IT is a troubled record that of the last fifty
years of South American history. Yet it should have been a halcyon period. The whole of the continent had thrown over simultaneously the rule of Spain, and there were not wanting men in the Atlantic Republics who could have carried them some distance along the road to a settled form of government. There was no fear of foreign intervention—the pronouncement of the Monroe doctrine left little doubt as to that possibility— and England took the lead in recognising the South American States. Mr. Akers affirms that South Americans attach too little importance to the bearing of the Monroe doctrine on their destinies. It was enunciated when Spain had practically lost South America, but it prevented any attempt on her part to prolong the struggle. Had there been no such declaration the result, though delayed, would have been the same. But liberty was not synonymous with progress, and South American statesmen shelved questions involving forms of government and inter-State jealousies under the delusion that the men they ruled cared more for the spirit than the letter of good govern- ment, with results that are writ large upon Spanish America at the present day.
Mr. Akers aims at giving to us the story of these States, and introducing to us the personalities of the men who have made politics for fifty years. He knows the faults of the Spanish- American, and briefly indicates them, preferring to let his wide and impartial treatment of the many revolutions speak for itself. A residence of fourteen years covers a great deal of that internecine strife, and as much as any of us care to remember; nevertheless, it is very necessary to recollect the whole history of these feuds and revolutions if we are to understand the present condition of the States and their attitude towards each other. The limitations of the South American—his narrow vision, his lack of judgment, his in- difference to intellectual interests, and the exaggerated importance to him of the personal equation in his view of life— appear very plainly in this history, and in the portraits Mr. Akers has collected. The most distinguished men on the East side have shown this, as Mr. Akers says, and men like the Chilian Balmaceda failed for the same reason. They behaved, as he says of the Brazilian leaders in the rebellion against Peixoto, like men swayed by fixed ideas. And what of the rank-and- file, men made on small lines, the average men with Latin blood in their veins ? They preponderate in the Eastern Republics. The Italian immigrants in the Argentine alone number eight hundred thousand, in Brazil one million. It seemed at one time to us that the hope of South America lay in the Pacific Republica, with their more vigorous nationalities, clearer moral atmosphere, and cleaner record. They have bled each other freely too ; but nationality and national feeling in Chile and Peru are more genuine than in the East, the • (1) The History of South America (1824-1104). By C. E. Akers. London : John Murray. [21s. net. —(2 ) The Countries of the King's Award. By Colonel Sir T. 11. Holdich, K.C.I.E., C.B. London : Hurst and Blaekett. [166. net.]
and Peruvians have lost ground ; drunkenness has increased to a fearful extent, self-reliance is on the wane, the adminis- tration of justice is scandalous, and the drift to the towns is continuous. There must be few more drunken capitals than Valparaiso; in 1898 six hundred more cases of drunkenness were dealt with in that town, a city of a hundred and forty thousand inhabitants, than came before the London Magistrates. If this is the price Chile pays for a more homogeneous national vitality, it is a heavy one. Mr. Akers is to be commended for a most readable, impartial, clear- sighted appreciation of political leaders and their motives, and we do not think South Americans will dissent from this opinion.
Sir Thomas Holdich justly remarks that the decision of Argentina and Chile to refer the long-standing boundary dispute to a British tribunal was for those States a reason for pride and self-congratulation, and a high compliment to English " traditional honesty of purpose," besides being the greatest triumph of good sense and reason over human passions and ambition ever achieved in South America. The King's award settled a dispute which would inevitably have been settled by arms otherwise, for both Republics had been arming for the fray. Your South American is a good fighter, for he is nearly always at it ; his courage is high, and his temper savage. The ironclad Huascar,' now lying in Talcahuano Dock, a naval memorial to the gallantry of Peruvian and Chilian seamen, reminds us of this; and at the battle of Tacna, in the war between Chile and Peru, in which twenty-two thousand men were engaged, a quarter of the combatants were killei and wounded, which points to a certain ferocity. And it has been the same with the other South American States,—Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. These last two States have been under arms for a couple of generations now, and in Paraguay the continuous fighting, by drafting every available man to the field, and compelling the women to do all the farm-work, has altered the social life and family etiquette of the inhabitants to such an extent that the modern Paraguayan man resembles nothing so much as a soldier ant,—quite unable to work and barely able to feed himself. We have added these particulars to emphasise the very great gain brought about by the King's award. With us a fight means a settlement of differences ; with a South American a fight means a feud to the third and fourth generation.
The frontier to be delimitated extended from Lake Lacar, in 40° S., to the parallel of 52° S.,—the region of the Pata- gonian Andes. This portion of the great mountain range presented a far more complicated problem to boundary-makers than the main range of the Andes. To one at sea it may
seem a definite enough boundary, but on the Argentine aide it
presents a jumble of mountains, rivers, " mesetas," "pampas," forests, and glaciers. The drainage is often at right angles to the axis of the range, and right across it, so that the water parting claimed by the Chilians as the true boundary was difficult to place. One river itself constituted a water parting for thirty miles, and other rivers and lakes feed either ocean. "Patagonian hydrography," says Sir T. Holdich, "reminds one of nothing so much as of a dried mud bank after the water has left it to shrink."
The author is enthusiastic about the wealth of the great Argentine pampas, with their large estancias, and the energy with which the owners develop the great factors of Argentine prosperity, cattle-rearing and farming. He speaks highly of the Argentine Army ; indeed, there is no better material for an army than the " Gaucho." " Argentina has taken the first place in South America," he thinks, " Brazil having retro- graded since the days of Pedro II." Crossing the Andes to Chile brings us to a very different race and surroundings, and it is not difficult to understand that Chilian manners and methods agree better with English ideas than most other
South American customs. The author also mentions the
drunkenness of the Chilian peasant, while he pays a warm tribute to those now historic heroes of the Pacific, Miguel Grau and Arturio Prat. A reconnaissance before the actual. march of the Commission acquaints us with Tierra del Fuego and the sheep-rearing districts of Southern Patagonia, especially the country at the foot of the Baguales Range, the valley of the Vizeaebas, and the Ultima Esperanza district. Then Sir T. Holdich takes us northward along the coast, and starts on the actual journey of the Commission from Lake Nahuel Huapi. Exactly how much of the route marked as that of the Commission he travelled himself, and at what time he did so, is not clear; but it does not matter. He has given us a very good idea of the scenery of the Patagonian Andes in the autumn, and is most successful as a literary land- scape artist. There is, he tells us, the moat beautiful lake he ever saw in his life near Mount Osorno, Laguna Todos los Santos, and Laguna Frias was scarcely less beautiful. The picturesque attractions of the Chilian-Argentine route over the Perez Rosalez Pass would alone, he thought, assure its future. The beech woods were at the height of their autumn colouring on the hillsides, and the mingling of forest and pampas, mountains and rivers, made this the Switzerland of South America. The valley of Villegas, of the Matuso basin generally, with its background of mountains, its foreground of beech woods and flowers, must indeed be fascinating. And these narrow valleys will grow what the settler wants ; both here and in the lower end of the great central Chilian valley there is much good unexplored land. Further south we get a glimpse of an offshoot of the Welsh colony of the "16th October," which flourishes in the Chubut Valley. They lacked enter- prise, these Patagonian but most conservative Welshmen; but their doggedness and pluck are much to be admired, and great floods have sorely tried them. Sir T. Holdich thought they had become a finer type than if they had remained in their own mountains. Yet they admit that they have failed. They objected to Saxon domination a generation ago ; but possibly the compulsory learning of Spanish at school, and Sunday parade in the National Guard, are even less to their liking. The conclusion of Sir T. Holdich's trip brought him into winter; but if his journey was undertaken in tem_ pestuons weather, he seems to have enjoyed it, and he has certainly conveyed to us a distinct impression of the expansive scenery and purity of atmosphere of the Patagonian Andes and the borderland of Argentine settlement.
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