The Spanish American Republics ... Illustrated

Preface

. THE reader will find in the following pages a plain narrative of observa tion and travel in the more accessible parts of the five important republics of Spanish South America, Chili, Peru, the Argentine, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The writer neither encountered nor sought adventures ; his object was not to explore unknown territory, but rather to examine the actual state of the town and country populations in the year 1890; to study the commercial and social life of the capitals and ports ; to see how people live and labor in the rural districts; to give an account of the various special industries; to describe the real aspect of the countries in question ; to note the characteristic features of the inhabitants; and, in short, to make a modern report of the progress of civilization south of the equator.

Throughout the book more attention is paid to humanity than to nature; nevertheless, nature has not been neglected, and many pages have been de voted to the grandiose, terrible, or charming phases of the landscape of the Andes, Smyth's Channel, the Strait of Magellan, and the great rivers like the Parana and Paraguay. Very little has been said about Indians, and not a sin gle story will be found of scalping incidents, or hair-breadth escapes from the hands of savages. The reason is that unless the traveller goes far away from the domains of civilization and colonization, he will not see many wild Indians still living in a primitive state ; while, on the other hand, the innumerable Indians and half-breeds who form the mass of the native population in the in terior of the republics are peaceful, indolent people, who profess the Roman Catholic faith, wear Manchester goods, and differ from thousands and thou sands of Europeans chiefly in the color of their skin and in the Mongolian cast of their features.

The South Americans who are of interest to us dwellers in the long-settled regions of the earth are the men and women who are engaged in the slow and mysterious task of creating civilization, and of struggling against the obstacles that nature has accumulated in the path of man: they are the Creoles, the descendants of the old Spanish conquistadores and settlers, the ancient population of Indians as they have been modified by the influence of the conquerors and of the Jesuits, and, finally, the hordes of Euro pean colonists who have been transported from Spain, Italy, and France during the past forty years, and who have been the instruments in the great VI

PREFACE.

. movement of development and modernization which has called the attention of the contemporary old world to the rapid and curious transformation of the new. The looks, the ways, the manners, the aspirations, the capabilities, the morals, the achievements of these men are worth describing and analyzing. The sociological experiments that are being made in the limitless territories of South America are novel and often disheartening. You find there the strangest mixture of extreme modernity and of mediæval backwardness; of luxury and misery; of exterior refinement and persistent inner barbarity; of impatient material appetites, and of averseness to moral restraint. The three centuries of Spanish rule seem to have left little except traditions of indolence and venality ; the wars of independence at the beginning of the present century brought to the front a new class of native adventurers whose ambition was rarely noble, and whose selfish designs kept the country in a state of per turbation for many years, meanwhile the generous idea that prompted the independence movement, and remained as a leaven in the land, urged the pa triots to enter upon the paths of imitation.

Hence came the adoption of the North American Constitution in the organization of the new republics of the South, but at the same time the absence of civic qualities in the inhabitants and the personal ambition of the Creole element combined to make these re publics mere political mockeries. In the two greatest, Chili and the Argen tine, the republican farce is being gradually played out, but the end of oligarchy and of personal rule has not yet come, and years must pass before the mass of the citizens can become thoroughly awakened to a sense of their du ties and their rights. While the political evolution of the Spanish American States is being accomplished in the midst of unsurpassed cynicism and corruption on the part of the public men and functionaries, the facilities of modern communication, and the commercial enterprise of older nations, have made the inhabitants eager imitators and ready purchasers of all the novelties of civilization.

Great material prosperity has given them private riches ; European capital has pro vided them with public means ; and so we find vestibule trains that carry pas sengers to a group of wretched huts, telephones that put the wilderness in communication with a village, luxurious marble palaces hobnobbing with thatched ranchos, magnificent steam-boats whose gilded saloons are crowded with bronzed, dirty, mate-sucking humanity, or, as I noted in the capital of Paraguay, cows grazing in the grass-grown streets with electric lamps swing ing over their heads. The spirit of imitation and feverish haste to become civilized after the model of the most modern examples of Europe and North America have produced many strange contrasts in these distant lands, and at the same time they have made of the great cities, like Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, most interesting monuments of nineteenth century urban development.

In the rural districts, however, even in the provincial capitals of the old colonial days, but more especially in the new colonies where the scum of Spain and Italy has been deposited in ever-increasing numbers during the past twenty

PREFACE.

. VII years, one sees aspects of humanity that fill one with sadness rather than with satisfaction or even hope. There, indeed, one realizes what toil, efforts, patience, invention, imagination, talent, and genius have been needed to build up the edifice of very imperfect and still little better than incipient civiliza tion which has rendered this earth more or less habitable. There in the wilds of the Argentine, in the solitudes of the Gran Chaco, in the damp and dripping verdure of the extreme South of Chili, or in the luxuriant forests of Para guay, one sees the horror of unsubdued nature, the felicity of the beasts of the field compared with the misery of man, the fierceness of the struggle of the human animal against the hostile elements, the hopeless desolateness of creation until the idealization of the artist and the explanations of the scientist have put into it grace, beauty, elegance, and mystery.

From Tierra del Fuego to the flowery mountain solitudes of Peru we can see, as it were, the laboratory of South American civilization, and watch all its phases and pro cesses, beginning with the naked, shivering Indians of Smyth's Channel, who have only recently learned the use of fire, and culminating in the opulent Cre ole lady of Montevideo, who goes to the opera in a coupe drawn by a team of Russian trotters, wears toilettes by Worth and a diamond aigrette by Bouche ron, and still remains a very incomplete and primitive creature contrasted with the ultra-refined and alarmingly complex ladies of London, Paris, or Pe tersburg. In the various chapters of this volume an attempt has been made to present a vivid and modern image of progressist Spanish America in all its agree able and disagreeable features, its feverish energy and its traditional indolence, its fierce material appetites and its lack of sentiment, its promiscuous and agi tated present, its dreams of the future, and its reminiscences of the past. Th. C. August, 1 89 1. CONTENTS.

Epilogue

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE FACE Ox Cart, Traiguen 93 Port and Town of Talcahuano 95 Concepcion : the Plaza and Water-carriers . 98 Concepcion : Calle del Commercio .... 99 Central Railway Station, Santiago .... 102 Archbishop's Palace and Cathedral, Santiago . 103 Calle del Puente, Santiago 105 In the Arcades, Santiago 107 Woman Car Conductor, Santiago 109 The Cousino House, Santiago 113 Procession of Corpus Christi, Santiago . . .115 Santa Lucia 117 The Alameda 119 The Plaza at Night, Santiago 121 Chamber of Deputies, Santiago 127 The Arturo Prat Monument, Valparaiso . . 132 The Passenger Mole, Valparaiso 135 Lota — the Smelting-works and Mole . . . 141 Types of Miners 144 Bahia Chambique, Lota 146 Lota Baja 148 The Cousino House, Lota 149 Unloading Freight on the Beach at Iquique . 152 Nitrate Desert of Atacama 155 Map of the Nitrate Desert of Tarapaca . . 159 Trucks laden with Caliche 165 Making a "Tiro" in the Nitrate Bed . . . 167 Trucks over Crushers at " La Primitiva " . .170 Trucks bringing Caliche to Boiling Tanks . . 172 A Caliche Cart 175 Pretty semi-Bolivians 1 78 Loading Cattle on a Steamer ... . . 184 Cholo Types 186 Plaza Mayor, Lima 187 The Cathedral, Lima 189 Church of La Merced, Lima 192 The Cloister of San Francisco, Lima . . . 193 Torre Tagle House, Lima 195 Milk-woman 196 Water-seller 197 Corps de Garde Frontispiece Buenos Ayres from the River 3 The " Casa Rosada, " the Residence of the President and Seat of the Ministries, on the Plaza Victoria, Buenos Ayres 5 The Calle Reconquista, in the centre of the Business Quarter, Buenos Ayres .... 7 The Government House, Buenos Ayres . . 9 A Business Block on the Calle Piedad, Buenos Ayres 11 Map of the Argentine Republic 15 Port of Rosario 18 Calle General San Martin, Mendoza ... 21 At a Railroad Station, Mendoza 23 Hotel Club Social, Mendoza 25 Country Hut 27 Ruins of San Augustin 28 Map of Route across the Andes 31 Roping Cattle at Punta Negra 35 Paso del Vermejito 37 Crossing the Rio Blanco 39 The Inn at Punta de las Vacas 41 Valle de las Cuevas 43 Puente del Inca 45 Good Specimen of Casucha 47 Cumbre de la Cordillera 48 Aconcagua Valley near Los Andes .... 50 Los Loros (Chili side) 53 Laguna del Inca 55 Junction of the Rivers Juncal and Blanco (Chilian side) 57 Hotel Court-yard in Los Andes 63 A Chilian Country-house 65 Urmeneta Vineyard 70 A Vaquero 73 At a Railway Station 77 Irrigation 80 Landscape near Angol 87 Araucanian Indian Hut, and Loom for Weaving Guanaco and other Woollen Stuffs . . 91 ILLUSTRATIONS.

XII PAGE PAGE On the Desemparados Bridge, Lima .... 199 Llamas on a Plantation 204 Sierra Indian 205 The Oroya Railway — Crossing the Verrugas Bridge 211 The Oroya Railway — Hand-car Descending . 215 Map of the Railways and Mineral Lands of Peru and Bolivia 222 Harbor of Corral 235 Valdivia 236 Near North Entrance of Smyth's Channel, Looking back Northward 239 Shipping Ice in Grappler Reach 242 Molyneux Sound 244 Indians Visiting the Ship at Night .... 247 Cape Pillar 250 Glacier, Latitude 53° 21' South, Longitude 720 55' West 251 Cape Froward and Mount Victoria .... 252 Punta Arenas 253 Mount Sarmiento, Highest Point of Tierra del Fuego 254 Fur Dealers on Board at Punta Arenas . . .255 Fuegians 257 Patagonian Indian Woman 258 Patagonian Indians 259 Lecheros 265 Street Porters 266 Shoeblacks . 267 Plaza San Martin 274 Entrance to the Government House .... 277 The Cathedral after Service 281 Escuela Petronila Rodriguez 287 The New Docks 289 La Boca 291 Palermo 294 Pelota Players 296 At the Confiteria del Aguila 301 Prairie Schooner 309 Bahia Blanca, New Mole ....... 312 Rocking Stone, Tandil ........ 313 Gauchos 314 The Government Building 316 Entrance to the Unfinished Park 317 Shipping at La Boca 319 Ship-yards at La Boca 321 The Governor's Palace 323 On the Lower Deck of the Steamer .... 344 Soldiers and Recruits 347 A Water-carrier 351 Juarez Celman Port 354 Village on the Paraguay River 356 Cabildo and Plaza at Corrientcs 358 Loading Oranges at San Antonio . . . .361 La Chacarita 3S3 Street in Asuncion 386 Cottage in Asuncion 388 Funeral of an "Angelito" in the Recoleta Cemetery 3^9 View of the Lopez Palace from the River . . 392 Plaza Libertad, Asuncion 393 Soldiers and their Women at the Barracks . . 394 The Market, Asuncion 395 Inside the Market 397 Type of Guarani Girl 398 View on the River 400 An Estancia 402 Map of Uruguay 407 A Rancho 411 Santa Lucia 413 Water-carrier 415 Canariote Immigrants in the Street . . . .417 The Old Fortress 419 The Stock Exchange, Montevideo .... 420 Hotel Victoria 423 A Guard Station 425 Calle 18 de Julio, Plaza Matriz, Club Uruguay 426 Government House, on Plaza Independencia , 427 Palacio Municipal 427 The Cemetery 42S Villa at Paso del Molino 429 Sea-bath at Pocitos 431 Teatro Soils

Chapter I. En Route

FEW of the visitors who saw the numerous and brilliant pavilions of the South American republics at the Paris Exhibition of 1889 had, I imagine, other than the vaguest ideas concerning the where abouts, the real aspect, the political, commercial, and social features, of the countries in question. These pavilions themselves, so diversi fied in their architecture, and so similar in their contents, imparted in turn only vague ideas. In all of them the same distribution might have been remarked. In the place of honor was exhibited the por trait of a dark-skinned parvenu President, in most cases a military person dressed in a gorgeous general's uniform, and looking like a sturdy sergeant whose sudden rise to high fortune had put a heavy strain upon his limited intelligence. Under the eye of this adminis trator were displayed bags of coffee and cocoa ; tobacco ; cereals ; bales of wool ; tanned hides ; saddlery, ornamented with a profusion of silver-work ; specimens of timber ; samples of gold, silver, and cop per ores ; collections of tropical fauna, reptiles, and insects ; a few photographs; tables of bewildering statistics — the whole giving the impression of a new world inviting the activity of the children of the old one ; of an exuberant and unkempt world, where nature still dominated man, and where the vegetation of the primeval forests, radiant and irresistible with interlaced roots and monstrous tendrils, covers and smothers the soil, rendering it hirsute and unconscious.

Chief among the South American pavilions was the vast and lux urious palace of the Argentine Republic, whose crystal dome with blue stripes, and whose walls of dazzling faience incrusted with immense cabochons of colored glass, attracted all eyes, and challenged attention like a huge chromo-lithographic advertisement. At night, when electricity illuminated the jewelled splendor of its walls, this palace evoked souvenirs of The Arabian Nights. The interior orna mentation, too, was equal to the exterior; painted windows and fres cos signed by the most famous French artists adorned the walls, within which were displayed the agricultural, sylvan, and mineral products of the republic, whose limitless domains were represented on an enormous relief plan placed at the head of the staircase, and sur rounded with formidable columns of statistics.

What wealth ! what immensity ! what unparalleled rapidity of development ! Within ten years, it appeared from the stupendous statistical tables exhibited on the walls, the population of the Argentine Republic had increased from two and a half millions to four millions ; the exterior commerce, from 400 millions of francs to 1200 millions; the railway system, from 1950 kilometres to 7500 kilometres. The capital, Buenos Ayres, which ten years ago had about 200,000 inhabitants, has now nearly half a million. A new town, La Plata, which did not exist even in embryo seven years ago, now boasts countless palaces and 60,000 inhabitants. The United States of North America never advanced so rapidly as this. What a wonderful country this must be ! Such was the burden of my souvenirs and reflections when, on December 17, 1889, I went on board the Paraguay, bound from Havre to Buenos Ayres, with the intention of seeing something of the Ar gentine and of other South American republics.

Theories, views, or prejudices found no place in my baggage. I knew as little about South America as most people who have learned geography from books and maps alone. I started full of curiosity, artless, ingenuous, trustful even, except in the matter of statistics. On this point, I confess, I had prejudices ; the tabular statements of the Champ de Mars had failed to convey to my mind any clear ideas about South America. The much-vaunted eloquence of figures had only filled me with weariness. In my own observations I would therefore avoid the snares and pitfalls of graphics and curves and arithmetical puzzles ; I would simply go and see men and things in these distant lands, talk with natives and foreigners, and recprd carefully, in as luminous prose as my pen could command, such impressions as it might be my good fortune to receive.

With this resolution I look up my quarters on the Paraguay, belonging to the French company of Les Chargeurs Reunis, and armed myself with patience to endure a sea-voyage of twenty-three days and upward of six thousand miles. We started on a dull, cold, wintry evening, with the consoling prospect of soon reaching warm latitudes, and of arriving at our des tination at the other end of the Western Hemisphere in the height of the midsummer heat. It was dark when the ship weighed anchor and steamed slowly out of dock past the splendid panorama of the town lighted with garlands of gas-lamps, and dotted here and there along the quays with red, blue, and green lanterns, and dazzling electric globes that fling long and rippling sheets of white reflections over the glossy black waters. In the confusion of departure there is BUENOS AYRES FROM THE RIVER. not much to be noted.

We all have our thoughts elsewhere than on board, and it was not until the next morning that I was able to in spect the ship and her human load. The Paraguay, 3500 tons, had her full complement of passengers and emigrants, who numbered, to gether with the crew, about five hundred souls in all. She carried also some thirty carriage -horses, including six magnificent Anglo- Normans addressed to the Governor of the province of Cordoba, and accompanied by a tall, bony, red-faced Norman, who had trained them to run a la Daumont in six weeks, and who was very anxious to land them safely on the other side. " Ce sera un grand succes pour moi, monsieur? he said. " My colleagues will say, ' Ce Pelletier, a-t-il de la chance I ' ' In the course of the day I became acquainted with those of the first-class passengers who were not suffering from sea-sickness or in fluenza.

With few exceptions they were Argentines, and several of them had held official positions in connection with the Paris Exhibition. However, as the wind continued high during the first four days of the voyage, and the ship rolled heavily, there was not much opportunity for conversation, but on the fifth day out the weather became soft and spring-like, the ladies appeared at table, and in the afternoon the French and Italian emigrants on the foredeck were dancina: to the sounds of an accordion. Henceforward all went gayly and happily between eating, sleeping, novel-reading, card-playing, conversation, loafing, and basking in the sun. On December 24th we reached Teneriffe, and while the ship was taking in coal we went on shore, breakfasted, took a walk through the picturesque little town and the lovely gardens of the environs, full of orange trees laden with golden fruit, bananas, roses, and other brilliant flowers, behind which rise hills covered with green velvety vegetation and dotted with white houses.

This vision of charming fertil ity, and tranquil, unambitious felicity, made a pleasant interruption in our voyage, which was resumed at three in the afternoon, when we steamed away, watching the changing silhouettes of the islands and the grand snow-capped peak of Teneriffe, that remained in view until darkness enveloped it. At night a new panorama met our eyes. The deep violet sky was studded with countless stars ; the horizon formed a clearly -defined circle, in the centre of which was the ship, vaulted over with the spangled cupola of the firma ment ; to the right the slender crescent of the new moon shed a silvery glow over the dark waves. As the ship glided along with panting engines the view from the stern was grandiose. On the foremast all sail was spread, and formed a dead black mass against the sky ; the other masts and rigging stood out in sharp black out line ; the decks were all in darkness, except a glare that rose from the skylights of the engine-room.

Thus night after night the Par aguay steamed onward in solitude, her black sails swelling proudly against the dark blue -black sky, studded with brilliantly glittering stars that seemed closer than they appear in more northern climes. Day after day and night after night we continued our voyage with out incident across the watery waste, through the tropics, and out of the tropics ; and day by day my surprise increased as I talked with my Argentine fellow -passengers, who were unanimous in declaring the national and provincial governments, the national and provincial banks, the municipalities, and everything connected with the adminis tration of the country, to be full of corruption and thievery. " Our THE "CASA ROSADA," THE RESIDENCE OF THE PRESIDENT AND SEAT OF THE MINISTRIES, ON THE PLAZA VICTORIA, BUENOS AYRES. towns," they told me, "abound in men who have suddenly become rich, and whose only desire is to make an ostentatious display of their ill-gotten gains.

Witness all the horses we have on board, notably the six for the Governor of Cordoba. That man is a mere gauchg, a peasant, an ignorant brute. He has heard that in Europe people drive four-in-hand a la Daumont. ' Very good,' he says ; ' I will drive a carriage-and-six ;' and we have the carriage-and-six on board, and the liveries, and the Louis XV. wigs for the postilions. This Gov ernor of Cordoba is the brother of the President of the republic, Dr. Juarez Celman, who had not a penny when he came into office in 1886, and who now has a fortune of more than ten millions sterling safely deposited in the Bank of England." One of the lady passengers, Madame X., a Frenchwoman who, I am told, keeps a fashionable store at Buenos Ayres, is very severe in her criticisms of the native women, whose toilets have no secrets for her.

She tells me that the women have no domestic qualities, that the trying on of a new dress reveals fearful neglect of all that is not outside show, that the luxury of fine linen is not appreciated, and I know not what besides. Finally Madame X., who professes a great admiration for Alfred de Musset, and affects romantic airs in spite of her pronounced mustache, winds up her lamentation with the regret that intellectual life' is entirely wanting in Buenos Ayres, and adds that the men are mal elev'es and think too much of themselves. . Another passenger that interested me was a venerable Spanish gentleman, who, I was informed, has lived thirty years in the Argen tine, and now acts as financial inspector in the interests of some Pari sian bankers having large stakes in the Argentine. This gentleman was in the habit of delivering a moral and economical discourse every morning between eight and nine o'clock, and the burden of his ser mon, which was invariably approved by all the Argentines on board, was the immorality of the population of the republic, encouraged and countenanced by the cynicism and immorality of the Government.

Salvation can come only from an honest government. Meanwhile, as it is, everybody wants to make money rapidly, everybody speculates, and everybody lies. For those who have any delicacy, any conscience, any commercial morality, Buenos Ayres is no place. During the past fifteen years the present crisis has been in preparation. The directors of the national and provincial banks, who have been and still are scampish politicians, have speculated with the funds of the banks, using the deposits as a political treasury when necessary, and as a private treasury whenever there was a stroke of business to be done. The curse of the Argentine is politics, inasmuch as the whole object of the politicians is to make their fortunes while they are in office. The great danger for the republic is the cessation of immigration through want of confidence.

All this depreciatory and alarming talk of the financial agent was corroborated by his Argentine listeners, who each and all had in stances to relate in illustration of this and that abuse. Indeed, from morning until night these Argentines talked about nothing but politics and finance and the price of gold. " But why do you not do something ?" I asked them. " Are you not citizens of a republic ? Are you not voters? Have you no political organization? To judge from the accounts you give me, your President, Juarez Celman, ought to have been impeached long ago, and half of your political men lynched." To these inquiries I failed to obtain any satisfactory an swer, but remained with a vague impression that the Argentine Re- CALLE RECONQUISTA, IN THE CENTRE OF THE BUSINESS QUARTER, BUENOS AYRES THE public must, after all, be nothing more nor less than a hydra-headed despotism.

How strange ! And how little had the polychrome pa vilion of the Champ de Mars, with its ostentation of progress and riches, prepared me for this idea ! However, it would be foolish to anticipate. In a few days I would be able to judge for myself. Doubtless my Argentine fellow-passengers were exaggerating the evils of their country, I said to myself; the more so as while they speak evil of the Government they are loud in the praise of the natural wealth and countless charms of the country, and especially of Buenos Ayres, whose streets, parks, theatres, promenades, public build ings, social life, and material organization, they assure me, are as fine, and in many respects even finer, than those of Paris. But on this point I am inclined to be sceptical, for these very Argentines have told me that it is a characteristic of the gaucho, or native peasant, to be astonished at nothing, and to remain unmoved in the belief that the Argentine Republic is the grandest and finest country in the world.

To judge from conversation with many of the young Argen tines on board who have been visiting Europe for the first time, and making the tour of the great cities and show-places of the Old World, I am inclined to believe that the more cultivated of them are very much like the rustic gaucho : nothing can astonish them. At last, on January 7th, we noticed that the water was no longer of the deep violet -blue color that we had contemplated for so many days, but rather of a greenish tone, indicating that we were approaching our journey's end. The next morning, January Sth, we woke up at daybreak to find the water of a brownish -yellow shade, and full of the sand of the vast Rio de la Plata, which discolors the ocean for many leagues beyond the entrance of the estuary. Soon the sand-dunes of the coast of Uruguay became visible, then some low hills, and in the distance roundtopped mountains of barren as pect, forming a dismal landscape of yellow and black masses, with a cold blue sky overhead and an expanse of dirty brown water in the foreground.

"On voit bien que cest un pays sauvage /" exclaimed one of the Parisian emigrants, when he caught this first glimpse of the South American continent, and without statine the elements on which he based this hasty judgment, he turned his back to the El Dorado and resumed his game of cards. Gradually, as we ad vanced, signs of life appeared on the shore: white homesteads and cattle, then the town of Maldonado, with its light-house, and at last THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, BUENOS AYRES. the Cerro, or hill, at the foot of which is the bay and town of Mon tevideo. The panorama is charming seen from the point where the ship anchors, fully two miles from the shore, in the roads crowded with vessels from all parts of the world. To the left is a hill crown ed with a fort, then the bay full of small craft, and to the right the old town, covering with a mass of white houses, towers and cupolas, the slopes of a turtle-back peninsula.

The situation of the town is admirable, and seen from a distance it has something of an Oriental aspect. Here I left the Paraguay, which had to remain at least forty eight hours to discharge cargo, and which, like all the ocean steamships, would in any case anchor in the river fifteen miles from Buenos Ayres. It is far more convenient to proceed from Montevideo to the Argentine capital on one of the river steamers, the more so as these steamers now enter the dock, and passengers are able to step directly on shore without being subjected to the disagreeable process of transshipment by means of small boats or of carts, as was still the case when I reached the country for the first time. After spending a few days at Montevideo, then in the height of the bathing season, I took passage on one of the steamers of the Platense Flotilla Company, which holds a practical monopoly of the navigation between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, and of the rivers Parana, Paraguay, and Uruguay.