I should have liked nothing better than to have been able to follow “The Blind Man’s Guide” from post-house to post-house along the entire distance. But alas, since the days of railways, many of the road-houses that formerly offered “good accommodations to travellers,” have disappeared, and it is necessary to go as the world goes and take the train—when there is one.
On November 13, 1908, accompanied by Mr. Huntington Smith, Jr., I left Buenos Aires for Bolivia. The first stage of the journey, seven hundred and twenty miles, was by train to Tucuman, over the tracks of the Buenos Aires and Rosario R. R., one of the oldest and richest railways in Argentina. Our train was made up entirely of vestibuled sleeping and dining cars.
Among the first-class passengers was a newly arrived Spanish mercantile clerk and a French commercial traveller. I noticed more French in Argentina and Brazil than on the West Coast or in the northern countries. Especially in the large cities, they, with the Germans and English, have been very active in promoting local enterprises.
In the first fifteen miles out from Buenos Aires we saw numbers of villas shaded by groves of eucalyptus trees standing in the midst of the owner’s broad acres. There is considerable evidence of market gardening and general agriculture. So far as we could see from the train, the roads are very bad and have not improved since the days of the woe-begotten travellers who had to cross these plains in ox-carts.
When Edmund Temple, the breezy secretary of the Potosí, La Paz & Peruvian Mining Association, crossed Argentina on his way to Bolivia in 1825, he was struck with the immense number of “hoppers” that they passed on the Pampas. He says the locusts covered the road and adjacent parts for miles. In those days, pasturage was plenty, and cultivated fields were scarce, so nobody cared very much. It is only with the increasing importance of crops that the Argentinos have come to regard the swarms of locusts as a great pest, and have spent many thousands of dollars fighting them. They are now planning to build a fence of sheet zinc, costing several million dollars, to keep back the “hoppers.” Some modern travellers have had their trains delayed by locust swarms on the tracks, but we saw comparatively few.
Our first stops were at suburban towns, which are more attractive than one would suppose in a country that is so flat. At one of them, on the River Tigre, the English colony has made boating fashionable, with festivals like those at Henley. We had showers in the course of the morning, but the country over which we passed looked rather dry.
A characteristic feature of the Pampas are the modern windmills with their steel frames. Most of them are of American make, for despite our backwardness in some lines, we have been peculiarly successful in supplying Argentina with windmills. In fact, we have almost monopolized that particular business. Fortunately, our manufacturers seem also to excel in the production of small and inexpensive motors, such as are particularly desired on farms and ranches where, owing to the extreme difficulty of getting workmen, there is an excellent market for labor-saving machinery. Notwithstanding this encouraging feature, for every million dollars’ worth of goods which Argentina imports from the United States, she imports six millions from Europe.
Many of the interior towns have their own electric lighting plants. The agents of German manufacturers have been far-sighted in following up new concessions and in getting large contracts for the installation of German machinery. It takes a good many windmills to equal one electric lighting plant.
Our train made a short stop at Rosario, the second largest city in Argentina. Owing to its advantageous situation at the bend of the Paraná River, it has become a most important port.
Accessible throughout the year to vessels drawing sixteen feet, it is the terminus of many trans-Atlantic lines which bring European manufactured goods here in exchange for wheat and cattle. Some ore from Bolivia is also shipped from here. On our mule trip in Southern Bolivia we saw hundreds of animals laden with huge packing-cases from Europe marked “via Rosario.”