Book: Argentina From A British Point Of View

V >> Various >> Argentina From A British Point Of View




The Day of Rest, so essential to one's well-being, seems to come round
with such surprising rapidity that we may say truly it proves that
estancia life, with its long hours of hard work, so far from being
monotonous or wearisome, is a happy life. Where time flies past quickly
it means it passes happily, and amongst the most pleasant of the days we
spend in this land of sunshine we must count the Sundays in camp.

[Illustration: "A Day of Real Enjoyment."]

THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN ARGENTINA.




THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN ARGENTINA.


We often hear complaints from friends at home about the trouble they
experience over obtaining and keeping good servants, and there is no
doubt that the servant problem is a serious one in England, and is
getting worse every year; but it pales into insignificance when compared
with the trials and tribulations of those who live in the Argentine and
have to keep house.

From all one hears, those living in Buenos Aires and the larger towns
have a terrible time of it with their servants, especially if they are
not overburdened with the good things of this world in the shape of hard
cash; but my experiences have been confined to the camp, so that of the
town side of the question I cannot speak.

I have been three years in the province of Cordoba, and all the servants
I have met with except one were Argentines from the foothills of the
Cordoba Sierras.

They were without exception quite untrained as far as the English idea
goes, and the first thing to do with them was usually to teach them the
primitive ideas of cleanliness. The first servant I had was an ancient
female named Andrea, about forty years old, and it proved quite
impossible to get her to see the necessity of keeping anything in the
kitchen clean, as she seemed imbued with the idea that it was great
waste of time washing saucepans and frying-pans, as they would only get
dirty again when next used, and the most she could be persuaded to do
was to rub them round inside with a bit of old newspaper or a handful of
grass. Needless to say, after a time I got tired of these methods, and
so we parted.

My next servant, Angelina, was one of the best I had, as she was clean,
which was a great consideration, and also she was quick to learn and
soon picked up the rudiments of cooking according to our ideas; her
great failing, however, was that she was anything but honest, and could
not refrain from petty pilfering; and another drawback to her was her
objection to wearing shoes or stockings in the hot weather; in spite of
being constantly told that she must not appear without them, she would
insist in doing so, and this was a continual cause of trouble.

After getting rid of No. 2 our real troubles began, and we had eight
changes in ten months. At the time we were living in wooden huts about
two miles from a village which was a summer resort for rich people from
Buenos Aires, and this caused a dearth of servants during the summer
months, as the place was full from the beginning of December to the end
of March, and people who came up for the summer and rented houses
usually were willing to pay anything to get servants, with the result
that we outside would get none, or only the cast-off ones. Nos. 3 and 4
stayed but a short time. My fifth attempt was a terrible girl, too dirty
for words; and though apparently willing to learn, too utterly lacking
in intelligence to ever learn anything. She used to get herself into the
most awful grimy condition, and one incident during her time with me is
worth mentioning. I had with great difficulty one day got her to
understand that a wood floor could not be properly cleaned with a grass
broom dipped in cold water and just swished about over it, and, by going
down on my knees with a scrubbing brush and hot water and soap, and
giving a practical demonstration of how a floor should be washed, had
started her away to clean it, and judged that I might safely leave her,
to attend to the other household duties in the kitchen. I must tell you
that the day previously I had given her a practical lesson in
black-leading a stove by doing it myself while she looked on. Well,
after an hour in the kitchen I returned to see how she was getting on,
when I found to my great pleasure that not content with scrubbing the
floor, she had also attacked the stove with hot water, soap, and
scrubbing brush, with the result that my hard work of the previous day
was all undone and the whole room well sprinkled with black specks and
the stove a mass of rust. Two weeks of similar experiences finished our
acquaintance, and she gave place to No. 6. After I had spent three weeks
teaching No. 6 cooking, she quietly informed me that she was leaving at
the end of the week to take up a place as cook in Rosario, as she now
knew enough cooking for the position; so I had not only wasted all my
time in teaching her, but had paid her into the bargain for learning
enough to leave me.

The next servant, No. 7, Alexandrina, was, I think, the worst. She was a
Spaniard from Barcelona. She was an awful individual, and would insist
on wearing clothes of so light and scanty a nature that she was not
decent to have about the house; also, whenever we happened to have a
joke of any sort to laugh over at meals, she used immediately to come in
from the kitchen to see what was going on, and I had the greatest
difficulty to get her to return to the kitchen. I had to get rid of her,
because her moral reputation was anything but good, and two days in the
week she refused to get out of bed, and told me to do my own dirty work,
as she was ill; so at the end of two weeks she had to go. No. 8, Maria,
was a girl direct from the sierras, and was very stupid and silly, and
did not a single thing. One day I was buying vegetables, and she asked
me why I wanted to buy roots, and when I told her they were to eat, she
said even poor people could afford to buy meat, and she would not eat
them. One day I took this girl out with me to do some shopping, and
called on some people who had a piano. It was twilight, and someone was
playing the piano, and she rushed in the room and out again, with her
face very white, and said someone was beating a big, black animal in the
corner of the room, and it was screaming dreadfully with the pain. This
girl's mother was a very talkative old lady, and would insist on coming
with three children every day and taking up her position in the kitchen,
and when once she commenced to talk, one could not get away from her. At
the end of the month she came for the girl's pay, and wanted me to pay
her more money, which I was not willing to do, as I had been unable to
teach her much; so she asked if her daughter might go away for the day
and night, as she had to bath. This I was only too willing to agree to,
and let her go; but they returned in the middle of the night, and
removed all her belongings. After a few days I managed to get No. 9, who
was a widow with two children: but she only stayed two weeks. Our tenth
and last attempt was made with No. 4 once more, as she was again able to
come to us. She stayed two months, when we went away for four weeks'
holiday. A week after our return I paid her in full for the month,
though she had never been near the house all that time, and she promptly
said she could not stay with us any longer, and left. We nearly got to
No. 11, as we engaged a girl to come at $20 a month to start with, and
she was to come the next morning at eight o'clock to begin work. She
arrived at 10 a.m., and informed me that, as we had paid our last
servant $25 the month, she could not come for less. I was so sick and
tired of my experiences that this finished me, and I decided to do
without any servant. Since then, for the last year, I have done the work
myself.




POLICE OF A BYGONE DAY.




POLICE OF A BYGONE DAY.


Yes, times have changed since I went to San Cristobal just twenty years
ago. For then the English were pioneers, so to speak; not in a country
of savagery, but of semi-savagery, a very different and much worse
matter. I wonder is A.J., the Chief of Police, still to the fore? Ye
gods, how that man tried to break my heart, and how nearly he succeeded!
I was a Mayor-domo then, and G. was my boss, standing in the place of
the owners to me. The boss had a mortal dread of the police and their
powers, seen and unseen. So that when the worthy Chief of Police
suddenly decided to add the trade of butchering to his many lucrative
businesses, I received orders to sell him cows at twenty-five per cent.
less price than I sold to any of his competitors. Thus, whereas I was
selling them at twenty dollars paper, then worth about one pound per
head, I had to sell him at fifteen shillings, with the inevitable result
that he almost immediately became master of the situation and the entire
local market became his, enabling him to charge what he liked for meat,
while I was forbidden to raise the price of the cows sold him.

Insatiable in his greed, he began to ask for cattle twice a week, always
taking from ten to twenty animals, until one day, after exceptionally
wet weather, I protested that it was not possible to round up the stock
in the then state of the camp and destroy so much grass for a small
bunch of cows. Unlucky thought and ill-judged protest! For when he urged
that the inhabitants of the town were starving, and that a small point
of half-breed heifers would do to go on with, I received orders to let
him part out from our best herd. Twenty fine half-bred Herefords did he
pick while I almost shed tears of blood, though all the time, of course,
I had to show a smiling face.

This sort of thing had been going on for some time, when one of the
boundary riders told me that the fence between the town and one of our
nearest paddocks had been cut during the night.

"Then mend it up," said I.

"Sir, it is mended already."

Not a week had passed before the same man brought me the same report. So
I determined to "parar rodeo" (round up the cattle) immediately, and
count them. Twenty heifers short in one square league, and in less than
a month! This thing had to stop. I told the Capataz to take the boundary
rider off that beat, without telling him why, and then the Capataz and I
patrolled the fence night after night for a week, during which it was
never cut.

We put a new boundary rider on, and three mornings later he came to see
me bright and early, saying that not only had the fence been cut, but
that there were distinct traces of cattle having passed out recently.

After assuring myself that there was no doubt about the matter, for I
found the hoof marks of what I calculated to be not less than twenty
animals, I went post haste to my friend the Chief of Police, never
doubting that after all the favours shown him he would prove a friend in
need. I was young then.

"You don't say so, Don Ernesto!" said his podgy, putty-faced little
Highness. "Where was it? When was------ By heavens, somebody shall
suffer for this! Just let me or any of my soldiers catch the thieves,
and not one of them shall reach Santa Fe alive. Now, I'll tell you what.
Just leave it to me, and don't you worry nor think any more about the
matter, much less mention it to a soul. In less than two days I'll have
the thief or thieves here in the stocks."

I told him plainly that that was not my programme, and that, whatever he
did, I was not going to leave that fence unpatrolled until I could move
the stock out of the paddock.

"Then this is what we'll do, Don Ernesto. You shall be one of us. You
come and dine with me at six o'clock this evening, and afterwards we'll
go out with the sergeant and five or six men and catch 'em."

It was about the equinox, if I remember rightly--the springtime, when
everything is lovely and lovable: the camp flowers all in bloom, the
aroma of the trees burdening the air with delicious perfume, the fresh
verdure and plenty of grass, the powerful, stout-hearted bounding of the
horse (no longer "poor") beneath one, and, above all, the great issue
expected of the business in hand, the most important business to me in
the world at the time--all these combined spelled but one word, "Hope!"

Carbine in hand, Colt in holster, I arrived at his residence. There he
was, sitting at the door of his corner house, whence he could look down
three streets at once. How like a spider, I thought.

His welcome was cordial, but he seemed to smile at my eagerness, and
told me that he never dined before eight.

"But let us sit here in the cool of the evening," said he, handing out a
chair for me to sit by him on the footpath, "and let us take some
refreshment to while away the time. But, tell me, where did you say that
the fence was cut? But did you really see signs that cattle had passed?
Preposterous! The sons of guns shall suffer for this. Eh well, I'm glad
of it in a way--glad to have a little work, and perhaps a little
excitement. It doesn't do to have a too orderly district, for the
Governor and his satellites in Santa Fe imagine I'm lazy and not looking
after my business if they hear of no commotions. That black fellow you
sent me the other day, Don Ernesto--the fellow that was molesting a mad
woman in the camp--- I've got him seventeen years in the line for that.
I wish you would send me a few more, for hardly a letter comes from
Santa Fe in which I am not asked to send in recruits, so hard up are
they for Provincial soldiers."

Just then a poor Italian colonist came up, hat in hand. He, too, and all
his class were pioneers in those days, and God knows what they suffered.

"Well, what d'ye want?" asked my companion.

"Sir," said the wretched man, stuttering in his nervousness, "one of my
bullocks has been stolen, and I know the thief. I have been to the
Justice of the Peace, and he told me to bring the thief to him; but,
sir, the th-thief refuses to come."

"_Bueno_! Ten dollars, and ten dollars _down_," roared the majesty of
law.

"But, sir,----"

"No! But me no buts! Ten dollars at once, or I'll call the sergeant to
lock you up until you can get it."

I could see that the poor fellow's heart was breaking as he drew the
money from his pocket and handed it over. Smilingly the bully turned to
me and said, as his victim walked slowly away, "I'll bet you that that
man doesn't come around to molest me again. I'll guarantee to you, Don
Ernesto, that there isn't a district in the whole province where so few
appeals for justice are made."

At last it was dinner-time, and, being ushered into a dirty room with a
brick floor, dim light and grimy tablecloth, I seated myself at the
table with my host, his secretary, the doctor, and a clerk. The dinner
was in the usual native style of those days: ribs of beef roasted on
the gridiron, beef and pumpkin boiled together, to finish up with
"caldo," which is simply the water in which the beef and vegetables have
been boiled, with a good thick coating of grease.

No sooner had we begun dinner than it was noticed that we had no wine.

"No wine! How's this? What d'ye mean?" as he angrily turned to the
sergeant who was waiting.

"If you please, sir, So-and-so and So-and-so," mentioning the name of a
local firm of storekeepers, "say that they can supply no more wine until
they can get some of their accounts settled."

"How dare you bring me such a message as that! Take the corporal with a
couple of men and bring a half-barrel at once--in less than three
minutes, or I'll know the reason why."

The barrel was brought, and, with a bit and brace, quickly tapped, and
the wine set flowing round the table.

The dinner dragged on and on, until I thought he meant us to sit there
all night. Ten o'clock came, half-past, and then eleven. Then I began to
smell a rat. I kept on urging the necessity for action, but it became
more and more evident that the Chief was fooling. He pressed wine upon
all and upon me in particular, while he drank little himself, although
he pretended otherwise. At last, I could stand it no longer, and got up
in no very good humour to go.

"No, but stop, Don Ernesto! Where are you going? Sit down again. The
horses are not saddled yet: not even caught up. Sit down and have
patience and we'll all go with you in good time."

It was after twelve when at last we made a start. There were the Chief,
the sergeant, a corporal, four men, and myself. We rode slowly in a
northerly direction until we came to a small gate in the fence, of which
I had the key. All the way thither the Chief, while commending me for my
forethought in bringing arms, had been impressing upon me the importance
of not using them, no matter what happened, "Because, you see, you are
not an arm of the law, and if you were to shoot anyone, I should be
obliged to arrest you and send you to Santa Fe."

When we got through the fence, what was my surprise when the Chief said,
"Bueno, Don Ernesto, you and I have had a long day. What I propose is
that you and I off-saddle and doss down here, while the sergeant and men
patrol with muffled bits and spurs at a short distance from the fence.
Then the moment they hear anything they can come and let us know!"

In vain I protested that this was not my idea at all, and that I too
wanted to do the patrolling, but when he told a man to take the saddle
off my horse and shake down a bed for me, I thought it wiser to
acquiesce, or, at least, appear to do so. I shall never forget that
night. How we talked and talked and talked as we lay beneath the
brilliant stars, I, boiling with rage and anxiety under my assumed
tranquillity, while he, doubtless, was as much annoyed at having to keep
me in conversation. It must have been nearly four o'clock when I told
him that I really must sleep. "Bueno," said he, as he rolled over on his
side, "hasta manana."

In five minutes he was snoring. Even so, I did not dare to move, for
fear that he might be foxing. About an hour passed, during which he
moved, coughed, expectorated, and had other signs of conscious
animation, much to my disgust, until at last I thought the snoring
sounded too genuine to be shammed, so I crept towards him and whispered
in his ear that I thought I heard sounds of movement. But his snoring
was rhythmic and swinish, so I gathered up my saddle and gear and stole
over to my horse, which was picketed some yards off, and proceeded to
saddle him up. In doing so, my stirrups somehow clashed and thought it
was all up, for what a fool I should look if he woke and discovered me.
But it was all right: the music continued.

I led the horse for some little distance, then mounting, I rode him down
alongside the fence for about a mile until I came to a fresh gap in it.

Horror! Even though it was but what my suspicions had depicted, the
realisation came as a shock to me. "The--! The--!" To repeat my
expressions would edify no one.

Guided by the signal-lights at the station, I moved along at a smart
trot and soon recognised the quick tramping of animals ahead. Then I
drew back, and as the day was just breaking, I drew round to the west
side of the cavalcade, so that I might see without being seen. Yes, sure
enough, there were six military chacots outlined against the great sky
and a troop of animals ahead of them.

I halted to let them get well away from me, and then, with rage and
hatred in my heart, swearing vengeance all the while, I galloped as hard
as ever I could to the estancia, to impatiently await the uprising of my
boss.

"We must wire, or one of us must go to the Governor in Santa Fe at
once," I urged. But what was my disgust to be met with but a quiet smile
of amusement!

"Not if I know it," said he. "Why, good God, man, do you want to have
all our throats cut? This man is a personal friend of the Governor's,
and what satisfaction do you think we are likely to get out of that?"

"Then let us go to the Consul, the British Minister, or even to the
President of the Republic?"

A quiet smile with a negatory shake of the head was the only answer.

A fortnight later I sought him in his private sitting-room and found the
Chief of Police sitting in an easy-chair.

"Ha! ha! ha! Don Ernesto. So you caught us, did you? Well, it was worth
the fun. I never laughed so much in all my life as when I awoke that
morning and found that you had given me the slip!"




A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN CHACO.


After three years on an estancia in the vast monotonous, treeless, but
most fertile plains of the Central Argentine, under scorching sun,
driving rains, and biting wind, one feels that one would like to see a
river sometimes, animal life and more congenial surroundings; and so I
determined to visit the Northern Chaco, that enormous tract of land
which lies North of Santa Fe and stretches right away for many hundreds
of miles to North, East, and West.

Leaving Rosario by the night express, one crosses the great, slightly
undulating plains, probably among the richest in the world for the
growth of wheat, linseed, and maize, reaching Santa Fe early the
following morning. This town, the capital and Government centre of the
province, is rather an uninteresting place; chiefly noticeable in it are
the great number of fine churches and the magnificent sawmills owned by
a large French company. Santa Fe is supposed to be one of the most
religious centres in the Republic. More than once it has almost been
washed away in an eddy of the giant Parana in flood, the water rising
four feet in the houses on the highest level in the town.

After spending a day of sight-seeing in Santa Fe, we embarked at
nightfall for Vera, the headquarters of the Santa Fe Land Company's wood
department, arriving there in the early morning. The land around here
from the train appears to be a dry, salty country, devoid of herbage,
and only valuable on account of the excellent forest trees and timber.

Our morning meal was taken in the station waiting-room (the only
restaurant in the town), and consisted of cold coffee and what the
Argentine understands by boiled eggs, which have in reality been in
boiling water half a minute, and which, in order to eat, one has to tip
into a wine-glass and beat up with a fork, adding pepper and salt, etc.
This is the general way of eating eggs in South America; an egg cup is
one of the few things one cannot get in the country without going to an
English store in Buenos Aires.

Leaving Vera at 8 a.m. the train goes at a snail's pace along the branch
line to Reconquista, covering the distance of about thirty leagues in
five hours. Arriving there in the sweltering midday heat, we were met by
an English friend and his capataz, the latter dressed in his enormous
slouch hat, deerskin apron, and silver spurs weighing probably a full
kilo.

One cannot help noticing at once the different type of natives; from the
slow, slouching, don't-care kind of men, which one sees in Cordoba and
Southern Santa Fe, to the quick, straight, hawk-eyed half-Indian
Chaquenos.

Reconquista on a hot summer's day is one of the dirtiest places on this
earth, which is saying a good deal. One drives through streets two feet
deep in light sandy dust, which hangs in clouds all over the town. There
is an excellent hotel in the centre of the town, built on typical
Spanish plans with fine large open patios, which are filled with
splendid tropical plants and ferns. Having washed off the dust of three
days' travel from our weary persons, and having changed into more
suitable travelling gear, we sat down to an excellent spread.

In the cool of the evening we made a tour of the town, being most
interested in the cigar factories, where we bought excellent smokes for
$2 a hundred, all hand-made from pure tobacco leaf by the brown-hued
lasses of Reconquista.

The rest of the evening we spent in unpacking our native saddles, and
preparing everything for our long horseback journey--not having
forgotten to see that our tropilla of fifteen grey ponies were fit and
ready to make an early start next morning.

Three a.m. next morning found us out in the "corrales" having our ponies
allotted to us by the capataz--we found the tropilla on "ronda"--that
is, in a corner with a lasso tied across in front of them, the height of
their chests, and all facing outwards. This is the most general way of
teaching horses to stand in the Chaco, as, if taught to stand singly,
they would fall too easy a prey to the Indians and gauchos. In order to
saddle these ponies we had to "manear" them, that is, tie their forelegs
together, for without this they refused to let us put the blankets on
their backs.

All being ready, we started off, four of us, two in front and two
behind, with eleven loose ponies between us. By this time the sky was
beginning to grow light, and evidently the fresh morning air had
disagreed with my friend T.'s horse, which suddenly cleared down a side
street with his head between his forelegs and his back arched like the
bend in an archer's bow.

After some seconds of this amusing sight T. managed to get the pony's
head up and came along again, looking very warm and beaming; his
pink-nosed pony quite satisfied that he would have to carry more than
his own weight for some distance further.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.