What a useless voyage! To confront the dangers of three thousand leagues of sea and twenty days of poor food and worse sleep to come to see savages, when these can be found in thousands within twenty-four hours of London! In this poor America there remain no other savages than those Europeans who exploit the miserable natives of Putumayo. The veritable Indians of the tales of Fenimore Cooper and of Gustave Aimard, the scalp hunters, the throat cutters, the mutilators of children, are to be found in the very heart of Europe, in the countries of “The Merry Widow.” There the Princess ought to have gone a-hunting for those sanguinary curiosities and to satisfy her appetite for exotics.
She came here nervously afraid of the prospect of being carried off by Calufucurá, and even resisted the temptation to visit the estancia of Pereyra, fearing lest the Cacique Catriel should force her to prepare the pipe of counsel surrounded by his tribe, and she goes away disenchanted by not having seen an Indian even in the distance, and disgusted at having had to suffer the sugary gallantries of some of our dandies of the old school, little fortunate in the conquest of princesses.
But, above all, what mortified her most and most precipitated her departure, rendering her ill at ease during her stay in Buenos Ayres, is the fact that she did not rank here in the front file of beauty, nor shine above the rest in fashion, nor find herself in any sort a protagonist. She was no more than one among the mass of our women, and less than many of our distinguished ladies. Thus she has gone as she came, after having attempted to discover some labyrinthine forest never visited by man, without encountering more than cultivated soil and agricultural machines where she had hoped to see Indians discharging their poisoned arrows and brandishing their formidable tomahawks. And thus it is that she says in her despite “America has lost all her virginities, even the celebrated virginity of her forests!”
Yesterday the Princess embarked, and on seeing her aboard the Arayaguaya, using her walking-stick like a crutch, to disguise her mincing gait,—alone, with not even the companionship of a “snob,” who might have attempted to win her good-will, not even a lady of honour dazzled by her noble title,—there came to our mind, though altered by the circumstances, the lines of that farewell elegy on the remains of Sir John Moore:
“Not a drum was heard, not a triumphal note—As she arrived at the Dársena Norte—Not a soldier discharged his farwell schot—When the steamer left the Argentine shore!”
The intrinsic merits of this little sketch and the charm of the concluding effort in English, surely justify its reproduction! What on earth the Princess of Pless may have said to lead to this display of journalistic courtesy, I do not know, but I suspect that she must have ventured some words of frank criticism, and that is precisely what the common, untramelled Argentine does not want. He asks for butter, and he wants it thick, and if you can add a layer of sugar,—for he has a sweet tooth—so much the better. Most of the British Colony know this, and also know on which side their bread is buttered. Thus the English visitor who is indiscreet enough publicly to express a frank and honest opinion of anything that does not meet with his approval in Buenos Ayres or the Argentine, will scarcely expect to be grappled to its bosom by hooks of steel. I am persuaded, however, that the better-class of native Argentine opinion is quite capable of sustaining honest criticism and profiting thereby.
CHAPTER XV
THE EMIGRANT IN LIGHT AND SHADE
There is a popular story in Buenos Ayres of a Spanish emigrant who had just arrived with wife and children, and as the group was crossing the Paseo de Julio, the wife espied a silver coin in the gutter. She called to her husband to pick it up, but he disdainfully answered, “I have no concern with mere silver money, when I have come here to gather gold!” The story usually ends here, but I suspect the frugal wife of picking up that coin herself and thereby making money more easily than her husband would be like to do for some time to come. For certain it is that the Argentine is no “land of gold,” such as our world has had to marvel at in California, Australia, South Africa, and Alaska. No,—it is something better than any merely auriferous land! So rich is its soil, it returns to those who work it such wondrous increase of harvest that it is truly an inexhaustible gold mine. But the first and final essential to the winning of its gold is Labour. This, as we know, Italy has given to the Argentine in abundant measure, and those who only know the Italian by such specimens of his race as grind organs and sell ice-cream in England, have no least, small notion of what a splendid fellow he is, his many vices notwithstanding.
Before we take a look at the different classes of emigrants which the Argentine attracts and their influence on the development of the country, a word or two on the land system may be in place. The time will come, I doubt not, when some revolutionary change will be forced upon the country, as the land is too closely held by the landed aristocracy—the multitudes of small lots sold by speculative dealers notwithstanding. In this young country, with its Republican Government and its progressive ideas, we encounter the anomaly of a mere handful of fabulously wealthy proprietors owning the greatest part of a vast country—nearly eight times larger than the British Isles. Meanwhile, these prodigious tracts of territory being so tightly held by a few private owners, have the effect of increasing the values of the negotiable land, of which there is evidently still sufficient to meet the demands of the moment. Double the population, however, and such a change will pass over the scene that legislation to force the hands of private owners and loosen their grip on the lion’s share of the Republic’s soil will be inevitable.