Mean Temperature.Maximum.Rainfall.
Ushwiya (Fuegia)4281120 inches
Bahia Blanca6010519 "
Buenos Aires6410034 "
San Luis6110324 "
Rosario6310140 "
Mendoza601006 "
San Juan651083 "
Cordoba6111126 "
La Rioja6710912 "
Catamarca6910910 "
Santiago del Estero7011319 "
Tucuman6810439 "
Salta6310923 "

On the whole, the climate of Buenos Aires is good, and does not interfere with the comfort or pursuits of a healthy and vigorous man. Its worst feature is the sonda, or north wind, which blows tempestuously chiefly in the winter, and causes rapid fluctuations in the temperature. The winds from the north are always considered unhealthy. In the summer the heat is greatly aggravated by the pamperos—the strong winds from the south-west. But the general climate of the country is dry and invigorating.

It will be noticed that the rainfall is scanty. Unfortunately, nearly all the valuable parts of Argentina have barely sufficient rain, and Mendoza is almost rainless. Irrigation, therefore, is largely used, and when it is extended over the south many millions of additional acres will be brought under the plough. Droughts are by far the most formidable foe of the agriculturist. The Gran Seco of 1827-1832, during which period scarcely any rain fell in the Pampa, destroyed all the vegetation down to the thistles, and caused enormous loss.[11] It is feared that the dry area is extending; but it is fortunate that the magnificent rivers of Argentina would suffice to irrigate every part of the country, and even arid Patagonia has perennial streams. In general, it may be said that the climate of Argentina is far from disagreeable, and highly favourable to health and work.

CHAPTER II
EARLIEST HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY

Scanty beyond all belief is our information about the people of the River Plate before the coming of the Spaniards. Mexico and Peru had goodly hoards of gold and silver, and were therefore objects of eager curiosity to the invaders whose chroniclers deigned to inquire into the traditions and mythology of their subjects; but the Silvery River—the Rio Plata—washed no treasure regions, and the settlements in that part of the continent were despised and neglected. Accordingly anthropologists have been obliged to work backwards; they can only infer the character of the prehistoric races by examining their descendants and such scanty traces as have survived from ancient days. And they are able to glean very little.

The European belief[12] in a western land beyond the Pillars of Hercules was deep-rooted in classical antiquity. Beginning with a vague legend of a wonderful world in the west, it hardened into a semi-scientific hypothesis. The pseudo-Aristotle[13] seems to have been the first to treat this subject in a practical manner. He says: "Popular speech divides our inhabited world into islands and continents, but it ignores the fact that the whole is but a single island surrounded by the sea named the Atlantic. It is probable that there are other lands far away, some of which are larger, some smaller, than the world we know." He conjectured that on the other side of the Atlantic there was a great Terra Australis corresponding to Africa. Strabo opined that it would be possible to make a westward voyage to India were it not for the immense extent of the Atlantic, and if circumstances had been favourable there would probably have been an early discovery of America. It is believed that the Carthaginians visited Madeira and the Canaries. But the two maritime nations, Greece and Carthage, fell before Rome, and the triumphs of Rome were on land. Roman poets and panegyrists often indulged in vague and magnificent predictions of nations both in the remotest East and the remotest West who should come under the sway of Rome, and Seneca's[14] language is particularly precise, but they found the ocean an insuperable barrier. With the downfall of the Empire and the influx of barbarians progress was checked, but it is certain that about a thousand years after the birth of Christ some hardy Norsemen reached Greenland, and it is even conjectured that they penetrated into North America. Then, in the later Middle Ages, as the trading spirit grew stronger and the demand for slaves increased, the Portuguese began to make voyages down the African coast. But discovery became no longer a mere profitable adventure, it was imperatively demanded as the salvation of Christendom from ruin, when the Turks obtained possession of Constantinople and the caravan routes. Unless the rich Indian trade could be continued, two-thirds of the wealth of Europe would be destroyed, and thus the work of discovery was stimulated. The Portuguese found an easy route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope; but the unsuccessful attempts to reach India by a western voyage brought even more fruit, and at last the great island in the Atlantic was discovered.

Anthropologists have found much difficulty in determining the origin of the various peoples who were found in the New World. The supposition now is that the human race migrated into the continent from Europe by way of Greenland and Labrador, and from Asia by way of the Behring Straits, and proof is afforded by the discovery in the Pampas of Argentina and many other places both of the long-headed Afro-European and the round-headed Asiatic skull. The Europeans were probably the first arrivals, and they appear early to have found their way into Argentina, whither they were afterwards followed by the Asiatics. It should be noticed that the whole primitive civilisation of South America was concentrated into a comparatively narrow strip of mountainous country between Chile and Colombia, but this imperfect civilisation probably came into existence in quite recent times.

The Spaniards themselves, doubtless relying on native, traditions, believed that the establishment of the Inca dominion was an event of no great antiquity.[15] But it appears certain that this itself was preceded by a civilisation of "white and bearded men" round about Lake Titicaca, and Prescott declines to hazard a conjecture as to the antiquity of South American civilisation. The long-headed race (its origin is uncertain) kept to the east, the round-headed (usually held to be Mongolian) kept to the west, and they met in Patagonia. However, some savants consider that all the American races are veritable aborigines and have no Asiatic or European origin, and although this theory seems hardly borne out by the little evidence we possess, there is no reason to question the belief of Ehrenreich and many others that the South American Indians have been so long isolated that they form a distinct type.

Evidence as to the date of their migration or the length of time they may have been settled in Argentina we have none, but there is a theory of considerable plausibility to the effect that there was a break in the continuity of the human race in South America. It has already been shown that the bones of huge extinct animals appear very frequently in Argentina; indeed, as Darwin remarks, "the whole area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre for these extinct animals." Now, mingled with them have often been found human bones and the tools and weapons of man in his pleistocene stage. Near Buenos Aires,[16] for example, a discovery was made of bones of the mastodon, machairodus, and other extinct animals, and together with them were mingled human bones and tools in stone and bone. These facts help to strengthen the hypothesis that at a remote period of antiquity there occurred some gigantic natural cataclysm which swept away alike man and the vast animals with which he lived in these regions. Little as we know about the origin of South American man we can, of course, classify the races which are known to exist in South America or which existed when the Spaniards appeared.[17] The aborigines may be divided into three great races—the Ando-Peruvian, the Pampean, and the Brasilio-Guaranian. The Ando-Peruvian has three branches, known as the Peruvian proper, the Antisian, and the Araucanian. The Pampean likewise has three branches—the Pampean proper, the Chiquitean, the Moxean; while the Brasilio-Guaranian has no ramifications. The Peruvians, who do not concern us here, include, of course, the whole of the Inca race. The Antisians are so called because they lived in the mountains east of Cuzco, which the Incas called Antis (hence Andes), and they now inhabit the hot and moist forest-lands of Bolivia and Peru. They are, and always have been, savages, with clear olive complexions and slight, somewhat effeminate figures. The Tacana is their most important tribe. The Araucanians (who include the Fuegians) are more important for our purpose, and are a very hardy race, who fought for hundreds of years on equal terms with the Spaniards and were finally subdued rather by the subtle blight of civilisation than by arms. A Frenchman[18] who visited the River Plate in the middle of the eighteenth century describes them in the following terms: "The Indians who inhabit this part of America, north and south of the river de la Plata, are of that race called by the Spaniards Indios bravos. They are middle-sized, very ugly, and afflicted with the itch. They are of a deep tawny colour, which they blacken still more by continually rubbing themselves with grease. They have no other dress than a great cloak of roe-deer skins hanging down to their heels, in which they wrap themselves up. These skins are very well dressed; they turn the hairy side inwards and paint the outside with various colours. The distinguishing mark of their cacique is a band or strap of leather, which is tied round his forehead; it is formed into a diadem or crown and adorned with plates of copper. Their arms are bows and arrows; and they likewise make use of nooses and of balls.... Sometimes they come in bodies of two or three hundred men, to carry off the cattle from the lands of the Spaniards or to attack the caravans of the travellers. They plunder and murder or carry them into slavery. This evil cannot be remedied; for how is it possible to conquer a nomadic nation in an immense uncultivated country, where it would be difficult even to find them? Besides, these Indians are brave and inured to hardships, and those times exist no longer when one Spaniard could put a thousand Indians to flight." D'Orbigny says that in character and religion the Araucanians have strong affinities to the Patagonians and Puelches, but physically they are very different, and they undoubtedly belong to the Peruvian or mountain race.