“It is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish.”
CHAPTER V
ARGENTINE ALL-SORTS
Argentina, the Land of the Silver River, is, after Brazil, the next Republic in size in South America. It is the most progressive from a worldly point of view, and from a spiritual standpoint also it is going forward steadily.
This is not strange, seeing that the people who live in Central and Southern Argentina are mainly European, and British people have an enormous commercial and financial interest in that land; but nevertheless we cannot get away from the fact that this Land of the Silver River lacks in many places the streams of Living Water which God is so patiently waiting to flood through human channels to hundreds of girls and boys who do not know Him. We should really, therefore, take a very great interest in Argentina for more than one reason.
From Paraguay we will make a journey into Northern Argentina. Travelling through the sugar plantations, we finally reach San Pedro, where the sugar-crushing mills are at work, for it is harvest time and hundreds of Indians are employed cutting the cane.
Everything is in full swing, and dusky forms are flitting here, there, and everywhere, some cutting the cane with long knives, while the Indian women carry it away and lay it in heaps. Here, after the leaves and top ends are cut off, the cane is thrown into trucks, which are taken to the factory by a small engine drawing twelve or thirteen trucks. We will go and see how the cane goes in at one end and nice white sugar comes out at the other end. The sugar, after being sewn up in bags, is taken away in big, heavy carts, with high broad wheels.
At another sugar plantation 3000 Indians are employed. They come from Southern Bolivia and the Gran Chaco to work from three to five months among the sugar cane, and then return to their own country. There are several tribes, the most civilized being the Chiriguards from Bolivia, who are cleaner and more intelligent than the rest. There are the Tobas, another warlike tribe, who go about almost naked. They are dirty and savage looking. Also the Matacos, who are sadder looking than the rest.
The South American Missionary Society is endeavouring to reach these people in San Pedro and San Antonio. Mr R. J. Hunt says, of his second visit amongst the Indians in the Argentine Chaco:—