The first information which the traveller seeks is, naturally, how to get to Buenos Aires, and though such information is very accessible, it seldom seems to come his way, for not uncommonly persons are found who appear to have no idea that there is any route except that which they hit on by chance, and if in the course of the journey any change becomes necessary, they usually have considerable difficulty in discovering the means of making the change. Of course any agent will furnish a number of particulars, and any given line will give the fullest information about itself. The ocean voyage is not made as quickly as it might be, for the liners proceed first to Brazil and call at one or two ports, and there are also several stops made in Europe and the islands. The best thing to do is to take one of the fine vessels of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company from Liverpool. The boats call at La Pallice—La Rochelle, Corunna, Vigo, Leixoes (Oporto), Lisbon, St. Vincent, Rio de Janeiro. The only drawback is that the vessels do not go to Buenos Aires, but stop at Montevideo; however, the passengers are speedily transhipped, and the whole voyage lasts about twenty-four days. In comfort and safety the service reaches the highest possible standards, and the traveller can, if he wishes, continue his voyage southward and proceed up the Pacific Coast as far as Panama; this is a charming trip, for the Pacific is usually smooth, and some of the very best boats engage in the coasting service. There are many other English lines—the Royal Mail Steam Packet, Southampton to Buenos Aires, the Lamport and Holt from Liverpool, the Harrison Line, Houlder Bros., the Houston Line, the Allan, the Nelson, the David MacIver, all from Liverpool, the Prince Line from London. The New Zealand Shipping Company's boats, on the homeward voyage only, call at Montevideo.
PACKET STEAM NAVIGATION CO.'S ORCOMA.
There are many foreign lines. France is represented by the famous Messageries from Bordeaux, and also by the Soc. Genérale de Transports from Genoa, Marseilles, and Barcelona, and the Chargeurs Réunis from Havre. The Italian boats from Genoa and Barcelona are very numerous. A Spanish line, the Cia Transatlantica de Barcelona, plies between the latter port and Buenos Aires. Germany has the Hamburg-American, the Norddeutscher Lloyd, and the Kosmos. There is also a Dutch line. The Italian boats are large, well-fitted, and fast. If time were an important object, probably the quickest way would be to take an Italian boat to Barcelona, whence London is rapidly reached by rail, but though there is a good accommodation, both British and foreign, it is safe to say that the P.S.N. Co. will be found the most satisfactory.
The traveller ought to carry with him everything he needs, and his needs should be few, because luggage is a great trouble. Unlike some South American lines, the railway companies in Argentina are responsible in that respect, but porters and others are exorbitant, and a piece of luggage rapidly devours its own value in transport charges. Exactly the same clothing should be taken as in England, and ordinary riding kit should be added, also a soft hat, as affording a better protection against the sun than a hard felt or cap. Revolvers or other weapons are unnecessary; indeed nothing is required but what is constantly used at home.
Banks are to be found everywhere, so there is no difficulty about money. The Argentine dollar, which is in universal use, is worth about 1s. 9d.
The hotels at Buenos Aires, as has been said, are not remarkably good, and they are certainly expensive. All are noisy, for the trams run early and late, and a very high price has to be paid for good rooms. But any one who is prepared to pay handsomely can make himself very comfortable. As regards up-country hotels, it is not possible to give a favourable account. At Rosario there are several good-sized houses of entertainment, but they have no particular merit, except that they are cheaper than in the capital. In this rapidly expanding city a very large hotel is being built, which will certainly supply a long-felt want, and doubtless it will be much superior to anything at present to be found at Rosario. At Mendoza there is a large hotel of very handsome appearance, but probably the best accommodation there is to be afforded by a hotel kept by a genial old Frenchman, who has almost abandoned the Parisian in favour of the tongue of Castile. The courtyard, dotted with fruit-trees, and the low buildings with their screened doors, are strongly reminiscent of an Indian up-country hotel. Hotels in other provincial towns are by no means good. It is from the cooking that the traveller will chiefly suffer, for there is usually little to complain of on the score of cleanliness, and the rooms are large, though bare. The Argentine has a good appetite, but he appears to be content to satisfy it chiefly with meat, and this is more often tough than not. The menu contains an imposing array of dishes, which are served without stint, but they are almost all beef, mutton, or veal in some form or other, and this diet, moderate in quality and cooked without art, is extremely monotonous. The light wines of the country are a valuable help in getting through these indigestible meals, and the white wine is particularly good. The peaches, grapes, and other fruits are of excellent quality, but they are not always easy to obtain.
As regards travelling in Argentina, the traveller will find no difficulty as long as he keeps to the railway lines, which give a splendid service to almost every part of the country except Patagonia. When the railway fails, he will of course have to make his own arrangements for horses and mules and the like. An extremely useful work is the fifth edition of the Mulhalls' "Handbook of the River Plate." A new edition of this book is urgently needed,[158] for the last appeared in 1885, and the extremely full statistical information is quite out of date, and travelling in the country, which the handbook well describes, is much easier than it was in those days. But the writers draw up with great care a number of interesting routes, and the traveller, using them as a foundation, can easily bring the information up to date, and will find an interesting study in noting the wonderful changes which have come over Argentina in exactly a quarter of a century. In the bibliography an attempt has been made to enumerate the important books on the whole subject, and that of Captain Musters on Patagonia may be recommended. A great many wanderers in the early part of the nineteenth century have left highly interesting accounts of their adventurous travels. In those days ferocious Indians, who massacred every small party of white men at sight, revolutionary soldiers, and cruel bandits added greatly to the dangers of such excursions, and a journey across the Pampas was looked upon as almost equivalent to taking leave of the world. A young gentleman in the first edition of his book remarks with gentle melancholy that, being disappointed in his hopes of happiness by a "beloved female," he had decided to travel in the Plate district. His editorial friend appends a note that the gentleman had been last heard of in a remote part of Chile many years ago, and was believed to have perished. However, the traveller happily returned and published a second edition or work in which he accounted for his long silence by a series of hardships, among which a lengthy term of imprisonment was only one item. Among these books that of Head is one of the most entertaining, but Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle," must be held to be probably the best work ever published on Argentina, and he observed the country at a most interesting period. Adventures would be hard to find nowadays in the Pampas, but the greater part of Patagonia is as wild and inaccessible as ever, and in many regions of the Gran Chaco the explorer carries his life in his hands owing to the fierce disposition of the Indians.
Indeed, about Argentina as usually visited by Europeans everything is so simple in the matter of getting there and travelling north, south, or west, that there is very little to say, and no more special information is required than in a journey to the United States. But the pioneer still has ample scope in Argentina without crossing the frontier. The impenetrable forests of the north have formed a rich field of exploration for Mr. W. S. Barclay, of the Royal Geographical Society, and there and in the neighbouring wilds of Paraguay the primitive ravage still wanders. "In 1893," says Mr. Barclay,[159] "a party of 700 native-born Australians took up land in the forests of northern Paraguay. In these new surroundings they deteriorated to such an extent that in 1905 the remnants of the original settlers, with their few descendants, attracted the serious attention of the South American Mission, whose ordinary field of work lies among the Indian aborigines of the Chaco. In the tropic forest a man's moral and mental horizon appears to shrink in direct proportion to the range of his physical vision. No aborigines yet discovered, not even the canoe-dwellers round Cape Horn or the black-fellows of Australia, have sunk to the brutish degradation of the Bootcudo club Indians, who smash their trails through the bamboo-smothered forests at the back of Parana and Sao Paulo states." In fact, from Colombia to Entre Rios there lies a tract which will hardly be fully explored, certainly not settled, by the end of the century. Again there are vast fields in the Andes and Patagonia of which many explorers have taken advantage, but considering their importance, due to their being the actual territory or borderland of two great and flourishing Republics, the mountains and plains of the south may be considered to have been neglected.