The business of watering the ship being ended, we tried to continue our journey, only to find that a dead calm reigned outside, and there was nothing to do but to return. Two or three days of detention passed very pleasantly exploring hill-tracks, photographing, and sketching. We were able to buy poultry, eggs, and oranges, and the men were very successful with the seine, getting quantities of delightful mullet. One afternoon we took our tea in the launch to the other side of the bay, but here for the only time we found the people a little suspicious and not quite friendly.

Saturday, August 2nd, we again made our way out of Porto Bello. Our course lay in the direction of the island of Sta. Catharina, some twenty miles to the southwards, and the whole of the next day we drifted along in sight of its beautiful mountainous coast-line. This was the rendezvous appointed by Anson for his fleet on his outward voyage, as it possessed an excellent reputation for stores. He sailed there direct from Madeira, arriving in December 1740; his voyage took forty-five days, as against our forty-eight days at sea to Porto Bello, by Cape Verde Islands and Pernambuco. Anson was, however, disappointed in his reception, as the governor proved himself unfriendly, and sent a messenger to communicate the presence of the squadron to the Spanish admiral, who lay with his ships in the River Plate. We occupied the time in endeavouring to check from the yacht the sketches given of the coast in the contemporary account of his voyage. Later on we more than once found ourselves on Anson’s track.

The following days afforded great variety of weather, but it grew rapidly colder, and warm clothes which had been stowed since Madeira had to be brought out. The wind, which for a time was strong and fair, later veered round to the south-east and subsequently to the south-west. Our navigators were early anxious about the indications, fearing a pampero, the name by which the particular gales are known which sweep down from the Andes over the pampas or great plains of the mainland, and on Monday, August 4th, the mainsail was stowed. Thursday we had a strong wind, accompanied by a most extraordinary display of lightning; from midnight till 5 a.m. the place was lighted up almost without intermission, and there were reported to be at times as many as five to eight flashes visible at once; at first there was no thunder, but subsequently it became audible. The next two days we beat against a head wind.

On Saturday evening we were placidly seated at dinner when the cry came, “All hands on deck.” Suddenly, without at the last a moment’s warning, the pampero was upon us. A half-finished meal was left to hurry up the companion and join in stowing sails. All night long the gale raged, straining at the rigging, tossing the ship from side to side, rattling everything in her above and below. The waves swept over the deck until it seemed as if their force might at any moment carry away the boats or burst in the door of the deck-house; notwithstanding the heavy storm-boards with which it was always barricaded at such times. There was no sleep for anyone on board. The steward was up all night making cocoa for those on deck, for it was bitterly cold. As to the watch below, “a man,” as Mr. Gillam said, “who could care so little what was going on above as to be able to sleep on such a night, simply because he was off duty, was no sailor worth the name.” Four a.m. found two of us engaged in meditating on the “wet sea boy” who managed to have his eyelids sealed on the giddy mast during “the visitation of the wind,” wondering whether he was an Elizabethan product or if we only owe his creation to the fact that Shakespeare was a landsman. I believe, from continued observation, that a good crew really like a gale, it has the “joy of battle.” As to the Stewardess, her journal, which is not given to soliloquising, runs, I find, as follows in connection with the pampero: “It has been made painfully clear to me that my presence on deck when things are bad is an added anxiety; this is humiliating, and will not, I trust, apply to the next generation of females.”

When I came up next morning the wind was still raging fiercely, but there was a pale blue sky flecked with white clouds, and bright sunshine sparkled on the countless white crests of foam which covered a dark blue sea. I looked, with an instinct which during all these months had become second nature, to see who was at the wheel, and found, with a shock, that it was deserted—the helm was lashed! It felt for a moment as if the ship were some dead thing, with all power of spontaneous movement, all volition gone. For the time being she was vanquished by the elements, or at least reduced to armed truce; we were hove to and drifting slowly eastward, undoing all the work of the last two days. “Rough on us, ma’am,” as Light said with a jovial laugh. At noon we had lost ground by 24 miles, and were now 373 miles from Buenos Aires instead of 349.

Monday, 7 a.m., we began to sail, beating against the wind, but by midday we had lost still further, being now 402 miles away from the haven where we would be. We envied the cape pigeons, twenty or thirty of which followed the vessel, as she was towing bags of heavy oil to windward to prevent the waves from breaking, and the smoother water made it easier for them to see the small fish below. They seemed to enjoy the gale, and swept round the yacht gracefully, showing off their white bodies and dark wings barred with white. They trod the water at intervals as they ran along it on the tips of their feet, and rode in the troughs of the waves securely sheltered from the wind. On August 12th we signalised the day by making a bag, one gull, but it came as a guest and was entitled to hospitality. It was apparently tired out, and perched on one of the boats; but when S. began throwing some meat overboard, with the object of attracting and photographing the cape pigeons, it joined in the scramble. The pigeons, however, would have none of the stranger, and set upon it, whereupon, worsted in the fray, the gull again sought refuge on the vessel: there it stayed all night, sleeping quite low down in the folds of some canvas and allowing itself to be stroked and fed by any passer-by. With the morning, being rested and refreshed, it flew away.

The Argentine Republic is the modern representative of the Spanish colonies on the east coast of South America, as Brazil is that of the Portuguese. Fifteen years after the landing of Cabral, Spanish sailors first sighted the entrance to the Rio Plata, and in 1535 Mendoza established a settlement on the site which later was Buenos Aires. No gold or silver, however, was to be found, and the Spaniards looked on their holdings on the South Atlantic merely as a back door to their richer possessions on the Pacific. Till the eighteenth century all their South American territories were under the Viceroy of Peru, and in order to suit the convenience of that colony no ship was allowed to trade direct with Buenos Aires; all the merchandise from Europe had to be fetched over the Andes. It was not till the first richness of the mines was exhausted that attention was drawn to the grass-covered plains of the east.

The Napoleonic wars, which turned Brazil from a colony to an empire, ultimately led to the establishment of republican rule in the Spanish colonies. Pitt, however, made a mistake in judging in 1806 that the discontent felt by the younger nation with the rule of their mother-country would make them unite in the war against her. He sent an armed force to the River Plate, but his full expectation that there would be a local rising was grievously disappointed; Buenos Aires was captured, but the British were subsequently heavily defeated and obliged to return home. The anniversary of the “reconquest” is yearly celebrated, and the newly arrived Briton, who probably never heard of the occurrence, finds that in Argentina his country is regarded as a defeated nation.

The loyalty of the colonists to the Crown of Spain was not, however, of long duration. Seeing that in the old country all authority was in the melting-pot, a secret society was formed in Buenos Aires, of which Belgrano was a leading member, to work for representative government; popular desire for freedom became too strong to be resisted, and on May 25th, 1810, the viceroy resigned. From that date the independence of Argentina is officially reckoned. The Argentines then successfully assisted the revolutionaries of Chile. Disputes subsequently arose as to the boundary between the two countries; these differences were referred, at the beginning of this century, to the Crown of England, which appointed a commission to deal with the matter, and a treaty was agreed upon in accordance with its recommendations.

On Friday morning, August 15th, land became visible, and by 2 o’clock we were off Flores Island, the entrance to Rio Plata, where we took up a pilot for its navigation. The river is there about a hundred miles across, but narrows rapidly, and two hours later we were opposite Monte Video, where it is only half that width. Of Monte Video itself we could see only the outline. We proposed visiting it later by one of the steamers which run there every night from Buenos Aires, but were discouraged from doing so by the report that there was nothing whatever to see except an inferior Buenos Aires, and that the seaside resorts in the neighbourhood, which were filled in the summer by the Argentines, would be closed at that time of year. The Plate River is dull and dreary, having the charm neither of a river nor of the open sea; it consists of a vast expanse of turbid yellow water, marked by buoys and the wrecks of ships which have gone aground on its dangerous shoals. The western bank only was visible, and that was low-lying, with a suspicion—was it only a suspicion?—of tall chimneys. We felt that as far as beauty went we might as well be at the mouth of some English mercantile river, and certainly, as was remarked, we had much better have been there from the point of view of getting the needed work done on the ship. A number of insects of all sorts appeared on the yacht when we were at least four miles from the shore, suggesting that, if so many could land on one small ship, many millions must be blown out to sea.

At noon the following day we anchored for a short time, as the current was too strong for us, and at evening anchored again, apparently in the middle of nowhere, though with twelve large vessels as neighbours. We were in reality at the entrance to the Dredged Channel, where artificial means have had to be employed to make the river navigable for ships of large draft. Here it is necessary to pass the quarantine authorities and obtain a fresh pilot, which formalities being duly complied with, we proceeded next day on our journey. As it nears the city the Dredged Channel divides into two; one branch leads to the basin at the north end of the docks, the other to that at the south end. The docks at Buenos Aires, instead of being stowed away as an undesirable excrescence in some remote part of the town, as is the case in most large seaports, form a frontage of some three miles to the most important part of the city, and appeal strongly to both the eye and the imagination. There, in ordered sequence, not by units—as, for example, at Southampton or Marseilles—but by hundreds, lie great vessels of all descriptions from almost every country in Europe; the outward sign of the great carrying trade between the old country and the new. They have brought their human freight and cargo of manufactured goods, and are waiting to return with a food-supply of livestock and grain. Even these docks are not equal to cope with the demand for accommodation, for in the grain season as many as a hundred may be seen in the outer roadstead awaiting admission, and large extensions were in progress. Argentina is one of those new lands which stand in the position of rural estate to older and manufacturing Europe; the supply of food, which in the earliest stages of the world’s development lay next each man’s dwelling, and then outside the towns, is now brought across 7,000 miles of ocean.

Little Mana was most kindly welcomed by the port authority, and awarded a place of honour by the entrance to the North Basin, which is generally reserved for men-of-war. Here she appeared elegant but minute, and not being a battleship felt her position somewhat precarious. The next berth was occupied by a large emigrant ship, which was German, French, and Italian by turns, and as the yacht was immediately under the stern it looked as if, with the least motion, she would be crushed out of existence. Every time a huge ship went out of the entrance to the harbour, all on board rushed to the yacht’s deck to see if her bowsprit was about to be carried away. The manœuvring of the big vessels by tugs in a limited space is, however, wonderful, and though we had one or two narrow escapes, either the position was not so perilous as appeared, or we became accustomed to alarms, for we finally lived there quite comfortably. We landed either by boat across the docks, or by scrambling up a wharf like a houseside by means of a lengthy and somewhat shaky ladder. I have a vivid mental picture of His Majesty’s Minister, Sir Reginald Tower, when he was good enough to come and see us, standing on the top with a little dog, and not unnaturally wondering how on earth he was expected to descend.

We lay at Buenos Aires for over a month, refitting and stowing, before facing the next part of the voyage. We grudged the delay, but even with the kind help we received there is, as has already been explained, much time inevitably lost in a new port, and New Spain, like its European prototype, is essentially a country of mañana. In the end we had to leave without getting the trouble with the engine put right. The stores sent ahead from England arrived safely, and through the courtesy of the Legation we received them custom free, but on some articles, which were unluckily ordered to come by post—a serge suit, linen coat, and two washing blouses—we had to pay £4 duty. I spent a portion of the time in luxury at an hotel while Mana had a much-needed spring-cleaning. S. lived on board, and I found on my return had had a good many visitors, whom he appeared to have enjoyed showing over the yacht with her hatches up and the floor covered with packing-cases; maintaining, in reply to my chagrined comments, that the public were shown over the Terra Nova in just such a condition.

In such time as could be spared from the work of the Expedition we saw what we could of the life of the country, and our observations are given for what they are worth. Unlike Pernambuco there is no doubt as to the economical raisons d’être of the Argentine; they are, of course, grain and meat. The area under cultivation, which we did not see, is steadily increasing, but the grain export is still far below that of the United States. The greater part of the mutton supplied to Great Britain comes from Australia and New Zealand, but the Argentine provides 72 per cent. of the beef which we receive from abroad, and we were much interested in seeing something of the cattle industry. We visited, by the courtesy of the owner, Señor Pereyra, an estancia about an hour’s journey from Buenos Aires. The train traversed first the suburbs of a great town, then low country often under water, and we alighted at a little railway station, from which we immediately entered the park of the estancia. The estate was large, though there are others which exceed it; it covers fifteen square miles, a portion of which is, however, undrained. It has been in the occupation of the same family for about ninety years, during which time continual planting has been going on. The road which led through the park to the house passed under several fine avenues; the eucalyptus trees of older growth were most beautiful, and a revelation of what that tree can attain, to those who have only seen it in temperate climates or in the villages and towns of South Africa.

The dwelling of the owner proved to be a most charming country house. The dining-room was panelled with oak, displaying the magnificent collection of silver cups gained by the stock of the estancia. Our host was in the proud position of having just won at the cattle show, then being held at Buenos Aires, the highest awards for both Herefords and Shorthorns. The competition for such prizes lies in the Argentine between a limited number of noted breeders, and it is felt well to bring in a judge from the outside. That year an English gentleman, well known in connection with the Royal and other shows, had been requested to act. Eighty thousand Argentine dollars, or over £7,000 sterling, were paid at this show for a champion bull, being the highest price yet given for such an animal. After luncheon we inspected the large farm buildings where the most valuable of the stock were housed. The remainder of the cattle, some 7,000 in all, lived in different large enclosures in various parts of the estate, with a cottage near by for the caretaker. The owner was assisted by an English and a French manager, and 260 peons or labourers, mostly Italian, were employed on the estancia. They earn £3 10s. a month, with practically no expenses, being housed in a row of buildings with a mess-room in common. There was no lack of labour, applicants having continually to be turned away.

Our education was continued by a visit to the market at Buenos Aires, where anything up to 5,000 head of cattle are disposed of daily. These are brought from all parts of the Argentine, and were formerly driven across country. Now, however, owing to the prevalence of wire fences, they are generally brought by train. They are confined in open pens, and sold by auction or otherwise. The cattle auctioneers are men of high position, and regard themselves as the aristocracy of the city. The animation of the scene is increased by the number of roughriders who career on spirited ponies up and down the alley-ways, looking after the stock and lassoing refractory beasts. No man connected with the “camp,” as the open country is termed, ever thinks of walking at any time. The Argentine saddle has special characteristics, and consists of a pad each side of the spine of the horse, above and below which rugs are placed, the whole being covered with a piece of leather and kept in place by girths, thus forming a most comfortable cushion. The stirrup is so made that only the toe can go into it, and the whole is calculated to allow a man to fall clear if he is thrown, a wise precaution in a land of unbroken mounts. It has also the advantage of providing excellent bedding, but is of course adapted for a flat country only, and would be out of place in a mountainous one. A kind acquaintance, seeing the interest S. took in the saddle, made him a present of one, which proved invaluable in Easter Island.

The majority of the beasts sold at the cattle markets are for local consumption: those going to the freezing manufactories are generally bought by private treaty. We were taken over one of the largest of these frigorificos, as they are called, where some 1,200 cattle and 3,000 sheep are killed daily. Each animal is inspected from a sanitary point of view on arrival, and every beast is again examined after it has been killed. It is skinned and cleaned at the same time, and in fifteen minutes, from the moment of being slain, is ready in two sides to hang up in the chilling or freezing chamber. Each of the sides is subsequently enclosed in a muslin covering ready to be shipped. The hides are, of course, also a most valuable commodity, and the fat is subjected to pressure, the oil being used for cooking purposes and the solid residue for candle-making. The unused portion of the beast is turned into guano. Some of the meat is reserved for canning, and the tinned goods are particularly attractive. Each tin is closed save for one small hole at the top, and is then passed into a vacuum pump, which extracts the air and closes the hole with an electric needle.

A very determined set was being made to bring all the Argentine frigorificos into the American meat trust; those which, like the one we visited, are determined to resist have to fight hard to hold their position. There was a loud outcry with regard to the increase in the price of meat, which had gone up retail to about sevenpence a pound; but buying through a ship’s chandler, who could obtain it for wholesale prices, we were able to purchase at a lower rate. The prices for tinned meat were much the same as in England. Salt meat we were warned to avoid, as it could not be guaranteed for more than two months, though the remainder of our stock that had been put on board in England, ten months before, was still in excellent condition. Every attempt, we were told, had been made to discover the reason for this failure, which is common to all meat south of the Equator; the services of experts from Europe had been requisitioned, the method, the meat, the salt, and the water had all been carefully examined, but so far without result.

The city of Buenos Aires itself, of which the docks have already been described, is simply a glorified port for this trade, and for the produce of a wealthy hinterland. The old part of the town, in which all business is transacted and which most impresses itself on the memory, is a labyrinth, or rather chess-board, of terribly narrow streets. The thoroughfares are at right angles, and the houses, which are in regular blocks, are all precisely similar in appearance; nothing, therefore, but an exact knowledge of the names and orders of the numerous streets as they lie in each direction of the chess-board can enable a stranger to find his way. The same street extends for miles, and he who forgets the number of his destination may as well give up the search. So narrow are these thoroughfares that two persons can only just pass on the pavement, and there is imminent danger of being pushed under the trams which run within fifteen inches of the curb. Traffic is only allowed in one direction.

In a town which has never been walled, and where space was no object, such a state of things is surprising; the original construction is said to have been due to the desire to obtain a maximum of shade, and any alteration now is of course fraught with much difficulty. Great efforts are, however, being made to render the Argentine capital worthy of its wealth and position. An imposing avenue, with the House of Congress at one end, has been cleared at great cost. The more recent portion of the town boasts good squares and parks, for the network of streets is but the hub of a huge and quickly growing city. Underground railways are being constructed, but so rapid is the extension of Buenos Aires that it is said they will only relieve the traffic for eleven years. The general impression of a bustling sea port with a southern element recalls Marseilles, but it has not the same beauty of situation. Buenos Aires has been called “a horrible travesty of Paris,” but perhaps the most correct description is that which styles it “a mixture of Paris and New York.”

Of what description are the people in whose hands lie the development of this country, with its growing influence on the destinies of the world? The new-comer arriving from the north is at once struck with the distinction between Brazil and the Argentine. Rio, with its strain of dark descent living in the midst of a dream of sleepy beauty, is still perhaps partly mediæval and undoubtedly tropical; Buenos Aires, on its flat plain and dreary river, is awake, twentieth century, and wholly European; but it is to the south of Europe that the Argentine is akin and not to the north. A Latin race was the first to colonise the new land, and successive waves of the same are still reaching its shores. In 1911 the immigrants from Spain, Italy, and France numbered nearly 2,000,000, as against 13,000 from Britain and 7,000 from Germany. Many Italians, it is true, come only for one harvest, or possibly for two, returning for the busy season in their own homes. The wages earned are such that the more idle are in a position to disdain all other work, and a crowd of loiterers round the docks, who appeared to us to be unemployed of the usual character, turned out to be agricultural workers living on their own resources till the next harvest. Many, however, of these immigrants settle in the new land, by the law of which every child born in the country becomes ipso facto an Argentine subject. It is perhaps because of this comparatively uniform origin that an Argentine type seems to be already developing. It is fundamentally that of Southern Europe, but it is moulded by a new environment, is wide-awake and energetic, with an absence of all mystery and tradition, but alive to the finger-tips. The practical aspect of life is the dominant note, whether for the native or temporary resident. “We are all here to make money,” the stranger is frankly informed, “and we talk of nothing else.” No apology shall therefore be made for once more referring to the question of pounds, shillings, and pence, for in South America it is impossible to get away from it.

The cost of living in Buenos Aires is two or three times as high as that of London in normal times. At the best hotel, usually frequented by European travellers, the smallest bedroom cannot be obtained under eighteen shillings a night, and even at the less dear hotels, resorted to by those to whom expense is an object, the ordinary price for dinner is five dollars or 8s. 9d. “One thinks a good deal in England of a £5 note,” was the remark to us of one Argentine; “here one never goes out without a fifty-dollar note (between £4 and £5) in one’s pocket.” Rents are enormous, and a would-be purchaser told us ruefully that he could not obtain in the suburbs a house with three sitting and four bedrooms, on a plot of ground some thirty yards square, under £15,000. All this falls hardly on the visitor or foreign official, but it affects the resident but little; an 8 per cent. investment is looked upon as reasonable and cautious, and for the working classes wages are proportionately high. The temporary immigrant who wishes to go back to Europe saves most of the money by living under very meagre conditions; thus two or three Italians frequently join together in one room at about half the rate paid by less thrifty workmen. Most visitors to Southern Europe are acquainted with the little mansions, built in the villages of their birth, by natives who have returned with modest fortunes from the Argentine, and this is the process by which that wealth is accumulated. More rapid roads are occasionally found to success. Our Sailing-master was acquainted with a former gaol-warder who went out as an emigrant from Southampton; his wife joined him, but came back before long, saying little but that her husband was also returning. In less than two years the man was back with a competency for the rest of his days, the source of which continued to be veiled in mystery.

Science, literature, and art do not as yet thrive very largely in Argentina, though exception must be made for the very interesting museum at La Plata, whose director was most kind in affording information to the Expedition. The great recreation is racing, in addition to which the inhabitants are all born gamblers. Sir Reginald Tower, to whose kind arrangements for us we owe much of the interest of our time in Buenos Aires, was good enough to take us to a race meeting, and we were greatly impressed with the lavish arrangements for the comforts of the spectators. It was also most pleasant to be spared all cries of the bookmakers—the betting system is that of the pari mutuel. The Jockey Club is the most important social club, and with an entrance fee of nearly £300 is naturally extremely wealthy; its existing premises are palatial, and even so the removal to larger ones was under consideration. We were kindly entertained there by a distinguished representative of the early Spanish stock, Señor Calvo, to whom we were introduced while he was practising his profession of auctioneer at the cattle-market. His ancestor was a viceroy of the Court of Spain, and he is by descent on both sides a pure Spaniard; the cosmopolitan influences of to-day have, however, been too strong for the continuance of this tradition in the family, and he himself and other members of it have allied with outside nationalities. His father, who was responsible for the conduct of a public journal, had his life attempted three times by his political enemies, and finally sought refuge in England. There the son was born and educated, but later on, going out to the Argentine, he too entered public life and became a member of Congress, whose buildings it was most interesting to see under his guidance.

The life of Argentine women is almost that of the East. The men go their own way, make their own acquaintances, live their own life. They ask strangers but little to their homes, and it is possible to be on quite intimate terms with an Argentine and unaware whether he is married or single. Country house hospitality scarcely exists, and even on the large estancias in the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, a week-end party is unknown. A lady does not walk out alone, and never, even in her own home, receives a male guest without the presence of her husband. We have been credibly informed of a wife who boasted that during her husband’s absence in Europe, of over a year, she never went out of the house. There is no higher education for women except for those training professionally, and the interests of the majority, like those of a certain set at home in pre-war days, consist mainly in bridge and dress. Forty years ago all women wore the mantilla, but to-day fabulous sums are spent on clothes. One charming Argentine lady told me that £30 was quite a usual sum to give for a smart but simple hat. At the seaside resorts the expenditure on clothes is so lavish, that it is cheaper to take the trip to Europe than to procure the necessary garments in which to be seen among your friends. In appearance the women are pretty and effective, but spoilt to the eyes of a European by the inordinate amount of powder. I was told by one present at the dinner-party in question of an amusing scene witnessed in the ladies’ cloak-room; a daughter arriving with her mother called out, “Oh, Mother, you have not nearly enough powder on,” and made a dash for the powderpuff to remedy with two or three large splashes the supposed defect. It is said that the wave of female emancipation is reaching South America, but doubt was expressed by a keen observer whether it would necessarily take its European form of a demand for political and legal rights, or whether the Argentine woman would not begin by desiring the same social and matrimonial liberty as is assumed by her husband. At present, unfortunately, with the vicious circle in which such customs move, much of the precaution taken to guard women appears to be necessary, and I was sadly informed by more than one English girl employed in the business houses of Buenos Aires, that the freedom with which young women can move and conduct themselves at home was not only conventionally but actually impossible in their new surroundings.^[2]

Argentina, as the depository of much that is undesirable from other nations, can hardly hope to escape the blackguard element. Assassination is the only thing which is cheap in the South American continent. The head of one of the seamen’s missions at Buenos Aires told S. that it was possible at any time to procure the murder of a man by paying five dollars, not quite ten shillings, in the right quarters: this was somewhat less than at Rio, where the price was stated to be thirteen shillings and fourpence. The scenes which occur nightly about the docks are incredible; hence returning to Mana after dark was always a matter of some anxiety. Our steward received a typewritten letter saying that he had been mentioned as a suitable man for a desirable situation, and giving an appointment after dark at a certain house in a certain street. On inquiry the address turned out to be that of a low street in the new part of the town, where much land is still waste, and there was no house yet built of the number given. With regard to the said steward, one Sunday evening he left the yacht and never returned. All anxiety about his fate was set at rest by the fact that he had cleared his cabin of all his goods. He may have been homesick and arranged to work his passage back, or he may have been enticed by a more substantial offer, a very usual occurrence where trained servants are difficult to obtain. As he had of course signed the ship’s articles for the trip, his desertion was reported to the consulate and the police, but we were told that to get him back would be practically an impossibility; while, scruples apart, nothing would have been gained by the simpler method of assassination. The man himself we did not regret, but after the manner of his kind he had waited till we were on the point of sailing, and therefore left us in the lurch.

In spite of the fact that personal safety still leaves a good deal to be desired, the Government of Argentina is one of the purest in South America; the result, it is said, of the wealth of her officials. She is already proudly conscious of her strength, and, in some quarters at any rate, is anxious to rely upon it alone for her position among nations rather than on any such external aid as the Monroe doctrine. Throughout the whole continent it is necessary in speaking of the citizens of the United States to term them carefully “North Americans,” avoiding the usual and more abbreviated form.

Religion is not a powerful factor in Argentina either in public or private life. Roman Catholicism is officially recognised, but it does not strive to be a political force, and meets therefore with general toleration; even when it is not practised it is neither hated nor feared. Many women and some men are devout, but the majority of men simply ignore it.

A Briton in leaving Argentina not unnaturally asks what is the share of his own countrymen in the development of the new republic. Our connection with it through trade is considerable. The railways are in British hands, and 61 per cent. of the shipping flies the Union Jack. In addition to young men who may wish to take up life in “the camp,” or country, a certain number of Englishmen are employed in offices and professional positions, while in connection with retail trade, it is homelike to see the shops and advertisements of such firms as Harrod and Maple. A pleasing bond exists throughout the British colony in Freemasonry, which is a most living force, with many adherents, amongst whom our Minister is included. S. being one of the elect, we had, through the kindness of Mr. Chevalier Boutell, the Deputy Grand Master for South America, the pleasure of being present at a ladies’ banquet, which proved a very brilliant and enjoyable entertainment.

While the English commercial position is still good, it is said that forty years ago our proportion of the trade was even greater. An old inhabitant told us that he knew personally of not less than twenty-five British firms who had gone under during that period, owing to the dogged incapacity of the Englishman to supply what his customer wanted, instead of what he himself chose to provide. Such failures leave, of course, the door open for German penetration. A reputation for the same want of adaptability, and also for being given to drink, makes Englishmen unpopular as employés. With regard to our women kind, certain posts in the town which are open to English girls are well paid, but they should be taken up in every case with the greatest caution, and the remuneration offered carefully compared with the increased cost of living. A woman who marries on to an estancia is necessarily comparatively isolated, and accounts differed as to the amount of help she is able to obtain in domestic labour. The 30,000 British subjects who form the whole of those resident in Argentina are, in any case, but a drop in the ocean, and they but seldom identify themselves with the country of their abode. It is not unusual for parents to arrange that their children shall be born in England, in order that they may avoid registration as citizens of the Republic, with its consequent liability to military service. It has been proposed in high quarters that suitable accommodation might be provided in the Falkland Islands, as nearer and more convenient British soil. Failing some such arrangement it is possible to register a child of British parentage which is born in Argentina, at the national consulate, and it is then ipso facto a British subject, except when actually in the land where it first saw the light. Whatever share Britain may have in developing the wealth of Argentina, that country never has been, and never will be, connected with us by blood; for that bond with new lands we must look to our own dominions over the seas.

The most southerly portion of the South American continent, called Patagonia, first became known in the endeavour to find a new way into the Pacific. Magellan was commissioned by Charles of Spain to try to find by the south that ocean passage to the Indies which Columbus had sought in vain further north. He sailed in August 1519, and began his search along the coast at the River Plate; on October 21st, the day of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, he came in sight of a large channel opening out to the west: the promontory to the north of this channel still bears the name he bestowed of Cape Virgins. He proceeded cautiously, sending boats ahead to explore, and on November 28th entered the Pacific. When he saw the open sea he is said to have wept for joy, and christened the last cape “Deseado,” or the “Desired.”

The sea power of England, which had been negligible in the time of the first voyages to the New World, was growing in strength; and, though she had attempted no settlement on the southern continent, she saw no reason to acquiesce in the edicts of the King of Spain, shutting her off from all trade with the New World. In 1578 Drake took Magellan’s route, with the object of intercepting galleons on the Pacific coast, and passed through the Straits in sixteen days. On entering the Pacific he was blown backward towards Cape Horn, and was the first to realise that there was another waterway, yet further south, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Up till this time the land had been supposed to extend to the Antarctic.

A hundred years later Charles II of England sent an expedition under Sir John Narborough to explore this part of the world and trade with the Indians, which wintered on the eastern coast of Patagonia.

Anson’s squadron avoided the Straits, taking the way by the Horn.

The Chilean and Argentine Boundary Commission divided Patagonia between the two countries, giving the west and south to Chile and bisecting Tierra del Fuego, 1902.

We left Buenos Aires on September 19th, achieving the descent of the river without a pilot, and for the next fortnight had a varying share of fair winds, contrary winds, and calms. Our chief interest was the man who had taken the place of the absconding steward, who shall be known as “Freeman”; we heard of him through a seamen’s home, and arranged that he should go with us to Punta Arenas, to which place he wished for a passage. He was a clean-looking “Britisher,” who for the last seven years had been knocking about South America. He brought with him a gramophone, and a Parabellum automatic pistol, with which he proved an excellent shot, and he made it a sine qua non that we should find room on board for his saddle; thus was my knowledge increased of the necessary equipment of an indoor servant. We paid him at the rate of £100 a year, and though we found that he could neither boil a suet pudding nor lay a table, so enlightening were his accounts of up-country life that we did not grudge him the money.

We flatter ourselves our experience in detecting mendacity would qualify us as police-court magistrates, but we never saw any reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of Freeman’s stories. His experience dated back to the time when mares of two or three years old were sold for ten shillings, or were boiled down for fat, as, after the Spanish fashion, no man would demean himself by riding one. He had at one time ridden across the continent from the Patagonian to the Chilean coast, a journey of six weeks, half of which time he never saw a human being; he was followed all the way by a dog, though the poor animal was once two or three days without water; it got left behind at times, but always managed to pick up his trail. He was most candid about the means by which he had made money when at one time employed on the railway, for honesty was not in his opinion the way that the game was played in South America, and therefore no individual could afford to make it part of his programme; it did happen to be one of the rules on Mana, and we never knew him break it. He was once running away after some drunken escapade, when a policeman appeared and took pot-shots at him with a rifle. Freeman turned and dropped him with his revolver; he did it the more reluctantly as he knew and liked the man. Happily the shot was not fatal, and he felt convinced that he himself had not been recognised.

After, therefore, carefully arranging an alibi elsewhere he returned, condoled with the victim on the lawless deed, and gave him what assistance he could; he felt, however, that that part of the country had become not very “healthy,” and subsequently moved on. Even our experiences of the ports had scarcely prepared us for the cynical indifference to human life which his experiences incidentally revealed as an every-day affair in “the camp.” In sparsely inhabited districts, with their very recent population, the factors are absent through which primitive societies generally secure justice, clans do not exist, families are the exception, and in almost every case a man is simply a unit. The more advanced methods of keeping the peace have either not been formed or are not effective, for crime is often connived at by the authorities themselves. The result is that the era of vendetta and private revenge seems civilised in comparison with a state of things where no notice is taken of murder, and the victim who falls in a brawl or by fouler means simply disappears unknown and unmissed, while the murderer goes scot-free to repeat his crime on the next occasion.

Freeman had, inter alia, been employed on one of the farms in Patagonia, along the coast of which we were sailing, and told tales of the pumas, or South American lions, which abounded in a certain neighbourhood. This district had railway connection with a little anchorage known as Port Desire, and as one of our intervals in harbour was now due S. arranged to turn in here, and go up-country with him to try to get a shot at the animals. We therefore put into the port on October 3rd. It is a small inlet, of which the surrounding country is covered with grass, but flat and dreary in the extreme, the only relief being a distant vision of blue hills. Sir John Narborough, who spent part of the winter here in 1670, said he never saw in the country “a stick of wood large enough to make the handle of a hatchet.”

The human dwellings are a few tin shanties. In a walk on shore we were able to see in a gully, a few remains of the walls of the old Spanish settlement. As to the puma, fortunately from its point of view, the railway service left a good deal to be desired. We arrived on Friday, and there turned out to be no train till the following Tuesday, so it lived to be shot another day—unless indeed it met a more ignominious end, for the South American lion is so unworthy of its name that it is sometimes killed by being ridden down and brained with a stirrup-iron. We took three sheep on board, as mutton at twopence a pound appealed to the housekeeping mind, and were able to secure some water, which is brought down by rail; it was a relief to have our tanks well supplied, as the ports further down the coast are defended by bars, and would have been difficult of access in bad weather. Drake, on whose course we were now entering, selected St. Julian, the next bay to the southward, for his port of call before entering the Straits of Magellan; it was there he had trouble with his crew, and was obliged to hang Doughty.

We sailed from Port Desire on Monday morning, but were not to say good-bye to it so speedily. We soon encountered a strong head wind, with the result that Wednesday evening found us fifteen miles backwards on a return journey to Buenos Aires, and the whole of Thursday saw us still within sight of it. We amused ourselves by discussing the voyage, which had now lasted more than seven months. One of the company declared that he had lost all sense of time and felt like a native or an animal: things just went on from day to day; there was neither before nor after, neither early nor late. It did not, he said, seem very long since we left Falmouth, but on the other hand our stay at Pernambuco was certainly in the remote past, and so with everything else. We had now, in fact, done about three-quarters of the distance from Buenos Aires towards the Straits of Magellan, and had 300 miles left before we reached their entrance at Cape Virgins.

Ever since the Expedition was originally projected the passage of the Straits had been spoken of in somewhat hushed tones; but now, when with a more favourable wind we began to approach them, instead of going into Arctic regions, as some of us had anticipated, the weather improved, the sun went south faster than we did, and the days lengthened rapidly. Our numerous delays had at least one fortunate result—they secured us a much better time of year in the Straits than we had expected would fall to our lot. The feeling in the air was that of an English April, bright and sunny, but fresh; we kept the saloon cold on principle during the daytime, living in big coats; in the evening we had on the hot-water apparatus, so as to go warm to bed. It was quite possible to write on deck, and the sea was almost too beautifully calm. We had a great many ocean callers, who seemed attracted by the vessel: porpoises tumbled about the bows till we could nearly stroke them, a whale would go round and round the yacht, coming up to blow at intervals, while seals reared their heads and shoulders out of the waters and looked at us in a way that was positively bewitching; once a whale and seal paid us a visit at the same time. One night S., who was keeping a watch for one of the officers who was indisposed, was interested in watching the gulls still feeding during the dark hours.

At 10 p.m. on October 15th the light of Cape Virgins was sighted, and we woke to find ourselves actually in the Straits of Magellan. The Magellan route, as compared with that by the Horn, is not only a short road from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cutting off the islands to the south of the continent, but ensures calm waters, instead of the stupendous seas of the Antarctic Ocean. For a sailing ship, however, the difficulties are great; the prevailing wind is from the west, and there is no space for a large vessel to beat up against it, nor does she gain the advantage that can be derived from any slight shift of wind; outside the gale may vary a point or two, but within the channel it always blows straight down as in a gully. The early mariners could overcome these obstacles through the strength of their crews; in case of necessity they lowered their boats and towed the ship, but the vessels of the present no longer carry sufficient men to make such a proceeding possible. Sailing-ships therefore take to-day the Cape Horn route, in spite of its well-known delays, trials, and hardships. When later the German cruiser turned up at Easter Island with her captured crews, the great regret of the latter was that they had been taken just too late, after they had gone through the unpleasantness of the passage round the Horn.

The first sight of Tierra del Fuego is certainly disappointing. The word calls up visions of desolate snowy mountains inhabited by giants; what is seen are low cliffs, behind which are rolling downs, sunny and smiling, divided up into prosaic sheep farms. A reasonably careful study of the map would of course have shown what was to be expected, as on the Atlantic coast the plains continue to the extreme south of the continent, while the chain of the Andes looks only on to the Pacific. Nevertheless, if not thrilling, it was at least enjoyable to be in a stretch of smooth water, with Patagonia on the north and Tierra del Fuego on the south. The land on either hand is excellent pasture for sheep, and there is said to be sometimes as much as 97 per cent. increase in a flock. The largest owners are one or two Chilean firms, but the shepherds employed are almost all Scotsmen, and indeed the scenery recalls some of the less beautiful districts in the Highlands. When sheep-farming was established, the Indians, not unnaturally from their point of view, made raids on the new animals, with the result that the representatives of the company were consumed with wrath at seeing their stock eaten by lazy natives; they started a campaign of extermination, shooting at sight and offering a reward for Indian tongues. Our friend Freeman had worked on one of the farms, which had a stock of 200,000 sheep, and the information he gave on this head was fully confirmed later in conversations at Punta Arenas. The destruction of the Indians was spoken of there as a matter for regret, but as rendered inevitable by circumstances.

The navigation through the straits of a craft like ours makes it necessary to anchor in the dark hours: the first night we spent off the Fuegian coast, in sight of one of the pillars which define the boundary of Chile and Patagonia; the second we lay in Possession Bay, which is on the Patagonian side. We had time at the latter anchorage to examine the pathetic wreck of a steamer, which had gone aground. She was a paddle-boat, which was being towed presumably from one lake or river area to another, and had to be cut adrift. Even in such an unheroic vessel it was touching to see the sign of departed and luxurious life cast away on this lonely shore, stained-glass doors bearing the inscription of “smoking” or “dining-room,” and good mahogany fittings such as washing-stands still in place. It is said that the outer coast is strewn with wrecks containing valuable articles which it is worth no one’s while to remove. S. walked up to the neighbouring lighthouse, and was presented with three rhea eggs.