We next headed toward Tucuman and upon our arrival there were pleased to find a city of sixty thousand inhabitants, delightful from practically every point of view. The people were particularly interesting. We saw few of them on the streets during the daytime, but in the late afternoon after the shops and offices had closed and bolted their doors, the men appeared in crowds, all well and neatly dressed. They congregated in the saloons and cafés fringing the plaza, and drank beer and small cups of strong, black coffee until about seven o’clock. In many instances the tables were arranged on both sides of the pavement so that one walked through a lane between rows of sleek-combed youths twirling gaudily banded straw hats or canes, and noisily discussing--what-not, and grave-faced men with gray hair and beards everlastingly talking politics. After going home to supper they reappeared with the womenfolk, the wealthier ones circling about the plaza in carriages or motor-cars, the less opulent afoot. The band played every other night. The great Province of Tucuman, of which the city bearing the same name is the capital, is one of the most fertile in all Argentina. Its principal products are sugar, rice, and cattle. Land values are high--too high in some cases, but it cannot be denied that there is good reason for the rapidly rising scale of prices. In Tucuman we found the chief of police a hard proposition to handle when it came to securing the hunting-license. To begin with, we had great difficulty in entering his sanctuary. The door was guarded by a mammoth negro who rushed into the inner chamber each time the _intendente_ rang for him. First he always jerked a huge club out from under his coat--ready perhaps to take the first whack at the official if some one started anything, instead of defending him. Finally we succeeded in entering the holy of holies, and found a small, rather elderly man sitting behind a large, flat desk, sipping tea while several _secretarios_ hopped wildly about him and yelled into an ear-trumpet held in position by one of his hands. He failed utterly to understand our request, and curtly refused to have anything to do with any _millinery establishment_. We argued in vain, then retired to think of some new move, for the permit was necessary if we wished to keep out of jail, and I must admit that such was our ardent desire.