BUENOS AIRES
This is the largest and most densely1 populated and the most uniformly prosperous Province of the Republic.[23] It is bounded on the North by the Provinces of Santa Fé and Córdoba, on the West by the Territories of the Pampa Central and Rio Negro and on the East and South by the Paraná and Plate Rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital, La Plata, is of a somewhat sadly monumental aspect. It is indeed as yet but a monument to the still unrealized dreams of its modern founders3 and architects. It was to have been a great city with a busy port; it is now a place where Provincial5 parliamentarians, lawyers, university students and Law Court and Police officials spend some hours each day, coming each morning and returning each evening from and to the superior activity and attractions of the Federal Capital.
Nevertheless, La Plata has long, wide, eucalyptus8-planted avenues; its chief Plaza9, in which are the Municipality and the Cathedral, is not much smaller than Trafalgar Square; its Museum is world-renowned for its pal10?ontological collections; and its Law Courts, University, Theatre, Police Offices and the above-mentioned Municipality are[140] huge, magnificently solid-looking buildings. But the lack of all perceptible movement in La Plata leads one to imagine that if its broad avenues and noble Plazas11 are not grass-grown the fact is due much more to the action of street cleaners than to that of traffic. Truly, one may often gaze down a very long vista12 of pavement between tall eucalyptus trees for many minutes without seeing one single other human being.
The Port works of Buenos Aires have drained its only source of commerce from La Plata. Still, some day the trade of the Republic may need it also.
At the same time it is only just to add that La Plata makes out a claim to nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Where they all get to when one visits it is mystery. Perhaps they in their turn spend their days in Buenos Aires; returning home to sleep in the deep stillness of the Provincial Capital.
The real chief port of the Province of Buenos Aires is Bahia Blanca. First of all, in 1896, the National Government decided13 to build the naval14 port and arsenal15 now in existence there: subsequently the Buenos Aires Great Southern and the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Companies realized the conveniences and situation of Bahia Blanca as a place of export for the produce of their great and ever-increasing southern and south-western zones and each company constructed a port for the almost exclusive purposes of its own traffic.
The Great Southern Railway’s port is called Ingeniero White and that of the Pacific Railway Puerto Galvan. Besides these, separate and distinct constructions, Bahia Blanca has a fourth port, Cuatreros, at the interior end of the bay, which exports large and increasing quantities of frozen and chilled meat.
The great railway ports of Bahia Blanca are fitted with every modern mechanical appliance, huge cranes, electric endless belts for loading loose grain, and immense grain warehouses16 and elevators. The town of Bahia Blanca is[141] rapidly growing in importance and influence. Its municipal administration is largely in the hands of British exporters and merchants.
On the Atlantic coast, between Bahia Blanca and Buenos Aires and some 400 kilometres from the latter city, is the famous seaside resort of Mar17-del-Plata, the Argentine Monte Carlo—Trouville-Biarritz-cum-Ostend (before the War!).
During the season there (at all other times of the year it is deserted) vast Hotels and Restaurants charge famine prices for accommodation and food and there is always more demand than available supply of either. Wealthy Argentine families have, of course, their palatial19 “Chalets,” and the Rambla, as the great promenade20 by the sea is called, is a very brilliant scene at all times during the weeks in which it is fashionable.
Music and dancing contribute to the nights’ amusement at the Casino, large Hotels and private houses; and at the Club members can indulge in those games in which chance plays a greater r?le than skill.
As one young gentleman, who had failed to get a bed at any of the Hotels he thought worthy21 of his patronage22, once remarked, “No matter, one can always play Baccarat till it is bathing time again.”
The air of Mar-del-Plata, that of the wide Atlantic, would doubtless be a powerful restorative to anyone who could resist the temptations of amusement sufficiently23 to give it a chance. Some people possibly do, but if so keep very silent about it.
Mar-del-Plata is, however, destined24 to show a more serious side of its possibilities in consequence of the building of a commercial port; the construction of which has been entrusted25 to a French firm, also the constructors of the new port works of Montevideo. Potatoes which are deemed the best in the Republic come from near Mar-del-Plata.
Other chief towns of the Province of Buenos Aires are Avellaneda (situate on the Provincial side of the boundary[142] line between the Province and the Federal City of Buenos Aires, but to all intents and purposes a district of the latter with which it is connected by unbroken lines of streets and houses), Chivilcoy, Pergamino, Tres Arroyos26, Nueve de Julio, Azul, the residential27 suburbs (of Buenos Aires), Temperley and Lomas de Zamorra and many smaller “camp” towns.
All these minor28 camp towns of the Province of Buenos Aires look much alike and none of them are very interesting in appearance. Their stores, however, do good business in supplying the needs of large surrounding rural districts, and some of these towns have periodical cattle shows and sales which are well worth visiting.
Temperley and Lomas de Zamorra consist chiefly of Villa29 residences, of all sizes and styles of architecture, and some shops.
The Province of Buenos Aires, half as large again as the whole Republic of Uruguay, possesses some of the best land in Argentina, and in it farming has reached the highest developments as yet attained30 in either Republic. In it intensive farming has already made its first appearance in South America—as needs must when high land-values drive. The surface of this Province is one almost unbroken level plain.
It at present produces one-third of the whole output of wheat, nearly a similar proportion of maize31, one-fifth that of linseed, 87% of that of oats, and also contains about 37% of the live stock of the whole Republic.
Good water is obtainable nearly everywhere in practically close proximity32 to the surface. This fact, combined with the comparatively few running streams and the tendency of these to dry up in hot weather, causes some parts of this Province to have the appearance of a forest of tall skeleton iron windmills. These are set up over artificially sunk wells, to draw water for animals and domestic purposes.
A detailed33 description of the Province of Buenos Aires[143] would extend to a very great length indeed; as this Province is, as far as its climatic conditions permit, a compendium34 of the industrial activity, at its best, of the whole Republic. That it is so is due to its situation on, or always in relatively35 close proximity to, the estuary36 of the River Plate; the cradle of the civilization and progress of the countries under discussion.
Farming and most other industries find their highest expression within easy reach of and in the Federal Capital.
As far as its physical aspect is concerned, the Province of Buenos Aires has been accused with considerable justice of being generally uninteresting. Certainly its surface is one huge flat plain, until one gets south to the ranges of the Sierra de la Ventana and the Tandíl hills. Past them, nothing but monotonous37 plain again till its southernmost boundary, the Rio Colorado, is reached.
Its only romantic scenery, though that is delightful38 indeed, is on its north-eastern frontier, along the small River Tigre and the majestic39 Paraná; the banks and innumerable islands of which are clad with useful osiers, flowering reeds, peach trees and a large riot of other beautiful and luxuriant vegetation. Many a spring day can be passed in idyllic40 enjoyment41 among the islands of the Tigre.
At Tandíl, on the south-eastern side of the Province, there are quarries42 of fine marble and building stone, and until a year or so ago there was a famous rocking-stone perched on another rock, the surface of which is inclined at an angle of something like 45 degrees. To all appearances a mere43 gust44 of wind would have toppled the upper stone down into a hollow beneath; but the tale goes that Se?or Benito Villanueva, a wealthy and sportsmanlike Argentine, once tied a rope round the rocking-stone and attached the other end to a double span of oxen on the plain below. The oxen pulled; but without any other effect on the rocking-stone than temporarily to cant45 it just as many centimetres as it could be moved by a good push from a man’s hand.[144] Now, alas46 for Tandíl, someone has succeeded in dislodging the rocking-stone from its uncanny-looking eminence48, so that it has, literally49, fallen from its high celebrity50.
Buenos Aires is, naturally, the Province of palatial estancia houses surrounded by model farms. The Queen Province. The most densely populated and cultivated and the one with the largest revenues.
SANTA Fé
This Province ranks next to that of Buenos Aires in respect of area and population, while its output of both maize and linseed is slightly greater than that of the Queen Province; in regard to wheat it stands third among the Argentine Provinces, Córdoba coming immediately after Buenos Aires, and in respect of oats it again comes second. In point of live stock it comes only fifth, after Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Corrientes and Córdoba.
It is bounded on the North by the Territory of the Chaco, on the West by the Provinces of Santiago del Estero and Córdoba, on the South by the Province of Buenos Aires and on the East by the River Paraná.
The northern part of Santa Fé is covered with vast forests, continuations of those of the Provinces of Santiago del Estero and the Territory of the Chaco. These forests are rich in Quebracho wood, and from them also come large supplies of firewood and charcoal52.
The other parts of Santa Fé are devoted53 to stock and agriculture.
The streams of this Province, although more numerous than those of Buenos Aires, have (with the exception of the great River Paraná) the same tendency to dry up as have those of the Queen Province, and, therefore, water-drawing windmills are in proportionate evidence.
Its Capital, the city from which it takes its name, is one of the oldest in the River Plate countries. Its movement[145] is, however, little else than that of a merely political capital; the town of Rosario, with its port, being the centre of most of the commercial activity of this part of the Republic. Until the rise of Bahia Blanca, Rosario held the undisputed rank of the second commercial centre of Argentina.
The City of Santa Fé nevertheless possesses an old-world beauty and charm, with its palm avenues and spacious54 Plazas, its many churches and its large one-storied residences. Rosario, on the other hand, is as unsightly and uninteresting a place to the eye as could well—or, rather badly—be conceived. It has, however, a large share of the cereal export trade. This Province has also other important ports on the Paraná, viz. the port of Santa Fé itself, Villa Constitution, Colastiné and several minor ones, all of which are available for ocean-going ships.
After Buenos Aires, Santa Fé is the Province with by far the greatest and most conveniently situated55 railway mileage56.
Mixed agriculture and stock farming is practised in many districts; though Santa Fé has not yet felt the economic need of other than extensive farming. Still, land values have, until recent events prejudicially, if only temporarily, affected57 all such values, followed those in Buenos Aires on an upward course. Santa Fé sends large quantities of potatoes to the Buenos Aires and local markets.
The milling industry of this Province ranks not only next in importance to that of Buenos Aires, but its output of flour is very much greater than that of Entre Rios, the next most important Province in this regard. The Department of Reconquista, in the North of the Province, has sugar mills, and other industries are the production of ground-nut oil, dairy produce, tanneries, preserved meats and maize alcohol.
CóRDOBA
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Santiago del Estero, on the North-West by the Province[146] of Catamarca, on the West by the Province of La Rioja and San Luis, on the South by the Territory of the Pampa Central and the Province of Buenos Aires, and on the East by the Province of Santa Fé.
Córdoba is the second Province of the Republic in point of wheat and linseed production, being not far behind Buenos Aires in this regard. Its maize production, however, does not amount to one-third of that of either Buenos Aires or Santa Fé, while in oats it about ties with the latter. In live stock it ranks fourth among the Argentine Provinces, though it has less than half the number possessed58 by Entre Rios and only about half of that of Corrientes. In the matter of population it ranks fourth among the Provinces of the Republic, with about one-third that of Buenos Aires.
As one travels towards the ancient capital of this Province one begins to realize that the cosmopolitan59 delights of the city of Buenos Aires do not reflect the soul of the Republic: the soul that fought for its liberty under the blue sky and warm sun of 25th of May, now over a hundred years ago. One begins involuntarily to dream of the Gaucho60 Wars and to feel the atmosphere of wilder bygone times amid the steep water-cut and cacti-crowned banks of the five great rivers which traverse the land from west to east. And when one gets to “The Learned City” the illusion is not dispelled61. Only one extremely modern-looking Hotel in a corner of the Plaza jars; the rest of old Córdoba exhales62 the magnolia-scented64 atmosphere of Old Colonial days. The Cathedral, the University (founded in 1613) and the innumerable churches, the bells of which all clang incessantly65 on Feast-days, all help to preserve in the old part of the City of Córdoba an atmosphere of the Middle Ages, when monasteries66 and learning were indissolubly connected. And of monks67 and nuns68, brown-robed, black-robed, white-robed and blue-robed, many there be in Córdoba. Wherever one looks, across the Plaza, up one street or down another, one sees them walking in twos or small groups with a uniformly[147] measured step which, as one instinctively69 feels, nothing could hurry nor retard70. And the black-coated citizens of Córdoba walk silently with eyes downcast. But there is fierceness behind those cast-down eyes and quick hot blood in the veins71 of those men in black; as anyone would soon find out to his cost were he suspected of too close enquiry into local political ways and means.
The writer speaks feelingly on this subject since when, a few years ago, he was visiting Córdoba with a quite natural but equally innocent curiosity for the old-world corners of the City, he unfortunately disclosed in conversation with an eminently74 respectable-looking, immaculately dressed gentleman that he, the present author, was a journalist.
Soon afterwards his adventures began. He was molested76 in indirect ways, and finally invited to pay a visit to the Central Police Station. There he was given cigarettes and coffee by the Comisario, who floridly apologized and expressed his deep regret and shame for the treatment an honourable77 stranger had received. It was, however, but a series of regrettable accidents arising from unfortunate error of certain bad characters who were now in durance vile78 in consequence.
Here he rang a bell and ordered the answering policeman to bring in the culprits. They were duly brought in and recognized.
“Now,” said the Comisario, “you will have no more trouble. Besides,” he added, “one of our plain-clothes men will accompany you in future wherever you go—for your better protection.”
The plain-clothes man certainly obeyed orders; so persistently79 that the whole why and wherefore at last dawned on my confused brain.
The intention was to worry me so much in a polite quasi-legitimate80 fashion that I could have no ostensible81 cause of complaint; but, at the same time, so that I should incontinently quit the ancient City of Córdoba in disgust.[148] The reason for all this was the fact that, having nothing better to do on the evening of my arrival, I had wandered into the basement of my Hotel and there found a person who looked like, and indeed was, a leading local politician running a roulette to catch the nickels of a crowd of working men. At that time the roulette was the scarcely concealed82 vice83 of the town, rife84 in the back room of every bar.
It is an illegal game in Argentina, as elsewhere except Monte Carlo, and shortly after my visit it was the cause of a great outcry and scandal in which several Provincial High Officials were involved.
I was a journalist and, therefore, dangerous. So a course of delicate hints to me to get out had been planned and executed.
Following the gambling85 scandal, a leading Opposition86 politician was shot dead in his carriage on the high road a short way outside the city. When I read this news I was glad that I had not persisted in seeming to pry87 into cupboards containing Córdoba’s official skeletons, and for similar reasons I am still somewhat shy of Córdobese gentlemen with downcast eyes and soft, measured tread.
All that, however, belongs to Old Córdoba. The parts of the city called New Córdoba and Alta Córdoba are replete88 with palatial residences as fine and as new as residential palaces need be.
The City of Córdoba is not only the traditional seat of learning par2 excellence89 of the Republic, it is also, as a consequence of old-time associations no doubt, its chief centre of clerical influence.
Córdoba is intensely and, if one may be permitted to say it, intolerantly Catholic. Were it not subject to the democratic laws of a modern and very go-ahead Republic one would hardly be surprised to find disciplinary institutions of an Inquisitorial type still in full swing in this old-world city of South America. As it is, there is no doubt of the[149] predominance of priestly influence in Provincial politics. Much of the best freehold property in the city is owned by Monastic Orders or by the Society of Jesus.
Most of the Province consists of a large plain; which, naturally, is the chief productive area. But Córdoba has hills famous for the purity of their air and great resorts for consumptive patients. Alta Gracia, with its fine hotel, golf links, etc., has of late years acquired a very favourable90 reputation as a place in which anyone may spend a very pleasant and healthful week or so.
In the North-West of the Province are great salt marshes91, in and around which only a very scanty92 and meagre vegetation flourishes, and in the North-East is the Mar Chiquita, a large and, in parts, very deep lake, the waters of which are salty like those of the sea. Hence its name.
Córdoba also possesses large forests, as yet chiefly exploited for building timber and firewood.
Rio Cuarto, on the river of that name, is the next largest town in the Province in point of population, but it is likely soon to be altogether surpassed in importance by Bell Ville, on the Central Argentine Railway, a rapidly advancing centre of the cereal trade, and some day also, probably, by Marcos Juarez, comparatively close to it on the same line.
Goats abound93 in the North of Córdoba. Land values have increased and are increasing; especially in the most fertile regions in the South-Eastern parts of the Province.
Córdoba has given and continues to give much attention to irrigation and possesses one of the largest semi-natural reservoirs in the world, certainly in South America, in the Dique San Roque, which is formed by means of a wall of masonry95 placed across the mouth of a mountain gorge96. Its capacity is 260,000,000 cubic metres, and its operation is completed by a basin situated some fifteen miles from and below it, from which the water flows through two great primary canals. The area so irrigated98 is some 130,000[150] hectares. Other large irrigation works are in course of construction, and more still are under consideration.
Córdoba has also a large share of industrial enterprise, of which the chief are lime and cement works, ornamental99 and other tile manufactories, potteries100, sawmills and butter factories.
The hills of this Province have some practically unexploited mineral deposits. The area between the city of Córdoba and the Provinces of Santa Fé and Buenos Aires is covered with a close network of railway lines, in great contrast (as may be seen by a glance at the railway map) in this respect with the more Northern parts of the Province.
There has for a long time been talk of a canal to run from near the city of Córdoba to a point close to the port of Rosario, utilizing101 the surplus waters of the Primero, Segundo and Tercero Rivers.
There is something almost incongruously prosaic102 about the naming, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, of the rivers which traverse a Province in which so much of the old romantic atmosphere lingers.
The Alfalfa fields of Córdoba are in extent second only to those of Buenos Aires, covering an area equal to more than half that devoted to this forage103 in the latter Province.
ENTRE RIOS
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Corrientes, on the West and East by, respectively, the Rivers Paraná and Uruguay (hence its name “Between Rivers”) and on the extreme South by the River Plate, which is formed by the conjunction of the Paraná and Uruguay.
As has been seen, Entre Rios comes second among the Argentine Provinces for production of oats; but in respect of other cereal crops it is still far behind Buenos Aires, Santa Fé and Córdoba. It is, however, rich in live stock,[151] having nearly three times the quantity possessed by Córdoba. In point of population it ranks fourth among the Argentine Provinces.
Until the accomplishment105 of the Entre Rios railway this Province was known as the “Poor Sister” of Buenos Aires and Santa Fé. Now, this disparagement106 cannot be thrown on her; for her prosperity is advancing literally by leaps and bounds. This is very largely owing to the communication and transport afforded by the Railway and its train-carrying Ferry Boats which run between Zárate on the Buenos Aires side of the River Paraná and Ibicuy on the Entre Rios side, thus permitting of traffic without change of car between the Federal City and the Entre Rios system—and, in fact, also, onward107 through the Province of Corrientes and the Republic of Paraguay to Brazil, by several links in the chain of railway lines one day to run the whole length from North and South of the two Americas.
The journey by rail from Buenos Aires to Paraná, the capital of Entre Rios, is a delightful one, not the least pleasant part of it being the voyage in the well-appointed Ferry Boats up and across beautiful winding108 reaches of the Paraná River.
From the Provincial capital one can again take a train through interesting country across the Province to Concórdia, on the River Uruguay, and so back to Buenos Aires by one of the fine and comfortable River Boats. That is, if one does not first of all go further North to the famous falls of Iguazú, further mention of which will be made when writing of the National Territory of Misiones.
The City of Paraná is a quiet, pleasant Capital, redolent of the memory of General Urquíza, the one-time “Tyrant” of these parts of the River Plate Territories. One sees the old large low building which was the head-quarters of his government, and where, as history hath it, he contrived109 to have many of his political enemies put to death. On the other hand, there is much evidence of his enlightenment in[152] the shape of schools, first established by him and later fostered by “The School Master President” Sarmiento. The fact is that Urquíza, like Rozas, whom he supplanted111, and Artígas, the national hero of Uruguay, were all strong men of good purpose according to their lights and times; times which were turbulent and in which it was necessary for him who would govern to kill first if he would not himself die by an assassin’s hand.
Opposition politicians had short shrift in those days. They were caught, convicted and executed almost before the plots of which they were found guilty had been fully112 formed.
Each of these tyrants113 had a far-reaching and minutely penetrating114 police system, from which nothing was hid of the movements and meetings of other people in those sparsely116 populated days; days when no man’s business was a secret to his neighbour. As a result, order sprang out of disorder117 and was maintained by iron rule.
Looking back from this distance of time one can perceive the great and good work done by these men for their country. Their methods were of the time; necessary.
On the cliff-like bank of the river is the really charming Urquíza Park. The chief Plaza, “Primero de Mayo,” is gay o’ nights with electric light shining on the tables outside the Cafés, whilst a band plays in the midst of the garden in its centre. Paraná has trams and a theatre, and altogether is quite a busy commercial centre. Still it is, as has been said, quiet with the distinctive118 quiet of really Provincial towns all the world over.
But the most charming place of all (to the writer’s mind, one of the most charming in the Republic) is Concórdia. Its cobbled streets and orange-scented gardens, its pure air, bright sun and cool breezes combine to give one the feeling of having at last reached a true haven119 of rest from the turmoil120 of the outer world; a haven in which one might dream the remainder of one’s life away happy and passing rich on the Argentine equivalent to forty pounds a year.
[153]
Yet Concórdia is busy, busy in its old Colonial way with sending produce down the broad River Uruguay to the great noisy port of Buenos Aires.
The Entre Rios farmers do good business in cattle fattening121; for which their usually well-watered and rich pasturage is peculiarly fitted. Yet, at times, Entre Rios has suffered from severe drought, and more frequently from locust123 invasion, a plague which, however, is now already fairly well held in check by the measures adopted and strictly124 carried out by Government for the gradual elimination125, as it is hoped, of these insects from the Republic.
Entre Rios, still only just, so to speak, opened up by the railway, is still conservative in respect of the maintenance of large land holdings. These are, however, slowly but surely being divided up owing to demand and in accordance with the more utilitarian126 spirit of the times.
Entre Rios is a chief centre of the jerked-beef industry, and the Liebig factories are an economic feature which cannot go unmentioned. Grease factories, for which large quantities of mares are slaughtered127 annually128, also constitute one of the chief industries of this Province.
Entre Rios has a very considerable acreage under barley129.
CORRIENTES
Corrientes may be regarded, economically, as well as geographically132, as still being one of the outlying Provinces, inasmuch as its population and cereal production are much less than those of the Provinces already dealt with.
It is, however, numerically richer in Live Stock than either Córdoba or Santa Fé[24] and has large areas under maize cultivation133.
[154]
Corrientes is bounded on the North by the River Paraná, which forms the boundary between it and the Republic of Paraguay. This river is also its Western boundary, while on the East it is bounded by the National Territory of Misiones and the River Uruguay, and on the South by Entre Rios.
It is served by the Argentine North-Eastern Railway system, which links up and is in every way closely connected with the Entre Rios Railway: and by a small narrow-gauge industrial railway which runs through a large area of Quebracho forest and also serves some sugar mills.
Other communication is by old-world diligences. Another railway is, however, projected to run almost along the north boundary of the Province from the City of Corrientes to Posadas in Misiones.
The inhabitants of Corrientes, like their Paraguayan neighbours, from whom, especially in the more Northern parts of this Province, they differ but slightly in racial characteristics, are the true lineal descendants of Spanish soldiery and their native Guaraní Indian wives. They are as a rule a pleasant enough people, good-humoured and somewhat indolent. As to the latter quality one must, however, remember that in Corrientes one is already among subtropical vegetation (Palms begin to rear their tufted heads in the North of Entre Rios). One of the most beautiful examples of this vegetation is the Lapacho with its great branches of pink flowers.
One must not delay long, however, if one wish to still catch the old-world flavour of Corrientes. Its capital, founded in 1588 with one of the long names in which the Spanish conquerors134 appear to have delighted, namely, San Juan de la Vera de las siete Corrientes (St. John of Vera of the Seven Streams), is already provided with modern waterworks and electric trams. Still, one yet finds many mysterious looking low houses with vertically135 barred windows, and covered verandahs lining136 long narrow streets. Modern[155] buildings, however, are rapidly spoiling the attraction of the place for those who appreciate the charm of more leisurely137, spacious times. That charm yet lingers in the city of Corrientes, but, as has been said, is already being startled into flight by modernity.
The latter and Corrientes are, nevertheless, still fairly far apart. It would be curious to know how many inhabitants of the Federal Capital have even the faintest notion of what City of the Seven Streams is like (?). Very few indeed; except those who have or have had direct interests in the latter place. The notions of the rest would be similar to those of the average European regarding the Pampa.
Corrientes is for the most part well watered, and has immense tracts138 of excellent pasturage.
Besides its Capital, Corrientes possesses as its, even more commercially important, centres the towns of Goya, famous for its cheeses, Ituzaingó, Bella Vista, and Empedrado, all ports or rather possible ports on the Paraná, Mercedes, the centre of prosperous sheep-farming districts, and Curuzú Cuatia and Monte Caseros, with good railroad facilities.
With the necessary expenditure139 on wharves140, etc., Corrientes could be brought into a much greater economic activity than it shows signs of as yet; by utilizing its great natural riparian means of communication, although the River Uruguay is at this height difficult of navigation, owing chiefly to the rapidity of its current and frequent floods.
The Correntino has not yet, however, developed much commercial enterprise. His cattle still show the native long horned and limbed characteristics of wilder days and he himself seems to find it less trouble to get tobacco, mate, sugar, coffee and many other things from Brazil or Paraguay than to grow and manufacture them himself; as he could do easily and profitably. Much of his nature is Indian; to be modified in time by the overwhelming forces of civilization.
[156]
One cannot leave Corrientes without mention of the lake Iberá in the North of the Province, a vast natural hollow filled with water, the surface of which is in many parts covered so solidly with interlaced bamboos, grasses and aquatic141 plants as to enable one to walk on it as if on a huge raft. There has been much talk of reclaiming142 the land by draining Lake Iberá, a task which owing to the gradients of the surrounding lands would not present great difficulties; if so be that the lake is not connected by subterranean143 channels with the Rivers Paraná and Upper Uruguay, as there are several reasons to suppose it may be.
The islands of this lake form a perfect zoological garden of animals and reptiles144 long since practically extinct in the surrounding country; among which are Jaguars145, Alligators146 and Boa Constrictors.
The present writer remembers an interesting if somewhat terrifying collection of such and other wild specimens147 being cast up a little more than a decade ago on the river shores of the Province of Buenos Aires, near to the Federal Capital, by the swollen148 waters of the Paraná during extraordinary floods. These creatures were washed down clinging to trunks of trees and islets of intertwined vegetation which had been torn away by the force of the waters. It is safe to assume that they were much more terrified than were even the peaceable inhabitants of the places where they involuntarily landed.
The illustrious General San Martin was a Correntino, born in what was once called Yapeyú, now an important Live Stock centre and renamed after him.
A monument has also been erected149 there to his memory, a patriotic150 embellishment which no Argentine township, however, is without.
SAN LUIS
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of La Rioja, on the West by the Provinces of San Juan and[157] Mendoza, on the East by the Province of Córdoba and on the South by the Territory of the Pampa Central.
Until the coming of Alfalfa, San Luis was chiefly interesting for its mineral possibilities. Even now, after Salta and Jujuy, it is the most sparsely populated of the Argentine Provinces. Nevertheless, it now has large areas under wheat; and sandy salty tracts which not long ago, in common with similar tracts in the West of the Province of Buenos Aires and in the Territory of the Pampa Central, were looked on as useless deserts, are covered with an extraordinarily151 luxuriant growth of lucerne. The salty nature of the soil is favourable to this valuable forage plant, and its tap roots find their way easily through the sandy surface to the closely adjacent damp subsoil and surface waters.
Irrigation is destined to play an important r?le in other parts of San Luis.
At present this Province runs Santa Fé very close in point of number of Live Stock; though the general average of quality is a good way behind that found in the “home” Provinces or Córdoba.
San Luis cultivates an appreciable152 quantity of good table grapes, and, as is noticed in another chapter, also produces some wine.
The Province is intersected in its North and Central parts by four lines of the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway and in the South by two of the Buenos Aires Western Railway.
It is evident that the mineral deposits of San Luis were worked in the prehistoric153 days prior to the Spanish Conquest, but little has been done to exploit them in modern times except as regards the beautiful green marble, commonly called Brazilian Onyx, large quantities of which are exported. Gold mining has been attempted in modern times, but without as yet any very appreciable results. San Luis, however, produces a certain regular supply of Wolfram.
The people of San Luis are frequently accused of indolence.[158] Certainly the Province is not a wealthy one, nor do its inhabitants appear over alert to seize the opportunities which nature and modern methods combined now offer them.
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Salta and the National Territory of Formosa, on the West by the Province of Tucumán and Catamarca, on the East by the National Territory of the Chaco and the Province of Santa Fé and on the South by the Province of Córdoba.
Irrigation has led to a considerable development of wheat-growing in this Province and to irrigation it must chiefly owe its future progress; for, in its almost tropical climate, rain only falls in the summer months and usually is absorbed almost as soon as it falls by a sandy and dusty soil.
The average temperature of Santiago del Estero is highly favourable to maize, but, here again, the question of water supply arises, only to be met by artificial means. Already principal and subsidiary irrigation canals have been constructed in the areas through which pass the two rivers of the Province, the Dulce and the Saladillo, and further works of the kind are in active contemplation.
The salt sandy soil of much of this Province has been found as favourable to Alfalfa as such soil is elsewhere when there is water not far down or at least a damp subsoil. So that Santiago boasts of an already large and an increasing number of Alfalfares, as lucerne-bearing lands are called. The chief industries of the North of this Province are in connection with its forestal products, the cutting and rough trimming of Quebracho wood, firewood and charcoal burning. The people engaged in these occupations are mostly totally uneducated and are unacquainted with any of the higher developments of civilization. They are indeed in some respects similar to the stock-riding Gaucho of the past in other provinces, but without the intelligence he displayed[159] within the limits of his punctilious155 observance of custom.
Dancing, card-playing and drinking are the only amenities156 of life known to the wood-cutters of Santiago del Estero, unless fighting be added as a pendant to, and consequence of, the last-named pastime of alcoholic157 indulgence. Like all Gauchos158, however, they are really only dangerous to one another in this regard, a stranger being treated by them with all the good-humoured courtesy at their command.
The Santague?os of the forests have been singled out by one very observant and reliable writer on South American countries, Monsieur Paul Walle,[25] as having superstitious159 faith in “Curanderos” or quack160 doctors, people of their own class. They do indeed show a perfectly161 childlike faith in quack nostrums162; but in this, leave must be taken to say, they are by no means alone among the rural populations of the River Plate. The present writer has known the queerest kinds of remedies believed in implicitly163 and practised even in that hub of progress, the Province of Buenos Aires.
Active official efforts have for some time been devoted to the weeding out of Curanderos and Curanderas; but, as in the medi?val days of England, they are still sought out, more or less secretly, by neighbours who have infinitely164 more faith in their “cures” than they would have in the treatment of whole Colleges of Physicians.
Possibly these quacks165 often do cure by suggestion. The writer has, for instance, heard strong oral evidence of the efficacy for toothache of expectorating into the mouth of a frog, caught at a certain hour of the night. There could be no doubt about it. Many people have been entirely166 relieved from pain by that simple expedient167. The rather revolting rite72 performed, the frog must be set at liberty and carries away the pain with it!
Much of this quackery168 is relatively harmless, but much of it is also highly dangerous, not only to the actual patient,[160] but to the community in general; as preventing the former from seeking orthodox treatment which, while really curing him, would at the same time prevent the spread of infectious and contagious169 disease.
To sum up, Santiago del Estero undoubtedly170 has a rich future before it, dependent chiefly on irrigation.
TUCUMáN
This Province is bounded on the North by the Province of Salta, on the West and South by the Province of Catamarca and on the East by the Province of Santiago del Estero.
It has the smallest superficial area of all the Argentine Provinces; being less than one-eleventh the size of Buenos Aires and less than one-fifth that of Santiago del Estero.
It, however, is a very important Province, because it produces over 90% of the whole sugar output of the Republic. It also grows an appreciable quantity of maize, but when, in Argentina, one says Tucumán one is almost invariably thought to be about to speak of sugar.
It always has been the sugar-producing area of the River Plate Territories; from the time of the Jesuit Missionaries171, say, about the middle of the eighteenth century. The first modern sugar-manufacturing machinery172 was set up in Tucumán in 1879.
The whole matter of the Argentine Sugar industry was for long hedged about with fiscal173 and other questions and a great sensitiveness on the part of the growers and refiners in regard to their discussion. That a certain number of companies divided the whole of the industry between them was undoubted fact, as was the equally obvious one that they carried on business in accordance rather with their ideas of their own commercial interests than in any larger or more philanthropic spirit. Sugar is still much dearer for the Argentine consumer than there seems any good reason for. Special legislature has operated until recently as an exceptional[161] protection to this industry, thus maintaining, as was vehemently174 urged in many quarters, a monopoly, to the extent of being relieved of any foreign competition, in the hands of the Tucumán Companies who conducted their affairs in a mutually friendly fashion.
Their opponents throughout the country said that Tucumán (the sugar interests there are still inseparably connected with Provincial politics and politicians) not only waxed fat at the public expense, but did so by means and methods opposed to the public interest. Certainly legislature offered temptation to artificial limitation of output, and it was chiefly in regard to this—burning of productive cane-fields and so forth—that the sugar companies long stood accused.
On whichever side the balance of the arguments for or against the doings of the Tucumán sugar industry may have lain it may be safely asserted that no political influence can nowadays continue to bolster175 up commercial malpractices of any magnitude in Argentina. The National Government has already seen and will see to it that no hole-in-the-corner Provincial politics shall interfere176 with the National welfare and credit. Influence, although still powerful in minor matters, can no longer suffice to avoid any matter of public importance being exposed to examination by the full light of day.
Tucumán is well aware of this, and therefore can be relied on, and indeed must be, to trim her sails to the healthy wind by which the course of the Republic is now determined177.
It is only fair to add that the Tucumán Sugar Companies’ argument in their own defence to the suggestion of an inequitable monopoly exercised by them is, in effect, “Well, supposing that we have been making very large profits of late years, we have borne the brunt of hard times for many more, before the industry had developed to its present extent and before we were able to obtain assistance or even practical encouragement from the State. And besides, were we wrong in making hay whilst the sun shone? Any day may bring[162] us competition in the shape of the rise of new cane-fields in other Northern districts of this fertile Republic.”
This is at least sympathetic if not strictly legitimate reasoning.
In the meantime the Province of Tucumán has grown prosperous, and the employment of more enlightened methods of conducting all branches of its sugar industry has recently resulted in enhanced prosperity coupled with a largely increased output. The City of Tucumán, its Capital, one of the pleasantest and most progressive towns in Argentina, has no less than five different railway stations pertaining178 to lines connecting it with Buenos Aires (of which the Central Argentine is the most direct) and local systems.
The vegetation of the Plazas and Boulevards of the City is subtropical and social demands have provided Tucumán with an ornate Casino connected with a vast modern Hotel and theatre. Electric light and tramways abound in its orange-flower scented streets and public places, among which must now be counted a huge Park designed to celebrate the 1910 centenary. A special building enshrines the historic room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Buildings of the Colonial period still exist in Tucumán and its outskirts179, but the dominant180 tendency is towards modernity in architecture and all else. The City is picturesquely182 situated in a valley among hills which appear to surround it and give it a curious appearance of having, with its Casino, brilliantly lit avenues and gardens and its luxuriant vegetation, sprung into existence as a scene on some vast stage.
It has a winter season of ever-growing social importance; during which the great Sugar Families occupy their palatial villas183 and display dark beauty and grace to the music of the band in the Plaza Independencia and at the Casino and Theatre.
Irrigation is easily attained over the most part of this[163] Province, from the Dulce River and its many tributaries184 as well as from several other streams.
Tucumán grows some wheat, but not much, its principal crops (after, of course, sugar) being maize and alfalfa.
It has comparatively little live stock, owing largely to the general humidity of its soil. It has, however, an exceptionally large aggregate185 of population for its size in comparison with other Provinces.
Parts of Tucumán are forest, part mountainous with peaks clad in everlasting186 snow from which accumulate innumerable turbulent mountain streams. For picturesque181 and varied187 scenery of almost every kind Tucumán is perhaps preeminent188 in the Republic. Its valleys are with very few exceptions fertile and well watered.
This Province has several fairly important towns situated on the railways which traverse its central and southern districts.
CATAMARCA
This Province is bounded on the North by that of Salta and the National Territory of Los Andes, on the West by Chile, on the South by the Provinces of La Rioja and Córdoba and on the East by those of Santiago del Estero and Tucumán. As can be imagined from its geographical131 situation, it produces a certain quantity of maize and, given advantages, to be mentioned later, undoubtedly could produce a great deal more. As yet it is sparsely populated, and the influence of progress is only just being forced upon it by a paternal189 National Government which not only has irrigation schemes in hand, but has already constructed a railway—the North Argentina—one of the new Government lines, to afford transport for the future wealth of this hitherto dormant190 Province. Irrigation, transport and fresh elements and methods of labour are the three requisites191 for Catamarca’s advancement192. She has plenty of what is easily convertible193 into fertile soil; and, without doubt, rich mineral deposits.[164] Both of these resources would long ago have been advantageously exploited had the population of the Argentine Republic attained larger figures than as yet represent it.
Catamarca is mountainous over a large portion of its area, but this area is interspersed194 with very fertile valleys and possesses a vast tableland, called the Campo del Pucara. In a hollow of this tableland is the capital city of Catamarca.
There are plenty of mountain streams from which to irrigate97 the greater portion of the soil of this Province, and also a water bed not far from the surface from which irrigation could be obtained. At present—most of the surface soil being extremely loose and porous—the water brought down by the mountain streams is immediately absorbed, and the climate generally is dry. The mean temperature naturally varies according to altitude, but the lower valleys are very hot in summer-time.
The City of Catamarca is still a veritable sleepy hollow, poor and indolent, but picturesque with the gardens and orange and other orchards196 of Colonial times.
The population of this Province is mostly of mixed Spanish and Indian origin; as indeed is that of practically all the northern outlying Provinces and Territories of the Republic.
The needs of these people are few, and they continue in a lethargic197 condition of conservative content. One district, however, of Catamarca—Andalgalá—boasts of an aristocracy of pure Spanish blood, resident since the early days of the Conquest.
At present all the best brains of Catamarca find their way to Buenos Aires; in despair of the small scope, and even opposition to any suggestion of innovation, offered by their native Province. Still, Nature in Catamarca, as elsewhere throughout Argentina, only awaits the call of man to respond with rich gifts.
There is no doubt about the existence of valuable mineral[165] deposits, silver, copper198 and especially tin, in Catamarca. The chief obstacle to the due exploitation of these up to the present has been the difficulty and cost of transport. The railway should soon, however, render the working of these mines profitable on a much larger scale than hitherto has been commercially possible.
LA RIOJA
This Province is bounded on the North and North-East by the Province of Catamarca, on the West and South-West by Chile and the Province of San Juan, on the South by the Province of San Luis, and on the East by Catamarca, again, and the Province of Córdoba.
La Rioja is another outlying Province of which can be said, as of so many as yet comparatively unproductive parts of Argentina, that water, labour and transport alone are needed to make them rich far beyond any dreams of avarice199 which have yet occupied the minds of their few and easy-going inhabitants. Maize flourishes in this hot, dry climate, as do all manner of subtropical and even tropical fruits, including dates, wherever water is available. Even wheat grows splendidly in some districts, given irrigation. And, as in many other salty and saltpetre-impregnated soils, there are large areas in La Rioja highly favourable to the growth of Alfalfa.
At present this Province is more sparsely populated than any other in the Republic except Jujuy, but it boasts of a fair number of (mostly native) cattle. As in all the Andine Provinces and Territories there is a relatively considerable export trade of cattle on the hoof200 to Chile.
La Rioja produces some wine, and at some future date will, no doubt, produce more, in view of the advantages for vine culture of its soil in many parts and its warm, dry climate. At present the wine of La Rioja is mostly consumed in the province itself and the immediately neighbouring Provinces.
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Large irrigating201 works are in progress, and more are under consideration by the National Government for the development of the agricultural industries of this Province.
Contemporaneously with or possibly before such development will have been able, on account of lack of population, to assume any very notable progress, one may reasonably expect to see a largely increased activity in the exploitation of La Rioja’s mineral wealth (apparently202 much greater than that of Catamarca) by reason of the enormously increased facilities for transport afforded by the National North Argentine Railway. La Rioja has rich deposits of silver, copper, nickel, tin, cobalt, topaz and many beautiful kinds of marble.
The mining district best known at present is that of La Famatina; from which a cable-way of 35 kilometres in length was constructed by the National Government some years ago to connect the hillside mines with the rail-head at Chilecito.
La Rioja has, however, many other evidently rich mineral areas, including some containing quartz203 and alluvial204 gold. The unsystematic exploitation of these has as yet given but small satisfactory results.
The city of La Rioja, the Capital, is still in a state of arrested development, similarly with Catamarca, only even more so. It has not yet experienced sufficient prosperity to enable it to recover from the paralysing effects of the civil disturbances206 which raged in and around it for very many years after the overthrow208 of the Spanish rule. The people, the great majority of whom have a large admixture of native Indian blood, are, however, of a rather more lively and energetic disposition210 than their Catamarcan neighbours. This is no doubt due to a difference in their racial origin; the Indian ancestors of the natives of La Rioja having apparently belonged to tribes which in bygone times inhabited, or were in close relations with those which inhabited, Peru[167] and thus possibly absorbed something of the Inca civilization.
The surface of La Rioja has two general aspects; one part is broken and mountainous and the other an immense plain, needing, as has been said, only labour and irrigation to yield rich agricultural results. The one important river of the Province is the Bermejo. The mineral wealth of this Province lies almost if not entirely exclusively, in its mountainous districts.
JUJUY
Jujuy has its very special interest for the Anglo-Saxon race, since it affords, in the history of the Leach211 family, a striking example of the colonizing212 enterprise and patience of that race.
Look at the position of Jujuy on the map and imagine what colonizing must have been like in the middle of last century when the brothers Leach first settled in what has since become a Province, but then was a wild district inhabited by native Indians.
One of the brothers, especially, Mr. Walter Leach, seems to have exercised a peculiar122 and highly beneficial influence over these people, and managed to introduce ideas of industry and gradual civilization to tribes whose former lives had been mostly occupied with warfare213 one with another.
Now we may almost say that “Leach” is synonymous with “Jujuy” and vice versa, and enterprises initiated214 by this family now embrace all branches of industry of which the Province is yet capable, including large sugar plantations215 and machinery. Now, the National Central Northern Argentine Railway connects Jujuy with the outer world, but before its advent75 it was indeed a far-off land to be reached only after many weeks’ arduous216 journeying. Jujuy is the most distant and, after Tucumán, the smallest Province of the Republic.
It is bounded on the North and North-West by Bolivia,[168] on the West by the National Territory of Los Andes and on the South and East by the Province of Salta.
Jujuy produces not inconsiderable quantities of wheat, maize, barley and alfalfa and, as has been said, sugar.
In the North it has a number of salt lakes, which are exploited commercially, as also are some deposits of borax.
The climate of Jujuy is very varied, according to altitude, but in general is much more temperate217 than the actual latitude218 of the Province would lead one to suppose. There is always a considerable rainfall during hot weather. Its chief river is the Rio Grande de Humahuaca, a tributary219 of the Bermejo, which coming from the North curves in a semicircle through the Central and South-Eastern parts of the Province.
Jujuy, with its broken surface, claims rivalry220 with Tucumán as the most picturesque of the Argentine Provinces. In some of its southern districts the vegetation is tropical. In the North-West there is a high tableland much of which is dry and practically desert, interspersed with fertile valleys.
In the South of the Province the population is of mixed racial origin with a very large element of native Indian blood. In the North it is practically pure Indian. The native Humahuaca dialect is preponderant everywhere, even in Spanish as spoken there. In the North there is little or no pretension221 to speak anything but Humahuaca.
The Capital, however, the City of Jujuy, was, strangely enough, the first Argentine town to have its streets paved. It was the scene of the assassination222 of General Lavalle, one of the heroes of the Wars of Independence, and possesses the original flag of General Belgrano, the blue and white chosen by him for the nascent223 Republic, and ever since retained by it. Later the National Colours and those of Uruguay (a slightly different arrangement of the same blue and white) were officially emblazoned with the golden “Sun of May”; the 25th of May, 1810, being the date of the Declaration of Independence from the rule of Spain.
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As has been mentioned above, most of such prosperity as Jujuy as yet possesses is due to the patient energy of the Leach family. Such administrative224 and fiscal discredit225 as attaches to the Province is, on the other hand, due to the native element among its politicians. These evils inevitably226 must soon be swept away by the advance of civilized227 ideas and necessity for better management by public authority. The mass of the population will, no doubt, continue to live in its own long-accustomed primitive228 fashion.
It hardly contains the racial elements of rapid advance towards a much higher civilization.
Future immigration must be relied on to do much to develop Jujuy’s natural resources.
At present a certain amount of rather primitive, and some contraband229, export and import trade is done with Bolivia in the Northern parts of the Province.
Jujuy is poor in Live Stock even of the native kinds.
SALTA
With Salta we complete the list of the less important outlying Argentine Provinces.
Like Jujuy, it is bounded on the North by Bolivia, on the West by Jujuy and the National Territory of Los Andes, on the South by Tucumán and Santiago del Estero, and on the East by the National Territory of Formosa.
Salta is indeed historic ground; so full of reminiscence of the Wars of Independence that it may almost be called the cradle of the Republic. It was also in Salta that Jabez Balfour was at length taken into custody230, after a long struggle for an extradition231 treaty between Great Britain and Argentina.
The writer is well acquainted with a gentleman, since then become a prominent figure in the railway world of the River Plate, who “specially94” drove the engine of the train which brought Balfour down to civilization and captivity232. The[170] prisoner had money which he had spent freely among his new neighbours, and attempts at rescue were expected. So the train rushed on its downward course with a velocity233 to which the then permanent way and rails were totally unaccustomed, but, as all the world was soon made aware, arrived at its destination without accident.
The prisoner had been the victim of his own luxurious234 habits, for he had grown so fat that it was impossible to convey him through frontier mountain passes into Bolivia, as his friends had intended and as would have been possible, in point of time, to do before the expected warrant for his arrest could have found its way into the not too willing hands of the local authorities.
Until his recent death, the present generation had scarcely heard of Jabez Balfour. Yet he was widely celebrated235 in contemporaneous popular song as “The man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.”
In Salta is still to be found a much more really interesting personage in the Gaucho, the Cavaliere Rusticano of the River Plate and the hero of all its earlier poetry and romance. He of the guitar-accompanied improvised236 verse, of the quick flashing knife and equally quick Rebenque.[26] He was no small element in the victories won over the Spanish soldiery nor in the long years of civil war which followed Independence. He is still in Salta; one of the last parts of the Republic in which he can be found. Comparatively uncontaminated by the encroachments of the drab uniformity of civilization.
He remains237 romantic and brutal238, chivalrous239 and treacherous240, hospitable241 and quick to resent the mere implication of an insult. Still a cattle herd242 adept243 with lazo or boleadora,[27] a nomad244 ever seeking fresh fields and pastures[171] new within the limits of his native territory. Give him a uniform he is a very useful soldier, and a fair military policeman, save for his rather erratic245 fits of truculence246. For the rest no good at all outside of the few spheres mapped out for him by the limitation of his own strongly marked individuality. But he will always know again an animal he has once seen, and will track out a lost sheep across a very maze247 of confused spoor.
Mr. Herbert Gibson[28] has written of the gaucho with true feeling and appreciation248 in the following words:—
Skilled in horsemanship, quick of hand and of eye; in his beginnings the Arab and nomad of the plains; indifferent of his neighbour’s life, for his own he carried in his hand to risk at the first hazard, yet “loyal to his own law” even in his most lawless exploits—the gaucho of the Pampa constitutes the genuine emblem249 of the Argentine genius. He is the materialized expression of the spirit of the vast and lonely plain. “Bearing allegiance to neither King nor thing,” as Azara writes, he followed the fate of the live stock of the colony; when the cattle escaped control he too declared himself free, running wild and beyond the pale of even nominal250 domestication251. The Pampa was his home, and in his ears the breeze moving over the plains whispered to him of liberty. To colonial rule succeeded the new order of Independence, and the gaucho, inured252 by his style of living to the stress of weather and to the struggle with savage253 animals, became the right hand of the petty chiefs of party faction254, ever joining the side in conflict with the ruling power. The words law and order signified for him oppression and servitude, and he became the declared enemy of all authority. But with all his faults the gaucho, in his own element, mounted on his beloved horse, with lazo secured to the back of his saddle and his boleadora hanging from his waist, was the henchman beyond price for the work of the old estancia, knowing how to dominate and domesticate255 the savage herds256 and droves of wild mares. In all that he has seemingly been modified by the progress of the times, he has remained unmodified in his spirit which is the essential manifestation257 of his climate and of his habit. The nomad gaucho of the colonial period converted into the loyal[172] gaucho of the estancia, the man with no other belongings258 than his horses and the silver clasp and buttons hanging at his belt to whom the breeder entrusted all his herds, and the grazier the money wherewith to buy the droves of bullocks, without for one moment thinking, either the one or the other, that he would neglect his charges or fail to render account to the uttermost farthing committed to his care. Alike loyal and venturesome in the fulfilment of his duties, and kindly259 and hospitable in his lowly home life, he is the hero of the rural romance of the Pampa. Not without regret and tender reminiscences must we take farewell of a period of pastoral life, from whose remembrance all the hardships and bitterness have disappeared, only leaving to us the recollection of that patriarchal and wholesome260 life which the late Hernandez has so skilfully261 depicted262 in the picturesque language of the gaucho who tells his story by the fitful light of the fire on the kitchen hearth263 while his fingers caress264 the melancholy265 strings266 of the guitar.
And now approaches the new era of railways, of fenced-in paddocks, of ingenious drafting gates and all the mechanical entourage of the modern pastoral industry. The gaucho, like Othello, is without an occupation, but the spirit which in divers267 forms and epochs has characterized him shall not die. It is the native spirit of the Argentine genius which enters the immigrant ere for long he has settled in the land and which inspires the sons born to him in this country; it is the instinct of independence and individuality engendered268 by the free air of a rural life, and which is the antithesis269 of the dependent spirit symbolized270 in city life by socialism.
Salta is a large, sparsely populated Province, the inhabitants of which outside the circle of its aristocratic families, are composed of our friend the Gaucho and his families and the Coya Indians. These last, cowboys and shepherds, are much more unpleasant people; morose271, avaricious272 in their necessarily small way, and full of sullen273 duplicity. Their only obvious virtue274 is their devoted attachment275 to the small allotments of land they can call their own. This solitary277 virtue does not, however, make them any the pleasanter to strangers; all of whom indiscriminately they regard as possible enemies come to[173] rob them of their rights in some mysterious way or other.
Naturally, with such a population and on account of its distance from the great commercial centres of the Republic, Salta is not yet very far on the road to any great or settled prosperity.
It has some sugar plantations, cultivates some tobacco and makes some wine, but with its many generally well-watered and easily irrigable278 large areas of rich soil it could easily, and of course eventually will, progress.
It could grow a great deal more maize and alfalfa than it does, and could carry much more and better live stock than it yet troubles to do.
It produces some fruit and could produce all sorts of much choicer kinds in great variety; also potatoes, cotton and, as experts affirm, excellent coffee.
Of course there are here the old difficulties of irrigation, in some places, cost of transport and lack of intelligent labour. The first two are rapidly being overcome by the National Government, the last must be looked for overseas. The Gaucho and the Coya not only are not sufficiently numerous for Salta’s future needs, but (alas for the romance of the former!) they must be classed amongst the doomed279 unfit; to be merged280 in or overwhelmed by the march of modernity.
The aspect of Salta, like that of most of the northern Provinces and Territories, is varied. Mountain and low valley, broad plain and forest, deep river and rushing stream all alternate and give picturesqueness281 and diversity of climate. Goats, mules282 and sufficient horses for existing local needs are to be found here as in the neighbouring Provinces; all of which are justly famous for products, the mention of which must on no account be overlooked, the native cloths and PONCHOS283, hand-woven of vicuna and guanaco wool. Soft, warm and durable284, these cloths are highly and justly valued in the more civilized regions of the River Plate.
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The manufacture of them dates from times which are prehistoric in America.
The forests of Salta contain a great quantity of Quebracho of excellent quality, and there are several indigenous285 creepers of caoutchouc-bearing kinds. This latter has as yet been little exploited, and then only in an extremely primitive manner.
Salta boasts a large hydropathic establishment in connection with the hot mineral springs of Rosario de la Frontera.
Salta, the Capital, is another of the old Colonial cities, amid the low houses of which fine new public buildings occur incongruously; iconoclastic286. It has also a zoological garden which, wisely, contains many interesting specimens of local fauna287, fine, luxuriantly planted public gardens and Plazas and an excellent Police Band.
In the oligarchic288 days of only a very few years ago the police forces of these outlying Provinces were extremely important political instruments. Under the Constitution the Provinces cannot raise or maintain independent soldiery; but who could say them nay289 if the exigencies290 of an uncultured population necessitated291 a large police force armed with Mausers?—to ensure due obedience292 to the orders of and agreement with the policy of the Provincial powers that were.
There are few commercial centres in Salta having populations sufficient to give them importance as towns. Metan is the largest, and after it come Cafayate, Campo Santo and Rosario de la Frontera, which, as has been said, is noted293 for its hot springs.
MENDOZA
RUINS OF JESUIT BUILDINGS: MENDOZA, ARGENTINA
This is one of the richer Provinces on account of its vines and the large wine-making industry. Similarly with Tucumán and Sugar, one may say that Mendoza and Wine are in Argentina practically synonymous; this observation[175] also applies to its neighbour, San Juan, the second great wine-producing Province. Indeed it is quite common—very common indeed, in fact—to say of a person who shows signs of being under alcoholic influence that he is “Entre San Juan y Mendoza” (between San Juan and Mendoza).
Besides those of its vines, the greatest agricultural products of Mendoza are alfalfa, grown over very considerable areas of salt-impregnated soil, and a much smaller proportion of maize.
The population of Mendoza is small and the number of its live stock very little larger: although in point of superficial area Mendoza ranks third (after Buenos Aires and Córdoba) among the Argentine Provinces. It is only fair, however, to add that much of the Western Area of Mendoza is very mountainous, since it includes a long stretch of the Eastern side of the Andes.
This Province is bounded on the North by that of San Juan, on the West by Chile, on the South by the National Territories of Neuquen and the Pampa Central, and on the East by the Province of San Luis.
Its department of San Rafael is a very large one, larger indeed than the whole of the rest of the Province put together; in it is found the greatest agricultural activity, including the great alfalfa fields. The Mendoza cattle are of all kinds and varieties, little attention having been yet, generally, given to the science of cross-breeding. It, however, exports numbers of cattle to Chile, either by way of mountain passes or the Transandine Railway; but a great many of these have been bred in neighbouring Provinces and sent to Mendoza for a fattening period before exportation.
Irrigation is a great feature of Mendoza, which was the first Province to receive any notable attention in this regard. Now, if we except, perhaps, the great irrigation works and schemes already well advanced in the National Territories[176] of Neuquen and the Rio Negro, Mendoza has, with San Juan, the largest and most comprehensive systems (both existing and in advanced stages of consideration) in the whole Republic.
The fall of the mountain rivers and the eastward294 drop of the whole surface of the Province makes irrigation here a comparatively easy task, while the natural fertility of the soil quickly and richly repays the initial cost and upkeep of reservoirs and canals. One menace there is which hangs ever over Mendoza, that of volcanic295 eruptions296. The whole of its Capital was completely destroyed as recently as 1861. The city has, however, been rebuilt on its former site, a sort of shelf of land situated on the spring of the great Andine range. Gradually the loosely built low adobe297 houses have been and are still being replaced in the New Town by several-storied buildings of solid masonry; courage growing as the date of the last great earthquake grows more remote. Still slight shocks are of frequent occurrence in the Capital and elsewhere in this Province.
The City of Mendoza is rich in public gardens and avenues filled with luxuriantly umbrageous298 vegetation and has, of course (what self-respecting Argentine town has them not?), electric light and trams; but its just pride is the great West Park, situate on another level shelf of land projecting from the foot of the Cordillera on a higher level than that on which the City is built.
This Park has a sheet of water of almost a mile in length by some seventy-five yards broad, in which are ornamental islets and on which regattas are held. For these festal occasions there is a huge stone grand stand at one end of the water. The Park has many magnificent electric-lighted avenues lined with trees of majestic proportions, and all over it are gardens of subtropical shrubs299 and plants. Within its great bronze gates are also a zoological and a, specifically, botanical garden.
A BIT OF THE TRANSANDINE RAILWAY, ARGENTINA
ENTRANCE TO THE SUMMIT TUNNEL THROUGH THE ANDES (CHILEAN SIDE)
With all this, if Mendoza has drawn301 somewhat on the[177] future to foot the bill of its many embellishments, it has done no more than many other cities of the still new South American countries, and with more immediate51 prospect302 of justification303 for its expenditure than have several others. What Mendoza has got to do now is to create an export trade for its wines, on the condition precedent304 that it manufacture wines that will keep and will improve with keeping. Otherwise with increased irrigation it may run the risk of over-production, since the home consumption is as yet a limited one. The increase of the population of the River Plate countries is, as we have seen, still slow, and outside the towns very little wine is drunk by the majority of the people except on special and rare occasions; mate sufficing for their habits and needs.
Mendoza sends large quantities of table-grapes and other fruit to Buenos Aires, and hopes one day to send them overseas. This latter consideration depends greatly on the adoption305 of improved methods of picking and packing, matters to which the management of the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway has given much practical attention. Care in such details is, however, but little in the Argentine nature generally, and even in a less degree in that of the strong mixture of Indian blood which marks the working classes of Mendoza, as it does in all except the littoral306 Provinces. Very good canned peaches come from the Mendoza factories and are in large demand throughout the Republic.
Coal and petroleum307 have both been found in the Province, but further working tests are needed before their probable commercial value can be ascertained308.
From the City of Mendoza the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway (familiarly B.A.P.) strikes upward to where it passes through the Transandine tunnel; on the Mendoza side of which is the famous Puente del Inca (the Inca’s bridge), a vast block of stone which, lying across a ravine, makes a natural bridge, recalling the giant-built palace of the old Norse Gods. Here are also some hot mineral springs[178] celebrated for treatment of rheumatism309; to which treatment the dry, rarefied mountain air perhaps contributes its less recognized quota310.
SAN JUAN
This Province is bounded on the North and East by the Province of La Rioja, on the West by Chile, and on the South and South-East by the Provinces of Mendoza and San Luis respectively.
Of all the Argentine Provinces San Juan has shown itself, until very recent times indeed, probably the most recalcitrant311 towards financial orderliness. A repeated non possumus was the only answer its inertness312 returned to the many periodical fulminations and menaces of the National Government in respect of its treasury313 bonds or depreciated314 Provincial paper money. So depreciated, in fact, that it was worth nothing at all outside the Province itself, and was by no means welcome, although legal, tender within its boundaries.
San Juan pleaded that it could not call this paper in since it had nothing with which to replace it—all the little National money it got for its wines and other produce went immediately back to Buenos Aires again for necessary purchases.
The National Government insisted that San Juan must remove the disgrace from its financial escutcheon or all sorts of things would happen. San Juan regretted deeply and asked for time. In the meanwhile it contrived to raise another of those loans, without much more than a shadow of adequate security or provision, which long have been the nightmare of the National Government, and it still kept on using its depreciated notes. So, and in many other ways for long, very long, did San Juan wrestle315, successfully according to its lights, with the spirit of progress until irrigation, fostered by the National Government, came to the aid of the latter in a way there was no denying.
PUENTE DEL INCA; MENDOZA, ARGENTINA
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San Juan had to become more prosperous and to begin to pay its way in respectable fashion. It evidently did not in the least want to do so, but it could not any longer see any way by which it could avoid recognition of its just liabilities. Thus are the good old times of this Province vanishing; the good old times which made sufficient provision for an aristocratic oligarchy316 and in which vassals317 had no opportunity of acquiring luxurious tastes.
First the railway, slow in this case, however, in its usually tonic318 effects and then irrigation, which poured water on to a naturally very fertile soil, brought it about that one day San Juan woke up to find itself faced with financial responsibility.
People from the littoral and even from overseas came and bought land and paid good prices in hard cash for it and then planted vines of new, productive kinds; trimmed them in new, productive ways; and made better wine out of them than San Juan had ever deemed at all necessary. Other people planted wheat and alfalfa, and even troubled to grow more maize than there had been before. In fact, if ever a Province had greatness thrust upon it in a bewilderingly short space of time it was San Juan. People are even prospecting319 and actually exploiting its long-latent mineral wealth, looking for and finding deposits of gold, silver, copper, iron, zinc320, lead, sulphur, alum, mica130, rock salt, lignite and marble.
The exploitation of many of these has not yet attained any very great commercial importance,[29] but that of others has already done so, and all the companies concerned have brought money into the Province and pay wages to many native workers. All this troublesomeness tends to curtail321 the daily siesta322, but a consequent bundle of full-value national dollars operates as a consolation323 to even the most conscientious324 observer of traditional custom. The next[180] generation of San Juan inhabitants will doubtless be as wide awake as their neighbours, and strikes may take the place of old-time rebellion to the orders of patriarchal overlords; while the latter will be put to it to work their ancestral lands intelligently in order to maintain the due measure of their proper dignity.
Not only has the National Government fostered large systems of irrigation in and given irrigation to this Province, but it has also run a railway connecting the City of San Juan with the Federal Capital; thus providing another outlet325 for its grapes, wines and other produce.
An instance of the former commercial apathy326 of San Juan, and of its neighbour Mendoza for that matter, was, not long ago, to be found in the manner in which the growers of table-grapes allowed themselves to be continually and methodically jockeyed by the fruit ring of Buenos Aires.
The worthies327 composing this ring were low-class, ignorant men, who could only grasp the possibilities of monopoly and market rigging on a very small scale. Their simple method was to put only a certain limited quantity of fruit each week on the retail328 markets of the Federal Capital and to charge exorbitant329 prices therefor. To the poor, three-quarter Indian, ignorant people of the islands of the Paraná they said that Buenos Aires did not care much for peaches, and so they only went there once a week or so to fetch a few, at miserable330 prices, for market. The rest of huge crops were left to rot on the trees. San Juan (and Mendoza) were evidently given to understand that a similar situation existed in regard to grapes.
How this could have been so is hard to understand, except on the ground of extreme apathy on the part of the Provinces concerned, for lots of vineyard owners live at least half the year in Buenos Aires, and could have told of the scarcity331 and high price of fruit in that city.
However this may have been, the fact remained that so many kilos of table-grapes, and no more, went down to[181] Buenos Aires in specially constructed trucks placed on the B.A.P. trains three days per week. Until the General Manager, Mr. J. A. Goudge, decided to act in the better interests of the Provinces concerned and, incidentally, also in those of his company, by running grape trains six days a week.
He thought, perhaps, that the Buenos Aires fruit merchants would call at his offices with illuminated332 testimonials. If he did so he was entirely mistaken. They did call, but it was to curse not bless. He would ruin them all, they said; they had comfortably arranged for such and such supplies of grapes, but more would upset their plans and businesses completely! They left Mr. Goudge unconvinced. So much so, indeed, that considering the menace of the ring to boycott333 his new trains, he hit on the simple but adequate expedient of running three grape trains per week from San Juan, non-stopping at Mendoza, and three starting from the latter place. San Juan needed its three trains, so did Mendoza, and therefore no one could boycott either service. Result, the arrival at Buenos Aires of six grape trains per week. The ring soon accommodated itself to the extra supply and went on robbing the busy, light-hearted Porte?os (as people born in Buenos Aires are called) till the continued efforts of a paternally334 wise Municipality at last, after a long and bitter struggle, crushed the power of all the food rings in that formerly335 ring-ridden city.
This little piece of economic history is here intended to show the depths of somnolence336 and blindness to their own interests in which the grape growers of San Juan and Mendoza reposed337 till, so to speak, only the other day.
San Juan is capable of producing good quality cotton and tobacco. Its general climate is warm, hot in summer, and in parts very dry; though the humidity of the soil and atmosphere of the chief vine areas are greater than in those of Mendoza. Hence the relative general superiority and freedom from insect pests of the Mendoza vineyards.
[182]
The city of San Juan is Colonial in almost all its aspects, and its public and private gardens, filled with mingled338 tropical and temperate zone trees, shrubs and flowers, exhale63 the lazy atmosphere of days the memory of which is so constantly recurrent in all distant Argentine towns. Sleepy hollow; maybe, but its charm! A charm which will not nor can ever be “reconstructed,” try all those of us who are afflicted339 with unhappy artistic340 temperaments341, never so hard. But that charm is still in San Juan, in Misiones (the one-time “Jesuit Empire”), Salta and Jujuy; in spite of new Government and Municipal Buildings, electric light and trams.
Later, we will go to the Falls of Iguazú, greater and more magnificent than Niagara or the Victoria Falls. These wonderful Falls are in the great up-to-date, go-ahead Argentine Republic. What proportion of our “Man-in-the-street” has ever heard of them? And how many good intelligent inhabitants of Buenos Aires have any clear idea of what they are really like?
NATIONAL TERRITORIES
THE PAMPA CENTRAL
The name of the Pampa is also redolent of romance; of memories of vast herds of wild cattle and horses, picturesque gauchos and raiding Indians; but the Pampa Central of to-day is a great and ever-growing cereal area, soon, no doubt, to become in its own right the fifteenth Province of the Republic. A Province probably destined to outstrip342 rapidly many of its older compeers in the race for wealth and very modern in its utilitarian progressiveness.
Its superficial area is approximately equal to that of Mendoza, and though as yet it lacks population, that will come to it sooner than to many other parts of the Republic,[183] since it already grows much more than double as much wheat as all the rest of the Republic put together, after exception made of the Provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fé and Córdoba, and more than double as much linseed after exception made of the Provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fé, Córdoba and Entre Rios. It also produces more maize than any Province or other Territory with the exception of the last-mentioned four.
Its development has been the most rapid of any part of quick-moving Argentina. No just comparison of progress can be made with Uruguay; the conditions under which the latter country has until so recently struggled having been adverse343 to rapidity of material development, whereas the Pampa Central was freed from its only, though great, disturbing element, nomadic344 hordes345 of native Indians, as long ago as 1884.
This Territory is bounded on the North by the Provinces of Mendoza, San Luis and Córdoba, on the West by Mendoza and the National Territory of Neuquen, on the South by the National Territory of Rio Negro, and on the East by the Province of Buenos Aires.
Some parts of the Pampa Central are hilly and wooded and, as in some parts of the Province of Buenos Aires, ever-moving sand-hills vary the monotony of other portions of its surface, but the greater part of it is the continuation of a vast plain, begun in the Province of Buenos Aires, the Pampa of the Indians, from which it takes its name. It is, in fact, the Central Pampa; the Eastern being in the Province of Buenos Aires and the Southern extending into Patagonia.
Though the Pampa Central boasts only two great rivers, the Rio Colorado and the Rio Negro, the latter of which forms its southern boundary, it has many both fresh-water and saline lakes, and water is seldom to seek far from its surface.
The chief products of the Pampa Central are wheat,[184] linseed, maize and oats, but with the growth of its alfalfa fields and the planting of good grasses in lieu of the native hard pasturage, it has also become a great centre of the Live Stock fattening industry, especially during the winter months.
The sandy, salty soil of much of this territory, with water near the surface, provides, as has been said of similar tracts elsewhere, just the conditions most favourable to lucerne; while in other parts the soil is extremely rich in humus.
Three of the great railway systems serve the Pampa Central; viz. the Buenos Aires Western, the Buenos Aires Pacific, and the Buenos Aires Great Southern, carrying its produce to the ports of both Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca.
Santa Rosa de Toay is the Capital of this Territory; a purely346 commercial town which by its rapidly grown importance supplanted the old Capital, General Acha.
The Pampa Central has also numerous other active centres of the cereal trade and general commerce.
On the question of its becoming a Province of the Republic there is considerable local difference of opinion; a good many of its business men holding that honour dear at the price of having to maintain a Provincial Congress and various Ministries347 and the rest of the appanages of autonomy. In this they are right. Direct National Government is certainly the cheapest and it is also very far from being the worst.
The Pampa Central now exports large quantities of high-class wool and hides. It also has some copper mines, the present output of which, however, is not of great importance.
This territory would already, no doubt, have been much more populous348 than it is had it not been the scene of one of the most glaring of the labour-exploiting scandals referred to elsewhere in these pages.
Here the cases were sufficiently numerous and contemporaneous to render a menace of serious disturbance207 possible to and partially349 effective by people who had been cajoled into developing virgin350 land only to be threatened with[185] expulsion (as soon as that work had been done and before they had been able to derive351 any profit from it) by owners who only revealed their existence at what seemed to them the propitious352 moment for their appearance on the scene of other people’s labours. Compromises were arrived at by which the farmers consented to pay rent for their holdings, but the scandal undoubtedly kept many others away from the Territory, and even now an evil result of it continues in the shape of almost every tenant353 being obviously only anxious to get the most he can out of the land while it is his to work. Few tenant farmers in the Pampa spend much money in buildings or other improvements.
The Pampa Central is a crying case for the adoption and insistence354 by the National Government on the real practical working out of a true colonization355 policy. A policy by which the small farmer could obtain the indisputable freehold of land which he develops and on which he lives, be he Argentine or foreigner.
In all else the foreigner actually enjoys under the Constitution the same privileges (except eligibility356 for high Government office, etc.) as a born Argentine. But land! It must go hard with an Argentine ere he part with his ultimate rights in that. Yet, I repeat, he must make up his mind to do so on a large scale or he will find his whole progress arrested as surely as if the Antarctic zone had suddenly extended its icy influence over half of his Republic. If he will not give them land the class of colonist357 he most needs—the real settler—will continue to give the country a wide berth358 and its output must remain stationary359 at the point at which it fully occupies all available labour.
NEUQUEN
This is one of the least generally known parts of Argentina. Misiones figures in the history of the Spanish Conquest and that of the Jesuit Missionaries,[30] from which it[186] takes its present name; the Territory of the Rio Negro has of late years become prominent by reason of great schemes of irrigation (these, however, also affect the Eastern portions of Neuquen); Chubut came into notice in connection with the not over-successful establishment of a Welsh colony; the Chaco is vaguely360 associated in the general mind with Indian Reservations and occasional real or reported disturbances caused by the aborigines confined therein; but the Territories of Santa Cruz, Formosa, Los Andes and Neuquen are still little more than geographical expressions to even the vast majority of the inhabitants of the rest of the Republic.
A principal cause of this is that most of the inhabitants of Neuquen are to be found on the Western and most distant side of it (in which the most fertile, and almost the only really fertile parts of it, until irrigation is an accomplished361 fact, are situated) and because they not only do all their trading with Chile, but, to all intents and purposes, are Chileans.
It is quicker and easier to get backward and forward through well-known Andine passes between Neuquen and Chile than to accomplish the journey between the rail-head at Senillosa, a little to the West of the township of Neuquen, and the productive and well-watered Andine valleys. The Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway, which serves this Territory, now, however, has under construction an extension of the Neuquen line to far up the Andes; from whence it is intended to connect with the Chilean Railway system.
Therefore the richest parts of Neuquen are as yet practically Chilean colonies; from which cattle and agricultural produce find their way, some paying and much contriving362 to escape payment of duty to the neighbouring Republic, which in return sends such manufactured articles as the colonist’s somewhat humble363 needs demand.
VIEWS ON LAKE NAHUEL HUAPí, ARGENTINE NATIONAL TERRITORY OF NEUQUEN
This Territory is bounded on the North by the Province[187] of Mendoza, on the West by Chile, on the South by the Territory of the Rio Negro, and on the East by the Territory of the Pampa Central.
Neuquen, though Argentina at large knows little of it, grows more wheat than any other National Territory, except the Pampa Central, and more alfalfa than any except the last named and the Territory of the Rio Negro. It also sends small quantities of potatoes and other table vegetables to Chile. Its chief exports to that country consist of cattle and sheep on the hoof.
The whole of the Andine side of Neuquen is extremely picturesque, and abounds364 in fertile valleys well watered by mountain streams. These streams, after their arrival at the foot of the Andine range, form a network of ultimate tributaries of the great rivers Colorado and Negro; after having formed a whole system of lakes of which Nahuel Huapí is the largest. The scenery of this lake, with the great snow-covered volcanic mountain Tronador (the Thunderer) on its Southern end, is Scandinavian in its tree-clad magnificence. The superficial area of this lake is some 1000 square miles and its depth in some parts is over 700 feet.
On one of its islands, Victoria, the enormously wealthy Argentine family of Anchorena have founded a colony to work its wealth of virgin timber, on a 99 years’ lease from the National Government.
A number of small steam and sailing boats ply18 on this lake, gathering365 the wood, hides and other produce of the farms on its borders and bringing to the farmers their necessary supplies.
Neuquen is credited with alluvial goldfields and has some copper. Its mineral wealth is as yet, however, really unascertained; the prospecting and tentative exploitation of it having been up to the present only done by syndicates or small companies whose resources have been too limited for the tasks they have set themselves in, from the point of view of transport, such inaccessible366 regions.
[188]
The Western and South-Western parts of this Territory are rich in timber, and its Eastern plains should, with irrigation, repeat the prosperous history of the Pampa Central.
It has many hot and other mineral springs, the medicinal and other virtues367 of which are already known in Chile; from which country they attract many sufferers from rheumatism and stomachic and other ailments368.
In dealing369 with all the yet little known outlying parts of the vast Argentine Republic one is apt to become wearisomely tautological370 in one’s endeavours to give some true idea of their enormous latent natural wealth. Yet if one set out, ever so modestly, to bring some conception of them home to the Northern Hemisphere, one must tell the truth even at the risk of reiteration371. And the truth is that for the future wealth of all these regions there is only one word, Incalculable.
The Territories of Neuquen and the Rio Negro will soon have irrigation on a vast scale and of most modern design. This work is being carried out for the National Government by the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway Company and is already far advanced.
The virgin soil of the plains of these Territories is almost incredibly rich in humus and alluvial deposit; and they have a wealthy Railway Company ready to afford all necessary means of transport to deep-water ports which nature has already provided on the Atlantic Ocean at, comparatively, no great distance from any of, and in many instances close to, what will be their chief centres of agricultural production (in the widest sense of that term).
RIO NEGRO
HEAD PORTION OF THE RIO NEGRO (ARGENTINA) GREAT IRRIGATION AND CURRENT CONTROL WORKS
The most important of the general observations applicable to this Territory have already been made immediately above; remains in their connection only to be said that the[189] Northern side of the valley of the Rio Negro itself contains some of the naturally richest soil to be found anywhere in the Republic. Anyone armed with a watering-pot can grow any temperate-zone crop, fruit or plant and be astounded372 by the brobdingnagian proportions of its yield, accomplished in a space of time suggestive of Jack’s Beanstalk.
And this anywhere in the midst of what now is an arid373 desert, on which the only vegetation is sparse115, stunted374, scrubby, useless bush.
The reasons for this are that these eastern regions of the South have practically no rainfall at all and that all the water running from the Andes to the Sea has already found its way, farther west, into one or other of the great Rivers Colorado and Negro.
The huge irrigation scheme now being carried out will utilize375 an enormous natural hollow formerly known as the Cuenca Vidal, now rechristened Lago Pellegrini (after a once prominent Argentine statesman) as a natural storage reservoir. The surplus water from the lake and river system, which makes a network over the whole of the western part of the territories of Neuquen and the Rio Negro, at the base of the Andes, will be utilized376 for the irrigation of their eastern plains. This system is also destined to serve another necessary purpose: namely, to regulate the flow of the Rio Negro.
This is very necessary indeed; for this river, swollen by the melting of Andine snow and ice, which has in some years taken place in an exceptional degree, comes down suddenly with overpowering violence, headed by what is like a huge tidal wave, and sweeps everything within miles of its normal, deep-cut, banks before it.
Several times during the past fifty years have settlers been tempted154 by the rich alluvial soil, brought down by centuries of just such floodings, to establish themselves near enough to the actual river to irrigate by some one or other rough lift system, and remained there year in year[190] out, in the false security enjoyed by peasants on the slopes of a volcano, till one day a thunderous roar has been the only warning of the immediate approach of a torrential flood. Lucky the man who could catch and mount his horse in time to gallop377 away and thus save his life. All the rest, cattle, house and crops, were swept away in a second by the great head wave and following floods of the river suddenly swollen by the simultaneous overflowing378 of its innumerable tributary lakes.
Now all this will be guarded against, and, incidentally, the Rio Negro may be rendered really navigable for a very considerable distance by other engineering works for the removal and control of its bar.
However, and when, this last may be, there can be no doubt about the magic change that the first partial irrigation of these present desert plains will quickly create. Trees will soon grow on the irrigated portions, and these trees and other vegetation will arrest the clouds which now fly on unheedingly to the superior attractions of the Andes or the southern hills of the Province of Buenos Aires. The very southernmost portion of that Province is now in the same sad case as the rest of the valley of the Rio Negro, of which it forms a part.
As the result, smiling verdure will replace arid desert; in a short space of time, because of the natural fertility of the soil on which the transformation380 will take place.
Already two dotted lines on the railway map, one between Bahia Blanca and Carmen de Patagones, near the mouth of the Rio Negro, and the other branching from it to San Blas, show where the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway intends to run its first two lines through the southernmost strip of the Province of Buenos Aires which lies between the Rios Colorado and Negro, and other two dotted lines, one running southwards from the township of Rio Colorado to the bay of San Antonio, in the San Matias Gulf381, and the other from the centre of the first to a junction104, near Choele Choel, with[191] the main line to Neuquen, show the first intentions of the Buenos Aires Great Southern line towards that portion of the valley of the Rio Negro which falls within its agreed sphere of influence.
In agreeing to a division between them of the productive and prospectively382 productive areas of the southern parts of the Republic, these two great Railway Companies not only removed from their own paths the disastrous383 temptation to cut each other’s throats by tariff384 war, but also to a considerable extent precluded385 profitable competition by outside enterprise.
The National Government has now a line running from the port of San Antonio running East and West right across the Territory. The construction of this line will soon reach Lake Nahuel Huapí.
San Blas deserves special mention as the probable future chief port of the Rio Negro valley. On a long inlet of the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of which is a large projecting island and having deep water right up to its shores, San Blas has been described by high British authority to be the finest natural port, after Rio de Janeiro, on the Atlantic coast, both for commercial and strategic purposes.
It formed part of a concession386 made many years ago by the National Government to the late Mr. E. T. Mulhall, the Editor and, with his brother, Mr. Michael Mulhall, the eminent73 statistician of his time, joint387 founder4 of The Buenos Aires Standard, in recognition of services done for the development of the Republic; which in those days of its obscurity and distress388 was much aided towards a better and truer knowledge of its possibilities in Europe by the efforts of what now is the oldest established newspaper in America. The Standard is printed, as it always has been, in the English language.
The Rio Negro Territory already grows a good deal of wheat and oats and has the largest area under alfalfa of any National Territory except the Pampa Central; it also has[192] some vineyards and many European fruit trees grow in the fertile valleys at the foot of the Andes.
The minerals of this Territory are as yet an almost unknown quantity, except some copper and salt. Petroleum has also been found at Bariloche, but its commercial value is not fully ascertained.
The climate of the Rio Negro is temperate and, as has been indicated, for the most part very dry. One disadvantage to agriculture in the flat parts of these southern Territories is the furious winds which frequently sweep over them. The force of these will, it is reasonably hoped, be broken by trees in the days to come.
This reminds one of the tragi-comic history of the contemplated389 exploitation of certain great salt marshes situate not very distant from San Blas.
The brine from these was to be, and indeed on a great inaugural390 occasion was, run through pipes into immense shallow basins, where it was to lie until its moisture had been evaporated by the sun and wind. Afterwards the salt was to be shipped at the port of San Blas to Buenos Aires or elsewhere.
All seemed very well with this plan. The brine was duly accumulated in the drying basins, the sun shone fiercely on it—and, then, the wind blew and blew. So hard that it emptied the basins and distributed the brine they had contained over the rest of the Universe. Thus was a good scheme brought to naught391 by the miscalculations of its initiators. These, however, were wealthy enough to take the matter in good part. Indeed, it was from one of them that the present writer had the story. Still there is plenty of good salt in the Territory.
The Rio Negro has as yet only townships of rough-and-ready architecture, the centres of its nascent commerce. Viedma, its capital, is in a fertile tract6 of land at the mouth of the Rio Negro; it was, however, almost completely destroyed by a great flood in 1899. Its communication[193] with the Federal Capital is maintained by the steamers which call at Carmen de Patagones, on the opposite bank of the river, and by ferry thereto and coach to the head of the above-mentioned new line of the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway which already reaches half-way between it and Bahia Blanca. The completion of this line will greatly affect Viedma for the better, while the regulation of the current of the Rio Negro will protect it from repeated destruction by flood. This Territory has a fair stock of sheep, but few cattle.
CHUBUT
Chubut has struck oil, literally. Petroleum was discovered there only a few years ago (1907), and since the first discovery many more wells have been sunk in greater or less proximity to the first find in the district of Comodoro Rivadavia, situate almost on the southern boundary of this Territory and on the Gulf of San Jorge. On this gulf of the Atlantic Ocean, the new oil-fields enjoy an admirable commercial situation. Remains only to prove fully their commercial value; of which the great Argentine Railway Companies are evidently not yet fully persuaded as far as fuel for their purposes is concerned, since they still use imported coal.
A long continuance of this present European war might, however, give stimulus392 to experiment with Chubut petroleum, which evidently has some value, even if it need more preparation for use than the North American and European kinds.
These oil-fields were, as has often been the case in such matters, discovered by accident, but the discovery was made by the National Hydrological Department in the course of a search for an available water supply for the then new Comodoro Rivadavia port.
On these fields claims have been allotted393 to Companies and private individuals and a certain area has been reserved[194] to itself by the National Government. Most brilliant results of tests of all kinds are announced, the Government line of railroad from the Rio Negro port of San Antonio to Lake Nahuel Huapí “uses no other” (fuel); and yet, and yet, Comodoro Rivadavia petroleum is slow to make history in the markets of the world.[31]
Still, time must be given for proof, especially in Chubut, the general appearance of which Territory suggests that it was the last word of creation, in one sense, after, of course, utterly394 desolate395 Tierra del Fuego. It is only about two decades since the Argentine authorities themselves seem to have grasped the idea that such a place did exist in their dominions396. It is only so long ago, anyhow, that the National Government thought fit to send the first resident Government officials to Chubut to look after whatever might need to be looked after there. Before that, a small part of it was under the absolute control of a Colony of Welsh people who first settled there in 1856-66. The rest of it was, and to a great degree still is, almost exclusively inhabited by native Patagonians.
The capital of the Territory, Rawson, was founded by the Welsh colonists397 at the place of their first landing on the South Atlantic coast. It has twice been destroyed by the flooding of the Chubut River, at the mouth of which it stood; but it has now been rebuilt more solidly than before and on a site rather more out of harm’s way.
The original Welsh colonists seem to have been a strangely puritanical398 and narrow-minded set of persons to find themselves in such an out-of-the-way corner of the earth as Chubut then was. So, however, it may be observed, were certain other persons who landed in North America a much longer while ago from a ship called the Mayflower. Anyhow, the Welsh built and their descendants still maintain Protestant[195] churches and a stern religious spirit in their town of Rawson, a somewhat bigoted399 spirit, be it added, since it forbade the inter-marriage of its flock with anyone not of their own, or at any rate British, nationality; nor would it, until very recently, permit their acceptance of the most tempting400 offer to sell any part of the land within the colonised areas to a “foreigner,” Argentine or otherwise. And this last restriction401 does not seem to have been so much due to foresight402 of a future increase in land value as to a simple objection to the admission of any stranger within the fold.
Time will change this no doubt, and change it as soon as Chubut begins really to advance, but all that time has as yet done for the Welsh colony appears to have been to sap the energy of its forefathers403; the men who in the face of discouragement and deaf official ears turned to their just grievances404, struggled on, themselves constructing irrigation canals, and changed disaster into comparative prosperity. The Chubut “Welshman” of to-day seems as lazy as his forebears were energetic. A fresh strain of blood is possibly needed for his case.
The superficial area of Chubut is very large. After the Territory of Santa Cruz (to which would seem to have been allotted all that was left over of the Republic except the Argentine half of Tierra del Fuego, after the Government of the more populated parts had been arranged for) it is the largest National Territory of Argentina, and much larger than any Province except that of Buenos Aires.
Its estimated population averages scarcely more than one per ten square miles, so that there is plenty of elbow room in Chubut. With a superficial area approximately equal to that of Italy, the total estimated number of its inhabitants is but 31,000.
However, no doubt there are good times coming for Chubut as elsewhere in Argentina, though, petroleum and its general effects apart, there is relatively little in Chubut to hasten their coming, except its fertile Andine valleys. Sheep certainly thrive on its rough, scanty vegetation, and[196] seem to find just sufficient shelter on its wind-swept plains; but Chubut has little rainfall and its available fresh waters are few and far between at any practicable distance beneath the surface. It has only one great river, the Chubut, from which it takes its name, and this runs very shallow in the summer, while many of the lakes dry up altogether. In the West, the Andine region, however, there is ample rainfall, and this is as yet the only really productive part.
Chubut grows and exports some alfalfa and sends some cattle to Chile, but its chief product is wool. Its wheat, however, though still small in quantity, fetches very good prices. A railway is projected to run East and West across this Territory. It already reaches from Puerto Madryn to Gainam, on the River Chubut, a little west of Rawson.
SANTA CRUZ
This Territory is bounded on the North by Chubut, on the West and South by Chile, and on the East by the Atlantic Ocean.
Santa Cruz is not by any means so desolate, on the whole, as Chubut. It is the land of the sheep, and its large, very large, estancias, either on the Andine side of it or on the banks of its rivers, mostly belong to British settlers, who have brought their own architecture, orchards and gardens with them to this really out-of-the-way spot. Anyone weary of the crowded world and its busy ways might live and die under the shadow of the ever-lessening, as one gets south, heights of the Andine range, in some snug405, sheltered valley through which a rippling406 stream runs close to where he would sit on a green sward in the shade of his own orchard195.
This is no fancy picture. As has been indicated elsewhere in these pages, nothing is so English, temperature, vegetation, the very breeds of sheep (Romeny March largely predominating), in America than some favoured spots in Santa Cruz. Only the climate is different in being drier, the rain mostly falling in blustering407 showers.
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There is, of course, a contrast when one emerges from among the Andine valleys, rivers and lakes out on to the dry, wind-swept, desert-looking plains. Still, even there one comes at times to oases408, on the banks of one or other of the several considerable rivers. Shelter from the furious winds which seem to blow eternally over Patagonia is the one necessity for man, beast and crops in Santa Cruz. Transport also is lacking. Even the railway which the National Government has partly constructed to run from Puerto Deseado, and for the rest has under advanced consideration, is apparently to strike almost immediately Northwards up into Chubut; leaving Santa Cruz, as it is now; almost a world of itself apart, as far at least as communication with the rest of Argentina is concerned. Its most fertile parts, like those of all these western and southern territories, are much more get-at-able from Chile than from their Atlantic sides.
However, a cold-storage establishment has been built at Gallegos, the chief port and the capital of this Territory; so that Santa Cruz may become a centre of the frozen and chilled mutton industry instead of, as formerly, exporting only wool and slaughtering409 sheep merely for their fat and skins. It is a good sheep country in the regions at all suitable for grazing, since disease is extremely rare in, if not entirely absent from, flocks reared in its cold dry climate. In respect of cattle and cereals the outlook is not so promising410. Still, one cannot have everything even in Argentina. And one can grow wheat, oats and alfalfa, besides apples and pears in Santa Cruz.
TIERRA DEL FUEGO
First of all it may be said that there are no active volcanoes in Tierra del Fuego nor have been within the memory of man. Mr. Paul Walle, in his excellent work, already mentioned, L’Argentine telle qu’elle est, suggests that its[198] name may have been given it by early explorers who observed burning on it grass fires lit by the natives for the purpose of improving the growth of certain shrubs the leaves of which they use for food.
Be this as it may, the name “Fire Land,” as my friend the Government official translator naively411 has it in the English edition of the Monographs412 attached to the latest Argentine agricultural census413, is anything but a warm spot; as certain demagogues who long troubled the industrial peace of Buenos Aires have shown that they are well aware.
These people were at one time periodically deported414 for inciting415 to commit or committing overt209 violence in connection with labour strikes. They were mostly anarchists416 of the type which tyrannical Governments all the world over persist in regarding as criminal. These men were put on board boats bound for their native countries, the police of which were telegraphically advised of their departure and intended destination. Needless to say, the anarchists took good care to contrive110 to leave the boat before she reached what was for them a danger zone. Usually they got out at Montevideo and soon were back again at their old work of stirring up strife417 in Buenos Aires.
At last the National Government had enough of this procedure and Congress passed a law whereby any person having been sentenced to deportation418 is, on being subsequently found in the Republic, liable to a term of penal419 servitude; and the fact that Tierra del Fuego would be the penal settlement to which recalcitrant anarchists would be sent was duly and insistently420 made public. This had a very beneficial effect for the Government and peaceable citizens at large. Dangerous anarchists thenceforth ceased to return to Argentina after deportation. They knew, or at least had read or heard, what the climate of Tierra del Fuego is; and that for people like them, used to fairly comfortable living, confinement421 there most likely meant burial there also.
Not quite half of this charming island, over which the[199] winds blow straight from the South Pole, belongs to Argentina and forms the National Territory under discussion. The other half of it belongs to Chile. Geologically most of this island is a prolongation of the Andes. On the Atlantic side of its forest-clad hills are sloping plains, the continuation of the Pampean formation. On these a peculiarly hardy422 breed of sheep graze, finding some shelter in valleys and hollows, and give a wool which fetches a good price in European markets. Grazing of a rough kind does also maintain cattle and horses on the Northern parts of the island. Fish and shell-fish of a multitude of kinds and good quality abound on the coast and afford material for a profitable industry, as also do the seal and whale fisheries, and penguins423 are hunted for their oil. All these fisheries are supposed to be under Government supervision424, regulated by special laws; but, in fact, the practical difficulties of adequate supervision result in an enormous amount of highly destructive poaching.
The official estimate of the total cultivated area of Argentine Tierra del Fuego is 110 hectares, of which 90 are stated to be planted with potatoes and other table vegetables. The number of sheep is given by the same authority (Se?or Emilio Lahitte, Director of the Department of Rural Economy and Statistics in the National Ministry425 of Agriculture) as over 2,500,000 and cattle at about 15,000.
The Roman Catholic Silesian Brothers have a mission, schools and an estancia on the island; and a Protestant clergyman, the late Mr. Bridges, during his lifetime did a great deal towards civilizing426 and bettering the condition of the native Indians and also kept a self-supporting refuge home for the victims of the shipwrecks427 of small craft which are still too numerous on this wild storm-beaten coast. This good work is now being carried on by his son, the first child of European parentage born in Tierra del Fuego.
Ushuaia, the Capital, is chiefly notable for the penal gaol428 above alluded429 to. Formerly convicts were kept, but not[200] often for long before death overtook them, on an island which forms the very southernmost point of South America. It is a terribly cold, damp region where rain falls on an average 280 days in the year. On consideration, perhaps it is the reputation of this place which has so effectually damped the ardour of deported anarchists; as the Ushuaia gaol is a modern structure, said to be furnished with all the latest requirements for the well-being430 of prisoners. Still, even it, in Tierra del Fuego, can provide but uncomfortably cold lodging47.
Tierra del Fuego is not lonely for it has many fishing ports and all navigation must pass it on the way through the Magellan Straits. For all that, one cannot but wonder why any but prisoners and prison and other officials go there (except, of course, fishermen and the adventurous431 spirits who are ever hunting in every accessible nook and cranny of it for alluvial gold) when there are so many much pleasanter and more profitable places, with, between them, all varieties of climates to choose from in the wide latitudes432 of the River Plate Republics. De gustibus, etc., one must suppose—and yield obedience to the final words of the saying.
MISIONES
If one has sufficient Spanish, one should read Leopoldo Lugones’ Imperio Jesuitico, and also the same author’s Guerras Gauchas, before going to Misiones. If not, one should go there all the same.
This territory is bounded on the North-East and South by Brazil, and on the West by Paraguay and the Province of Corrientes. It is sandwiched in between the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, but a very much smaller Paraná and Uruguay than we have seen further south.
Many parts of Argentina have been described as “The Garden of the Republic,” and many as its most picturesque region, but the latter description can surely only truthfully[201] apply to Misiones. If not sufficiently trim and cultivated to be called a garden, its superlative beauty and its crowning marvel433 the Iguazú Falls must leave even the most callous434 visitor pleasurably astounded; and not a little awestruck with its ruins and reminiscences of the dawn of South American civilization, which was heralded435 in these parts by the Jesuit Fathers. These Missionaries made most practical Christians436 of the surrounding tribes; teaching them the arts of architecture, carpentry, and such-like; not forgetting humility437 and obedience.
If one wants proof of all this one need but look on the ruins of monastery438 and church now half hidden amid an ever-encroaching luxuriant vegetation.
The descendants of those same Indians can hardly be got to do as much work in a lifetime now as they must have done in a week under the mild but very firm rule of the Jesuit Fathers. Eventually, the power these Missionaries had attained over the surrounding tribes became such as to label them dangerous to even Catholic Spain; and an order was given, and enforced, for their expulsion. They were scattered439: and but the ruins of their solid, sculptured masonry, gardens and orange and olive groves440 now mark the places where once white-clad natives kept fast and feast days with as much solemn orderliness as ever so many timid monastic novices441 could do.
Nowadays, one can get from Buenos Aires to Misiones either by rail (North-East Argentine Railway) or by the Mihanovich company’s boats. Both ways furnish delightful travelling through interesting and picturesque country, though for pure scenery the river way is the best. The best of all, however, is to go up by rail and down again by boat and to see all there is, and there is a very great deal worth seeing, to be seen.
By either route one can stop at Posadas, the capital, evidently from its name an ancient resting-place for travellers (Posada being Spanish for an inn).
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But people who are bent442 on reaching San Ignacio, a small river port, or rather clearance443 on the Upper Paraná, near which are the chief of the ruined Jesuit Missions, and the Iguazú Falls will probably leave Posadas for closer inspection444 if need be, on the return journey.
Once again we board a Mihanovich boat and go up a seeming river of fairyland.
An adequate description of the majestic splendour and beauty of the Iguazú Falls is far beyond the pen of the present writer. One is gradually prepared for the great sight by a series of smaller cascades445 and cataracts446 of other converging447 rivers which one passes on the way to where the Iguazú hurls448 its large volume of water in downward jumps or in one horseshoe-shaped, thundering, frothy mass. Where it falls one is face to face with the greatest waterfalls in the whole world,[32] as the following comparative figures will show:
Volume cubic
per minute.[33] Breadth. Height.
Iguazú 28,000 ft. 13,133 ft. 196 to 220 ft.
Victoria (S. Africa) 18,000 ft. 5,580 ft. 350 to 360 ft.
Niagara 18,000 ft. 5,249 ft. 150 to 164 ft.
The only point of advantage of the Victoria Falls is their height.
The present chief source of wealth in Misiones is the various kinds of timber and valuable cabinet-maker’s woods found in its virgin forests. One day Misiones will doubtless export its rosewood and other beautiful and valuable products of its forests, which also produce pine and other building timber of superior quality to that which Argentina now imports from Europe. Transport of timber is effected by means of tying it into huge rafts which go down river as far as Corrientes. The timber supply of Misiones will long continue rich, since the tendency of the forest is ever to encroach on the surrounding land.
A growing industry on which great expectations are based is the cultivation of the Ilex Paraguayensis, or mate shrub300.[203] The consumption of mate or Paraguayan tea, as it is sometimes called in Europe, is enormous throughout both of the River Plate Republics, which now import very large quantities annually from Paraguay and Brazil, while no sort of good reason seems to exist why the northern districts of Argentina should not grow sufficient to meet the home consumption.
The Jesuits evidently appreciated and cultivated this shrub, but they had the secret of growing it from seed, a secret the true re-discovery of which by modern horticulturists is not yet quite proved.[34]
Up till quite recently all Misiones mate yerba has been gathered from the abundant virgin growth of the shrub. Once Misiones produced larger quantities of sugar than it does now; and there is no reason why this industry should not revive from the almost total paralysis449 which it at present suffers; nor why one day the wine output of Misiones should not be improved in both quality and quantity.
Maize naturally grows well (it yields in six months) in Misiones; which Territory with the general warmth of its climate, sufficient rainfall and heavy dews, is most favourable to tropical and subtropical vegetation. Oranges, of course, bananas, pineapples, and guavas grow practically, if not quite, wild and ground nuts and the castor-oil plant are among its many valuable products. The whole of Misiones is well watered by a network of very numerous streams, and if its atmosphere by day is rather reminiscent of a hothouse, the nights are usually cool and refreshing450.
The unevenness451 of its surface, while precluding452 much idea of extensive cultivation, is admirably suited for the shelter and care of the best natural produce of this exotically picturesque region.
Misiones has quarries of valuable granite453 at San Ignacio; close to the river as if they had been placed there for facility[204] of transport. These quarries furnished the Jesuits with the material for their famous buildings; though that they persuaded the natives, who before their coming had little ambition for anything save inter-tribal warfare, to quarry454, transport and build up solid masonry is nothing short of marvellous. Truly Jesuit “influence” was a very real and concrete thing in the Misiones of those days.
One must not forget tobacco, or cotton, as other of Misiones’ hitherto greatly neglected industries.
One cannot insist too much upon the fact that no one who does not himself visit the River Plate Republics in all their length and breadth can really grasp even a faint idea of their diversified455 latent wealth. One is apt to suppose that because Misiones, for instance, does not produce much tobacco or sugar,[35] there is some pretty solid obstacle at the bottom of its relative non-productiveness. People naturally think, “Well, it’s all very well to chant dithyrambics of the marvellous might be’s of what evidently are your pet countries, but why does all this wonderful wealth of them continue latent, why does not one see, or at least hear, a great deal more about it, if all you say is true?”
The reply for this is, “Give me sufficient capital and sufficient suitable labour (especially the latter) and I will very speedily prove my every word.”
The River Plate Republics have not yet (again I say it) sufficient population to exploit even a part of their possible cereal industry, the one which naturally gets first attention because it combines the attractions of rich profit and comparatively little care or labour, under the almost primitive conditions under which most of it is still carried on.
When there is a surplus of labour after grain and cattle have been duly provided for, all sorts of other things will be attended to. But it is no good expecting ordinary people, without the many more or less occult advantages of early Jesuit Fathers, to get any constantly careful work, such as[205] cotton, tobacco and many other valuable crops require, out of native South American Indians. They can’t or won’t do it, anyway, they don’t; and it is probably easier to rediscover how to grow mate yerba from seed than how to rediscipline for practical purposes the race which built and gardened in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The North Argentine Railway has in project a branch from its Santo Tomé-Posadas line to run through the centre of Misiones to the North-West corner where the frontiers of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay join.
FORMOSA
This, the northernmost of the Argentine National Territories, does not merit the superlative of its name; especially it does not do so when compared with Misiones. Geographically and in its general superficial characteristics Formosa is a continuation of the Chaco, by which it is bounded on the South. On the North and East it is bounded by Paraguay except at its South-Eastern corner, where its boundary is the river Paraguay, with the Province of Corrientes on the other bank. On the West it is bounded by the Province of Salta.
Much of Formosa is almost unknown land as far as really scientific exploration is concerned; and some tribes of its Toba Indians still appear to have an inconveniently456 violent dislike of official explorers, several having been murdered by natives in recent times.
The real exploration of the interior of Formosa is done by squatters who, when turned off one holding, move on to a new one further from the civilisation458 which, such as it is, is mostly to be found on the River Paraguay, or near to it on the banks of its chief affluents459, the Pilcolmayo (which forms the Northern boundary between this territory and Paraguay) and the Bermejo. The clearance of the rocks, sunken logs and masses of vegetation from the beds of these rivers as a preliminary to the carrying out of other works for the purpose[206] of making them navigable is under consideration by the National Government, which also proposes to build a railway line from Embarcación, in the Province of Salta, across the centre, almost, of Formosa, in a South-Easterly direction, to its capital, a town of the same name and, doubtless, the first to bear it. At present Formosa has no railroad at all.
This Territory has several other considerable rivers and streams all running nearly parallel to one another and to the Pilcolmayo and Bermejo, in South-Easterly direction, to the River Paraguay.
Almost the whole of its surface is a vast plain gently inclined; its South-Eastern part is largely covered with forests and dotted with many shallow swamp-like lakes—“Esteros,” as they are called.
The forests are very rich in various valuable woods; of which the chief object of present commerce is the Quebracho, which here, as elsewhere in the Republic, is found in two varieties, the red and the white. The former is the richest in tannin. Quebracho extract (for tanning purposes) will be seen to figure prominently in the tables relating to Argentine exports.[36] Quebracho logs are in constant demand for railway sleepers460.
The wide glades461 and open spaces in the forest afford excellent pasturage, and are all eminently suitable for agriculture. Some parts of this territory are destined to become rich alfalfa fields, and already relatively considerable areas are under this forage. There is plenty of salt, sandy soil with water near the surface. Maize also, on account of climatic conditions and the nature of the soil in parts (where a rich layer of humus is superimposed on a moist, sandy subsoil), should form a valuable crop in this Territory.
Formosa, with its Northern situation and therefore almost tropical climate, has few sheep; but cattle, still of the native breed, thrive well in many parts.
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Also, in Formosa, and in Misiones, a large proportion of traction7 bullocks must be reckoned among the numerical value of their cattle.
In Formosa the summer or rainy season lasts for about seven months of the year; little or no rain falls in the winter or dry season—as in the tropics. In the wet season many of the rivers overflow379 their banks and such, likely, inundations should be taken into account by any would-be purchaser of land in Formosa.
He should also keep his eyes open for dangers other than floods; for if scientific exploration cannot yet be said to have obtained any firm grasp of Formosa, how much less can measurements and boundaries be hoped to be in order. They are not so in most of this Territory, and a purchasing settler might eventually find himself with little for his trouble and money but the costs of a lawsuit462 forced upon him by some owner of an historic grant made by a grateful Republic in bygone days to the grandfather of such owner for distinguished463 service of one kind or another.
Latifundíos, these low-lying Argentine landowners are called; and it is not too much to say, as has been indicated elsewhere in these pages, that their existence is a pest and a menace to proper colonisation.
Every such absentee landlord should be forced by law to declare himself and his claims, and to furnish measurements and situation of the land, the subject of the latter to be checked by the Government surveyors and lawyers; and to do this within a fixed464 reasonable period from the date of the passing of such laws. His claim to lapse465 absolutely ipso facto in default of his doing so.
Then the National Government should proceed to allot276 fiscal lands to all desirable comers, and afford these the aids to starting their farms and plantations usual in other countries having unoccupied land awaiting development, as still is by far the greater part of the territory of the Argentine Republic.
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Every educated Argentine is just as well aware of all this as the writer or you, the reader; but just think what a flutter in aristocratic dovecotes on the mere suggestion of the putting in practice of such Laws (they or drafts of them probably exist in the pigeon-holes of Government House in Buenos Aires)! What a fluttering in those dovecotes there was a few years ago when the discovery was made, and most imprudently revealed, that vast tracts of land supposed to belong to the Nation had in fact got, in one way or another, into the possession of private individuals.
The then President, Dr. Figueroa Alcorta, declared vehemently (and caused the declaration to be published far and wide) that whomsoever were found to be responsible for such a scandalous state of things would be dealt with without mercy, whoever he or they might be.
That was all.
The sentence was like those of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. No one really ever was executed. Nor, as far as the public ever knew, even called to account. Possibly someone was told not to do it again; it must be hoped so.
In Formosa, latent absentee landlord and squatter457 would almost appear to work on a mutually beneficial, if tacit, understanding. The former does not in the least mind his land being developed by the latter (there is no foolish worry about such things as prescriptive rights) and generally lets him be; until such time as he, the landlord, wants to occupy himself or sell.
Meanwhile the squatter has accumulated cattle and money by selling stock (contraband, if possible, or covered by a few duty-paying animals) in Paraguay, and need only move on a few leagues or so, when told to, with his herds. His house and furniture are usually negligible quantities.
Formosa does as much trade as the total of its general products (except timber, which goes South) allows of, because Paraguay is generally too much overrun by revolutionary,[209] or momentarily constitutional, forces to have much time or space free for industrial occupations. At the same time Paraguay does manage to produce large quantities of tobacco and mate yerba which Argentina takes, although, as has already been observed, her own lands could perfectly well produce them, given suitable labour.
As has been rather more than hinted at, the official Returns of Imports and Exports as between Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil and Argentina give but a faint idea of the actual trade between the last-named and her northern neighbours; and the present writer would be much surprised to learn that the upper reaches of the River Uruguay could tell no tales of systematic205 smuggling466 between the two River Plate Republics, or the Andes none of similar practices between Argentina and Chile.
The fact is that adequate guard of these enormous and sparsely populated lengths of upcountry frontier would cost more than the results of it would pay for. And why make a fuss while such prime necessities of life as mate and cigarettes are comparatively so cheap?
Formosa produces tobacco and sugar; the latter, as in Misiones, being chiefly used for the production of alcohol.
A great deal of foreign capital is now invested in timber cutting and exporting companies. Native labour is suitable for this work, but it is desirable in the interests of the companies concerned that the native overseers or gangers be controlled by whites conversant467 with native ways and also having the gift of forest topography.
This last consideration is suggested by the undoubted fact that many a pile of logs has been solemnly measured up and the felling paid for several times over by the white gentleman who has failed—in consequence of a slight rearrangement of the pile, no doubt—to recognise them on successive visits to glades and clearings which all look very much alike except to particularly experienced eyes.
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Thus does the untutored Indian or half-caste sometimes laugh at civilization.
Formosa, although sparsely inhabited, boasts a large proportion of pure whites of various nationalities among its settlers and the timber companies’ employees. There are several Franciscan Mission Stations in the Territory.
This hasty run over the Argentine Republic has stirred many pleasant memories in the heart of the writer, and set him hoping that, perchance, some one reader may be tempted to take passage to the River Plate; at less cost than, and quite as luxuriously468 as, if he made his usual sojourn469 on the Mediterranean470 Riviera.
Would I could take him—an intelligently enthusiastic person he, of course, would be—on a personally conducted tour of my own designing.
We would go first to Buenos Aires, reserving the restful charm of Montevideo for after our journeyings. Then down South; where I should quite disabuse471 my gentle companion of any ideas he might have that the owners of square miles of wheat and thousands of cattle live in top boots and shirt sleeves in one-storied, corrugated-iron verandahed houses in the foreground of threshing machines. I would get him invited—and myself as well—to stay a day or two at an English estancia; the large, well-appointed two or three storied red-brick house of which, surrounded by lawns and spreading cedar472 trees, would make him rub his eyes several times before he were convinced that he had sailed out of England. He would surely find a house party from Buenos Aires or neighbouring—a wide term meaning, probably, many leagues away—estancias in possession; all the members of which would retain their old habits of dressing473 for dinner and breakfasting off a choice of several hot dishes and a tempting array of cold things on the sideboard. An English country house, in fact, with hall and magazines and illustrated474 papers complete.
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Then we should make plans for the following, and, probably, many other morrows; plans which would almost inevitably include a neighbourly race meeting or polo match.
Amid all this he could dree his own weird475 for as long as might please him. I should not disturb any of his promised projects.
But one day I should take him North again; and still further North, to Córdoba, “The Learned City,” show him the Cathedral, the University and its Library, and let him breathe the monastically medi?val atmosphere of it all. And, outside the city, the wildness of cactus476 growth and gaucho life.
Back eastward to Rosario, merely to change train for Santa Fé, and across the Uruguay to Paraná. From thence to Concórdia; where at least one tranquil477 orange-scented morning must be spent before one crossed the Province of Entre Rios to where the Argentine North-East Railway should take us to Misiones.
After San Ignacio, the Iguazú Falls and the trip thereto and therefrom up and down the Upper Paraná, I should ask him if he ever wanted to go anywhere else again? Whether he has ever even dreamed of anything so beautiful? Then by river all the way back to Buenos Aires; and, one night, across to Montevideo. There we would sit awhile in the evening and listen to the band in the square where the little coloured lamps swing in the fresh sea breeze; and bathe next morning and roll ourselves in the hot dry sand of Pocitos or Ramirez.
Then we would take railway trips in Uruguay. Over billowy pasturage and through waves of wheat; not flat expanses such as those we shall have seen on the Pampa, but seas of corn-covered, undulating ground.
Then he could go back to Europe, if he liked. I should stay.
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URUGUAY
If a detailed sketch478 of each of the Departments of Uruguay be not given here it is not because they are altogether uniform in their landscapes; but rather because, apart from the hilly rockiness of some of the northern parts, the scenery of Uruguay does repeat itself. While the climatic differences are relatively slight in a country which barely extends over, from the point of its extreme northern angle to its most southerly point, five degrees of latitude; in comparison with those of Argentina, which extends over thirty-five degrees.
Uruguay, therefore, has no striking variety of climates; and except that the surface of the Northern Provinces is more broken with jagged mountain ranges and that in the neighbourhood of the River Uruguay and its affluents the country is more thickly wooded, there is not much change to be noted anywhere from its general character of an undulating grassy479 plain, with here and there a mount, or clump480 of low wood and brushwood, and an abundance of running streams.
Its indigenous flora481 comprises a rich wealth of rosemary, acacia, myrtle, laurel, mimosa, and the scarlet-flowered CEIBO; while its natural pasturage is gay with red and white verbena and other brilliantly coloured wild flowers. The best natural grasses are to be found in the Departments of Soriano and Durazno and in parts of Paysandú and Tacuarembó. That is to say where what is known as the “Pampa mud” of the soil is mingled with calcareous and siliceous matter and contains less aluminium482, which last ingredient imparts cold and damp qualities.
A TYPICAL SMALL “CAMP” TOWN (RIVERA, URUGUAY)
It should not be assumed from the above short general description that the scenery of Uruguay is monotonously483 uninteresting. It is not; on the contrary, it is often very beautiful indeed, with sudden and delightfully484 surprising changes as the train speeds along. But these changes are[213] on a small scale, if one may so express oneself, compared with those which one experiences when passing from one distant Argentine Province or National Territory to another.
Indeed, as a glance at the map will show, geographically, Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul can almost be considered as parts of Argentina; as, politically, they once very nearly were.
The real great division of the nature of the surface of Uruguay is practically formed by the course of its Rio Negro; on each side of which are vast rolling plains, the northern of which, however, are, as has been said, traversed by ranges of indented485 rocky hills.
The whole of Uruguay is subject to abrupt486 changes of temperature and frequent strong winds of which the Pampero, from the South-West, is the most violent.
Generally, the climate is pleasantly mild. For while the summer suns are hot, especially in the North, sea breezes and winds from the snow-capped Andes modify the temperature. It is, however, from these conflicting elements of sun and wind that Uruguay gets her quick changes of temperature and frequent storms. The whole country is subject to alternate overflowing of its rivers and drought.
Uruguay is rich in table fruits. Grapes, oranges, lemons, apples, pears, quinces, melons, passion-flower fruit, peaches, apricots, cherries, medlars, figs487, chestnuts488, almonds and, in the North, olives, dates and bananas, grow in abundance. The list of her flora also includes sarsaparilla (very abundant), quinine, camomile and many other valuable medicinal plants. Uruguayans have also given themselves the trouble to produce relatively much larger quantities, and, generally speaking, better qualities of ordinary table vegetables than have the, perhaps busier, inhabitants of the larger Republic across the river; to which, however, Uruguay daily sends large quantities of such produce.
Uruguay has several large flour mills and exports flour, chiefly to Brazil.
[214]
Most of the soil consists of one composition or another of the Pampa mud before alluded to. This mud is really ancient alluvial deposit.
Of the latent mineral wealth of Uruguay there can be little doubt. The Department of Minas, as its name indicates, is one of the richest in this respect. Gold, in quartz formation, silver, copper, iron, lead, some coal, marble of various kinds, slate489, rock crystal, agates490, jasper, graphite, alabaster491, black limestone492 and other minerals of commercial and industrial value are to be found in this Department and in other parts of the Republic. Fine building limestone is found in the Department of Maldonado. The Department of Colonia is rich in granite and other building stone, as well as other minerals. Rocha, Soriano, San José, Florida and Canelones are other Departments rich in mineral wealth.
This wealth has, however, as yet been little exploited. The old trouble here, as in Argentina, being that of insufficient493 labour to attend to more than the primary industries of Live Stock and Cereal production. Also the Uruguayan Mining Laws, though steps have recently been taken to amend494 them, have hitherto proved but a poor protection for capital.
Note.—The wealth of the Argentine National Territories of The Chaco and Los Andes is, as to the former still practically confined to the valuable forestal products, full mention of which has been made elsewhere in these pages. The future of Los Andes can only be concerned with the exploitation of its, probably rich, mineral deposits; this Mountainous Territory being so cold and arid as to be almost uninhabitable.
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1
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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2
par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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3
founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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4
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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6
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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7
traction
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| n.牵引；附着摩擦力 | |
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8
eucalyptus
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| n.桉树，桉属植物 | |
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9
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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11
plazas
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| n.（尤指西班牙语城镇的）露天广场( plaza的名词复数 )；购物中心 | |
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12
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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13
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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14
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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16
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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ply
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| v.(搬运工等)等候顾客，弯曲 | |
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19
palatial
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| adj.宫殿般的，宏伟的 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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21
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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22
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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23
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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24
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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25
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
arroyos
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| n.（美洲沙漠中的）旱谷，干涸沟壑( arroyo的名词复数 )；干谷 | |
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27
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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28
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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29
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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30
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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31
maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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32
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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33
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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compendium
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| n.简要，概略 | |
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35
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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37
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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38
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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39
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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40
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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41
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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42
quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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43
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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44
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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45
cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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46
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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47
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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48
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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49
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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50
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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51
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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52
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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53
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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54
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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55
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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56
mileage
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| n.里程，英里数；好处，利润 | |
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57
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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58
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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59
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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60
gaucho
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| n. 牧人 | |
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61
dispelled
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
exhales
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的第三人称单数 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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63
exhale
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| v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发 | |
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64
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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65
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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66
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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67
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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68
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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69
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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70
retard
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| n.阻止，延迟；vt.妨碍，延迟，使减速 | |
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71
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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72
rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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73
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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75
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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76
molested
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| v.骚扰( molest的过去式和过去分词 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵 | |
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77
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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78
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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79
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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80
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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81
ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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82
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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83
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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84
rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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85
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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86
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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87
pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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88
replete
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| adj.饱满的，塞满的；n.贮蜜蚁 | |
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89
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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91
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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92
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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93
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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94
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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96
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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97
irrigate
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| vt.灌溉，修水利，冲洗伤口，使潮湿 | |
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irrigated
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| [医]冲洗的 | |
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99
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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100
potteries
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| n.陶器( pottery的名词复数 )；陶器厂；陶土；陶器制造（术） | |
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101
utilizing
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的现在分词 ) | |
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102
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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103
forage
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| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
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104
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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disparagement
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| n.轻视，轻蔑 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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111
supplanted
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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114
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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115
sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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116
sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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117
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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118
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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119
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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120
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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121
fattening
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| adj.（食物）要使人发胖的v.喂肥( fatten的现在分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
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122
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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123
locust
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| n.蝗虫；洋槐，刺槐 | |
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124
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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125
elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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126
utilitarian
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| adj.实用的，功利的 | |
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127
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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128
annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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129
barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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130
mica
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| n.云母 | |
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131
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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132
geographically
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| adv.地理学上，在地理上，地理方面 | |
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133
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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134
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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135
vertically
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| adv.垂直地 | |
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136
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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137
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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138
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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139
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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140
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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141
aquatic
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| adj.水生的，水栖的 | |
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142
reclaiming
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| v.开拓( reclaim的现在分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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143
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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144
reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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145
jaguars
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| n.（中、南美洲的）美洲虎( jaguar的名词复数 ) | |
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146
alligators
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| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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147
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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148
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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149
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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150
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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151
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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152
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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153
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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154
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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155
punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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156
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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157
alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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158
gauchos
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| n.南美牧人( gaucho的名词复数 ) | |
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159
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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160
quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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161
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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162
nostrums
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| n.骗人的疗法，有专利权的药品( nostrum的名词复数 )；妙策 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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164
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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165
quacks
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| abbr.quacksalvers 庸医，骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 )；江湖郎中；（鸭子的）呱呱声v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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166
entirely
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|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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167
expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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168
quackery
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| n.庸医的医术，骗子的行为 | |
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169
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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170
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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171
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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172
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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173
fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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174
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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175
bolster
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|
| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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176
interfere
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|
| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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177
determined
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|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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178
pertaining
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| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
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179
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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180
dominant
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|
| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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181
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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182
picturesquely
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183
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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184
tributaries
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| n. 支流 | |
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185
aggregate
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|
| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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186
everlasting
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|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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187
varied
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|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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188
preeminent
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的 | |
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189
paternal
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|
| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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190
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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191
requisites
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| n.必要的事物( requisite的名词复数 ) | |
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192
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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193
convertible
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|
| adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车 | |
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194
interspersed
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|
| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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195
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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196
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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197
lethargic
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|
| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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198
copper
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|
| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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199
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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200
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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201
irrigating
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|
| 灌溉( irrigate的现在分词 )； 冲洗（伤口） | |
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202
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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203
quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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204
alluvial
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|
| adj.冲积的；淤积的 | |
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205
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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206
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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207
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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208
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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209
overt
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| adj.公开的，明显的，公然的 | |
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210
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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211
leach
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| v.分离，过滤掉；n.过滤；过滤器 | |
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212
colonizing
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| v.开拓殖民地，移民于殖民地( colonize的现在分词 ) | |
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213
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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214
initiated
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|
| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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215
plantations
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|
| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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216
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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217
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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218
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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219
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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220
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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221
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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222
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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223
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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224
administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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225
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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226
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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227
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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228
primitive
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|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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229
contraband
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| n.违禁品，走私品 | |
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230
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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231
extradition
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| n.引渡（逃犯） | |
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232
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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233
velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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234
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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235
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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236
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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237
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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238
brutal
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|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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239
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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240
treacherous
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|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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241
hospitable
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|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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242
herd
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|
| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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243
adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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244
nomad
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| n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民 | |
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245
erratic
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|
| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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246
truculence
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|
| n.凶猛，粗暴 | |
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247
maze
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|
| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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248
appreciation
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|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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249
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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250
nominal
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|
| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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251
domestication
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| n.驯养，驯化 | |
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252
inured
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| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
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253
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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254
faction
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|
| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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255
domesticate
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|
| vt.驯养；使归化，使专注于家务 | |
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256
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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257
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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258
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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259
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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260
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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261
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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262
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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263
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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264
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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265
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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266
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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267
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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268
engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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269
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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270
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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271
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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272
avaricious
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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273
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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274
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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275
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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276
allot
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| v.分配；拨给；n.部分；小块菜地 | |
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277
solitary
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|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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278
irrigable
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| 可灌溉的 | |
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279
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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280
merged
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|
| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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281
picturesqueness
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282
mules
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|
| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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283
ponchos
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|
| n.斗篷( poncho的名词复数 ) | |
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284
durable
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|
| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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285
indigenous
|
|
| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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286
iconoclastic
|
|
| adj.偶像破坏的，打破旧习的 | |
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287
fauna
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|
| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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288
oligarchic
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|
| adj.寡头政治的，主张寡头政治的 | |
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289
nay
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|
| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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290
exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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291
necessitated
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|
| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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292
obedience
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|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
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293
noted
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|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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294
eastward
|
|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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295
volcanic
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|
| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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296
eruptions
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|
| n.喷发，爆发( eruption的名词复数 ) | |
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297
adobe
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|
| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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298
umbrageous
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| adj.多荫的 | |
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299
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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300
shrub
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|
| n.灌木，灌木丛 | |
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301
drawn
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|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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302
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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303
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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304
precedent
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|
| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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305
adoption
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|
| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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306
littoral
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|
| adj.海岸的；湖岸的；n.沿（海）岸地区 | |
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307
petroleum
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|
| n.原油，石油 | |
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308
ascertained
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|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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309
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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310
quota
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|
| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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311
recalcitrant
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|
| adj.倔强的 | |
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312
inertness
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|
| n.不活泼，没有生气；惰性；惯量 | |
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313
treasury
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|
| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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314
depreciated
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|
| v.贬值，跌价，减价( depreciate的过去式和过去分词 )；贬低，蔑视，轻视 | |
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315
wrestle
|
|
| vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付 | |
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316
oligarchy
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|
| n.寡头政治 | |
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317
vassals
|
|
| n.奴仆( vassal的名词复数 )；（封建时代）诸侯；从属者；下属 | |
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318
tonic
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|
| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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319
prospecting
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|
| n.探矿 | |
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320
zinc
|
|
| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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321
curtail
|
|
| vt.截短，缩短；削减 | |
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322
siesta
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|
| n.午睡 | |
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323
consolation
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|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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324
conscientious
|
|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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325
outlet
|
|
| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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326
apathy
|
|
| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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327
worthies
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|
| 应得某事物( worthy的名词复数 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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328
retail
|
|
| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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329
exorbitant
|
|
| adj.过分的；过度的 | |
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330
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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331
scarcity
|
|
| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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332
illuminated
|
|
| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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333
boycott
|
|
| n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与 | |
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334
paternally
|
|
| adv.父亲似地；父亲一般地 | |
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335
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
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336
somnolence
|
|
| n.想睡，梦幻；欲寐；嗜睡；嗜眠 | |
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337
reposed
|
|
| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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338
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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339
afflicted
|
|
| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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340
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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341
temperaments
|
|
| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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342
outstrip
|
|
| v.超过，跑过 | |
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343
adverse
|
|
| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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344
nomadic
|
|
| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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345
hordes
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|
| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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346
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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347
ministries
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|
| （政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期 | |
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348
populous
|
|
| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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349
partially
|
|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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350
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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351
derive
|
|
| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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352
propitious
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|
| adj.吉利的；顺利的 | |
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353
tenant
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|
| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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354
insistence
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|
| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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355
colonization
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| 殖民地的开拓，殖民，殖民地化； 移殖 | |
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356
eligibility
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|
| n.合格，资格 | |
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357
colonist
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|
| n.殖民者，移民 | |
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358
berth
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|
| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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359
stationary
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|
| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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360
vaguely
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|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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361
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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362
contriving
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|
| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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363
humble
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|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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364
abounds
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|
| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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365
gathering
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|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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366
inaccessible
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|
| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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367
virtues
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|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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368
ailments
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|
| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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369
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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370
tautological
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|
| adj.重复的；累赘的 | |
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371
reiteration
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|
| n. 重覆, 反覆, 重说 | |
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372
astounded
|
|
| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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373
arid
|
|
| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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374
stunted
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|
| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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375
utilize
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|
| vt.使用，利用 | |
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376
utilized
|
|
| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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377
gallop
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|
| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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378
overflowing
|
|
| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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379
overflow
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|
| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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380
transformation
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|
| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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381
gulf
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|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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382
prospectively
|
|
| adv.预期； 前瞻性； 潜在； 可能 | |
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383
disastrous
|
|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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384
tariff
|
|
| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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385
precluded
|
|
| v.阻止( preclude的过去式和过去分词 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
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386
concession
|
|
| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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387
joint
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|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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388
distress
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|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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389
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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390
inaugural
|
|
| adj.就职的；n.就职典礼 | |
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391
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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392
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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393
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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394
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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395
desolate
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|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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396
dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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397
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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398
puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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399
bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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400
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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401
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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402
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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403
forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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404
grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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405
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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406
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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407
blustering
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| adj.狂风大作的，狂暴的v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的现在分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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408
oases
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲( oasis的名词复数 )；（困苦中）令人快慰的地方（或时刻）；乐土；乐事 | |
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409
slaughtering
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的现在分词 ) | |
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410
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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411
naively
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| adv. 天真地 | |
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412
monographs
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| n.专著，专论( monograph的名词复数 ) | |
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413
census
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| n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查 | |
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414
deported
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| v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止 | |
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415
inciting
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| 刺激的，煽动的 | |
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416
anarchists
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| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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417
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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418
deportation
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| n.驱逐，放逐 | |
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419
penal
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|
| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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420
insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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421
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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422
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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423
penguins
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|
| n.企鹅( penguin的名词复数 ) | |
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424
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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425
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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426
civilizing
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|
| v.使文明，使开化( civilize的现在分词 ) | |
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427
shipwrecks
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| 海难，船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 )； 沉船 | |
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428
gaol
|
|
| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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429
alluded
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|
| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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430
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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431
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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432
latitudes
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| 纬度 | |
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433
marvel
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|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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434
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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435
heralded
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| v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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436
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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437
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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438
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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439
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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440
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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441
novices
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| n.新手( novice的名词复数 )；初学修士（或修女）；（修会等的）初学生；尚未赢过大赛的赛马 | |
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442
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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443
clearance
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| n.净空；许可(证)；清算；清除，清理 | |
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444
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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445
cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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446
cataracts
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|
| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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447
converging
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|
| adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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448
hurls
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 )；大声叫骂 | |
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449
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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450
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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451
unevenness
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| n. 不平坦，不平衡，不匀性 | |
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452
precluding
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| v.阻止( preclude的现在分词 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
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453
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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454
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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455
diversified
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| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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456
inconveniently
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| ad.不方便地 | |
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457
squatter
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| n.擅自占地者 | |
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458
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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459
affluents
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| n.富裕的，富足的( affluent的名词复数 ) | |
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460
sleepers
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|
| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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461
glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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462
lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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463
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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464
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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465
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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466
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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467
conversant
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|
| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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468
luxuriously
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|
| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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469
sojourn
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|
| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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470
Mediterranean
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|
| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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471
disabuse
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| v.解惑；矫正 | |
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472
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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473
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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474
illustrated
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|
| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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475
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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476
cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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477
tranquil
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|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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478
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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479
grassy
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|
| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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480
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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481
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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482
aluminium
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| n.铝 (=aluminum) | |
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483
monotonously
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|
| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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484
delightfully
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|
| 大喜，欣然 | |
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485
indented
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|
| adj.锯齿状的，高低不平的；缩进排版 | |
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486
abrupt
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|
| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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487
figs
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| figures 数字，图形，外形 | |
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488
chestnuts
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|
| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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489
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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490
agates
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| n.玛瑙( agate的名词复数 )；玛瑙制（或装有玛瑙的）工具； （小孩玩的）玛瑙纹玩具弹子；5。5磅铅字 | |
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491
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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492
limestone
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|
| n.石灰石 | |
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493
insufficient
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|
| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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494
amend
|
|
| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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