Richard Francis Burton

“ The assistance rendered by General Mitre to Flores was under the rose, even as Garibaldi was provided with the Anglo-Italian Legion, whose victories, attributed to the Picciotti, so mystified the public. But he is charged by the general voice with having brought about a war which has made Buenos Aires, like Monte Video, a simple prefecture of the Cabinet of S. Christovao ; he has placed his native land in the ignoble position which Lord Palmerston chose for us in the Crimea, that of a second-rate fighting under a first-rate power ; a weak republic by the side of an immense empire. ”

“ The sun sucks-the earth, but the clear, uright air shows distances well defined as those of Salisbury Downs on a fine October day. The one bad banado or swamp does not let or injure us, although the corrals or paddocks, and the rodeos or gathering grounds for cattle, are knee-deep in bone-dirt and mire. Thin cattle and thinner sheep browse upon the grass, which is coarse and luxuriant, and the ground is scattered with domes, barrow- shaped ant-hills large and small. ”

“ Buenos Aires is evidently a city j it has a civic hurry and excitement ; there is a polished manner of citizen in it ; the first glance tells us that it is not, like Monte Video, a town. The houses, especially externally, are palazzi, built by Italians, who partly follow the Spanish taste ; they appear remarkably fine and solid after the poorer architecture of the Brazil. ”

“ In the old establishment all is coarse and heavy; the brick-paved patio, with its rude horseshoe arches, the flat roof draining into the Aljibe, rain-tank, or cistern — I have advised you to beware of the fluid — and the badly laid out plan in which the bedrooms, for instance, conduct to the saloons, speak of a time when wealth was general and re- finement rare. ”

“ On the other hand Concordia, governed according to ancient principles, schooled to order, and disciplined into propriety, falls out of the race of life : the hand of a self-imposed ruler weighs heavy upon it; it sleeps, it swoons, it dies. We are encouraged by the experience of these two rival villages to believe in that future which is now mainly in the hands of poets, in the universal Republic, in the Fede- ration of peoples, and in the absolute self-rule which a progressive race will presently demand as its birthright.
The rapids above Salto are hardly passable during the dries. ”

“ It is a stream of gold flowing through the liveliest green that spring can give ; and the beauty, the variety, and the soft- ness of the tints above can only be equalled by the pic- turesque diversity and amenity of the scene below. ”

“ The causes that formed the delta-islands of the Parana are still active, and in the natural order of events banks must be growing up between the mouth of the Uruguay and the Parana de las Palmas. Finally, no company would do justice to such works; they can hardly be entrusted to a Government which rarely outlasts three years and ends in a smash — in fact, my friend comes to the wise conclusion that the scheme is too vast for the young country in its present backward state. ”

“ Never leaving home, and being visited by strangers from all quarters, General Urquiza has a right to hold himself a man of note ; his family naturally think him the first in the vrorld ; and his flatterers declare that but for the fault of Marshal-President Lopez, he would have lassoed at Uruguyana the Imperial leader of the Brazilian army. ”

“ The main square, Plaza de la Victoria, the heart of cir- culation, the business part where men in fine weather seem to live, and where you meet all your acquaintances half a dozen times a day, is small and mean, fitted for a country town, utterly unworthy of a metropolis, the Pro- vincial and Confederative capital, the seat of the local and general legislature, a New York and Washington in one. ”

“ All are abominably bad, and dear in proportion. They show discomfort at its acme, and service, food, and care of rooms are inferior to third-rate inns in a second-rate European city. Surely in a place where gold ounces are so very cheap, it would be possible to set up a good new American hotel, like the Grand in the Boulevart des Italiens. ”

“ The thing is to lead out some small dark person, to hold her moderately close, to twist mincingly round upon yourself some half a dozen times, to stop with a jerk, and then to stand amongst the lookers-on. Young Buenos Aires is not given to affecting manliness. ”

“ The thoroughfares are macadam- ized with the soil of the suburbs, which cakes under the sun, and crumbles before the wind, dirtying the hands like London smoke. Drainage is left to those Brazilian engi- neers, Messrs. Sun and Wind. The only washing is by rain rushing down the cross streets. There is absolutely no sewerage ; a pit in the patio is dug by way of cesspool, and is filled up with soil, a fair anticipation of the deodo- rizing earth closet. ”

“ One landlady has a pronounced taste for " brandy-pawnee ;" another is painfully familiar with her clientele; whilst a third is so open- eared to the charms of the lottery voice, that she will invest in an impossible speculation the sovereigns entrusted by you to her strong box, and she will probably address to you a begging letter, representing that she is a lone wife or a poor widow. ”

“ A DAY AT BUENOS AIRES. 161
More than one street — for instance, Calles Paraguay and Defensa — must be crossed by a drawbridge after rains which drown men, and which carry off carts and horses. Before the days of pavements, when the pantanos or muds were filled up with corn or jerked beef, the earth was con- verted by showers into slush, and swept down into the general reservoir, the river bed — hence the sunken ways. ”

“ Mackern's stationery store — it is wonderful that some enterprising London publisher does not use this and similar establishments to make a clientele in South America. English books are extensively read both by natives and foreigners, but few will take the trouble of sending for them to England. Beyond lies the Bourse of Buenos Aires, a contemptible affair, ruinous inside, and outside unworthy of a country town.
A turn to the left up Cangallo-street takes you into Calle Florida (not Florida) , the Regent Street. ”

“ The taste for tall houses has exaggerated the mirador, or look-out ; it is often provided with extensive balconies, and with well railed exterior staircases ; when three stories tall it makes, as in the Limagne, the house appear like a box standing on one end. ”

“ A DAY AT BUENOS AIRES — THE OLD ENGAGEMENT KEPT.
Buenos Aires, Sunday, August 16, 1868. My dear Z ,
We prepare to land, and of all self-styled civilized landing-places this at the '^^ Athens of South America" is perhaps the worst. Vile in fine weather— what must be the abomination when Pampero the storm-blast is out! The wind seems always to blow inwards, and summer shows a worse river than winter; while with rare intervals the air is ever wet, damp, and depressing. ”

“ Street walking becomes at Buenos Aires a study, an art. People prepare for it their toe-nails — excuse the subject — I have a duty to perform — like most duties it is "unplea- sant.^^ The centre of the nail is scraped thin, so as to weaken the keystone of the arch : the middle edge is cut into a demilune concave, and the corners, generally removed by the vulgar mind, are encouraged to grow square, so as not to penetrate the flesh. ”

“ A DAir AT BUENOS AIRES. 155
swept up like the silt of the Nile by the storm- wind from the arid sub-Andine wastes to the south-west.
Actual Bueuos Aires will soon see a better future when its water-front shall be built up like Californian San Fran- cisco or the levees of New Orleans. Somebody will find her brickj and w ill, Augustus-like^ leave her marble. Evidently, present amelioration is loudly called for. The barques and brigs, brigantines and polaccos, schooners and luggers in port now generally average upwards of 200, and soon they will be 500. The injury to merchandize is enormous ”

“ General Netto had also joined Flores with 1400 men : the total of the allied forces is estimated at 12,000 men, and the site of Paysandu is, as I have said, a perfect ball-trap.
The Commandante General al Norte del Rio Negro, Colonel D. Leandro Gomez, had charge of the defence. He was a noted Blanco, and brother of the Minister of War, Andres A. Gomez. Having been compelled by a council, of whom eighteen voted against twelve, to evacuate Salto, he was instructed by his party to hold Paysandu till the last, and daily to expect reinforcements. ”

“ Of late years General Urquiza has devoted himself to the improvement of an estate which, containing 50 + 10 leagues or 3,600,000 acres, is larger than many an English county. He is said to own 200,000 sheep and 800,000 head of cattle, whose annual increase must be at least 10 per cent. ”

“ Geographically and politically, Uruguay is Brazilian, fed by the copious rains of the Empire of the Southern Cross •/' therefore is he tolerably sweet and wholesome, not to say clear and clean — at any rate the dirt is clean dirt. Parana, three-quarters rain to one-quarter snow, contains dirty dirt, salts washed from the saleratus deserts, and the mineralized soils of the lower Andes : in parts therefore the waters are not drunk. ”

“ A man who does not deliver himself of a compliment like a pistol shot a brule pourpoint at every second sentence is not a ^^ Caballero,^^ at any rate he is a bore. Dinner at dark, more ridiculous conversation, perhaps tobacco with a dif- fusible stimulant, and bed about midnight.
I also visited some of the estancias south of Paysandii — first, the Rincon del Cangue, belonging to the late Mr. Plowes, and managed by Dr. Gibbings. The house is com- fortable, but bald of wood, wanting the garden-ground and the monte that surround the country houses of the Buenos Aires province. ”

“ It is universally a favourite from Monte Video to the far interior, but the reason why we cannot explain. The shrub-like trees are always stunted; they are mere sticks in August, with little of leafage, hardly shading, even in March, the little kiosks that sell newspapers ; the boles are dark and dingy, and the bundles of brown berries are, out of chaplets, disagreeably prominent. The general aspect of the square is bald and poor, especially when seen after Santiago and Lima ”

“ Thus one side of the street is dry in wet and is windless in windy weather, and as the height of the houses increases, those at the corners should be rounded off to insure ventilation.
The street scandal is inexcusable in so wealthy a place. The municipality can afford $600,000 (f.) = 120,000/. of in- come, but the city fathers, those posts that point the way to progress without ever progressing, though eternally ^^ pitched into " give no sign, and fresh blood is still wanted. Buenos Aires sadly requires the Baron de Campy, who is supposed to have paved the Imperial capital further north. ”

“ The new Custom House, the Moles, the Western Railway, the Gas Works, the Colon Theatre, and the Water Works, with other undertakings carried out by provincial resources, show how much may be done if money be not frittered away. ”

“ Here the best agates of commerce (chalcedonies) are found, and about 200 tons are yearly exported to Havre and Antwerp : they occur detached or embedded in the amygdaloid, adhering to the hard sandstone like butter to bread. The noble quartzes appear in water-rolled pebbles, large and small ; there is the amethyst, the true agate, jas- per, cornelian, onyx, sardonyx, and jet : sign of diamonds is also not wanting. ”

“ A DAY AT BUENOS AIRES. 163
the Uruguay, River of the Missions. Broken brick would be better than nothing in streets which are not much visited by wheeled vehicles,, and these could at present be limited. Sufficient care is not taken in naming the thoroughfares : France is the great mistress of that art. As at Rio de Janeiro, the black forefinger points the direction of transit in carriage or cart : this plan^ so necessary in narrow streets, might be adopted even in London. ”

“ The kiosk mania has migrated from the banks of the Seine to far Father Plate; at Buenos Aires you see them even in the main square. They sell newspapers and cheap books. Erotic lyrics, and half- naughty photos. ; none ever knew a body who had ever entered into one of them. The Custom-house officers are very civil, and slow in proportion ”

“ Perhaps the least abominable is the Hotel Universal, in the Calle San Martin ; it enters, like the Ancla Dourada, into the category of '^ cazas ameubladas,^^ allowing you to dine at the Cafe de Paris, at your club, or at your friend^s house — and in this most hospitable of cities you will be asked to dine at some three places every evening. The Universal has the
A GLANCli AT BUENOS AIRES. 173
advantage of being a bath establishment,, where, for the use of an old tin pot pulled out at both ends and full of muddy Platine water, you pay as much as for a first-elass bain complet at Nice. ”