I have heard the Province of Tucumán spoken of by Argentinos as having a tropical climate. Such is not the truth, but it is, in climate, the nearest approach to the tropics of any of the other Argentine provinces, with the exception of the lowlands of Salta that lie within the La Plata watershed. All nations are apt to exaggerate their endowments of nature, therefore one should not too sharply criticize the Argentinos when they speak of Tucumán as tropical. The Germans call part of Saxony, "Sächische Schweiz," when it bears no more resemblance to Switzerland than does a pot of ink to a bucket of milk. The Uruguayans love to style their land "The Greenland of South America," and even the Paraguayans call their mountains the "Himalaya Mbaracayu." The only similarity of Tucumán to the tropics is the excessive heat in summer, and the prevalence of fevers, the most noteworthy being a form of malaria, named chuchu which is also in Santiago del Estero, Jujuy, and Salta. A more fever-free country is hard to imagine from the lay of the land, yet I am sorry to say that the Argentine Board of Health statistics belie it. Malaria is one of the foremost death-causing ailments in northwestern Argentina. I would, however, class these provinces as being healthy, as there are no other epidemics excepting an occasional sporadic outbreak of smallpox.
Entering Tucumán province from Santiago del Estero, the scenery abruptly changes from the quebracho thicket to large open fields of sugar cane. It was summer when I visited it and the cane was nowhere near its growth. Compared with Cuba, the soil is poorer, the cane sicklier, and the establishments smaller. It is a go-between Cuba and the other islands of the West Indies.
From the city of Tucumán northward the scenery is beautiful. Seated in the dining car of the narrow gauge Central Northern Railroad with an overflowing glass of Rubia beer in front of me, and gazing at the fleeting landscape, I was entranced by the works of God. An endless forest of hardwood, with magnificent spreading tops, yet too small to make saw timber, formed an excrescence on the reddish clay thicker than bristles on Tamworth swine. The undergrowth is thick like that of southern Chile, but here nature is like that of a warmer clime. No towns and but few farmhouses are visible, yet this is a populous country. The houses are hidden away in the forest, and their owners make their living by stock raising, their herds roaming at random in the woods. High green mountains grace the landscape, their lower reaches wooded, while their tops uplifted above the tree line are verdant with grasses. They are like the Paraguayan mountains in contour, domed or serrated but never flat. The rainy season is from December to April. Then the country looks its best. Under such conditions I saw it. The seven months from May through November constitute the dry season, and I was told that then the landscape has a dreary appearance owing to its parched dryness. The cattle seem to thrive even then. They are gaunt, rawboned creatures and even when fat, a man can nearly hang his hat upon their haunches. They have great endurance and are driven across the northern passes into Chile where they sell for nineteen cents a pound live weight. Even with their great shrinkage en route there is quite a profit to this. In the Province of Salta where land cannot get irrigation, it is worthless except for cattle raising owing to the seven months' drought, as water is absolutely necessary for their crops.
To the stations, on the approach of the train, lean dogs and fat sows come, and standing on the platform in front of the dining car, they look longingly at the windows, and with barking and squealing let their presence be known. These animals know exactly what time the trains are scheduled to arrive and depart, where the dining car stops, and at which end of the dining car the kitchen is. This sagacity comes from intuition covering a long period. They are at every station and are especially noticeable at the stop named Virgilio Tedin. The cook and waiters never throw them anything, but instead occasionally douse them with the contents of a bucket of dish water. The passengers are more compassionate, and always throw a piece of biscuit or bone at these animals who pounce upon the castings with squeals of delight. The dogs are afraid of the sows, which although fat are of good fighting material.
Güemes
A typical town of northern Argentina
Güemes, a town of two thousand inhabitants is the junction for Salta and for Jujuy. Although Salta is on a branch line and Jujuy is on the main one, all through trains go to Salta for it is the largest place. For Jujuy, you have to change. Jujuy, the capital of the small province of the same name, is a miserable, squalid place of six thousand inhabitants, in a hot but healthy valley. It used to have twenty thousand people in the Colonial period, when it was the outpost of Spanish civilization of the La Plata provinces; it then did a brisk trade with Bolivia. The town has no future. Midway between Güemes and Jujuy is the junction of Perico from which place a railroad extends in a northeasterly direction to Oran, in the province of Salta. This is also an old place with many houses in ruins. It has but twenty-five hundred inhabitants and is a shell of its former opulence. It now has a good future because a railroad is being built to connect it with Formosa on the Paraguay River, and much timber and tropical products will be brought in to be exported. Now Oran exports oranges and bananas. Another old Colonial town of crumbling houses is Santiago del Esteca near Metan, a station of the Central Northern Railroad south of Güemes. Santiago del Esteca lies in the midst of a thick forest and communication with the outside world is carried on over a rough wagon road. The Central Northern Railroad ends at La Quiaca, the frontier station at the Bolivian boundary line. From Jujuy northward it is a gradual climb to Abrapampa, over thirteen thousand feet above sea level and then a drop of about three thousand feet to the terminus. The railroad is in some places rack and pinion but the trip for scenic beauty affords but little interest to the tourist for it is over bleak and barren mountains. The trip from Buenos Aires to La Paz, Bolivia, can be made in one week, owing to the excellent stage-coach service of a Bolivian company connecting La Quiaca with Uyuni on the Antofagasta to Bolivia Railroad.
Live hogs in northern Argentina are shipped in the baggage cars of passenger trains, although there seems to be plenty of empty swine wagons. The animals are trussed up by a noose slipped over their snouts, drawn tightly and slipped around their front feet which are bound; the rope is then extended to their hind feet which are already hobbled. I saw half a dozen of these creatures bound this way being taken from the baggage car at Güemes and laid in the sun on the depot platform, when the thermometer stood at 108° Fahrenheit in the shade.