Behind the iron balconies, such as has the house on the left, the women of Tucumán are seated on hot summer evenings airing themselves
In 1914, there was founded in Tucumán a university, at the head of which is Dr. Juan B. Teran. So far, the university is incomplete, for of the five departments of instruction which it will have when completed, only two are at present running. These are the pedagogical department, and that of mechanics, agriculture, and chemistry. The latter has an agricultural experimental station near the city, at present in charge of a North American, Dr. William E. Cross. Its chemical and bacteriological laboratory is the best in the republic. The University of Tucumán to-day is more like a polytechnical institute and agricultural combined than that which we generally think of by the word "university."
As to hotels, Tucumán has one of the best in South America, the Savoy. It, together with two separate buildings, one a roulette casino, and the other a large theater, is the property of the Da Rossa Company, a Portuguese syndicate. The Savoy is leased to a Frenchman, R. Eluchand, and is managed by Señor Scheindl formerly of Vienna. It is Mr. Scheindl's sister whose portrait appears on the Austrian twenty crown note; she was supposed to be the most beautiful girl in Austria. The Savoy is a large affair of 116 rooms, most of which have a bath in connection. It is on the Boulevard Sarmiento in an excellent but not central location. It is finely equipped, and is like a palace with its large courtyard enclosed by pillared balconies. The hotel has been a "white elephant" because it is too fine for the city. Mr. Scheindl tells me that in the hotel line, the Tucumános always want something for nothing, and when the inhabitants give their big balls at the Savoy, he either runs behind or else only breaks even; otherwise, if he insisted that they pay what he thought would be just, they would boycott him in the future. The other hotels which are in the central part of the city are the Europe, the Paris, and the Frascati, the first mentioned being the best. The Frascati is owned by the Palladini brothers, one of them, Attilio, having been former manager of the Savoy. When I knew Attilio Palladini several years ago, he was the courier of the Parque Hotel in Montevideo, and quit it to be head portier of the Hotel Savoy in Buenos Aires.
In Tucumán itself, there is nothing of interest for the sightseer. It is only a large commercial town in a fine agricultural district dependent on the sugar industry. Contrary to the fabrications the stranger will hear elsewhere in Argentina knocking it, saying that it is a fever hotbed, it is a sanitary place for the person that has the price to indulge in mineral waters as beverages, for its own water is not potable, owing to the sediment and dust that it contains. Talking with business men about investment of capital in Tucumán, there does not seem to be much encouragement in the manufacturing line. A flour mill would undoubtedly pay, and there is a splendid opportunity to start a steam laundry, as there is a constant complaint about the present one. It does its work poorly and charges exorbitant prices. It is said that a small ice plant in one of the neighboring towns, which would supply the wants of the inhabitants of the thickly inhabited districts, would also pay. A brewery has started in Tucumán, named the Cerveceria del Norte (Northern Brewery). It is controlled by the Quilmes people and has a large enough capacity to supply entire Argentina if necessary. Its brands of beer from light to dark are Rubia, Tucma, and Oran. Rubia is very palatable.
I became acquainted with a photographer in Tucumán, Mr. Henry A. Kirwin of New York. He came down here as a photographer eight years ago, and wants to get back home. He says it is much easier for a man to get down there than to get back. He seems to have a fair business, photographing machinery at the different mills and at the railroad yards at Tafí Viejo. Many of his photographs of family groups have yellow chemicals smeared over the faces of the clients on the plates. I asked him why this was.
"You see," said he, "most of the natives have Indian blood. It is supposed to be much nicer if this origin would be unknown, therefore I have to put this chemical on the plates so their faces will have a decidedly European cast in the photograph."
It is customary for the relatives of dead persons to have photographs taken of their once beloved. Mr. Kirwin had a choice collection of these local corpses which he insisted on showing me; there were over sixty. Among them were some "tasty" specimens, some being victims of the bubonic plague in 1913. Some were unrecognizable, charred masses of flesh that had been human before the subjects perished in a fire, while others were the gruesome countenances of cadavers whose faces were partially eaten away by cancer.
While in Mendoza, I thought the canine population was excessive. It is small compared with that of Tucumán. In this city every criolla has two or more Mexican hairless dogs, and the number of hybrids between bulldog, Great Dane, whiffet, and old hound is appalling. Three hundred thousand dogs is, I think, a low estimate of the canine inhabitants of the city. None are muzzled; but few are fed; and all run after bicycles, automobiles, and wagons. They make night hideous by howling, and fighting about the possession of putrid bones, mule dung, and garbage.
From Tucumán there is a trip that the visitor should not fail to miss. This is the twenty-mile automobile ride to the settlement and summer resort of Villa Nougués, 4225 feet above the plain on which the city is built. Nougués is situated not far from the summit of the wooded mountains southwest of Tucumán. The road leads due west, and then swerves to the south past populous farming country and through the village of Yerba Buena to the sugar mill and colony of San Pablo, where Dr. Nougués has his palatial mansion, and private church. His beautiful estate lies on gently sloping ground two miles east of the wooded mountains. All provisions for the summer colony and hotel at Villa Nougués must be taken up by wagon or by automobile from Tucumán. Most of the heavy trucking is done by means of ox carts. Early in the morning we met at San Pablo several of these oxcarts plodding slowly up the country road, and at night on our return to the city we met these same teams only halfway up the mountain, so hard is the pull on the beasts. When the road reaches the mountains it makes a serpentine, and then zigzags upward through the semi-tropical forest abounding with orange and crimson cannas. Every so often through the umbrageous trees and giant ferns, a panorama is to be had of the plain of Tucumán with its rectangular fields of sugar cane and small towns with their usines.