At Tucuman we left the broad gauge of the British-built Buenos Aires and Rosario R. R. for the metre gauge of the North Central Railway, an Argentine Government line, that runs to Jujuy and has recently been continued northward to La Quiaca, on the Bolivian frontier. The distance from Buenos Aires to La Quiaca is 1150 miles. Of this we had done 700 miles in the first twenty-four hours. The last 450 miles required another twenty-four hours, divided into two daylight periods, as sleeping-cars are not run on the North Central R. R. In this stretch the elevation rises from thirteen hundred feet to twelve thousand feet, and the journey lies entirely in the Argentine Highlands.
Our train was mixed passenger and freight. The locomotive was a “Baldwin” and the cars were made in Wilmington, Del. We had, besides, an excellent dining-car that seated sixteen people and provided a table d’hôte meal served in the usual Spanish style. The third-class passengers, however, patronized the enterprising women who sold flat loaves of bread, hard-boiled eggs, and native drinks at the stations where we stopped.
Not long after leaving Tucuman, we passed through a tunnel, the first one in eight hundred miles. Rather a different experience from my journey in Venezuela, from Caracas to Valencia, where in the course of an hour we passed through sixty-five tunnels, one every minute!
With many windings we climbed up into the hills. Grass became scarcer and cactus and mimosa trees more common. We passed a small flock of goats. Dust and sand came into the train in clouds. Occasionally we passed lofty whirlwinds, but none of them troubled us. The humidity to-day was very much less, being under forty per cent. The streams seemed to be very low. We saw a few locusts.
At many of the stations were carts drawn by mules harnessed three abreast, with a loose rope-tackle that is characteristic of this hilly region. The houses of some of the more well-to-do were built of corrugated iron and wood, but most were made of mud. As it was the dry season, the cots were usually out of doors.
The evidences of prosperity at Ruis de los Llanos consisted of new stucco buildings of attractive construction with arcades in front and courtyards in the interior, a modern application of old Spanish architectural ideas. Other buildings were nearing completion, to accommodate the bakers and grocers who supply the _quebracho_ cutters. There are great forests of _quebracho_ on the plains of the Gran Chaco to the east and northeast. The wood is extremely hard and very serviceable for railway-ties. Owing to the difficulty that is experienced in cutting it, it has earned for itself the sobriquet of “axe-breaker.” It is the chief article of export from this region. The bark is shipped to tanneries as far away as California.