Montevideo

“ It may come as a surprise to many to learn that Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, possesses a population of almost four hundred thousand inhabitants. By no means one of those centres that are remarkable only for population, it holds almost every conceivable attribute of a modern city—from boulevards and imposing public buildings to plazas, statuary, and a remarkably extensive tramway service. ”

“ The greatest city in Uruguay is Montevideo, the capital city. It is located on the Rio de la Plata river, which really seems more like a sea than a river, being sixty-two miles wide at this place. Buenos Aires is but a hundred and ten miles away and to reach it you just go angling across this great river. Montevideo is larger than Kansas City, Missouri. It has many splendid buildings, but no skyscrapers. The parks or plazas as they are called, are as pretty as nature and the hands of man can make them. ”

“ We will not weary the reader by protracted delay at this point, having still a long voyage before us.
Embarking at Montevideo, our way is southward over a broad and lonely track of ocean. If we can summon a degree of philosophy to our aid, it is fortunate. Without genial companions, surrounded by strangers, and thrown entirely upon ourselves, mental resort often fails us, life appears sombre, the wide, wide ocean almost appalling. ”

“ Montevideo, the capital and chief port of Uruguay, with a population approaching 400,000, is a pleasant city, a more homelike place than Buenos Aires and preferred as a residence by many, though doubtless more persons enjoy life better in the larger gayer capital. Favorably situated near the entrance, but on the Plata River, on a peninsula of high ground which shelters a good harbor on the west, while attractive beaches lie on the side towards the ocean, Montevideo is in some respects a contrast to South America’s metropolis, 100 miles distant, on the other shore. ”

“ First, Montevideo is a city of uncounted natural wealth, for prosperity is stamped on the blocks of every street, on the modest but comfortable homes, on the stores, the hotels, the clubs, and the churches. Second, it is a city of charming women, against whom I could bring but one indictment, that of disbelieving in their natural charms to such an extent as to lead them into a lavish use of artificial colouring and powder. Third, the enjoyment of life is here one of the prominent arts of daily occupation. ”

“ Montevideo the capital has the same air of freshness and cheerfulness which belong to Uruguayan landscape and the Uruguayan climate. It has grown to be a great and prosperous city in respect of its port, which makes it the chief seat of the republic's commerce. The estuary of the River Plate is much deeper on this northern side than on the southern, so large ships have always been able to approach nearer to this shore352 than they could do to the Argentine. ”

“ The most notable Argentine influence to be detected in Montevideo is the passion for highly polished boots! I have often been amused to notice workmen on their way from their tasks carefully dusting their boots with their handkerchiefs to keep themselves “in the movement.” Like all little countries, it is intensely proud of itself, tenacious of its independence, and conscious of a certain superiority to both of its great neighbours in the higher standard of intellectualism which it has developed. ”

“ It holds chief place in the national coat-of-arms and in the hearts of homesick sons of Uruguay. Never in all the rebellions and revolutions since its discovery has the Cerro been taken by force of arms; never will the people of Montevideo tire of telling haughty Porteños that Buenos Aires has nothing like it. ”

“ Thus at the beginning of 1811 Montevideo found itself, if only for a short while, the seat of the viceroyalty of the La Plata Provinces, and from that point of vantage Elio, the Viceroy, declared war upon Buenos Aires. Almost immediately, however, the spirit of independence became manifest in Uruguay itself, and it is at this juncture that occurs the name that has perhaps stamped itself most deeply of all upon the history of the Banda Oriental. ”

“ Municipal bands, good operatic and dramatic companies are added lures for holiday-makers of the wealthier class from neighbouring Republics; while Montevideo sustains the ancient custom of keeping carnival, masked and with illuminations, flower-throwing and costumed corsos, in a fashion which entirely throws into the shade the now moribund carnival of Buenos Aires. ”

“ It appeared incapable of standing a salute by its own guns, much less the fire of artillery in an attack. The view from the parapets is extensive in all directions; and, in the freshness and verdure of the spring, peculiarly beautiful. It embraces a fine inland view, the Mount, the bay and shipping; the massive walls and towers of Montevideo; and the new town of Restoracion. At the base of the hill on the east, lay, in a quadrangular village, the little huts of mud, thatched with grass, which have for years been the quarters of the besieging soldiery. ”

“ A clean, homelike, and agreeable city is Montevideo, most attractive as a place of residence, and preferred by many to the great metropolis farther up the river, with its million more inhabitants. About the size of our own capital, Washington, it is large enough for all practical purposes, and is the home of a wide-awake community. ”

“ Montevideo—Beggars—Antonina for maté—Antonina to Buenos Aires—The bombelia.
Montevideo, sister city to Buenos Aires, is the fairer of the two to look upon from the sea, having a loftier situation, and, like Buenos Aires, boasts of many fine mansions, comely women, liberal schools, and a cemetery of great splendour.
It is at Montevideo that the "beggar a-horse-back" becomes a verity (horses are cheap) ; galloping up to you the whining beggar will implore you, saying: "For the love of Christ, friend, give me a coin to buy bread with." ”

“ Buenos Aires has always had a spirit of progression, which has become contagious and has spread to Rosario, and to Bahia Blanca; Montevideo has always been conservative, entirely wrapped in herself, indifferent to other cities. Uruguay, which is the smallest republic in South America, has an area of only 72,210 square miles, not as large as the province of Buenos Aires alone. Of its population of 1,042,668 inhabitants, one half live within a radius of twenty miles from the center of the city of Montevideo. ”

“ The Montevidean lady has now, of course, become essentially modern. She rides in a motor-car, plays the piano instead of the guitar, and has exchanged the old order in general for the new. Yet the same vivacity, courage, and good looks remain—which is an excellent and beneficial thing for Montevideo and its inhabitants. Indeed, the beach of Poçitos or the sands of Ramirez shorn of their female adornment would be too terrible a disaster to contemplate even on the part of the most hardened Oriental. ”

“ Improvements have been made so that with better connections and sleeping cars to the border, which were lacking part of the way in 1916, the journey is now made in comfort in 41⁄2 days to Montevideo. The road runs through a rich, often beautiful country; in some places with splendid scenery and fine forests, in others with open grazing lands where good cattle are visible, past small towns and pleasant rivers. ”

“ You will see far more elderly people in Montevideo than in Buenos Ayres, where men of over fifty-five are rarities in the streets. The fact is that Uruguayan revolutions have degenerated into something very much akin to the duel in France, and they are usually fought where there is likely to be the least danger to property, as Whites and Reds alike have come to appreciate the advantages of modern domestic comfort, and the more beautiful villas there are erected in the suburbs and surroundings of Montevideo, the less likely are revolutions to occur. ”

“ It is the centre of all the most important business of the Republic and reputed one of the best markets in the River Plate.
In Montevideo reside all the principal Societies and Associations in the Republic.
The aspect of the town is agreeable and quite that of a European city, and its population is quite a cosmopolitan one.
The census of the year 1891, Dec. 31, gave a result of 234,688 souls for the department of Montevideo, 190,000 more or less belonging exclusively to Montevideo, and 53 per cent. of them being natives and 47 per cent. foreigners. ”

“ That there is a mysterious something in the air of Montevideo which influences men in the direction of abstract idealism, and at the same time blinds them to facts which their cherished theories will not fit, seems undeniable. But it is unlikely that Uruguay will ever again be plunged into the ruinous throes of Revolution. ”

“ But to the stranger who does not take a house in either city, and prefers the comfortless freedom of hotel life, the conditions are exactly reversed, so that Montevideo would appear to a casual observer the more expensive city in which to live. ”

“ So those who desire to come to the entertainments quite unattended can do so with perfect propriety, and are safe from all intrusion in this isolated position. The ladies of this city, when they appear in public, dress very elegantly, following closely North American and European styles, while displaying the choicest imported materials well made up. Perhaps comparisons are invidious, but we feel inclined to accord precedence in the matter of personal beauty to those of Montevideo. ”

“ All around the town will run the great boulevard General Artigas. The whole town consists in 1,600 manzanas or square cuadras, more than 600 of which are already edificed; it must be added that every day new buildings are begun everywhere about the town. In all directions new streets are opened and new houses are built and new suburbs created, making Montevideo larger and larger every day. ”

“ Montevideo at first apparently supported the May revolution of Buenos Aires, but shortly afterwards changed its attitude, recognized the authority of the Regency at Cádiz, and though its subsequent history has many points of contact with that of the Argentine, it never again became a component part of the nation. The pure Spanish element was stronger in Montevideo than in Buenos Aires, where the creoles dominated. ”

“ When it is not June in Uruguay, it is October—never too hot and never too cold. There is not such a thing as a stove in the whole country, but some of the foreigners have fireplaces in their houses, to temper the winds for the tender feet. What Montevideo most needs, like Buenos Ayres, is a harbor, for during a pampero the ships at anchor in the river are without protection, and at all times the landing and the shipping of merchandise are conducted with great difficulty in lighters, as at the latter place. ”

“ The atmosphere of Montevideo is essentially that of leisure, of a people engaged in affairs that do not imply any particular hurry. “Spanish to-morrows” are familiar here—mañana is a potent word! The total population being only some four hundred thousand, signifies localism, especially as there is no great influx of foreign immigration, and most people of any position in the town know everybody “who is anybody.” I have read in “authoritative” works that the population exists in a continual state of vendetta between the two political parties, the Blancos and the Colorados. ”

“ Montevideo was founded in 1726, but remained a comparatively unimportant way station until some thirty years ago, when it began to imbibe the modernism of its big rivals in Brazil and Argentina. To-day it is almost as cosmopolitan as Buenos Aires, the Italian element predominating among the foreigners, with the British preëminent as investors of capital, as in the latter city. To the superb Solis Theater come all the European companies that appear in Buenos Aires; club life is best represented in the Club Uruguay and the English Club, situated on opposite sides of the Plaza Matriz ”

“ BUMPING UP TO RIO Upon the thirty-first parallel of south latitude, three hundred and sixty miles north of Montevideo, there is a town of divided allegiance, situated in both the smallest and the largest countries of South America. When the traveler descends from the “Uruguay Central” he finds it is named for Colonel Rivera, the Custer of Uruguay, who made the last stand against the Charrúa Indians and was killed by them in 1832. ”

“ The town is spread over a large territory, and stretches away into thinly populated suburbs, but all parts are rendered accessible by the well-perfected system of tramways which extend over fifty miles within the city and the immediate environs. In the absence of official figures, we should judge that Montevideo had a population of at least two hundred thousand. Every other nationality seems to be represented in its streets and warehouses, except that of Uruguay herself. ”

“ Iron-work grilles are universal, and many house-doors have brass-lined peepholes through which the resident can see whether the man knocking is worth admitting. Gardens with subtropical plants are numerous and promenades under palm-trees by no means unusual. Especially along the edge of the sea there are over-ornate quintas, alternating with washerwoman shanties; but there is little oppressive poverty in Montevideo, and at the same time little of the conspicuous plutocracy so familiar across the river, a lack of contrast which adds, perhaps, to the monotony of many a street vista. ”

“ With social institutions of all kinds Montevideo is amply provided. The theatres are well constructed, well patronised, and frequently visited by some of the most efficient companies in existence. It is true that, owing to the difference in the size of the two towns, Montevideo usually obtains the tail-end of a visit the most part of which has been spent in Buenos Aires. ”