The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

It was with the only system of capture known to the gauchos, that is to say the lasso and the bolas (three balls attached by long leather thongs, which, thrown with great dexterity at the legs of an animal, entangle these and bring it to the ground), necessitating months and an enormous number of men, that he would be able to bring some thousands of cattle—and in what sad state—to the salting factory.

All the same, Luro insisted with perfect coolness, and the contract was signed.

Now the tactics conceived by the intelligent Basque were as follow: He began by prohibiting the gauchos from scouring the country in cavalcades. During three months, only two men on horseback, going slowly, were allowed to wander about the pasture ground of these wild cattle. Little by little the animals became accustomed to the sight of them and did not fly away when they approached. When some hundreds of cattle had thus been domesticated, they were taken farther away, where others were still in a wild state, and these in turn were easily reduced to the tameness of the first.

In batches of five hundred to a thousand, Luro was soon able to herd the cattle direct to the salting factories, where he sold them at 15, 20, 25, even 30 francs each. At the end of a year, he had thus secured no fewer than 35,000 head of cattle. He had made himself rich, and the proprietor of the estancia had received from him at one stroke 70,000 francs, which he had never expected, remaining enchanted with his transaction.

In 1862, Pedro Luro went still further afield, beyond Bahía Blanca, whose fort at that time constituted the frontier against the Indians. He was delayed for some time on the banks of the River Colorado, owing to the Indians having robbed him of his horses. Meanwhile, exploring the valley of the river, he quickly grasped the potentialities of the district. Returning to Buenos Ayres, he secured an interview with General Mitre, to whom he proposed to buy from the State 100 square leagues of land (250,000 hectáreas) at the rate of 1,000 francs per league, with a view to founding a colony of three hundred Basques in that region.

His scheme apparently approved by the President, he then set sail for Navarra Baja in Spain, where he recruited some fifty families, with whom he returned to the Argentine. But the Government, while agreeing to the sale of land, would not, for some unknown reason, permit the founding of the colony, so the Basques were spread over the land of their compatriot. Many of them, or their descendants, are to-day millionaires, while the land bought at the 1,000 francs the league is valued now at 200 francs the hectárea, or say 500,000 francs per league.

Meanwhile, Pedro Luro continued his active commerce in skins and wool. Ere long he had constructed the largest curing factory in all the basin of the River Plate, expending millions of francs on it. Then he set himself to the exploitation of the bathing station of Mar del Plata, which had been founded by Señor Peralta Ramos, one of the most fortunate of speculations, from which his heirs, continuing his work there, have benefited immensely. At his death he left to his fourteen children 375,000 hectáreas of land, 300,000 sheep, and 150,000 cattle, then valued at 40,000,000 francs.

Pedro Luro was a Frenchman who did honour to his country by his exceptional qualities, his spirited initiative, valour, endurance, and business intelligence. He took to the Argentine more than 2,000 of his fellow Basques, whom he employed in his many agricultural and industrial establishments, providing them with cattle, letting land to them cheaply, lending them money. Almost all of these have made their fortunes. With Luro disappeared one of those types that are almost legendary, and without doubt the most famous colonist of the epic period of Argentine immigration.

Here, then, is as fascinating a story as we shall find in the annals of colonisation, and so eminent in the life of the Argentine are the descendants of Pedro Luro to-day that the story of their origin and the achievements of their progenitor would form a splendid subject for some native writer, were not the Argentine authors too busy imitating European models to lend themselves to the simple narration of such splendid life-histories as the making of the Argentine presents. For the passage I have quoted from M. Huret is no more than the prelude to a romance which is likely yet to see its final issue in the founding of a great and prosperous town at the mouth of the River Colorado in the Bay of San Blas, southward of Bahía Blanca. The Luros are the lords of all the land in that region, and I recall the interest with which I read a series of somewhat highly coloured articles by Mr. A. G. Hales, the Anglo-Australian journalist, then attached to the staff of the Buenos Ayres Standard, who, in the latter part of 1912, made a journey on horseback through that district. He pictured the coming of a day when ships would sail from the city of San Blas laden with wines for the tables of European epicures, and no end of other wonders that would come to pass in the valley of the River Colorado, which fifty years ago the shrewd Pedro Luro had secured for his descendants at so small an outlay. At the present moment, there is no railway within 150 miles of San Blas, and I suppose there is no more than a paper plan of the future city, lying somewhere in the estate office of the Luros, and no ships cast anchor in its bay, but there was a time when Buenos Ayres itself, and not so many years ago Bahía Blanca, meant no more to the world than a name on a map, and who shall say what dreams may not come true?