I had looked forward to visiting a tropical town, of long streets of mud shanties heavily thatched, and with innumerable palm trees waving their plumes overhead. This kind of thing was to be found in the suburbs, where the Spanish-negro-Indians wore big, rough-made, straw-plaited hats, and their dusky mates, in bright garments, gossipped in the shadows, whilst their prolific offspring--often stark naked--gambolled in the sand. But Tucuman itself is much like other Argentine towns, for it has its plaza and statues and public gardens, its imposing houses and hotels and restaurants, its tramcars and electric light. Tucuman has played its part in the history of the Republic. It was here that Independence was proclaimed in 1810, when the overlordship of Spain was repudiated; and it was here that, after much fighting, the treaty of peace was signed on July 9th, 1816. The house in which this took place was a modest building, not much bigger than a cottage. Sentiment prevented it being swept away before the rush for improvement, and so it has been left standing. But about it has been erected an imposing structure. Here is a house within a house; and a stout dame conducts the visitor into a gaunt room where Argentina's first parliament assembled; where there are paintings of fierce-eyed national heroes, frescoes depicting the proclamation of Independence, the chair where the first president of the Republic sat, and in which the visitor is invited to sit; and there is the customary visitors' book to be signed. Tucuman vies with Cordoba in having amongst its residents some of the real old Spanish aristocracy of Argentina. Indeed, Tucuman puts forth the claim that it has the most beautiful women in South America. Certainly at the hour of promenade, when the sun begins to dip and before nightfall comes swiftly, and the people take to walking amongst the orange trees in the Plaza, or sauntering along the main thoroughfares inspecting the attractions in the shop windows, there is no difficulty in imagining that this is a bit of Madrid instead of being a little-visited town tucked away in the north of Argentina. Several enthusiastic residents assured me that their ladies were as close to the fashions as Paris itself. I am no authority on these matters; but I can say that the womenfolk appeared as well garbed as they are in the capitals of Europe. Along the clean streets whizzed expensive motor-cars. Before the restaurants were the little round marble-topped tables with which most of us are acquainted in European cities; and here men sat and drank their amer piquant and puffed their cigarettes, whilst the band played music, ragtime and other, with which we are so familiar at home.