start off on a bridal tour.

The finest church in Buenos Ayres is called the “Church of the Recolletta” (remembrance). It is of pure Roman architecture, in Italian marble, beautifully carved, and cost about $250,000. It is the property of Señor Don Carlos Guerrero, a wealthy citizen, who erected it as a memorial to his daughter, who was murdered by a rejected lover about ten years ago. She is buried under the altar, and the magnificent stained glass window imported from Florence represents incidents from her life.

The cathedral is a very large and costly building, but it looks more like a bank or Government palace than a church. Within the walls is the mausoleum of General Saint-Martin,

the George Washington of the Argentine Republic, who liberated the country from the Spanish yoke and was then turned out to die in exile and poverty. In 1880 the remains of the Liberator were brought with great pomp from France, where he had died in 1850, in banishment, and were entombed under a costly and imposing sepulchre, which, however, looks very little like a tomb, and is entirely without sacred emblems. Four statues in marble guard the grave; not Faith, Hope, and Charity, but “Agriculture,” “Industry,” “Justice,” and “Liberty.” It looks rather queer to see the emblem of Industry with hammer and saw over a tomb in a church, but the Argentines evidently have not noticed the incongruity.

Besides the twenty-four churches belonging to the Catholics, the Protestant community is pretty well supplied with religious advantages. There are a Church of England society, a Scotch Presbyterian, an American Presbyterian, a German Evangelical, three Methodist churches, and a Jewish synagogue--the only one in all Spanish America. Jews are not allowed to live in some of the countries; but in the Argentine Republic, where religious as well as civil liberty is protected, they are numerous, and worship every Saturday. In 1884 the Methodists celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their missionary work in the country, and it was emphasized by an incident which attracted a great deal of comment, and was significant as showing the religious toleration that exists. Formal invitations were sent as a mark of courtesy to the President and all the prominent officials, but there was no expectation that they would attend, as the great majority of the people are Catholics and the public men are naturally politic. Just as the services were about to commence, however, the managers of the affair were astonished to see the President, followed by his Cabinet, walk into the church. Conspicuous seats were given them, and they seemed to take great interest in the exercises. After the Rev. Dr. Wood, the Superintendent of Missions, had concluded his address, in which he reviewed the history of Protestantism in the Argentine Republic, he invited President Roca to speak. The latter promptly responded; and as every one knew he had been born and reared in the Catholic Church, the audience were amazed at the eulogy he pronounced upon the Protestant missionaries, and the enthusiasm with which he complimented the work they had done. To their influence he attributed much of the progress of the republic, and urged them to enlarge their fields and increase their zeal. The President’s speech was commented upon in the newspapers the next day with a great deal of vigor, the Liberal press approving it, but the Conservative editors censuring what they considered an attack upon the prevailing religion of the people.

There is a peculiar order of monks in the Argentine Republic which is not found elsewhere. Its members are known as “Lazarists” (from Lazarus), and they live, as he is said to have done, on the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. They travel about the country like tramps, having no apparent aim or purpose, barefooted and bareheaded, eat what they beg from door to door, and sleep wherever night overtakes them. They are supposed to be members of the other orders of friars, who have sinned and are doing penance as Lazarists.

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.

The result of the internal improvements made under this policy is plain to be seen. Within the last five years the cattle have been driven back gradually upon the pampas, towns have sprung up, and farms have been opened in territory that was inaccessible before the railroad improvements began. There is a natural tendency to overbuild, as has been the case in this country; but so far only the needs of the present have been met, and the roads have become at once self-sustaining. The prospective roads, however, are very numerous, and concessions for thousands of miles have already been granted on the most liberal terms. Two of these concessions are held by citizens of the United States.

Five years ago the Argentine Republic was importing wheat and flour from Chili and the United States, and Uruguay only raised enough for her own consumption. The wheat crop of Uruguay in 1878 was 2,000,000 bushels; in 1880, 2,600,000 bushels; in 1882, 3,000,000 bushels; in 1884, 4,000,000 bushels; and the increase in the corn product was equally rapid. In 1854 only 375,000 acres were under cultivation in the Argentine Republic; in 1864 the cultivated area was 506,000 acres; in 1874 it was 825,000 acres. In 1879 the boom commenced, and in 1884 there were 4,260,000 acres under cultivation--an increase of 3,435,000 acres in ten years. In 1874 there were 271,000 acres in wheat; in 1884, 1,717,000 acres--an increase of 533 per cent. In 1874 there were 554,000 acres in other crops; in 1884 the area jumped to 2,543,000 acres--an increase of 360 per cent. The average yield of wheat throughout the republic in 1884 was eight and one-half bushels to the acre, and the total crop was nearly eleven million bushels. It was in 1880 that the importation of wheat ceased, the amount purchased of Chili that year being 11,330 bushels. It is estimated that the area in wheat the present year is as large as 5,000,000 acres, but no official returns have been received.

Wheat and flour are not the only agricultural products exported by the Argentine Republic. In 1884 the exports of corn were 1,160,000 bushels; of barley, 70,000 bushels; of baled hay, 11,460,000 kilograms; of linseed, 23,061,000 kilograms; of peanuts, 2,617,292 kilograms; of potatoes, 100,000 bushels. The production of sugar is becoming a very important industry, and is now almost sufficient to supply the domestic demand, the yield last year amounting to nearly 50,000,000 pounds. The increased area under cultivation and the improved methods of reducing the cane will soon make sugar an article of export. There are a number of Cuban exiles in the northern provinces and in Paraguay cultivating sugar and tobacco on the Cuban system with marked success.

It is estimated that the extent of agricultural land in the Argentine Republic equals six hundred thousand square miles--an area equal to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and capable of producing every crop in those States; and if the increase of population continues at its present rate they will hold a population of seven millions by the close of the century. The market which we shall first lose by Argentine competition in breadstuffs will be Brazil, where we now sell about $5,000,000 worth of flour annually. The Argentine Republic will also become our rival in the West India trade, which now absorbs most of its meat product; and we will soon feel the effect of the cheapness of Argentine products in the European market, where considerable beef, mutton, and grain, is now sent in exchange for manufactured merchandise. But in pork, lard, and dairy products the Argentinians cannot compete with us. The country does not seem to be adapted to hog-raising, and while there is always fresh pork to be had, the supply of bacon, hams, and lard is included in the imports. Nearly all the cured pork comes from the United States, but most of the hams and bacons are disguised under English trade-marks. The merchants here say that American packers do not prepare their meats in a proper way to get this market, and that our cured pork first goes to England, and there receives some treatment and a particular style of wrapping which make it salable in the River Plate country. There is some native butter made, but none is exported, the climate not being suitable to the dairy business. Most of the imported butter, as well as the cheese, comes from Holland and Copenhagen. The butter is packed in one-pound tins, hermetically sealed, and will keep any length of time if properly handled. There is no American butter or cheese to be had there, not even oleomargarine, an article that is unknown to the people. A comparatively small amount of lard and butter is consumed, however, as oil is commonly used for cooking. Most of the cooks are French and Italian, in both private and public houses, and use the same methods they were accustomed to in their respective countries.

The wool product of the Argentine Republic is not so valuable as that of Australia, although larger, because it is coarser, and contains a much greater percentage of dirt and grease. The people complain that our duty on wool, being levied by weight, is an unjust discrimination against their product, and in favor of the product of Australia, which is true. The only shipments to this country are of the coarser varieties, to be used in the manufacture of carpets, and we take annually about a million dollars’ worth. The great bulk of the product goes to Belgium, and is consumed in the Brussels carpet mills, the export to that country in 1883 amounting to $12,148,000. Some attempt is being made to improve the quality of the wool by grading up the flocks with imported bucks, but the judgment of the sheep-growers is generally against it, as the present quality is in demand for carpet manufacture.