Santamarina immediately made his way towards the great plaza, where the produce of the country was at that time sold; and there, hoping to secure a job, he spoke to a man who was conducting a wagon, and whose business it was to bring wool from the country into the Buenos Ayres market.
This man, seeing him strong and willing, offered to share with him his work as wagoner; but he first inquired of
Santamarina whether he possessed a knife, as at that time in the Argentine it was the necessary instrument of defence, and at need, of attack, and was also employed in all the usages of the nomad life.
Santamarina had no knife; but he had a piastre, which the captain had given him before he left the ship, and with this piastre he bought a knife, which served in this partnership as his only capital.
Having led the common wagon for some time, Santamarina had saved enough to buy a better one for his own; then, chance aiding him, he purchased a few sheep whose wool he sold; and finally, by dint of work, he succeeded in saving sufficient capital to buy a little land and start sheep-raising on his own account. This was the beginning of his success; little by little Santamarina bought more sheep and more land, and became in the end one of the greater landed proprietors of the Argentine. He died in 1904, leaving a large fortune and a name justly honoured throughout the country.
To-day a visitor to his magnificent “estancia” of Tandil may still see, under a glass shade, the knife and a model of the wagon which were the first instruments of his fortune.
The second story is more commonplace, but no less true. Twelve years ago two Neapolitan immigrants came to settle at Rosario. To gain a living, and no doubt in memory of their former trade, they founded in partnership a boliche; that is, a bar for the sale of drinks. When a certain time had elapsed, their business being far from prosperous, they decided that one or the other of the two was one too many, and so determined to separate. But which of the two should retain the boliche? They drew lots to decide the point; and he whom chance favoured retained the business alone, while the other went in search of his fortune elsewhere.
The latter, far from allowing himself to be discouraged, made for Rosario harbour, in search of a new trade: he assumed that of a dock-labourer or lighterman. This was at the time when the growing of maize was beginning, in the Province of Santa Fé, to give satisfactory results. Our hero, having spent some time in carrying sacks of grain upon his back from the quays to the vessels about to sail,
conceived the idea of buying, with his savings, a sack of maize, and to sell it retail, in the country, for the purposes of seed. This first venture having succeeded, he continued his operations with a larger number of sacks; then, finally, he abandoned the trade of porter in order to enlarge his new business, which from that time increased by thousands of sacks, and soon became a great export business.
Thanks to the development of the culture of maize in this region, he has become one of the greatest merchants and speculators in this product, and enjoys to-day a fortune of many millions, while his companion, less happy in his affairs, still keeps the little drink-shop in Rosario.