W. A. Hirst

“ But the streets and shoppers present a fine spectacle; the architecture of the buildings is sumptuous and the pavements are full of life; there are long rows of splendid equipages, and beautiful women, daintily attired and bejewelled, flit from shop to shop as in all other capitals, and the pride of wealth and luxury flaunts itself as bravely as in Paris or London. The keen, stimulating air gives vivacity to the inhabitants, the streets hum with gay chatter, and the unbroken prosperity of many years helps to maintain the general good-humour. ”

“ Far stretching plains of waving grasses, great expanses of marsh and swamp, league after league. No palaces and temples of hewn stone, like those of Peru and Mexico, met the eye here; no promise of gold in the fat alluvial soil; no cities where the arts were practised and treasure accumulated. Such Indians as there were differed vastly from the mild serfs of the Incas. Nomad savages were these; robust, stout, and hardy, elusive of pursuit and impossible of subjection in their wandering disunity. ”

“ The white-domed well, with its shady ombú-tree, still stands near the principal entrance to the courtyard, and the high palenque, the hitching-post for horses, still flanks the gateway, but the picturesque gaucho who goes loping over the plain, his lasso at his saddle-bow, his naked feet thrust into his big leather horseskin brogues, and his poncho fluttering in the breeze, is no longer the monarch of the pampa as he once was, for civilisation has touched even him. ”

“ For some mysterious reason every Englishman, whether at home or abroad, considers it necessary to boom German goods and German enterprise, and a suggestion that the Teuton has left a little trade to the Anglo-Saxon is received with polite incredulity. In their enthusiasm our countrymen are a little forgetful of facts and proportion, and they somehow manage to persuade themselves that Germany is an absolutely irresistible industrial force. ”

“ It extends from Cordoba to the Rios Negro or Colorado. In it are contained the great and growing towns, and from it these towns draw their prosperity. It is a country to delight the heart of the agriculturist. In many countries of South America the traveller passes through interminable jungles sparingly scattered with patches of cultivation where a few bony cattle scour for a livelihood. In the Pampa there is rich tilth and fine pasture; magnificent red and white beasts graze and fatten, standing knee-deep in the fresh grass, and sheep innumerable are raised. ”

“ But great as is the actual and potential wealth of the Argentine from its favoured soil, it is not that alone that has made its capital the greatest in South America, and has brought to the development of the Republic citizens and resources from all the progressive nations of the world. It is also as the main highway to the remote recesses of the vast continent that the Argentine region has appealed to the imaginations of men. ”

“ In a word, out of the contraband trade sprang one of the worst features of South America—lawlessness and turbulence. It is obvious that it also fostered an almost equally injurious spirit—the craving of office. It was easier and more profitable to take bribes from the smugglers than to engage actively in smuggling, and so the tradition has descended to prefer the certain emoluments (direct and indirect) of office to the uncertain gains of trade. In Spanish America it is better to be the nephew of a President than of a successful trader. ”