The Central Argentine is an English company, and thus our traders have a great advantage in Argentina, as the English railways naturally buy engines and stores from home. The Rosario workshop turns out carriages and effects every kind of repair, but the locomotives are imported. An engine made at Hunslet in 1875 is still doing good work, whereas American engines go to the scrap-heap in three years. Those of Kitson, of Leeds, are of everlasting wear, and much of the work of Byer, Peacock, Manchester, and of George Stephenson, Darlington, is to be seen at Rosario. Some of the engines and machinery at the forge are American, but Butler and Co., of Halifax, are prominent. Of the carriages some come from Milwaukee, some from Birmingham, but now a very large proportion is made in the workshops. Most of the workmen appear to be Spaniards or Italians, but in better positions Irishmen are numerous; in fact, on St. Patrick's Day hotel accommodation can hardly be obtained at Rosario, and the Irish and Scotch language is spoken with perfect purity by men who have never been outside the boundaries of the Republic.
CALLE CORDOBA, ROSARIO.
In another place an account will be given of the Central Argentine Railway, and the other lines by which the town is well served, but it may here be mentioned that the English company, like its rival lines in the country, has been doing its utmost to develop the district with which it is concerned, and a considerable part of the port accommodation is due to its enterprise. It has constructed a wharf which can contain five large steamers in single line, and owns more than a mile and a half of river-front in a convenient position for shipping grain. Besides this the Company possesses the port of Villa Constitucion, 32 miles from Rosario, and it is being rapidly developed. In 1907 this port was entered by British ships with a tonnage of 80,457, and German with a tonnage of 15,838. Much of the prosperity of Rosario—and its advance is very rapid—is due to its excellent railways. The town has every natural advantage and possesses an industrious and enterprising community which would be one of the most favoured in the world if its government were better.
Santa Fé, the capital of the Province, is a comparatively insignificant town with about thirty thousand inhabitants. It is an old place, dating from 1573, and thus is really more ancient than Buenos Aires. Padre Pedro Lozano[146] states: "Garay founded the city of Santa Fé upon a delightful plain and by the same river,[147] three leagues from the Parana. This port afforded admirable shelter to vessels of all kinds and the soil was extremely fertile, rendering with bounteous increase all the seeds entrusted to it. There was abundance of game and fish and there was a large population round about consisting of many nationalities and of widely different languages, but these tribes are now quite extinct, and a genuine Indian of the country is hardly ever to be seen in these days. The latitude of this city was originally 31°, but owing to inconveniences for land trade which afterwards manifested themselves, and to the unfriendly attitude of the heathen, the site was shifted in the year 1660 to a more convenient position on the river Salado, and three leagues distant from the great river Parana. The latitude of the new site was 31° 58´ and its longitude 47°."
Santa Fé is the seat of a Bishop and possesses a Jesuit Church and College, which dates back to 1654. Sixty years ago a traveller described it as a pleasant town with fifteen thousand inhabitants, and the population seems to have increased very little until quite recent years, for it has never had any prominent industries[148] and must always be greatly inferior to Rosario, although the older city is the capital. Like Head at Mendoza, the observer was struck by the practice of promiscuous river-bathing. He thus describes the town[149]: "The city occupies a large space of ground; for, like all the towns in this country, a considerable portion is planted as fruit gardens. The houses are either flat-roofed, or covered with tiles, and only one storey in height. A majority of them were built without any provision for glass windows; the light and air being admitted only through apertures fitted with an open framework of wood, having strong shutters inside; neither are there fireplaces in the houses. There are four large churches, one of which, built in 1834, is remarkable for its solidity and fine proportions. It consists of a nave and aisles, separated by square pillars supporting arches; light is admitted from the windows of a clerestory. It contains a beautiful baptismal font of silver, with four richly carved holy-water fonts. The high altar is in the Gothic style, and enriched with gilding."
As remarked before, Santa Fé is not a city of remarkable prosperity. The building of small river craft is an industry of some importance, but the main occupation of its inhabitants is the export of quebracho wood. In 1907 the shipments were 174,126 tons. The river here gives considerable trouble and requires constant dredging, but a new port is rapidly approaching completion, when it will be possible for vessels with a draught of 20 feet to enter.
The great river country to the north is full of interest, but reference can only be made to one subject—the famous Falls of Iguazu. These Falls were known and described by Padre Lozano, but political troubles and the general backwardness of the north after the expulsion of the Jesuits caused them to be forgotten. Now the Government is alive to the possibilities of using them as a great national "lion," and a commission some years ago was appointed to survey the route and make it more accessible. As yet not much has been done in that direction, but the journey to and from Buenos Aires can be made in less than a fortnight, and a rest-house has been provided. The traveller starts from Buenos Aires in a steamboat and proceeds up the Plate and Uruguay Rivers to Concordia. There he leaves the river and takes train to Corrientes, where he re-embarks in a steamer, and, passing up the Rio Alta Parana to Posadas, makes his way far north to the confines of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, where the Falls are. The Rio Iguazu joins the Parana at the place of disembarkation, and there is a long ride through the forest to the Falls. Twelve miles from the junction with the Parana there is a sudden bend, and the river makes its mighty leap of 210 feet. These are the Brazilian Falls, but lower down there are two other magnificent cascades, each of 100 feet, which fall into a narrow gorge. These are the Argentine Falls and are about 10,000 feet distant from the Brazilian. At the highest point the width of the river is 3,000 feet, but the gorge into which the magnificent columns of water finally discharge themselves is no more than 400 feet wide, and the volume of the discharge is greatly increased in the rainy season. The spectacle is no less magnificent than that of Niagara. As a mere discharge of water in a single sheet the North American fall is more impressive, but the beauty of the Argentine scene is enhanced by the luxuriant forests, and the long-drawn-out course of the foaming stream amid its sylvan scenery is unmatched.
Some day, no doubt, there will be a fashionable watering-place within the sound of the roaring waters, with great hotels and a casino, but now the Falls are, like all the rest of the vast region, an almost unknown place. The great rivers offer the finest waterway, and nothing is required but men and energy to make this borderland a country of fabulous wealth.