Residence of Dr. Juan C. Nougués, San Pablo
The gentleman in the foreground is Señor Scheindl, manager of the Hotel Savoy in Tucumán
Country House at Villa Nougués
Arrived at the settlement of Villa Nougués is the hotel where parties from the city come up on hot days to enjoy the cool invigorating air. Seated on the porch of Dr. Teran's house, which is near the hotel, in company of Dr. Teran, Governor Padilla, Señor Scheindl, and a rich sugar planter named Rouges, we looked across the broad long plain, styled the "Europe of Argentina," and I learned many interesting facts. The valley of the Rio Salí which crosses the province from north to south, is fed by twenty-five rivers which flow into it from the west to the east. The Salí flows southward and is finally lost in a large brackish lake, the Mar Chiquita in the Province of Córdoba. The great industrial and agricultural plain, with its sugar mills among which are the usines of San José, San Antonio, San Pablo, Paraiso, and countless others and its railroad workshops at Tafí Viejo, has a cultivated area of two hundred and fifty thousand acres. It was originally thickly forested as can be testified by occasional uncleared patches. Here civilization preceded the railroad, and only in the poorer part of the province in the direction of Santiago del Estero did the railroad come first. This valley is the cradle of Argentine liberty, for here the Spaniards having gone through the country like a steam mower, were finally decisively beaten in battle, and July 9, 1816, at Tucumán, the Argentine Confederation was born.
Three kilometers west of Villa Nougués is the summit of the foothills. Looking west from this summit, the vista of the San Javier Valley, with its forested mountains, and with its wooded detached hills rising from the midst of cultivated river bottoms, Alpine pastures, and numerous streams, is like that of the Inn in Tirol, although it is here even more beautiful. The Catamarca mountains, snow-capped domed Aconquija, and the bleak Andes form the western background, behind which the sun sinks in the aureate splendor of a fireball. This is one of the finest views in the world and should be seen in the late afternoon.
CHAPTER VI
CÓRDOBA
Córdoba is the third province of Argentina in population, it having had in 1914, 732,727 inhabitants. In area it contains 62,160 square miles. It is the heart of Argentina, being situated in the center of the republic. The eastern part is pampa while the western part is a high, dry plateau, traversed from north to south by mountain ranges notably among which are chains of Pocho and Ischilin. These mountain ranges which are two hundred miles in length are isolated from the Andean system; their southernmost extremities are named the Sierra de Córdoba and are a veritable karst like the Kuestenlande of Austria, gray granite boulders being everywhere. The eastern slopes of this karst are covered with a thick vegetation of mesquite and other shrubs due to the moist Atlantic winds, while their western slopes are destitute of vegetation. The air here is dry and refreshing and the Sierra de Córdoba enjoys the same rôle in Argentina that Colorado does in the United States, being the haunt of consumptives. Likewise the Sierra is the playground of many wealthy Buenos Aires families, for it is a treat to them to get away from the level monotonous plain upon which their city is built. West and northwest of the isolated mountain chain is a vast barren desert, part of it being called the Salinas Grandes on account of the white surface of the soil due to saline deposits. Córdoba is watered by five rivers named the Primero, Segundo, Tercero, Quarto, and Quinto (which means First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth). These rivers are used for irrigating purposes, for water power, and for electricity. The whole province is noted for the pureness of its well water, artesian wells abounding. Every few years the locust or grasshopper plague hits Argentina, and when it comes it strikes Córdoba unusually hard. One of the frontispiece photographs shows a locust trap on a Córdoba farm. This is the catch of two days, the corrugated iron plates having been spread with honey mixed with poison. I consider this one of the most remarkable photographs ever published.