Our friends would not even allow us to ride below, however, and put us instead into a kind of “hack” that is known here as an “Americano.”
It seems that several generations ago, an American resident introduced a carriage which he thought peculiarly adapted to Santiago. It might be described as a two-seated rockaway. This vehicle soon became a vogue and is now the established style for hackney carriages. There are victorias for hire on the principal plazas, but their rates are extortionately high while those of the “Americanos” are ridiculously low. It is well they are, for otherwise no one would patronize them. They seem to be without springs, cleanliness, or any ordinary comforts. They are not without fleas and other insects. As you go bumping and rattling over the cobblestones of Santiago in one of these antiquated vehicles you come to wonder whether the Chilean’s proverbial dislike of Americans has not been intensified by the discomforts he has suffered in the “Americanos!”
The first Pan-American Scientific Congress was the fruit of an idea started some years ago in Buenos Aires where delegates from a few of the South American countries met for the first Latin-American Scientific Congress. That was followed by a second which met at Montevideo, and a third, at Rio, each showing an increase in numbers and importance. Plans for the fourth Congress were left entirely in the hands of a Chilean organization committee who decided that the time was ripe to include the United States in the list of invitations and make the Congress Pan-American instead of Latin-American. The visits of a number of distinguished North Americans, including Secretary Root and Professors Moses, Rowe, and Shepherd, had done much to pave the way for friendly feeling between the scientific men of Chile and those of the United States, and the proposal of the organization committee met with hearty approval. Owing to the efforts of Secretary Root and Professor Rowe, the United States Congress passed an appropriation to send an official delegation to the Congress. A number of our leading universities likewise appointed delegates.
The programme suggested for the Congress was replete with all manner of topics for discussion and covered almost the entire field of knowledge, from questions of sanitation to those of international law, and from the antiquity of primitive man in America to modern methods of primary instruction.
As was to be expected from such a comprehensive programme, the intention was not so much to bring out the results of the latest research as to furnish topics that would be sure to interest the delegates. Even the meetings of our learned societies in the States are largely social. To many of those who attend the chief attraction is the opportunity of meeting others who are interested in the same lines, and the programme is merely an excuse for the meeting. The Pan-American Scientific Congress was not far different. It offered an excellent opportunity for the scientists of Latin-America to renew old acquaintance, and it gave the favored delegates from the United States a chance to make new friends among men whose interests are chiefly intellectual.
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that few of the papers presented new facts or the results of prolonged and scholarly research. Nor is it at all remarkable that the most animated discussions took place in the sessions devoted to international law and politics, education, and political science. These are topics on which every man has ideas which he is not afraid to express. And these discussions served as a means of introducing men that might not otherwise have met.
Politics were kept in the background, as far as possible, but national feelings occasionally found opportunity for expression.
Chile is the one country in South America that has never had and cannot have a boundary dispute with Brazil. The Portuguese-American Republic is not likely to meddle with West Coast matters, and Chile has nothing to gain from troubling the beautiful harbors of Rio and Bahia. Indeed, so lacking have been any causes of friction between the two Republics that they are fond of emphasizing the entente cordiale that exists between them. It was natural, consequently, that the third Latin-American Scientific Congress, meeting in Rio under Brazilian organization, should have chosen Santiago as the seat of the fourth congress, and it was a return of the courtesy when the organizing committee at Santiago, composed of Chileans, selected the local Brazilian Minister as President.
The Congress opened with formal ceremonies, fine music, and much oration. In answer to the roll-call of republics, the leading delegate from each country responded with befittingly felicitous remarks.
It is true that the learned Brazilian who replied, when the name of his country was called, with a speech in Portuguese lasting nearly an hour in length, stretched the friendly feelings toward the Brazilian delegation almost to the breaking point. Few of the audience could understand enough of what he said to follow his wordy address. Almost everyone thought that its unnecessary length, added to the fact of its being the only address of the evening that was not in Spanish, the official language of the Congress, was at least a breach of good manners.