The Indians who inhabit the pampas, instead of being confined to one locality and journeying only by canoe, like the Indians on the Amazon, wander over the length and breadth of the pampas, hunting the ostrich and cattle. The cattle are tended by gauchos, as the cow-boys are called, half-breeds as wild as the herds they tend. Constant warfare exists between the Indians and the gauchos, unless they unite to attack the settlers. After one of the Indian raids the government dug an immense ditch from a river to the Andes and drove the Indians to the farther side, and since then there have been fewer raids—and fewer Indians.
The land was held in large blocks of many thousand acres, worked by overseers and gauchos. The animals were killed by hundreds of thousands for their skins. This state of things is, however, gradually passing away, for during the last twenty years emigrants from the old world have settled in the country as farmers and planters.
The fourteen provinces which form the Argentine Republic have never been welded into one nation, and have seldom had a moment's peace. The gauchos have been a continual scourge, and the gaucho generals its rulers and harriers combined. Unfortunately, here, as in other Spanish states, one dictator has succeeded another. Thirty presidents, or dictators, have reigned within fifty years. At one time five provinces had each a separate dictator. The neighboring republic of Uruguay, formerly a part of the Argentine Confederation, had 26 revolutions in the twenty-three years from 1864 to 1887.
For some time Buenos Ayres and its dictator ruled the republic; then the country provinces rebelled, and civil war ensued; one province was arrayed against another, and all against Buenos Ayres. The provinces prevailed and the gaucho general, Rosas, occupied Buenos Ayres. Scarcely was this civil war ended when a war arose with the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay.
Money was required to pay the army and the cost of civil and foreign wars. Every dictator had his friends for whom provision must be made. Large debts were created; banks were chartered; $200,000,000 of paper money were issued. There were several different circulating mediums; each province strove to outdo the others in the issue of a currency which quickly depreciated. Companies for different purposes were organized, and many were subsidized, directly or indirectly. We are told that in one case $1,500,000 was paid for a concession, and that "Turkish officials, who have hitherto been the champion artists in backsheesh, leave off where Argentine blackmailers begin; the price of a drainage scheme at Buenos Ayres would buy a whole cabinet of pashas at Galata."
Railroads were built running from Buenos Ayres in different directions, as each province demanded a railroad, with little regard to its population or business.
A road was commenced to cross the Andes and open communication between the Atlantic and Pacific over mountains which had never been crossed by a carriage of any kind.
The country was not settled so rapidly as the rulers desired. Inducements were therefore offered to immigrants. The passage money from Europe and the expenses of the immigrant to his new home have been paid and land for settlement sold at low rates. It is estimated that over 1,000,000 foreigners have settled in the country during the last twelve years, and the proportionate increase of population in the same period has been twice as great as that of the United States. Grazing lands have been sold at nominal prices to immigrants, or leased for terms of years in lots of 6,000 acres at a rental of $100 a year. Bonds were issued not only by the government but by the provinces, by the municipalities and by the railroads, and all were readily taken in England and Germany. To enable the emigrants to pay for and to cultivate their land, the owner of real estate on depositing his title deeds with the hypothecary banks and having a valuation of his real estate, received cedulas, or bonds of the bank, for one-half its appraised value; these cedulas for large amounts were issued and sold in Europe; and thus, as ever, more money was required, more bonds were issued. In 1889, a year of peace, the public debt was increased 120 per cent., and it is now said to be over one thousand four hundred millions of dollars, and the principal and interest of two-thirds of this amount is payable in gold at a premium of 200 per cent.