This simple tale of a day's sport in the Pampas has no other merit than that of being strictly accurate. The Argentinos might very well content themselves with the pleasures they have ready to their hand at all seasons of the year, for in these regions, half-way between barbarism and civilisation, the gamekeeper is unknown. But man can never be content with what is offered to him. Therefore the wealthy estanciero takes infinite trouble to get thousands of pheasants sent out to him from our coverts, so that he may breed them in his preserves. In districts that are not menaced by the locusts the birds will be let loose shortly in the woods, and the Argentine will then pride herself on shooting such as that of Saint-Germain. It is because of this approaching change that I have set down these impressions of a day's sport in conditions which will soon belong to a vanished age.
[CHAPTER X]
ROSARIO AND TUCUMAN
The traveller with only a few weeks at his disposal in this immense country of overflowing activity cannot pretend to make a very profound and detailed study of it. I am here setting down only those things that I saw, but, at the same time, I endeavour to show their significance, and to give some idea of their social import, while leaving my readers to judge for themselves. It is, of course, the subjective method, and is full of pitfalls, but it is, also, useful inasmuch as it sheds much light on the subject if used with discrimination. My friend Jules Huret, who has been inspired to reveal to the criminally incurious French public certain countries which they persistently ignore, takes all the time he needs to collect a voluminous amount of material, which he then proceeds to place before his readers in accordance with the strictest canons of the objective method. We know how successful he was with North America and Germany. He has marshalled before us so orderly a procession of men and things, that to my mind he has defeated his object, and left us no inducement to undertake the journey for ourselves and to obtain first-hand impressions by the direct contact which is worth all the books in the world. Huret is now publishing in the Figaro the result of a year's close study of the Argentine. He has taught and will still teach me much, no doubt, and I strongly recommend every one to read his admirable work. But in their way I still venture to claim for my unpretentious notes the virtue of creating in my readers a desire for further information, for the simple reason that they will assuredly want to test my views in the light of their own experience. Humanity, nowadays, is moving at high speed, and the chief interest that most men attach to each day's events is the opportunities they may afford for to-morrow's energy. But the real value of the "event of the moment," to which the Press attributes more and more importance, lies in the revelation it may bring of those general laws that we must all understand. Hence the living appeal made by cursory reflections, irrespective of what may be the verdict of the future thereupon, since our "truths" of to-day can never be more than successive eliminations of errors.
These generalities are intended to explain the spirit in which I prepared to leave Buenos Ayres, and drew up an itinerary that was necessarily curtailed by the limited time that remained to me. I had been told: "At Cordoba you will find a city of monks; Mendoza affords a charming picture of fine watercourses lined with poplars, vines in profusion, and a remarkable equipment for the wine industry; at Tucuman, there are fields of sugar-cane with dependent refineries and, also, the beginnings of an extensive forest." With irrigation-works, poplars, vines, monks even, I was already familiar: so without hesitation I headed for Tucuman, with a brief halt at Rosario, the second city of the Argentine Republic.
In its external aspect Rosario de Santa Fé differs but little from Buenos Ayres. There is the same florid architecture, the same desire to do things on a large scale, the same busy spirit, though naturally on a smaller scale. Rosario exists by reason of its port, which commands the Parana. The prodigious extension of the town is due to the building of numerous railway lines, which have produced an enormous development of agriculture in the provinces of Santa Fé, Cordoba, and Santiago del Estero. The cereals grown in these provinces, representing one half the total exported by the Argentine, are carried by these railways, whilst the Parana furnishes a waterway several thousands of kilometres in length for coasting vessels on the upper river and from Paraguay as far as the mouth of the Rio. A volume might be written of its docks, built by a French firm under the management of M. Flandrin, a compatriot and native of my own Vendean village. There is a peculiar charm about meetings of the sort. A journey of many days has brought you to the unknown land, where, with the help of some imagination, any strange event is possible. After sundry adventures, the curtain rises, and the first face that meets your eye, the first voice you hear, belong to your native place. Names, scenes, and memories rush in upon the mind with a train of unexpected impressions and emotions.
To think I had come all this way to be confronted with that special spot of earth to which through all travels and all life's changes we remain so firmly bound! Far away in the distant Brazilian mountains, I met a charming Vendean woman, whose tongue had kept that accent of the langue d'oil which belonged to Rabelais. When Sancho, from the height of his waggon, beheld the earth no larger than a grain of millet, his sense of proportion was truer than ours. Only, instead of being so many hazel-nuts upon the millet, as Sancho thought, men are, in reality, merely imperceptible particles in a restricted space, bound to collide at the least movement.
My philosophy did not prevent my feeling great pleasure at meeting M. Flandrin, who is as unpretentious as he is kind, and who is a credit to his native land. We made a tour of inspection of the docks, and the inevitable trip by boat round the harbour. All I can say of the port thus hastily seen and already described in many technical publications is that, in spite of tremendous natural difficulties, it has been satisfactorily accomplished, thanks to the tenacity of the engineers and the admirable method adopted. [29] Moored alongside the quays were a number of English and German cargo-boats (amongst which, I saw but one French, alas!) taking in grain at the rate of 800 tons per hour. The docks were begun in 1902. They were designed to cope with an average tonnage of 2,500,000, and it was at that time believed impossible to attain that figure before some thirty years at least. By 1909, however, it had been reached and passed, and a contract for their enlargement was immediately given to a French firm. Under these conditions, it is easy to understand how a town numbering 23,000 inhabitants in 1869 should, in 1910, contain nearly 200,000. This, also, explains a rivalry that exists between the second city of the Republic and Santa Fé, the historic capital of the province. Rosario complains, with some show of reason, that the enormous fiscal contribution paid by her to the national exchequer does not procure for her the advantages to which her population entitles her. The deplorable deficiency of schools in Rosario is more especially a subject of loud recrimination. I cannot but think that this claim will be before long admitted. As for the æsthetic future of the city, I can say nothing. When I saw it, it was disfigured in every direction by extensive road-making operations, thanks to which there will, in all probability, be open spaces enough, one day, to arouse the admiration of visitors. An excellent and modern hotel seems a good augury for the future. As usual, the welcome I received far exceeded anything I could have expected. But the municipal improvements scheme had occasioned a fever of speculation in land values, and the one subject of conversation was the fabulous fortunes to be realised in this way—so much so, indeed, that I was strongly tempted to spend a few sous on a plot of land which by now or a little later perhaps might be worth a hundred millions.