LIFE IN BUENOS AIRES

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles26/south-america-18.shtml

"I have no intention of writing much of city life in South America, although, after all, it is a most important part of that life—far more so than in our land, since the country is nearly uninhabited and will perhaps be always so, and because it is the desire and ambition of every Argentino to live in Buenos Aires. It is a city with more than a million. and a quarter population and is growing rapidly, with comparatively little apparent employment for those who must labor. There are human conditions in the city of which I do not approve. Doubt-less there is little about myself of which the Buenos Airians would approve, for that matter, yet I find this entry in my journal:

"I have suddenly begun to observe an astonishing thing. The faces of the women whom I meet in the streets are placid, untroubled and unworried. I have not seen here more than six care-worn, anxious faces, and they were the faces of English and American women. I do not know the secret of life here, nor what it is bringing forth, but any life that leaves the women unwearied and untroubled must have good in it. It is in strange and striking contrast to the drawn, haggard, nerve-worn faces one sees in any city In North America."

I told you I like travelogues. This one is from the bowels of an antiques site and doesn't even show up anymore on it's homepage. I can't find the author's name anymore but he was a big-time sheep rancher from Colorado that took a friend's advice to visit "The Argentine". He doesn't spend too much time in Buenos Aires but gives some great impressions of his time here as well as what travel was like in general.

I think it's from about 1912 from his mention of President Taft and news from the US that he gleaned from "The Standard" the precursor to today's Buenos Aires Herald.