BOOKS.
THE HEART OF SOUTH AMERICA.* OF the vast plains lying south of the Tropic of Capricorn, forming the drainage-area of the Paranit, we have but few descriptions, and these of a scanty and insufficient character. Travellers, like settlers, have found the Southern territories of the great Argentine Republic—thirteen times the size of Italy, with but one-thirteenth of the population of Italy—more attractive, as well as more accessible, than the great Northern Pampas extending from the Bolivian frontiers to the latitude of Buenos Ayres. That the broad waters of the Pernik are navigable by steamers up to its division into the Vermejo and the Paraguay, both of which rivers are, again, navigable for many hundreds of miles across the Gran Chaco on the one hand, and in the direction of the Brazilian frontier on the other ; while to. the naturalist and the ethnologist, the vast Eastern slopes of the Andes and Cordilleras, falling in a gentle descent to the Atlantic shore, a thousand miles away, offer endless and almost virgin fields of investigation, as the contents of the volume. before us amply prove.
Mr. Pelleschi, who is an Italian engineer in the service of the Argentine Government, modestly calls his book a sketch ; but it is no mere hasty record of trivial experiences and vague observa- tions. He saw much and saw accurately, and describes soberly and seriously the regions he visited and the races he came into- contact with, their speech, their ways, their ethics, religion, and social structure. The immense tract he traversed, though abundantly watered, is a comparatively rainless region during three-fourths of the year, and cultivation depends largely upon. irrigation. The rivers are fed by the snows of the Andes and their outliers, on whose lofty summits the vapour-laden westerly winds deposit the evaporation of the Pacific Ocean, and roll eastwards- to empty themselves into the Atlantic, after fertilising a continent. These mighty streams have singularly sculptured the surface- "of the land, especially in the Gran Chaco, the north-eastern portion of the territory, through which the Vermejo River runs south-easterly, in an extraordinarily tortuous course, to join the Parank. The easily erosible soil is removed from one bank of the river and spread as an alluvium on the other bank, thus. constructing a series of irregular terraces, afterwards variously altered and channelled in accordance with the original configura- tion of the surface and the extent of the annual inundations due to the joint operation of summer rains and the summer meltings of the Andes' snows. The changes thus produced proceed at an extraordinary rate. Thus, a few years ago the small town of Rivadavia stood on the banks of the Vermejo; now half a league of broad steps and terraces separate it from the stream. Of this immense region, the district of Oran, lying close to the Bolivian frontier, is the most fertile tract, and might be brought into. steam communication with Buenos Ayres, more than a thou- sand miles away, by simply dredging the bed of the Vermejo at certain points where sand has accumulated, an operation that, according to Mr. Pelleschi, would entail only a trifling cost. The town of Oran is the capital of the Gran Chaco, situate on the Vermejo, and destined, no doubt, to become the emporium not only of the commerce of the region, but of all Southern Bolivia as well. In 1871, the city, then containing some 4,000.
• Eight Months on the Ginn Chaco of the Argentine Republic. By Giovanni Pelleschi. London : Sampson Low and Co.
inhabitants, was destroyed by a terrible earthquake, only less terrible than the catastrophe that had overwhelmed the more southern city of Mendoza ten years earlier, and caused the death of 10,000 out of the 15,000 persons who formed its population.
When Mr. Pelleschi visited Oran in 1880, the city was still in ruins. "This corner of the Republic, however," he writes, "is an absolute garden." The air is fragrant with a thousand scents, flowers enamel the meads and cover the gigantic trees with their bloom, the plain on which the city stands is a marvel of fertility, abundantly watered and wooded, and on every side rise lofty mountains and lovely hills, clothed with dense forests to a great height. But from this glorious scene, where Nature displays herself on the grandest scale in all her abundance and beauty, man is well-nigh absent. Oran is the only centre of population of any importance. The estancias of the settlers follow the course of the rivers, and are rarely more than ten or twelve miles distant from one of the forts which, sparsely scattered over the territory, afford protection against the Indians, who still roam over its vast tracts virtual masters of the soil, though occasionally they will work at the sugar haciendas, or labour on the estancias. But to the Missionary Brothers, who are sent to make Catholics of them, they turn a deaf ear, and Mr. Pelleschi applauds their indifference. The Brothers are not popular, either, with the pobladores, or settlers ; though why this should be the case is not clear. Perhaps they omit to inculcate on the Indians the duty of working for the white man. Mr. Pelleschi comments, with a bitterness not altogether justifiable, upon the absurdity of supposing that "converts," besprinkled with holy water and taught to gabble a creed, are thus advanced one whit in the paths of civilisation ; at least, he must be in possession of very accurate information if he can be sure that this and this only is effected. The manners of the pobladores are by no means wanting in refine- ment. Women in particular are held in great respect. A common labourer, who acted as a guide to Mr. Pelleschi, after some months' absence from his home, asked his employer to:write a letter for him to his wife. When asked how the letter should be begun, "after a moment's thought he said, 'write, My esteemed lady.'" Mr. Pelleschi adds :—" This kind of tone is mutual—I do not say among the classes privileged by wealth and education, for these it is a matter of course, but among the lower classes, and even among the Indian nomads." It must be added, however, that the phrase is a common epistolary one in Spain.
These nomads, nevertheless, the author classes with the most barbarous peoples of the earth. An exhaustive study of their customs, social condition, and speech occupies half the volume, and forms a contribution of considerable value to South American ethnography and philology. None of the Argentine Indians can count beyond four, yet their languages, or rather dialects, are fairly copious, and provided with an ample inflec- tional system. They obey Caciques, or chiefs, in time of war, but in their tolderias, or villages, recognise no superiors. So prirnmval is their political state, that even within the tribes there is little coherency, and hardly any feeling of kindred or clanship. They have no music, no songs or chants, no idols, no worship, and no gods. Neither are they acquainted with the use of metals; their only tools are shells, fire-hardened stakes, tigers' teeth, and the jawbones of fishes, with which they contrive to shave them- selves. They do not practise agriculture, save on a very small scale, keep no domestic animals, and live chiefly on the wild produce of the earth, animal and vegetable. Nevertheless, in the scale of intelligence they are by no means low-placed ; their customs are not of a debased character, and they are neither cruel by nature nor markedly immoral in their lives. It is true they kill their prisoners, but this with nomads is almost a necessity. They do not appear to torture them. Probably they would gradually accept civilisation if they could be induced to depend more than they do upon agriculture. But the pobladores care- fully abstain from attempting to bring about a change in their habits that would create a formidable class of competitors for the possession of the land. And of themselves, so long as Nature affords them an easy sustenance, they are never likely to settle down to an agricultural life, while a pastoral one is not possible in the heart of South America. Some of their habits recall Polynesian customs. Thus they make a fermented drink by chewing the pods of the algorroba tree, a kind of mimosa common throughout the Northern tracts of the Republic, and mixing the salivated mass with a paste made of the pods beaten to powder
(also used to make a kind of bread), afterwards pouring water over the whole, and allowing it to stand for twelve hours. This beverage, called aloja, has a peculiar acid flavour, and Mr. Pelleschi prefers it to any wine he ever tasted. It has an enlivening rather than an intoxicating effect. The Indians are equally fond, however, of aguardiente, and will eat hemp till they are stupified. When an Indian wishes to marry, he paints his cheekbones, lips, and eyelids red. Among the Chiriguans, the lover also puts a bundle of wood and a roebuck at the door of the girl he hopes to make his wife. If with these materials she prepares a meal, he is accepted, shares the meal and takes possession of the lady. In the same tribe, when a child is born, the husband lies down by the side of the wife, and for three days is treated as if he were the mother, and for seven days more does no work. All the tribes practise tattooing, and try to make themselves look terrible to their enemies in war-time. They take scalps, sew them to a sort of twig hoop, and then use them as drinking-bowls. Their weapons are all of wood, bows and arrows, lances and clubs. Some of them use slings as well. They are not cannibals, nor do they practise human sacrifices, but they will eat the heart of a brave enemy to increase their own courage. Not only have no traces of idolatry been found to exist among them, but traces of fetishism seem to be equally absent. But they believe firmly in altots, or spirits, over whom the sorcerers, the medicine-men of the tribe, have more or less power. There are spirits of wind, storm, disease; and each man has a spirit that after death goes beneath the earth, living there pretty much the same kind of life the united body and spirit lived on its surface. The spirits do not appear to be worshipped at all ; the sorcerers rather control than seek to propitiate them. To the dead, considerable respect is paid. If the death takes place on the dead man's rancho, he is buried under it. It is important that this should be done, otherwise the ahot would wander about the rancho in a state of misery. If the death takes place away from home, the corpse is wrapped in a net and placed in a tree, sufficiently protected against condors and other birds of prey. When reduced to a skeleton, this is taken to the rancho and there buried. Often the body is enclosed in an earthenware jar, variously glazed and ornamented.
Mr. Pelleschi has a good deal to say about the languages spoken in the tracts he visited, especially the Mattacco language of the Gran Chaco Indians, which he appears to have made the subject of special study. It is surprising that he tells us nothing about the condition of his countrymen in the Republic, so many thousands of whom are each year added to its population. If the book is a translation, it is not a good one, and probably does considerable injustice to the author's literary faculty. It sins further in lacking a map ; and without an exceptionally good atlas at his elbow, the reader is constantly embarrassed in his attempt to follow the descriptions of so unfamiliar a region as that traversed by Mr. Pelleschi.
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