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To the River Plate and Back. By W. J. The Argentine Republic. By A. Stuart History of Puerto Rico, from Spanish Our Mexican Muddle. By Henry Morris Holland 3.50 Pennington 3.00 Discovery to American Occupation. A sensational indictment of the Wood. International Relations of the United Tales of the Pampas. By W. H. Hud By R. A. Van Middeldyk..... 1.35 row Wilson-Political-Washington-Mex. States. By Emory R. Johnson... 1.50 son 1.25 American Bride in Porto Rico. By M. ican policy 1.00 South American Archaeology. By Thos. Northern Patagonla. By Bailey Willis 6.00 Blythe 1.00 To Mexico With Scott. By E. K. Smith. 1.25 Joyce 3.50 Illustrated from photographs, with 20 Porto Rico: Past and Present, and With the First City Troops on the MexSouth America on the Eve of Emanci. maps. Set of 13 maps, comprising Santo Domingo of Today. By A, ican Border. By G. Brooke........ 3.00 pation: The South Spanish Cologeneral map of Northern Patagonia Hyatt Verrill 1.50 | With the National Guard on the Border. nies in the Last Half Century of and Southern Chile, eight sheets_of 1.50 Social Problems in Porto Rico. By I. G. McCann By F. Their Independence. By Bernard topographic map of territory of Rio K. Fleagle 1.00 Peace and Quiet. By Edward Milton Moses 1.50 Negro, and four sheets of relief map Royle 1.35 Saints and Saintly Dominicans. By J. of the Andes, covering the lake reUp the Orinoco and Down the Magda A story of intrigue and filibustering 1.00 lena. Murphy gion. By Rev. J. A. Zahm... 3.75 Separately 2.00 for the Mexican Government. Idle Days in Patagonia. Haiti: Her History and Her Detractors. By W. H. Along the Andes and Down the Ama. Early Diplomatic Relations Between 3.00 Hudson By J. N. Leger... zon. By Rev. J. A. Zahm 3.75 1.50 United States and Mexico. By W. Haitian Revolution. By T. G. Steward Hunting Extinct Animals in the Pata- 1.25 R. Manning 2.25 Literary History of Spanish America. By Alfred Coester gonla Pampaa. 2.50 By F. B. Loomis.. Mexico. 1.50 The Monroe Doctrine in Its Relation to The Coming By John King the Republic of Haiti. By W. A. Goodrich 1.50 La America del Sud. By Hon. James BOLIVIA, MacCorkle 1.00 Mexico. 1.50 Bryce 2.00 By Susan Hale.. Bolivia. By Paul Walle... 3.50 A History of Jamaica. By W, J. Gard- 1.00 Caribbean Interests of the United States. Mexico. By J. Saxon Mills.. ner 2.50 The Plateau People of South America. 2.50 By Chester Lloyd Jones....... Mexican Trails. By S. D. Kirkham... 1.75 By Alexander A. Adams. 1.25 | Jamaica. By John Henderson.. .65 The Two Americas, By General Rafael New Trails in Mexico, By Carl Lum. 3.50 Travels and Explorations in the Bolivian The Book of the West Indies. Reyes By А. holtz 5.00 Andes, By Sir Martin Conway...... 3.00 Hyatt Verrill 2.50 South of Panama. By Edward Alls The Awakening of a Nation: The Mex2.40 The Rubber Country of the Amazon. By worth Ross Pocket Guide to the West Indies. By ico of Today. By C. F. Lummis.... 2.25 Henry C. Pearson...... 1.50 Algernon E. Aspinall The Other Americans: The Cities, the 3.00 Beyond the Mexican Sierras. By Dillon Countries and especially the People Development of the British West Indies. Wallace 2.00 BRAZIL. of South America. By Arthur Ruhl. 2.00 By F. W. Pitman 2.50 Mexico. Its Educational Problems. By Brazil: Today and Tomorrow. Pan Americanism. By Roland G. Usher. 2,00 By L. M. Barranco Our West Indian Neighbors. By Fred- 1.00 A forecast of the inevitable clash be Elwyn Elliott, F.R.G.S... 2.25 erick A. Ober. 2.00 Mythologies of Mexico and Peru. By L. tween the United States and Europe's The Brazilians and Their Country. By Virgin Islands of the United States of Spence 2.50 victor. Clayton Sedgwick Cooper 3.50 America. By Luther K. Zabriskie... 4.00 Fair God. By Lew Wallace.. 1.50 Latin America. By William R. Shepherd .60 Brazil. By Pierre Denis. 3.50 The Danish West Indies. By Waldemar Historic Churches in Mexico. By S. A. Through South America. By Harry WesContains valuable material, particu Westergaard 2.50 Butler 1.50 ton Vandyke 1.00 larly with respect to Sao Paulo, Rio The Storied West Indies. By F. A. Ober .80 Grande do Sol, Paraná and Ceará. Bernal Diaz del Castillo-Conquest of By C. Regi- The Secret of the Pacific. Health, Progress and Administration in Mexico. By Graham Cunningham. 2.00 nald Enock 3.50 North Brazil. By E. C. Buley. 1.75 the West Indies. By R. W. Boyce.. 3.50 A study of ancient civilization in the The Real Mexico. By Hamilton Fyfe... 1.25 South Brazil. By E. C. Buley. 1.75 West Indies. By A. K. Fiske..... 1.75 Americas. Modern Mexico. By R. J. MacHugh.... 3.50 Brazil and Brazilians. By G. J. Bruce.. 3.00 Cradle of the Deep. By F. Treves... 2.50 British Exploits In South America. By The Story of Mexico-A Land of con. Through the Brazilian Wilderness. 3.50 W. H. Koebel By Theo. Roosevelt Cruising in the Caribbean with a Cam. quest and Revolution. By Charles 3.50 era. By A. P. Stokes... 1.25 Morris 1.20 Inquisition in the Spanish Dependen. Brazil and Her People Today. cies. By Elwood Mead. By Nevin 3.00 Alone in the Caribbean. By Fredk. A. The American Egypt: A Record of 0. Winter 3.00 An illuminative study of the history Fenger 2.00 Travel in Yucatan. By Channing in the of Spanish America during the 17th Amazon Jungle. By Algot Cruising Among the Caribbees. By с. 3.80 Arnold and 18th centuries. Lange 2.50 A. Stoddard.. 1.50 | The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Upper Reaches of the Amazon. By The Twice American. By Eleanor In English in the West Indies. By J. A. 1.50 Freedom. By De Lara and Pinchon graham. A romance with a South Joseph Woodroffe 3.00 Froude 1.50 Diaz, Master of Mexico. By James 1.35 American background The River Amazon. By Paul Fountain 2.50 Guide to the West Indies and Panama. 2.25 Creelman Romance of the Spanish Main. By N. Ten Thousand Miles in a Yacht. By By Frederick A. Ober... 2.25 Porfirio Diaz—1830-1915. By D. Diaz 1.50 J. Davidson R. Arthur.... 2.00 1.50 2.00 Equatorial America. By M. M. Ballou.. Hannay American Diplomacy: Its Spirit and Eight Hundred Leagues on the Ama. Two Years in the French West Indies. The Case of Mexico and the Policy of Achievements, By John Bassett zon. By Jules Verne.. 1.00 By L. Hearn... 2.00 President Wilson. By Gen. Rafael 1.35 Moore de Zayas Enriquez... 2.00 CENTRAL AMERICA. Camps in the Caribbees. By Frederick Pacific Shores from Panama. By A. Ober.... 1.50 Thirteen Years in Mexico. By C. W. 2.50 Central America. By W. H. Koebel..... Dress 3.50 Ernest Peixotto.. 1.00 Down the Islands. By W. A. Paton..., Life of Hernando Cortes, and The ConTropical America. By I. N. Ford.. 2.00 Central and South American Descrip. tive Geography. By A. J. & F. D. Isles of Spice and Palm. By A. Hyatt quest of Mexico. (2 vols.) By А. Two on a Tour in South America. By 1.35 Verrill Herbertson 1.00 Helps ...each 1.00 Anna Wentworth Sears. 2.25 Deals with the most attractive and Central and South America. By A. H. Hernando Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico. South American Travels. less known of the Lesser Antilles. By Henry Keane. 2 vols.; each... 1.00 By F. Ober 6.00 3.00 Stephens The Mulberry Tree. By Winifred Winter in Central America. By H. J. With Cortez, the Conqueror. By V. C. James 2.50 Through South America's Southland. Watson 1.50 Sanborn 1.50 3.75 By Rev. J. A. Zahm.. Unique description of a trip through Conquest of the Tropics. By Upham the British West Indies, Haiti, Costa Porfirio Diaz, seven times President of Vagabonding Down the Andes. By Mexico. 5.00 Adams By E. B. Tweedie... 2.00 Harry A. Franck 4.00 Central American Mexico, Picturesque, Political, Progres. and West Indian ECUADOR. 2.00 Across the Andes. By C. J. Post. siye. Archaeology. By Thomas A. Joyce, By M. E. Blake and M. F. Ecuador: Its Ancient and Modern His Sullivan 1.25 Across Unknown South America. .2 M. A. 3.75 tory. By C. Reginald Enock....... 3.50 vols. By A. Savage-Landor... 10.00 In Indian Mexico. 5.00 By F. Starr. Guatemala and Her People of Today. Quito to Bogotá. By A. C. Veatch, Continent By of Opportunity, The. By Nevin O. Winter... Aztec Land. 1.50 3.00 3.00 F.G.S.A. By M. M. Ballou. Prof. Francis B. Clark. 1.75 Including chapters on British Hon- Through Southern Mexico. By H. F. GUIANAS. duras, Honduras, Salvador, Nicara- By C. E. Gadow 6.00 History of South Amercia, Akers 6.00 gua and Costa Rica. Guiana, British, French and Dutch. By Barbarous Mexico. By J. K. Turner.. 1.50 Filibusters and Financiers. By W. O. James Rodway 3.50 By W. D. Illustrated South America. Native Religions of Mexico and Peru. Boyce 2.50 Scroggs 2.50 Wanderings in South America, By By A, Reville,... 1.50 The Naturalist In Nicaragua. Naturalist on the Amazon River. By By Charles Waterton 2.50 Texas the Marvelouy--The State of Six 1.00 Thomas Belt. Henry Walter Bates... Leather. .70 Under the Roof of the Jungie-Animal 3.50 Flags. By Nevin O. Winter. with Walker in Nicaragua. By J. C. Life in the Guiana Wilds. By C. L. Including accounts of Spanish settleOn the Spanish Maln. By Herbert Jamison Bull 1.50 1.50 2.00 Strang ments, whose border line is the scene History of the Discovery and Conquest Our Search for a Wilderness. By Mary of the present day condict. Panama to Patagonia. By Charles M. of Costa Rica. 2.50 Blair Beebe By Ricardo Fernán. Pepper 2.75 PANAMA AND CANAL ZONE. dez Guardia 3.00 Treasure. By Gertrude S. Mathews... 2.00 Southland of North America. By A. S. Government of the Canal Zone. By 3.00 Republic of Costa Rica. By Joaquin A stirring record of Putnam adventurous George W. Goethals....... 1.00 Bernardo Calvo 2.00 search for a lost mine in the Guianas. Panama Canal. Comprising Its History S. Forrest 3.00 A Year of Costa Rican Natural History. MEXICO. and Construction, and Its Relations By A. S. Calvert. 3.00 1.00 The Mexican Problem, By C. W. Barron. to the Navy, International Law and Travels among the Great Andes of the Salvador of the Twentieth Century. 2.50 By Commerce. By Reuben E. Bakenhus, Equator. Edward Whymper.... P. F. Martin... Mexico of the Mexicans. By Lewis 2.50 et al. 4.20 Life of Las Casas, The Apostle of the Spence 2.00 Sanitation in Panama. By William C. Book of Buried Treasure. Andes. By Arthur Helps.... By Thirty Years With the Mexicans. By Al 2.25 Gorgas Ralph D. Paine 2.50 Life of Pizarro, with some accounts of den Buell Case 2.50 Being a true history of the gold, jew Panama: The Canal, the Country and the his associates in the Conquest of Carranza and Mexico. By C. de Fornaro. els and plate of pirates, galleons, etc., 1.25 People. 1.75 2.25 By Arthur Bullard.. Peru. By Arthur Helps sought for to this day. A story of Mexico as it is. Problems of the Panama Canal. By Brig. Independence of the South American Insurgent Mexico. By John Reed....... 1.75 2.00 Gen. Henry L. Abbot, U. S. &..... Republics. By F. L. Paxson...... 2.00 CHILE. Our First War in Mexico. By Farnham Panama Canal and International Trade Simon Bolivar. By F. L. Petre........ 4.00 Modern Chile. By W. H. Koebel...... 3.00 Bishop 1.25 Competition. By Lincoln Hutchinson 1.73 America's Foreign Relations. By Willis Chile. Its History and Development. By Mexico, The Wonderland of the South. Contains important statistical data, Fletcher Johnson. 6.00 G. F. Scott-Elliott. 3.50 By W. E. Carson...... 2.50 and of special value in connection with Modernizing the Monroe Doctrine. Ву Chile. By George J. Mills. 1.75 Mexico, A Hand-book for Travelers. By the study of foreign trade of South 1.25 States and C. H. Sherrill... Chile and Her People of Today. American international F. Phillips Terry 2.50 trade generally. Nevin O. Winter. Young Man's Chances in South and Cen 3.00 A Mexican Journey. By E. H. Blichfeldt 1.00 The Panama Gateway. By Joseph Bucktral America. By W. A. Reid.. 1.00 Progressive Chile. By Robt. E. Mans- Viva Mexico! By Charles Macomb Flan- lin Bishop 2.50 A Brief Bibliography of Books in Eng field 2.00 drau lish, Spanish and Portuguese relat. 1.35 Panama, Past and Present. By Farn Independence of Chile. By A. S. M. coming to Latin America, with .75 Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala ham Bishop.. .50 Chisolm 1.50 ments. By Peter H. Goldsmith.. and Honduras. By Harry A. Francke 2.00 Panama and What It Means. By John South American Study Suggestions. By A diverting travel narrative. Foster Frazer 1.75 .60 COLOMBIA. Mexico. Harry Irwin Bard... By C. Reginald Enock...... 3.50 Its ancient and By Construction of the Panama Canal. Colombia. By Phanor J. Eder. modern civilization, 3.50 William Luther Sibert and John history and political conditions, topog. Columbia. By V. Levine.... 2.25 Frank Stevens ..... ARGENTINA. 1.75 raphy and natural resources, industries Covers the subject from transportation and general development. Panama, The Creation, Destruction and A Baedeker of the Argentine Republic. to cost of living, etc. Handy for ref. Resurrection. BunauHistory By Philippe 3.00 of the Conquest of erence. Mexico. By Alberto Martinez.. Varilla 3.50 (1 vol.) By William H. Prescott... 1.00 Contains much information on locali Colombian and Venezuelan Republics. ties, history and statistics; invaluable By Wm. L. Scruggs... A. LePrince and A. J. Orenstein.... 2.50 to the traveler. America and the Canal Title. By J. C. Diplomat's Wife in Mexico. By E. L. C. 3.50 1.35 Panama Canal. By F. J. Haskin. Argentina and Uruguay. By G. Ross.... O'Shaughnessy Freeboer 2.00 1.50 3.00 Who Built the Panama Canal. By W. L. Argentina. By W. A. Hirst. Diplomatic Days. By Edith O'Shaugh Pepperman 2.00 1.75 CUBA AND THE WEST INDIES, nessy. Sidelights into the Diaz and Argentina By Geo. J. Mills...... Madero regimes 2.00 Across Panama and Around the CaribArgentina and Her People of Today. Cuba and Her People of Today. bean. By F. A. Nicholas..... 3.00 Forbes Lindsay Page 3
STEEL SHEETS, plain and corrugated; galvanized and painted. Galvanized sheets "APOLLO" brand. Black sheets "EAGLE" brand. Sheets for making stoves, tacks, boiler jackets. Steel sheets polished and planished. Copper bearing sheets "KEYSTONE” brand, either black or galvanized. TIN PLATE- “COKE,” “CHARCOAL,” and “TERNE" for cans, cooking utensils, roofs, etc. Black plates for tinning, stamping, etc. PIPE, black and galvanized wrought for steam, gas and water; American or English Standards. Welded Square and Rectangular pipe, extra and double extra strong pipe. Lapwelded steel BOILER TUBES, CASING, TUBING and DRIVE PIPE for oil and artesian wells. Oil and Gas line Pipe. CON. VERSE and MATHESON lead joint pipe for water and gas mains. TUBU. LAR STEEL POLES. Lapwelded and seamless CYLINDERS for compressed air, etc., SEAMLESS STEEL TUBING. Cold drawn or hot rolled seamless steel BOILER TUBES. Cast iron and malleable iron fittings for tubes and pipe. Brass and iron body valves and cocks. Drive well points and well supplies. STEEL RAILS (Vignole) of all the usual sections varying in weight from the heavy rail for railroads to the lightest rails. Groove and guard rails for tramways. RAILS and ACCESSORIES. SPECIAL TRACK WORK, points and crossings of Vignole or groove rails in Built-up, Manganese Steel Insert and Solid Manganese steel for electric and steam railroads. Portable switches, switch stands, rail braces, compromise joints, etc. STEEL RAILWAY TIES (Sleepers). DRIVING SHAFTS forged of the best quality steel for locomotives, tramways and railway cars. STRUCTURAL MATERIAL of all kinds: Joists, Channels, Tees, Angles, etc., for Bridges, Buildings, and General Constructive work. Best quality BESSEMER and BASIC OPEN HEARTH STEEL BARS, Rounds, Squares, Flats, Ovals and Hexagons. Special bolt, rivet and shafting steel. STEEL SHEET PILING, STEEL MINE TIMBERS, OIL WELL DER
RICKS, SCHOEN SOLID FORGED AND ROLLED STEEL WHEELS. STEEL GEAR BLANKS. FORGED AXLES of highest quality for Locomotives, Railroad and Tramway cars. FORGINGS. HOOPS for barrels and casks, and TIES for baling cotton, wood, hides, etc. MILD STEEL PLATES for ships, tanks, stacks and boilers. Flange and fire box steel. Checkered plates. WIRES, baling and fencing; all classes of coated and uncoated for manu. facturing purposes. Genuine "IOWA,” “GLIDDEN” and “WAUKEGAN” barb wire.' Fence and netting STAPLES. Tinned mattress, broom and bottling wire. Woven Wire Fence. FABRIC FOR RE-INFORCING CONCRÈTE. Wire Nails and Tacks of all descriptions. INDESTRUCTIBLE CYLINDRICAL STEEL FENCE POSTS. HORSE and MULE SHOES, and COLD ROLLED PLATES for deep stamping, etc. AERIAL TRAMWAYS, Bleichert System. Locked coil track cable, locked wire cable and smooth coil track cable for Aerial Tramways. IRON and STEEL WIRE ROPE, bright and galvanized for all purposes. Bright and galvanized SASH CORD, galvanized ČLOTHES LINES. · Bare and insulated COPPER WIRE and CABLE of every description. COPPER RAIL BONDS, solid and stranded for electric railways. WEATHER PROOF INSULATED telephone and signal WIRE. Galvanized telegraph and telephone wire. PLAIN and GALVANIZED POLE STEPS. ROUND and FLAT WIRE STEEL SPRINGS. PIG IRON. COAL AND COKE. FABRICATED MATERIAL for Railway bridges, highway bridges, turntables, transfer tables, barges, steel chimney's, steel buildings, mill buildings, office buildings, tanks, towers, transmission towers, trestles, cylinder piers.
We solicit inquiries accompanied by exact specifications stating quantity desired with full part lars as to size, weight, finish, packing, etc., and the purpose for which the goods are required. Special catalogue on application.
United States Government War-Savings Stamps
What They Are and Why You Should Buy Them
N ofiering "Iar-Savings Stamps" to the public the United States Gov ernment has made immediately available for every man, woman, and child in the country a profitable, simple, and secure investment. WHAT THEY ARE.—War-Savings Stamps are the answer of a great democracy to the demand for a democratic form of government security. They are “little baby bonds.” Like Liberty bonds, they have behind them the entire resources of the Government and people of the United States. They have the additional advantage that they steadily increase in value from the date of purchase until the date of maturity, and this increase is guaranteed by the Government. These stamps are issued in two denominations, the 25-cent stamp and the $5 stamp. For the convenience of investors a “Thrift Card” is furnished to all purchasers of 25-cent stamps. This card has spaces for 16 stamps. When all the spaces have been filled the Thrift Card may be exchanged for a $5 stamp at post offices, banks, or other authorized agencies by adding 12 cents in cash prior to February 1, 1918, and 1 cent additional each month thereafter. Those who prefer may buy a $5 stamp outright. These will be on sale from December 3, 1917, until January 31, 1918, for $4.12. They automatically increase in value a cent a month every month thereafter until January 1, 1923, when the United States will pay $5 at any post office or at the Treasury in Washington for each stamp affixed to a Iar-Savings Certificate. When you purchase a $5 stamp, you must attach it to an engraved folder known as à “War-Savinys Certificate" which bears the name of the purchaser and can be cashed only by the person whose name appears upon the certificate, except in case of death or disability. This certificate contains 20 spaces. If these are all filled with Iar-Savings Stamps between December 3, 1917, and January 31, 1918, the cost to the purchaser will be $82.40, and on January 1, 1923, the Government will pay the owner of the certificate $100—a net profit to the holder of $17.60. This is based on an interest rate of 4 per cent. compounded quarterly from January 2, 1918. The amount of Iar-Savings Stamps sold to any one person at any one time shall not exceed $100 (maturity value), and no person may hold such stamps or War-Savings Certificates to an aggregate amount exceeding $1.000 (maturity value).
If the holder of a War-Savings Certificate finds it necessary to realize cash on it before maturity, he may at any time after January 2, 1918, upon giving 10 days' written notice to any money-order post office, receive for each stamp affixed to his certificate the amount paid therefor plus 1 cent for each calendar month after the month of purchase of each stamp. A registered certificate may be redeemed, however, only at the post office where registered. In other words, the plan is simpie, straightforward, and certain. The holder of the certificates can not lose and is certain to gain. He is buying the saiest security in the world in the most convenient form in which the security of a great Government has ever been offered to its people. Why You Should Buy Them.— The main reason for the purchase of War-Savings Stamps is because your country is at war. Your Country needs every penny which every man, woman, and child can save and lend, in order to feed, clothe, arm, and equip the soldiers and sailors of America and to win this righteous war in defense of American honor and the cause of democracy throughout the world. If we are to win the war, we must win it as a united people. The savings of every man, woman, and child are necessary if we are to hasten the victorious ending of the war. War Savers are Life Savers. A single strand in the cables which uphold the great Brooklyn Suspension Bridge is not very strong, but thousands of these strands bound together uphold one of the great thoroughfares of the world. When our fathers and sons and brothers were called by our Country to take up arms in her defense, you did not hear an individual soldier refuse to serve because his service alone would not win the war. Each man was ready to do his part. The great army thus formed is going forward to face the fire of battle and to risk everything for the safety and security of our homes and our families, and for the very existence of our Country These are the men for whom you are asked to save and lend your dollars. A Country worth fighting for is a Country worth saving for. To save money is to save life. Buy War-Savings Stamps at post offices, banks, trust companies, or other authorized agencies, and strike a blow for our Country.
STEEL SHEETS, plain and corrugated; galvanized and painted. Galvanized sheets "APOLLO" brand. Black sheets "EAGLE” brand. Sheets for making stoves, tacks, boiler jackets. Steel sheets polished and planished. Copper bearing sheets “KEYSTONE" brand, either black or galvanized. TIN PLATE- "COKE," "CHARCOAL," and "TERNE" for cans, cooking utensils, roofs, etc. Black plates for tinning, stamping, etc. PIPE, black and galvanized wrought for steam, gas and water; American or English Standards. Welded Square and Rectangular pipe, extra and double extra strong pipe. Lapwelded steel BOILER TUBES, CASING, TUBING and DRIVE PIPE for oil and artesian wells. Oil and Gas line Pipe. CONVERSE and MATHESON lead joint pipe for water and gas mains. TUBULAR STEEL POLES. Lapwelded and seamless CYLINDERS for compressed air, etc., SEAMLESS STEEL TUBING. Cold drawn or hot rolled seamless steel BOILER TUBES. Cast iron and malleable iron fittings for tubes and pipe. Brass and iron body valves and cocks. Drive well points and well supplies. STEEL RAILS (Vignole) of all the usual sections varying in weight from the heavy rail for railroads to the lightest rails. Groove and guard rails for tramways. RAILS and ACCESSORIES SPECIAL TRACK WORK, points and crossings of Vignole or groove rails in Built-up, Manganese Steel Insert and Solid Manganese steel for electric and steam railroads. Portable switches, switch stands, rail braces, compromise joints, etc. STEEL RAILWAY TIES (Sleepers). DRIVING SHAFTS forged of the best quality steel for locomotives, tramways and railway cars. STRUCTURAL MATERIAL of all kinds: Joists, Channels, Tees, Angies, etc., for Bridges, Buildings, and General Constructive work. Best quality BESSEMER and BASIC' OPEN HEARTH STEEL BARS, Rounds, Squares, Flats, Ovals and Hexagons. Special bolt, rivet and shafting steel. STEEL SHEET PILING, STEEL MIÑE TIMBERS, OIL WELL DER
RICKS, SCHOEN SOLID FORGED AND ROLLED STEEL WHEELS. STEEL GEAR BLANKS. FORGED AXLES of highest quality for Locomotives, Railroad and Tramway cars. FORGINGS. HOOPS for barrels and casks, and TIES for baling cotton, wood, hides, etc. MILD STEEL PLATES for ships, tanks, stacks and boilers. Flange and fire box steel. Checkered plates. WIRES, baling and fencing; all classes of coated and uncoated for manufacturing purposes. Genuine "IOWA," "GLIDDEN" and "WAUKEGAN" barb wire.' Fence and netting STAPLES. Tinned mattress, broom and bottling wire. Woven Wire Fence. FABRIC FOR RE-INFORCING CONCRĒTE. Wire Nails and Tacks of all descriptions. INDESTRUCTIBLE CYLINDRICAL STEEL FENCE POSTS. HORSE and MULE SHOES, and COLD ROLLED PLATES for deep stamping, etc. AERIAL TRAMWAYS, Bleichert System. Locked coil track cable, locked wire cable and smooth coil track cable for Aerial Tramways. IRON and STEEL WIRE ROPE, bright and galvanized for all purposes. Bright and galvanized SASH CORD, galvanized CLOTHES LINES. Bare and insulated COPPER WIRE and CABLE of every description. COPPER RAIL BONDS, solid and stranded for electric railways. WEATHER PROOF INSULATED telephone and signal WIRE. Gal. vanized telegraph and telephone wire. PLAIN and GALVANIZED POLE STEPS. ROUND and FLAT WIRE STEEL SPRINGS. PIG IRON. COAL AND COKE. FABRICATED MATERIAL for Railway bridges, highway bridges, turn. tables, transfer tables, barges, steel chimneys, steel buildings, mill buildings, office buildings, tanks, towers, transmission towers, trestles, cylinder piers.
We solicit inquiries accompanied by exact specifications stating quantity desired with full particulars as to size, weight, finish, packing, etc., and the purpose for which the goods are required. Special catalogue on application.
United States Government War-Savings Stamps
What They Are and Why You Should Buy Them
N offering "War-Savings Stamps" to the public the United States Gov ernment has made immediately available for every man, woman, and child in the country a profitable, simple, and secure investment. Wuat THEY ARE.—War-Savings Stamps are the answer of a great democracy to the demand for a democratic form of government security. They are "little baby bonds.” Like Liberty bonds, they have behind them the entire resources of the Government and people of the United States. They have the additional advantage that they steadily increase in value from the date of purchase until the date of maturity, and this increase is guaranteed by the Government. These stamps are issued in two denominations, the 25-cent stamp and the $5 stamp. For the convenience of investors a “Thrift Card" is furnished to all purchasers of 25-cent stamps. This card has spaces for 16 stamps. When all the spaces have been filled the Thrift Card may be exchanged for a $5 stamp at post offices, banks, or other authorized agencies by adding 12 cents in cash prior to February 1, 1918, and 1 cent additional each month thereafter. Those who prefer may buy a $5 stamp outright. These will be on sale from December 3, 1917, until January 31, 1918, for $4.12. They automatically increase in value a cent a month every month thereafter until January 1, 1923, when the United States will pay $5 at any post office or at the Treasury in Washington for each stamp affixed to a War-Savings Certificate. When you purchase a $5 stamp, you must attach it to an engraved folder known as a "War-Savings Certificate" which bears the name of the purchaser and can be cashed only by the person whose name appears upon the certificate, except in case of death or disability. This certificate contains 20 spaces. If these are all filled with War-Savings Stamps between December 3, 1917, and January 31, 1918, the cost to the purchaser will be $82.40, and on January 1, 1923, the Government will pay the owner of the certificate $100—a net profit to the holder of $17.60. This is based on an interest rate of 4 per cent. compounded quarterly from January 2, 1918. The amount of War-Savings Stamps sold to any one person at any one time shall not exceed $100 (maturity value), and no person may hold such stamps or War-Savings Certificates to an aggregate amount exceeding $1,000 (maturity value).
If the holder of a War-Savings Certificate finds it necessary to realize cash on it before maturity, he may at any time after January 2, 1918, upon giving 10 days' written notice to any money-order post office, receive for each stamp affixed to his certificate the amount paid therefor plus 1 cent for each calendar month after the month of purchase of each stamp. A registered certificate may be redeemed, however, only at the post office where registered. In other words, the plan is simpie, straightforward, and certain. The holder of the certificates can not lose and is certain to gain. He is buying the safest security in the world in the most convenient form in which the security of a great Government has ever been offered to its people. Why You Should Buy Them.-The main reason for the purchase of War-Savings Stamps is because your country is at war. Your Country needs every penny which every man, woman, and child can save and lend, in order to feed, clothe, arm, and equip the soldiers and sailors of America and to win this righteous war in defense of American honor and the cause of democracy throughout the world. If we are to win the war, we must win it as a united people. The savings of every man, woman, and child are necessary if we are to hasten the victorious ending of the war. War Savers are Life Savers. A single strand in the cables which uphold the great Brooklyn Suspension Bridge is not very strong, but thousands of these strands bound together uphold one of the great thoroughfares of the world. When our fathers and sons and brothers were called by our Country to take up arms in her defense, you did not hear an individual soldier refuse to serve because his service alone would not win the war. Each man was ready to do his part. The great army thus formed is going forward to face the fire of battle and to risk everything for the safety and security of our homes and our families, and for the very existence of our Country. These are the men for whom you are asked to save and lend your dollars. A Country worth fighting for is a Country worth saving for. To save money is to save life. Buy War-Savings Stamps at post offices, banks, trust companies, or other authorized agencies, and strike a blow for our Country. Page 4
ALL ABOUT LATIN AMERICA In Books of Every Description America's business expansion southward makes important real information on the Latin American countries to those who would keep pace with its growth. SOUTH AMERICAN HANDBOOKS Well-arranged information on natural resources, climate, indus- tries, currency, transport, labor, mining laws, foreigners' rights, and cost of living. By Geo. J. Mills By E. C. Buley ARGENTINA COLOMBLA, by V. Lévine NORTH BRAZIL CHILE PERU, by É. C. Vivian SOUTH BRAZIL Illustrated and with Maps, Each, $1.75 CENTRAL AMERICA, by W. H. Koebel An analysis of its commercial opportunities today. Fully illustrated and with map, $3.50 Latin American Trade Pointers Exporting to Latin America Selling Latin America By W. E. Aughinbaugh. What to sell, how to sell, how to finance, ship, bill and collect-all fully $3.00. explained. Illustrated, $2.00 The Future of South America By Roger W. Babson. Money-making possibilities Profusely illustrated, and with maps, $3.00. in the southern republics analyzed by America's foremost economist. Maps and illustrations, $2.00 The Brazilians and Their Country Quito to Bogotá By. Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. Contains a wealth of information that everyone ought to know about By A. C. Veatch. Emphasizes opportunities in the largest South American republic. Embellished Andean regions open to capitalists and colonizers. with numerous illustrations and map, $3.50 Illustrated, and with plans and maps, $3.00 the Andes West Indies throughout the length and By A. Hyatt Verrill. A com- breadth of South America. Lav. By Harry A. Franck. Andean pendium of useful information ishly illustrated, and with maps. life and nature depicted at close for the tourist in the Caribees. $2.50. range. The year's most captivat. Maps and illustrations, $2.50 Through the Brazilian ing travel tale. 612 pages. II. Wilderness Thirty Years With the lustrated, $4.00 Mexicans By Theodore Roosevelt. Covers Colonel Roosevelt's expedition to By Alden Buell Case. A strik. the “River of Doubt," with ob- Tramping Through ing revelation of "the other servations on tropical bird and side" of the Mexican character, animal life. Illustrated, $3.50 Mexico, Guatemala in peace and revolution. IllusUnited States Colonies and Honduras trated, $1.50. and Dependencies The Other Americans By W. D. Boyce. Describes the By Harry A. Franck. An enter- commercial and social conditions taining picture of life in quaint By Arthur Ruhl. An intelligent in Porto Rico, Cuba, Dominican account of the countries, and es. nooks and towns of Mexico and Republic, Haiti, Alaska and Ha- pecially the people and customs Central America. Illustrated, waii. Profusely illustrated, of South America. Illustrated, $2.50. $2.00 $2.00 Noble's Spanish Salva-Webster Spanish-English English Dictionary Dictionary Dictionary Edited by Arturo Cuyas. 25,000 By Arturo Cúyas. Over 4,000 words, including explanations of irregular forms, idiomatic phrases, tions, idioms, technical The best pocket dictionary. Mo- scientific and commercial terms. Half-leather, India paper. Dou- Over 1,200 pages; thin paper; ble indexed, $3.25 rocco, double indexed, $1.00 half-leather, $2.75 special subject? Write us for list of special books to help you.
VACABONDING DOWN THE ANDES
(TRAMPING THROUGH MEXICO CUATEMALA AND HONDURAS
APPLETON'S NEW SPANISH DICTIONARY
ESPAÑOL - INGLÉS INGLÉS - ESPAÑOL
SPANISH-ENGLISH ENGLISH-SPANISH
SPANISH ENGLISH ENGLISH-SPANISH Page 5
A Great Son of Nicaragua Famous
North American delegates to the Pan-American Congress, he largely repudiated his former apprehensions. He was an ardent lover of liberty. He always raised his voice in behalf of the weak oppressed by a mighty neighbor. When, in 1896, the government of the French Republic arbitrarily occupied Madagascar, imprisoned the unfortunate Queen Ranavalo, and, in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity, executed her relative and supporters in the public square of Tannanarivo, he, the great admirer of France, condemned with indignation the conduct of the French government. And to the unhappy, dethroned queen he devoted one of the most touching pages of his book La Caravana pasa. Ruben Dario died on the 6th of February, 1916, at the age of 49 years. Had he lived a few years longer, had he seen our great republic united with her South American sisters to defend the noble cause of liberty and democracy against the barbarous tyrant, he would have rejoiced in the depth of his heart, and, without any admixture of awe, would have felt a sincere love for a country who, without any hope of temporal gain, led solely by a principal of equity, had sent the best of her sons to an untimely death. And at the end of this mighty struggle, he would have sung a triumphal pæan to Liberty.
-N the year 1888, there was published in the city of Valparaiso, a little volume of 132 pages. It contained six poems and a number of stories in prose. The author was quite unknown to the world of letters, although he had previously published a few collections of poems. His name was Ruben Darío. Young and ambitious as he was, he sent a complimentary copy of his work to the man whose star then illuminated the literary world with especial brilliancy, the famous author of Pepita Jiménez. But the book was entitled Azul, and Juan Valera, who knew Hugo's motto: “L'art, c'est l'azur," and cared little to see one more diminute disciple of the great artist, simply put the book away. A week later, however, he made up his mind to give it a rapid glance, and then, gradually enraptured by the magic charm of Darío's diction, profoundly admired it, and saluted in the young poet a master of Castillian verse. The appearance of Azul marks an important date in Spanish literature. The charm of the thought and the richness of the verse took the world by storm. From all Spanish-speaking republics, from Cuba, from Colombia, from Mexico, hosts of admirers and disciples were found. A new school of poetry arose at the same time all over the continent. In Buenos Aires, a periodical was founded to support the program of the school and spread its theories. The "modernista” movement was born. In the following years, new masterpieces were given to the press: Los Raros, in 1893; Prosas profanas, in 1896; and later, in 1905, the great work where the poetical genius of Ruben Darío can be studied in all its splendor, the famous Cantos de vida y esperanza. His reputation was now well established; and from Spain itself he was hailed as the greatest Spanish poet that had appeared since the sixteenth century. Born in a turbulent, small republic of Central America, Ruben Darío has given his native country more glory than she could have expected from all her generals and statesmen put together. And yet it would be unjust to call him a Nicaraguan poet. Ruben Darío was a genuine cosmopolitan. He visited all the countries of the American continent and spent a good many years in Europe. He lived in Santiago, of Chile, in Buenos Aires, in Madrid and in Paris. He repeatedly visited the United States; and, a few years before his death, delivered lectures in Columbia University. We cannot be surprised, therefore, when we hear the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó claim that Ruben Darío is not a poet of America. It is not indeed in America, but in Europe, and more especially in France, that we find the spiritual progenitors of Azul. Already in the first collection of his verses, published in 1885, before our poet had ever crossed the ocean, we find a pompous eulogy of Victor Hugo. According to Ruben Dario, Hugo has approached poetical perfection more than any other poet: "Hasta donde éste sube, nunca subieron otros." Later, however, it is no longer the manner of Hugo that captivates him. He is powerfully attracted by the symbolistic movement, by the tragic and unfortunate Paul Verlaine, by the strange writer and dreamer who, on one occasion, was on the point of being designated as king of the Hellenes, Mathias Philippe Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. A man who attracted him still more was a son of poetical Athens, John Papadiamantopoulos, known to the literary world as Jean Moreas. To Moreas, as well as to Verlaine and Villiers, he devotes an entire section of Los Raros. He salutes him as a great master in prose and verse. And, indeed, the program of the modernists in South America was almost exactly the same as that of the symbolists in France. Their aim was to widen the horizon of poetry by rejecting all trammels imposed by the traditional laws of prosody. They gave vogue to a large number of altogether unknown metrical forms. They rejected the classical rules about hiatus and caesura. They finally introduced the “vers libre," which rejects all previous rules and admits the greatest variety in the number of syllables. Poetry, like everything else, follows the general laws of evolution, and we readily admit that new forms can legitimately spring up in literature as well as in nature. But we cannot here fail to mention a capital defect of the symbolistic and "modernista” school. As a great Spanish scholar of this city, Dr. Alfred Coester, has cleverly pointed out, the constant striving after poetical
SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SPANISH. By Cornelus de Witt Willcox, Professor, U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. (Sturgis & Walton Co., N. Y.) $2.00 net. Engineering students of colleges and technical schools will find here a book prepared especially to meet the wants of those who intend to practice their professions in the Spanish-Americas. After briefly touching upon the subjects of Physics proper and Chemistry, the compiler has brought together articles and extracts bearing upon Steam, Electricity, Automobiles, Aeronautics, Topography, Mining, Bridges, Railroads and allied fields for engineering practice. Such subjects are treated inter-dependently, so that the bridge builder or the mining engineer can acquire a knowledge of topographical terms which will be of service in his work, or that an automobile engineer, or even an agent, may not be ignorant of the principles of electricity. Chapters on military and naval equipment have been introduced, and the technical expressions applied in the Service at every turn in daily life are clearly presented. The scope of the work appears broad enough to include practically all classes of technical students who wish to acquire a substantial knowledge of Spanish technical work and become acquainted with the manner in which technical subjects are presented in the Spanish language. To this end, the selections made are practical, and where necessary to present a few in mathematical form, this has been simply done. Notes are furnished where they seem indispensable and there is an unusually extensive vocabulary. The book will be especially helpful to students who have already acquired a knowledge of Spanish who, therefore, in a measure, are independent of mere grammatical references, and within its limits will give the attentive reader a grasp of modern Spanish technical terminology.
effect often leads the modernists to the most ludicrous extravagance. And, if in a man like Dario natural genius always sallies forth and makes us forget minor defects, many of his disciples are able to imitate only his shortcomings. Eccentricity and whimsicality are taken for the acme of art. French in poetry, Ruben Darío is no less so in prose. And let it not be believed that I here intend to deny his capacity as a prose writer. In prose as well as in verse he is simply admirable. He possesses a remark- able descriptive power, and when he traces a picture of our Broadway, he reminds us of another inimitable master of description, the author of Germinal and L'Assommoir. But his prose is no longer the classical Castilian prose. The beautiful, long periods of Cer- vantes and Luis de Granada are broken up into short sentences which remind us of the nineteenth century French writers. Many a story of Ruben Darío, if trans- lated almost literally, would be perfect French. Classical Castilian prose is shorn of its majesty, and we find our- selves in the presence of a style which is beautiful no doubt, but nevertheless does not satisfy us altogether. We are, as it were, walking in a strange land. We feel that we are treading on insecure ground. And yet it would be unjust not to recognize in Ruben Darío a genuine Spanish American. His love for the South American republics often inspires his beautiful verses. And, as a true patriot, he occasionally gives vent to his fear of the colossus of the North, which threatens to absorb his beloved Spanish-speaking land: "¿Seremos entregados a los barbaros fieros? ¿Tantos millones de hombres hablaremos ingles?" One of the most beautiful of Dario's poems is the ode A Roosevelt. Our former president appears to him as the impersonation of our mighty republic: "Eres los Estados Unidos, eres el futuro invasor de la América ingenua que tiene sangre indigena, que aun reza a Jesucristo, y aun habla en español." If we bear in mind that these lines were published two years after our participation in the rebellion of Panama, we shall certainly understand Dario's con- sternation. Nevertheless Ruben Darío greatly admired the United States, and in a poem written in 1906 to welcome the
FOREIGN EXCHANGE EXPLAINED. By Franklin Escher. (Macmillan Co.) $1.25 net. To the very large number of people identified with America's increasing commerce with Latin America and her trade in foreign fields, in its numerous ramifications, a knowledge of the principles of foreign exchange is essential. In the present work the student, the businessman and the banker is given a clear-cut, definite description of foreign exchange and of the underlying and unchanging principles on which it works. The volume describes foreign exchange conditions as they exist to-day. The question of export and import credits is fully explained by means of typical case illustrations, and documents in actual use are reproduced. New York's position, present and future, as a world money market is thoroughly discussed, together with the more recent developments arising out of war conditions, and modifications of the federal reserve system. A valuable appendix outlines the monetary systems of the principal countries of the world, and contains tables which explain the process of converting foreign currency into that of the United States and vice-versa. Page 6
has been cut down so that a balance of about fifty-fifty strength of the odour of mineral oil existing in the SOUTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS PROSPEROUS may be maintained between text and advertising. They imagination of the parties principally interested. carry a great volume of classified, most of it at rates Great was the excitement on November 7 on receipt An interesting review of the customs of the South about equivalent to those prevailing in New York. of a series of telegrams from the workings, following American newspapers is contained in the report of Mr. Barrett is confident that, after the war, the news- each other in quick succession, giving notice in the Robert S. Barrett, formerly Washington correspondent papers of South America will utilize almost exclusively names of Sinclair, the expert in charge of the boring and now special agent of the Bureau of Foreign and supplies and equipment from the United States. He operations, and Burr, the local manager in charge at Domestic Commerce. Mr. Barrett visited every coun thinks that our greatest export market for printing Punta Arenas, that a vein of oil-impregnated sand was try of that continent and listed the equipment and remachinery of all kinds is to be found there. being perforated, that shortly afterwards the spring had quirements of 3,800 newspapers and printing offices. been tapped, borings having reached a depth of 2,010 America's chances for increasing her share to world feet. Oil was surging upwards, filling the well and pre IMPORTANT VENEZUELAN OIL AND COAL trade along these lines are encouraging, Mr. Barrett EDICT venting further progress; which was capable of prodeclares. There are thirty-tree papers published in ducing at least five thousand barrels daily, or words to Buenos Aires alone, the report brings out. A Government resolution, issued and published that effect. One paper has a powerful whistle which it uses to an- through the Ministry of “Fomento" (Development), Later: "We are removing boiler to avoid danger of nounce startling events to the city. Until the European provides as follows: firing the well: the oil is reported of good quality, light war began extra editions were few and far between and "The Provisional President of the Republic directs coffee colour and suitable as lubricant or combustible.” the whistle seldom was heard. As world events be- that in conformance with article three of the law of came of daily occurance, the whistle blew frequently. mines and petroleum and coal mines in the States of That instructions were awaited respecting the covering down of the well in the absence of facilities for dealing A city council antagonistic to the editor of the paper Trujillo, Merida and Zulia which are not already leased with the oil. Later it was advised that these preliminattempted to impose restrictions on noises such as the aries had been executed. whistle at certain hours. The editor made out his check to cover a large number of fines and the "extra" con The leading actors then took a rest, awaiting developtinued to be sounded for the city's benefit. Finally the ordinance was repealed. The publication of the news in Santiago and Val“Features” are a rarity, but novels of literary value paraiso produced a fever on the stock exchanges, are printed in daily installments, so arranged in the "Patagonias” soaring upwards and changing hands with paper that they can be cut out and preserved in book unprecedented rapidity, each change adding to the form. price. Cable dispatches received by some papers are posted From 77/2 to 14 was a journey of a few hours only, a on bulletin boards, where they may be compared with million or so of shares being handled in a few days. the dispatches as printed, to show that the news is A suspicious feature was the putting on the market by genuine and was given the public without "padding." the company of some 32,800 shares in Valparaiso and Scare heads virtually are unknown. 25,100 in Santiago. Magnificent buildings house many of the newspapers, Then the effervescence began to diminish and the decorated in marbles and tiles, and containing art barometer to steadily fall towards normal, in view of works. A unique feature of one building is a fencing the delay of official confirmation ordered from the room, a reminder of the days when the code duello was Governor of the Territory of Magallanes. thie arbitrator of personal disputes. A master-at-arms At last the bubble burst. The fatal verdict was prostill is employed by the paper to instruct its staff in fencing as a pleasant and profitable recreation. nounced. The two technical “experts" in charge of the boring had bolted into Argentina. They were arrested Until three years ago, little news was received from the United States, but closer relations between the two in Rio Gallegos and promptly handed over to the Chilcontinents and the growth of the pan-American idea ean authority charged with putting petroleum into the well instead of taking it out. have caused a demand for American news, which is being met by increased cable services. The South Forty-four barrels of crude petroleum had been American papers have a more serious tone than those shipped from Valparaiso for that purpose by a presumof the United States. ably fictitious Victor Wilson, consigned to an equally In an interview given to a representative of The Editor fictitious H. F. Godfrey in Punta Arenas, and emptied and Publisher on the eve of his departure for Buenos into the borings during the nights of November 6 and 7, Aires, Mr. Barrett disclaimed the supposition that La thereby giving the undeniable proofs of the existence of Prensa of that city dominates the field to the exclusion of petroleum of a good quality. After the imported oil had other newspapers, in spite of its great prestige. been pumped out there was nothing but water left in. "Within the last two years," he said, another great daily Great was the fall of hopes and shares. Fortunes of that city has made wonderful strides. La Nación is within reach faded away like a mirage in the desert. now one of the undisputed leaders of South American Gambling fever gave place to fury, with its accompanyjournalism, and is considered by many people to be the ing inclination to ramp around with a gun. most modern newspaper on that continent. La Nación The judges Franklin de la Barra in Santiago, Carvajal does not maintain institutional features, such as distinguish Arrieta in Valparaiso, and Corvero in Punta Arenas, La Prensa, but relies upon its news value for its appeal. are energetically sifting the mysterious details surIt is only fair to say that its recent growth and prosper rounding this gigantic swindle, which is said to have ity is largely due to its very complete cable news serv affected the public to the tune of millions of pesos, ice, furnished to it by the United Press Associations. with a view to bringing responsibility home to the “President Roy Howard, of the United Press, cer proper quarter. Consequently the general manager, tainly accomplished a great thing in extending the serv Don Carlos Diaz Vial; the secretary, Tagle Montt; ice of his organization to the Argentine. Through his the ex-contractor, Clarence Joseph Brown, are under efforts the progressive people of that country are now A NEW PORTRAIT OF GENERAL JUAN VICENTE GOMEZ, arrest in Santiago, and David Burr, the local manager PRESIDENT ELECT AND AUTOCRAT OF VNEZUELA able to keep in touch with the events of the world, and in Punta Arenas, together with the sounders, Sinclair particularly with those of the United States, without and which belong to no private parties or companies, and Williams, while directors and brokers galore are relying upon European channels of communication. shall be administered henceforth by the Federal being cross-examined in Valparaiso and Santiago. There is better understanding of us down there as a Executive." Telegrams and correspondence have been confiscated result of this new condition, and Mr. Howard has paved In another resolution of even date announcement by the Courts, and many and various are the stories the way for more intimate commercial and political current. is made of the appointment of an Administrator of relations in the future. I am glad to learn that he is to Mines for the district mentioned, comprising the States make another visit to South America, for I can testify of Zulia, Merida, and Trujillo, which includes all of the to the fact that the results of his earlier mission have known petroleum fields in the country. CHILE-ARGENTINA BOUNDARY DISPUTE been of the utmost value." The purpose of the foregoing is to provide a new “Two diminutive islands, almost unknown to geoCommenting on the news print situation in South source of income. A measure is now being drafted graphers, navigators or traders, have brought up a new America, Mr. Barrett explained that all newspapers which will levy a gross production tax upon petroleum. boundary discussion between Chile and Argentina," down there depended absolutely upon imports of paper, says The Geographical Review for February, remindas there is no local production. Of the total exports A CHILEAN “SOUTH SEA BUBBLE” ing its readers that even in remote Tierra del Fuego the of news print from the United States in 1917, reaching question of ownership may be important, seeing that The most notorious industrial company in Chile nearly ninety thousand tons, Mr. Barrett thinks that the the value of islands does not depend upon their size today (says The South Pacific Mail) is the Compañia (witness Manhattan and Heligoland). South American newspapers used perhaps three fourths. Petróleo de Patagonia Consolidada of Santiago and The dispute is concerned with Picton and New tract, by the International Paper Company. The price, I islands, near the entrance to Beagle Channel, which technical staff in prison in Santiago or Punta Arenas, think, is in the neighborhood of $2.50 f. o. b. mill. This, of have hitherto been considered as belonging to Chile, and the general public—the “Bolsas" of Valparaiso and course, means almost twice that cost at destination, when but the question as to whether magnetic or astronomic Santiago-and the Courts, disputing the question of the present high freight rates are considered. And yet, La North was meant by the discoverers now leaves the day~Are sale contracts made to be kept or broken? Prensa and other papers there, selling at what would be a ownership uncertain, although the boundary line was to For the past two years the Compañía Petróleo de little more than four cents per copy of our money, are run almost directly East and West for about 120 miles Patagonia Consolidated, domiciled in Santiago, boasting through Beagle Channel, which has two western enable to make excellent profits on their circulation.” of a share capital of ten million pesos in one million trances. La Prensa, he thinks, may earn an annual profit of a shares of $10 each, have been diligently boring for oil million and a quarter dollars, and La Nación is also a big on their property at Leña Dura, about four kilometers The islands are apparently worthless for the settlemoney maker. Both of these papers have been reduced from Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan, while ment of white men, though extremely picturesque, in size because of war conditions, but still print eighteen their share barometer has been fluctuating between and the dispute, based upon a problematical strategic and twenty pages to the issue. Their advertising volume fifty cents and ten dollars upwards, according to the importance, is, so far, purely academical. Page 7
miles and customs charges of one kind or another, or gaging his special attention, namely, the transfer of about fifty per cent. of the landed cost. Add extra funds between Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and the large profits demanded in order to offset a string of sale of Uruguayan produce in Europe and the United internal taxes and costs of operating on long term States. It all turned on what the governments of the credits, and to keep up a system of 'small sales and last-mentioned countries could do to aid such operalarge profits,' as distinguished from a system of 'large tions. Would it be possible to have gold deposited in sales and small profits.' Add a condition where five the Uruguayan legation abroad, or, failing that, would thousand persons own nearly everything. Top it off the buyers compromise themselves by guaranteeing with a public debt of over one hundred and fifty million, payment in gold once the war was over? Neither an army and a navy, a diplomatic service, and an un- alternative being feasible the only thing to be done was controllable desire to own all the public utilities of the to try and arrange for the deposit of bonds in Europe country. Considering the credit standing of Nebraska, and the United States against which local payments with none of the handicaps mentioned, one marvels how could be made. The Minister stated that in his opinion Uruguay succeeds in laying claim to the adjective the best thing to do was to finance the sale of Uru‘prosperous.'” guayan products on the basis of a deposit of Uruguayan There is a demand naturally in Uruguay for capital bonds; to wit., the Consolidated Debt of 3 per cent., the and labor, but the labor problem has not assumed large 5 per cent. Conversion Loan, almost all of which is in proportions as yet beyond the practically simple require French hands, the 5 per cent. Loan of 1896, and various ments of pastoral pursuits. The need of capital has other bonds. These securities, the Minister feels, offer not been so easily satisfied, and the result has been that good guarantees seeing that they are outside the fiscala large part of the country's activities is carried for ization and general control of other nations. Equally ward on credit. It is this matter of credit which con good security is afforded by their service, to meet which stitutes at present the chief potential menace to the a part of the customs revenues are earmarked, the quanfinances of this government. As regards the condi tity being unknown and incapable of being increased. tion of the country's currency the following statement Hence the whole operation is on a solid footing and of a prominent foreign banker in Montevideo is il falls entirely within Uruguayan control. Moreover, by luminating: taking over the foreign debt the country's wealth is in"The Banco de la Republica owned by the republic, creased, seeing that the interest thereon no longer goes abroad. is the only bank of issue. It is required to maintain a gold reserve of forty per cent. of its circulation, that is Exchange, credit, emission of notes, and control of to say, for every dollar in paper in circulation, it must collaterals, will, after due legislation, be taken over by have in its vaults forty cents in gold, and conversely, the bank of the Republic, and the amount of $50,000,000 for every dollar in gold which lies in its vault, it may gold dollars has been fixed as the sum required to pay print $2.50 in paper. Having printed $2.50 in paper it for exports, and if this total is be reached the counmay put that much in circulation, and the only prac try must be able to count on the co-operation and aid tical way in which this may be accomplished is by of all; traders, bankers, exporters and warehousemen. lending it. In practice, under normally good conditions, Approved in general by the committee appointed ad hoc, there is nothing questionable about this procedure, but the various trade interests must in turn be consulted conditions of Uruguay are not continuously good. ere a definite plan of campaign is begun. $50,000,000 "In a broad way, Uruguay has no capital of its own, gold may appear a large sum, but it must be re membered that it will not all be called for at once, each and must draw on the savings of Europe for its financ remittance being liquidated as the goods are received, ing. The bank, which extends credit accommodation, insurance covering all cases of loss without delay. operates largely on these European savings, and mer Hence the money will be rotative in its application. cantile credits accorded in Europe are based on these. And, added the Minister of Finance, either this plan Under favorable conditions, the exports from Uruguay must be adopted or the fate of the harvest must be left more than offset the imports into the country, but the to be decided by the ordinary course of trade, with conbalance of trade is wiped out by service payments on sequences that cannot even be hinted. There is an the Government's foreign indebtedness, and the transfer advantage at hand in the shape of the requisitioned of dividends on foreign investments. Occasionally, German steamers, and it must not be forgotten that by therefore, gold must be shipped.” aiding production the whole commerce of the country By examining the revenues in this country one finds benefits, seeing that the bankers will collect their adthat the revenues from importations consisting of the vances made to the growers and the latter will also basic receipts and additional taxes bearing a variety of be in a position to buy freely from the importer. Once names, including so-called consular fees, consumption the matter has been formalised a decree will be pretaxes on imported food, etc., represent between fifty and pared and submitted to the President of Uruguay, who fifty-five per cent of the value of imports, and close will in his turn lay it before the General Assembly. to sixty-five per cent. of all revenue. Every million If the war goes on for successive years this plan can be dollars worth of imports means something like $600,000 easily widened, and, in conclusion, it may be said that in government revenues, and when a condition arises no more banknotes will be issued than are necessary to which results in a loss of one million dollars in im the success of the operation. ports, there is a drain of over $600,000 on the government treasury. This inter-relation of the finances of Uruguay with ARGENTINE BUILDINGS GENERALLY FACED European conditions throws the republic almost entirely WITH PLASTER upon the stability or instability of European finances, Although there are comparatively rich deposits of fine and disturbances across the water result automatically building stone and granite in the Argentine Republic, in the tightening of credit in Uruguay. As one has yet up to the present, due to lack of capital and initiastated it, “In the ordinary course of events, a pistol-shot tive, the exploitation of these resources has generally in the Balkans means a failure in the River Plate, and been on a primitive scale. One quarry employs over that same pistol-shot may play an important part in 15,000 men, but such machinery as cranes for handling, affecting the government's ability to meet its obli- automatic boring tools, hammers, etc., are used, but in gations." a very limited way. These primitive methods have been In summary, therefore, it may be stated that the the occasion of a high production cost and at the same economic condition in this highly self-respecting re- time have restricted the output of the quarries. In a public circles about the resources comprised in sheep word, this industry has not been developed to a great and cattle raising, a high gold standard of currency, and extent here. ability thus far to secure credit in Europe especially, Only a limited amount of high-class stone and granite and a consequent dependence upon European conditions is used in the construction of buildings here. The for continued prosperity. The only method by which it smaller one-story buildings are all built of a soft red would seem that Uruguay could free herself from her brick, which is produced in abundance. This is covered present handicap would be in providing conditions with a light cement-plaster facing, making the exterior for a conservatively large immigration, through certain appearance one of freestone. These one-story buildings divisions of land holding and the building especially of are used extensively for residental purposes, and outside country roads, which would make feasible and profitable of the larger cities very few other classes of buildings the means of livelihood for a greatly enlarged circle of are erected. Higher buildings are erected for apartinhabitants. ment and business houses and private residences of the wealthier classes, but they are mostly built with a steel FINANCING URUGUAYAN EXPORTS frame and brick walls, faced on the exterior with a light In the Buenos Aires La Prensa appears the report cement plaster. On some buildings stone, granite, or of an interview which was held between the Uruguayan marble slabs are used for facing the street wall up to Minister of Finance and various business interests, in- the first-story windows. The recently erected Medical cluding the manager of the bank of the Republic, the School of the University of Buenos Aires has entire Swift and Uruguayan freezing works and others, dur granite blocks as a base, but, in general, it is the custom ing which the discussion turned on the best method to use only slabs of marble, stone, or granite as ornaof financing the sale of Uruguay's products to the best ments rather than to give strength to the structure. All advantage. Subsequently the Minister of Finance the Government buildings here are built of steel and red stated to various press men that two points were en- brick, with cement facing.
THE NEXT PRESIDENCY OF BRAZIL (Continued from page 8) for the solution of such problems. The result will not be attained, however, unless the Union and the States and Municipalities concur in rendering effective aid to individual effort in the way of direction, encouragement and protection. What is the good of producing if there are no markets for the placing and sale of products, if there are no roads and ships for transportation, if there is no safety for traffic? And how shall we produce if we are in want of labor for the upkeep of factories and of credit to set the work going? The economical problem, besides its dependence on the Government for the facilities of its solution, possesses delicate aspects which deserve to be observed by the administrator lest complications arise in the future. Producers and industrials ought not, in their anxiety to realize momentary profits, to run the risk of planting crops or initiating industries which are liable to become worthless or to fall in value until they are no longer able to compete with better-placed producers when business shall return to its normal condition. And, as regards the present crops—those which constitute our patrimony, such as coffee and rubber-it is sufficient to consider the influence which they exert on our credit and public finances to recognize that they must continue to be properly protected. Let us fide in the execution of these problems, which will bring to us strength and wealth. In a few years Brazil will celebrate the centennial of her Independence, and the highest homage that we can render to the commemoration of the great national date will consist in the real inventory of the elements accumulated by our efforts toward the realization of the prosperity and greatness of the Republic. When announcing the vote of the Convention of June 7th, you said that the choice of the candidates to the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the Republic for the next term “ought to express the union of all minds for the defense of the most sacred of our country's interests,” and, emphasizing still more your lofty sentiment, you added that "the choice ought to signify the renunciation of personal points of view, a truce to difference of schools and parties; oblivion of private tendencies and regional exclusivism; the single preoccupation of raising to the supreme magistracy and the most eminent representations of the country men capable of attracting the support of the powerful currents of opinion, of commanding the respect and esteem of all their fellow citizens, of insuring the prestige of Brazil abroad." I feel sure that you have been successful in your choice of my illi rious companion, the distinguished President of the State of Minas Geraes. As, for myself, I assure this respectable assembly that you have given a wise definition to the political action pertaining to the future Head of the Nation, by separating political questions from the program in order to give place to a calm and tolerant atmosphere in which all my labor may be dedicated actively and proficuously to the defense of the national interests. When we instituted this régime, we were wise to support it with a constitutional machinery in which there is a predominance of the most advanced democratic principles and of the best ideas of government for a free people. Let us help to make it work properly. Political systems are consolidated by the continuous, efficacious, just and patriotic action of all the directing forces of the nation, government or citizens, civil or military elements, the school, the press and the spoken word; and only with its tenacious and harmonious aid can we hope to attain the maximum results for the firmness of those institutions. If there have been flaws in the work, let us not seek some one to bear the blame, for they should be attributed to the inadequate efforts of each one of us. “Not always," has it been truly said by a great American stateman who has honored us with his visit, “not always, are the first fruits of democracy the ripest and the most pleasant, she makes frequent mistakes; she is often unsuccessful in part, not infrequently in error. Capacity for self-government does not come to men naturally. It is an art which must be learned.” We might have made greater progress in political matters if the presidents had possessed a comprehension of the fundamental rules of the régime and followed a uniform method in the development of the administration. With the heads of the State obeying their own personal temperaments and inspiring themselves in the impulse of their political education, no wonder that in certain periods of our political history some of us have gone astray and left the great routes which were open to their destiny. Let us help the régime to function, investing the authority of the powers of the Republic with prestige and causing it to be respected in order that within the law all may fulfill their constitutional duties. Page 8
LATIN AMERICA. Guatemala and Her People of Today. By URUGUAY. 1.60 South Amorian; Nevin O. Winter.. Observations and Im- 3.00 Argentina and Uruguay. By G. Ross... 3.50 Spanish Business Interviows Includes chapters on British Hondupressions. By James Bryce. .58 2.75 Uruguay. By W. H. Koebel...... 3.50 ras Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua Manual of Commorcial Correspondonoo. South and Contral American Trado Conand Costa Rica. (Spanish and English.) VENEZUELA. By G. R. ditions of To-day. By A, Hyatt Ver Macdonald 1.50 A Year of Costa Rican Natural History. rill 1.35 Vonezuela. By Leonard V. Dalton.... 3.50 By A. S. Calvert Spanish Commercial Reader, 3.00 By G. R. Caribbean Interests of the United States. FOR AGRICULTURISTS, FRUIT GROWERS, Macdonald 1.50 By Chester Lloyd Jones 2.50 COLOMBIA, STOCK BAISERS, FORESTERS, Modelos para Cartas. By R. D. de la British Exploits in South America, Ву Colombia. By Phanor J. Eder.... 3.50 Cortina. NATURALISTS, MINERS, ETC. Cloth W. B. 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STEAMSHIP AGENTS and BROKERS NEW YORK, N. Y. NEW ORLEANS, LA. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. Cable Address “VERNOTCH” GENERAL AGENTS FOR STEAMSHIP LINES FROM NEW YORK TO VLADIVOSTOCK CHINA JAPAN PHILIPPINES STRAITS SETTLEMENTS EAST INDIES AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND TASMANIA SOUTH AFRICA EAST AFRICA SOUTH AMERICA FRANCE SPAIN RUSSIA ITALY MEDITERRANEAN PORTS LEVANT PORTS And any other ports and places throughout the world as opportunity offers LOADING BERTHS: Piers 1, 2 and 7, Bush Docks, South Brooklyn, N. Y. Consignments from interior points of the United States and Canada to our care will be promptly forwarded Insurance effected under our open policy at lowest rates Sailing cards and full information furnished on application DIRECT PASSENGER SERVICES: New York direct to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, South America New York direct to Capetown, Durban, Bombay, Colombo, Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon BOOKINGS TO ALL PRINCIPAL PORTS OF THE WORLD Page 10
readily picture the Boulevard des Italiens at Paris, But if on the other hand one could arrive in Buenos Aires, as did the writer, during the progress of the big cattle show, when the hotels were filled with land owners and farmers from the big estancias, he would secure an impression quite different than that to be realized in Paris. He would feel a more virile, agricultural strain running through the activity of this whole city. He would sense a patriotism rising from the land; for this country is an agricultural country first of all, and in it and about it the patriotic and national pride of the people centers. To be sure, the great land owners come to Buenos Aires and spend their money upon the glittering boulevards, and this makes the city an abnormal one, and in a sense a false guide to the characteristics of the people and the country. Argentina, however, is slowly but surely gathering to herself out of the polygot nations of Europe which compose her a spirit and individuality of her own, as free and unique as is the air of her boundless prairies. At present it naturally resembles more truly the old world than does the United States, which has had so much longer time to develop a modern particular civilization all her own; yet you can hardly insult an Argentino more readily than to say that Buenos Aires is merely a copy or tinseled imitation of a European capital. He sees in it his own expression, and although he will tell you that to know the country correctly the North American must read the history of the United States 50 years ago, he is nevertheless deeply confident that Argentina has a future quite different from either the United States or a European nation, or, in fact, any other South American state; and the longer you remain in the country the more surely you will be inclined to agree with the inhabitant of this great land, where are being gathered forces in population in an agricultural area nearly half as big as the United States, possessing resources in many senses more uniform and prolific than are to be found in any other one commonwealth on the face of the earth. Another contrast which strikes immediately the observer coming to Argentina from the West coast is that of the absence of a large number of churches of the medieval type. One will be told both in Peru and Chile by the adherents of the prevailing Roman Catholic faith of that section that Argentina is rapidly becoming agnostic, and that she has become dazzled by the blaze of her material prosperity. In a sense this impression would seem to be borne out by early investigation and conversations with the inhabitants. To be sure, the government is still connected with the Roman Catholic Church to the extent that it appropriates money each year for the national religion. The families of wealth and distinction are here, as on the West coast, quite closely allied with the Roman Catholic Church. But a great difference is seen in the character of that alliance. It seems to be more a matter of politics or fashion, and lacking deep roots in the religious and ecclesiastical nature of the people. The women also are much less often seen in the churches, and the poorer classes do not seem to be interested in religion to any great extent. As far as the educated men and women are concerned, indifferentism, if not in many cases agnosticism, seems to be the ruling characteristic. Buenos Aires impresses the newcomer with its heavyladen and sudden materiality. It is like a child who has received a lap-full of bon-bons, or a shop full of toys, to which it has been unaccustomed, and has not yet learned to use altogether wisely. Its avenues and main streets are simply clogged with these evidences of new riches-wonderful shops filled with the most costly manufactured products from every land, windows
ablaze with jewels always somewhat larger and more Argentine labor, helps to keep the minds of the people costly than one would expect to see displayed. Its riveted upon the fact that the republic, more perhaps clubs are marble palaces, filled with paintings and than any other large state, is almost utterly dependent statuary and ornate decoration far beyond what even upon the land and its products for existence and necessity or good taste would demand. One finds it growth. hard to distinguish what the Argentino would call an In few countries have there been such rapid advances ordinary dwelling from a public building, so great is the in the prices of land. In the year 1885 it was possible penchant for magnificence and display, which is easily to purchase land in the city of Buenos Aires for 75 carried out in modeled stucco. It is the land of the cents a square yard; now it costs $1,000 a square yard, high cost of living as well as the high cost of every and the market quotations still show rising prices. Twelve or fifteen years ago a suburban lot, 60 x 20 yards, could be purchased here for $25; at present the purchaser would find it necessary to pay at least $750 for the same property. Good farm land brings $500,000 a square league, and it is the possession of these lands in large quantities that makes it possible for the millionaire Argentinos to whirl down the Avenida de Mayo in their $10,000 automobiles and spend the long vacations in Europe, making their capital city the last word for the display of wealth and luxury. Even New York would be amazed at some of the prodigal use of money in Buenos Aires. A gentleman was showing a visitor about a public building recently, and opening the door into a servant's bathroom, drew his attention to the carved panels and ceiling, the wood being imported for the purpose with the other choice wood with which the building was decorated. One is told that the officers, during the wars of Argentina with her neighbors in former years, were paid their salaries in part at least in land. With the late advent of railways and an absence of revolutions and wars, the prices of these tracts have soared to fabulous amounts, and these men are now millionaires. It is said that in proportion to its size this South American republic has more millionaires than the United States-it is a country of land-fortunes. In this immense grain and cattle-producing country of 776,000,000 acres, 80,000,000 acres are suitable for wheat raising. Yet only about one fourth of the land is now under cultivation, and there are only six persons to the square mile. Of this population of 8,000,000 INDIAN WOMAN FROM PATAGONIA, ARG. about three fourths are Argentinos, or people born in thing. It would seem to be one of the most difficult the country. There are half a million Italians, a quarter places in the world for anyone to live with simple tastes, of a million of French, 25,000 Britishers, and a melting and still with respectability. Things are rankly ex- pot of almost every nation under the sun in smaller ternal. All seems to be for show. A gentleman who numbers. It is stated that each person in Argentina advised a visit to a state building said, “Be sure to not only produces food sufficient for his own needs, but drive up to the building in a motor car. It will make sends each year $40 worth of food to other countries. a great difference in the attention which the officials Great Britain has been depending on this republic for will show you." nearly one fourth of its food products, which is reason The great annual stock show at Buenos Aires is a sufficient for the intense interest the Britisher is taking national event and people of all classes and grades of at present in the intricate and puzzling matters of forsociety are in attendance. Everything about the fair eign trade. is of intense interest and there is a knowledge displayed In Argentina, furthermore, the question of land is alregarding the many kinds of modern machinery and a ways connected with the subject of labor, and labor in fascination about the stock yards where the blooded turn usually calls up immigration matters, than which cattle, sheep and horses are on exhibition, that is un- few subjects are of more vital moment to this republic. known even in the United States, which competes in Like the United States, Argentina has been receiving land values and stock farms with this republic. in recent years a flood of immigrants from Europe, and This year, three expert stock judges from North like the United States, she also has not found the proAmerica are present at the invitation of the Argentinos, cess of assimilation easy or her immigration agrarian and the daily press speaks in the most complimentary system a model of perfection. terms of the decisions made by this committee. In re- One of the difficulties in this southern republic has gard to their cattle these people are as extravagant with been the double stream of immigration. While there their wealth as in other ways. No expense is spared has been an increase in recent years previous to the to import the best breeds from Europe and any part of European war of approximately 250,000 inhabitants the earth, and a prize bull was sold last year for $20,000. through the stream of immigration, this does not tell One cannot but think that it would be good for the the whole story. Many thousands more have come country if more attention was given to the distribution to this land of opportunity, but for various reasons have of lands and the welfare of the colonists, and less to the made but a temporary sojourn here, and, returning to fancy blooded stock which, like the rich buildings in Europe, have carried away a vast resource of the land Buenos Aires, are more the object of public pride than both in money and men. for utility. However, the glory of this great yearly Between the years 1905 and 1907, for instance, there exposition, where Argentine society appears alongside was an immigration into Argentina from Europe and Page 11
Uruguay of 781,796, and in the same period 324,687 persons left the country for their former homes, leaving a total of only 457,108 in three years. According to the estimates of the department of immigration each of these emigrants from the republic took with him out of the country on the average $150, and during these three years the republic lost in this way $50,000,000. This reveals grave disorder somewhere in the assimilative faculty of the nation, and it has aroused the people to renewed attention to their immigration laws. The reasons which appear to explain this loss involve a faulty distribution of soil, poor administration of justice as regards the new colonists, and especially the difficulties immigrants have experienced in securing individual and desirable holdings that would attach them to their land and enable them to build homes in their adopted country. The operations connected with the purchase of land have been subjected to long and wearisome formalities which have exhausted both the purse and the patience of newcomers. Unwise laws promulgated long ago have enabled the rich absentee landlords to hold enormous tracts of property, and the immigrant has found it difficult to get land that seemed to him most desirable. To-day, therefore, Argentina faces the serious problem of a division of lands or a continuation of temporary immigration. Here, in a country capable of supporting 100,000,000 people instead of the present 8,000,000, with vast public lands still undistributed, and where the colonization problem is the immigration problem, this matter is a momentous one. Argentina is a paradise for immigrants with its softness of climate, richness of soil, its extent of arable territory, inland waterways, its easy commercial access to markets and potential wealth. It is still, outside of its abnormal capital with its trail of overdone luxury and materiality, a desert nation. One rides for hundreds of miles over the level pampas in almost primeval isolation where the broad prairies are as bare of signs of civilization as Buenos Aires is redolent with the atmosphere of gorgeous modernity. Santa Cruz, for example, with its 58,590 square miles of land, capable of supporting a vast industrial and maritime population, contains scarcely more than 2,000 persons. The call of the land in this remarkable republic is pathetic.
That the country is beginning to awake to its delinquency and potentiality is revealed in the following statement taken from the "Notes on the Land Laws" by Señor M. Eleodor Lobos, who, speaking of the need of colonization by immigration, says: “Our failure is an incontestable'fact, and must be attributed not only to economic, administrative and political conditions, but also to the freedom with which the soil has been divided into lots of enormous area, and the obstacles opposed to the easy and secure acquisition of small properties.” “In other terms,” he continued, “our politicians have effected the very reverse of a rational colonization and have established a system of large properties, instead of subdividing the land between the colonists according to their productive capacities." Argentina in her land troubles is reaping the sowing of a bad start, and like many other South American republics, she finds it difficult to dissolve the hard metal of the early racial consciousness dug in the old Spanish world, in her new, modern melting pot. Traditions and standards closed down upon wrong ideals in these lands where the founders came first to exploit and not to colonize. The new type of conqueror now invading Argentina is in many cases from the same lands whence came the early adventurers, but he comes to-day with different motives. He wants to get his gold by industry and not by theft. He seeks a land of opportunity for work and not for play. He seeks the simple and unostentatious life of the country, close to the land. Argentina's future land of promise lies not in the blazing lights of her cosmopolitan Avenida de Mayo, but in the bone and sinew of these latest conquerors who ask only the worker's need. Argentine is a new country, but there are already certain bodies which have come to assume the air of fixed institutions. They are like the Statue of Liberty, or the Taj Mahal, or Tower of London—things that act as departure places for travelers, and the person who visits the countries containing these famous guide-posts and cannot afterward speak knowingly of them, is at once branded as an inexpert traveler. In Argentine there are several such notable institu
tions. There is the wonderful Colon Theatre where the wealth of the metropolis disports itself and pays huge prices to attract the most highly prized artists of song and the art histrionic. The far-famed Jockey Club of Buenos Aires—that super-gorgeous meeting place of the new-rich men, where the owners of great estancias pay thousands of dollars to enter as members, must be always on the visitor's program. Another really national institution is the newspaper, La Prensa, of which every Argentino is quite justly proud, one of the newspapers of South America, nearly a half century old, and combining journalism with a sort of artistic and philanthropic paternalism. To be sure La Prensa can not claim precedence in age among the journals of the republics South of Panama. The Standard, an English newspaper of Buenos Aires, claims a considerable priority as far as age is concerned, while the devoted admirers of El Mercurio in Chile will tell you that, with the exception possibly of a great Brazilian daily, their paper was the first to be organized among these republics. Buenos Aires boasts of at least 189 daily newspapers and periodicals printed in the city, 157 being in Spanish, 14 in Italian, 2 in French, 8 in German and 6 in English, Many of the discerning consider that La Nación, devoting itself particularly to authentic political news, is not only more dignified, but also more reliable than La Prensa, while the clever El Diario, La Razón, and a half a dozen other papers that the newsboys shriek into your ears on the tram cars and through the restaurants, are sheets worthy of any of our modern cities. The newsstands of the cities and towns in this progressive land are also filled with many illustrative journals, some of these having a corresponding English edition published in the United States. One does not live long in this part of the world without discovering that the Latin American is as facile with his pen as with his vocal organs, and the amount of literary and journalistic output of the present-day Argentine is quite amazing. It must be added also that to the American journalist much of the South American journalism would seem to be superfluous, so indirect and generous are the writers in presenting their facts and opinions. If it is true that there are at least half a dozen ways for the
difficulties and delays little dreamt of when the foundation stone was placed in position by Sir Owen Philipps, K.C.M.G., Chairman of the Royal Mail Steam Packet
to this great city, so famous throughout the world for its splendor and magnificence. The granite work, carved and ornamented in Aberdeen, Scotland, and forming the shopfront windows, was carried out by Messrs. Ramsey, Bellamy and Co.,o Buenos Aires, many of the stones weighing over two tons each. The general facade is adorned with the emblems of the various allied nations with which the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company have afforded communications and facilities for trade, so essential to the well-being of each, individually and collectively. The emblem of the Argentine Republic occupies the position of honor. The ground floor and basement will be utilized by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company; the entrance to their offices being by the principal entrance in the ochava, there being no less than four other entrances for communication with other parts of the building. Among those having offices in the Edificio Britanico are the British Legation and Consulate, the Nelson and Lamport and Holt Lines, the Frigorificos Armour and Wilson and the Las Palmas Produce Company. The ground floor interior has been designed in the Georgian style, typically English in all details and, although far less florid than the French type so justly admired in this country, the result is none the less in good taste, and suitable.
Courtesy, E. Martinez, Buenos Aires DR. OSVALDO MAGNASCO
Spanish American to say the same thing, it is equally patent that there are quite as many methods of writing the same thing, and the average writer seems inclined to use them all. La Prensa, however, easily holds the throne of prestige and general popularity among the newspapers, if the circulation records and elaborate office equipment are signs of press royalty. This journal occupies a building which is supposed to be worth, with its land and equipment, more than five million dollars, and what would be called the riewspaper office would impress the American as a cross between a State Capitol, a Carnegie Library, a Metropolitan Museum and the Boston Conservatory of Music. This is the chief first impression of the visitor who learns later that incidentally in this luxurious, eleemosynary atmosphere is published a newspaper in Spanish twentythree pages in extent, with two daily editions, and boasting of a certified circulation of 220,000 copies each day of the year. Here is a type of dignified journalism par excellence. There are no glaring billboards, no colored supplements, no letters a foot high on the first page to delude the trusting public for the benefit of the newsboys. Instead there is a small electrically framed newsboard at night, not more than two feet square, speaking in authoritative Castillian of such momentous facts as for example that Roumania and Italy have declared war on Germany. In the midst of its many practical newspaper activities La Prensa finds time to be of real service to the public in many unique ways. The paper conducts a law department, where three lawyers serve the public free of charge, daily; there is also a medical section where four physicians deal out free medical advice to all who apply. There are also conference rooms richly appointed where any group of persons may hold a meeting at any hour of the day or night, when it suits them to leave their street discussions and retire to the comfortable environment of a hall provided for such purposes. A meteorological observatory where weather reports are made has not been forgotten, while there are departments for distinguished visitors who are entertained by La Prensa without money and without price. Prizes are given by the newspaper for altruistic acts, consisting of artistic gold medals and a subscription to La Prensa for a stated period or for life, while to stimulate education La Prensa offers a permanent prize of $1,500 which is annually awarded to the person who has taught the greatest number of illiterate people to read the national language within the boundaries of the Republic, during the preceding year. There are also literary contests held, money prizes being given for the best articles and stories written, and an information bureau is carried on for the benefit of the public. The interest in Argentine land is not omitted by La Prensa, in whose offices there is found an industrial and agricultural bureau and this department of free service has contributed considerable benefit both to the agriculturist and also to the business community. From every point of inspection one is certain to be impressed with this unusual exhibition of enterprise in modern journalism. Its cosmopolitan presentation of news, its virtually unbiased attitude in relation to politics, its conservatism and dignity in conveying the news to the public, and in its unexampled expenditure of attention to the welfare of the nation, La Prensa is one of the most worthy examples of the progressive genius of the South American Republics.
A DISTINGUISHED ARGENTINE ATTORNEY We show with pleasure the portrait of this well known and highly respected legal authority in Buenos Aires. Dr. Osvaldo Magnasco has been Minister of Public Instruction, member of Congress and professor at the Academy of Laws, and has distinguished himself as the author of numerous scientific works and translations from the classics.
Company, on March 31, 1914, as set forth upon the foundation stone in the ochava entrance vestibule. The steel work was carried out by the British Structural Steelwork Company of London, this and the foot. ings have been completed by Messrs. Murray & Co., oi this city. The contract for the superstructure was entrusted to Messrs. Scott and Hume, and the result
THE GREAT CITY OF BUENOS AIRES According to the latest returns, the population of Buenos Aires is 1,621,148. Real estate in the city is now worth an average of five dollars a square foot, and property to the value of over five million dollars changes hands monthly.
A NOTABLE ARGENTINE DIPLOMATIST Dr. Enrique Rodriguez Larreta, formerly Argentine Minister to France, is an enthusiastic propagandist of the Pan American idea. At an interview given to our representative in Buenos Aires, this clever, young Argentine drew attention to the marked tendency which exists in the Argentine Republic to adhere loyally to the chivalrous international policy of President Wilson. “I foresee," he said, "a great popular movement which will definitely guarantee our friendly relations with the United States." Dr. Larreta is an eloquent speaker, and has lately used his talent to good advantage in the Allied cause.
AMERICAN MERCANTILE BANK OF BRAZIL By official decree the American Mercantile Bank of Brazil is now authorized to operate in Brazil. This is the second American bank to open branches in Brazil, and it is especially interesting to note that this new institution, at least for the present, will restrict its operations to the northern States of the Republic, with its principal Brazilian headquarters at the city of Pará, the center of the rubber industry. The American Mercantile Bank of Brazil is incorporated under the laws of the State of Connecticut and has its head office in Hartford. The initial capital with which the bank is to commence operations in Brazil is $2,000,000, of which two-thirds, under Brazilian law, must be actually subscribed within two years from the date of its incorporation in this country. The term conceded by the Government in the decree above-mentioned for this bank to operate in Brazil is ten years.
NEW BUENOS AIRES QUARTERS OF THE R. M. S. P. C. We extract the following description of the new building of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in Buenos Aires from the columns of The River Plate Observer, a vigorous and progressive weekly review of that city. The Edificio Britanico, at the corner of Reconquista and Sarmiento streets, occupies a position unrivaled in this city for office accommodation, being situated adjacent to the post office and the banks, and within a square of the magnificent Bolsa Building, just completed. The building was designed by Mr. Lionel U. Grace, Gold Medallist of the Royal Academy, London, and Guisell Gold Medallist of the Royal Institute of British Architects, well known in England as the architect of many important buildings in London and the provinces. and architect to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for their new buildings situated in many parts of the world. The plans and elevations, prepared in London, were handed over to the famous architects, Messrs. Chambers and Thomas, to whom the owners are justly indebted for the satisfactory and final completion of this building, which, carried out under war conditions, has entailed
NEW ROYAL MAIL S. P. BUILDING AT BUENOS AIRES
speaks volumes in favor of this firm's capacity to handle large and important contracts. The exterior of this magnificent building is strictly severe and in keeping with British traditions of architecture, whilst firm adherence to the extremely fair bylaws of this famous city have imparted to the elevations an atmosphere in keeping with its surroundings, and which it is hoped will enable the Edificio Britanico to be accepted by public opinion as a further adornment
BRAZILIAN TARIFF PREFERENCE FOR U. S. The American ambassador in Brazil has reported that the tariff preference on certain imports from the United States, authorized by the annual budget law, will be continued during 1918 in the same form as in 1917. As a result wheat flour from the United States will continue to be admitted into Brazil at a reduction of 30 per cent of the regular import duties, while a re duction of 20 per cent from the usual duties will be allowed on the following articles if produced in the United States: Condensed milk, most rubber manufactures, clocks and watches, paints, and inks other than writing ink, varnishes, typewriters, scales, refrig. erators, pianos, windmills, cement, dried fruits, school furniture, corsets, and desks.
ment that the recently announced agreement between the United States and Argentina was made by which persons here owing accounts in Argentina can settle them by depositing the amount with the Argentine Ambassador, who deposits it in turn in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The most conspicuous instance of the cancellation of Argentine indebtedness is the agreement recently concluded with the British Government, by which England
HE announcement of financial arrangements between Argentina and the United States and between Ar- gentina and the United Kingdom for the purpose, among other things, of bringing down the extremely high price of exchange, directs attention to an unprecedented condition in the foreign trade of the country on the Plate. The trade balance of that country, which has been favorable for many years, has immensely increased since the beginning of the war in Europe and is still growing. This is due in brief, to the fact that Argentina's exports have been in greater demand than ever before, while certain conditions, among the most important of which is the lack of shipping space, have combined to keep imports low. A glance at the subjoined table will show how the margin has increased in recent years. All values are in Argentine gold, and show real values calculated by the Argentine Government by a new and improved process. Year Total imports Total exports 1910 $379,353,000 $389,071,000 1911 405,020,000 342,317,000 1912 446,863,000 501,667,000 1913 496,227,000 519,156,000 1914 322,530,000 403,132,000 1915 305,488,000 582,179,000 1916 366,131,000 573,000,000
Courtesy, E. Martínez, Buenos Aires BUST OF DR. ENRIQUE R. LARRETA, BY THE ARGENTINE SCULPTOR, DR. ALBERTO LAGOS
resulting naturally in a hampering of export trade, a rise in prices, and a diversion of purchases by foreign buyers to more favorable markets, if any such are to be found. On the other hand the import trade should be correspondingly stimulated, and would be if special obstacles, such as lack of shipping and embargoes, did not prevent. It was partly for the purpose of easing down these abnormal exchange prices that the agreements mentioned, with the United States and England, were made. Another immediate effect is the piling up of gold and of paper values in Argentina, the increase ir bank reserves (these are reported to stand at 40 per cent of deposits, an unusually high mark), the consequent possibility of further increases in issues of paper money, which now totals over 1,000,000,000 pesos as compared with about 800,000,000 pesos in 1914, the rise in the cost of living and in prices generally, and the results which naturally ensue therefrom. As to the ultimate results it will be highly important for American interests, both investors and commercial men, to take into account one probable outcome of present conditions. The low level of imports means that the country has been living off of its stocks of foreign goods, most and perhaps all of which were used up long ago, together with imports of these goods much less in quantity than in normal times. With the coming of peace there will be a tremendous demand for foreign supplies of all kinds for the rehabilitation of the country and the satisfying of demands which can not now te met. Electrical goods, for instance, imported in 1914 to the extent of $7,023,547, were valued at $3,756,637 in 1915, $3,338,039 in 1916, and $2,191,832 in the first nine months of 1917. Railways will have to be repaired and perhaps almost rebuilt, tramways and other public utilities will have to be renewed, worn-out agricultural implements will have to be replaced by new, and stocks of all kinds will have to be replenished. Coincident with this demand will come the means of satisfying it in the shape of the credits now being established. The gold deposited abroad will be shipped into Argentina, cither physically or in the shape of credits. Loans will have been paid off and the country consequently placed in a position to borrow, if necessary, for public improvements, such as the installing of a new sanitation system in Buenos Aires, which have been planned but held up by the war. Abundant shipping will doubtless be available for carrying away exports, and while prices will probably fall materially they are likely for some time to be higher than before the war. All this points to a period of great economic activity in Argentina immediately on the conclusion of peace, this activity covering commercial, industrial, agricultural, public utility, and general construction developments. Except for the necessary movement these have been largely suspended, and will continue suspended during the rest of the war, while on the other hand the country is accumulating large credits which can be used to satisfy this heavy volume of repressed economic desires. American interests may well prepare for this development first by studying closely the basic and elemental conditions of Argentina's economic life and second by spreading throughout Argentina a knowledge of the manufacturing resources of the United States on which they can draw in the future. Knowledge of this kind has made marked advances since 1914 and it is widely known that the United States can supply articles for which Argentina has been accustomed to look to Europe, and that these articles are of just as good quality as the European-made goods. Prospective Argentine buyers, however, who may be well acquainted with these goods may not know how to get in touch with the firms that manufacture them or that can obtain them from the manufacturers. The present work of the exporter, therefore, or of the manufacturer contemplating an export business, is to establish good personal connections with Argentine commercial men, so that when the channel is cleared of the obstructions due to these abnormal times there will be nothing to prevent the free movement of our Argentine commerce to the fullest extent necessary to satisfy Argentine needs. We extract this valuable and lucid exposition from the circular of the Latin American Division of the Washington Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. The observations regarding the prospects of American trade with Argentina after the war are very timely and instructive.
In actual values, therefore, there is a remarkable balance in favor of the country. Except in the year 1911 the balance has been favorable every year since 1894, but it is only since about the beginning of the century that the margin has been of considerable size. The balance, moreover, has continued to climb during 1917, figures for the first nine months of which are row available. They show imports of $133,809,670, as compared with $163,574,181 for the corresponding nine months of 1916, and exports of $414,028,386 as compared with $367,776,146 in 1916, nominal values, the real values being: Imports, $266,787,767 and $275,468,905, and exports, $414,028,386 and $388,003,834, for 1917 and 1916 respectively. Imports thus decreased and exports increased as compared with the previous year, when the difference had already passed all records. There is reason to expect a continuance of both these tendencies, as crops are reported good, providing the usual surplus for export, and the factors causing a decrease in imports are more than ever in evidence. To compensate this heavy outgo of values it is naturally to be expected that in addition to the usual items of payment by which the trade balance is rectified Argentina will begin to liquidate some of the obligations held against the country in Europe, as well as import increased amounts of gold. As a matter of fact both of these movements are taking place. In 1916 the following items are given as entering into the rectification of the trade balance: Purchase of foreign securities, $10,000,000; interest on national, provincial, and municipal loans, $51,117,228; interest and dividend payments of railways, $46,195,908; interest on mortgages, $37,947,024; payments on other foreign capital, $22,966,389; transfer of savings, $33,000,000; expenditures of Argentinians abroad, $5,000,000. This leaves unaccounted for a balance of $57,812,402, which amount is made up hy two items, a diminution of credits, commercial capital, cancellation of mortgages, etc., to the extent of $40,190,518, and an increase in the existing stock of gold amounting to $17,621,884. It is reasonable to expect that these last two items, which represent clear gain on the part of Argentina, will steadily increase during the rest of the war, although the reluctance of foreign countries to export gold will probably throw the emphasis more and more or, the settling of accumulating debts to Argentina through the cancellation of Argentine debts to foreign countries. Movement of gold, however, as yet continues to increase, Argentina in the first nine months of 1917 importing $26,789,926 in bullion as compared with $19,081,555 in the corresponding months of the year previous, $25,853,245 in the whole year 1916, and $4,200,517 in the whole year 1915. It should be noted that this is still under the importation recorded in several pre-war years, but the actual acquisition of gold by Argentina has been much greater than the import figures indicate, provision having been made in 1914 for the deposit of gold in Argentine legations abroad which would ordinarily be shipped. It is because of the difficulty of shipping gold and the objection to such ship
is to purchase 2,500,00 tons of cereals and the Argentine Government is to grant to that country a credit of $200,000,000, at 5 per cent per annum, covering a period of two years, from which to pay for this purchase. In the case of the agreement with the United States the deposited gold is to be shipped, if required, as soon as peace is declared, whereas in the case of the British agreement the credit is to be cancelled by the payment by England of the interest due on loans to Argentina held in Allied countries and by the taking over of a $25,000,000 loan held by the English firm of Baring Bros., which will come up for redemption by Argentina in 1920. The amount that will be paid by England each year as interest payments is uncertain, or at least not announced, but there is room for the expenditure of a very considerable sum, as indicated by the figures quoted above showing that interest payment by Argentina on Governmental and municipal loans in 1916 was more than $50,000,000. If Argentina can thus continue to use its natural resources of grain, etc., not only to cancel past obligations and to pay interest on present ones but also to draw interest on loans to foreign countries it should emerge from the war period in excellent financial shape, so far at least as foreign relations go. The piling up of the trade balance and the means taken to meet the new conditions will have both immediate and ultimate effects important for United States interests to note. The creation of this balance has already sent the price of exchange in Buenos Aires soaring, showing that in spite of the gold shipments and the liquidation of Argentine debts the demand for means of settling debts owed to Argentine exporters is still very strong. In ordinary times an exporter in Buenos Aires who wishes to collect for a shipment to England can draw a draft on his customer and sell it at the bank at the rate of about 48 to 487/2d. per Argentine peso, the par value of which is about 4874d, In other words, in order to obtain cash for the goods he has shipped he will have to pay only a slight premium or none at all, or may sell his draft at a profit. Under present conditions, however, there is such a volume of these bills offered to the banks that cash can be obtained only at the rate of 52 to 54 d. per Argentine peso,
THE FALLS OF IGUASSU ON THE IGUASSU RIVER BETWEEN BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA. THERE ARE 275 CASCADES, ONE OF WHICH WITH A SHEER DROP OF 213 FEET. THESE FALLS SURPASS NIAGARA IN EVERY RESPECT EXCEPT IN VOLUME OF WATER
VISIT to the little known but marvellous Falls of the Iguassú, on the frontiers of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, begins, as a rule, on the docks of Buenos Aires and ends some twelve hundred and fifty miles in the interior of the South American continent. It is a journey that can be made entirely by river steamer, with the sole exception of the last twelve miles through the jungle, and is one of the most picturesque and interesting expeditions that can fall to the lot of even a world traveller. Starting from the Rio de la Plata, this river is soon left behind and the steamer turns into the Paraná whose head waters rise far to the North in the Republic of Brazil. After a journey of three days, a transfer is made to a small steamer, at the junction of the Paraguay with the Paraná, and, after another day, on the waters of the Upper Paraná, one reaches Posadas, the third port in importance in the Argentine Republic, notable because of its immense shipments of mate, the Paraguayan tea. Here another transfer must be made to a still smaller steamer, for the waters of the river from this point admit only boats of little draught. After two more days of river travel, unless delayed by the now frequent fogs or by an excess of freight to he handled at the intermediate ports, anchor is cast in Puerto Aguirre, distant only a few miles from the Iguassú and the end of the journey by river. The week spent on these great water routes of South America is by no means tiresome or devoid of interest. Cities and towns of considerable importance are scattered along the banks of the great rivers, and the scenery is of varied and continuous charm. Many animals, peculiar to this part of the world, may be observed from the deck of the passing steamer. Great numbers of the jacaré, or South American alligator, may be seen sunning themselves along the sandy stretches of the shore or lazily swimming about in the still waters of the lagoons, in search of their prey. An occasional jaguar, here honored with the name of tiger, gives the traveller a tantalizing glimpse of his tawny hide as he leaps to shelter among the bushes; monkeys chatter among the high trees and seemingly hurl defiance at the passing steamer; and birds of the most gorgeous plumage flash among the bushes, cross and recross the stream, or even cluster on the cordage and decks of the steamer, almost within reach of the land. In the lowlands the lonely heron, or his near relative, in shades of color varying from almost a dark crimson to pure white, stands in stately meditation, or wings his Aight with others of his kind across the still waters of the river where its inlets stretch off into the mysterious depths of the forest beyond. Indians, the native and still savage inhabitants of the Gran Chaco, are seldom seen in the towns, but a short trip into the interior, especially from the Paraguay or the Pilcomayo river, would soon bring one into contact with tribes as savage as they were before the advent of the Spanish conquistadores. As the journey progresses along the Upper Paraná there are increasing evidences, especially in the names of the ports and interior villages, of the work done more than two hundred years ago by the valiant Jesuit fathers among the then numerous and warlike Guaraní tribes of Indians. In a very special sense, all this region which lies along the Upper Paraná and Paraguay
rivers may be called Jesuit Land, since it was the seat of that amazing and successful theocracy which flourished more than two centuries ago and which was terminated only by the expulsion of the Jesuits by order of the Spanish Crown. The story of this attempt at the civilization of the native tribes, through the establishment of a socialistic theocracy among them, is too long to be told here, but no visitor to the region can fail to recall the work of the daring disciples of Ignatius de Loyola, nor to regret that this work was brought to an untimely end by the decree of a too suspicious monarch. More than a hundred thousand Indians had been reclaimed from their wild life in the forests and had begun to become accustomed to the more settled life of the reductions. But their religious guides were ruthlessly plucked away from them in a day, and in fifty years not a single Indian was left in the settlements. To-day, not a descendant of these Christian natives is known, and their temples and colleges have crumbled into ruin. The more than thirty cities, each of which was a fourishing center of religious and material activity, now exist only in heaps of stones over which clambers the dense tangle of the tropical jungle, or which are burst asunder by the vigorous growth of the wild orange trees. Leaving behind this region so interesting because of its almost forgotten history, the little steamer proceeds up the river Paraná until the junction of this stream with the Iguassú is reached. About a thousand yards above this junction, and located on the high bank of the Iguassú, far above the floods of the rainy season, is Puerto Aguirre, the end of the journey by water. The Falls may be reached from this point, but only by land, and the traveller, on disembarking, must prepare at once for the ride of twelve miles through the jungle of the Chaco to the verge of the precipice that marks and makes this wonder of Nature. The writer, having crossed the neighboring Republic of Paraguay, in company with a tried friend and travelling companion, finally reached this little port, near the close of the open season for tourists. We were soon ashore and climbing the several Aights of stairs that lead to the office of the Chief of Police of the region, who is also hotelkeeper and general factotum in all matters connected with a visit to the neighboring Falls. After an inspection of the horses and saddles, destined to those who might wish to ride to the Falls, and the coaches, which were to carry the less athletically inclined, it was evident that it was to be merely a choice between two evils, and we chose the latter. In the leisurely Latin American fashion the diminutive mules and horses were lassoed one by one, and, after vain efforts on their part to elude this involuntary service, were finally hitched to the ancient and dilapidated diligences which were to carry us through the jungle. Our hope was that we might reach the end of the journey before nightfall. This hope, however, soon proved to be futile. The darkness gradually settled down about us, and the deep stillness of the forest was broken only by the shouts of the muleteers as they urged their mounts up a steep hill or eased them down the opposite slope and across the rustic and swaying bridges that span the streams below.
Finally, lights were discernible among the trees and we soon drew up among a group of small buildings that mark the shelter for the night. The roar of the cataract had been audible for some time, even from the depths of the forest, and it seemed hardly necessary that the proprietor of the hotel should hasten to warn his guests against wandering from the circle of light, for fear of falling over the nearby precipice. The so-called hotel is but a rustic wooden shelter which in no sense merits its name. The system of latifundia, so common in this part of the world, receives the blame. One man, we are told, is the owner of all the region round about and refuses to sell, rent, lease or otherwise relinguish his right to the land. Nor will he consent that others contribute to the comfort of his self-invited guests by the construction of a more commodious hotel or inn. A proper provision of clothing for the expedition to the Falls had already been made, and on the following morning, clad in bombachas, the native baggy trousers that buckle closely about the ankle, and alpargatas, or cloth slippers, with soles of cord that enable one to stand even in slippery places, and with other clothing reduced to a minimum, we were out with the first light, and ready for the hard experiences of the day. There are a number of minor falls along the precipice of more than four thousand metres in length, over which the Iguassú drops to its bed below. Among the first of these smaller cataracts to be visited by the tourist is the "Salto Lanusse,” or “Las Dos Hermanas." These “Two Sisters” fall from a height of forty metres in a double cascade not unlike the twin bridal veils. The Fall of "San Martin” is composed of more than thirty cascades, most of which are united during the season of the heavy rains. The drop from the precipice at this point is about fifty metres. “Los Tres Mosqueteros" is a triple cascade which falls in two sections, of thirty-five and thirty metres, respectively, while “Bozetti,” so called from its first explorer, falls but forty metres, although its volume of water is enormous. After the drop of forty meters, its waters have a level table-land of some fifty metres in width on which to gather themselves together for the final drop to the lower level, where they join those of the "San Martin” to form a short river of the same name which soon returns its waters to those of the Iguassú. Each of these less-important cascades has an attraction all its own, for, in addition to the torrent of falling water, each is framed, as in a picture, by the projecting rocks on the verge of the precipice and by the deep green of the clinging vegetation which lines the stream of water on the face of the solid rock which forms the background. But "La Garganta del Diablo” is the piece de résistance, and to visit this “Devil's Throat" one must have the most experienced guides, generally the imperturbable Guarani Indians, and obey implicitly their orders. Having provided ourselves with these indispensable companions, we embarked with them in a small canoe, hewn from the trunk of a tree cut from the neighboring forest, and set out across that part of the river which feeds the minor falls. The land at this point seems to be almost level until it reaches the edge of the precipice, so that there is but little current in the water. However, as the boat pro
Niagara: height, 49 metres; width, 1,600 metres. Victoria: height, 120 metres; width, 1,808 metres. Iguassú: height, 65 metres; width 4,000 metres. As to the volume of water that passes over the Iguassú, the best calculation is that which has been made by a German engineer. Taking into account the average width of the river above the Falls, and a mean velocity of four feet per second, he estimated that 2,822,000 cubic metres of water pass over every hour. During the months of May, June and July, when there
NEW PENAL SETTLEMENT FOR PERU THE new penal settlement on Fronton Island, the smaller of the two islands which form the seaward shelter of Callao Bay, is now ready for occupation. The Peruvian cruiser Lima has been anchored off this island for three or four months past, serving as a working base for those engaged in the construction of this penal establishment, which comprises a mole, three barracks capable of housing fifty men each, and a large tank affording water supply to the inhabitants of the island. An excellent quality of rock for paving and other purposes is obtainable from Fronton and the extraction of this material will constitute one of the principal occupations of the prisoners quartered there.
MINING ACCIDENTS IN PERU The death of Señor Ricardo Phillips, a young Peruvian mining engineer and brother of Bishop Belisario Phillips, together with some five workmen is reported from the "Huari" coal mine, situated two leagues from Oroya, as the result of an explosion of coal gas. Mr. J. F. Glidden, superintendent of mines at Cerro de Pasco, in an address delivered at the labor headquarters, announced that the Cerro de Pasco Mining Company would shortly install night schools for the instruction of workmen with reference to the manner of preventing accidents in the mines, the treatment of injuries and the rendering of first aid to the injured. The company, it was stated, would pay regular wages to those attending the school, as though it were ordinary labor.
ceeded, we came out into the open water above the larger falls and could not feel the pull of the current as it hastened more rapidly toward the precipice below. Now and then, as we skirted the bank, striving to keep in the shallow water, the guides were obliged to get into the stream and shoulder the canoe scarcely covered rock or through some particularly narrow passage through the reeds, and not infrequently the passengers accepted an invitation to join in this somewhat chilling task. After a half an hour of this sort of navigation, the canoe was left behind and, clambering over moss-cov. ered rocks and forcing a passage through the dense undergrowth of the jungle, where the machete was often called into action to open the way, we came out on the brink of the river which goes tumbling along in the gorge far below. Standing on a rocky promontory, known as "El Peñon de la Bella Vista” _“The Rock of the Beautiful View"-one is directly in front of "La Garganta del Diablo," through which runs the dividing line between the republics of Brazil and Argentina, while to the left of this greatest Fall, stretch away, on the opposite bank, the lesser cascades of the Brazilian half of the river. But the most perilous part of the day's work was yet to come, as also the most interesting, for the guides were to lead us across another and swifter arm of the river in order that we might stand on the very edge of the precipice where the main bo of water is precipitated through "La Garganta del Diablo” to the bed of the river sixty-five metres below. And it was in this perilous crossing of the stream that we came to appreciate to the full the disinterested loyalty of these dark-skinned children of the forest, for our very lives depended on the orders which they might give and our implicit obedience to the same. Many a time we were told to plant the foot on a stone which we could not see, submerged, as we were, to the waist, in the chilling water. But in spite of the swift current which made this a difficult feat, we obeyed as best we could and, supporting ourselves with strong stocks provided for the purpose, and upheld by the silent, impassive guides, literally walking by faith and not by sight, we came out of the band of the main stream where it launches itself into the “Devil's Throat.” The roar of the torrent at this point is such as to make the loudest conversation impossible. The waters, comparatively calm above, seem to gather themselves together for the final rush, and then, as if in desperation, Aling themselves into space to fall in a thunderous mass to the seething cauldron that sweeps and eddies about the foot of the cataract. A false step, a sudden or unexpected gust of wind, might precipitate one into this mad whirl of waters. But the wonder is so great that risks are forgotten and the beholder can but stand and gaze on what is one of the greatest marvels that God has placed on His footstool. Niagara is great, but lacks the wild, natural surroundings which are the principal charm of the Iguassú. All about are the hills of the Argentine Chaco covered with the virgin forest and peopled with the wild folk of many species, while, on the opposite slope, stretch away the green hills of Brazil. No life is visible near the Falls, save the birds which hasten by on hurried wing, as if in a race with Death, plunge into the abyss, skimming the foam until they are lost in the clouds of rising mist. One may sit and meditate and feel that he is alone with this wonder of Nature and with its Creator, for no sound of man's civilization breaks in to jar the harmony of the scene. According to the best authorities, the comparison of the Iguassú with the two other great waterfalls of the world would be as follows:
PANAMA RAILROAD EARNINGS The Panama Railroad Company, which is owned by the Government and conducts various departments of business in the Canal Zone besides operating a railway and steamship line, reports gross earnings from all sources of $8.488.684 in the year ended June 30, 1917, a decrease of $55,767. Expenses were $235,672 greater than in 1916, with the result that net earnings amounting to $2,162,153 were $291,439 less than in 1916. Operations on the isthmus brought in $4,252,323, a total $827,785 less than the year before. The company runs plantations, commissaries, telephone and telegraph systems, motor buses, and an ice cream business, the last named, according to the report just issued, showing a substantial growth during the fiscal period. The steamships made a gross return of $4,236,361, an increase of $772,018, and the net revenue of $1,161,734 was $106,149 larger than in the preceding year. The railroad carried 722,719 tons of freight, a decline of 631,543 tons. As a result of the slackened traffic the revenue derived from it was $1,061,968, against $1,119,042 the year before. The company spent $2,081,978 for new construction and additions and betterments to property. From the new coaling plants at Cristobal and Balboa coal to a total value of $3,467,178 was sold at a profit of $523,003. The profit is to be used, the report said, in obtaining additional coaling equipment.
Photos by the Author UPPER PART OF THE BOZETTI FALL
is a considerable rainfall in the region, the amount would reach the total of 47,160,000; and when the rains are unusually heavy, the total would reach the enormous quantity of 172,800,000. The motor power, at the normal height of the water, is not less than 10,000,000 horsepower. It will be easy to calculate the enormous power represented by these Falls at the season of the heavy rains. In spite of the unusual attraction of the region of the Iguassú, there are but few tourists who reach this somewhat out-of-the-way corner of the continent. In the last ten years, the time that visitors have been known to visit the region, the average would not exceed four hundred. Could the region be set apart as an international park, through the expropriation of the necessary territory by the governments of the Argentine and Brazil, and could proper accommodations be assured for the interested tourists, the Falls of the Iguassú, reached by the splendid inland water routes of South America, and through historic Jesuit Land, would become one of the oft-visited wonders of the world.
ASPHALT PAVING IN GUAYAQUIL The days of bad streets in Guayaquil are drawing to a close, to be followed by a régime of improvement wherein asphalt is to rule. At a meeting of the municipal board, recently, a report from an American manuiacturer of asphalt was read, which explained that the local rock and sand are well adapted for paving use and gave full instructions for mixing the ingredients. The municipal engineer was instructed to place an initial order for forty tons of the asphalt and a mixer and other accessories. Page 12
shield, he continued shooting until the police began to close in on him, then he remounted and galloped away, still shooting at the officer who dared to pursue him and he was still shooting with a revolver when a rifle bullet killed him, and he fell from his galloping horse. The newspapers of Brazil have devoted a great deal of space to this chase, saying that the death of Agnelo rids the Republic of one of its most desperate bandits and one whose daring and success was an encouragement to the few remaining outlaws in the wilds of Western Brazil, who the police have set out to capture or kill as they did Agnelo the Man Killer.
BRAZIL A HUNDRED YEARS AGO By Kirby Thomas HE ambitious, exhaustive, and sometimes ex- hausting, books of travel of the present day, which shed the light of the printed page on the farthest corners of the earth find a worthy counterpart in some of the literary undertakings of more than a hundred years ago. Alexander Humboldt's mental book on travel, which is to-day considered a classical and valuable authority, was published in the early years of the eighteenth century. Moldy publishers' announcements of the early years of last century, occasionally to be found in antiquarian collections, are evidence that the industrious readers of those distant times had a full repertoire of voyages and travels and journeys and sketches from which to seek the elusive facts and feed their geographical imaginations. An announcement by “M. Carey, publisher, number 121 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, 1816,” catalogues Humboldt's celebrated works, just translated into English, also Travels in Brazil, Voyage to Abyssinia, Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor, Tour through Italy, Sketches of Louisiana, Travels through the Canadas, Voyage to Demerary and other modern sounding products of the press. One of these publications, bearing the comprehensive title, “Travels in the Interior of Brazil, particularly in the Gold and Diamond Districts of that Country, by authority of the prince regent of Portugal, including a voyage to the Rio de la Plata, and an historical sketch of the revolution of Buenos Ayres, illustrated with five engravings,” has recently come into possession of the writer, who finds the nature and scope of the book of such merit that a brief review is submitted for the notice of present day travelers in Brazil. The book is written by John Mawe, an Englishman, who is described as the author of a treatise on the Mineralogy of Derbyshire, and who is highly spoken of as to his scientific attainments in a review published in the British Critic, June 1813. The book was published in Philadelphia by M. Carey, and in Boston by Wells and Lilly in 1816, presumably English editions had preceded the American publication. The book is characteristically dedicated to "His Royal Highness the Prince Regent of Portugal, Prince of Brazil etc,” under whose sanction the travels were "performed." The first chapters of the book are devoted to the voyage from Cadiz to the Rio de la Plata, made in 1804, and discuss some forgotten phases of the world war of that day, involving a frustrated British naval expedition against Buenos Ayres. The author succeeds, however, in undertaking some limited travel the Argentine and in Uruguay and describes the physical and commercial conditions of that time in an interesting manner and makes some pertinent political observations. Later he traveled by boat and overland to Brazil and arrived at Rio de Janeiro in the spring of 1809, where he was received by the Prince Regent, apparently with much ceremony, and authorized and commissioned to make a trip into the interior of Brazil to the famous gold and diamond regions of Minas Geraes, an opportunity not apparently made available before for foreign travelers. The details of the laborious and difficult trip on mule back northward from the, even then, important political and commercial center on the wonderful harbor of Rio de Janeiro, is interesting reading to one who now can make the trip on a modern railroad in a short day with an equipment of sleepers and dining cars. The incidents and observations, however, principally consisting of a catalogue of discomforts, inconveniences and sometimes dangers, are strangely familiar to the persent day traveler whose wanderlust has led him away from the railroads, main highways and the scattered and confined centers of civilization in Brazil, or in fact in any other Latin American countries, The first stage of the journey ended at Villa Rica, then an important center of mining operations and the capital of Minas Geraes. The writer observed that the place had for many years been “reputed the richest in Brazil, as to it was brought all the gold found in the vast district around.". His description of the official and private buildings and the general state of business and society in this historic place is an interesting record for Villa Rica (rich town) is no more. A gashed and torn hillside, a few scattered stones, fragments of walls, and a half dozen miserable native huts are all that now are to be observed at this place. The designation is still applied to the locality which lies on the outskirts of Ouro Preto, an important city, for many years the capital of the state and now the seat of the celebrated school of mines. All of the mining operations were confined to surface and placer work at that time, and the record of the enormous richness of the region in gold, the production of which had at this early time materially declined, recalls the stories of "the days of old and the days of gold" of California.
After further travels in the gold region, our writer passed northward to the diamond fields, in which the most important mining operations in the country were then under way, conducted by the government by means of slave labor. The descriptions of the mining methods and of the elaborate arrangements to control and direct the waters of the rivers to make the cascalho, or diamond gravel, accessible are evidence of the effectiveness of the early day mining operations. The writer describes the discovery of a very large diamond, nearly an ounce in weight, by three outlaws, who by their delivery of their find to the authorities, secured social restoration. Another instance is told of a negro, living 900 miles in the interior, who sent word to the Prince Regent that he had discovered a diamond weighing nearly a pound, which he wished to present to his majesty. It is not necessary to record that the offer was accepted. The fortunate finder was brought to Rio de Janeiro, under escort, and was treated with great consideration on his journey with the precious find to the capital. The stone was personally accepted by the Prince Regent and safely ensconced in the treasure chest, locked with three locks, the keys of which were held by three separate functionaries. The diamond was received at the time of Mr. Mawe's arrival in Rio de Janeiro, and because of his reputation as a mineralogist, he was consulted by the Prince Regent, who, it seems had some doubt as to the genuineness of the find. Mr. Mawe readily ascertained that the alleged diamond was only a rounded crystal of quartz, and the negro returned home without escort. Mr. Hoover would be interested in the diet of the country people in the mining districts. According to Mr. Mawe, “The Master, his steward, and the overseers sit down to a breakfast of kidney beans, of a black colour, boiled, with which they mixed the flour of Indian corn and eat with a little dry pork, fried or boiled. The dinner generally consists also of a bit of pork or bacon boiled, the water of which is poured upon a dish of the flour above mentioned, thus forming a stiff pudding. A large quantity (above half a peck) of this food is poured in a heap on the table, and a great dish of boiled beans is set upon it; each person helps himself in the readiest way, there being only on knife, which is very often dispensed with. A plate or two of colewort or cabbage leaves complete the repast. The food is commonly served up in the earthen vessels used for cooking it; sometimes on pewter dishes. The general beverage is water. At supper nothing is seen but large quantities of boiled greens, with a little bit of poor bacon to favor them. On any festive occasion, or when strangers appear, the dinner or supper is improved by the addition of a stewed fowl. The food prepared for the negroes is Indian cornflour mixed with hot water, in which a bit of pork has been boiled. This dish serves for both breakfast and supper. Their dinner consists of beans boiled in the same way.” Mr. Mawe's book is a very interesting account of the social, political and industrial conditions of the Brazil of a century ago. It is worthy of being republished and made available to the increasing public interested in things Latin American.
BRAZIL'S MOBILIZATION PLAN By John W. White, Jr. When Brazil declared a state of war to exist with the German Empire, the Brazilian army was composed of 18,000 men, with officers enough for 30,000. Plans were at once put into motion for increasing the standing army to 35,000 immediately, with the possibility of further increasing it to 100,000 during the year 1918. The mobilization plan provides for three lines of defence, the first to eventually comprise 100,000 youths between the ages of 17 and 20. To assure this number, it is said in official circles that the present voluntary system of enlistment may be replaced by universal conscription. Under Brazil's present methods, each section of the Republic is called upon for a prescribed quota of men each year and conscription is employed only when there are not enough volunteers and then only to fill the deficit. Brazil's proposed second line of defence is to consist of an army of 500,000 men between 30 and 37, with detachments in every city and town in the Republic. These men are to be mobilized on a war footing, ready for service at a moment's notice, though they are not to be kept continually under arms, the plan being to organize them as a home guard and permit them to attend to their business affairs, devoting stated periods to drill. In addition to these two armies, there is to be a reserve army, to be known as the national guard, comprising men between 37 and 44. The officers of this force are to be chosen from government administrative officers, commercial men, and employees of industry and a few of these officers will be called upon in each locality for auxiliary service in connection with the administration of the Permanent Army. One of the first steps in this mobilization plan was to arrange for trebling the number of officers now under commission, and the promotion of all grades between second lieutenant and colonel. More than 1,000 sergeants are to be given commissions. All the advanced students of the military schools are to be given commissions of the lowest grade and enrolled with the army, the plan being to permit them to complete their studies later. Although large increases are to be made in the infantry arm of the service, the greatest increases are to be in the cavalry and artillery. The present organization includes 60 battalions of infantry, with 120 men to a battalion in times of peace and 300 in war. There are fifteen regiments of cavalry and fifteen of artillery, both enrolling 180 men to a regiment in times of peace and 250 in war time. Heavy increases in these two arms of the service were already under way two months ago. One of the finest military organizations in South America is the very popular volunteer organization known as the Tiro. This is a national training army consisting of 266 companies in all the principal cities of the country and comprising 35,000 young men. The members are all of the better classes and pay all their own expenses during the six months they are in training, the government merely furnishing the equipment. During ordinary times the members of the Tiro are accepted as officers of the reserves, but the present plan is to give nearly all of them commissions in the regular army as subordinate officers. The federal government also is empowered to mobilise the state troops into the national service during war times as all the states have large military organizations under the State presidents. This will add materially to the size of the army already under arms. It may be significant that the persistent stories of mysterious aeroplanes flying over frontier towns and the reports of the mobilization of huge Argentine armies along the Brazilian frontier became general just after the Brazilian government announced its mobilization plans. At any rate, the stories are proving a great aid to enlistment. Argentina is nearer home than Germany, and therefore the storied peril appears greater; and when it was unofficially, but generally, stated throughout the southern part of Brazil that a large number of troops would be kept along the frontier even in the event that men would be sent to Europe, the enlistments in that section of the country immediately began to grow.–From The River Plate Observer.
END OF FAMOUS BRAZILIAN BANDIT Parts of Brazil are still infested with roving bandits, who appear so romantic in story and so fearful in personal encounters. The State of Paraná especially has been troubled recently, but Agnelo Pedro Pinto, one of the last of the bandits who have been terrorising this state for several months, has at last been killed, after a chase that was as exciting as most of Pinto's escapades. Agnelo Padilha, as he was generally called, had taken over the southeastern part of the State and hardly a week passed that travellers did not bring stories of encounters with him. He always worked alone, but his absolute disregard of danger made him a terror to everyone who went into that part of the state. Recently his robberies had become so frequent and the killing of his victims so numerous that the Brazilians called him Agnelo the Man Killer, and the police were finally ordered by the State government to take him dead or alive. A searching party of five started after him. After a march of 21 miles, the searching party overtook the bandit in a lonely section known as Canivete, which had been the scene of many of his most desperate achievements. It was learned that Agnelo was hiding in the house of a friend and the police undertook to wait until he should leave his refuge, but their presence was soon reported to the desperado, and in the coldblooded manner that had marked his entire career, mounted his horse and set out at a gallop to meet the police. When told to dismount and consider himself a prisoner, Agnelo dashed forward, shooting at the men who had attempted to arrest him. Using his horse as
NOTES FROM PERU Y courtesy of Messrs. Soto & Baguet, the proprietors of the well known Publicity Bureau at Lima, “La Propaganda Comercial,” we are able to show some interesting new pictures from that city. The smart appearance of the officers and men at the army maneuvres of December last is typical of the times in which we live, and the formation of a boyscout brigade at Lima 'shows that the younger generation are keen to do their bit when the time comes.
been in the day's work and while quite willing to answer all reasonable questions on the subject of his experiences he refuses to commit himself to accounts of hairraising experiences or adventures. In the first year or two of the war he was “lent" to the army on a number of occasions but later was detailed to the R. N. Flying Corps, in the work of defending the East Coast against Zeppelins and aeroplane raids. Perhaps the greatest service which Commander Dyott has rendered to his country lies in the fact that
Photo, Luis S. Igarte DR. MARIO SOSA, PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENTAL BOARD OF THE DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY AT LIMA
Photo, Luis S. Ugarte BUILDING AT LIMA OCCUPIED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF MINING ENGINEERS
TRAINING THE PERUVIAN ARMY IN MODERN TRENCH WARFARE
Every two years, an exhibition of sculpture by Peruvian artists is held at the Museum of History in Lima, when the “Concha” prize, equivalent in value to $900 U. S. currency, is awarded for the best work of the year. This year the prize was carried away by Señor Artemio B. Ocaña, for his bust of a negro, a very powerful study of the subject. Honorable mention was obtained by Señor Eduardo Lozano for his copy of Rodin's “Thinker.” It will be noted that the Peruvian
in addition to his abilities as a pilot and observer, he is also a designer and builder of aeroplanes and many of his designs and inventions are now incorporated in the latest British military planes. Commander Dyott gained his early aviation experience in the States. He went out to California in 1899 and after earning enough money to go on with the electrical studies in which he was interested, he returned to London, entering Faraday House, and later the University of London. Returning to the States he became connected with the Westinghouse Company and later had an office of his own as consulting elctrical engineer at Pittsburgh and New York. His first experiments in aviation were conducted at Pittsburgh and finally finding that his interest in flying was interfering with his electrical engineering work, he gave up the work, and shortly afterward built and flew the first monoplane at Mineola, L. I. in 1910. After this he travelled extensively with his machines in Great Britain, the States, Mexico, Central America and in Germany, just before the outbreak of war. Commander Dyott's interest in South America dates back to pre-war days, and so at the first opportunity 1:e decided to employ his leave in a visit to the West
Photo, Lilis S. l'garte NEW QUARTERS OF THE DEPARTMENTAL BOARD OF THE DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY AT LIMA, PERU
GROUP OF PERUVIAN OFFICERS AT THE MANEUVRES LAST DECEMBER
FROM THE MARNE TO THE MARAÑON
school of sculpture is robust, and shows a healthy trend of national artistic development. The wonderful impetus given to mining progress in Peru of late years has taxed the resources of the “Development” Ministry at Lima to such an extent that it has been found necessary to establish several departments subordinate to that Ministry, each of which has under its control the public works of a province. The Lima Board is now installed in handsome new premises in Peirola Avenue, and is presided over by Dr. Mario Sosa, an engineer of high repute.
Knowing that every link between South America and the war in Europe is of special interest to our readers, we print the following item of news from The West Coast Leader of Lima with inuch satisfaction. Invalided out of the Aying service after three years in Flanders and at the Channel bases, Squadron Commander G. M. Dyott, R. N. has arrived in Lima, and is equipping here for an expedition of several months' duration into the more or less uncharted hinterlands of the Marañon and Huallaga. Commander Dyott is making this expedition single-handed except for the native assistants and carriers he plans to pick up along
PRIZE STUDY BY THE PERUVIAN SCULPTOR, ARTEMIO B. OCAÑA
He is one of the few British Aying men, alive to-day, who has been out "since Mons," for he went over with the original contingent of a dozen or so of aviators that accompanied the First Expeditionary Force to France. From Mons to the Marne, from the Marne to the Aisne, from Aisne to Antwerp and back to Ypres, Commander Dyott received his baptism of military aviation, and was one of the "eyes” that rendered such all important service to Sir John French and his staff, when that general wrought his miracle of military strategy and, vastly outnumbered, held back the German hordes and locked the gates to the Channel ports. But to Commander Dyott these early months of the war and the months of fighting that followed have all
Coast and especially in exploration of the undeveloped regions of the interior, in which he is taking a commercial as well as a scientific interest. He expects to leave Lima next week with Mr. William Bell Taylor, of Trujillo, who has travelled extensively in the interior of Peru and Ecuador, and who has kindly offered to coach Commander Dyott in the intricacies (Concluded on page 20)
A Visit to the Inca's the Inca's Bridge
A Natural Phenomenon under the
E were seated in the screened porch of one of those delightful rural homes in Central Illinois. My companion had just returned from a tour through the western states and was describing with vivid enthusiasm, the grotesque splendour of Arizona's Grand Canyon. “My boy,” he said, punctuating his enthusiasm with a slap on my knee which doubly assured my attention, it is one of the seven wonders of the world.” Meditating on these words I have often since wondered which of all the wonders of this vast world really should be the chosen seven, And I have often felt that whoever placed a limit of seven on the superfine samples of nature's handiwork must either have had a restricted vision or have judged the temperament of the entire human race as being identically the same as his own. For myself I judge according to my own emotions at the time. What sets my own pulse apounding might easily leave my dearest friend as cold as an icicle. I have stood on the heights of Quebec on a cold winter's day watching the battle between the dwarf-like ferry boat and the comparatively gigantic ice-floes of the St. Lawrence. The tiny vessel with its human cargo takes a straight course up-stream and then aided by the onrushing mass of broken ice gallantly ploughs a way to the landing station at Levis. That sight almost convinced me that in a pitched battle against nature, man can hold his own. It was the same at Niagara where THE CARRIAGE ROAD TO THE HOTEL PASSES OVER THIS the weight of the falling torrent is used to illuminate NATURAL BRIDGE the homes, and where “The Maid of the Mist” gambols among the whirlpools and mocks the hungry currents. In the mountains of the Andes, however, confronted with the sight of marble tipped peaks, and before the spectacle of weary clouds reposing on the snow-capped summits, man is finally put back in his place. Standing on the summit of one of nature's pyramids a human atom is faced with a mental reflection of his true insignificance. There, in the Andes, one feels impelled to follow the example of the Indian worshipper who with arms extended toward the blazing orb would then beat his breast and on bended knee offer a prayer of thanksgiving to tlie setting sun. The memory of my journey through the Andes to Puente del Inca is a possession worth more than a purse full of gold. It is a memory of a peep into a wilderness of stern, ominous mountains, swirling creeks, here and there smiling plateaux with poplars and green fields, glassy lakes, racing torrents; and, crowning all, the snow-capped summits of nature's highest monuments—such is a brief description of the "Cordillera de los Andes." First View of the Mountains The sightseer leaving Buenos Aires abroad the "In- ternacional" on Sunday morning, obtains his first glimpse of the Andes upon awakening on Monday morn- ing at Mendoza. The Cerro de la Gloria, the fore- runner of range after range of higher summits, stands out in striking relief in the morning sunlight. Leaving on the narrow gauge transandine train, one gains a pass- ing glimpse of the immensely productive vineyards which form the basis of the fabulous wealth of the province of Mendoza. Following a winding path marked by the course of the Mendoza river, the transandine train enters the truly mountainous region at Cacheuta, a thermal establishment, the waters of which are noted for their beneficial qualities. Leaving Cacheuta the train passes through tunnels and past whirling rapids to pause later in the centre of the intensely fertile plateau of Potrerillos. There, at an altitude of 1,355 metres above sea level, and surrounded by high peaks, the green poplars and sweet scented fields of waving grass are in striking contrast to the barren splendour of the out- lying ranges of mountains. Browsing cattle and sleek horses give the place a charmingly rural aspect which is brought into relief by the frowning shadows of the mountains beyond. Still following the course of the Mendoza river, and passing through a wonderland of rapids, snow-capped peaks and mammoth boulders, the train finally crosses the bridge leading to Punta de Las Vacas and under which the angry torrnet, held captive between mighty rocks which hold the waters in a vice- like grip. dashes downward in leaps and bounds as though shouting defiance at the motionless obstacles which would bar the way. A Wonderful Panorama At Punta de las Vacas, the train takes the rack road- PUENTE DEL INCA AT WINTER TIME
way, and for a time the journey is slow and labourious. For the traveller, however, the journey offers indescribable delights. The Tupungato volcano, the first sight of which is gained after leaving Punta de las l'acas, projects from behind a V-shaped foreground of sombre, spreading mountains. The sharp peak of the volcano stands out in the distance, clothed in a halo of snow-white glory. The bronze coloured surface of the forelying ranges, the brilliant azure of the skies and the shadows of the clouds produce a coup d'oeil of indescribable magnificence. The startling contrasts, the extravagant variety of colours and the immensity of the mountains form a spectacle of un surpassable splendour. Climbing higher, and yet higher, the train then brings the traveller within sight of the mountain boulder known as “Los Penitentes.” The name is derived from the fact that the mammoth rock standing out in sharp relief against the clear blue of the sky takes the form of a weather-beaten Gothic temple, while triangular groups of jagged rocks, resembling human figures, seem to be climbing up the steep slopes toward the portals behind which lie rest and forgiveness. In winter time the stony worshippers are clothed in mantles of the purest white. Truly, there is something humble and beseeching in their silent, motionless pose, but so deep was the impression made upon me by the sight that I conjured up a picture of a dark, forbidding prison toward which the evil-doers from distant caves and summits were being held in chains-to their doom. As, in fancy, I heard the moans and shrieks of pain from the torture chamber within, the chained and weary prisoners seemed petrified with awe and as I gazed on the weird picture I seemed to expect the doomed captives to recoil in horror and to prostrate themselves in one iast and futile prayer for mercy and forgiveness. But no, the figures remained motionless as ever; and the spell thus broken I turned away to admire the variety of shining colours and the reflections from the bronze coloured slopes beyond. Puente del Inca Leaving Los Penitentes the train enters the valley which leads to the station of Puente del Inca. There, situated at an altitude of about 9,500 feet above the sea level is the hotel operated under the auspices of the Cia. de Hoteles Sud Americanos. Between the station and the hotel is that marvellous natural structure, the Inca's Bridge itself. As a centre for the holiday maker and the seeker of health the location is positively ideal. The air is dry, refreshing, invigorating and briefly, incomparable. The hotel itself is an oasis almost lost in the vastness of the mountain wilderness. Nestling in a picturesque valley, the establishment faces the Cerro Navarro, the summit of which is enfolded in snow practically the whole year round. Ti:e first essential to enjoyment, as far as the city holiday maker is concerned, is a place in which he may obtain home comforts in the midst of novel surroundings. The hotel at Puente del Inca offers an abundance of comfort without any pretence toward a tawdry luxury, which would be totally in conflict with the grandeur of such wild and picturesque surroundings. The Puento del Inca is a block of calcareous rock through which the waters of the Mendoza river have excavated a natural arch. The result is a natural bridge across the river and the solidarity of the structure is increased by the calcareous water which is oozing out of the soil under the bridge, leaving a brick-hard coating of lime, the surface of which is covered with many shaped stalactites in varying shades of colour. The appearance of the arch underneath the bridge is one of weird, almost uncanny beauty. The hanging stalactites, the gushing springs and the spray from the racing torrent below give the arch the aspect of a chamber of another world. The curve of the bridge is of elliptical shape, 48 meters long and 28 meters wide, with moulding from eight to nine meters thick. The height of the surface of the bridge from the river is a little over 26 meters. A person standing on the bridge itself breathes the air as it is only to be found at 2,727 meters above sea level. To be fully appreciated the arch should be observed from both entrances. From any point of vision, however, the scene is one of wild beauty and irresistible fascination. "El Dios de los Incas" Another of the strange works of nature and one which keeps a silent and relentless watch over the hotel is the image known as “El Dios de los Incas." Standing on
VIEW OF HOTEL AT PUENTE DEL INCA
THE FAMOUS INCA LAGOON, HIGH UP IN THE ANDES
THE BOUNDARY MARK BETWEEN CHILE AND ARGENTINA
one of the ledges of the mountain which towers over the establishment is this huge stone boulder taking the form of a human figure. The head may be very clearly discerned from the foot of the slope while the body, seen at close quarters, lends itself in no small measure to the completion of the illusion. Surrounding this strange effigy there is a weird legend of a bold and ambitious warrior of the Incas, wl leaving his Indian wife, started out in search of wealth and power. Many sunsets followed that of the day of his departure and still the watcher watched in vain. It seemed, indeed, that the bold and ambitious warrior was never to return. Before the home of the abandoned woman another warrior raised his voice in passionate outbursts of entreaty, seeking to capture the affections of one who heeded him not. But, despite the trustful fidelity of she who watched and waited by day and by night, praying to her heathen god for the return of her loved one, ugly tales were whispered among the tribes. And when one day the lost one did return, laden with treasures and with the light of conquest in his eyes, the false tidings reached his ears. With savage fury he fell upon the innocent woman and, dragging her by the hair to the edge of the cliff, sought to avenge an imaginary wrong. Taking up a huge stone, which he poised in the air, he was about to crush out the little life which remained in that frail body when the innocent victim of his wrath made a final despairing appeal to the god who though answering her prayers had denied her heart's desire. The mountain trembled, the god of the Incas spoke and the figure of the avenger remained petrified. From that day on the tribes worshipped the effigy as personifying the might and power of their god. Admitting that the telling of the legend may have helped while away the hours of many a mountain twilight, the fact remains that the dimensions of the image strongly suggest that the bad, bold warrior was very much puffed out with rage at the time of his petrification. At least, he must have been suffering from a swollen head; for the size of the petrified image is, indeed, such that had the hero of the legend been caught alive, his scalp, petrified in the calcareous waters of the Inca, would have made a bowl of sufficient dimensions to contain as fine a brew of punch
ever graced the festive Christmas board in the Merrie days of Old England. The Mineral Springs The valley of Puente del Inca is a veritable hotbed of mineral springs. The waters from innumerable sources are allowed to waste, but the waters of the sources known as Champagne, Venus and Mercury are used to immense advantage in the treatment, by baths, of various ailments. The baths connected with the hotel are reached by an underground tunnel and are situated in close proximity to the arch under the bridge. The immense tiled baths are filled with sparkling waters and by means of an outlet a continuous flow and absolute uniformity of temperature are assured. I experienced the effects of the Champagne bath and was, to express it mildly, astounded. The water from this source possesses many of the qualities of the festive amber liquid. The water is sparkling and the surface remains in a state of permanent effervescence. The bursting bubbles and seething foam produce a most pleasant sensation and above all the effect of immersion in the water is invigorating to the verge of intoxication. It is a custom with tourists who visit Puente del Inca to submit such objects as straw hats, old boots and such like to the tender mercies of the calcareous waters. At the end of a period of about ten days these objects become petrified, assuming the appearance of a light, pinky coloured earthenware of a lighter colour than a common flower pot. Excursions on Mule Back There are many delightful excursions to be made on mule back by visitors to Puente del Inca. Accompanied by a guide and astride a sure-footed creature who took me over paths I would have hesitated to cross afoot, I went on an excursion to the Laguna de Los Horcones. On the way we gained a wonderful view of the Aconcagua peak, the summit of which situated at an altitude of over 23,000 feet is wreathed in perpetual snows. The lake itself is situated in the centre of a richly fertile plateau which is strangely refreshing seen in such surroundings. As a site for a picnic this plateau is immesely popular and this popularity is enhanced through the existence of a charming stone chalet where the
tired and hungry tourists may take shelter from the sun and carve the tempting joint. Another excursion to be made through magnificient scenery is that to the statue of the Cristo Redentor. The journey takes about two and a half hours on mule back and provides an incomparable panorama. The statue depicts the Redeeming Christ with arms outstretched in a gesture of benediction. At the foot of the statue is a legend invoking an everlasting peace between Chile and Argentina. In the quiet hours before twilight the guests may while away their time playing bowls, tennis or any of the many other games for which equipment is provided at the hotel. The temperature at mid-day averaged during the period of my sojourn at Puenta del Inca, about 20 deg. C. or 70 deg. F. Such an ideal climate was in strong contrast to the oppressive heat experienced in cities and on the pampas during identically the same period. The evenings, I may add, are cool, not to say chilly, and to those disposed to enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the silvery mountain nights I would strongly recommend a place in the knapsack for a light overcoat or wrap. The journey back to Buenos Aires is one of pleasant thoughts and peaceful memories. Refreshed by nights of uninterrupted and unstinted slumber, the holidaymaker returns to sea level via the pampas which, just now, are offering up their golden harvest. The stern, ominous mountains, the swirling creeks and the barren slopes fade away, but the memory for ever remains. I have said before, and I will say again that whoever once breathes the air of the Andes will long to breathe it again. And to those who desire to drink a deep draught of an elixir which is life itself, I warmly commend a trip into the very heart of the Andes niountains to the quiet, lovely and untainted spot known as the valley of Puente del Inca.-From The River Plate Observer. CHILE REFUSES TO REPRESENT GERMANY Santiago advices state that the Chilean Government "for reasons of international policy and in its desire to strictly observe the rules of neutrality” has refused to undertake the diplomatic representation of German interests in Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Courtesy, Clayton S. Cooper TERMINAL STATION OF THE RIO DE JANEIRO CAR LINES. A HOTEL IN THE UPPER PART OF THE BUILDING Page 13
post office, and might easily be carried to the absurdity of “Avenida duodecima, esquina calle oeste," which would need the services of the official translator. The natural courtesy of Latin Americans prompts them to imitate these mailing directions, and we often receive letters asking us to reply to P. O. Box 123 or Constitution Street instead of Apartado, or Casilla, or Caixa 123 and Calle Constitución or Rua da Constituição, as the case might be, instructions which we are careful to ignore, as we are well convinced that to observe them would entail delay in delivery, if not loss of our letters. We have noticed that persons who show their want of familiarity with mailing procedure in this manner are generally those who date their letters as from, say Santiago, without any indication of the country of origin, forgetful that every Latin American republic contains several cities, towns and villages of this
President and Treasurer: Wing B. Allen. Secretary: L. A. Allen. Cable Address: SOAMPUCO. Codes: Lieber, A B C, 5th edition. Yearly subscription, $2.50 in the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Elsewhere, $3.00 gold.
This company also publishes "El Norte Americano," a monthly Journal, in the Spanish language, containing news of the United States of interest to Latin-Americans. Yearly subscription, $2.50 in the United States, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines, Elsewhere, $3.00 gold. Both papers to one address, $4.00 domestic and $5.00 foreign.
THE OBJECTS OF BOTH PERIODICALS: To disseminate a broader knowledge of all American countries, peoples and affairs, and to promote greater amity and confidence between the inhabitants of the United States and Latin-American countries.
HAVANA AND BROWN UNIVERSITIES CO-OPERATE ENERAL Mario G. Menocal, President of Cuba, has issued an invitation to the universities of North and South America to send representatives to Havana for a Pan-American educational convention. The plan for such a conference was submitted to President Menocal a few days ago by a representative of Brown University, of Providence, R. I. At this international meeting an interchange of scholarships is to be established between the two Americas. For example, students in North American universities who are interested in Spanish and Latin American matters will be enabled to take post-graduate courses in Central and South American universities. In the same manner South American students may come to the United States and complete their education in English-speaking institutions of learning. President W. H. P. Faunce, of Brown University, has already taken steps to prepare students of that institution for post-graduate work in Latin American colleges. After consultation with President Faunce, a representative of Brown University went to Cuba and interviewed President Menocal and Dr. Gabriel Casuso, Rector of the University of Havana. President Menocal said: “A mutual interchange of professors and students between North and South America would contribute more than anything else toward explaining away many seemingly insoluble differences between the United States and Latin America. I would urge the establishment of a system that would be on the order of the exchange of scholarships between the United States and Europe before the war, but on a still broader scale. I have been asked if a conference of university men from North and South America would not felicitate this great scheme of Pan American education. In reply I will say that such a conference should be held as soon as possible in order to work out the details of the plan. I should be very glad to have the convention held in Havana. There is no other city of like importance more favorably situated between North and South America than Havana. Furthermore Havana possesses a university of its own which can be made a part of this international system. Personally and in my official capacity I am most pleased to invite the delegates to Havana and to extend to them every possible aid toward the realization of their ideals." The Rector of the University of Havana added: “We should welcome within our gates those students of North American universities who desire to learn more of Latin American affairs. Of course, the only way to learn the Spanish language, the history and literature of Latin America, and Latin American ways and customs, is to live and study in a Latin American country.”
To call New York “Nueva York” is a particularly aggravating form of this practice. “Nueva York” is no more the name of this city than are Guillermo, Carlos, Inés, Elena and Pepa the correct appellations of persons here known as William, Charles, Agnes, Helen and Josie. If "New York” is to be translated into Spanish, why not translate the names of cities in South America into English?"January River,” “Good Airs," "The Peace," "Paradise Valley," "Gay Port," "Black Gold,” as well as the titles of all the saints of the calendar, would be only a few of the problems to be solved by the post office! Furthermore, if “Nueva York," why not “Nueva Orleans," "Búfalo” and “Ciudad del Lago Salado"? As a matter of fact, very great care is necessary, both on our part and on that of Latin Americans, to give addresses in their own language as plainly as possible. Every publisher knows this, but not, alas, every subscriber or contributor. Imagine such an address as this, written carelessly with a spluttering pen: “Illmo. Snr. Dr. Theophilo Vasconcellos da Souza Neves, Rua Voluntarios da Patria, No. 154b, São João do Passa Quatro, Estado de São Paulo, Brazil.” This would appear quite simple and intelligible to a Brazilian, but he would very reluctantly write: "Elihu McDougall, Esq., D.C.L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y., U. S. A.,” unless he saw it unmistakably in print. Translations are pitfalls to the unwary, and a good translator always knows best the language into which he is rendering the original. This is not generally appreciated, and many Americans whose knowledge of Spanish is thorough and life-long are accepted as capable although they are quite unable to write their own language correctly. If they can, they can find better remunerated occupations than that of translator. Many young South Americans, after a course at an American school and university, return to the their own countries speaking like an American born; but they are useless as translators, as they have only the most elementary idea of Spanish composition. On the other hand, all translations abound in technical difficulties, insurmountable except to the experienced in the art. The most ridiculous, but plausible blunders are continually cropping up. In our experience "una modista" delightfully rendered: “a designing woman,” but we fear that the story of the translation of “a single horse buggy" into the Spanish equivalent for "a verminous bachelor horse" is a chestnut.
Subscriptions may be booked and copies of THE SOUTH AMERICAN and EL NORTE AMERICANO be purchased in Latin-America from the following special agencies: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Crashley & Co., Rua do Ouvidor, 58. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Juan Geranakis, 25 de Mayo, 294. Bogotá, Colombia: José M. Restrepo-Millán, Apartado 229. Lima, Peru: Soto y Baguet, “La Propaganda Comercial." Arequipa, Peru: Manuel M. Chávez, "El Pueblo." Quito, Ecuador: Bonifacio Muñoz, Apartado 315. Vera Cruz, Mexico: Eduardo Aguirre, Constitution 33. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico: Genaro Cosgaya, Casilla 85. Santo Domingo: M. Flores Cabrera, “Renacimiento." Montevideo, Uruguay: Alfredo Vidal Alfaro, Colon 1275.
The best way to remit payment for subscriptions is by means of drafts or checks on any firm in the United States. Remittance can also be made by means of postal orders to be obtained at the post office of Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Philippine Islands, Mexico, Peru, Porto Rico and Salvador.
Advocates of Pan Americanism and pioneers of American trade in Latin America are, perforce, broad-minded and patriotic men and women. Their WAR LOAN intelligence has long since convinced THE THIRD them that we are waging a just war, and must pay for it, either now with our own resources, or hereafter with the resources of our children. In the month just past, citizens of the United States have pledged themselves to hand over to the Government a part of their income in accordance with their means. Some rich men have given more than half; others, in humbler circumstances, only a fraction of one per cent.; but the share of posterity, as is just, is even greater than the contribution of rich and poor to-day. To these millions of little ones, some as yet unborn, we must lend of our superfluity, because gold must be poured out now to pay the price of our Great Adventure. The time may come when we may be asked to take the wedding-rings from the fingers of our wives, and give, not lend them, and our other most valued possessions to the Government. We are not yet reduced to these straits. All we are called upon to do is to lend against the best security in the world, and for generous reward, the savings which otherwise have been invested in other ways, or expended on luxuries which we can do without. To our readers no further appeal is necessary. On another page we publish the announcement of the Third Liberty Loan of the United States.
NATIONAL FOREIGN TRADE CONVENTION American merchants and manufacturers desirous of information on Latin America will find much of interest in the Fifth National Foreign Trade Convention, which will be held at the Gibson Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 18th, 19th and 20th. Special attention will be given this year to Latin American Trade Relations. There will be exhibits by the Pan American Union, and the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce will also be represented by exhibits and officials. Of interest this time should be the proposed exhibit showing the goods formerly exported to South America by Germany. One group session will be devoted entirely to consideration of Latin American Trade Relations. The Chairman of this session will be Daniel Warren, of the American Trading Company, of New York, and the Secretary, W. A. Reid, of the Pan American Union. Among the addresses to be given at this session will be the following : "Essential and Non-Essential Foreign Trade,” by Mr. Robert H. Patchin, W. R. Grace & Co., New York; "Special South American Problems," by Mr. W. A. Reid; "Trade Facilities at South American Ports,” by Grosvenor Jones, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce; "Special Government Information Service for Latin America,” by Julius Klein, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Com
URUGUAY PROPOSES PERMANENT PAN AMERICAN EXPOSITIONS Two Uruguayan commercial delegates, one of whom is director of the Superior School of Commerce of Montevideo, recently returned from Rio de Janeiro where they attended a conference having for its object the furthering of trade between the American Republics and the extension of commercial education. The plan proposed by the Uruguayan delegates had for its main features the creation in each American country of an exposition or museum of natural and manufactured products of every other American country and the furnishing of information concerning place of production, transportation facilities, freight rates, dealers, and c. i. f. cost of each product. Students of schools of commerce will take part in the organization and management of the museums. At the Rio de Janeiro conference a "project of convention" was signed looking to the carrying out of the Uruguayan plan as respects Uruguay and Brazil. This agreement (which is not in final form) provides for the appointment of commissions to study the preliminaries of an American Congress of Economics and Commerical Education, including means of exchanging information on economic topics, especially credit and exchange, raw, half-manufactured, and manufactured products, methods of production and exchange, buying and selling markets, distances and methods of communication and transportation by land and water, tariffs and internal and external imposts, prices and stocks, and commercial statistics. The principal question to be discussed in the congress will be commercial education and the necessity for extending it to primary grades. An effort will be made to secure uniform curricula and texts, with a view to giving education solid and distinctly American foundation. The director of the School of Commerce is already in touch with Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile, and hopes that it may be practicable to hold the American Congress of Economics and Commercial Education by the end of 1918.
A growing practice and a striking instance of misplaced zeal among Americans is the translation of their addresses for what they believe to TRANSLATION be the convenience of their Latin OF ADDRESSES American correspondents. Thus, "tenth street" will be rendered "calle decima," and "New York" "Nueva York.” An advertiser in American newspapers printed in Spanish for circulation in South America will give his address as in “Quinta Avenida," which must be annoying to the sorting clerks at the
Those desirous of receiving invitations to the Convention are requested to send their names and addresses to 0. K. Davis, Secretary, National Foreign Trade Council, i Hanover Square, New York.
MANUSCRIPT ORDERING THE FOUNDATION OF BUENOS AIRES. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: DR. VIRIATO DIAZ-PEREZ, MR. INMAN AND DR. JUAN S. PEREZ
Photos by the Author THE NEW CUSTOM HOUSE BUILDING AT ASUNCION, PARAGUAY
CITIZEN of Paraguay once said to me: “We have no history, only a series of tragedies!" Whe!! the truth of this pathetic statement is realized, the backwardness of this unfortunate country often appears to be an achievement of real progress. Paraguay was discovered in 1526 by Sebastian Cabot, and Asunción was founded in 1537 under the protection of “Our Lady of the Assumption." In 1580 sixty Paraguayans set out for Buenos Aires, where they defi tely established a colony. In 1547 Pope Paul III had created the Bishopric of Asunción. It was not until seventy years later that that distinction was conferred on Buenos Aires. In 1811 Paraguay declared itself independent of Spain and began its existence as a separate state. For sixty years following that date its history is wrapped up in the names of three men-Francia, Lopez the first, and Lopez the second. Dr. Francia, whose very name is unknown to most North Americans, was declared by Carlyle to be the greatest man of his century. From 1813 to 1840 he ruled Paraguay with a rod of iron. He would not allow his name to be spoken aloud, reference to him being made only as “El Supremo.” He lived alone. He had no ministers or advisors. When he appeared on the street people had to get into their houses and close the doors and windows. If anyone was caught in the street, he had to turn his face to the wall until the Dictator had passed. His long rule was not without many benefits to his country in these years of the beginning of the national life. Don Carlos Lopez, Francia's successor, headed a paternal government for twenty years and is held in great esteem by Paraguayans to-day. He was ceeded by his son, Lopez the second, who, after the manner of Willion the Second of Germany, gave himself to developing a great army and set out to make his the dominant nation of a continent. It required the combined forces of the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay six years (1864-70) to conquer him. When he was driven into a corner and finally killed in battle, the nation had practically been destroyed. The population, which numbered nearly a million at the beginning of the war, was 231,079 at its close, only 28,746 of these being men. Nothing in modern history offers a parallel to this sacrificing of a whole nation. The present Paraguay is practically a new nation, developed since 1870. The government of Don Manuel Franco, which has been in office for just a year, is progressive and liberal, and has the confidence of the whole country. It has appointed some of the best men of the opposition to office, and Paraguay seems finally to have come out of revolution, so detrimental to her progress even in recent years, and to have settled down to a program of peace and progress. Her problems, with the numerous bad inheritances of the past, are many. Lack of resources greatly limits the government, but with honest and efficient administration a country of such unlimited natural wealth should soon overcome its difficulties. As Asunción was reduced to ashes during the war, the present city contains few buildings of historic inter There are, however, a few remaining of the old colonial period, splendid examples of that architecture.
The quarters of the Dictator Francia were most unfortunately torn down only a few years ago by the mistaken zeal for modernizing the city. The student of the past, however, will not fail to find many things of interest. Nothing in my travels through South America and Central America, with the exception of my visit to the National Geographical Society in Lima, has brought greater surprise and pleasure than the two hours spent looking through the national archives. They are con tained in over six thousand volumes, including more than 90,000 documents, many of them the rarest in existence in reference to the Spanish colonial period. There were originally many more, but during the war with the Triple Alliance, these priceless documents were hauled around in the rear of the army in carts. Brazil and Argentina took many of them home and the Paraguayans in a pinch would use them for gun-wadding. Even to-day these treasures are kept in ordinary wooden cases. Copies of some of the more valuable manuscripts are being made by the slow process of hand-copying, typewriters not having yet come into use in government offices. Under the skilled guidance of Dr. Viriato Diaz-Perez, the custodian, every volume brings a new delight. Among those I was permitted to photograph was a decree of Juan Salazar de Espinoza, dated in 1538, one year after he founded Asunción. There is also a splendid collection of the publications of the Jesuit missionaries, who conducted their much discussed Utopia or mission for the Indians in Paraguay, in the 17th and 18th centuries. These are published by their own printing process and with the type which the Jesuits themselves cut with the help of Indian labor in the forests of Paraguay. To one who has read “El Supremo," Mr. White's recent romance woven around the life of Dr. Francia, the most interesting documents are the letters and state papers written by the hand of the great Dictator. An extract from a note written in his own hand illustrates the difficulty of pleasing him, especially when one remembers that he demanded the most absolute homage from those around him. He is writing to a Delegate from Itapua: “In your communications leave out the phrases: 'I have the honor,' and 'Supreme hands,' which are not customary in ordinary communications. You must simply say that you have received my com- mand and relate what has happened. I have told Ximenez the same thing. The instructions, indica- tions and dispositions of the Chief are intended to be observed and not to give satisfaction—which is a different thing; so you must say you have been advised notified, and not that you have pleasure." I had the privilege of presenting to Dr. Diaz-Perez the first copy of “El Supremo" that he had seen and of discussing with him the picture of the Dictator as painted by Carlyle and White. He said that ten years ago when he first took charge of the library and found such a wealth of documents signed by Francia himself,
he planned a work entitled “The Francia of Carlyle, Attested by Documents." But when he got into the documents he found that they painted a widely different picture of the man from that given by Carlyle, so he abandoned his intention. The fact seems to be that no one has ever made a scientific study of either of these two great characters of Paraguayan history, Francia or Lopez the second. There is ample material on the subject in these archives, however, and here is an opportunity for someone to do a piece of original research well worth while, and to write an authentic biography which will interpret the real motives behind the actions of two of the strongest men the world has ever known. If our present Minister resigns (as he speaks of doing) our government should appoint a literary man who could devote his abundant spare time to digging out material from this remarkable library. Dr. Diaz-Perez has done a monumental work, representing four years of constant toil, in preparing a complete annotated bibliography of the six thousand works that treat of Paraguayan history. I pressed him to have it published, and he offered to turn it over to any university or learned society which I might recommend for this purpose. He is known in the Spanish literary world as the translator and critic of Ruskin. A more delightful and cultured man one would travel a long way to meet. At the Normal School the government is working to solve the problem of popular education, which, after such a series of internal disturbances, is naturally far behind. There are 108 pupils taking the three year normal course which follows the six years of primary work. In the practice school connected with the Normal there are 580 boys and girls. They are a beautiful sight in their simple blue cotton uniforms which, while not compulsory, are strongly recommended. The boys have school in the morning and the girls in the after There are some 7,000 students enrolled in the primary schools of Asunción with 100,000 population, but only ninety went as far as the sixth grade last year. There were 74,245 children enrolled in the schools of the whole republic last year out of an estimated population of one million. When it is considered that in 1870 only 834 children were enrolled in Paraguayan schools, it will be seen how great the advance is. There is a national college and a university, whose are limited to law and pharmacy, enrolling 162 pupils. The Minister of Public Instruction, Dr. Felix Paiva and Dr. Juan Francisco Perez, Director of Primary Instruction, are to be congratulated upon accomplishing so much on the small annual budget of less than $250,000 gold voted by the national government for this department. One can only hope that present prospects will be realized, and that the prosperity of the nation will allow a rapidly increasing budget for this most important branch of the government's work. The market in Asunción surpasses even those of Cuzco and La Paz. There are not so many colored dresses, and no blankets are needed in this most benign of climates, but the Guarani women and children have
future Paraguay, there must be assistance from abroad. Immigration, foreign capital and a brotherly hand to help solve her educational problems should be immediately extended. Friendship for the United States and a forward look were the two things that most impressed me during my stay there. I trust that we will not be slow to extend our hand to the outstretched one of Paraguay.
in export trade, and in South America as a commercial field, Mr. Dana decided on a country in South America as the subject of his next exhibition. He has consulted the Colombian Ambassador, Dr. Carlos Adolfo Urueta; Dr. Aurelio Rueda A., the Consul General to New York; The United Fruit Company, of New York; Dr. H. H. Rusby, Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Co- lumbia University, who has recently made a botanizing tour in Colombia, and several prominent Colombian citizens engaged in Colombian trade. Anyone who can offer any assistance in providing for this exhibition material illustrating Colombia's re- sources, her economic, business and trade conditions, material now exported or offering export opportunities, or suggestions on the subject will confer a service to the Newark Library, to Colombia, and, if engaged in- dustrially in commercial products, to himself, by com- municating with Mr. Dana on the subject. Full advertising will be given to the patrons of the exhibit, and it is hoped that a smaller exhivit culled from this one may travel to other museums and libraries in the United States and Canada.
Courtesy', E. Martinez, B. Aires DR. PLACIDO SÁNCHEZ
A BOLIVIAN STATESMAN AND DIPLOMATIST
much more expressive faces and the variety of fruits and vegetables is infinitely greater. The stalls are all presided over by women and girls, giving abundant evidence of the truth of what everyone has told us—that in Paraguay the women do the work. All of them were barefoot, and most of them were smokeing. The cigar stalls were numerous, as Paraguay is a great tobacco country. Cigars seem to be preferred to cigarettes and some of them are of tremendous size. The camera tells a much more interesting story than can the pen of this great outdoor market where there must be nearly a thousand different stalls. I had heard that the women objected to having their pictures taken, so I began by showing some of them how pretty their babies looked in the finder of my camera. There was no trouble after that, one whole line of women agreeing to pose for me. Many of these Indian women have attractive faces, and everywhere is seen the happy-golucky spirit engendered by the warm climate. Conversation with American and English business soon opens one's eyes to the immense material resources of the country. The forests are full of valuable timber. The quebracho wood, as its name signifies (break-axe), is one of the hardest woods known. It grows in abundance in Paraguay. It was formerly used largely for fence posts and railway ties,' even being shipped to the United States and Europe for the latter purpose. It is now considered most valuable for the extract derived from it which experts regard as the best and cheapest tanning material in the world. A single tree weighing a ton will yield 600 pounds of extract. The wood is reduced to sawdust, from which the tannin is extracted, solidified, and sold to the tanners in cakes. There are a number of these factories scattered over Paraguay. In connection with each is a certain mileage of light railways on which the lumber is brought to the factory and to small river ports whence it is shipped abroad. The orange is the most notable fruit in Paraguay. The yield of this fruit here is second to that of no other country in the world. In 1913 alone 13,689,716 dozen oranges and 314,000 dozen tangerines were exported from Paraguay. They grow everywhere, requiring very little care. In towns of the railroad or steamship lines a cartload of oranges of about five thousand can often be bought for two or three dollars, and at river ports for seven to nine dollars. A proper organization of the fruit growers could do much to benefit the industry. Minister Mooney is authority for the statement that enough oranges rot on the ground every year to pay the national debt. On the road from Asunción to Encarnación, they were loading oranges at practically every station where we stopped, and the passengers were encouraged to eat all they wanted and fill their pockets without paying a cent. The country is also well suited to the growing of bananas, which ripen at all seasons of the year. Lemons and pineapples, along with bananas, could be exported in large quantities if these industries were developed. Although sugarcane flourishes like the proverbial green bay tree, not enough is cultivated to supply the local demand. Cotton can be produced here to yield an average of 1,000 pounds to the acre, the greatest yield of any country in the world. As for cattle, there is every reason to believe what an old cowboy acquaintance told me: “I guess I know about every cow country worth anything in the world, and this has got 'em all beat a city block. It's just absolutely right, that's all.” The Armour an dother packing interests have recently bought a tract of 800,000 acres near Asunción and expect to put in a large packing plant very soon. At the Botanical Gardens, situated about ten miles from Asunción, one begins to realize the wonderful riches that Paraguay has in her wonderfully varied native flora. When the present plans for these gardens are carried out they will be one of the wonders of the world, for the variety of plant life is certainly not exceeded anywhere. The administration building is the old residence of the first Lopez, and the museum is another house on the grounds once comprising his estate. A short distance away is the historic tree near which Artigas, the Uruguayan patriot, banished from his own country, spent his last days. To Uruguay has recently been ceded by act of Congress a tract of land surrounding the tree, and its government proposes to erect an international college on the site. So much for sentiment among these Latin peoples. It is a beautiful and appealing thing, and makes a North American wish there were more of it in our own national life. Paraguay will no longer be to me only the name of a little unimportant country "a thousand miles from nowhere." It will represent a cheerful and hospitable people, a picturesque paradise with untold riches in climate and products, a land full of shadow in the past, full of problems at the present, but sure of a glorious future. For the prompt and proper development of this
MINING ENTERPRISE IN HONDURAS The Government of Honduras has shown a liberal spirit toward those who desire to develop any of the resources of the country. It is customary to give free entry and materials and machinery for equipping a mine, and for powder, etc., for working it, but duties are paid on foodstuffs, and on such articles as usually are sold in the commissary stores. Each concession, however, differs from every other one in some particulars, the details being matters for arrangement with the Government and ratification by Congress. The new mining law of Honduras grants property rights in mines to individuals under the condition that they shall work and develop them constantly, provide for their conservation and safety, and for the order and hygiene of the works. Notice of intention to abandon a mine must be given to the Government and published, and creditors with mortgages against the mine must be notified and the property transferred to them if they so insist. Mines are considered as unoccupied when for one entire year at least four men have not been working in them or in operations connected with their development; when the work of four workmen is alternately stopped without any one suspension amounting to a year so that the mine will be unworked 400 days in two years, counting from the first day of stoppage of the work. A person may suspend work on his mine for two years without being liable to having it declared unoccupied if he has worked it uninterruptedly for two years, by paying for the time he plans to be idle, counting from the time that work is stopped, a tax of ten pesos monthly It is necessary to mention the existence of sufficient capital to undertake the work contemplated. The owners of mineral zones must pay three pesos annually for each hectare, in advance, in the month of January. A tax of five per cent. ad valorem is placed upon gold and silver which are exported, and of ten pesos on each ton of precipitates leaving the country.
One of the plums of South American diplomacy is naturally the appointment of Minister to the Argentine Republic, and is always reserved for statesmen of great distinction. Dr. Plácido Sánchez, recently sent to occupy that post in Buenos Aires by the Republic of Bolivia, was Minister of Foreign Affairs in that country at the time when diplomatic relations were broken off with Germany, and he is very proud of the privilege he enjoyed in signing that document.
THE MILLION DOLLAR LIMA HOTEL The Government has named a commission consisting of Señors. Ezequiel Alvarez Calderon, Pedro Davalos Lisson, Santiago Acuña, Alfredo Alvarez Calderon, Tomas d'Ornelles and Enrique D. Barreda to make a report on the proposals and specifications for the new hotel which it is proposed to erect on the Plaza Zela, Lima. It will be remembered that a law was recently passed by Congress offering facilities and asking for proposals for the construction of this hotel.
NEWARK WILL HAVE A COLOMBIAN EXHIBIT The Newark Free Public Library offers a remarkable opportunity to the Republic of Colombia, and to all her industries. Within the library building, and under the direction of John Cotton Dana, the Librarian, is housed the Newark Museum. The two institutions purpose to display in May, an exhibition of objects, books, pamphlets, pictures, charts, maps and models exploiting Colombia. They want to show her history, topography, scenery, material resources, products, industries, financial needs and assets, her governmental and social aspects and her people in their daily life, the products of their skill, their education, their needs, their occupations, their feelings and aspirations, their achievements and desires. Two years ago they held as one of their annual exhibitions of New Jersey industries, a Textile Exhibit. Every aspect of the industry itself and of its practice in New Jersey was vividly and completely shown with a wonderful economy of time, space and effort on the part of the visitor. Over fifty thousand people visited this exhibition, and it made its appeal to artists, mechanics, scientists, historians, state-patriots, craftsmen, manufacturers, mechants, housewives, exporters, club women and children. When it ended, one sixth of Newark's population knew rather intimately just how and why the chief commercial fibres and a number of minor fibres were grown, prepared, spun, woven, dyed, decorated, sold and transported, both now and in the past. And hundreds of people outside of the state knew these things, too, and realized their relation to New Jersey and to Newark. Which leads us to the reason why Newark's Librarian and Museum Director has selected Colombia as his next subject to study and exposition. Newark's Library has established in the heart of the city a Business Branch, and occasionally Mr. Dana proves to the business men of Newark what an asset, for business progress, he has in these two institutions, the City Library and Museum. Because of the incriasing interest in the United States
FROM THE MARNE TO THE MARAÑON (Continued froin page 13) of travel by mountain trail and jungle river. They will visit Mr. Taylor's mining and hacienda properties at Llagueda near Trujillo and will then head for Cajamarca from where Mr. Taylor expects to turn back to the coast leaving Commander Dyott to proceed on his long trek into the northeastern montaño. He expects to emerge eventually at Payta and then again re-enter the montaña and possibly cross over to the Amazon. While his present visit is not specially concerned with studying the possibilities for the use of aeroplanes for communication and traffic in the interior of South America, Commander Dyott's observation that in his latest machine, of two tons carrying capacity, he could reach Llagueda from Salayerry in half an hour, and from Payta to Puerto Lima, on the navigable headwaters of the Amazon, in three hours, leads to the hope that on his next return to Peru he may be induced to bring with him one of these planes for experimental purposes.
and the volume of speculation heavier than any previous
ACING in Havana, now the only sport of its kind in progress north of the Equator, is fast becoming the national pastime of the Cubans. Always lovers of outdoor recreation, they have taken to "the sport of kings” in a manner that makes it plainly evident that racing will, in time, be even more popular than baseball on the Island. A fortune has been spent in the construction of Oriental Park by General Manager H. D. Brown, who went to work on a scale which, in the beginning, was scoffed at by those who doubted that a successful race meeting could be held in Cuba, but the original ambitious plans have been steadily adhered to, and it is no idle boast to say that the winter meetings at Oriental Park now compare favorably with any in the United States. Certainly there is no finer race course anywhere. Situated, as it is, in a natural bowl, with the grandstand fully twenty feet above the tract, visitors are enabled to see the running of every foot of every contest. The meeting this winter has depended almost solely on local support, and its success has been remarkable. There is little patronage from the United States, owing to the war, but despite this the crowds are as large,
of the boxes were filled with prominent Americans, and those set apart for the diplomatic corps were decorated with the flags of the nations they represented. Every one who entered the gates that day paid an admission, and the entire proceeds were given to the American and Cuban Red Cross funds. The Cuban-American Jockey Club got up a program of eleven events, seven of which were for thoroughbreds and four of the novelty sort. One of the latter was for army horses ridden by Cuban army officers, another for ponies, and another an event in which thoroughbreds competed against foot runners, motorcycles and automobiles. The untiring efforts of Madame Mariana Seva de Menocal, President of the Cuban Red Cross, and wife of the President of the Republic, went a long way toward making the occasion the great success it was, and the public responded in an enthusiastic manner to the call of the “First Lady of the Land."
Racing's growth has not been of the mushroom sort; on the contrary, it has been steady and healthy, and each season has shown an improvement in the quality of the sport. A number of stakes were hung up by the CubanAmerican Jockey Club this winter-about twenty in all. Purses ranging in value from $1,200 to $1,599 were added to these events. The winners' portions, with the entrance moneys, have amounted, in some instances, to as much as $2,000. These stakes attracted a better class of horses, and already several owners have announced their intention of bringing down some high-class performers next winter to compete in these fixtures. Large crowds have been in attendance, and on Sundays the smallest number that has turned out has been 5,000. Red Cross Day, January 31, was a notable one in a racing way. It marked the largest gathering that ever turned out to witness a contest of thoroughbreds in Cuba. Fully 15,000 persons crowded into Oriental Park. The 200 boxes in the grandstand and clubhouse were all filled. Every socially prominent family, and all the notables in official life, were represented. Many
THE CUBAN FLAG SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE Adolfo Tro and Antonio Lopez Rubio, the first two Cuban soldiers to go "over the top” in France, are now on their way from an Atlantic port to rejoin their comrades of the Foreign Legion, after having brought, as a gift to President Menocal, on their furlough in Havana, a tattered Cuban flag, which was raised in "No Man's Land" last April, when Cuba declared war against Germany. While the measures which the Cuban Government contemplates taking to send an active fighting force to the French front are not completed, many Cubans have volunteered, like these two heroes, in the French Foreign Legion. Rubio and Tro left Havana September 23, 1914, to enlist in the French army as volunteers; they were accompanied by eight other Cubans, and all were incorporated in the infantry of the Morocco division of the French army. The two men have carried themselves bravely during their three years of service, Rubio having been wounded four times and Tro three times. The shrapnel-torn Cuban flag, which is now a prized souvenir in the Presidential Palace, was hoisted by Tro and Rubio with two other Cubans, Privates Ciruelo and Crespo, who were attached to the same division. The French military telephone had just brought to the sector where the Cubans were stationed the news of Cuba's declaration of war against Germany, and the flag was hoisted on a small parapet amid the cheers of the French soldiers. Its appearance was saluted by the Germans with a shower of shrapnel which killed Ciruelo and Crespo. Their companions regained the fag, and Rubio and Tro were commissioned to bring it back and hand it to General Menocal.
(C.) J. V. Knight GROUP OF THE LADIES' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CROSS, SNRA. MARIANA SEVA DE MENOCAL, WIFE OF THE PRESIDENT, IN THE CENTER Page 14
Thirty Years with the Mexicans
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This series is under the general editorship of Major Martin flume, one of the foremost Anglo-Saxon authorities on all that concerns Spain and her former colonies. He knows South America from Panama to the Straits of Magellan. The author of each volume has intimate acquaintance with the country he treats. Each volume contains a political his- ory of the country, and also an account of its condition, its natural phenomena, productions, commerce, industry and fu- ture prospects. The several volumes form an encyclopedia of practical informa ion on the Latin American countries in which the United States is so largely interested, commercially, financially and diplomatically. No matter what your in- terest—whether as trader, emigrant, prospective traveller or student-these instructive books supply the information you need. PARAGUAY CENTRAL AMERICA BOLIVIA By W. H. Koebel By W. H. Koebel By Paul Walle An intimate study of one of the most A timely volume of particular inter- The rubber, mining and cattle in- fascinating Latin American repub- est in view of rapidly increasing dustries, as well as other important lics, rich in agricultural possibilities, now being developed as never be- commercial opportunities following enterprises-their development and future carefully studied and fore. the opening of the Panama Canal. alyzed.
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The Third Liberty Loan Campaign Opened April 6, First Anniversary of the War
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Pan America's Great Need for Ships
A Rousing Speech by John Barrett Following transportation at reasonable rates, thereby performing T the annual dinner of the National Marine League, a service to the rest of the world, but we will build held on March 26, at Delmonico's, the Honorable ships in such large numbers and at such fair prices that Edward N. Hurley, Chairman of the United we will become the mecca of the shipbuilding trade States Shipping Board, gave to the American public of the world. for the first time the full facts of the country's ship “I have outlined the entire situation in utmost frankbuilding program. ness—concealing nothing, for we have nothing to con"It has been an uphill struggle," he said. “I am will ceal. Shipping is the essence of the struggle in which ing to confess there have been times when we have the world is now engaged—the central beam in the been discouraged, not at the magnitude of the task, whole war structure. If that fails, all else fails. We but through a doubt of human ability to accomplish the are engaged in a race with the submarine. We, of the stupendous work in the short time allowed.” As, bit by bit, the wonderful accomplishment of the Shipping Board, are alive to the needs of the situation. The whole Government in Washington is alive to it, Board was disclosed to the company of five hundred and there is complete co-operation to bring success in persons assembled, the rapt silence was frequently this greatest task to which America has set herself." broken by bursts of frantic applause, and at the close of this frank exposition of American enterprise, all rose The Honorable John Barrett, Director General of and cheered the speaker. the Pan American Union, spoke with his usual genial We have space for only a few paragraphs of the Auency of Latin America's special need. We reproduce speech, before passing on to that part of the evening's the greater part of his oration: matter in hand which specially concerned Latin "Pan America needs ships, Pan Americanism needs America. ships. Pan America and Pan Americanism to-day have a mighty significance. The practical interpretation of Mr. Hurley said in part: that significance is dependent upon ships. Pan America “There are two methods for computing the construc stands for All-America, Pan Americanism means the tion of tonnage to show what is accomplished. One co-operation of all the American countries for their is by showing the tonnage in the water. The other is common good. All-America, therefore, needs ships to by showing the tonnage under construction. But when make this co-operation effective and permanent. a great many ships are put under construction at the “Right at this moment and again after the war ships same time, the question to be asked is, how are they can do more to develop Pan American solidarity and all progressing; how near to completion is the vast Pan American unity than all appeals to sentiment and program. Here is the answer. (C.) Clinedinst Studio. common interest. Let there be abundant shipping to “The total amount of our steel construction on March Hon. Edward N. Hurley carry from the United States down to Central and 1 was 8,205,708 deadweight tons. This is made up of South America which they want and must have for their 5,160,300 deadweight tons under contract with the 332 wooden shipbuilding ways, now nearing comple well-being and progress—and then there need be no Emergency Fleet Corporation, and 3,045,408 deadweight tion, added to our 398 steel building ways, will give us a worry about international jealousies. Let there be suftons of requisition vessels. total of 730 berths upon which to build steel and wooden ficient vessels to bring up from Central and South “Of this total steel construction, 2,121,568 deadweight vessels. When you consider that we had only 162 America to the United States what they want to sell tons, or approximately 28 per cent has been completed. steel building ways a few months ago and 73 wooden to this country and what this country needs, and then That means that in addition to the building of our big shipbuilding waysma total of 235—an increase is shown there need be little or no apprehension about differnew yards we have also been building ships. That is, of 495 wooden and steel berths on which we can build ences of language and race. Let there be ample cargo the program for steel ships has advanced 28 per cent ships. and passenger space to care for Pan America trade and toward completion. Of the amount of steel ships under “The situation giving us the most concern is the com- travel alike, and then we will see more accomplished contract and under requisition, 655,456 deadweight tons, pletion of turbines and engines. The very rapid expan- for common sympathy and common action among all or approximately 8 per cent. were actually completed and sion of the shipbuilding program caught the turbine the American Republics than can be achieved by all in service March 1 of this year, nearly a month ago. and engine manufacturers totally unprepared. In the the speeches made and books written about Pan AmeriThis amount of Aoating tonnage exceeds our total past the engines for ships built in this country had been canism in the past century. output in 1916, including steel, wooden and sailing ves manufactured at the shipbuilding plants. As contracts sels, by approximately 50 per cent. Many of us are not posted as to the foreign commerce of for new shipyards were given it became necessary to “The Germans thought that by crippling their own our 20 (twenty) sister American Republics and the extraorincrease the turbine and engine building capacity at the vessels in American waters they would be able to pre dinary part that the United States is now playing in that same time. Special tools of all kinds were required for commerce. vent us from using them. American ingenuity and rethe engine builders' shops and these tools had to be It may surprise you, but it is true, that tosourcefulness gave the answer by restoring these vessels day the United States is buying and selling with Latin secured from manufacturing shops already overcrowded America to the extent of over one-half of its total to efficiency. With the expenditure of a little less than with war orders. In addition to this, the severe weather $8,000,000 we have succeeded in placing in our war serv purchases and sales. Last year the 20 (twenty) other and the transportation tie-up seriously delayed the conice and in the service of the Allies 112 first-class Ger American Republics, reaching from Mexico and Cuba struction of some of our largest turbine building plants. man and Austrian vessels representing a carrying capacity south to Argentina and Chile, enjoyed a total foreign We anticipated delay during the earlier months for commerce valued of nearly 800,000 deadweight tons. lack of the turbines and engines, but expect to make approximately at $3,000,000,000 (Three Billion Dollars). "I have referred to the necessity of providing addi Of this the share of the up for the early shortage. tional facilities for the building of ships. That is, for United States was approximately $1,545,000,000. (One “The proposal to build ships of concrete was first the creation of new shipyards, for enlarging old ones, regarded as Billion Five Hundred Forty-Five Million Dollars). a fascinating absurdity. On March 14 for the education of new shipbuilders, and I may now there was launched from the yards of the San Francisco This is the first time in history of Pan American relaadd, the necessity of providing increased means for obCompany the first concrete steamship, a vessel which tions during which the United States has taken such a taining engines, boilers, turbines and other equipment. the builders christened Faith. We hope she will ex prominent part in Latin American trade. Of course, this At the outset the 37 old steel yards began increasing emplify her name. is largely due to the elimination of Germany and her allies from the Latin American market and the lessentheir capacity until they now have 195 ways as against "When the high point in the curve of production 162 eight months ago. Other parts of their plants have finally is reached, and the magnitude of America's ship ing of the capacity of Great Britain, France, the Nether lands and other countries to meet its demands. increased proportionately. We then made provision for building program is realized it will be a continuous additional new steel yards, some of which have been performance of production and launching. "Now the question arises: will the United States be given financial assistance by the Emergency Fleet Cor "If you will take a glance at the map of the world you able to keep up this record now and after the war. As poration. Thirty additional new steel shipyards are will see that three-fourths of it is covered with water. it may be said that everything must be sacrificed to thus being erected, with a total of 203 shipbuilding Great Britain long ago made it her policy to maintain winning the war and shipping and trade may be curways. Thus we now have in the aggregate 67 steel control of this greater part of the world's surface. tailed to the limit, we can better discuss the future or shipyards either wholly or partly engaged in Fleet But we also have taken first rank among the powers, conditions following peace. It can, therefore, be stated Corporation work. These yards will have a total of and our first need now is for a great merchant marine. that whether the United States shall continue to be the 398 steel building ways. Of these, 35 yards with 258 Our gigantic program for ship construction will place leader among the nations of the world in selling to and ways, are on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast; 19 yards with us in a position where we can rely on native resources, buying from Latin America after the war will depend 66 ways are on the Pacific, while 13 yards with 74 ways rather than be dependent on the fleets of our competi- almost entirely upon shipping facilities and vessels flyare on the Great Lakes. tors, as it has been very largely in the past. No nation ing the American flag, equally useful to each Latin "Our program for building wooden ships has been can be great commercially unless it has its own manu American country as to the United States. beset with many difficulties and handicaps which could facturing and its own shipping, and this is the goal “To better understand the problem, the fact not not well be foreseen. A year ago, wooden shipbuilding which will be passed in peace if we can teach it in war. generally known should be brought out: that the in the United States was almost a lost art. We found "There is no doubt but that we are destined to be United States, just before the war, was far from being 24 old wooden shipyards, with 73 ship ways. The capac- one of the leading shipbuilding nations in the world. a laggard in the Latin American field. On account of ity for wooden shipbuilding has been increased until “We will have the largest number of shipyards, the the extraordinary activity of the exporters and imporwe now have 81 wooden shipbuilding yards, with 3.3! materials and the labor and when our shipbuilding ters, the manufacturers, the bankers and the shipping ways completed or nearing completion. plants are completed and are well organized on sound men of the United States during the last few years "Assuming that these ways will each produce two business lines so as to produce ships cheaply and rapid- prior to the war, aided by the practical work of the standard ships per year we should turn out about 2,000,- ly, we will not only produce sufficient ships to become Pan American Bureau, the Department of Commerce , the leader in the commerce of the world by furnishing 300 deadweight tons of wooden ships annually. These and the diplomatic and consellor officers of the State Page 18
On a Slow Train Through Brazil
A Diverting Narrative of By JOHN W. WHITE, Jr.
OMEONE once wrote a book called "On a Slow Train Through Arkansas," which has always been considered a masterpiece of comical exaggeration in its description of what passengers did on an absurdly slow train. Those same passengers would have died of fright at the speed of the Arkansas train had they ever ridden on a slow train through Brazil. There is a little branch railroad from Sant'Anna do Livramento to Cacequy in the State of Rio Grande do Sul which ought to be described by a master some day and preserved for the ages. Certainly, the all-day trip on it is well worth all its discomforts, for one feels that he has seen one of the hidden secrets of the earth, a sort of skeleton in a closet. That is, he feels that way if he is a foreigner-the Brazilians don't think anything about it except that many of them get seasick at the rolling and jerking of the train as it rounds the hundreds of curves which were designed by an engineer who was collecting for his job in accordance with the number of miles of track he could lay. One arises at 5 o'clock on the morning of the eventful day and rides by auto through the beautiful hill country on his way to the little red station at Sant' Anna where he is met with a rush by a flock of thin, ragged little urchins fighting to carry his bags into the station. They snatch away his bags and lumber into the station under their weight, where they throw them onto the floor, squat on their bare heels and throw open the luggage to the scrutiny of what appears to be a cowboy bandit, but as the nervous passenger reaches for his gun, the boys explain that this is the customs house official. Customs annoyances have been carried to the nth power in Brazil, where baggage must be inspected and handled upon arrival and departure at any railway station in the country, though the passenger may have come only from the neighbouring village. The inspection finished, the passenger passes through the station and beholds the train in which he is to spend a day which is to be amusing even at its worst. It stands on a little narrow gauge track which looks more like a toy than a railway. A queer little German-made locomotive, with a great heap of fuel wood piled up on the tender behind it, pants and hisses as though ready for the fun. Behind it is a cattle van, then a freight van, and two plum colored passenger coaches, one first class and one second class. One hardly gets settled in the hard cane-seated benches which are provided for first class passengers before the hardness of the seat is forgotten in the interest of the people who have come down to the station in the early morning just to see the train start. Groups of village idlers at railway stations usually are interesting. They are especially so in Brazil. Where else in the world would the hotel manager jump on to the train just as it is pulling out, to say good-bye and good luck to the travelers who spent the night in his hard beds? The group at the station is especially interesting if, as often happens, the platform is being patrolled by khaki-clad soldiers of the state troops on strike duty. At 6:30 the stationbell clangs, the locomotive screeches out an ear-splitting whistle and the train starts with a jump that seems to carry it two or three feet before it rests on the rails again. Two or three more hard jerks and the train is off on its rolling voyage around curves that are so numerous and sharp that they keep the coaches rolling like ships in a swell. The passengers probably are more interested than passengers usually are. There is a little Japanese boy about 10, much interested in looking out of the window at the fields. Two ranchmen in khaki trousers that have faded white are wearing high black boots, black coats and long flowing woollen ponchos, and their big, round, black, broadbrimmed felt hats are held on by black patent-leather straps under their chins. Two men of commerce in the far-end of the coach keep up a continual lively conversation about coffee, cattle and the war that can be heard above the noise of the train. In the second class coach the outstanding figure is a soldier in light blue trousers, dark blue waistcoat, and a bright red flannel shirt to match the red stripes on his trousers. His coat is tucked away in a rack overhead so as not to detract from the red. The young woman who sits across from him also is dressed in her Sunday best, which is a black hat and a black velour coat that reaches her shoe tops, and the consciousness of being well dressed overcomes the discomforts of the hot sun. The other second class passengers are three Brazilian peons who have lots of talk, but little to say.
The passenger is told by the listless coffee vendor that the bill is 300 reis and if he proffers 400, expecting to receive a smiling “muito obligado” he is disappointed, for the 400 reis are just as listlessly and casually dropped into the coffee cup that serves as a cash register as though they were the 300 demanded. The passengers having finished their coffee and the guard having talked with everyone on the platform who appeared disposed toward conversation, the train pulls out of Palomas. After leaving Palomas there are seyeral more curves, and the train finally doubles back as though giving up the attempt of getting any further, and passes the station on the other side. An Englishman could leave the station several minutes after the train did and catch it by running across the field to meet it coming back, but the Brazilian probably would be satisfied to wait for to-morrow's train. The train had not proceeded far before it comes upon fifty fine-looking yearling steers grazing along the track, and there is more scre reeching of the whistle. Though the screeching scares most of the animals to one side, two of them start off down the track to race the train, Courtesy, Clayton Cooper and although they are merely trotting they manage to Waiting for the Train keep several paces ahead of the locomotive for several hundred yards, although it has not diminished its speed. Probably the most interesting feature about the men passengers, be they rich ranch owners or poor peons, The trotting steers and the hysterical screaming of the snail-like locomotive remind the passengers of the is that every one carries a revolver and a long knife in his belt and makes no more attempt to conceal them widely storied passenger who got tired of his slow train and started walking ahead of it, calling back to the than he does to conceal his hat. Soon a door bangs, and the guard appears, in light whistling locomotive, “Ye needn't whistle, I won't come back.” grey checked trousers and a blue coat, with nothing to indicate his high authority except the gold letters on One cannot help but marvel, as he travels, at the nerve his cap. He listlessly turns the tickets over, looks at of the engineer who laid out this right of way along them on both sides, casually punches a hole through a line more crooked than most mountain passes, althem, and nonchalantly hands them back and continues though the line passes over a comparatively smooth his walk. country. After a few miles more the train comes to Twenty-one kilometres from Sant' Anna the train the first piece of real engineering that has been seen, pulls up at the little whitewashed station of Palomas a lightweight steel bridge across a little creek. As one for the first stop of the day, while the passengers looks at this bridge his uppermost thought is that sometumble off to look at the motley crowd of blacks and one must have been looking when the engineer was Portuguese who have come to the station to look at working here, for the bridge is straight. them. The train has hardly stopped before a bunch of Slowly the journey proceeds and at each station the ragged little lads clamber aboard shouting "café com guard gets off and has a friendly little visit with the leite," though there is no coffee in sight. The urchins stationmaster or anyone else who has an idle moment, usher the passengers out to the corner of the platform, while the enginemen climb down and continue the conversation where they left it off at the last station, occasionally casting glances up and down the locomotive as though admiring it. The stationmaster is always visible across the fields almost as soon as the station because of the bright-red cap which he wears. On it is a golden coat of arms of the railway with a couple of eagles and enough trimming to make him resemble an officer of the general staff. The cap, however, is the only article of dress which distinguishes him from the rest of the ragged folks at the station, as his salary of 100,000 reis a month does not permit him to keep a family of four or five and carelessly throw the rest away on clothing, because the 100,000 reis a month amount to about 25 dollars in real money. The fraternal spirit of brotherhood which exists between the guard and all the stationmasters finally becomes a matter of deepest interest to the passenger who sits patiently at the window of the coach for ages as they carry on their conversation. The energy that is spent in talking in Brazil would accomplish wonders if devoted to some other pursuit. Fortunately there is an end to all things, and the guard's conversation finally having lapsed in interest, the stationmaster, without looking at his watch, the train or the passengers, reaches up and rings the bell which hangs over the station door. The guard wanders back to the rear platform of the last coach, the enginemen climb up to their posts again with the spirit of “Oh, well, we may as well be going,” and the train again gets under way. From travelling on other trains, one supposes there Courtesy, Clayton Cooper must be some reason for these long waits at each staSouth Brazilian Types tion, but there is no freight to unload, no work done, where a tall, thin Brazilian woman with a complexion nothing but just plain talk. which matches the coffee and milk she sells, waits upon Finally, at 8 o'clock, an hour and a half after starting, the appetites of those who arose too early for breakfast. the train reaches Porteirinha, 45 kilometres from Sant' She leans listlessly against the corner of the wall, Anna, and there is another ten-minute stop to enable the glancing now and again at the fast disappearing dough- guard to tell the stationmaster the news he picked up nuts, while the village folk move listlessly about. The at the last ten-minute stop. whole scene is listless and even the locomotive appears The train continues for nearly half a mile and then to have overcome the energy it had when the trip com- runs around another long, graceful curve. menced. minutes later, the passenger beholds two well-groomed Page 19
The Gold and Paper Currencies of Latin America A Comprehensive Review of Good
ISITORS to Latin exporting houses are comAmerica will find the pelled by law to accept the currency of these reTABLE SHOWING ORIGIN AND VALUES OF LATIN AMERICA'S GOLD COINAGE current bank notes at the publics to be a maze of in following rates of extricacy, the key to which Unit of Centigrams Countries Equivalent change: American dollars, Currency Origin is not to be found in text Fine Gold in Amn. $ 2.43 sucres; English books, but must be pa- Cuba ... Peso Amn. Dollar 150.46 1.000 pounds, 11.55 sucres and tiently sought by experi Nicaragua Córdoba French 5-francs 2.13 su- Amn. Dollar 150.46 With a few excepence. 1.000 Before the war, and tions, foreign coins are not Panamá Balboa Amn Dollar 150.46 1.000 indeed until a few months accepted as cash in these Dominican Republic Dólar Amn. Dollar 150.46 1.000 ago, the only legal tender countries, and still less was gold, although very foreign paper-money, Peru Libra 732.25 4.866 little gold changed hands, which can be sold only at Colombia Peso Eng. 4s. 146.45 0.973 the notes of the issuing a considerable discount, it Brazil ... Milreis banks being freely 88.21 Eng. 2s. 3d. being, therefore, always 0.546 cepted instead. The silpreferable to use bankers' Ecuador Sucre Eng. 2s. 73.22 0.486 sucre, worth about credits for personal exChile Peso 54.92 0.365 two shillings English, is penses, having care subdivided into several draw only sufficient in Argentina . Peso French 5 fcs. 145.16 0.965 small silver and nickel each country for expendi- Haiti .Gourde French 5 fcs. 145.16 0.965 coins. ture in that country, as ex Brazil Paraguay . . Peso French 5 fcs. 145.16 0.965 change of currency from Coming now to the one Latin American re- Bolivia Boliviano French 2 fcs. 58.58 0.389 countries of Latin Amerpublic to another is even Venezuela .Bolívar French 1 fc. 29.03 0.193 ica which years ago broke more liable to entail a loss their gold standard, and than when American, EngCosta Rica .Colón German 2 mks. 70.02 0.465 have been unable to relish or French gold is car- Uruguay . Peso ? 155.57 1.034 turn to it, Brazil, our ally, ried. the vastest of South AmerIn seventeen of the . Peso 0.498 ? 75.00 ican republics, is deserving twenty countries of Latin of first place. Since the America there is, however, time of the first Empire, a gold standard, which is Brazil has adopted the invariable, but only in Cuba, Panama, Peru, Colombia, and is legal tender at the rate of one franc equal to one Portuguese style of milreis ( a thousand reals) for Venezuela, Mexico and Costa Rica are gold coins actu- bolivar, of 100 centavos, government offices being com- her currency, but instead of retaining the Portuguese ally to be found in use. In Uruguay, although no gold pelled by law to receive and pay the 20-franc gold pieces value of about one American dollar, an arbitrary ratio coins are current, the paper peso has always stood at of France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland at the rate of of 27 English pence was chosen, so that the Brazilian par, and is accepted at its face value. In Ecuador until 20 bolivares each, the English sovereign at 25.25 boliv- gold-piece of ten milreis is just one eighth heavier and the commencement of the war, ten sucres were ex- ares and the United States twenty-dollar gold piece at larger than the English sovereign. The Brazilian, like changeable at the banks for one gold piece called a 104 bolivares each (fractions in proportion). There are the people of our own Eastern States, prefer to handle condor, but the strain of adverse financial conditions several old Venezuelan gold and silver coins in circula- paper rather than gold, and Brazil has always been has been too great for this little republic, and the tion, each with a distinctive name, which are very puz- deluged with large quantities of treasury notes which government has recently been obliged to fix an arbitrary zling to the newcomer, but all are now subordinated to have not been exchangeable for par value since the first rate of exchange, which can only be considered a tem- the bolivar, as the unit of the system. Certain banks year of the republic, an era of wild specuation and bad porary measure, and may be the small end of the de possess the privilege of issuing notes against a gold finance. based currency wedge. However, the good-will and in reserve, but these are not legal tender outside the prov- In 1898 exchange dropped to 572 pence per milreis tention of the government to preserve the old estab- inces in which they are established. and, recovering gradually, remained for some years lished gold standard of Ecuador is evident, and we Mexico preceding the war at 15 and 16 pence. At the outbreak may well give them the benefit of the doubt, and for The establishment of a gold basis of currency in Mex of war, and consequent stoppage of London credits, the purposes of this exposition count this republic ico is of very recent date, and its permanency depends there was another drop below 10 pence, but the country, among the eight above-mentioned which pride themupon the will of the executive. As, however, the coun thrown for the first time on its own resources, has galselves upon a medium of exchange as stable and undetry is gold producing, there is no reason why this stand lantly weathered the storm, and the paper milreis tobased as those of the great powers before the war. ard should not be maintained by honest administra day is steady at about 137/2 pence, or just half the par Taking them in the order given, and referring always value. tions. The gold peso of 100 centavos, contains 75 to the table shown on this page, we give briefly the centigrams of fine gold, worth a little less than fifty During the years of high exchange, over one hundred particulars of currency conditions in each; cents American money. million dollars worth of gold coin was held by the Cuba Treasury for the purpose of guaranteeing a part of the Costa Rica This country has no paper-money. The gold peso, This republic rejoices in a gold standard of currency, paper currency and, although three-fourths of this established in 1915, is worth exactly the same as the has now probably left the country, the minted Brazilian American gold dollar. Fractional coins are in silver, the gold coins being 2, 5, 10 and 20 colones and silver gold coins still remain, though they are not used. These 5, 10, 25 and 50 centimos. The paper-money ranks with and the money of the United States is legal tender. are 5, 10 and 20 milreis pieces. The silver and nickel gold. For values see table above. Panama coinage are exchangeable for paper. Thus, one gold The same as in Cuba, but the half-balboas, silver Uruguay milreis is worth two silver milreis, and ten gold milreis coins worth fifty cents each, called pesos, are the The Uruguayan gold peso, divided into 100 centes equal to twenty paper milreis. This proportion is subrecognized units of currency for local purchases. imos, is non-existent as a coin, but is current in the form ject to change every day, but, evidently, the government Peru of banknotes with a par value as invariable as the gold is seeking to preserve the proportion of two to one, Before the war, and without any reasonable doubt currency of other countries. Some foreign gold is legal perhaps with a view to reverting to a gold basis in the when the war is over, Peruvian pounds and English tender in the republic, notably the United States gold near future. sterling, the one identical in weight and value with the eagle at the rate of 9.66 pesos, the English sovereign Chile other, were and will be freely paid over in about equal at 4.70 pesos, the Argentine gold-piece of 5 pesos at As a matter of comparison, it is convenient to take quantities by the Peruvian banks against letters of 4.66 pesos and the French 20-franc-piece at 3.73 pesos. Chile next, because Chilean paper is now worth almost credit and checks. The pound, or libra, is divided into This unwieldy unit of currency appears to bear no re exactly the same as Brazilian. Chile is, however, in a ten silver soles, of 100 centavos. The paper-money in lation to any other dollar-piece in existence, and visitors better position, as the gold value of the Chilean peso circulation at present is only a temporary resource to Uruguay will find that its purchasing power is small is only 18 pence English, that is to say two-thirds of the forced upon the country by the refusal of the great compared with the exaggerated price one has to pay for Brazilian gold milreis. Here also gold is never seen, powers to export gold. it. To Americans it is especially aggravating to get though it is legal tender for a proportion of custom less than five dollars for an American gold-piece. It is, Colombia however, very much to the credit of this, the smallest duties, and the paper peso, of 100 centavos, like Brazilian Here also the English pound sterling circulates freely paper, fulfills all the needs of the market. The governrepublic of South America, to have been able to mainas the equivalent of five Colombian pesos, of 100 centain a perfectly level gold standard during the many ment has already announced its intention of establishing tavos. There is some national gold and plenty of new a gold basis as soon as this can possibly be done. Both decades that its powerful neighbors, Argentina and silver coins. The paper currency is fully guaranteed, in Chile and in Brazil government statistics are pubBrazil have carried the reproach of debased paper and is accepted at its par value. This sound basis of lished, and many taxes payable in gold, and the people currencies. national currency has been established gradually dur are very gradually becoming accustomed to think in Ecuador ing the last six years, and is the successor of a long gold values. As before mentioned, Ecuador, like Peru and Veneera of almost worthless paper currency, the fruit of a zuela, but to a greater extent, has been forced to Argentina series of revolutions which convulsed the republic. temporarily break her gold standard of ten sucres to In the Argentine Republic the gold peso was originVenezuela the gold condor, and 48.6 cents to the American dollar. ally based upon the value of five French francs, but A great deal of foreign gold circulates in Venezuela, At present, as temporary source, the banks and speculation and over-issue of paper-money speedily re Page 20
duced the rate of exchange, which, as in Brazil and PORTRAITS OF OUR CONTRIBUTORS Chile, was subject to great fluctuations. When prosperity and good government came to Argentina it was de R. JOSEPH LOUIS PERRIER, M.D., author of cided to create a fund of gold to stabilize the paper “Aracuana, the First American Poem,” in this currency at 22 pence English to the paper peso, at which number, and of “Rubén Dario" in our March rate of exchange it has stood for many years. The issue, is a busy physician of New York, but finds time fund now amounts to the considerable sum of 261,598,000 gold pesos, to which should be added 69,993,000 gold pesos at the Argentine legations abroad. Notes in circulation amount to 1,046,635,500 pesos paper. Under these circumstances it is obviously in the power of Argentina to establish her currency on a gold basis when she pleases. Argentine gold is coined in pieces of five pesos, which are legal tender for the payment of sundry government taxes, but it is very little used. The paper peso, of 100 centavos, is exchangeable for gold of any nationality at the Conversion Office, but this facility is taken advantage of only by those who need to export gold or by jewelers, as practically nothing is priced in gold pesos. The paper currency and silver fractional coins are the accepted medium for all kinds of trade. Bolivia The peso boliviano, worth about 2 francs, or Bs. 12.50 to the pound sterling, has not yet been coined, but the paper by which it is substituted has stood within sight of par for a number of years. Eighteen English pence was the usual rate of exchange before the war, and this has since fallen to 1434 pence and risen to 21 pence. These violent fluctuations have given much concern to the Bolivian government, which will undoubtedly try to institute a better standard after the war. With so much valuable mineral in the country easily exchange- able for gold, and no export taxes yet in force, it would appear to be a problem of easy solution, Dr. Joseph Louis Perrier Paraguay for the pursuit of his favorite hobby, the study of Latin The legal gold currency of Paraguay is a peso of equal American literature, of which he is a notable authority, value to the Argentine, but no gold is in circulation, and as our readers have been able to judge. the paper-money is so much depreciated that even nickel We hope to give publicity to several more of Dr. coins are intrinsically worth more than their face value, Perrier's delightful monographs, which treat of subThe only way out for this unfortunate country appears jects specially appropriate to our purpose. to be the reversion to a gold basis for which the paper Dr. J. L. Perrier, who is a naturalized American, born currency will be exchanged at the rate of two or three in France, has earned the degree of doctor of philosophy pesos to the cent! at Columbia University and is instructor of Romance Haiti languages there. He is also a member of the Academy The gourde of Haiti, nominally worth 5 francs, has of the Republic of Colombia, where he spent six years. never been minted, and its paper prototype has been Mr. Charles d'Emery, the author of "Coasting Down worth about 20 cents American. Since September, 1916, the Andes" in our March issue, and of “Cuzco, Chief the United States has been in control of the country's Capital of the Incas" in our current number, has traveled finances. This tutorship will terminate in 1925, and by extensively in South America in the exercise of his prothat time we shall certainly see good money in the fession as photographer. He is responsible for many negro republic. of the beautiful pictures produced by Messrs. Brown & Dominican Republic The legal currency here is the American dollar, but the old Dominion peso still circulates at a rate of exchange of about 20 cents. Nicaragua A silver peso of a nominal value of $0.435 was the unit of currency in Nicaragua until 1913, but the actual circulating medium was inconvertible paper of very low value. Since then the National Bank of Nicaragua, an American concern, has undertaken the rehabilitation of Nicaragua's finances, and is retiring the old peso at the rate of 121/2 for one córdoba, a new gold standard equal in value to the American dollar. Honduras and Salvador These two countries have no gold standard of currency. Conclusion From the above exposition of Latin America's cur- rencies it is evident that, with a few exceptions, all the countries of Latin America are now in a position to establish a gold standard of currency, and maintain their paper, if any be needed, at par. Of the ten South American nations, three, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, have steadily maintained their par rate of exchange; two, Ecuador and Bolivia, are struggling to do so in spite of financial difficulties; one, Colombia, has emerged from a choatic condition of currency to one of good money; three, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, have reached a point where the adoption of the par, or some other gold standard, depends only upon the resumption of gold shipments after the war; and one, Paraguay, is still groping in the depths of a much debased paper circulation medium. Charles d'Emery In Central America and the West Indies, Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua are all now working on a gold basis, Dawson, of Stamford, Conn. and New York, amongst leaving only Honduras and Salvador to emerge as best which are, of course, those illustrating his articles. they can from the awkward trammels of a silver stand- Mr. d'Emery's Auent literary style and vivid imaginaard, liable to the market fluctuations of that metal. tion are additional proofs of his competency for the To bring all these currencies to one common denom- grateful task of giving his countrymen an opportunity inator, the American dollar, is one of the dreams of to see for themselves the beauties of Latin American Pan Americanism. If there is a will, the way is easy; scenery and peculiar modes of life, and the pictures and of the expediency of such a step none can doubt. themselves show that he is a true artist.
A NEW LATIN AMERICAN WORK OF REFERENCE While the world faces the greatest international crisis of the late centuries, there is a growing manifestation of intensive interest between the nations of the western hemisphere. Development of personal and trade relationships in every enterprise of peace and amity continues to make forward strides, and a fortunate future for the countries of North and South America promises to disclose mutual intercontinental achievements outstripping any activities of the past. Far-sighted statesmen, economists and commercial leaders, both in the United States and in Latin America, acknowledge that the present moment seals the mutual compacts of true Pan Americanism. They recognize the necessity and the desirability of fostering such international relations and educational and commercial intercourse as shall lead to mutual respect and advancement of the nations. In furtherance of this aspiration, government propaganda and numerous publications exert effective inAuence. Yet, in so wide and, in some respects, so untraveled a field as Latin America, much remains to be done and said if the people of the Americas are to have a better mutual acquaintance. Travel in Latin America is helping to stimulate trade, and we are learning more of the national life of the southern people and of their commercial and industrial activities. To promote better understanding, and to assist all to realize the interdependence of the twenty American republics--a consideration the importance of which is its own emphasis, as well as to disseminate useful commercial, sociological and political information of these countries, the new “Latin American Encyclopedia” arrives at the psychological moment. This instructive volume is ready for reference and study just as everybody is, or should be, interested in the progress and potentialities of the Latin republics, which reach from Mexico and Cuba on the north to Argentina and Chile on the south. It comes at an hour when Pan America, which includes the United States and Canada, and Pan Americanism, which requires the co-operation of the United States and Latin America for the common weal of all America, have a significance never before realized. The underlying purpose of the work, written by men who are not only familiar with the diversity of subjects they discuss, through long investigation and extended experience, but who are thoroughly sympathetic with the countries and people they describe, is to afford a comprehensive idea of the various countries treated. The information given is not only the last available, but it has been admirably edited by Marion Wilcox, A.B., LL.B. and George Edwin Rines, and arranged in encyclopedic style. In taking up the individual countries, chapters are devoted to intelligent descriptions of the fauna, fora, geology, climate, transportation, property, and agricultural products. The commercial and industrial side of each country is presented with especial adequacy, under chapter heads comprising geographical boundaries, history, education, the press, government, laws, corporations and partnerships, people, language, cities, customs and resources. While comprehensive in scope, the information has been condensed into one handy volume of less than nine hundred pages, including numerous maps and illustrations. Many books on Latin America have been published, but for one work embodying so broad a scope, the new Encyclopedia will stand just criticism, and be regarded as a valuable work of reference. It is an intellectual achievement as well as a compilation of useful and educational data. It will fill a pressing need in giving to the American public that intellectual equipment —that clear and definite idea of Latin American civilization as it is at this time, and which America's growing continental intercourse demands of it. Those engaged in commerce with, or need accurate information concerning the trade and industry of Latin America, will find the broad comprehensiveness of the Encyclopedia of practical, every-day usefulness. The detailed index facilitates almost instant reference to any subject in the work. THE GERMAN STEAMERS AT MONTEVIDEO A special committee has been appointed by the Uruguayan government to study and report upon the tenders received for the renting of the eight German steamers in Montevideo port. This committee, which consists of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Finance and three members of Congress, may safely be trusted to give careful study and fair play to all. Tenders have been received from: The Emergency Fleet Corporation of the United States; the British Government; the Kerr Steamship Company of New York; Chadwick, Weir & Co. of Liverpool and four local firms. The Uruguayan Ministers in France and the United States are also forwarding some tenders which they have received. Page 21
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THE SOUTH AMERICAN, JUNE, 1918
S the traveler looks out of his cabin window in along the Pacific, and the unique industry of Ecuador they brought with them was of that narrow type found the early morning in the Guayaquil River he sees in vegetable ivory yielding for this country and the in Spain in the era of Ferdinand and Isabella, and it all about him small fishing boats at anchor. world 20,000 tons. carried with it all the bigotry and disregard of human There is no sign of fishing, and upon inquiry he is in- Ecuador's $15,000,000 of exports of coffee, rubber rights that characterized the Inquisition period. The formed that those boats filled with listless Ecuadorians Panama hats and a dozen other native products, to union of the church and state in these new lands stood are waiting for the turn of the tide to carry them down gether with her grandeur of mountain scenery weigh for the apportionment of the lands to the privileged the river. It is easier than rowing, and time is no in the balance in her favor; otherwise it is doubtful classes, the multiplication of priests, friars and nuns, factor in the life of a fisherman in this land of past whether any American traveler would sail up the Guay- and instead of the inauguration of equal rights, there glories. as River that laves the wharves of Quayaquil, the was instituted the rule, or misrule, in which the ele. These anchored fishers waiting for a favorable cur- largest seaport town of Ecuador, where 40,000 people ments of force, bribery, intrigue, cruelty, treachery and rent impressed me as a fitting picture in miniature of live in squalid forgetfulness of the twentieth century. even authoritative religion formed the doubtful weapons the people of this country still remindful of the six- The modern Ecuador can be understood only by a of sovereignty. teenth century. There are here one and a half million glance at the historic background far back in the be. The policy of the rule of the Spaniards in Latin of inhabitants—Indians, Mestizos, Spaniards—all wait- ginning of the sixteenth century when Francisco Pizar- America was well expressed in the words of one of the ing-waiting-waiting for the turning of the tide, with- ro, having conquered the great Inca Empire and Mexican viceroys: out worry meanwhile, and seemingly quite as indiffer. executed the Inca king, turned to Ecuador whose peo- “Let the people of these dominions learn once for all ent regarding the matter as have been their fathers and ple resembled in social and political institutions the that they were born to be silent and to obey, and not ancestors for these five hundred years. Incas. On December 6, 1534, the Spaniards entered to discuss or to have opinions in political affairs." Slowly we steamed down the river until before us in Quito as conquerors, Pizarro was appointed governor Trade with foreign countries was entirely prohibited the blazing equatorial sun lay the straggling port city of the province and the usual Spanish custom of feudal and all mineral wealth was heavily taxed. The native of Guayaquil, which enjoys the unevitable distinction times was begun of dividing the land among themselves could not enter into business without the consent of an of being the “city of the yellow jack," one of the most and the establishment of feudal estates. official, and for a man to seek a free field for his labor unhealthy ports of entry to any country of modern After several rearrangements, by which Ecuador was was held to be treason. Education was denied by thes? times. A wide circling arc of one and two-storied build- included first in the vice-royalty of Peru, and then an. Spanish conquerors, and the local governors joined with ings lurch down to a stream as muddy as the Ganges, nexed to the vice-royalty of Granada, a movement for the ecclesiastical authorities in a settled system of while half-clothed natives swarm along the unkempt independence began on August 10, 1809, when the downright subjection by force and intrigue which has banks of the river at the mouths of the narrow streets. citizens of Quito deposed the Spanish governor and affected later generations. Immigrants into her colonThe ship is carried so near the riverside that one car. established a revolutionary junta. Although the Span- ies were forbidden by Spain, and not until comparasee their gesticulations about the long market-place, and iards regained control, they lost it afterward in 1820, tively recent years has there been infused into these the confused murmur of voices greet us over the cur. when the citizens of Guayaquil declared their independ- South American countries any great amount of new rent like a warning cry of “unclean”-a fateful welcome In 1830 a constitutional assembly was held blood. to these lowlands of the malarial stegamaya, and the proclaiming the Constitution of the Republic of To be sure a hundred years has passed over lands fever-laden mosquito. To be sure it was on the first Ecuador. like Ecuador since such deadening ideals of civilization of June, the beginning of the dry season, when the In spite of the fact that the country has been called had their sway. But not in one century does a nation death-dealing mosquito is supposed to have left the a republic for nearly a hundred years, the influence pass out from beneath the yoke of those ways of water front, that this scene unfolded before our eyes, of the ancient Spanish régime is apparent, revealing thought and custom which undercut initiative, stifle the yet the miasmic shadow of the place seemed to rivet itself in many ways. Three centuries of rule make a conscience, degrade the thought of honest labor, and the consciousness with a spell that not even the rounded decided print on any country, and the rule of the Span- deprive the individual of human rights. hills that sentinel the town and the chiming towers of iard was characterized by certain things that cling to It takes time to develop republics out of elements the Catholic steeples were sufficient to dispel. One re- the Latin nations of South America with tenacity. worked upon for generations by a system of selfisha calls the reported saying of the short-sighted Quayaquil The whole colonization policy of the Spaniards dif- medieval feudalism. “It is a travesty on the word,” merchants to the effect: "Sanitation will tempt the fered radically from that of the settlers in New Eng. said a leading foreign business man for many years in gringo to come in and wrest our business from us. Let land and Virginia. They were not actuated by a desire Ecuador, "to call this country a republic"; and then he our friend, Yellow Jack, stay.” to secure either political or religious freedom, nor were told me for an hour instances of autocratic rule and unI did not wonder that a business man from the States they especially interested in the industrial and agricul- democratic customs which had all the earmarks of who had sailed thousands of miles to make inspection tural development of their colonies. To the Spaniards, monarchical authority. of mining properties in Ecuador, confided to me, as he any work which might be considered in the least meniai It must be learned that self-government, the appeal stepped upon the ladder down to the small shore-boats, was not looked upon with favor, and the natives were to the ballot instead of to arms in settling ordinary disthat he was tempted to turn about and go home. In- placed in the position of slaves. To-day the same at- putes, and the building up of self-confidence and selfdeed, if one did not realize that beyond these quarantin- titude of mind prevails, and the foreigner who so far reliance, are matters that cannot be inaugurated overed hot lowlands lay 116,000 square miles of fertile forgets himself as to carry his own bag or suitcase in night in a mass meeting, where a constitution is agreed plateaus and snow-capped Andes, or think of Quito, Ecuador loses caste with the aristocracy. upon with high-sounding words. Republics develop the capital city with its 75,000 inhabitants calling one up Spain brought to South America the spirit of the from within outward, and not in the opposite direction. *here among che mcuntains, 9,371 feet above the sea, Middle Ages; her sons were not colonizers, but adven- and the spirit of a constitution is far more important he would hesitate. Yet one wishes to see the vast cocao turers who came to the New World in search of gold than its letter when it comes to the making of demogroves which belong to thuse equatorial coastlands and an easy means of existence. The religion which cratic states. Page 24
Remembering these days of checkered history we were not astonished, when upon asking a prominent Ecuadorian what he considered to be the chief need of the people at present, he replied: "Discipline, personal and national discipline." It must be remembered that about forty per cent of the people of Ecuador are Indians, fifty per cent mixed Indians and Spanish or Mestizos, and only about two per cent of the population are pure Spanish or whites Many think that this mixture of races has brought down the level, as the Indian is usually considered a more desirable worker than the Mestizo, and compares favorably with him in the matter of morals. As to education, the authorities give the following facts: primary education is maintained at the cost of the state, and school attendance is compulsory. The republic reports an attendance of 100,000 pupils in 1,000 public schools of primary grade. There are 35 secondary schools, and somewhat recently the government has established nine higher schools with commercial and technical schools in Quito and Guayaquil. One finds at Quito also an old university, while faculties for higher training can be found at Cuenca and at Guayaquil. It is fair to truth to state that all that glitters is not gold in educational government reports in Ecuadoi. About one in sixteen persons are reported to be enrolled in school. It is evident that the children of the Indians are getting practically no schooling, while you will be informed that possibly one-fourth of the children of the peons are receiving some kind of instruc.. tion. It is the law in Ecuador that the master having ten or more families of laborers on his estate must maintain for them a school, but in this case, as in others, the law is not always obeyed. As in East India the parents are loath to give up their children and especially when one gets outside the towns, where the parents have little regard for education, and are living in ignorance at times startling to those unacquainted with the backwardness of some of these states. The shucking of ivory nuts, and the earnings therefrom, usually outweight the attraction of the schools. Of Ecuador, as of many another country, one may speak in terms that seem at first contradictory. It is an equatorial land, indeed it takes its name from the equator, but in its highland plateaus where nine-tenth: of the population live, the weather is cold enough for winter clothing. Quayaquil lying in the low, shore levels is anything but desirable from a physical point of view, while Quito and much of the domain lying a mile and a half above the sea in and between the parallel ranges of the Andes, furnishes as beautiful scenery as one could wish, with dry and bracing mountain air. One finds here a very uncertain government and an undisciplined and unsteady people, yet a commercial condition worthy of note in at least three great industries. The traveler who walks along the busy waterfront of Guayaquil passes warehouses filled with piles of cacao bags as high as the buildings themselves, and he is told that this industry in itself amounts to between eight and ten million dollars a year in exports, while Ecuador's trade in tagua nuts, or vegetable ivory, leads the world with an output reaching upward of two million dollars yearly. The palm producing the ivory nuts is found chiefly on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, and grows from ten to twenty feet in height bearing at the base of the leaves a cluster of nuts resembling cocoanuts. Each nut contains seeds approximating the size of small po. tatoes, but fine in grain and approximating. real ivory in characteristic. It is of this material that the major. ity of the buttons of the world are made. American enterprise is now entering Ecuador, one of the large New York export houses, having forty offices and 2,000 men working on the West Coast of South America, being well represented here. It is a matter of hygienic improvement, and patient modernization of roads, people and government that keeps the door into Ecuador still half closed-considerable "matter” one admits—yet the foreigners in this equatorial republic have hopes. It is the instability of government especially that handicaps the present-day Ecuador. The constitution is liberal; foreigners enjoy the same rights and civi! guarantees as do the citizens of the country, and freedom of thought, worship and the press is given. It is an inducement to trade to find that aliens may acquire property and public lands, and hold the right to establish banking institutions under the same conditions with Ecuadorians. It is also worthy of note that the president of this republic, as in most of the South American states, is elected for a term of four years by direct vote, and cannot be re-elected except after the laps of two terms. The government is supported by a permanent army consisting of upward of 7,500 officers and men, and a first and second series of reserves of 100,000 men. There are also a mining and torpedo section, a sanitary section, and a telegraph and telephone corps-all created
(C.) Underwood & Underwood. Quito, Ecuador, the City of the Equator, 9,350 Feet above the Sea among the Andean Volcanoes in 1910. The navy of Ecuador consists of one cruiser, nut industry, is because of their understanding of the the Cotopaxi; a torpedo destroyer, the Bolivar, of 1,000 methods of satisfying officials, thus relieving themselves tons; one torpedo boat, the Tarqui, of 56 tons; three from paying the scheduled duty. launches and one auxiliary vessel, with a total equip- An American told me of his experience in getting a ment of about 200 men. large consignment of supplies from America upon There is maintained a telegraph system of 3,500 miles which he paid the regular duty. A Guayaquil merchant with 188 officers; two telephone systems with 400 sub- criticised him for being so foolish as to pay the full scribers each and 150 post offices. In 1913 the postal duty. “But," said the American, “it is the thing to do." money-order system was installed in the principal of “Yes, perhaps so," said the Ecuadorian, "but no one fices and the parcel-post system is in ogue. does it here." Despite these advances, Ecuador has much to learn In these tendencies, as in many other departments in the use of modern contrivances. The constitution of Ecuadorian enterprise and activity, the historic trahas not yet learned to “march.” The people have not ditions planted and grown for centuries amongst these yet discovered that revolutions do not usually pay, yet people by their European conquerors, are dying hard. some of these revolutions in recent years have been That, however, they are becoming less and less popular little more than opera bouffe. A railroad official in de with the increased introduction of foreign trade and scribing to me a recent revolution said that he was traders, and especially at present by the added impetus ordered by the government to have ready a special to South American industries on account of the Europtrain to carry General A— and his army which con ean war, is patent to any unprejudiced observer. Ecua sisted of fifty-four men. He gave them the train and dor, with its vast fields of untouched wealth, and with shortly afterward another order was received to have its growing sense of justice born of contact with the ready a second train for General B— and his army of outside world, is certain to cut herself away slowly but fifty-seven men. The trains were made ready and the surely from these deadening bonds with which she has government troops departed for the battlefield. They been bound for hundreds of years, and with this met the revolutionist's army in a valley, the enemy to emancipation, a real republic of far-reaching value to the established government consisting of the somewhat herself and the world will certainly result. imique combination of seventy-eight officers and three Bolivia—The Mountain Republic privates. A battle ensued for several hours when six men were killed and fifteen wounded, the government No one visits Bolivia without considerable sacrifice troops achieving a glorious triumph, and returning With Ecuador it is justly called a mountain republic for home received the admiring "vivas” of the populace. it is an isolated elevation 12,470 feet above sea level, whom they had so bravely defended! and in winter, that is during the months of June, July, One soon is impressed with the fact that the Ecuador August and September, especially, this country can ian loves a uniform and gold lace quite as much as the furnish inconveniences second to none that we know of Japanese. This is especially evident among the army on the face of the earth. officers. We were told of how a Paris house received Shortly before our intended departure from Cuzco some time since an order for uniforms for the army for La Paz we were greeted with the cheerful informaof Ecuador. The head of the Parisian clothing estab tion that a terrific snowstorm was raging in Bolivia, and lishment understood the order with the exception of that two policemen had been frozen to death on the one set of Ecuadorian regalia that was to be covered streets of La Paz. Since the Bolivians have no fires almost completely with gold lace, braid, epaulettes, etc. in their houses, coal and fuel being so expensive, the He called on the representatives having the matter in traveler naturally draws the conclusion that the policecharge and said: men were frozen to death upon the street because they "I understand all the other uniforms but this one; had gone out of doors to get warm. Indeed, the houses what branch of the service is to wear this pretentious of Bolivia, like many of the great cell-like Spanish uniform?" structures in the mountainous sections of Peru, seem to The representative answered. “Oh, that is for the have corked up the cold for four hundred years, and members of our secret service!" their bleakness is absolutely impregnable. No one who Although the laws of the republic look excellent on visits Bolivia in winter can possibly imagine how any paper, their execution halts badly at times. A foreigner population could build houses with rooms thirty feet who has lived many years in Ecuador informed me of long and sixteen feet high with no arrangements whatthe frightful “graft” in the customs revenue. He said, ever for warming them, to resist a climate as cold “If I could have charge of the customs for three years, as the United States in November or December, unless I would be able to save for the government fifty per these people had had evil intentions upon their posterity. cent more than they are now receiving, and in addition, We asked a certain gentleman whom we met coming if I could be allowed the surplus, I could make for my- out of the country wearing three overcoats what he self a munificent fortune.” thought of Bolivia. He answered grimly, “I didn't see There seems to be a way to get around the revenue, anything of Bolivia. I spent the whole time while in and it is said all along the coast that one reason that the country in bed, which was the only place I found the Germans can crowd out all competition in the ivory where I could keep warm." Page 25
Ollantay, an Ancient Quechua Drama
Shows that the Incas were Patrons of the Stage before the Conquest
Ceremonial Inca Cup of Hammered Gold
THE Quechua language is one of the hundred or more members of the interesting family of languages upon which philologists have imposed the somewhat arbitrary qualification American It was the language of Atahualpa and of those ancient Peruvian Incas whose empire had succeeded in reaching so remarkable a degree of civilization. It is stil! spoken in the highlands of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia It is commonly heard in the streets of Cuzco. The Quechua language surpasses in importance all other American dialects, and it has been the object o! numerous philological studies. Not long ago, a French scholar, Vicomte Onffroy de Thoron, wrote a whole volume to prove that Quechua was the original language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Para dise, and by their sons and descendants until the time of the tower of Babel. He bases his assertion upoi! the Biblical text itself, and has no doubt that all the names of the ancient patriarchs are explained much more satisfactorily by a Quechua than by a Hebrew derivation. The Quechua language possesses a literature whicli is not devoid of value, and which, until lately, has been believed to be, in part at least, anterior to the Spanish conquest. It consists of love songs, elegies, allegoric hymns and dramatic compositions. The dramas were first preserved by oral transmission; by which, according to Max Müller, the whole Vedic literature has been preserved for centuries; and also by the system of quipus or knots. The quipu system of writing, primitive as it is, is exceedingly interesting, as being the rudest system of writing that has ever been devised. The quipus were knots of different colors, arranged in different ways. and by means of which the Incas preserved their his.. torical narratives and songs. Whether this system of writing has existed everywhere as well as in Peru as a first stage toward our actual phonetic writing is no known. If such be the case, it has been supplanted at an early date by a much more perfect system, the ideographic system or writing by images, of which Chinese offers us the most perfect example. The Incas seem to have carried the system of knotwriting to a remarkable degree of perfection. A special class of men, the quipu-comayocs or keepers of the knots, appear to have combined the duties of preserving and deciphering the knot records with those of remembering and transmitting the historical narratives and songs. Dramatic performances continued to take place among the Indians after the Spanish conquest. Garcilase tells us that the Jesuit missionaries wrote dramas by means of which they gave religious instruction. Two of these dramas have been recently published by a German scholar, E. W. Middenderff. One of them, entitled El Hijo Pródigo, is a paraphrase of the wellknown Biblical story of the prodigal son; the other, Usca Pascar, is an exhortation to the worship of the Virgin Mary. Translations of some important European plays were also made, and Pacheco Zegarra tells us that his great-uncle, Pedro Zegarra translated Racine's Phédre into Quechua, and that the play was performed at Ayaviri, toward 1830, on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin. Among the different Quechua plays which have come down to us, the most important by far is the drama entitled Ollantay. This drama has been the object of numerous studies and discussions, and the question still arises whether or not it was written before the Spanish conquest. The whole play is based upon a fact which seems historical. A chieftain by name Ollantay fell in love with Cusi-Coyllur (Joy-Star), the daughter of the Inca Pachacutic. But the Inca, unwilling to give his daughter to a man of lower rank, sent her to the convent of the Elect Virgins, and there imprisoned her in a dark dungeon where she lay for ten years, bound with a chain. In the meantime, Ollantay, surrounded by an army of faithful mountaineers, rebelled against the Inca, fortified himself in Ollantay-Tambo, and proclaimed himself king. His rebellion would have been successful had it not been for the stratagem of Ruminahui, who fled to him with self-inflicted wounds, complaining that he had been ill-treated by the Inca; and who, after gaining his confidence, overpowered him during an orgy and brought him before the Inca. In the meanwhile, however, Pachacutic had died, and his son and successor forgave Ollantay and gave him the hand of Cusi-Coyllur.
We hear of Ollantay for the first time toward the end of the eighteenth century, when a priest by name Antonio Valdés produced the manuscript, and had the play performed with great pomp before his friend, the Inca Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui. In 1780, probably a short time after the production of the play, Condorcanqui rebelled against the Spaniards; and, assuming the title of Tupac-Amaru II, proclaimed his independence. But, in 1781, he was defeated and put to death with his whole family, and Judge José Antonio Aroche then prohibited “the representation of dramas, as well as all other festivals which the Indians celebrated in memory of their Incas." Among the philologists who have treated the question of Ollantay five are especially worth mentioning. The first in date is J. J. von Tschudi, who, in 1853, produced the Quechua text with a commentary. Later, in 1871, the Englishman, Clements R. Markham, published the text again, with a translation into English. Both he and Tschudi assumed that the play was ancient, and their opinion was accepted by most histor ians and writers of encyclopedic articles. The same view was almost regarded as a certainty when a Peruvian, Pacheco Zegarra, who had spoken Quechua from his infancy, published in Paris an important work about Ollantay, accompanied by a beautiful French transla tion of the play. Lately, however, E. W. Middendorff has assured us that the work is modern, and certainly composed after the Spanish conquest of the country. His view on the subject was defended in a scholarly work, and seems to have been accepted by philologists all over the world, even in Peru. In this country, the well-known Spanish scholar, Elijah Clarence Hills, agrees with Middendorff in every respect, and adduces new proofs, derived from the prosody of the play, to make us believe that Antonio Valdés is the true and sole author of Ollantay. I have the greatest respect for Middendorff's crudition. I admire his patient researches and cannot open without a sentiment of veneration the learned volumes wherein he has condensed them. When, however, I see a German who contradicts a general belief, I cannot telp recalling to my mind a tale which I read a few years ago in a work of Gruender's entitled Free-Will. An Englishman, a Frenchman and a German were called upon to write a work on the camel. The Frenchman went to the zoological garden, and, after making a thorough examination of the camel, wrote an interesting book on the subject. The Englishman did still better. He went to Africa, the land of the camel, and there also wrote a very readable work. As for the German, he locked himself up in his library, put his head between his hands, closed his eyes, and meditated for a long time upon the metaphysical essence of the camel
His meditation was only interrupted by the perusal of his numerous volumes on the subject. The result of his investigations was given to the world at the end of a few years. It was a bulky volume, in which he reached the conclusion that no positive argument can be adduced to prove that the animal called camel has ever existed. Indeed, the arguments adduce to prove the modern character of Ollantay savor of German metaphysics. And thus, Tschudi having produced in his second edi. tion a manuscript dated 1735, which is approximately the year of the birth of Antonio Valdés, in which case of course, Valdés could not be the author of the work Middendorff brushes this evidence aside as of little value, suggesting that the correct reading is probably 1785. Then, at the death of the Inca Pachacutic, áll Cuzco is in mourning dress, and the text of the play says "al! are dressed in black.” Now, Dr. Hills, following Middendorff, tells us that grey, and not black, was the color distinctive of mourning in ancient Peru, and that. accordingly, the play is not ancient. These authors have probably forgotten the testimony of the author of the Araucana, Alonso de Ercilla, who had seen the Peruvian Indians in their first wars against Spain and had himself taken an active part in the campaign. In the twenty-first canto of his poem, Ercilla describes the mourning of Caniomangue for the death of his father. And Caniomangue and all his soldiers were dressed in black. “Todo de negro el blanco arnés cubierto, y su escuadrón de aquel color vestido." "Each one in black, his shining armor covered, and all his squadron in that color clothed.” A still graver defect is that the defenders of the modern character of Ollantay, probably led by an im moderate desire of victory, do not seem to be perfectly honest in their argumentation. At the end of the play. the Inca and his retinue enter the convent of the Elect Virgins to deliver Cusi-Coyllur. Thereupon, Midden dorff remarks that those virgins could be visited only by the queen and her daughters; and Dr. Hills quotes an old article of Manuel Palacios which reads as follows: “La casa de las virgenes escogidas, que hubo en el Cuzco, y ocupaba el sitio en que hoy está el monasterio de Santa Catalina de Siena, con tal estrictes en su recogimiento que la escogida que recibían en él no volvía a ver, oir, o hablar ni aun con sus propios padres, siendo sólo permitido a la reina y a las infantas de la familia real, el entrar y visitar aquella casa," “The House of the Chosen Virgins, which was in in Cuzco, and occupied the site which is to-day that of the Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena, was so strict in its guardianship of the Chosen One received within, that she never again saw, heard spoke to even her own parents, it being permitted only to the queen and to the royal princesses t) enter and visit that house." And he draws the conclusion that, since a girl whose father was unknown wanders into the convent and out again, and since the king and his retinue enter the convent at the end of the play, the drama does not reflect the customs of the Incas, and is therefore posterior * them. The girl, however, is Bella, daughter of Ollantay anı Cusi-Coyllur, and she has been sent to the convent, no! as a visitor, but to become one of the elect virgins. And with regard to the entrance of the Inca into the convent, the words quoted from Palacios's article are followed by these lines which Dr. Hills has carefully omitted from his quotation: "Y aunque también el Inca tenía igual permiso por la ley, jamás hizo uso de semejante privilegio." "And though the Inca had by law the same per mission, he never made use of such a privilege." We do not pretend to reverse the opinion which is now gaining ground among philologists. Ollantay may be recent, and perhaps it is. We must not, however, forget that the ancient Peruvians, according to all historians, certainly wrote dramas and even excelled in tłem; that these dramas were preserved and performed until the edict of 1781 prohibited their performances; finally, that Ollantay is a work of high literary merit, and could hardly have been written by the priest Valdés, wio was not a writer, and has not otherwise left us ? single line.
the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, is to-day ranked among the biggest and most successful mining adventures of the present century, but successful though it is, it is still far short of, and perhaps will never reach, those millions of which Van Slotten dreamed.
Chile. He was appointed Ambassador to this country after a long public service as a Deputy in Congress, Ambassador to Italy and Minister of Foreign Affairs High requiem mass was said at St. Matthew's Catholic Church on April 22, at which President Wilson and his Cabinet, the diplomatic corps, the Supreme Court, members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs attended. The body was then deposited in a vault until a warship is ready to convey it to Chile. Señora de Aldunate is a sister of the wife of Presi. dent Senfuentos, and President Wilson duly sent the following telegram to the Chilean Executive: "I wish to convey to you my most heartfelt sym pathy at this time of great sorrow for your own family as well as for the nation which the lamented loss of the highly honored and esteemed representative of your country at this capital has occasioned." The governing board of the Pan American Union met on April 19 and adopted resolutions of regret at the death of Señor Aldunate, whom Secretary Lansing, in a brief address, termed "one of its ablest and most distinguished members.”
His Excellency Don Santiago Aldunate
DEATH OF CHILEAN AMBASSADOR We much regret to announce the death of Señor Don Santiago Aldunate, Chilean Ambassador to the United States, who was prostrated by a stroke of apoplexy at Washington on the morning of April 17, while out for a walk, and died the same evening at the Emergency Hospital. As was his custom, Dr. Aldunate went to his office to attend to his morning mail and, having finished this, started to walk to his home in R Street. He fell un
THE BEGINNINGS OF CERRO DE PASCO R. A. W. McCUNE, on a brief visit to Lima in March last, gave to The West Coast Leader, in conversation, some interesting details with reference to the inception of the Cerro de Pasco Mining Company, which is now turning out its seventy million pounds of the red metal a year. It was back in 1900 or 1901 that the late Mr. J. B. Haggin, associated with the Hearst interests, having sold out his holdings in Anaconda to the Rogers-Rockefeller group, leading to the forination of the Amalgamated Cooper Co., was looking around for new worlds to conquer. Mr. Carl Hand, the well-known mining engineer, came into 15 Broad Street, New York, one day with a story about some wonderful mines in the Celebes Islands. Mr. Haggin became interested in this proposition and would undoubtedly have financed an expedition to the Islands, but in the meantime Hand, who had gone to Butte, found some backers whose terms suited him better, and wrote Mr. Haggin that the deal was off. As far as Mr. Haggin was concerned it was just as well that the Celebes deal fell through, for the wonderful island mines proved on closer investigation to be mythical. It was just as this time that a mining engineer by the name of Van Slotten, who had been down in Ecuador opening up the Zaruma gold mine for Mr. H. K. Twombly, returned to New York. He had a small office somewhere up near the roof of 15 Broad Street, from which he conducted his business as consulting engineer. Down in Ecuador, Van Slotten had picked up marvelous tales of the wealth of Cerro de Pasco. He repeated these tales ad libitum and eventually they reached the ears of the big financier downstairs. Calling Mr. McCune into his office one day, Mr. Haggin suggested that as the Celebes Islands deal had fallen through, it would be a good idea to visit Van Slotten and attempt to discover how much foundation there was to the stories he was telling about Cerro de Pasco. When Mr. McCune came down following his interview with Van Slotten he informed his chief that if all the latter said were true, Cerro de Pasco would make the riches of the Arabian Nights look like the widow's mite. Eventually it was decided to send Mr. MacFarlane, a mining engineer, to investigate. MacFarlane came, and by mail and cable he confirmed all that Van Slotten had said. But Mr. Haggin was not satisfied yet that these richly embellished reports had a solid foundation in paying ore, and after several months delay he decided to send Mr. McCune down to look over the properties. Mr. McCune first arrived in Peru in July, 1901. In those days the Central Railway extended only as far as Oroya, from whence it was two days by mule or stage coach to the Cerro de Pasco mines. Mr. McCune spent some time at the mines and eventually reported back to New York that while the accounts of Van Slotten and MacFarlane were somewhat highly colored, there was no question but that Cerro de Pasco was a big proposition. He strongly advised Mr. Haggin to secure control of the various properties and undertake their development. The latter, however, was slow in arriving at a decision and in the meantime Mr. McCune, becoming more and more convinced that Cerro de Pasco had a rich future before it, and becoming impatient at Haggin's delay in coming to decision, bought out the properties owned by an old Englishman named Steel for Lp. 30,000, on his own account. He cabled what he had done to 15 Broad Street, and that was the final straw which decided Mr. Haggin to bring his millions into the country. He figured out that if Mr. McCune were willing to stake a fortune on the mines there must be something in them. From that time on, the development of Cerro de Pasco on a large scale was assured. It was the first of the big American investments which have since transformed the mining map of the West Coast. In the first capitalization of 10,000,000 dollars, Mr. Haggin and the New York financiers associated with him subscribed in the following proportions: J. B. Haggin, $3,000,000; H. K. Twombly, acting for the Vanderbilt interests, $2,000,000; Hearst, $1,000,000; Frick, $1,000,000; McCune, $1,000,000; Mills, $1,000,000, and Morgan, $1,000,000. They acquired 730 mining claims, 1,180 pertenencias, or 5,900 acres of land-about three-fourths of the Cerro de Pasco district. They built the 83-mile railway from Oroya to the mines, completing it in 1904 and inaugurated development work on scale. The $10,000,000 investment was eventually increased to $23,000,000. Mr. McCune remained at Cerro de Pasco as manager of the mines for several years, eventually selling out his interests. Van Slotten, whose fantastic stories of the wealth of Cerro de Pasco were the origin of this big industrial undertaking, came to a tragic death by his own hand ir. 1903 in Brooklyn. His brain had become affected, and where millions were concerned he talked of hundreds of millions. The Cerro de Pasco Mining Company, now
THE AWFUL BEAUTY OF KAIETUR The colony of British Guiana is traversed and intersected by a vast network of waterways, consisting of several large rivers and their numerous tributaries, all of which flow into the Atlantic Ocean. The largest is the Essequebo, with a total length of 620 miles. Its principal tributaries are the Mazaruni, Cuyuni, Potaro, Sipuruni and Rupununi. The two first named are rivers of considerable importance, with extensive gold and diamond mines and deposits. The Potaro also has extensive gold deposits, and in its course is to be found the great wonder fall, Kaietur, the perfect cataract, five times higher than Niagara, with a perpendicular drop of 741 feet, and a series of cataracts below, making a further 81 feet. A distinguished visitor to the fall, describing his emotions on first viewing this mighty wonder, wrote: “Lying at full length on the ground, head over the edge of the cliff, I gazed down. Then, and only then, the splendid, and in the most solemn sense of the word awful beauty of the Kaietur burst upon me. Seven Tundred and fifty feet below, encircled by black bould ers, lay a great pool, into which the column of white water graceful as a ceaseless Aight of innuinerable rockets, thundered from my side. Behind the fall. through the thinnest parts of the veil of foam and mist, the great black cavern made the white of the water look yet more white. “My first sensations were of a terrible undefined fear. Those who visit the fall will understand, Gradually, however, these painful feelings gave way others of intense wondering delight; and the whole scene, the gigantic weird fall, the dark and slippery places below, the grass-covered rocks at the gate oi the amphitheatre, and beyond that the bright and thickly wooded valley of the winding river visible for many miles were revealed, never to be forgotten." The journey from Georgetown to Kaietur and back takes about ten days, but the scenery throughout is surpassingly beautiful, and worth every effort to make The trip includes in its itinerary a day's journey up the Demerara River to Wismar, the centre of the aluminum mining industry, and thence overland by rail to Rock stone on the Essequebo. Then, next day, up the mighty Essequebo, through scenes of enchanting loveliness to Tumatumari, a giant cataract whose roar can be heard for many miles around. After another night's rest on the banks of this fall. the journey is continued up the Potaro River and again overland, where methods of gold-mining may be seen. to a point higher up on the Potaro, then on amidst a regular fairyland of mountains and valleys, until the Kaietur Gorge is reached. The journey is next continued up to the Kaietur plateau, from which the fall can best be seen.
From a painting by Jesusa Alfau. Great Falls at Kaietur, Br. Guiana
hich is ay may wever, all his. elled in formed mances,
conscious to the pavement a short distance from his office. The Ambassador was carried in a passing auto. mobile to the hospital. Dr. Aldunate was in his sixtieth year. He had suffered two previous strokes. His wife and children were summoned, and remained with him until his death. He did not recover consciousness before he died. Dr. Aldunate came to Washington a year ago and had established himself in the favor of the diplomatic corps in the short period of his service here. He was born at Santiago and educated there. For many years he had been a Professor of Law in the University of
BOLIVIA'S NEW YORK CONSUL GOES TO LONDON AS MINISTER A cable from La Paz has announced the appointment of Señor Don Adolfo Ballivian as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Bolivia to Great Britain. For eight years this distinguished gentleman has held the post of Consul General of Bolivia at New York and is widely known and very popular in the United States. He comes of distinguished ancestry, both his father and grandfather having discharged the duties of President of Bolivia. Señor Ballivian himself has held many important posts in the service of his country, among them being those of Consul General at London, Secretary of Legation at London during the jubilee of Queen l'ictoria and chief of the boundary commission to settle the boundary question between Bolivia and Brazil. Page 26
ports subject to government licensing by the terms of the Espionage law, and imports similarly regulated under the terms of the Trading-with-the-Enemy act, foreign commerce has indeed been placed under a heavy load. There was the classified list (since expanded to include all exports) and the conservation list to be studied and observed. The latter includes articles whose export is flatly prohibited, unless they are to be used for war purposes. By way of relief, it was proposed that the government should abolish the licensing system as it applied to exports to nonEuropean neutrals and our allies, with the exception of articles on the conservation list. Other machinery, it was said, sufficiently safeguarded our products from reaching Germany, or aiding Germans in other countries. Here are some of the difficulties in the way of foreign trade, as summed up by the Foreign Trade Council: ‘The hazards of buying goods in this country for export have been so increased by the embargo that it has had a tendency to check foreign orders. As the government does not take cognizance of the date of contract, goods ordered before they are on the enumerated list may afterward be placed on that list and a license to export be refused. The manufacturer, in order to protect himself, demands a "firm contract,” with payment when the goods are ready for delivery. The railroads, before they will accept goods going to the seaboard for export, demand assurance that the shipper has cargo space reserved, and that he has an export license. The consequence is that the foreign buyer may find himself with goods on his hands in the interior, storage charges piling up, and unused cargo space to pay for.' Such are some of the handicaps under which American exporters are cheerfully working at present. They represent that phase of trade interference which each belligerent government has justifiably imposed. English and French shippers have suffered far more severely; Germany's trade has been annihilated. For these reasons, if for no others, the American trader has no word of complaint or bitterness." With the amazing rapidity with which events of the greatest moment become ancient history in this pushful community, the Convention at Cincinnati, as a festive reunion, is almost forgotten, though its influence will be felt for many months to come; and we therefore may be constrained to crave indulgence for this review, somewhat belated, though published at the first available opportunity. For the reproduction of some of the papers read by delegates we need tender no apology, as their value is no less to-day than a month ago, and their merit commands the publicity which we deem it a privilege to give them. In making our choice, we have naturally been guided by the adaptability of subject matter to our own field of action-Latin America,
Subscriptions may be booked and copies of THE SOUTH AMERICAN and EL NORTE AMERICANO be purchased in Latin-America from the following special agencies: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Crashley & Co., Rua do Ouvidor, 58. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Juan Geranakis, 25 de Mayo, 294. Bogotá, Colombia: José M. Restrepo-Millán, Apartado 229. Lima, Peru: Soto y Baguet, “La Propaganda Comercial." Arequipa, Peru: Manuel M. Chávez, "El Pueblo." Vera Cruz, Mexico: Eduardo Aguirre, Constitution 33. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico: Genaro Cosgaya, Casilla 85. Santo Domingo: M. Flores Cabrera, “Renacimiento." Montevideo, Uruguay: Alfredo Vidal Alfaro, Colon 1275.
truth, but one rich in compensation, and well fitted for this nation grown too great to live chiefly on the barter of the land's teeming produce. All the markets of the world were eagerly demanding America's gigantic surplus, and were paying for it with streams of gold. This year how greatly has the situation changed, and how complex has become the moral obligation of this country's export trading communities! The one great fact that we are at war overshadows all other considerations a thousand-fold. Not one of our allies' myriad fighting men must go hungry into battle, nor when stricken on the field of honor, want for America's good cotton bandages to bind up the wound. Guns, ammunition, aeroplanes and clothing must go in ever increasing quantities to the hard-pressed battleline of glorious France, where soon our own sons will render welcome assistance to crush the enemy. But still South America cries “Send us coal and machinery so that we too may help in the cause of democracy," and the West Indies and Asia eagerly offer their produce if we will send ships to fetch it, loading them with the manufactured goods upon which they have been accustomed to rely for centuries past. This is practically a new business for the United States, but the response has been magnificent. From the port of New York alone 46,000 vessels have cleared during the period since August, 1914, carrying seventeen billion dollars' worth of goods, eighty per cent of which were consigned to those nations which are to-day our allies. But the enemy's toll on the world's mercantile marine has been such that a danger point of depletion would long ago have been in sight, had not the one great power with the available resources buckled down to the tremendous work of reconstruction, not hull by hull in the usual stately measure of such titanic craftsmanship, but in fleets and flotillas like the deft handiwork of the toy-boat maker. By leaps and bounds the record of American exports has risen to undreamed-of dimensions, absorbing and surpassing Germany's output before the war, but still insufficient to meet the clamor of the great consuming markets of South America. To obtain the best results from greater efforts organization and co-operation are above all needful. The fifth National Foreign Trade Convention was equipped and competent to face these great problems without precedent in the history of any country in the world. A most impressive feature of the Convention was the character of the delegates. The printed list shows over thirteen hundred names; and the companies represented, usually by high executives, were the most important in the United States. When men like A. S. Bedford, President of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, James A. Farrell, President of the United States Steel Corporation, and dozens of other representative men controlling our foremost industries, give the time, not only to attend the conferences, but also personally to read papers for discussion, prepared in advance with that knowledge of the subject which only their great experience is able to acquire, the fact speaks volumes for the importance of the occasion. There were present prominent men from every section of the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf. The list reads like a Blue Book of Big Business, and the subtle environment of personality left the conviction that this foreign trade of America contains unbounded potentiality. To illustrate the spirit of the Convention and the dominant optimistic note, in spite of the tremendous difficulties in the way, S. Palmer Harman writes to The Evening Post in part as follows: “To the convention was imparted a great deal of the breeziness and simple directness which are sure to be in evidence where men of the West and the Middle West are assembled. They were goodnatured and optimistic, frankly pleased with the progress which they had already made in sending their products overseas, but impatient for larger results and at times impatient of mere theorizing and discussion. There were few dominating figures in that democratic body. James A. Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corporation, could not have retained his unquestioned popularity had he attempted any of the 'frills' and aloofness which are sometimes associated with the conventional 'captain of industry.' He never failed to get a round of applause when he rose to speak at the chairman's table. An occasional shout, 'Hurrah for Ireland!' testified that the regard felt for him by the delegates was sometimes of a very personal sort. “Anyone who can carry on foreign trade at present won't have much trouble in carrying it on after the war,' one man remarked. That was his way of summing up the difficulties, which everybody recognized as unavoidable and necessary, thrown in the way of commerce by the Government's restrictions. With ex
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Thirty years ago the foreign commerce of the United States was infinitesimal compared with that of the other great powers; twenty OUR PROGRESS IN years ago the pioneers of FOREIGN TRADE American export trade were still struggling to attract general public attention; ten years ago this had become a force to be reckoned with; and now, fathered by the men who have grown grey in the service, foreign trade is a great factor in the American business world, and one which the government is being called upon to assist in every possible way. This fact is now so well recognized that senators and congressmen of the future will most readily win renown, and best serve their constituents by supporting the measures which foreign trade merchants and manufacturers propose for their own protection. The evolution of American foreign trade has naturally created a demand for associations established for its defence and encouragement. Some ancient foundations have been adapted for this purpose; some new fraternities have been formed. Of the former the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and the National Association of Manufacturers are good examples; and of the latter the American Export Manufacturers' Association and the National Foreign Trade Council rank first. The co-operation of all of these has made possible the great annual National Foreign Trade Convention, which, for the fifth consecutive time met, in April of this year, at Cincinnati, Ohio. At the last meeting of the Convention, held at Pittsburgh in January, 1917, the program was simple enough. All the other great powers were at war, and unable to produce sufficient food and manufactures for the consumption of the world. This duty naturally fell upon the shoulders of the United States-a tremendous task, in
Since we went to press last month two more of the Latin American Republics have joined the Allied Cause, which now counts GUATEMALA AND NICARA- on the active coGUA HAVE DECLARED WAR operation of Bra zil, Cuba, Panama, Guatemala and Nicaragua in the war with Germany. Guatemala severed diplomatic relations with Germany on April 27, 1917, and on the 22nd of the same month in this year declared war, an act which not only secures for us the definite support of the most important Central American state, but also completes the fence along Mexico's frontiers. Nicaragua broke off relations on May 18, 1917, and declared war on May 7, 1918. With a territory of 48,290 square miles, and a population of over 2,000,000, Guatemala is by no means a military power, but is constitutionally equipped with laws permitting the mobilization of citizens between the ages of 18 and 50, while sustaining a permanent standing army of 85,500 officers and men. The government consists of a benevolent autocracy similar to that which did so much for the progress and prosperity of Mexico during the rule of President Porfirio Diaz; the present executive, President Manuel Estrada Cabrera having held the reins of power for the past eighteen years, in spite of all attempts to overthrow him by revolution or assassination. As the important coffee plantations of Guatemala have been largely under the control of German capital, the new status of this republic will add considerably to the commercial tribulations of our enemy. Nicaragua, the twentieth nation to declare war against Germany, is a little larger in area than Guatemala, but numbers only about 700,000 inhabitants. A force of United States marines have been maintained in the country since 1913 to suppress disorder. Military training is compulsory between the ages of seventeen and fifty-five.
The Influence of the Demobilization of War Industries upon World Commerce A Problem of Vital Interest to Latin America
By CHARLES M. MUCHNIC, Vice-President of American Locomotive Sales Corporation
An address delivered at the Fifth National Foreign Trade Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio.
HEN your Chairman assigned to me this subject for discussion I protested that it might seem out of place to talk about after war world commerce at a time when our nation is straining every nerve and resource in a life and death struggle with a formidable and an unscrupulous enemy. He soon convinced me, however, that the National Foreign Trade Council would be delinquent in its duties if it did not take advantage of this Convention to stimulate the thought of all those here present on the problems and the new conditions which will confront us when a just peace has been attained and international world commerce re-established. The normal foundations of international commerce were rudely shaken after the outbreak of the war in 1914 and have since, with the entry into the conflict on the side of the Allies of Japan, China, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Cuba and ourselves, been completely destroyed. The part played heretofore by the individual merchant, manufacturer, ship owner, or exporter has for the time being been suspended and the State has become supreme in every field of activity and enterprise. The normal flow of commerce between Allied and neutral countries has virtually disappeared and in its place a scheme of international barter in commodities is in effect today with the governments designating through their War Trade Boards, War Industries Committees or Boards of Trade, the quantity and character of the national products that are permissible to export or import to and from a given country. The industries of this, the Allied and the Central Powers are at this date completely mobilized for the production of ammunition and war requisites for the armies in the field and for the war and merchant Aeets on the high seas. Every industry capable of producing articles required for the prosecution of the war has had its entire productive capacity absorbed by government contracts. Other industrial establishments modified their plants to make them suitable for the production of articles of war, and with government aid or under government supervision many new industries were established. The production of the so-called nonessential industries has been either greatly curtailed or completely suppressed. The frightful consumption of war materials that has been going on for nearly four years in this greatest of all wars, and the concomitant destruction of whole towns, plants and railways, found the industrial nations of the Allies during the first months of the war incapable of replenishment without materially expanding their industrial plants. England, France and particularly this country were totally unprepared for the manufacture of the kind and quantity of war materials required in modern warfare and it devolved upon these governments to create new and gigantic industries to meet the urgent demands for the armies in the field and for the navies on the seas. What has been accomplished in this direction by England, France and Italy staggers the imagination and when the great ship yards, ammunition plants, aeroplane works, powder plants and numerous other war industries undertaken by our own government are completed our productive capacity will have reached a magnitude undreamed of as possible befor the war. I am reliably informed that 30,000 of our industrial plants are at present engaged either exclusively or to a very great extent in producing articles for the War and Navy Departments. Under the stimulus of war contracts our annual output in steel has risen from 32,000,000 tons in 1913 to 43,000,000 tons at the end of 1917. The present mobilization of our industry is perhaps best illustrated by the following brief official statement concerning contracts placed by the Ordnance, Navy and Transportation Departments. For the execution of most of these contracts entirely new plants and new organizations had to be created. On April 6th, the first anniversary of our entrance into the World War, our ordnance program included the purchase of 23,000,000 hand grenades, 725,000 automatic pistols, 250,000 revolvers, 23,000,000 projectiles for heavy artillery, 427,246,000 pounds of explosives, 240,000 machine guns and 2,484,000 rifles. Machine guns are now produced at the rate of 225,000 a year, 3-in. or 75 m.m. guns at the rate of 15,000 a year.
The mobilization and expansion of English industries has been carried out on an equally large scale. Prior to the war the output of steel in England has been more or less stationary for many years and averaged about seven million tons. England is producing today at the rate of eleven million tons per annum. Simultaneously with the creation of an army estimated at six million men, England was compelled to build plants for the manufacture of all war requisites. To produce on as large a scale as is required in this present conflict, English industries were not quite so well prepared as those of the United States and that government therefore decided on building great national factories for the manufacture of shells, guns, cannons, aeroplanes, tanks, trucks, powder, various explosives, potash and optical glass, in which tens of thousands of men and women are employed by the State. The rapid increase in production of these national factories could perhaps best be illustrated by taking one item, such as the manufacture of munitions, which increased 300 times between June, 1915, and June, 1917. It has been justly stated that this war represents not only a gigantic struggle of armies on the battlefield, but likewise of industries, and England, France and the United States, as well as Italy, were compelled to expand and create industrial armies especially trained to produce war materials and on a scale heretofore unknown. To replace the millions of workmen withdrawn from the industrial ranks for service in the army and navy and at the same time increase production presented a serious industrial problem. It was apparently satisfactorily solved in England and France through the employment of women. In both countries from 60 to 80 per cent of the machine work on shells, fuses and trench warfare supplies is now performed by women. They have been trained in aeroplane manufacture, in gun work and in almost every other branch of manufacture. The questions naturally arise—What will become at the termination of the war of the splendidly equipped industrial plants created by the war and the large in-' dustrial armies. What effect will they have upon international commerce after peace has been established? Will there be a surplus of production, and if so what bearing will it have upon the competition for commercial supremacy in the neutral markets of the world between the industrial nations now engaged in this war? Shall we return to the individual effort and competition as they existed before the war or shall we have to compete with co-operative combinations under State control? Will there be a continuation of the co-operation in the production of articles of peace, between ourselves and our Allies to the same extent as the co-operation is carried on today in the production of articles of war? These and many other questions crowd the mind as we endeavor to project our thought into the unknown future and attempt to find some premise from which we could reason out or assume the conditions that would then exist and prepare ourselves to meet them the best we can. We are traveling uncharted seas and no one can tell or predict what kind of problems we shall have to meet when this world struggle is ended. World commerce and world competition at the termination of the war will depend, in my opinion, to a very large extent on the statesmanship and farsightedness of the men who are to draw up the articles of peace; upon the new treaties of commerce to be drawn up between the nations of the two belligerent groups as well as between the nations composing each group. It is unthinkable to me that after fighting for months or years shoulder to shoulder with our gallant Allies against a common enemy we would, upon the return of peace, engage in a ruthless international competition such as characterized our international commerce prior to the war. Whatever may happen, however, the demobilization of the war industries from among all the belligerent nations will, I believe, find the United States best prepared to meet the demand for articles of peace from the countries that were destroyed and devastated by the war, as well as from the neutral nations of the world who are at present unable to obtain the very necessities
When war was declared, 123 naval vessels were building or authorized; contracts were placed since for 949 vessels. Six new authorized battleships designed to be of 41,500 tons, largest battleships in the world. Our 35,000 ton cruisers, thirty-five knots, will be the fastest in the world. To February 20, Director General of Military Railways placed orders for supplies valued at $142,000,000 and with an aggregate weight of 754,000 long tons; the General Engineering Depot to February 1st, issued 9,500 orders for material valued at $202,000,000. The above indicates only the magnitude of the contracts of the Ordnance, Navy and Transportation Departments. The contracts for clothing, various supplies and other army and navy requisites are doubtless of as large a magnitude. With respect to our Emergency Fleet program, Mr. E. N. Hurley, Chairman of the U. S. Shipping Board, recently made this interesting and encouraging statement: “The total amount of our steel construction on March 1st was 8,205,708 deadweight tons. This was made up of 5,160,300 deadweight tons under contract with the Emergency Fleet Corporation and 3,045,488 deadweight tons of requisitioned vessels. Of this total steel construction 2,121,568 deadweight tons, or approximately 28 per cent, has been completed.” In addition to the above, provision has been made for producing 2,300,000 deadweight tons of wooden ships annually. To produce the above tonnage new shipyards were created on the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern seaboards as well as on the Great Lakes. The following table gives in condensed form the growth and expansion of shipbuilding industry during the period of our participation in the war: Plants One Year Ago Today Wooden yards.. 24 81 Steel shipways. 162 398
Total yards..... Wooden shipways.. Steel shipways....
Total shipways.... Workmen employed....
for their economic life, and for which they heretofore depended upon us and our Allies. One of the principal weapons we are now forging and which is considered indispensable for bringing victory to the Allies, will prove upon the return of peace to be the most potent factor in re-establishing quickly our commercial intercourse with the entire world. I refer to our great shipping program. At every convention we previously held the crying want of an adequate American Merchant Marine for the promotion of our Foreign Commerce has been discussed and plans for its creation have been advocated and suggested. The most fantastic dreamer could not have believed that within the span of a few years this country will possess a mercantile fleet that will rank second only to that of the oldest maritime nation, our ally, Great Britain. The shipbuilding industry on its present scale has been created as a war measure but will never be demobilized with the return of peace. On the contrary it will grow and expand and will take its proper place among the vital and essential agencies in the expansion and promotion of our foreign commerce. The American manufacturer and exporter has already become emancipated for all time to come from the German steamship owner. He will no more be dependent upon a competing nation to deliver his wares to his foreign clients. We shall do our own delivering and every steamer entering a foreign port in a far away country to deliver the products of our industries will also bear to our foreign friends our message of good-will, of our desire to serve and to trade. Because of the magnitude of our industrial plant and its ready adaptability toward the production of materials of war, the transformation toward the production of articles of peace will be effected with greater rapidity than will be possible by any other of the belligerent nations. It was found in numerous instances that the Government's war program for guns, shells, aeroplanes, etc., could be met much more promptly by building and equipping new and specially designed plants than transforming existing works and so our War Department has wisely sought not so much the existing plants but the successful industrial organizations which were entrusted with the building and operating of the new plants. In this manner there have grown up throughout the country alongside the old plants, designed and equipped for the production of articles of peace, new extensions exceeding in magnitude and capacity the existing works and in which the war materials are being produced on a constantly increasing scale. The demobilization of such plants should not, therefore, entail any delay whatsoever in the production of articles of peace, but would, on the other hand, permit of meeting the large demand for all we can produce immediately after the war and allow of a gradual change in the equipment of the war plants with a consequent gradual increase in our capacity of production. This readjustment from a war to a peace basis of production will in all probability be carried out by the very same organizations that built and managed such plants during the war period, which fact should insure its being effected in the briefest period possible. Neither the Central Powers nor our Allies are fortunate in this respect as we are. In England as I have already observed, great national factories have been established and are operated by the State. They represent greater concentration of the manufacture of munitions and other war requisites than in this country, making, therefore, their transition from a war to a peace production a much more difficult and slower task. It was England's best solution under the circumstances, however, particularly when we bear in mind the fact that prior to the war most of England's industrial establishments were of comparatively small proportions and did not lend themselves toward expansion and production on an increasingly larger and larger scale of the war materials required. All their existing plants were of course utilized by their War or Munitions De
partments during the first year of the war but it was soon found necessary to build and establish great plants equipped for large and rapid serial production such as have in the past been developed in this country by many of our industries, notably the automobile. American engineers were invited to co-operate with the British engineers in putting up these great workshops. The Rt. Hon. Christopher Addison, in a speech in the House of Commons on the work of the Ministry of Munitions, on June 28, 1917, said “the designing and equipment of these national factories were undertaken by Mr. Quinan, the American engineer, and in the great works of Queensferry, Gretna and elsewhere we have become possessed, through Mr. Quinan's genius, of factories which to a very large extent will be of permanent value to peace industries." The following extract from his address is interesting because what he says applies with equal force to our own as well as France's redemption of neglected opportunities: “In some instances, vital to the prosecution of the War and to the maintenance of improved peace industries, we had allowed the Germans to acquire control, either of the whole industry or of some part of it which was essential to its continuance. We have steadily overcome these drawbacks, but it is almost impossible to describe the handicap they have been. In overcoming this, however, we have been awakened to some of our neglected opportunities and have founded and will be able to found with proper direction-great new industries and extensions on a vastly improved scale of old ones. Should the war last, we ought to find ourselves next year with a capacity of steel production more than 50 per cent greater than it was before the war, with modern coke ovens, equipped with recovery plants, with knowledge of how to extract and use the valuable by-products, with groups of blast-furnaces. steel furnaces and rolling mills arranged on a big scale, suitably situated and co-ordinated with one another. Instead of being able to produce at home about onethird of the spelter that national industries require, we should have a capacity for producing two-thirds or Instead of having to look to Germany for our fertilizers, we should be able to produce at home spelter and acid and fertilizers and many other products related to these trades by modern, economical and efficient methods on a vastly augmented scale. "We were dependent upon Germany for the potash so vital to some of our industries and to our agriculture. The story of glass and dyes is so well known that I need do no more than refer to it, and the catalogue could be continued to a great extent." The war has forced upon England and France the eventual abandonment of the extreme individualism and the small unit of production. The great national factories have demonstrated to these nations that concentration of production and a certain measure of central control afford results and opportunities unobtainable by their pre-war industrial organizations. That this revelation to the British and French nations will have a far reaching effect upon our international commerce at the termination of the war cannot be doubted. Their national war industries works represent not only great financial investments but are relied upon to help quickly rehabilitate their commerce and repair their fortunes. I cannot see that we need have any apprehension from British or French competition—the world demand for products of peace at the termination of the war will be great enough to tax the capacity of all the available productive plants in this and the Allied countries. Still less need we fear competition from Germany upon the return of peace. Germany to-day and at the termination of the war, whether in the immediate or distant future and whatever the result, is economically, commercially and morally bankrupt. Her large mercantile fleet which it took years to build up and develop is practically gone; her industrial plants are denuded of the raw materials which she must import
from the countries which she is now fighting and without which she cannot resume the manufacture of most of the peace products; her commercial and financial organizations in her enemy countries have completely disappeared and in the few neutral countries of the world they are gradually but effectively succumbing to atrophy, never to be revived to their pre-par importance and standing. This war has lifted the veil from the eyes of the civilized world and for the first time it can behold the faithless, unscrupulous, cruel, arrogant and bombastic Germany! In saying this I am fully mindful of the following splendid passage in President Wilson's address on April 6: "We are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all others. There can be no difference between peoples in the final judgment, if it is, indeed, to be a righteous judgment. To propose anything but justice, even-handed and dispassionate justice, to Germany at any time, whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dishonor our own cause." And yet, however charitable we might feel toward the German nation and generous toward it in our final reckoning with it we must realize that the word “German" to-day and for generations to come will be synonymous with or the byword of everything that is dishonest, shameful, faithless and unscrupulous. You and I who have spent many years in foreign travel in the interest of our foreign commerce, know the value the personal equation and integrity of the man who represents a national enterprise play in the promotion of our commercial relations. The revelations since our entry into the war of the German selfish, underhanded methods pursued in all its diplomatic and commercial dealings with the Latin American countries, the base betrayal of their confidences and the insolent statement by its Ambassador to the Argentine, Count von Luxburg, that "All the South Americans are but Indians with a thin veneer of civilization," will not induce the proud Chileno, the self-respecting Brazilian, the cultured Argentine, or any of the other just and peace loving South Americans to open the arms of welcome to the German merchant, manufacturer or banker at the termination of the war. Mutual confidence and respect are the cornerstones of international or foreign commerce and Germany having removed them from its foundation, her entire commercial structure has perforce crumbled to destruction. Germany stands today self convicted and it will take generations for her to again build up the confidence of the world which will be so essential to her survival. Nor has the Far East forgotten that it was the same German Kaiser who four years ago plunged the world into this frightful cataclysm, that invented the phrase and announced to the world the false doctrine of the "Yellow Peril.” Through his government's base and unscrupulous intrigue, which happily now stands clearly revealed before the entirworld, he sought to create national hatred and antagonism between the East and West. Germany to-day is as discredited in the Far East as she is in North and South America or in any other civilized part of the world. We can point with pride to our own high standing which is in striking contrast to that of Germany. We have the good will of the world, the material, plant, organization, ships and foreign banks and it is my belief that after the termination of the war we shall enter upon an era of world commerce which will eclipse all pre-war records or expectations. The war has stimulated and expanded the industrial productive capacity of the belligerent nations. It has created new and enlarged its old industrial armies. It has provided the transportation facilities for great international commercial intercourse and consequently upon the return of peace the demobilization of the war industries should quicken the pace and enlarge the scope of the international commerce of the world.
Parts of an Address Delivered at the Dinner of the Fifth National Trade Convention at Cincinnati, Ohio By JAMES A. FARRELL, President of the United States Steel Corporation; Chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council.
-o discussions have figured more prominently at Foreign Trade Conventions during the past four years than those whose subject and motive have been the great question of American shipping. When the war has been won and a vast fleet of modern steamers returns to the use of peaceful ocean merce the danger of our foreign trade being hampered by the lack of bottoms to carry it will have finally passed away. But the autonomous control of our foreign-going shipping is only one of the requisites for the gaining and keeping of overseas commerce. By all the industrial nations of the world vast preparations are already being made for participation in the economic contest that will ensue for trade in the world's markets. The problems which, before our entry into the war, were peculiar to the belligerent nations are now our own problems—the employment of returned soldiers; the displacement or further utilization of female labor; the conversion of war industries into agencies for the fabrication of articles for peaceful consumption; the readjustment of the complex machinery of finance so as to conform to the requirements of a world, a large part of which will be staggering under a load of taxes and in which the neutral nations will be seeking for financial support for the maintenance and expansion of their industries. There can hardly be a question that for a good many years after peace is restored the rehabilitation of the vast territory wasted by war and the replacement in neutral countries of equipment which has necessarily suffered from deterioration while replacements have been impossible will provide a large outlet for surplus production. Moreover, the creation of conditions, hitherto non-existent, of equal opportunity for international commerce and industrial enterprise should so quicken the world's demand for manufactured products as to insure a long period of industrial prosperity. Much will, of course, depend on the character of the terms of peace; but if these are such as to relieve the small nations from any fear of their more powerful neighbors and to leave every country free to follow its natural development along the line of least resistance, we shall see such an increase of the world's wealth as will go far to compensate for the appalling destruction which the last four years have witnessed. America, it may be hoped, will maintain the position of offering to the world all its requirements which can be supplied here, on terms and conditions that are fair and just. There is no evidence now of any intention to take undue advantage of our economic and productive strength, and we shall in the future be as little disposed to turn to personal profit the necessities of a warworn world, or the exceptional influence of our position as exporters and importers. The sacrifices that are being cheerfully endured to-day by men engaged in foreign commerce in the necessary curtailment of their business through the conservation of shipping, are an earnest of the elevation of method and of purpose which will control the conduct of our external trade in the near future. Now that Congress has at last recognized the necessity of legalizing combinations for export trade, the field ought to be open for the participation
of hundreds of small manufacturers who have not hitherto been able to enter it. One of the greatest of after-war problems must be the employment of surplus labor and the utilization of the surplus products of industry. Organizations should also be perfected in every line of American production seeking foreign trade, so that no matter to what extent they may desire to co-operate under the provisions of the Webb-Pomerene Law, they may at least co-operate to the fullest extent in securing information respecting foreign conditions and competition, in regard to the demand for our products abroad and the proper utilization in import and export trade alike of our enlarged merchant marine. At the present moment, our foreign trade, both export and import, is inevitably restricted by the scarcity of steamers available for service other than that of transporting our armies to France and of keeping them and our Allies supplied with necessary food and munitions. This condition is likely to continue until the additional tonnage under construction becomes available. There are, however, certain commodities, procurable only from overseas countries, which are essential to the successful prosecution of the war. We constantly need as raw materials in our manufactures, and particularly for the production in sufficient volume of munitions, as well as for the consumption of our own people, replacing domestic products which we send to our Allies: Meat, rubber, coffee, cocoa, hides and manganese ore from Brazil; wool, meat, hides and wheat from Argentina; copper, cotton (of the long stapled variety) and sugar from Peru; copper, tin and rubber from Bolivia; nitrates, copper, wolfram, tungsten and other ores from Chile; tin and rubber from the Malay peninsula; jute and jute bags from India—and this by no means exhausts the category. Such is the usual urgency of our need of these commodities, or most of them, that the Government must provide, to the extent permitted by the other requirements of the war, steamers for the purpose of importing them. The possible export trade with the countries from which these products must come is, therefore, at present limited to the available space on such steamers as the Government may be able to provide for the import trade; and until such time as new tonnage become available, there can be no increase or expansion of our export trade with these markets. In the meantime there is obvious necessity that we should prepare against the time when the present restrictions have been removed and adequate transportation facilities are again available. With our enormously increased capacity in manufactures, and the natural products of our mines, farms and forests which we shall have to spare, added to the necessity for the employment of our merchant marine which should amount by the end of next year to at least ten million tons of shipping, we shall be urgently in need of foreign markets, Our European competitors, past and future, notwithstanding the tremendous demands upon their energies and resources which the prosecution of the war involves, are not neglecting to prepare for the foreign trade of a time of peace. In England, a department of the Government, the Ministry of Reconstruction, with
the assistance of committees composed of competent experts in their particular fields, is devoting itself, among other things, to the consideration of practical ways and means of extending and developing foreign trade after the war. It is said that Germany has already taken steps, in the building of a new merchant marine, to render herself independent of the shipping of foreign countries, even though she should find herself at the end of the war bereft of that large part of her feet which was interned in foreign ports. It is certain that the German organization of banks and mercantile houses which, before the war, was co-extensive with the world, is still practically intact in South America and other markets in which we are particularly interested. We may reasonably expect that to the extent she is able to recover, be it soon or late, her trade connections and to repair her diminished man-power, Germany will be as potent a competitor for the markets of the world as she was before. One imperative duty of gatherings like this is therefore to impress upon the people of the United States the immediate necessity of mobilizing their surplus resources as a preparation for the demands of the foreign trade of the immediate future. It may well be that after the war has been brought to a successful termination, we may be able to speak in terms of co-operation, on the broadest and most generous scale, with the manufacturers and producers of our present Allies, rather than in terms of keen competition. But effective co-operation can be rendered only if we have first organized among ourselves a co-operative system of foreign commerce. It would merely be to pay a decent regard to the ethics of international intercourse if we bear in mind that we have had, since the Civil War, the use of foreign ships in carrying up to 90 per cent of American overseas commerce. It would subserve the interest of foreign buyers, besides displaying a courteous regard for the necessities of competing foreign nations, if we did our best to make good the losses our foreign competitors have suffered in the destruction of their own shipping. This proceeds on the assumption, which I should regard as an entirely probable one, that the end of the war will find us with a supply of ocean-gong vessels somewhat in excess of the requirements of any expansion of exports which may be neces. sary to provide employment for our surplus labor and markets for the products of our surplus industry. As we have willingly devoted our lives and our fortunes to the cause of the Allies, who have already given most of their wealth to carry on, in our behalf as in their own, this titanic struggle for liberty and freedom, it would be a natural corollary to this joint enterprise that there should evolve at the end of the war a definite plan of co-operation in the financing of foreign enterprises. When we consider that the loans already advanced to its Allies by the United States aggregate some six billion dollars and that their end is not yet; when we take into account the equal generosity of the British to their Allies, and the load of taxation which must be borne by all of the belligerents for generations to come, it is evident that the future of foreign commerce must be largely identified with international co-operation in finance,
A New Gateway to the Heart of South America Containing a Description of the Famous
AR away in a semitropical jungle where the quietude is broken by the ceaseless roar of one of the world's greatest cataracts, a small party of men have been toiling for several years. They have been endeavoring to open a gate way, so to speak, to virgin lands where nature supplies productive soil, but where man with his modern methods of transportation facilities is almost an unknown factor. The result of these years of labor is a short railroad, only about 3? miles in length, an insignificant work, aside from future commercial aspects and the fact that it was necessary to transport materials and supplies long distances, making construction tedious and unduly expensive. So secluded have been these railroad builders and the enterprise so overshadowed by international events on land and sea that it is almost unknown outside the region of activity. But the work is now consummated, a gateway is open and the modern locomotive draws cars of freight around the falls of Guayra Five years ago one of the leading corporations engaged in yerba mate production in this region, the Empresa Matte Larangeira, decided to establish rail communication between the upper and lower waters of the Alto Paraná, a river at least 1,600 miles long, linking a vast unknown area with civilization. The Alto Paraná rises in the Brazilian State of Goyaz, Aows southeastward, receiving many smaller streams before it joins the La Plata system near Corrientes, Argentina. Unfortunately for the steamboat man, who abhors river obstructions, but fortunately for the lover of nature's marvels or he who would develop gigantic electrical power, the Alto Paraná is obstructed by at least two great cataracts. It is around the most southern cataract, or the falls of Guayra, that the little railroad was recently completed. Before considering some of the features of development of this region and the modernizing influences of the railroad, let us glance at the Alto Paraná itself. Anyone who has been a longdistance voyager on the lower reaches of this stream is likely to retain vivid impressions of his experiences, and among experiences which stand out boldly in the memory are the river's unusually winding course and treacherous currents, the primeval solitudes of its wooded shores, and the marvelous navigating ability of the native boatmen who man the little steamers that ply up and down its course. From the mouth of the Alto Paraná at Corrientes to the head of stream navigation, a distance approximating 500 miles, there are two stages of river transportation, viz., from Corrientes to Posadas (vessels drawing 7 feet) and from Posadas to Puerto Mendes. Naturally, the larger boats ply between the firstnamed ports, covering the distance in about a day and a half. The second stage of the journey requires from three to four days, the steamers being of light. er draft but constructed with special reference to the strong and rapid cur. rents, which grow more difficult of navi. gation as the river is ascended. Let us suppose that we leave Cor rientes on the steamer Uruguayo, a comfortable little vessel which, with a sister boat, provides twice-a-week service to Posadas. The start is made at 7 a. m.. and shortly thereafter the traveler finds himself on a broad expanse of water more like lake than river. Paraguay lies on the north and Argentina on the south Steaming eastward the little Argentina
port of Paso de la Patria is soon reached, but our vessel only anchors briefly to send the mail and a passenger or two ashore. Conversing with fellow travelers the stranger learns that this is a his toric spot, hence Argentina has bestowed the patriotic name. For nearly 100 miles upstream the country is low lying and the river from 2 to 5 miles wide. On the occasion of which we write, however continued heavy rains (October) had caused the river to overflow its banks. inundating thousands of acres of territory of the two countries. Passing numerous little ports where the steamer makes short calls, we reach Posadas in the afternoon of the second day. This growing Argentine city of 10,000 population is the capital of the Territory of Misiones. The most noticeable features as observed from the river are the vast piles of quebracho and other logs, indicating lumbering activity, and the port improvements whereby the through trains from Buenos Aires to Asunción are ferried across the river to Embarcación in Paraguay. If close connection is made at Posadas the traveler ascending the Alto Paraná may leave within a day or two, possibly sooner, and then begins by far the most interesting stage of the upriver trip From a width of a mile or two the Paraná gradually narrows, and on either side of the river the shores become wooded and steep, and the few clearings in the forest or ports of call must look down upon rather than outward to the steamer. By and by the shores grow more dense with waving lines of bamboo. heavier timber being in the background The river's current has attained a velocity of five or more knots per hour, with countless swirls and treacherous cross currents, which test the skill of the boat's master and crew to the utmost limits. There are no habitations to be seen except at long intervals, and these are usually thatched-roof houses sheltering a few families which seem to be battling with nature to prevent complete obliteration by the encroaching forest At several of these clearings saw-mills have been introduced and there are modern buildings; at other ports the only business is that of growing and shipping yerba maté; there being good warehouses to shelter the product as it comes in and awaits shipment. Lumber and yerba then, and the workers connected therewith, are at present the main industries that provide cargo and passengers for the little steamers. Many rafts also are to be seen here and there along the river. containing thousands of logs en route downstream. As already observed, the Alto Paraná in this region is a swift, narrow, winding and somewhat dangerous river. The steamers tie up at convenient coves when daylight wanes and start forth again at the break of day. At night the boatmen are employed for a time in carrying aboard the vessel firewood used for steaming, previously cut in the forest and piled near the river. The lights upon the boat and those carried by the workers seem to serve well their double duty of lighting the forest path and frightening away any prowling animals, numerous along the river during the driest months of the year. On the forenoon of the fourth day after leaving Posadas our little steamer, the Iberá, sighted Argentina's flag and military outpost at Puerto Aguirre near the mouth of the Iguassú. The latter is the largest tributary of the Paraná, and it
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