280 OBSERVATORY AT CORDOBA, ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



weal or woe, we could hardly have expected in our own country. I am 

 the more anxious to mention this, since I have seen paragraphs circu- 

 lating in the public press to the efi'ect that some of our instruments 

 have been maliciously broken. If we should say " wantonly," the 

 statement would be true to some extent; yet not because the api^aratus 

 was oui"s, but because its necessary exposure presents a tempting lure 

 for some half civilized gaucho, fortified with a full complement of alco- 

 hol, to try the accuracy of his aim. All races have their weak points, 

 and our apparatus has fared far better than the new street-lanterns of 

 Cordoba ; nor would it be fair to expect from the un breeched and untu- 

 tored sons of the pampas, what I am assured could not be reasonably 

 expected from the youth of some portions of the United States. 



The fact that the thoughtful men and leaders of opinion in the Argen- 

 tine Ilepublic are awake to the educational and social needs of the 

 people, furnishes in itself a guarantee that these needs will continue to 

 be supplied. All the tendencies are toward progress. The vast terri- 

 tory of the nation possesses a population scarcely greater than that of 

 Massachusetts, and three-fourths of this is a mixed progeny of the 

 African negro, the South American Indian, and the Spanish peasant, 

 in which it is difficult to say which element predominates. To a sur- 

 passing agilitj' and dexterity in the arts of savage life they join all that 

 sleepy indifference to improvement which the southern sun seems to 

 engender in the lower classes. With not the slightest lack of what is 

 called religion, they have a melancholy want of morality, and discrim- 

 inate broadly between the two, which indeed they consider to have little 

 to do with each other. Keadiug and writing are a rare accomplishment 

 among this class, and not even pecuniary stimulus to labor is of much 

 avail. Outside the cities, such elegances as pantaloons are rare, and 

 various accessories which we consider absolute necessities of civilized 

 life are unknown. Yet in constant intercourse with these people are 

 others, their own countrymen, refined, accustomed to opulence, and 

 desirous of contributing to the advancement of their native land. From 

 this class come the legislators; and happy is that land whose lawgivers 

 are taken from among the best educated and most patriotic ! All the 

 national energies not requisite for self-defense or self preservation are 

 now given to the development of the resources of the country, physical 

 and moral. Our four years' observation has exhibited one continuous 

 series of essential improvements. Kailroads and telegraphs are spring- 

 ing into being with marvelous rapidity, spanning the before limitless 

 pampas, and traversing the Andes. Eoads, bridges, schools, and col- 

 leges have been almost doubled within my own experience. Mails are 

 crossing the almost trackless prairies, steamboats are exploring the 

 unnavigated rivers. And, more than all, these advances are not the 

 mere policy of a single administration, enlightened as this policy has 

 been ; but they represent the spirit and determination of the ruling 

 classes, which t-he result of uo election can restricts but in mauifesta- 



