The Modern Argentine (1907)
From Modern Argentina, the El Dorado of To-Day by W. H. Koebel, 1907.
From: 1907 C.E. To: 1907 C.E.
Location: Argentina
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Modern Argentina, the El Dorado of To-Day by W. H. Koebel, 1907.
When all is said and done, the most important feature of a country is represented by the people who dwell within it. For this reason it may be well to turn first of all to the inhabitants of this Southern Republic. From the point of view of nationality, the term Argentine embraces a wide field of humanity. The various communities that go to form the nation may be classified thus:
I. The descendants of the "Conquistadores" and of the subsequent Spanish immigrants who settled in the land during the period of the Spanish occupation.
II. The descendants of immigrants of other nationalities. The Basques, although they come from either slope of the Pyrenees, may come within this category. So far as predominance is concerned, the Italian greatly outnumbers the representatives of any other nation.
III. The Gaucho-Argentine, i.e., the descendants of those Spaniards and others who have intermarried with the Indians.
IV. The natives proper of Patagonia and of the Chaco. Except for picturesque purposes these may be considered as more or less of a negligible quantity.
V. The children of foreigners resident in the country. By Argentine law these latter, if born within the Republic, become its citizens from that fact alone.
It is from these elements that is formed the Argentine Nation, as it at present exists. An Olla Podrida of all nationalities, its composition is bewilderingly heterogenous. The result is, nevertheless, satisfactory. It is true that, up to the present, the vast amount of enterprise which has been lavished upon the country has been conducted almost entirely by foreigners. Indeed, it may be said that the Argentine more especially the landowner has floated to prosperity on the back of English capital and Italian labour. Yet the force of example and the spur of intermarriage has told. To use an Americanism, the Argentine is a live man in a live country.
The nation, of course, is still in the making. Indeed, it is possible even now to watch the formation of new communities which is actually in process. The development of social grades here vies in rapidity with the opening up of the land. As a natural sequence, the more picturesque attributes of the Argentines are becoming lost to sight beneath the spirit of hard and fast modernism. In common with every other Republic, Argentina possesses its aristocracy not that of the old Spanish regime, which is to all intents and purposes extinct, but a more recent upper ten of its own. It is primarily an aristocracy of money, yet it differs widely from the usual conception of the kind.
The Argentine magnate must not be confused with his harder-headed Northern brother who has attained his fortune only after strenuous commercial struggles. Unlike this latter, he has watched the automatic growth of a wealth for which he has to thank the continuous increase in the value of land; thus he has been content to study the politer arts, while his income waxed yearly more imposing through no effort of his own.
The grandfathers of these sons of fortune had doubtless no inkling of what lay in store for their descendants. Honest, frugal farmers who looked upon their broad lands as little beyond the source of food and shelter, they lived the simplest of lives, varied only by an occasional outburst of blood-letting. Then arrived the period when the land rose in price by leaps and bounds. An acre that would joyfully have been exchanged for an old sombrero became an asset of importance; a league that might have been diced for and lost with scarcely a pang, grew to represent a small fortune.
Thus Juan or Pedro became rich, though to all intents and purposes he remained in ignorance of the fact. To one of his simple nature the money possessed no value save to purchase better and larger herds. His own existence he continued precisely as before. It was left to his son to discover the wider significance of this fortune that had come to him, as well as the revelations which the exploration of the hitherto unknown outer world induced. To his son, in turn, the new order of affairs comes as a natural and accepted thing. Educated in Europe, he will visit Paris, London, and other centres periodically throughout his after life. He cultivates racehorses, plays golf and baccarat, shoots pigeons, and usually speaks two or three languages.
This uppermost stratum, in fact the last which Argentine society has flung up is, as a whole, well educated and sufficiently able to hold its own in any of the polished corners of the globe. It lives its life in an altogether up-to-date and European fashion, although many of its habits and customs, virtues and vices included, are more exotic and graceful.
Many have taken to sport, as we know it, with a profound enthusiasm. They are becoming more and more acquainted with the true spirit that contests of the kind demand. It is true that the desire to win at any cost has not yet been altogether eliminated.
The Argentine is, perhaps, just a little addicted to that "slimness" which permits the employment of a trick to win where he would otherwise have lost. But, if he occasionally resort to such practices, it is from no love of meanness itself. He takes something of an ancient Grecian pride in the cuteness of such performances. As likely as not, he will tell one about it afterwards, and expect one to laugh with him in appreciation of it.
The lives of these magnates lie in smooth and pleasant places. Each will own an establishment in Buenos Aires that ranks little beneath a palace. In his own winter he will frequently seek the European summer; in the hottest season he will retire to the cooler surroundings of his own estancia, and, should time chance to hang heavy upon his hands, he will buy a new race-horse, or dabble just a little in politics.
In eloquence, the modern Argentine has lost little of that fluency which distinguishes the old world Spaniard. He is much addicted to speechifying, and, so far as this is concerned, he is rather the gainer, for he possesses a sense of humour far more acute than any which his ancestors ever knew. In all things he aims at smartness, and usually attains that end with one notable exception. The appearance of his domestic staff leaves everything to be desired.
One may see a perfectly appointed carriage, for instance, whose appearance is marred by the slouching figure of an anarchistic looking person upon the box. It is much the same with all; valets, maidservants and grooms have, as a rule, the air of honest bourgeois, who wisely study comfort rather than appearances. How far this is the result of the Republican spirit or of mere slackness it is difficult to say.
In domestic life the Argentine, though a little prone to make his wild oats perennial, shows himself genuinely attached to his family. So much is this the case that he is frequently loth to permit marriage itself to sever the older standing ties. Thus it is no uncommon thing for an Argentine when he marries to espouse the whole of his wife's family as well as herself. A father-in-law will gladly add to his house or set apart a portion of it in order to meet -with the new arrangements. In this way a son or daughter-in-law becomes a genuine addition to the family.
So far as the Argentine ladies are concerned, their chief claim to distinction lies in their femininity, by which amongst other things it may be understood that they represent the antithesis of extreme athleticism. If one of these should chance to attempt golf she will succeed in footling her strokes in quite a pretty manner, indulging in many little protests concerning her complexion the while. She has suffered in the past, of course, restrictions similar to those imposed upon the sex in Spain.
She is, nevertheless, commencing to regard the Northern methods of camaraderie between men and women with less amazement than before. Indeed, that strictness of etiquette which has applied to herself is being insensibly relaxed. Boating excursions upon the River Tigre, the sands at Mar del Plata, and other occupations of a nature tending to modify the more adamantine conventionalities are commencing to show evidence of their work.
That these ladies are charming goes almost without saying. It has been reproached them that the neighbourhood of mid-day is a late one at which to rise, that a couple of hours spent on the toilet is too much, and that the rouge and powder puff which come into occasional use are unfair aids to beauty. Be that as it may, it must be admitted on the part of those who are free from prejudice that the end achieved justifies as a rule the means employed. The Argentine lady is a connoisseur both in beauty and in her own relation to the phase. She has made a study of herself and of her own points, from a feminine point of view very rightly. She is perfectly acquainted with what may be termed her leading feature, and arranges herself so that this is brought into the greatest prominence.
The lineaments of many of these ladies would seem to have been cast from one mould. To all appearances, moreover, intermarriage has, if anything, accentuated the almost perfect features and exuberant beauty of the traditional Spaniard. Her carriage is altogether graceful; she will glide through life in the manner of a swan until the ponderousness of a somewhat early maturity intervenes. If there is one thing which may be alleged against her it is the quality of her voice; this frequently falls far behind her other attractions in grace. The delivery is of the sing-song order, and, when excited, the timbre is inclined to be both raucous and nasal. But such a condition of affairs, if unfortunate, interferes not in the least with the metaphor of the swan.
She is a little prone to look upon the English girls with whom she comes into contact as fast if for no other reason than for the greater freedom of speech accorded the latter. But in this she is inconsistent, forgetful of the eloquence of her own eye, for this is the weapon of her choice. An Argentine girl can express in a couple of its flashes as much as many a northerner could articulate in a quarter of an hour. Once married, however, she becomes intensely domesticated, and worships her children with a whole-heartedness that is occasionally detrimental to the modesty of the younger generation.
These youngsters, as a general rule, are somewhat precocious and spoiled. It is the boast of an Argentine mother that the manners of her children even at the tenderest age befit them rather for the drawing-room than for the nursery. As a result, they are permitted to mingle at will in the amusements of their elders. The sight of a child of seven or eight years old perching his little body late at night in the midst of a dinner party at a restaurant is no uncommon one. Moreover, the youngster, fully appreciating the right, permits little conversation on any subject whatever without the expression of some more or less matured opinion of his own.
Indeed, this comradeship between infancy and middle age is occasionally carried to strange lengths. One may occasionally see Argentines even of the most advanced type playing baccarat for high stakes with the assistance of small boys in knickerbockers, who follow their fathers' luck with intense interest, and are by no means backward in offering suggestions concerning the play. But, with increasing years, and a course of European training, the youngster is wont to shape far better than might have been anticipated, until he is ripe for the assumption of his legitimate place in society.
Koebel, W. H. Modern Argentina, the El Dorado of To-Day. Francis Griffiths, 1907.
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