How Shall I Describe The Metropolis Of The Argentine, With Its One-
Storied, Flat-Roofed Houses, Each With Grated Windows And Centre
Patio?
Some of the poorer inhabitants raise fowls on the roof,
which gives the house a barnyard appearance, while the iron-barred
windows below strongly suggest a prison.
Strange yet attractive
dwellings they are, lime-washed in various colors, the favorite
shades seeming to be pink and bottle green. Fires are not used except
for cooking purposes, and the little smoke they give out is quickly
dispersed by the breezes from the sixty-mile-wide river on which the
city stands.
The Buenos Ayres of 1889 was a strange place, with its long, narrow
streets, its peculiar stores and many-tongued inhabitants. There is
the dark-skinned policeman at the corner of each block sitting
silently on his horse, or galloping down the cobbled street at the
sound of some revolver, which generally tells of a life gone out.
Arriving on the scene he often finds the culprit flown. If he
succeeds in riding him down (an action he scruples not to do), he,
with great show, and at the sword's point, conducts him to the
nearest police station. Unfortunately he often chooses the quiet side
streets, where his prisoner may have a chance to buy his freedom. If
he pays a few dollars, the poor vigilante is perfectly willing to
lose him, after making sometimes the pretence of a struggle to blind
the lookers-on, if there be any curious enough to interest
themselves. This man in khaki is often "the terror of the innocent,
the laughing-stock of the guilty." The poor man or the foreign
sailor, if he stagger ever so little, is sure to be "run in." The
Argentine law-keeper (?) is provided with both sword and revolver,
but receives small remuneration, and as his salary is often tardily
paid him, he augments it in this way when he cannot see a good
opportunity of turning burglar or something worse on his own account.
When he is low in funds he will accost the stranger, begging a
cigarette, or inviting himself at your expense to the nearest
cafe, as "the day is so unusually hot." After all, we must not
blame him too much - his superiors are far from guiltless, and he
knows it. When Minister Toso took charge of the Provincial portfolio
of Finance, he exclaimed, "C-o! Todos van robando menos yo!"
("Everybody is robbing here except I.") It is public news that
President Celman carried away to his private residence in the country
a most beautiful and expensive bronze fountain presented by the
inhabitants of the city to adorn the principal plaza. [Footnote:
Public square.] The president is elected by the people for a term of
three years, and invariably retires a rich man, however poor he may
have been when entering on his office. The laws of the country may be
described as model and Christian, but the carrying out of them is a
very different matter.
Some of the laws are excellent and worthy of our imitation, such as,
for example, the one which decrees that bachelors shall be taxed.
Civil elections are held on Sundays, the voting places being Roman
Catholic churches.
Both postmen and telegraph boys deliver on horseback, but such is the
lax custom that everything will do to-morrow. That fatal word is the
first the stranger learns - manana.
Comparatively few people walk the streets. "No city in the world of
equal size and population can compare with Buenos Ayres for the
number and extent of its tramways." [Footnote: Turner's "Argentina."]
A writer in the Financial News says: "The proportion of the
population who daily use street-cars is sixty-six times greater in
Buenos Ayres than in the United Kingdom."
This Modern Athens, as the Argentines love to term their city, has
a beautiful climate. For perhaps three hundred days out of every year
there is a sky above as blue as was ever seen in Naples.
The natives eat only twice a day - at 10.30 a.m., and at 7 p.m. - the
common edibles costing but little. I could write much of Buenos
Ayres, with its carnicerias, where a leg of mutton may be bought
for 20 cts., or a brace of turkeys for 40 cts.; its almacenes,
where one may buy a pound of sugar or a yard of cotton, a measure of
charcoal (coal is there unknown) or a large sombrero, a package of
tobacco (leaves over two feet long) or a pair of white hemp-soled
shoes for your feet - all at the same counter. The customer may
further obtain a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer (the latter
costing four times the price of the former) from the same assistant,
who sells at different prices to different customers.
There the value of money is constantly changing, and almost every day
prices vary. What to-day costs $20 to-morrow may be $15, or, more
likely, $30. Although one hundred and seventy tons of sugar are
annually grown in the country, that luxury is decidedly expensive. I
have paid from 12 cts. to 30 cts. a pound. Oatmeal, the Scotsman's
dish, has cost me up to 50 cts. a pound.
Coming again on to the street you hear the deafening noises of the
cow horns blown by the streetcar drivers, or the pescador shrilly
inviting housekeepers to buy the repulsive-looking red fish, carried
over his shoulder, slung on a thick bamboo. Perhaps you meet a beggar
on horseback (for there wishes are horses, and beggars do ride),
who piteously whines for help. This steed-riding fraternity all use
invariably the same words: "Por el amor de Dios dame un centavo!"
("For the love of God give me a cent.") If you bestow it, he will
call on his patron saint to bless you. If you fail to assist him, the
curses of all the saints in heaven will fall on your impious head.
This often causes such a shudder in the recipient that I have known
him to turn back to appease the wrath of the mendicant, and receive
instead - a blessing.
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