I remember very well on our taking the river steamer from Montevideo for the night journey to Buenos Ayres, after transshipping from the ocean liner, that an Anglo-South-American, who had been a fellow voyager, said it would be amusing to watch the demeanour of the Argentines on board, as we should be able to distinguish them from the general mass by their swaggering walk, their bumptious manners, and sartorial affectations. And that evening, while the passengers were thronging aboard, it did seem as though he spoke truth, so many answered to his description; evidently all of them Argentines returning to Buenos Ayres at the close of the Montevidean season.
These fellows strutted about the saloon and paraded the deck of the steamer with a splendid air of proprietorship, while the grossly offensive manner of the stewards, who treated the passengers with a lofty contempt, and a calm indifference to their wants, gave one an extremely bad first impression of Argentine manners. Nevertheless this was no true sample. The traveller who allows such evidences as these to prejudice him against a whole people is hardly a trained observer. If a foreigner were to judge the British people by many of the specimens I have myself encountered abroad, he would draw an extremely unflattering picture of them as a nation. Swagger there is and to spare, among the Argentines, and boastfulness of their national progress is only to be expected in a young people whose international experience is still far from complete, but that these are essentials of the Argentine spirit, I would have no one believe.
Truer would it be to say that the spirit of the Argentine—that intangible something which permeates a whole people and marks them off from others—can best be discovered in walking about the streets, mingling with the throng, listening to the casual remarks of passers-by. You will notice, not once or twice, but scores of times in any day—that is, if you notice anything—the curious habit of men in conversation rubbing together the forefinger and thumb of the right hand. This is expressive of money. One of the curiosities of the Spanish language is the extraordinary amount of gesture which usually goes with it; people commonly, when referring to themselves, tap the breast to emphasise the personal pronoun; when speaking of having seen something, they will point to the eyes, or to the mouth, if they wish to convey some notion either of speech or silence. In the same way, the Argentine seldom mentions plata (money) without this rubbing of the forefinger and thumb, suggestive remotely; suppose, of the counting out of coins. He who christened the Rio de la Plata made a happier hit than he could have suspected, for plata lies close to the heart of every citizen of Buenos Ayres, and you have never to listen many minutes to a casual conversation in the street without hearing mention of it. “He has given so many pesos per yard for the land.” “Fancy selling it for a thousand pesos and having bought it only eighteen months ago at three hundred and fifty!” “He has lots of money—tiene mucha plata.” “He is asking too much money.” “I have offered so many pesos.” These, and such phrases, one overhears at every turn, and might well suppose that the spirit of the country was exclusively associated with the getting of money.
Still would that be a wrong conclusion, just as I believe it would be unfair to the country as a whole to judge of it by the sham and shoddy of Buenos Ayres and its great cities, or by the primitive and low social conditions of the smaller towns. We must look elsewhere for that “spirit” of which we are in search. The Jockey Club will not help us. No, it will tend rather to confirm the impression of the peacocketing passengers on board the river steamer. Congreso itself will help but little. There we shall find the “grafter,” the place seeker, the dishonest politician, just as eminently successful as in the United States, and who would allow that the real spirit of the United States disengaged itself in Congress or from the political groups at Washington?
Again, a friend of mine, having important business with the municipality of a provincial town, had to call upon the intendente with reference to the signing of certain documents, which formality was only possible after the mayor’s secretary had pocketed several hundred pounds of backsheesh, and the mayor himself had named his price for his signature. The intendente’s daughter, a young woman of seventeen years of age, singularly handsome, happened to be in the room at the beginning of the interview, and my friend may have looked upon her with some evidence of admiration, for when she left her father remarked to him:
“Fine little girl, my Manuelita, eh? She’ll make good meat for the beasts!”
On a later visit in connection with the same undertaking, the daughter was not present, but the accommodating mayor blandly asked my friend if he would care to see his little daughter, as he rather thought he admired her,—a fatherly suggestion which was respectfully declined.
This is typical of many instances I can give (the drift of which needs no indication), and still I do not wish to quote it or them as eminently characteristic of the spirit of the country.
No more do I wish to maintain that the secretary of the said mayor, a quite humble functionary with an official salary of $150 a month, who lives at the rate of nearly $15,000 a year and is understood to be growing wealthy (having a brother a judge, he can secure for any one a favourable verdict for a definite fee, even to acquittal for murder!) is a gentleman in whom the spirit of the country shines radiantly. Many such as he there are growing rich by foulest methods of corruption, polluting justice and public life by their every action, yet without losing the esteem of their fellow citizens.