It is
now eight in the morning and the firing is terrible. Volunteers are
coming into the town from all parts, so the rebels are bound to win
the stronghold shortly. News has just come that the Government troops
have surrendered. Four p.m. - I have been out to see the dead and
wounded gathered up by the ambulance wagons. I should think the dead
are less than a hundred, and the wounded about four times that
number. The surprise was so sudden that the victory has been easy and
with little loss of life. The Revolutionists are behaving well and
not destroying property as they might have done. The whole town is
rejoicing; flags of all nations are flying everywhere. The saddest
thing about the affair is that some fifty murderers have escaped from
the prison. I saw many of them running away when I got upon the spot.
The order has been given to recapture them. I trust they may be
caught, for we have too many of that class at liberty already. * * *
* It is estimated that over 100,000 rounds of ammunition were fired
in the two days. * * * The insurgents fed on horse-meat and beef, the
former being obtained by killing the horses belonging to the police,
the latter from the various dairies, from which the cows were
seized."
In 1911 the two largest Dreadnoughts of the world, the Rivadavia
and the Moreno, were launched for the Argentine Government. These
two battleships are half as powerful again as the largest British
Dreadnought.
CHAPTER III.
THE CRIOLLO VILLAGE.
The different centres of trade and commerce in the Argentine can
easily be reached by train or river steamer. Rosario, with its
140,000 inhabitants, in the north; Bahia Blanca, where there is the
largest wheat elevator in the world, in the south, and Mendoza, at
the foot of the Andes, several times destroyed by earthquake, five
hundred miles west - all these are more or less like the capital.
To arrive at an isolated village of the interior the traveller must
be content to ride, as I did, on horseback, or be willing to jolt
along for weeks in a wagon without springs. These carts are drawn by
eight, ten, or more bullocks, as the weight warrants, and are
provided with two very strong wheels, without tires, and often
standing eight and ten feet high. The patient animals, by means of a
yoke fastened to their horns with raw-hide, draw these carts through
long prairie grass or sinking morass, through swollen rivers or
oozing mud, over which malaria hangs in visible forms.
The voyager must be prepared to suffer a little hunger and thirst
on the way. He must sleep amongst the baggage in the cart, or on the
broader bed of the ground, where snakes and tarantulas creep and the
heavy dew saturates one through and through.
As is well known, the bullock is a slow animal, and these never
travel more than two or three miles an hour.
Time with the native is no object. The words, "With patience we win
heaven," are ever on his lips.
The Argentine countryman is decidedly lazy.
Darwin relates that he asked two men the question: "Why don't you
work?" One said: "The days are too long!" Another answered: "I am too
poor."
With these people nothing can succeed unless it is begun when the
moon is on the increase. The result is that little is accomplished.
You cannot make the driver understand your haste, and the bullocks
understand and care still less.
The mosquitoes do their best to eat you up alive, unless your body
has already had all the blood sucked out of it, a humiliating,
painful and disfiguring process. You must carry with you sufficient
food for the journey, or it may happen that, like me, you are only
able to shoot a small ring dove, and with its entrails fish out of
the muddy stream a monster turtle for the evening meal.
If, on the other hand, you pass a solitary house, they will with
pleasure give you a sheep. If you killed one without permission your
punishment would perhaps be greater than if you had killed a man.
If a bullock becomes ill on the road, the driver will, with his
knife, cut all around the sod where the animal has left its
footprint. Lifting this out, he will cut a cross on it and replace it
the other side uppermost. This cure is most implicitly believed in
and practised.
[Illustration]
The making of the cross is supposed to do great wonders, which your
guide is never tired of recounting while he drinks his mate in the
unbroken stillness of the evening. Alas! the many bleaching bones on
the road testify that this, and a hundred other such remedies, are
not always effectual, but the mind of the native is so full of
superstitious faith that the testimony of his own eyes will not
convince him of the absurdity of his belief. As he stoops over the
fire you will notice on his breast some trinket or relic - anything
will do if blessed by the priest - and that, he assures you, will save
him from every unknown and unseen danger in his land voyage. The
priest has said it, and he rests satisfied that no lightning stroke
will fell him, no lurking panther pounce upon him, nor will he die of
thirst or any other evil. I have remarked men of the most cruel,
cutthroat description wearing these treasures with zealous care,
especially one, of whom it was said that he had killed two wives.
When your driver is young and amorously inclined you will notice that
he never starts for the regions beyond without first providing
himself with an owl's skin.
