雙語+MP3|美國(guó)學(xué)生世界地理23 白銀之國(guó)和棉條之國(guó)

     WE give babies names when they are born, but sometimes when the babies grow up the names do not fit them. "Charles" means "strong" and "Ruth" means "beautiful," but when Charles grows up he may not be strong, and Ruth may not be beautiful. You never can tell. When white people came to South America to the land south of Brazil they saw Indians there wearing silver bracelets and silver necklaces, and they supposed there must be a great deal of silver in the land, so they named the country "Silver Land," which in their language is "Argentina." But Argentina turned out to have very little silver, yet we still call it Silver Land just the same.


     Although Argentina has little silver, the people there have a great deal of money; in fact, they have more money than any other country in South America. They do not get the money out of the ground, but they make it by selling wheat and meat, so it would have been a more fitting name if they had called Argentina "Wheat Land" or "Meat Land" instead of "Silver Land," but not nearly so pretty. In Argentina there are enormous farms where they grow wheat and corn, and enormous fields called pampas where they raise cattle and sheep. The men that look after these cattle and sheep we should call "cowboys," but there they are called "gauchos." Gauchos wear ponchos. A poncho is a kind of square blanket with a hole in the center through which the gaucho sticks his head. He uses it as a coat by day and as a blanket by night. A gaucho always carries a big knife, which he uses as a sword, as a hatchet, or as a table knife.
     Corn feeds the cattle. Cattle makes meat and meat makes money. From the skin of the cattle leather is made, and from the wool of sheep cloth is made, and from both money is made.
     Argentina is so much like the United States in a great many ways that it is often called the United States of South America. Both countries are alike in this-that they have hot weather part of the time and cold weather part of the time. But there is this big difference: in Argentina they have winter when the United States is having summer, and summer when the United States is having winter. In Argentina Christmas comes in hot weather and snow and ice in July and August. They have flowers and vegetables and vacations in January and February, and snow and ice and sledding and skating in July.
     The capital of Argentina is often called the New York of South America, as it is the largest city of South America, as New York is the largest city of North America. Its name, however, is not New York but "Good Airs," or, in Spanish, "Buenos Aires." It is on the Plata River, which is another name that means silver. So we have the city of Good Airs on the Silver River in Silver Land.
     In most of the other countries of South America there are many more Indians and Indians mixed with white men than there are white people, but in Argentina most of the people are white. That's another reason why it is like the United States; but Argentina was settled by people from Spain, not from England, so the people speak Spanish and not English.
     Up the Silver River from Argentina, tucked in between the larger countries are two little countries called Uru- and Para- guay. Uruguay and Paraguay are similar to Argentina in many ways. They raise sheep and cattle and gauchos with ponchos. In Paraguay they raise a tree from the leaves of which a kind of tea is made. It is called Paraguay tea or maté. It is the chief drink of the gauchos, and many people in South America drink it instead of real tea. It was thought so good that they tried to sell it to other countries. But other countries didn't care for it as much as for regular tea or coffee. Grown people are like children: what they like they like; what they think they won't like they don't like. Most people in the United States like soda-water, but people in other countries usually do not.
     The Andes Mountains separate Argentina from a very long and narrow country on the Pacific shore named Chile. Argentina is called the Silver Land. Chile is so long and thin it is sometimes called the Sliver land. Chile doesn't mean chilly; it means Land of Snow, for most of Chile is mountains, and the mountains are so high there is snow on their tops all the time. Chile and Argentina were once going to war in spite of the wall of mountains between them, but they made an agreement, as Canada and the United States did, that they would not fight. They set up on top of the Andes Mountains a huge bronze figure of Christ holding a cross-they melted their cannons to make it-and on the base they put words which say something like this: "Sooner shall these mountain crags crumble to dust than Chile and Argentina shall go to war with each other-they have sworn it at the foot of Christ." They have had no fights since. What a pity such an easy way to stop fighting cannot be used everywhere!


     Chile is so long and so thin and has so many mountains it hardly seems a country worth fighting for, but in spite of what seems to be, Chile makes a lot of money. This may seem still more surprising when I tell you that the northern part of Chile is a desert where it often does not rain for ten years at a time. That doesn't sound like very good land, but it is one of the richest lands in the World. You would never guess why. Of course, nothing will grow there because it is a desert, and there are no diamonds nor gold. It is on account of something you probably never heard of. This something you never heard of is called Nitrate of Soda. It is a kind of salt that was once in the sea. The reason it is so valuable is because farmers all over the World buy it to put on their fields, as it makes vegetables grow so much better. Strange it doesn't grow anything where it is found; but that is because there is no rain there and nothing will grow without rain. But it is lucky there is no rain, for if there were rain the Nitrate of Soda would melt. This part of Chile is like a long narrow trough. It was once under the sea, then there was an earthquake, and this part of the bottom of the sea rose up and made land; the water in the trough evaporated and left this rough kind of sea salt called Nitrate of Soda. Iodine comes from there too; and who doesn't know that stinging brown stuff that your mother puts on cuts?
     The Valley of Paradise is in Chile-only it isn't what you would think Paradise would be. It is the chief seaport of Chile, and it is not very lovely and not very healthful. In Spanish it is called Valparaiso.
     The capital of Chile is up in the mountains where it is cool and healthy. It is called Santiago, which means St. James.
     Columbus tried to go around the World, but didn't. The first man whose ship went around the World was named Magellan. Magellan sailed across from the other side of the ocean, as Columbus had done, but he went on until he bumped into America. Then he went along down South America, trying to find a way to get through to the Pacific Ocean. He sailed up the Amazon, thinking he might get through there, but he couldn't. Then he sailed up La Plata, thinking he might get through there, but he couldn't. Then when he had nearly reached the tip of South America he at last found a way through to the Pacific. This way through was quite crooked, but we call it a strait and we have named it after him-the Strait of Magellan. He saw many fires on the land at his left, whether they were from volcanoes now no longer burning, or made by the Indians, no one knows. At any rate, he named it Fireland, which in Spanish is Tierra del Fuego. The Indians he saw on the right, which is now the southern part of Argentina, had such big feet he called them the big-feet people, which is "Patagonians."
     For hundreds of years other ships followed this same way through that Magellan had taken, for though some went entirely around the outmost island at the tip of South America-the tip called Cape Horn-it was so stormy that way and so rough and dangerous that most ships used the strait. On this strait a little town grew up-a sort of filling station-just to supply ships with provisions they needed to keep on with their voyage, for there were no other places anywhere near, and it was a long voyage down South America on the Atlantic side and up again on the Pacific side. This little town was called Sandy Point, which in Spanish was Punta Arenas. It is the farthest south city in the whole World. As most ships now go through the Panama Canal, Punta Arenas does less business as a filling station, but a new business is taking the place of filling. They raise sheep on Tierra del Fuego, and the wool is brought to Punta Arenas to be shipped to other parts of the World.