“That’s what comes of being a federal republic,” lamented don Roque. “The states at least have their own police system. We in the territories who have to depend on the Federal Government for our protection, are so far away from Buenos Aires that they forget all about us. There’s nothing for us to do but trust to our wits for our safety.”
“Yes, here we are, deserted you might say,” continued don Roque, “turning into savings! After all, this is nothing but Patagonia, and it is only a few years ago that anything like civilization began here at all. Meanwhile the rest of the Argentine has forged ahead at a breathless pace in less than half a century.... Pucha! It’s worth seeing just the same!”
And for the moment they forgot their immediate worries, while they talked of that part of their country which had progressed with such dizzying rapidity within their lifetimes. But don Roque had a jealous enthusiasm for Patagonia also.
“Desert though it is at this moment, you’ll see it bloom yet, and in a short time from now, too, when this soil begins to get water. And it’s lucky for us that this land has such an ugly face.... If it hadn’t it would have been stolen from us long ago!”
Wound up by his own words he went on to tell how he had read in a magazine about that gringo Charles Darwin, the same who had discovered how we had all come from monkeys. He, too, it seemed, had wandered around these parts, when, as a youth, he had landed at Bahia Blanca, arriving there in a British frigate in which he was making a tour of the world. He had taken it into his head to study the plants and animals of the region, not an arduous task because there were so few specimens of either. Finally, in despair, he gave up his search for new flora and went away, leaving to this arid plateau the name “Land of Desolation.”
“That was doing us a favor, if the gringo but knew it! Just as soon as people learn what this country is like when it’s irrigated, the English are sure to take it from us! Didn’t they take our Islas Malvinas, that they now call Fauckland Islands?”
Rojas too began to talk of past times, lamenting the fact that his forebears had not been able to see where the true riches of the country lay. It had been their misfortune to become well-to-do before the generation of great and rapid fortune-making in the Argentine.
It was in 1870 that the government at Buenos Aires, growing weary of having the Indians, still in a state of savagery, at its very gates, completed the work of the Conquistadores, by sending a military expedition out to the desert to take possession of twenty thousand leagues of land, practically all that was capable of cultivation.
“The government sold that land for 1500 pesos. The league and the peso in those days was worth only a few centavos. More than that, it allowed several years’ time for payment, and even printed the names of purchasers in the official newspaper, declaring them ‘well-deserving of the country’. The soldiers who had taken part in the expedition also received land as a reward for their services. It wasn’t long before they sold the titles to their acres to the store-keepers in exchange for gin, and canned food. And these are the lands that now supply wheat and beef to half the world! On them have arisen numberless villages and towns. Today a league of land, which once cost a few cents, is worth millions. The owners of all this property have no other merit than that they kept their land, without cultivating it, and with no wish to sell it, waiting for the European immigration which would give it its value. My grandfather was already rich in those days and owned a big ranch. He didn’t want to buy any of the new property. If he had only known!”
Rojas at the moment was quite forgetful of how he had squandered the better part of his inheritance; the thought of the enormous fortune his family might have amassed had it been willing to take advantage of an opportunity provided by the rapid expansion of the country, and seized by so many others, fascinated and tormented him.