Читать книгу Across South America - Hiram Bingham - Страница 8

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We left Santos late on a Tuesday afternoon, and after two pleasant days at sea entered the harbor of Montevideo on Friday morning. It was crowded with ships of all nations, and we were particularly delighted to see the American flag flying from three small steamers. Could it be possible that the flag which had been so conspicuous for its absence from South American waters, was regaining in the twentieth century the preëminence it had in the early years of the nineteenth? Alas, no; the boats were only government vessels in the lighthouse service, towing lightships from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. They had stopped here to coal, for Montevideo is a favorite port of call for steamers bound through the Straits of Magellan. Ever since the days when it was the home of active smugglers, who were engaged in defying Spain’s restrictive colonial policy, Montevideo has been a prosperous trading centre. To-day, clean streets, new buildings, electric cars, fine shops, elaborate window displays, well-dressed people, and excellent hotels mark it as modern and comfortable.

It is difficult to realize that this is the capital of Uruguay, “one of the most tumultuous of the smaller revolutionary states of South America.” The American is chagrined to find that the Uruguayan gold or paper dollar is worth two cents more than our own. And the Englishman is most annoyed to find the “sovereign” at a discount. But chagrin gives way to frank amazement at the high prices which the Montevidean is willing to pay for his imported luxuries.

The republic is small but there is no waste land, and the railroads bring in quantities of wool and food-stuffs destined for the European market. More than three thousand steamers enter the port annually. Most of them belong to the eighteen British lines that touch here. No wonder the city is wealthy and has attractive shops and boulevards. To be sure, the harbor improvements, not completed yet, have been greatly retarded by the most flagrant kind of political graft. But what American city, from New York to San Francisco, has a clean record in this particular?

Splendidly equipped steamers, resembling our Fall River boats, ply nightly between Montevideo and Buenos Aires, in order to accommodate the increasing numbers who wish to do business in both cities.

A generation ago the traveller to Buenos Aires was obliged to disembark in the stream seven or eight miles from the city, proceed in small boats over the shallow waters, and then clamber into huge ox-carts and enjoy the last mile or two of his journey as best he could. Since then, extraordinary harbor improvements, costing millions of dollars, have been completed, and ocean steamers are now able

THE DOCKS OF BUENOS AIRES

to approach the city through dredged channels. Yet such has been the phenomenal growth of the port that the magnificent modern docks are already overcrowded and the handling of cargo goes on very slowly, retarded by many exasperating delays. The regular passenger and mail steamers are given prompt attention, however, and the customs house examination is both speedy and courteous, in marked contrast to that at Rio. In years to come, the two other important ports of Argentina—Rosario, higher up the Rio de la Plata, and Bahia Blanca, farther down the Atlantic coast—are destined to grow at a rapid rate because of the better docking facilities they will be able to afford.

Bahia Blanca in particular is destined to have a great future, as it is the natural outlet for the rapidly developing agricultural and pastoral region of southern Argentina.

Buenos Aires, however, will always maintain her political and commercial supremacy. She is not only the capital of Argentina, but out of every five Argentinos, she claims at least one as a denizen of her narrow streets. Already ranking as the second Latin city in the world, her population equals that of Madrid and Barcelona combined.

Hardly has one left the docks on the way to the hotel before one is impressed with the commercial power of this great city. Your taxicab passes slowly through crowded streets where the heavy traffic retards your progress and gives you a chance to marvel at the great number of foreign banks, English, German, French, and Italian, that have taken possession of this quarter of the city. With their fine substantial buildings and their general appearance of solidity, they have a firm grip on the situation. One looks in vain for an American bank or agency of any well-known Wall Street house. American financial institutions are like the American merchant steamers, conspicuous by their absence. The Anglo-Saxons that you see briskly walking along the sidewalks are not Americans, but clean-shaven, red-cheeked, vigorous Britishers.

In England they talk familiarly of “B.A.” and the “River Plate”; disdaining to use the Spanish words Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Buenos Aires. To hear them you might suppose they were speaking of something they owned, and you would not be so very far from the truth. What Mexico owes to American capital and enterprise, the countries and cities of the Rio de la Plata owe to Great Britain. British capitalists have not been slow to realize the possibilities of this great agricultural region. They know its potentiality as a food-producer, and they have covered it with a network of railways much as we have covered the prairies of Illinois and the plains of Kansas. Of the billion and a quarter dollars of British capital invested in Argentina, over seven hundred millions are in railways. Thousands of active, energetic young Englishmen, backed by this enormous British capital, have aided in the extraordinary progress which Argentina has made during the past generation.

In some ways this is an English colony. The majority of the people do not speak English, except in the commercial district, and the Englishman is here on sufferance. But it is his railroads that tie this country together. It is his enterprises that have opened thousands of its square miles, and although the folly of his ancestors a century ago caused him to lose the political control of this “purple land,” the energy of his more recent forebears has given him a splendid heritage. Not only has he been able to pay large dividends to the British stockholders who had such great faith in the future of Argentina, he has made many native Argentinos wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.

Land-owners, whose parents had not a single change of clothes, are themselves considering how many motor cars to order. Their patronage sustains the finely appointed shops which make such a brave display on Florida and Cangallo Streets. These streets may be so narrow that vehicles are only allowed to pass in one direction, but the shops are first class in every particular and include the greatest variety of goods, from the latest creations of Parisian millinery to the most modern scientific instruments. Fine book shops, large department stores, gorgeous restaurants, expensive to the last degree, emphasize the wealth and extravagance of the upper classes.

On the streets one may hear all of the European languages. In the business district it is quite as likely to be English as Spanish, and in the poorer quarters Italian is growing more common every day. The speech of the common people is nominally Spanish, very bad Spanish. In reality it is a hybrid into which Portuguese, Italian, and Indian words and accents have entered to disfigure the beautiful Castilian.

When Rio cut her Avenida Central through the middle of her business district, she had in mind the Avenida 25 de Mayo of Buenos Aires, a typical imitation Parisian Boulevard that was opened not many years ago to facilitate traffic and beautify the city. On the Avenida, as in Rio, the leading newspaper has its luxurious home.

All the world has heard of “La Prensa” and its marvellously well-appointed building where distinguished foreigners are entertained, lectures are given, and all sorts of advertising dodges are featured. It was “La Prensa” that had the news of President Taft’s election two minutes after it was known in New York. Many Porteños, as the people of Buenos Aires are called, think the columns of “La Prensa” are too yellow and that its business methods are almost too modern. They prefer the more dignified pages of the “Nacion.”

The hotels on the Avenida are not up to the standard of three of those on the narrower thoroughfares. In fact, it would be hard to find more comfortable hostelries than the Grand or the Palace. The new Phœnix Hotel, one of the first skyscrapers to be erected here, promises even greater comforts and is to be the rendezvous of the British colony.

There are many theatres and they have a brilliant season, which begins in June. The pleasure-loving Porteños are willing to pay very high prices for the best seats, and managers can offer good