D.F. Sarmiento, Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants, Ch. 1, "Physical Aspect of the Republic." (New York: Collier, 1961).

    The Argentine cities, like almost all the cities of South America, have an appearance of regularity.  Their streets are laid out at right angles, and their population scattered over a wide surface, except in Cordova, which occupies a narrow and confined position, and presents all the appearance of a European city, the resemblance being increased by the multitude of towers and domes attached to its numerous and magnificent churches.  All civilization, whether native, Spanish, or European, centres in the cities, where are to be found the manufactories, the shops, the schools and colleges, and other characteristics of civilized nations.  Elegance of style, articles of luxury, dress-coats, and frock coats, with other European garments, occupy their appropriate place in the these towns.  I mention these small matters designedly.  It is sometimes the case that the only city of a pastoral province is its capital, and occasionally the land is uncultivated up to its very streets.  The encircling desert besets such cities at a greater or less distance, and bears heavily upon them, and they are thus small oases of civilization surrounded by an untilled plain, hundreds of square miles in extent, the surface of which is but rarely interrupted by any settlement of consequence.

The cities of Buenos Ayres and Cordova have succeeded better than the others in establishing about them subordinate towns to serve as new foci of civilization and municipal interests; a fact which deserves notice.  The inhabitance of the city wear the European dress, live in a civilized manner, and possess laws, ideas of progress, means of instruction, some municipal organization, regular forms of government, etc.  Beyond the precincts of the city everything assumes a new aspect; the country people wear a different dress, which I will call South American, as it is common to all districts; their habits of life are different, their wants peculiar and limited.  The people composing these two distinct forms of society, do not seem to belong to the same nation.  Moreover, the countryman, far from attempting to imitate the customs of the city, rejects with disdain its luxury and refinement; and it is unsafe for the costume of the city people, their coats, their cloaks, their saddles, or anything European, to show themselves in the country.  Everything civilized which the city contains is blockaded there, proscribed beyond its limits; and any one who should dare to appear in the rural districts in a frock-coat, for example, or mounted on an English saddle, would bring ridicule and brutal assaults upon himself.

The whole remaining population inhabit the open country. which, whether wooded or destitute of the larger plants, is generally level, and almost everywhere occupied by pastures, in some places of such abundance and excellence, that the grass of an artificial meadow would not surpass them.  Mendoza, and especially San Juan, are exceptions to this general absence of tilled fields, the people here depending chiefly on the products of agriculture.  Everywhere else, pasturage being plenty, the means of subsistence of the inhabitants--for we cannot call it their occupation--is stock-raising.  Pastoral life reminds us of the Asiatic plains, which imagination covers with Kalmuck, Cossack, or Arab tents.  The primitive life of nations--a life essentially barbarous and unprogressive--the life of Abraham, which is that of the Bedouin to-day, prevails in the Argentine plains, although modified in a peculiar manner by civilization.  The Arab tribe which wanders through the wilds of Asia, is united under the rule of one of its elders of a warrior chief; society exists, although not fixed in any determined locality.  Its religious opinions, immemorial traditions, unchanging customs, and its sentiment of respect for the aged, make altogether a code of laws and a form of government which preserves morality, as it is there understood, as well as order and the association of the tribe.  But progress is impossible, because there can be no progress without permanent possession of the soil, or without cities, which, which are the means of developing the capacity of man for the processes of industry, and which enable him to extend his acquisitions.

Nomad tribes do not exist in the Argentine plains; the stock-raiser is a proprietor, living upon his own land; but this condition renders association impossible, and tends to scatter separate families over an immense extent of surface.  Imagine an expanse of two thousand square leagues, inhabited throughout, but where the dwellings are usually four or even eight leagues apart, and two league, at least, separate the nearest neighbors.  The production of movable property is not impossible, the enjoyments of luxury are not wholly incompatible with this isolation; wealth can raise a superb edifice in the desert.  But the incentive is wanting; no example is near; the inducements for making a great display which exist in a city, are not known in that isolation and solitude.  Inevitable privations justify natural indolence; a dearth of all the amenities of life induces all the externals of barbarism.  Society has altogether disappeared.  There is but the isolated self-concentrated feudal family.  Since there is no collected society, no government is possible; there is neither municipal nor executive power, and civil justice has no means of reaching criminals.  I doubt if the modern world presents any other form of association so monstrous as this.  It is the exact opposite of the Roman municipality, where all the population were assembled within an inclosed space, and went from it to cultivate the surrounding fields.  The consequence of this was a strong social organization, the good results of which have prepared the way for modern civilization.  The Argentine system resembles old Slavonic Sloboda, with the difference that the latter was agricultural, and therefore more susceptible of government, while the dispersion of the population was not so great as in South America.  It differs from the nomad tribes in admitting of no social reunion, and in a permanent occupation of the soil.  Lastly, it has something in common with the feudal system of the Middle Ages, when the barons lived in their strongholds, and thence made war on the cities, and laid waste the country in the vicinity; but the baron and the feudal castle are wanting.  If power starts up in the country, it lasts only for a moment, and is democratic; it is not inherited, nor can it maintain itself, for want of mountains and strong positions.  It follows from this, that even the savage tribe of the pampas is better organized for moral development than are our country districts.

But the remarkable feature of this society, viewed in its social aspect, is its affinity to the life of the ancients--to the life of the Spartans or Romans; but again a radical dissimilarity appears when the subject is considered from another side.  The free citizen of Sparta or of Rome threw upon his slaves the weight of material life, the care of providing for his subsistence, while he lived, free from such cares, in the forum or in the public place of assembly, exclusively occupied with the interests of the State--peace, war, and party contests.  The stock-raiser has his share of the same advantages, and his herds fulfill the degrading office of the ancient Helot.  Their spontaneous multiplication constitutes and indefinitely augments his fortune; the help of man is superfluous; his labor, his intelligence, his time, are not needed to the preservation and increase of the means of life.  But though he needs none of these forces for the supply of his physical wants, he is unable to make use of them, when thus saved, as the Roman did.  He has no city, no municipality, no intimate associations, and thus the basis of all social development is wanting.  As the land-owners are not brought together, they have no public wants to satisfy; in a word, there is no res publica.

Moral progress, and the cultivation of the intellect, are here not only neglected, as in the Arab or Tartan tribe, but impossible.  Where can a school be placed for the instruction of children living ten leagues apart in all directions?  Thus, consequently, civilization can in no way be brought about.  Barbarism is the normal condition, and it is fortunate if domestic customs preserve a small germ of morality.  Religion feels the consequences of this want of social organization.  The offices of the pastor are nominal, the pulpit has no audience, the priest flees from the deserted chapel, or allows his character to deteriorate in inactivity and solitude.  Vice, simony, and the prevalent barbarism penetrate his cell, and change his moral superiority into the means of gratifying his avarice or ambition, and he ends by becoming a party leader.  I once witnessed a scene of rural life worthy of the primitive ages of the world, which preceded the institution of the priesthood.  In 1838 I happened to be in the Sierra de San Luis, at the house of a proprietor whose two favorite occupations were saying prayers and gambling.  He had built a chapel where he used to pray through the rosary on Sunday afternoons, to supply the want of a priest, and of the public divine service of which the place had been destitute for many years.  It was a Homeric picture: the sun declining to the west; the sheep returning to the fold, and rending the air with their confused bleatings; the service conducted by the master of the house, a man of sixty, with a noble countenance, in which the pure European race was evident in the white skin, blue eyes and wide and open forehead; while the responses were made by a dozen women and some young men, whose imperfectly broken horses were fastened near the door of the chapel.  After finishing the rosary, he fervently offered up his own petitions.  I never heard a voice fuller of pious feeling, nor a prayer of purer warmth, of firmer faith, of greater beauty, or better adapted to the circumstances, than that which he uttered.  In this prayer he besought God to grant raid for the fields, fruitfulness for the herds and flocks, peace for the Republic, and safety for all wayfarers.  I readily shed tears, and wept even with sobs, for the religious sentiment that had been awakened in my soul to intensity, and like an unknown sensation, for I never witnessed a more religious scene.  I seemed to be living in the times of Abraham, in his presence, in that of God, and of the nature which reveals Him.  The voice of that sincere and pure-minded man made all my nerves vibrate, and penetrated to my inmost soul.

To this, that is, to natural religion, is all religion reduced in the pastoral districts.  Christianity exists, like the Spanish idioms, as a tradition which is perpetuated, but corrupted; colored by gross superstitions and unaided by instruction, rites or convictions.  It is the case in almost all the districts which are remote from the cities, that when traders from San Juan or Mendoza arrive there, three or four children, some months or a year old, are presented to them for baptism, confidence being felt that their good education will enable them to administer the rite in a valid manner; and on the arrival of a priest, young men old enough to break a colt, present themselves to him to be anointed and have baptism sub conditione administered to them.

In the absence of all the means of civilization and progress, which can only be developed among men collected into societies of many individuals, the education of the country people is as follows: The women look after the house, get the meals ready, shear the sheep, milk the cows, make the cheese, and weave the coarse cloth used for garments.  All domestic occupations are performed by women; on them rests the burden of all the labor, and it is an exceptional favor when some of the men undertake the cultivation of a little maize, bread not being in use as an ordinary article of diet.  The boys exercise their strength and amuse themselves by gaining skill in the use of the lasso and the bolas, with which they constantly harass and pursue the calves and goats.  When they can ride, which is as soon as they have learned to walk, they perform some small services on horseback.  When the become stronger, they race over the country, falling off their horses and getting up again, stumbling on purpose into rabbit burrows, scrambling over precipices, and practicing feats of horsemanship.  On reaching puberty, they take to breaking wild colts, and death is the least penalty that awaits them if their strength or courage fails them for a moment. With early manhood comes complete independence and idleness.

Now begins the public life of the gaucho, as I may say, since his education is by this time at an end.  These men, Spaniards only in their language and in the confused religious notions preserved among them, must be seen, before a right estimate can be made of the indomitable and haughty character which grows out of this struggle of isolated man with untamed nature, of the rational being with the brute.  It is necessary to see their visages bristling with beards, their countenances as grace and serious as those of the Arabs of Asia, to appreciate the pitying scorn with which they look upon the sedentary denizen of the city, who may have read many books, but who cannot overthrow and slay a fierce bull, who could not provide himself with a horse from the pampas, who has never met a tiger alone, and received him with a dagger in one hand and a poncho roller up in the other, to be thrust into the animal's mouth, while he transfixes his heart with his dagger.

This habit of triumphing over resistance, of constantly showing a superiority to Nature, of defying and subduing her, prodigiously develops the consciousness of individual consequence and superior prowess.  The Argentine people of every class, civilized and ignorant alike, have a high opinion of their national importance.  all the other people of South America throw this vanity of theirs in their teeth, and take offense at their presumption and arrogance.  I believe the charge not to be wholly unfounded, but I do not object to the trait.  Alas, for the nation without faith in itself! Great things were not made for such a people. To what extent may not the independence of that part of America be due to the arrogance of these Argentine gauchos, who have never seen anything beneath the sun superior to themselves in wisdom or in power? The European is in their eyes the most contemptible of all men, for a horse gets the better of him in a couple of plunges.

If the origin of this national vanity among the lower classes is despicable, it has none the lest on that account some noble results; as the water of a river is no less pure for the mire and pollution of its sources. Implacable is the hatred which these people feel for men of refinement, whose garments, manners, and customs they regard with invincible repugnance.  Such is the material of the Argentine soldiery, and it may easily be imagined what valor and endurance in war are the consequences of the habits described above.  We may add that these soldiers have been used to slaughtering cattle from their childhood, and that this act of necessary cruelty makes them familiar with bloodshed, and hardens their hearts against the groans of their victims.

Country life, then, has developed all the physical but none of the intellectual powers of the gaucho.  His moral character is of the quality to be expected from his habit of triumphing over the obstacles and the forces of nature; it is strong, haughty, and energetic.  Without instruction, and indeed without need of any, without means of support as without wants, he is happy in the midst of his poverty and privations, which are not such to one who never knew nor wished for greater pleasures than are his already.  Thus if the disorganization of society among the gauchos deeply implants barbarism in their natures, through the impossibility and uselessness of moral and intellectual education, it has, too, its attractive side to him.  The gaucho does not labor; he finds his food and raiment ready to his hand.  If he is a proprietor, his own flocks yield him both; if he possesses nothing himself, he finds them in the house of a patron or a relation.  The necessary care of the herds is reduced to excursions and pleasure parties; the branding, which is like the harvesting of farmers, is a festival, the arrival of which is received with transports of joy, being the occasion of the assembling all the men for twenty leagues around, and the opportunity for displaying incredible skill with the lasso.  The gaucho arrives at the spot on his best steed, riding at a slow and measured pace; he halts at a little distance and puts his leg over his horse's neck to enjoy the sight leisurely.  If enthusiasm seizes him, he slowly dismounts, uncoils his lasso, and flings it at some bull, passing like a flash of lighting forty paces from him; he catches him by one hoof, as he intended, and quietly coils his leather cord again.