Tucumán

“ In this busy season of the Argentine autumn and winter Tucumán province is a hive of activity. Thousands of workmen of many races are scattered among the horseman-high plants which stretch to the horizon in every direction, slashing off the canes at the ground, clearing them of leaves and useless top with a few quick swings of the machete, and tossing them with graceful easy gesture upon piles often several meters away. ”

“ Buildings of the Colonial period still exist in Tucumán and its outskirts, but the dominant tendency is towards modernity in architecture and all else. The City is picturesquely situated in a valley among hills which appear to surround it and give it a curious appearance of having, with its Casino, brilliantly lit avenues and gardens and its luxuriant vegetation, sprung into existence as a scene on some vast stage. ”

“ I strain my eyes to discern some features of the country: a dismantled forest is dying in the dust; some lean cattle are grazing, on clay apparently; enormous cactuses, like trees; flocks of small white birds with pink beaks, known as "widows" (viudas) ; and, from time to time, the beauty of a flight of cackling parrots, making in the sunlight flashes of emerald in the dusty air.
The Marseillaise! the Tricolor! the Governor, the French colony!—this is Tucuman's reception of me. ”

“ Forty leagues (post distance) beyond Santiago del Estero is situated the city of San Miguel de Tucuman. It stands (in lat. 27° 10 ́) on an elevated plain in a position from which the prospect on every side is delightful; indeed all accounts agree in describing it as the best situated town in the republic. The climate, though hot, is dry and salubrious; and Nature has been so prodigal of her choicest gifts, that the province of Tucuman well merits its appellation of the garden of the United Provinces. The population amounts to about 40,000 souls, of which 7000 or 8000 reside in the city. ”

“ Tucuman is laid out in regular squares, and still retains many of its old characteristics, low buildings enclosing large courts (patios) , with large rooms, thick walls, and tile roofs. The more noteworthy edifices and institutions of Tucuman are the “ matriz ” church, Merced church, cabildo, national college, normal school, the Belgrano theatre, hospital, public library, courts of justice, post office, and sundry charitable institutions. ”

“ All this forcibly impels to the conviction that the Catamarcan culture was essentially Incasic, but that it had already passed to degeneration and destruction before the arrival of the whites, and that the nations these found in the picturesque valleys of Tucumán were not the builders but the destroyers of the ancient glory of the region. ”

“ All the Argentine provinces, except San Juan and Mehdoza, depend on the products of pastoral life; Tucuman avails itself of agriculture also, and Buenos Ayres, besides raising millions of cattle and sheep, devotes itself to the numerous and diversified occupations of civilized life. ”

“ I have heard the Province of Tucumán spoken of by Argentinos as having a tropical climate. Such is not the truth, but it is, in climate, the nearest approach to the tropics of any of the other Argentine provinces, with the exception of the lowlands of Salta that lie within the La Plata watershed. All nations are apt to exaggerate their endowments of nature, therefore one should not too sharply criticize the Argentinos when they speak of Tucumán as tropical. ”

“ Tucuman is 300 Leagues long, but varies much in breadth. ’Tis inhabited by four Nations: The furthest South have no fix’d Dwellings, live by Fishing and Hunting, and carry about Mats to serve them for Tents. The North People live in Marshes, and feed most on Fish. The Southern People are the tallest, but the Northern the fiercest; and many of them live in Caves, but those nearest Peru in Villages. ”

“ Peru and Tucuman were the countries in which he reaped the principal harvest; and the five last years of his life he preached chiefly at Lima, and induced the inhabitants of that great city, by sincere repentance, to appease the divine anger, which they had provoked by their sins. The reputation of his wonderful sanctity was enhanced by many miracles. Yet by humility he looked upon himself as the least among men, and he never appeared in public but when called abroad by zeal for the salvation of souls. ”

“ Outside the Pampean region the parts of the country which have proved centres of attraction for the Argentine population are the sugar provinces of Tucumán and Jujuy and the province of Mendoza. In 1895 Tucumán had 40,000 inhabitants who had been born in other provinces, Jujuy 15,000 and Mendoza 19,000. The attraction of Tucumán was mainly felt in the adjoining province of Santiago (12,000 immigrants) and Catamarca (12,000) . At Mendoza the immigrants came mainly from San Juan (7,000) and San Luis (3,000) . ”

“ Don Francisco Villagran returned to Chili under the flattering belief that the Araucanians would give him no more trouble; and he accordingly turned his attention to the reacquisition of the province of Tucuman, which, after having been subjected by him to Chili, had been since attached to Peru. Thus was a fresh struggle set on foot between the conquerors of the New World. The Chilian commander defeated the chief of the Peruvian forces, and accordingly Tucuman was for a short period restored to the government of Chili. ”

“ M. Ternaux says in his Collection that this town can be no other than Tucuman, but this proves his incompetency in this matter, as Tucuman was founded many years after Schmidt’s voyage to the River Plate.
Departing from these Aygais we came to a people named Carios, fifty miles distant from the Aygais. There, by God’s grace, we found plenty of Turkish corn and mandeochade, padades, mandeochparpij, mandepore, manduris, wacheku, etc. They have also fish and meat, deer, wild boar, ostriches, Indian sheep, rabbits, hens and geese, also plenty of honey, of which they make wine ”

“ But in time the pendulum swung back again and to-day the province has little interest in anything but sugar.
Tucumán retains none of the primitive methods by which cane is turned into brown lumps of panela or chancaca on the little plantations scattered through the Andes. Some sixty immense engenios grind incessantly during the rather short but exceedingly busy season. The capacity of many of these mills is large, though they work less than those of Cuba. ”

“ The sugar district of Tucumán is not, properly speaking, an oasis; that is to say, it is not an irrigated canton in the midst of a desert, but a moist patch in the heart of a less favoured region. The traveller who comes from the Chaco finds that the dust disappears from the moister air as he approaches Tucumán. The rainfall approaches 974 millimetres at Tucumán. Irrigation is a valuable aid to the farmer, but it is not indispensable. Maize is generally raised without watering, and part even of the sugar-cane crop is raised on land that is not irrigated. ”

“ Catamarca, divided from Tucuman by the sierras of Aconquija, is one of those subordinate provinces which, like Rioja, owes its independence rather to its insignificance and secluded situation than to any pretensions which the people can have to govern themselves; properly it should be a dependency of the government of Tucuman, to which the Congress annexed it in 1814. ”

“ Córdoba, Tucumán, and Salta are especially rich in the appearance of their churches, Tucumán taking the lead in the ornateness of the tiles. In Córdoba are the large churches of Merced, Jesuit Fathers, and Santo Domingo, but by far the largest and finest church in all Argentina is the cathedral, three centuries old, its architecture being that of the current Spanish style that was in vogue at the time it was built. ”

“ However, Cordoba has better than any other town maintained its humanistic position, as Rosario has its commercial, against this overpowering preponderance, and it may be hoped that healthy non-political rivalries will be kept up and strengthened all over the country.
Another large and flourishing city is Tucuman, a town of forty-nine thousand inhabitants, situated on the right bank of the Tala, a sub-tributary of the Salado. ”

“ However that may be, Tucuman, Salta, Cordoba, Parana, and many other towns with their adjacent districts will always have sufficient wealth to be of considerable importance in themselves, and when more immigrants have been attracted thither they will be regarded, in many respects, as the best part of the Republic. ”

“ The new estates have not confined themselves to the alluvial plain; they have crept up the foot hills, and are constantly going higher. In the latitude of Tucumán the mountain approaches within eight or twelve miles of the Sali, and the possibilities of extension westward are strictly limited; indeed, they are already exhausted. Further south, on the contrary, the plain extends more than fifteen miles to the east of the provincial railway. West of Monteros, Concepción, and the existing line of works, there is a reserve of available land; there is room for a fresh advance westward. ”

“ The climate is extremely hot, the maximum temperature being 111° (Mulhall) , minimum 32°, and the mean annual 71°, with an annual rainfall of 25 in. Sugar, wheat, alfalfa, Indian corn, tobacco and hides are the principal products, and cotton, which was grown here under the Incas, is still produced. The province is traversed by the Tucuman extension of the Buenos Aires and Rosario railway, by a French line from Santa Fé to Tucuman, and by a branch of the Central Northern (Cordoba section) railway. ”

“ Climate, Features, &c.—The climate of Tucuman is hot in those parts farthest from the main chain and branches of the Andes, but in general [Pg 206] the seasons are regular and the soil prolific and good; and as an instance of the healthiness of some parts of the country, it is stated that Louisa Truxo, a negress, lived to the amazing age of 175, and was living on the 5th of October, 1780.
It produces all sorts of grain, esculent plants and fruits in abundance, with plenty of excellent pasture for the innumerable herds of cattle, mules, and horses it contains. ”

“ Its chief river is the Rio Grande de Humahuaca, a tributary of the Bermejo, which coming from the North curves in a semicircle through the Central and South-Eastern parts of the Province.
Jujuy, with its broken surface, claims rivalry with Tucumán as the most picturesque of the Argentine Provinces. In some of its southern districts the vegetation is tropical. In the North-West there is a high tableland much of which is dry and practically desert, interspersed with fertile valleys. ”

“ Then we had reached the rice-growing district around Los Sarmientos.
“Ducks?” they said. “Why, hombre, they are bringing them into Tucuman by the thousands. The government is paying a bounty of five cents a head on them as they are destroying all the rice. They are swooping down by the tens of thousands; all the lakes in the south have dried up, so they are coming here. When the flocks rise from the fields, the earth trembles.” ”

“ The particular governments of Tucuman and Paraguai (the principal settlements of which are Santa-Fé, Corrientes, Salta, Tujus, Cordoua, Mendoza, and Assumption) are dependent, together with the famous missions of the Jesuits, upon the governor-general of la Plata. This vast province contains, in a word, all the possessions of the Spaniards, east of the Cordilleras, from the river of Amazons to the straits of Magalhaens. It is true, there is no settlement south of Buenos Ayres ”

“ It is the last important town on the road because it is the last place that enjoys a salubrious situation. For centuries it has been the natural resting-place for overland travellers.
In fact, these northwestern highlands of Argentina, Jujuy, and Tucuman, were first settled by emigrants from the mountains of Upper Peru now called Bolivia, of which they form the southern extension. Their political and commercial relations were with Potosí and Lima rather than Buenos Aires. ”

“ The only market for the timber of Tucumán was the Andean region. It was not sent to Mendoza after the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the willow was acclimatized in the oases of Cuyo. Below Rosas the wood of the quebracho was at first taken in waggons from Santiago to Buenos Aires, but this traffic ceased when the river-route was reopened, and we do not find it resumed until recent times, when railways were constructed.
The outer fringe of the forest and the scrub where the industry has had to find labour, is inhabited by a very sparse pastoral population. ”

“ The city of Tucuman is like most others in South America, of rectangular form. The public edifices and works are in a wretched state. The arts and sciences are almost unknown, literature, of course, included. Music alone seems to be a little [281] cultivated, but a general spirit of liberality, a wish to improve, and a thirst for knowledge, is very observedly diffusing itself, and will not allow this state of things to last. ”

“ The great Province of Tucuman, of which the city bearing the same name is the capital, is one of the most fertile in all Argentina. Its principal products are sugar, rice, and cattle. Land values are high—too high in some cases, but it cannot be denied that there is good reason for the rapidly rising scale of prices. ”

“ The viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres enjoys the advantage of possessing a province on the shores of the Great Southern Ocean, which, though at present nearly desert, may one day become of great importance. This province named Atacama, is bounded on the north by Arica in Peru, on the west by the Pacific or South Sea, on the north-east by Lipes, south-east by the government of Tucuman, and south by Copiapo, in the kingdom of Chili. ”