Dancing, masqued balls, and gaieties of all kinds are, of course, extremely popular, and for the ordinary evening entertainment the cinematograph seems to hold the field almost without a rival. In up-country towns the larger cafés have fine cinematographs, which are viewed free by all who pay for refreshments, and the most exciting adventures are portrayed with wonderful vividness. In Mendoza the enthusiasm is so great that some cafés, which have insufficient accommodation for the plant, stretch a sheet across the principal thoroughfare, and, arranging chairs and tables in front, invite their patrons to see the show. This practice of bringing the show to the spectators to be viewed at their leisure and in comfort certainly appears more reasonable than ours, which is to drive people to uncomfortable music-halls and deny to the public-house, the proper place for recreation and refreshment, all attractions except such as are alcoholic.
It is probable that the life in country towns is somewhat dull. A horse can be bought and kept fairly cheaply and, in general, the country affords good riding, but there is little shooting or hunting. Every considerable town has a nice Club and the English members are numerous, coming in every evening to drink a whiskey-peg after tennis in Anglo-Indian fashion; but there must be considerable lack of variety. It would be desirable for Provincial Governments or private individuals to encourage rational diversions, for, as before remarked, the tendency to concentrate in Buenos Aires is dangerous. Besides physical exercises, such institutions as literary societies, debating clubs, lectures, and the like would be very salutary, both from the valuable training they afford and the opportunity for foreigners and natives to mix together for their common advantage.
RACECOURSE, LA PLATA.
It is difficult to avoid feeling that among the English who live in Argentina there is a good deal of discontent. While admiring the country they do not seem very fond of it, and although their relations with the people are friendly, they do not appear to live on such terms of intimacy with them as is the case in Chile, for example. There is probably danger of materialistic views of life growing up; the Argentine is so busy in laying up treasure that he has little time for amassing more important possessions. An Englishman at Mendoza remarked: "These people have nothing to talk about; it's all uva, uva" (grape, which is the staple industry of Mendoza). The fact is that in a new country the population is too small for the manifold interests that are required to make up a rich national life. In some new countries they elect to lounge and eschew all hard work and, in certain cases, the people, though indolent, are cultivated. In Argentina the people are hard workers, but they have neglected the spiritual side of life. At Buenos Aires a beginning is being made to enlarge the circle of interests, and it would be well if humanising efforts were made at all provincial centres.
As happens in all money-making countries, there are many examples of the acquisition of wealth to an amount out of all proportion to the owner's capacity for using it. Some rich Argentines buy palaces and convert them into pigstyes, and at pretentious restaurants it is common to see persons who in appearance and manners are altogether unsuited to their surroundings. On the other hand, the class of rich and refined men, with whom luxury loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is rapidly increasing, and when time has been found for intellectual culture it will, no doubt, make great advances. Those who have had the privilege of being admitted into Argentine families will bear testimony to their refinement and kindliness.
There is also the life of the Pampa, of which the principal feature is the Gaucho.[81] This picturesque person has probably more Indian than Spanish blood in his veins, but he is a staunch son of Argentina and supplies his country with excellent cavalry. With a complexion of a light coffee colour, wearing a soft hat, a blanket slit to admit his head, white breeches, and brightly coloured shoes, he has been called by a French writer the Gascon of South America. He will not work in the cities or cultivate the land; he is a horseman and stock-rider. His favourite food is carne cum cuero—meat cooked with the hide—and his delight is in that life of the open plain under the open sky, of which Darwin felt the charm. He, indeed, has given an excellent description of the Gaucho. The Gaucho has played an important part in the building up of Argentina, though he himself cares little for politics and constitutions. Before the Revolution he created the cattle industry, which has always been a main source of wealth to the country, and in the revolutionary wars he shared in the triumphs of the Creoles. Though rather too fond of brawling and gambling, he belongs to that singularly attractive type which is being rapidly pushed into the background with the growth of town industries. He has his own rude poetry and loves to sing his Pampa ballads to the accompaniment of the guitar. He seems to have absorbed the poetry of his surroundings, as was occasionally the case with Australian stock-riders, and in the Pampa the payador—a kind of troubador—is held in great honour. He figures at the fêtes as an improviser, and he and his fellows are, in approved Sicilian fashion, "cantare pares et respondere parati." Many of the ballads are, of course, unwritten, but some payadors leave the Pampas and become authors, and thus a certain number of the wild songs have been translated into print, but it can hardly be said that the cultured payadors have been as successful in their work as Sir Walter Scott was with Border minstrelsy. José Hernandez long ago published an interesting little collection of this kind—"El Gaucho Martin Fierro."
