No. 4.
Mr. Hanna to
Mr. Bayard.
Buenos Ayres, December 9, 1887. (Received January 17, 1888.)
Sir: Just before the adjournment of the late session of the Argentine Congress the President of the Republic was granted a two months’ leave of absence for recreation. This vacation he has resolved to use in a general tour of observation throughout the country. He is now going from city to city and province to province in fulfillment of that design.
An invitation has been extended to the diplomatic corps to join him at Cordova, his former residence, on the 18th instant, where national ceremonies will take place, unveiling a statue of General Paz, one of the illustrious patriots who figured prominently in the early struggles of the country.
Cordova, situated among the foot-hills of the Sierra Chica chain of mountains, was one of the earliest seats of learning in the nation, and now, in addition to its colleges and other advanced schools, is especially attractive and important from the fact that the national observatory, once under the management of Dr. Gould, and more recently of Mr. Thorne, both citizens of the United States, is located there.
Its university is unquestionably the pioneer of the western world. This may startle some of our college people in the United States, but let the facts speak. Harvard College, at Cambridge, Mass., our oldest university, has made its own history and written it in characters of gold. Sixteen years after the landing of the Mayflower on the 28th day of October, 1036, the court of Massachusetts voted £400, equal to $1,946 United States gold, to found a college. This was afterwards done at Cambridge, March 13, 1639, and as John Harvard, a man of obscure life, had largely increased this amount out of his private funds, the college took his name—Harvard College, now Harvard University. Strange to say, though $5,000 have been offered to any who could produce five lines of authentic history of this man none has yet claimed it.
The University of Cordova was founded in 1613, twenty-six years before Harvard, by Don Fernando Trejo de Sanabria, who devoted all his private fortune to the purpose, amounting to $43,000, and erected there a structure which has withstood the trials of two hundred and seventy-four years, and is at this day in a good state of preservation.
This pioneer city of science and letters is some 500 miles west of Buenos Ayres. It will be a long railroad journey to make, but in view of the dignity of the invitation, the general interest the occasion inspires, and the fact that the route to be traveled is in the general direction of the great railroad extending from the Plate River to Valparaiso, in Chili, soon to be completed and forming a part of it, the most of my colleagues have accepted the invitation. We will leave here by special train on the 16th, and the incidents and observations of the journey, it is hoped, will furnish suitable matter for the consideration of the State Department.
On the 2d of this month this legation was honored with a special invitation from the President to accompany his party up the Uruguay River to the city of Uruguay, until quite recently the capital of the province of Entre Rios, the most beautiful and perhaps productive of [Page 6] all the Argentine States. We left this port a little after noon in the Eola, a river steamer of rare model and appointments, of the famous Platense Line, owned by an English company and carrying the British flag.
We did not go further up the river than Paysandú.
Below this point we passed the vast salederos, or meat preserving and packing establishments, the principal one being that of Liebig, at Fray Bentos, in Uruguay. The “Liebig Meat Extract,” prepared here, is known all over the world. The capital employed in this vast enterprise is English, or largely so. It now reaches nearly $3,000,000, and employs about 3,000 people—men, women, and advanced children. It exported last year nearly 1,000,000 cans each of meat and meat extracts, besides a vast amount of tanned hides, tallow, tongues, and refined grease, every part of the slaughtered animal being saved and rendered salable in some way.
At Uruguay, in the province of Entre Rios, and its recent capital, the steamer landed, and there the presidential party disembarked. At this place the national Government has erected vast and expensive port works, which were inaugurated by President Juarez in a review of the act of congress by which it was accomplished. The port and city are joined by a spur track of the Central Entre Rios Railroad, which crosses the province from Uruguay to Parang, the early capital of the nation and the most thriving city in Entre Rios, located on the Paraná River.
From Uruguay the President crossed the province of Entre Rios to Parana, where he was to be welcomed with great ceremonies at the early capital of the Republic. The invitation to remain with him was cordial, both on the part of himself and the governor of the province, but reluctantly declined on account of pressing matters at the legation.
However, at Cordova, on the 18th instant, the entire ministry and diplomatic corps will again have the pleasure of meeting the President before he leaves for the mountains, where, with his family, he will spend the remaining portion of his needed vacation. It is gratifying to add the flag of the United States was honorably displayed throughout the entire excursion.
I have, etc.,