The capitol is by far the finest building in the city. It is three stories high on the outside, and four on the inside (for the courtyards are sunk one story below the street level), and occupies a considerable area. It is by no means the finest capitol building that I have visited, but as it is the newest, having been just completed, it is probably the best equipped. Though it is built in the business section of the city where it cannot show off to its best advantage, it however, makes the capitol at Lansing, Michigan, look like 30 cents. In Argentine, as it is almost impossible to get marble, all the provincial capitols are built of brick, solidly, so as to stand forever. The Argentine brick is not pleasing to the eyes, as it is rough. To embellish the buildings of this material they are given a coating of drab stucco cement.
Capitol, Tucumán
I visited the Governor, Dr. Ernesto Padilla, a tall, handsome, affable man about forty years old. He is quite an archeologist, and in a room adjoining his private office in the capitol he has installed his private collection of Indian antiquities of the province. It is a most remarkable collection of pottery, ornaments, etc. Near Tafí a large stone has been recently discovered with Indian scrolls, hieroglyphics, and drawings. A North American photographer residing in Tucumán went out to see this stone. With chalk, he outlined the rather indistinct drawings and then took a photograph of it. This photograph is reproduced on pages 635 and 637 of my previous work, Illustrated, Descriptive Argentina.
Dr. Padilla introduced me to General O'Donnell, the military commander of the province. A curious fact is that this general cannot speak the English language, having been born in Argentina. I held a letter of introduction to Señor S. A. Wyss, manager of the Hilaret y Cia sugar mill at Santa Ana, the largest in South America, and also one to Mr. Stewart Shipton, manager of the Corona mill at Concepción. Both mills are several hours' distant from Tucumán, and in trying to catch the train for Concepción, I went to the wrong depot. Dr. Padilla afterwards told me that it would have been useless for me to have gone to either of those places, because there were sugar mills much nearer to the city. He wrote me a letter of introduction to Señor Alfredo Guzman, the richest man in the province, who has a mill at a town also named Concepción, which is only a twenty minutes' drive from the capital. He likewise wrote me a letter to Dr. Juan C. Nougués, who has a mill at San Pablo, which I visited. There are two kinds of sugar districts in the Province of Tucumán, one on the plains like that of Señor Guzman's estate, and one in the hills like the one at San Pablo.
Tucumán is a hot place, both climatically and morally. In the latter line are the Crystal Palace and the Moulin Rouge, while in the former line, the thermometer often rises above the comfortable point. The night I arrived it registered 106° Fahrenheit in the shade. It was so hot that I thought I would cool off by walking down the Calle Laprida. The one-story houses are so constructed that in front of each window an iron balcony extends to the sidewalk; the railings of these are of wrought iron, or marble. Here sit the belles on hot summer nights airing themselves. They certainly need to, for as I strolled down the street the stench that was wafted from them to me was nearly asphyxiating. It is the odor that is present in the summer when the human body is unfriendly to soap, water, and the scrub brush. Some of these beauties sat behind shutters in the darkness, but I was aware of their presence, although I could not see them.
Calle Laprida, Tucumán