Part 14 (2/2)
PROGRESS OF THE PORT OF BUENOS AIRES.
The first Custom House built for the port of Buenos Aires was in 1603.
The only work carried out in the harbour up to the end of the eighteenth century was the construction of thirty-five metres of brick quay-wall at the site of the ”a.r.s.enal” on the Riachuelo. We find that although between the years 1852 and 1858 many plans were presented for building of piers, these were only carried into practice and built by the Government under the technical direction of Engineer E. Taylor; a new Custom House replacing the fortress, a timber pier for loading and unloading goods, and another pier for pa.s.senger traffic at the locality of the old mole. In the year 1878 the Riachuelo was first opened for traffic for sea-going s.h.i.+ps, and in 1879, 197 vessels with 55,091 tonnage had entered the Riachuelo. As early as 1862 Ed. Madero turned his attention to the question of docks for the port of Buenos Aires, and in 1865 applied for permission to construct them at his own cost, but the application was rejected. Four years later he presented another application, which suffered the same fate. In 1869 the total exports from Buenos Aires were 397,722 tons, the bulk of which were loaded at the Riachuelo, and steamers over 100 metres long frequented the harbour about the time of 1870. It was not until 1882 that Ed. Madero succeeded in obtaining the concession of building the docks for the port of Buenos Aires. The docks were to be constructed on the river side of the city, between the gasworks on the north and the Riachuelo River on the south.
The trade of the City of Buenos Aires up to the time of the opening of the South Basin had nearly all been carried on between the sh.o.r.e and the steamers by lighters and small steam tenders. The usual anchorage for the ocean steamers was in the ”bar anchorage,” a distance of about fourteen miles from the city. The cargoes were trans.h.i.+pped into lighters, which brought them as near to the sh.o.r.e as possible, and from this point they were taken to the Custom House in specially-constructed carts with very large wheels. Pa.s.sengers were trans.h.i.+pped in the bar anchorage into small tenders, and were brought to a point about 500 metres from the end of the pa.s.senger mole. From these tenders, when there was sufficient water, they were taken ash.o.r.e in small boats, while, if the water was too low to go alongside the mole, they also had to be brought ash.o.r.e in carts. In many cases, however, pa.s.sengers were brought on in tenders and landed at the Riachuelo wharves, which were then under construction. The first steamers that arrived in the River Plate were those of the Royal Mail Company, followed by the French Messageries Maritimes, and shortly afterwards by the Lamport & Holt Line.
Up to the year 1870 these lines, and a few more that were started, progressed very slowly, although the rates of freight were then very high; but after that trade increased gradually, and not only a fair number of sailing-vessels arrived yearly, but the regular lines of steamers increased their number of sailings. The great drawback was the deficient state of the port, where steamers had to lie at a distance of fourteen to sixteen miles, and most of the sailing-vessels at ten to twelve miles from the sh.o.r.e. There was no channel dredged, and even the Riachuelo was so scantily supplied with water that lighters drawing seven to eight feet were sometimes for weeks prevented from getting out to deliver their cargo to the sea-going vessels in the outer roads. The discharge was exclusively effected into lighters, which, apart from the heavy expense incurred by the receiver of the goods, presented the great objection that a considerable portion of the cargo was often broached and pilfered before it reached the sh.o.r.e, claims for which had to be paid by the s.h.i.+p. Another point was that many of these lighters were old sailing-vessels or steamers, and, in the unseaworthy and leaky state they were in, often arrived with their cargo considerably damaged. On the completion of the South Basin on 28th January, 1889, pa.s.sengers were able to embark or disembark with a little more comfort, and cargoes were landed on the quays. Docks 1 and 2 have each a water area of 23 acres, being 570 metres long by 160 metres wide, with a quay length of 1,420 metres. No. 3 Dock has a water area of 27 acres, is 690 metres long by 160 metres wide, with a quay length of 1,660 metres. No. 4 Dock has a water area of 25 acres, is 630 metres long by 160 metres wide, with a quay length of 1,535 metres.
All these four docks, when they were originally finished, had a depth of 23 feet 9 inches below low water, so that, however low the river may be, there should never be less than 23 feet 9 inches in the docks. Since then dredging has been going on and the docks have been deepened to receive larger vessels. The docks are united by pa.s.sages 20 metres in width, each pa.s.sage being crossed by a swing bridge. Dock No. 4 is entered at its northern end by the north lock. This lock opens into the North Basin, which has a water area of 41 acres and a quay length of 1,409 metres and a depth of 21 feet 3 inches. The total area of the basins and the four docks is 174 acres, and the total length of quays 8,482 lineal metres. The following are the dates the various basins and docks were opened to traffic:--
South Basin ... ... ... 28th January, 1889 South Lock, Dock No. 1 ... 31st January, 1890 Dock No. 2 ... ... ... 26th September, 1890 Dock No. 3 ... ... ... 31st March, 1892 Dock No. 4, North Lock, North Basin, and Graving Docks ... 7th March, 1897 First half of North Channel... 15th June, 1897 Second half of North Channel, buoys and beacons ... ... 31st March, 1898
The timber sea-wall was built to a level of 16 feet above low water, and the stone sea-wall to 19 feet. Originally there were built three sheds in the South Basin, three sheds and two warehouses in Dock No. 1, two warehouses and two sheds in Dock No. 2, five warehouses in Dock No. 3, and four warehouses in Dock No. 4, the total capacity of these sheds and warehouses being 525,510 cubic metres, and the floor area 192,800 square metres. Since then, several warehouses have been built, and some burnt down. The total cost of the harbour works as contracted for by Ed.
Madero was $35,000,000 gold, or, say, about 7,000,000. This includes the South Basin, Dock No. 1, Dock No. 2, Dock No. 3, Dock No. 4, North Basin, North Channel, Graving Docks, machinery, etc.
The following statement shows the total tonnage that pa.s.sed through the port of Buenos Aires in 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1909, and clearly shows the advance made in the last 30 years.
These figures include steamers and sailing-vessels, and local as well as foreign trade.
1880 ... ... ... 644,750 tons 1890 ... ... ... 4,507,096 tons 1900 ... ... ... 8,047,010 tons 1909 ... ... ... 16,993,973 tons
In 1909 we find that 2,008 steamers and 137 sailing-vessels entered the port of Buenos Aires from foreign sh.o.r.es with a tonnage of 5,193,542, and 1,978 steamers and 129 sailing-vessels left the port for foreign sh.o.r.es with a tonnage of 5,174,114; out of these, British boats lead with 2,242 steamers and 37 sailing-vessels, or, say, 53-1/2 per cent, of the total.
JUST MY LUCK!
I really have had rather bad luck. As you know, I was wrecked on my way out from the Old Country. The good s.h.i.+p ”Southern Cross” met her fate on a rock in Vigo Bay, and my luggage met its fate at the same time. This was something of a blow, but I expected to be treated a little more kindly by fate when once my destination was reached; I would be a stranger in a new country, and fate is proverbially kind to tyros of every sort.
R.M.S.P. ”Danube,” which carried the s.h.i.+pwrecked pa.s.sengers of the ”Southern Cross” from Vigo to Buenos Aires, arrived at the Argentine capital towards the end of January. At the conclusion of my journey, one of my fellow-pa.s.sengers, to whom I was saying good-bye, gave me this sound piece of advice: ”Take care of yourself, and the country will take care of you.” I don't suppose I can have taken care of myself, for within two months I was down with typhoid fever. This is how fate treats strangers in a new country.
You know that I had the good fortune, shortly after my arrival, to find employment with the Santa Fe Land Company, and immediately on my falling ill, the Manager of the estancia sent me to bed, and reduced me to a milk diet. Two days later he himself took me down to the Buenos Aires British Hospital, and it is to this fact, and to the sensible treatment which I received in camp, that I in great measure owe my quick recovery.
The journey to Buenos Aires was made as comfortable as possible. Even so, however, I must have been slightly delirious, for I remember thinking that everybody in the train was wearing a pink s.h.i.+rt without either coat or waistcoat. This must surely have been a delusion.
I reached the hospital on a Sunday morning, and was promptly carried upstairs to a private ward. Though my temperature was now as much as 104 deg., and my faculties were naturally not at their quickest, I could not help noticing the cheery look of the ward. There were flowers on the tables, the patients were obviously well cared for, everything was scrupulously clean, and the British nurses looked both efficient and attractive. The scrupulous cleanliness, together with the latest and most approved methods of treatment, were indeed a feature of the hospital in all its aspects.
It was a short time afterwards that one of the doctors, after carefully diagnosing my case, ordered me to the medical ward, where there would be greater facilities for giving me a course of baths. In the medical ward my treatment was as kind and as careful as formerly, but my new surroundings had for the moment a rather depressing effect. I was just able to realise that the cases around me were more serious than in the private ward, and that both doctors and nurses were more grave and intent on their work. I was soon, however, to become delirious again, and for the next few days was more or less oblivious to my environment.
After a short time I became more alive to what was happening around me.
We typhoid patients had four cold baths daily, and those patients who in their normal existence were unaccustomed to one warm bath a week were somewhat inclined to rebel. This was amusing. My sense of humour was reviving. The company here was certainly more mixed than in the private ward--consisting as it did of every cla.s.s and of every nationality, from Montenegrin to Turk, but it was not on that account any the less entertaining. Two or three berths away a brawny Scot of monster dimensions, who was convalescent after an acute attack of rheumatism, would every night before getting into bed say, with a certain navete, and without any sense of proportion, that he was going to his ”little nest.” And yet people accuse Scotsmen of a lack of imagination. On either side of me lay a typhoid patient--each delirious. The one on my right hand imagined he was at home drinking beer in Plymouth, and the one on my left, an Italian workman, would persistently call for his boots. It seemed he wished to return to his work and did not think any other article of dress necessary. The weather at the time was certainly hot, and this may have suggested such a daring flaunting of the conventions. It is curious that among typhoid patients this illusion of doing some action without sufficient clothing is rather prevalent. I myself at one time imagined that I had been discharged from the hospital with only the top of my pyjamas and a travelling rug. As I would carry the travelling rug on my arm, it scarcely compensated for the lack of other apparel. Through all these vagaries on the part of the patients the nurses remained kind and careful as ever. This was especially conspicuous in one case, where a patient insisted that his nurse was a Chinese pirate, and behaved accordingly, but she gave her charge the same excellent attention as before. At this time I began to be troubled with the pangs of a great hunger. After subsisting for five weeks on milk alone, my food diet began with small doses of cornflour and with large doses of castor oil, but at last there came a chicken. I shall never forget that first chicken, nor the nurse who brought it to me. How I tore those bones--of the chicken, not the nurse--apart, and how I attacked them in my fingers so that I should not leave any of the good meat. Eventually my bed in the medical ward was required for a more serious case than myself, and I was sufficiently well to be returned to the private ward for a few days of convalescence. The patients here were certainly more companionable than in the medical ward, and they suffered from less grave complaints. They were for the most part victims of accidents, and were all nearly well enough to leave the hospital. In the evenings we generally had some sort of amus.e.m.e.nt among ourselves. The _piece de resistance_ was more often than not a wrestling match between the man with the amputated foot and the man who had undergone an operation for sciatica. As both performers were in ordinary circ.u.mstances compelled to use crutches, their efforts were distinctly humorous.
It was after two months of medical treatment that I was able to leave the British Hospital, and it was only when on the point of leaving that I realised what we Britishers owe to this inst.i.tution.
The building itself is constructed on the most approved designs, it is fitted with every modern appliance, both medical and surgical; the treatment is excellent, the percentage of cures remarkable--not a single case has been lost in the medical ward during the current year; the doctors are not only experienced, but efficient; and finally, the nurses--but perhaps I have already dwelt with sufficient emphasis on their virtues.
All the same, thank Heaven I return to camp in a week, and may fate deal more kindly with me in the future.
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