A VISIT TO THE NITRATE FIELDS
In the early part of that same year I had joined the Board of Directors of the Leonor Nitrate Company, and as I was anxious to make myself familiar with the manufacture of Nitrate, at the end of 1907 I accompanied a very old friend of mine, Mr. Reginald Morris, to Chile, for a trip to the Nitrate Fields. Reggie Morris was on the Board of a number of Nitrate Companies and Chairman of the Leonor, and had been out on business to Chile before, so my excursion was made under the most favourable auspices. We started from Southampton on a fine ship, the s.s. Avon, belonging to the Royal Mail Steamship Company, and, after coming in for a very heavy gale in the Bay, arriving successively at Vigo and Lisbon to pick up some 400 emigrants, proceeded on our journey, calling at Madeira, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro on our way,—almost the same route that I had already gone by under sail, the first time I went to sea in the old training frigate, Bristol, some thirty-six years before.
There were a number of Argentine passengers on board, most of whom, (as they adore Paris), we had picked up at Cherbourg, where the ship stayed for a few hours after leaving Southampton.
Nothing of the smallest interest happened on our journey out; the only salient fact that remains in my memory is, that I came to the conclusion that Argentine children, with which the ship swarmed, were the most unruly and badly-brought-up specimens I had ever come across. They made day and night hideous with their noise; their parents and governesses could not exert even the smallest control over them, and I solemnly wished that there had been a new Herod on board to massacre these “innocents.” I just had sufficient knowledge of Spanish to recognise “swear words,” and the language used to the stewards and servants by these afore-mentioned “innocents” would have shocked any of the topmen of my sailing-ship days.
About the middle of the month we arrived at Rio, and were two full days there, so we left the ship and spent the night at a delightful hotel high up the Corcavado Mountains, which is reached by its own little funicular railway. It was midsummer in South America, and I shall never forget the gorgeous views over the harbour from this mountain hotel. It happened to be full moon at the time, so we and our fellow-passengers strolled about in the garden for hours after dinner, quite unable to go to bed, so beautiful was the scene. By the vivid light of a full tropical moon the whole of that wonderful panorama that is Rio Harbour was plainly visible in every detail; indeed so vivid was the moonlight that it was almost possible to see colour in the hibiscus that grew like weeds in the garden of the hotel. The next day we had a long morning drive in a most up-to-date motor-car that had been lent to us by Mr. Sheppard, which took us for miles on fine roads bordered by that tropical vegetation that is perhaps more gorgeous at Rio than almost anywhere.
The mention of our drive in Mr. Sheppard’s car reminds me that that gentleman, who is so well known in South America as being, amongst other things, Managing Director of perhaps the most successful industry outside the United Kingdom, was a sort of “Fairy Godmother” to us during our stay at Rio. He met us when we arrived, provided us with motors and steam-launches, entertained us most hospitably, and finally put us on board and saw us off.
By the 25th of November we were comfortably lodged at a very good hotel in Buenos Ayres, where we had to wait until the train,—which in those days, I think, only ran twice a week as an express,—could take us on our way to the frontier.
We were most hospitably received by the Argentine gentlemen for whom we had letters, and were made honorary members of the Jockey Club, a palatial residence about twice the size of Stafford House. Things are done on a large scale in the Argentine. I discovered that the entrance fee for members of the Club was £300! One of our hosts was a charming man—Don Carlos Tompkinson, a descendant on one side of that well-known old Cheshire family. He himself was a great racing man, and to my delight made arrangements for us to go out to luncheon at M. Correa’s stud farm, a few miles outside the Capital. M. Correa was the gentleman who had purchased the King’s horse, Diamond Jubilee, for £30,000, a year or two before. His stud farm was an enormous establishment, and, in addition to Diamond Jubilee, there were two other very high-class stallions standing there, one of them being that good French horse, le Sancy. To show the scale that M. Correa’s horse-breeding was done on, I happened to say to him that £30,000 was a high price, but I supposed that so many subscriptions would be taken to Diamond Jubilee that no doubt the horse would be a paying asset, when, to my surprise, he told me that he took no subscription, and that his three horses were never mated except with his own mares, of which he owned the best part of a hundred.
A few days elapsed and we were in the train that crosses the great Argentine plain that reaches to Mendoza, a fair-sized town at the base of the Andes. At Mendoza we changed to the funicular railway, that in those days only reached as far as Los Quevas, where we found the work on the Transandine Tunnel in full blast. The tunnel has long since been completed, and the line now runs through it direct to the Capital, Santiago de Chile.