“A SOMNOLENT ATMOSPHERE SEEMS TO PREVAIL”
The first impression upon the visitor is very peculiar, for a somnolent atmosphere seems to prevail. As one emerges from the station two broad thoroughfares open up before him. These broad streets, which are still designated by numbers, with their extensive sweep of carriageway, were designed to resound to the hoofs of horses and the noise of wheels; their broad pavements were intended to ring with the tramp of multitudinous feet—but they do not. The founders of La Plata reckoned without their host. One may gaze down the entire length of a street and not see a single figure; one might stroll through any of the little parks set out with trees and palms and find every bench unoccupied. The vast white palaces are practically empty. Occasionally one will see an electric car sweep leisurely around the corner, or a cabman lazily waiting for a “fare,” but the car does not hurry and the cab driver does not worry over his inactivity. One wonders where the inhabitants are. The fact is that the few who do live here fill so little of the space that they are seldom seen. It has never succeeded in becoming a residential city in spite of the beauty of the parks, the low rentals and other advantages. The grass is abundant everywhere. In fact some people are so unfeeling as to assert that the green grass grows all round, round, round, as the song has it. As it is, the green tufts thrust themselves upward in many places through the pavements and around the rough cobble-stones of the driveways. In some of the suburban streets a little more grass would make a solid lawn. It sprouts from crevices of neglected walls and roofs, and even from the uncompleted walls of the great cathedral, which lies in neglect. This structure, great in plan, is oppressively desolate in its abandonment and the silence that broods over it. The sparrows build their nests within its yawning walls and are undisturbed, and one wonders how long such a condition will remain.
THE LEGISLATIVE PALACE, LA PLATA
Magnificent buildings have been built and are in use. The Government Palace is a beautiful building set facing a great and imposing plaza. The Legislative Palace, Municipal Building, Law Courts, Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires and other palaces are all splendid buildings, worthy the capital of one of our own states. In them some life is visible, and one will find a number of clerks busy over the books in which the records of the provincial business are kept. The officials prefer to live in Buenos Aires and make the trip back and forth each day, spending only a few hours in La Plata. A university, one of three in the republic, has been built with beautiful buildings adapted to its purposes, and a number of students are enrolled on its roster. There is a beautiful park with a fine zoological garden where the roar of the lion and the trumpet of the elephant disturb the silence of the groves. It contains one of the finest avenues of trees that I have ever seen. In the centre of this park has been built a large museum, which is a treasure-house of curios of the native tribes of South America. When the public offices close after five or six hours of opened doors, and the evening train pulls out for Buenos Aires, La Plata sinks into repose until another day breaks.
There was a time when La Plata was a livelier place. The docks at Enseñada were much used before the new docks were constructed at the larger capital. Now the great boats, flying the flags of Great Britain, France and Germany, steam majestically by this sleepy port and unload their passengers and freight at Argentina’s metropolis. Nevertheless this city with its palatial buildings and broad streets, overspread with silent gloom, is still the official capital of a province. There are those who say that La Plata is only sleeping, merely in a state of coma from which it will emerge one day and surprise the world with its great and wonderful doings. Perhaps—maybe; that is for the future to decide. If it has a great future it probably lies in the docks at Enseñada, although a large slaughtering house has recently been built here by an American firm. At the present time it is enjoying a prolonged siesta from which nothing seems to awaken it. Built for a hundred thousand people there are not more than half of that number that live there.
The province of Buenos Aires is the richest and most populous province in Argentina. Including the federal capital, it contains one-third of the entire population. On several occasions this province seriously considered secession from the rest of the republic—but that was before it lost the metropolis. In area it is more than twice the size of Illinois, and resembles that state very much in its physical characteristics. It contains a number of towns of fair size, and a trip across the province to Bahia Blanca, about three hundred miles distant, is a very interesting journey.
There are two or three different routes, but the most interesting one is that via Tandil. Passing out through the English suburb of Temperly, the main line heads out for the level pampa with scarcely a turn for mile after mile. The fields are thickly dotted with cattle and sheep, for this is one of the best stock countries in the republic. Although a number of small stations are passed it is not until Dolores is reached, after a run of more than a hundred miles, that there is a town of any size. This is a city of probably eight thousand, with the usual plaza and church of the Camp towns, and is a junction point for several branches of the Great Southern. It is the seat of the courts of justice for the southern portion of the province, and has a prison of considerable size. At Maipu is the branch for Mar del Plata, the seaside resort, but the main line turns westward. This passes through a fine pastoral district where Scotch landowners are very numerous and prosperous. Soon afterwards the railroad enters the only transverse range of hills in Argentina, some of the peaks of which reach an elevation of from three to four thousand feet and furnish a pleasing variation to the monotony of the horizontal landscape. Tandil, which is distant from Buenos Aires more than two hundred miles, is picturesquely located among these hills and has a population of several thousand. About three miles from the town is the famous rocking stone, which is an irregular flattened cone about thirteen feet in height and sixteen feet in diameter at its base, and is so beautifully poised on the edge of a slope that it sometimes moves even in a slight breeze. And yet the combined strength of several teams of horses has been unable to move it from its base. There are many other picturesque spots and curiosities in this neighbourhood, and there is a very pretty waterfall formed by a stream which comes down among the hills. Juarez and Tres Arroyos are the only other towns of any importance until the thriving new port of Bahia Blanca is reached, at the mouth of the Naportá Grande.
PUERTO GALVAN, BAHIA BLANCA