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.

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[285]
[286] 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.

In the matter of information for travellers to South America, mention must be made of the South American edition of the Times, published December 28, 1909. This colossal number of 56 pages contains an invaluable store of accurate articles by the best authorities on South America, and Argentina has its full share. It is characteristic of our history in Argentina that this fine piece of work is due to private enterprise.

To celebrate the Centenary of the Revolution of the 25th of May, 1810, there will be held this year a group of exhibitions in Buenos Aires. They will be as follows: The International Exhibition of Railways and Land Transport; the International Exhibition of Agricultural and Pastoral Products; the International Exhibition of Hygiene; the National Exhibition of Industry; the International Exhibition of Art. There will also be held the International Congress of America, and the International Congress of South American Railways.

The Railway Exhibition will have its site in the city itself. English exhibitors have applied for a far larger space than any of their foreign rivals. The Agricultural Exhibition will be held in the suburb of Palermo, and is sure to present splendid stock. Of cattle (excluding dairy cattle) there will be the following classes—Shorthorns (Durhams), Polled Durhams, Herefords, Polled Angus, Red Polled, Red Lincoln, Devon. The classes of sheep will be—Merinos, Lincolns, Leicesters, Romney Marsh, Southdowns, Shropshires, Oxford and Suffolk, Hampshires.

The increased number of English people visiting Buenos Aires this year will add to the interest which the average newspaper reader takes in this country. Our stake in the country is already so large that, well known as Argentina now is compared to most parts of South America, it is surprising that the country does not fill a larger space in the public mind. The English railways are being fast extended by English capital. English farmers and ranchers are busily at work, and English blood is improving the breeds of sheep and cattle. It is certain, therefore, that our relation with Argentina will become yearly closer and still more mutually advantageous, and the more we learn about the country the better. We have to depend almost entirely upon private enterprise, for, as has been shown in an earlier part of this book, our Government does little in the way of collecting information and putting it in an accessible and attractive form. There are many ways in which the Foreign Office could help traders and others without extravagant expense or incurring the suspicion of grand-motherly legislation. However, these defects are balanced by the splendid enterprise and liberal attitude of private companies which have for years been instructing our countrymen in South American affairs. The railway offices, whether in London or Buenos Aires, are ever ready to give facilities to those who wish to study the industries of Argentina and the same is the case with other commercial organisations. The building up and consolidating of our position in Argentina is one of the proudest exploits of English industry.

Argentina is a nation of which the historical continuity was very roughly broken, and within the last half-century she had to begin her life over again with less help from the past than is afforded to most peoples by tradition and historical associations. Kept in subjection by the Spaniards as one of the less important corners of their dominions, and regarded with a certain measure of indifference and even suspicion as being a discordant factor in the Colonial system and its great industry of exporting gold and silver, Argentina owed her spiritual and intellectual progress chiefly to the Jesuits and her material progress chiefly to benevolent Governors and spirited Creoles. The first rude shock was the expulsion of the Jesuits, and this was followed by a much ruder breach of historical continuity in the Revolution. Misfortune and incompetence long paralysed her, and in fifty years she lost most of what was good in the old system and gained little good from the new. Then the revival came. It was a revival in material prosperity, and also in courage and self-reliance, strenuously fostered by one or two great men. She has prospered beyond the utmost expectations of the world, but hitherto has experienced the usual fate of new countries in failing to grow in wealth of ideas in proportion to her increase in material riches.

One good legacy she had from old days—the Spanish love of liberty. This became perverted as years of anarchy and tyranny ran their demoralising course, and now it is somewhat overgrown by abuses which have been described in the earlier chapters.

But it is not extinct, and political theory is certainly better than political practice, and the people themselves are keen and shrewd critics of their system of government. As they gain more political experience and better assimilate their immigrants, they will force reform after reform upon the office-holders. In one respect they have followed Spain too closely. Madrid usurped the rights of the local governments in Spain, Buenos Aires has done the same. As far as political power goes, the preponderance of the Argentine capital is inevitable and probably beneficent, for the various Provinces are small, weak, and thinly populated; they need a strong and intelligent head. But it is unfortunate that the various provincial centres should be neglected, and that Buenos Aires should be the Mecca of every Argentine. The course of trade is tending somewhat towards decentralisation, and Rosario and Bahia Blanca are growing perhaps as rapidly as Buenos Aires. But it would be well if the many picturesque old Spanish towns in remote districts became, instead of seats of somewhat unimportant governments, real centres of light and leading. There is somewhat of a tendency to regard them as mere places of business at which a man must work until he has time or money to spend in the capital.

Another Spanish tradition which Argentina has received is that of religion. This, it may be feared, has been dulled among the intellectual classes, but the numerous, large, and well-kept churches, well attended by reverent worshippers, show that the tradition is not forgotten. In course of time, when the glamour of new wealth is less powerful, the people of Argentina will turn in increasing numbers for teaching from the few who are now keeping alive the intellectual and spiritual life.

It is certain that Argentines are essentially teachable. They welcome foreigners and travel to seats of civilisation to educate their children and to learn new ideas. They are extremely sensitive to foreign opinion, and newspapers constantly argue against this or that course by urging that it would give other nations an unfavourable impression of Argentina. In this they are aided by their Government. It has been necessary to say some hard things about it, but this may be said as a set-off—that the Government, on its bureaucratic side at least, represents the considered intellect of the nation and is intelligent and indefatigable in encouraging the best methods in commerce and industry, in beautifying the cities and raising splendid edifices to serve as homes for useful institutions. It has many methods and many enterprises which England might imitate with advantage. Working in a new country, while lacking in traditions to guide it, the Government has, on the other hand, the less rubbish to impede its progress and can make spacious plans.

England has had a long and close connection with Argentina, and each is deeply interested in the other's prosperity. The country may become as great a political force in the world as she is now an industrial, and England, the peace-preserving nation, will then have a redoubled interest, for Argentina has showed herself above all Latin-American nations ever resolute to maintain peace and submit all reasonable claims to arbitration, and while not abusing her superior strength, she sets an example to other nations of firmness, dignity, and good faith in foreign politics. Her increase, then, in power and population, will be for the good of South America and for the good of the world.

Although within the limits of a single volume it is impossible to make an adequate presentation of a country so vast and varied as Argentina, an attempt has been made to view this wonderful land and people as a whole, and it is hoped that this sketch, though inadequate, may be judged not untrustworthy.