There is practically no village life in Argentina; there is no middle class between the lordly estanciero and the laborer. The very necessary element of the small farmer, working his own independent property, is gradually being introduced, as the owners of the great estates are beginning to subdivide their holdings. When this new element shall have been thoroughly absorbed into the commonwealth, and the nation shall have acquired a “volk,” the prosperity of Argentina will be assured for all time. The development of the country is still in its infancy; for years to come there will be room for an increasing influx of capital and men who can take part in the most modern and greatest wealth-producing enterprise on the globe. So far the English and Germans are the chief among the foreign capitalists who have sought out this present-day Eldorado. The better acquaintance with Argentina and the other countries to the south of us, so intelligently and industriously fostered by the Pan American Union at Washington, will, it is to be hoped, induce a North American financial invasion of Argentina, an invasion that will be more than welcomed by the “Yankis” of the South.
The traveler who takes the seven-hundred-mile journey westward through the Camp, luxuriously housed in the coaches of the Great Western Railroad, comes upon a different scene and a different life when he reaches the ancient city of Mendoza in the foothills of the Andes. Here it was that San Martín recruited and organized his Army of Liberation, the army with which, emerging suddenly from its isolated hiding place, he startled the world by his crossing of the Andes to fall upon the unsuspecting Spanish. Mendoza is now the center of the wine and fruit industry. It is a thriving, well-supplied little city, with a population of between thirty and forty thousand, comfortable hotels, a theater, and a broad boulevard of its own, overhung with trees and named for the great revolutionary leader, where they have their band concerts and afternoon carriage parade just as they do in Buenos Aires. Only here, in their rather more dusky complexions, lots of the raven-haired, black-eyed occupants of the carriages show traces of Indian descent.
The development of the wine trade is in keeping with the phenomenal progress of the rest of the country. Although the great bulk of the product is not of the highest quality, the presses turn out each year enormous quantities that bear the labels of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Moselle, and Muscatel, produced from the very best imported vines. Other fruits have been found to grow equally well in this section: peaches, pears, and plums reach a high state of culture, while apples, quinces, and cherries do very well. It is the boast of the Argentino that his country is capable of producing every conceivable kind of fruit, and it is not an idle boast.
At this point—Mendoza—a change of car is made to the less comfortable narrow-gauge road that takes the traveler through the fastnesses of the Andes. The route leads first through the peach orchards and vineyards, with the snow peaks easily distinguishable in the background. The Mendoza River, fed by the melting snows on the mountain tops, tumbles along its way and is crossed and re-crossed many times en route. Distant about one hundred miles, one comes to the Puente del Inca, the famous natural bridge spanning a chasm one hundred and fifty feet in width, about which are many native legends of Incarial times, for the bridge formed part of the great system of roads built by the Incas. A little farther on, mounting to a still higher altitude, the station of Las Cuevas is reached, the last stop in Argentine territory, and the entrance to the tunnel through the mountain, half a mile below the Uspallata Pass—an engineering feat deserving of a chapter by itself. The elevation here is in excess of ten thousand feet, and the scene one of impressive grandeur, fascinating in the kaleidoscope of color that floods the gorges and the giant peaks.
THE USPALLATA PASS.
Above, at the Cumbre, as the pass at the top is called, if one forsakes the comforts of the passenger coach for mule-back, he can view the now world-famous “Christ of the Andes,” a bronze figure of the Prince of Peace rising to a height of twenty-six feet above its massive granite pedestal. It was erected to commemorate the peace treaty that brought to an end the long-continued differences between Chile and Argentina. Growing out of the boundary dispute, this controversy had become more and more acute as the long-neglected Patagonian territory increased in promise. The boundary, finally fixed in 1902, by Sir Thomas Holdich’s commission, runs along the summit of the Andean ridge. On the base of the monument a tablet bears the words: “Sooner shall these mountains crumble to dust than the people of Argentina and Chile break the peace to which they have pledged themselves at the feet of Christ the Redeemer.”
From Carácoles, the Chilean terminus of the tunnel, the Transandino-Chileno carries the traveler to the station of Los Andes. From here to the port city of Valparaiso, Chile, the route is over the Chilean State Railroad, which is of standard gauge and passes through some rich and fertile valleys on its way toward the Pacific.
III
To the east of the Cordilleras, and south of the river Negro, stretches the territory long known as Patagonia, first in swelling plateaux and then flattening out into a continuation of the upper level pampas. This is now the scene of Argentina’s advancing sheep industry. For Patagonia, east of the Andean summits, and the east half of Tierra del Fuego were awarded to Argentina by the boundary arbitrator, King Edward VII, following the report of Sir Thomas Holdich’s commission, and is now divided into the Federal Territories of Rio Negro, Chubut, and Santa Cruz. The land of Patagonia, so named by the early explorers from the big feet (pata goas) of the Tehuelche Indians, is now reached by steamer to Punta Arenas in Magellan Strait, the southernmost city on the globe, for the railways of Argentina have not yet penetrated this country to any considerable extent. In climate it ranges from the temperate to extreme cold, like that of northern Michigan in the winter months. From the time of Darwin, who first took the country out of the category of terras incognitas, Patagonia has lost most of its mystery and is now being settled by the diverted immigration from Buenos Aires. The Scots, English, and Germans have taken up large allotments of land, and many New Zealand sheep men have come over to add their skill to the leading industry. There are also colonies of Boers and Jews.