CHAPTER XX

ACROSS THE CONTINENT TO MENDOZA UNDER THE ANDES

The Buenos Aires and Pacific line across the continent from the Argentine capital to Valparaiso is a magnificent achievement in railway enterprise. Perhaps at no great distance of time the Pan-American railway will be completed and the traveller will be able to take the train at New York for Valparaiso and so to Buenos Aires, but as yet that line consists chiefly of missing links, and the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Company (which, curiously enough, happens to be English, not German), is the first in South America to join the oceans. To Mendoza the journey is easy and pleasant. The train leaves the Retiro station at Buenos Aires at 8 a.m. and reaches Mendoza early the next morning at about 5 a.m. The trains are extremely comfortable; the carriages are on the American plan and restaurant cars are attached; a reasonable amount of luggage is allowed. Only first and second (we should less logically say first and third) carriages are in use and the fares are high. They will doubtless be lowered when traffic increases; at present only three through trains are run a week. Compared with English trains they are not fast, but they are faster than the average of those of Continental Europe. Altogether the Buenos Aires and Pacific is a very fine line and under extremely efficient management.

The journey affords no feature of natural interest, for the country, covered with maize or grass, is extremely flat, but it is pleasant to see the evidences of wealth--noble cattle grazing in the fields, great flocks of sheep, and the heavy crops of grain. The general air of prosperity is the more pleasing to one who has recently passed through Brazil and seen there every sign of wretchedness. There are few towns of importance on the route; indeed, such as there are owe their consequence chiefly to the railway. This is the case with Mercedes, which was founded in 1856 as an outpost against the Indians, and their depredations were for a long time a bar to its prosperity. It is now a great railway junction. San Luis was a small village in 1788, and although it is now the capital of the Province, it has had an unfortunate history. Its sons fought valiantly for the independence of Chile and Peru, but during the civil wars, which were the result of the Rosas tyranny, its sufferings were far greater. Up till recently the female population far exceeded the male, and it was one of the poorest cities in Argentina. The situation is excellent; the town stands high with views of the snow-peaks of the Andes, and the country round about is well wooded. It may one day be a place of remarkable prosperity.

The train reaches Mendoza at an unconscionably early hour, and the cold and gloom prevent the formation of any impression about the beauties of the garden city. For South America, the Province and city of Mendoza are extremely ancient. It was in 1559 that Garcia de Mendoza, the Governor of Chile, sent Pedro Castillo with a small force to annex the district of Cuyo. This included not only Mendoza, but also the Provinces of San Juan and San Luis, and for more than two centuries it formed part of Chile, but the famous Decree of 1776 transferred it to the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires. During the Revolution it was divided into three provinces. Mendoza, the town, which is as old as the Province, was in the early part of the nineteenth century a beautiful place, extremely prosperous, and its _dolce far niente_ won the hearts of all who visited it.[140] But it was destroyed by one of the most terrible and devastating catastrophes that ever visited a community. It was the evening of Ash Wednesday, March 20, 1861, and the whole of Mendoza was at church. Suddenly a rumbling noise was heard, and in a moment the city was razed to the ground and thirteen thousand people destroyed. Barely two thousand escaped. One of the survivors was a gentleman named Don Jaime Albarracin, who has given a vivid account of the affair.[141] He tells how the weather had been sultry for some days. His family had gone to church and he was sitting at the window of his house talking to M. Bravard, the well-known French geologist, whose researches had led him to predict the destruction of Mendoza by earthquake. Don Jaime heard a crash and immediately found himself buried under the ruins of his house with a broken leg. Fires had broken out and raged all night within a short distance of him. All day long he remained there and for another night. "The horror of my situation was increased by a dreadful thirst; the very air I breathed was thick with dust and smoke. It seemed an interminable night. The second day I heard voices, and summoning all my strength, called out loudly for assistance. All was again silent for a couple of hours, till the afternoon, when I woke from a short sleep to hear footsteps quite close to me. The first man who approached me replied with a coarse insult when I begged him to lift the beam under which I lay. His comrades were no less inhuman, for they were one of the numerous gangs of banditti attracted like birds of prey to the scene of disaster. They had seen the flames afar off on the pampas, and came in scent of booty." Yet another night was passed, but on the following day he bribed a robber with his gold watch to lift him out of the debris, and finally he was taken to a hut. The fires continued to rage and they were followed by an unbearable smell from the decomposing carcases, and the survivors had to be carried away to farmhouses. The Governor perished, as also did the French scientist who made the all too accurate prediction. "So complete was the destruction, that when a new Governor was appointed a year later, and the site marked out for reconstruction, the Government could find no heirs or claimants on behalf of three-fourths of the families of the old city." The only vestige of old Mendoza that remains is the pillars of the Cathedral, to which is affixed the following tablet: "Ruinas del templo de San Augustin destruido por el terremoto del 20 de Marzo de 1861."

[Illustration: RIVER MENDOZA.]

The people of Mendoza are still very nervous about earthquake shocks, which occur frequently, but there has been nothing serious since 1861.

It is for this reason that the new Mendoza was laid out with very wide streets and roomy squares and almost all the houses were built of