Brazil--Contrast between Portuguese and Spanish South
America--Moorish traditions--Amazing beauty of Rio de Janeiro--Yellow
fever--The Commercial Court Chamberlain--The Emperor Pedro--The
Botanic Gardens of Rio--The quaint diversions of Petropolis--The
liveried young entomologist--Buenos Ayres--The charm of the
"Camp"--Water-throwing--A British Minister in Carnival time--Some
Buenos Ayres peculiarities--Masked balls--Climatic
conditions--Theatres--Restaurants--Wonderful bird-life of the
"Camp"--Estancis Negrete--Duck-shooting--My one flamingo--An
exploring expedition in the Gran Chaco--Hardships--Alligators and
fish--Currency difficulties.
My first impression of Brazil was that it was a mere transplanted
Portugal, but a Portugal set amidst the most glorious vegetation and
some of the finest scenery on the face of the globe. It is also
unquestionably suffocatingly hot.
There is a great outward difference in the appearances of the towns
of Portuguese and Spanish South America. In Brazil the Portuguese
built their houses and towns precisely as they had done at home.
There are the same winding irregular streets; the same tall houses
faced with the decorative "azulejos"; the same shutterless
sash-windows. A type of house less suited to the burning climate of
Brazil can hardly be imagined. There being no outside shutters, it
is impossible to keep the heat {239} out, and the small rooms become
so many ovens. The sinuosities of the irregular streets give a
curiously old-world look to a Brazilian town, so much so that it is
difficult for a European to realise that he is on the American
Continent, associated as the latter is in our minds with unending
straight lines.
In all Spanish-American countries the towns are laid out on the
chess-board principle, with long dreary perspectives stretching
themselves endlessly. The Spanish-American type of house too is
mostly one-storied and flat-roofed, with two iron-barred windows only
looking on to the street. The Moorish conquerors left their impress
on Spain, and the Spanish pioneers carried across the Atlantic with
them the Moorish conception of a house. The "patio" or enclosed
court in the centre of the house is a heritage from the Moors, as is
the flat roof or "azotea," and the decorated rainwater cistern in the
centre of the "patio."
The very name of this tank in Spanish, "aljibe," is of Arabic origin,
and it becomes obvious that this type of house was evolved by
Mohammedans who kept their womenkind in jealous and strict seclusion.
No indiscreet eyes from outside can penetrate into the "patio," and
after nightfall the women could be allowed on to the flat roof to
take the air. Those familiar with the East know the great part the
roof of a house plays in the life of an Oriental. It is their
parlour, particularly after dark. As the inhabitants of South
America are not Mohammedans, I cannot conceive why they {240}
obstinately adhere to this inconvenient type of dwelling. The
"patio" renders the house very dark and airless, becomes a well of
damp in winter, and an oven in summer. To my mind unquestionably the
best form of house for a hot climate is the Anglo-Indian bungalow,
with its broad verandahs, thatched roof, and lofty rooms. In a
bungalow some of the heat can be shut out.
On my first arrival in Brazil, the tropics and tropical vegetation
were an unopened book to me, and I was fairly intoxicated with their
beauty.
There is a short English-owned railway running from Pernambuco to
some unknown spot in the interior. The manager of this railway came
out on the steamer with us, and he was good enough to take me for a
run on an engine into the heart of the virgin forest. I shall never
forget the impression this made on me. It was like a peep into a
wholly unimagined fairyland.
Had the calls of the mail steamer been deliberately designed to give
the stranger a cumulative impression of the beauties of Brazil, they
could not have been more happily arranged. First of Pernambuco in
flat country, redeemed by its splendid vegetation; then Bahia with
its fine bay and gentle hills, and lastly Rio the incomparable.
I have seen most of the surface of this globe, and I say
deliberately, without any fear of contradiction, that nowhere is
there anything approaching Rio in beauty. The glorious bay, two
hundred miles in circumference, dotted with islands, and {241}
surrounded by mountains of almost grotesquely fantastic outlines, the
whole clothed with exuberantly luxurious tropical vegetation, makes
the most lovely picture that can be conceived.
The straggling town in my day had not yet blossomed into those
vagaries of ultra-ornate architecture which at present characterise
it. It was quaint and picturesque, and fitted its surroundings
admirably, the narrow crowded Ruado Ouvidor being the centre of the
fashionable life of the place.
It will be remembered that when Gonçalves discovered the great bay on
January 1st, 1502, he imagined that it must be the estuary of some
mighty river, and christened it accordingly "the River of January,"
"Rio de Janeiro." Oddly enough, only a few insignificant streams
empty themselves into this vast landlocked harbour.
During my first fortnight in Rio, I thought the view over the bay
more beautiful with every fresh standpoint I saw it from; whether
from Botofogo, or from Nichteroy on the further shore, the view
seemed more entrancingly lovely every time; and yet over this, the
fairest spot on earth, the Angel of Death was perpetually hovering
with outstretched wings; for yellow fever was endemic at Rio then,
and yellow fever slays swiftly and surely.
One must have lived in countries where the disease is prevalent to
realise the insane terror those two words "yellow fever" strike into
most people. On my third visit to Rio, I was destined to contract
the disease myself, but it dealt mercifully with me, {242} so
henceforth I am immune to yellow fever for the remainder of my life.
The ravages this fell disease wrought in the West Indies a hundred
years ago cannot be exaggerated. Those familiar with Michael Scott's
delightful "Tom Cringle's Log" will remember the gruesome details he
gives of a severe outbreak of the epidemic in Jamaica. In those days
"Yellow Jack" took toll of nearly fifty per cent. of the white civil
and military inhabitants of the British West Indies, as the countless
memorial tablets in the older West Indian churches silently testify.
Before my arrival in Rio, a new German Minister had, in spite of
serious warnings, insisted on taking a beautiful little villa on a
rocky promontory jutting into the bay. The house with its white
marble colonnades, its lovely gardens, and the wonderful view over
the mountains, was a thing of exquisite beauty, but it bore a very
evil reputation. Within eight months the German Minister, his
secretary, and his two white German servants were all dead of yellow
fever. The Brazilians declare that the fever is never contracted
during the daytime, but that sunset is the dangerous hour. They also
warn the foreigner to avoid fruit and acid drinks.
Conditions have changed since then. The cause of the unhealthiness
of Rio was a very simple one. All the sewage of the city was
discharged into the landlocked, tideless bay, where it lay festering
under the scorching sun. An English company tunnelled a way through
the mountains direct to {243} the Atlantic, and all the sewage is now
discharged there, with the result that Rio is practically free from
the dreaded disease.
The customs of a monarchial country are like a deep-rooted oak, they
do not stand transplanting. Where they are the result of the slow
growth of many centuries, they have adapted themselves, so to speak,
to the soil of the country of their origin, have evolved national
characteristics, and have fitted themselves into the national life.
When transplanted into a new country, they cannot fail to appear
anachronisms, and have always a certain element of the grotesque
about them. In my time Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had
surrounded himself with a modified edition of the externals of a
European Court. A colleague of mine had recently been presented to
the Emperor at the Palace of São Christovão. As is customary on such
occasions, my colleague called on the two Court Chamberlains who were
on duty at São Christovão, and they duly returned the visit. One of
these Chamberlains, whom we will call Baron de Feijão e Farinha,
seemed reluctant to take his departure. He finally produced a bundle
of price lists from his pocket, and assured my colleague that he
would get far better value for his money at his (the Baron's)
ready-made clothing store than at any other similar establishment in
South America. From another pocket he then extracted a tape measure,
and in spite of my colleague's protest passed the tape over his
unwilling body to note the {244} stock size, in the event of an
order. The Baron de Feijão especially recommended one of his models,
"the Pall Mall," a complete suit of which could be obtained for the
nominal sum of 80,000 reis. This appalling sum looks less alarming
when reduced to British currency, 80,000 Brazilian reis being equal
to about £7 7_s_. I am not sure that he did not promise my colleague
a commission on any orders he could extract from other members of the
Legation. My colleague, a remarkably well-dressed man, did not
recover his equanimity for some days, after picturing his
neatly-garbed form arrayed in the appallingly flashy, ill-cut,
ready-made garments in which the youth of Rio de Janeiro were wont to
disport themselves. To European ideas, it was a little unusual to
find a Court Chamberlain engaged in the ready-made clothing line.
On State occasions Dom Pedro assumed the most splendid Imperial
mantle any sovereign has ever possessed. It was composed entirely of
feathers, being made of the breasts of toucans, shaded from pale pink
to deep rose-colour, and was the most gorgeous bit of colour
imaginable. In the sweltering climate of Brazil, the heat of this
mantle must have been unendurable, and I always wondered how Dom
Pedro managed to bear it with a smiling face, but it certainly looked
magnificent.
One of the industries of Rio was the manufacture of artificial
flowers from the feathers of humming-birds. These feather flowers
were wonderfully faithful reproductions of Nature, and were {245}
practically indestructible, besides being most artistically made.
They were very expensive.
The famous avenue of royal palms in the Botanic Gardens would almost
repay anyone for the voyage from Europe. These are, I believe, the
tallest palms known, and the long avenue is strikingly impressive.
The _Oreodoxa regia_, one of the cabbage-palms, has a huge trunk,
perfectly symmetrical, and growing absolutely straight. This
perspective of giant boles recalls the columns of an immense Gothic
cathedral, whilst the fronds uniting in a green arch two hundred feet
overhead complete the illusion. The Botanic Gardens have some most
attractive ponds of pink and sky-blue water lilies, and the view of
the bay from the gardens is usually considered the finest in Rio.
Owing to the unhealthiness of Rio, most of the Foreign Legations had
established themselves permanently at Petropolis, in the Organ
Mountains, Petropolis being well above the yellow fever zone. On my
third visit to Rio, such a terrible epidemic of yellow fever was
raging in the capital that the British Minister very kindly invited
me to go up straight to the Legation at Petropolis. The latter is
three hours' distance from Rio by mountain railway. People with
business in the city leave for Rio by the 7 a.m. train, and reach
Petropolis again at 7 p.m. The old Emperor, Dom Pedro, made a point
of attending the departure and arrival of the train every single day,
and a military band played regularly in the station, morning and
{246} evening. This struck me as a very unusual form of amusement.
The Emperor (who ten months later was quietly deposed) was a tall,
handsome old gentleman, of very distinguished appearance, and with
charming manners. He had also encyclopædic knowledge on most points.
That a sovereign should take pleasure in seeing the daily train
depart and arrive seemed to point to a certain lack of resources in
Petropolis, and to hint at moments of deadly dulness in the Imperial
villa there. Dom Pedro never appeared in public except in evening
dress, and it was a novelty to see the head of a State in full
evening dress and high hat at half-past six in the morning, listening
to an extremely indifferent brass band braying in the waiting-room of
a shabby railway station.
Nature seems to have lavished all the most brilliant hues of her
palette on Brazil; the plumage of the birds, the flowers, and foliage
all glow with vivid colour. Even a Brazilian toad has bright
emerald-green spots all over him. The gorgeous butterflies of this
highly-coloured land are well known in Europe, especially those
lovely creatures of shimmering, iridescent blue.
These butterflies were the cause of a considerable variation in the
hours of meals at the British Legation.
The Minister had recently brought out to Brazil an English boy to act
as young footman. Henry was a most willing, obliging lad, but these
great Brazilian butterflies exercised a quite irresistible {247}
fascination over him, and small blame to him. He kept a
butterfly-net in the pantry, and the instant one of the brilliant,
glittering creatures appeared in the garden, Henry forgot everything.
Clang the front-door bell so loudly, he paid no heed to it; the cook
might be yelling for him to carry the luncheon into the dining-room,
Henry turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. Snatching up his
butterfly-net, he would dart through the window in hot pursuit. As
these great butterflies fly like Handley Pages, he had his work cut
out for him, and running is exhausting in a temperature of 90
degrees. The usual hour for luncheon would be long past, and the
table would still exhibit a virgin expanse of white cloth. Somewhere
in the dim distance we could descry a slim young figure bounding
along hot-foot, with butterfly-net poised aloft, so we possessed our
souls in patience. Eventually Henry would reappear, moist but
triumphant, or dripping and despondent, according to his success or
failure with his shimmering quarry. After such violent exercise,
Henry had to have a plunge in the swimming-bath and a complete change
of clothing before he could resume his duties, all of which
occasioned some little further delay. And this would happen every
day, so our repasts may be legitimately described as "movable
feasts." It was no use speaking to Henry. He would promise to be
less forgetful, but the next butterfly that came flitting along drove
all good resolves out of this ardent young entomologist's head, and
off he would {248} go on flying feet in eager pursuit. I recommended
Henry when he returned to England to take up cross-country running
seriously. He seemed to have unmistakable aptitudes for it.
The streets of Petropolis were planted with avenues of a flowering
tree imported from the Southern Pacific. When in bloom, this tree
was so covered with vivid pink blossoms that all its leaves were
hidden. These rows of bright pink trees gave the dull little town a
curious resemblance to a Japanese fan.
There are some lovely little nooks and corners in the Organ
Mountains. One ravine in particular was most beautiful, with a
cascade dashing down the cliff, and the clear brook below it fringed
with eucharis lilies, and the tropical begonias which we laboriously
cultivate in stove-houses. Unfortunately, these beauty spots seemed
as attractive to snakes as they were to human beings. This entailed
keeping a watchful eye on the ground, for Brazilian snakes are very
venomous.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that between the forests and
mountains of steamy Brazil and the endless, treeless, dead-flat
levels of the Argentine Republic, twelve hundred miles south of them.
When I first knew Buenos Ayres in the early "'eighties," it still
retained an old-world air of distinction. The narrow streets were
lined with sombre, dignified old buildings of a markedly Spanish
type, and the modern riot of over-ornate ginger-bread {249}
architecture had not yet transformed the city into a glittering,
garish trans-Atlantic pseudo-Paris. In the same way newly-acquired
wealth had not begun to assert itself as blatantly as it has since
done.
I confess that I was astonished to find two daily English newspapers
in Buenos Ayres, for I had not realised the size and importance of
the British commercial colony there.
The "Camp" (from the Spanish _campo_, country) outside the city is
undeniably ugly and featureless, as it stretches its unending
khaki-coloured, treeless flatness to the horizon, but the sense of
immense space has something exhilarating about it, and the air is
perfectly glorious. In time these vast dun-coloured levels exercise
a sort of a fascination over one; to me the "Camp" will always be
associated with the raucous cries of the thousands of spurred
Argentine plovers, as they wheel over the horsemen with their
never-ending scream of "téro, téro."
As in most countries of Spanish origin, the Carnival was kept at
Buenos Ayres in the old-fashioned style. In my time, on the last day
of the Carnival, Shrove Tuesday, the traditional water-throwing was
still allowed in the streets. Everyone going into the streets must
be prepared for being drenched with water from head to foot. My new
Chief, whom I will call Sir Edward (though he happened to have a
totally different name), had just arrived in Buenos Ayres. He was
quite {250} unused to South American ways. On Shrove Tuesday I came
down to breakfast in an old suit of flannels and a soft shirt and
collar, for from my experiences of the previous year I knew what was
to be expected in the streets. Sir Edward, a remarkably neat
dresser, appeared beautifully arrayed in a new suit, the smartest of
bow-ties, and a yellow jean waistcoat. I pointed out to my Chief
that it was water-throwing day, and suggested the advisability of his
wearing his oldest clothes. Sir Edward gave me to understand that he
imagined that few people would venture to throw water over her
Britannic Majesty's representative. Off we started on foot for the
Chancery of the Legation, which was situated a good mile from our
house. I knew what was coming. In the first five minutes we got a
bucket of water from the top of a house, plumb all over us, soaking
us both to the skin. Sir Edward was speechless with rage for a
minute or so, after which I will not attempt to reproduce his
language. Men were selling everywhere in the streets the large
squirts ("_pomitos_" in Spanish) which are used on these occasions.
I equipped myself with a perfect Woolwich Arsenal of _pomitos_, but
Sir Edward waved them all disdainfully away. Soon two girls darted
out of an open doorway, armed with _pomitos_, and caught us each
fairly in the face, after which they giggled and ran into their
house, leaving the front door open. Sir Edward fairly danced with
rage on the pavement, shouting out the most uncomplimentary opinions
as to the {251} Argentine Republic and its inhabitants. The front
door having been left open, I was entitled by all the laws of
Carnival time to pursue our two fair assailants into their house, and
I did so, in spite of Sir Edward's remonstrances. I chased the two
girls into the drawing-room, where we experienced some little
difficulty in clambering over sofas and tables, and I finally caught
them in the dining-room, where a venerable lady, probably their
grandmother, was reposing in an armchair. I gave the two girls a
thorough good soaking from my _pomitos_, and bestowed the mildest
sprinkling on their aged relative, who was immensely gratified by the
attention. "Oh! my dears," she cried in Spanish to the girls, "you
both consider me so old. You can see that I am not too old for this
young man to enjoy paying me a little compliment."
_Autres pays, autres moeurs_! Just conceive the feelings of an
ordinary British middle-class householder, residing, let us say, at
Balham or Wandsworth, at learning that the sanctity of "The Laurels"
or "Ferndale" had been invaded by a total stranger; that his
daughters had been pursued round the house, and then soaked with
water in his own dining-room, and that even his aged mother's revered
white hairs had not preserved her from a like indignity. I cannot
imagine him accepting it as a humorous everyday incident. Our
progress to the Chancery was punctuated by several more interludes of
a similar character, and I was really pained on reaching the shelter
of our official {252} sanctuary to note how Sir Edward's spotless
garments had suffered. Personally, on a broiling February day
(corresponding with August in the northern hemisphere) I thought the
cool water most refreshing. Our Chancery looked on to the
fashionable Calle Florida, and a highly respectable German widow who
had lived for thirty years in South America acted as our housekeeper.
Sir Edward, considerably ruffled in his temper, sat down to continue
a very elaborate memorandum he was drawing up on the new Argentine
Customs tariff. The subject was a complicated one, there were masses
of figures to deal with, and the work required the closest
concentration. Presently our housekeeper, Fran Bauer, entered the
room demurely, and made her way to Sir Edward's table,
"Wenn Excellenz so gut sein werden um zu entschuldigen," began Frau
Bauer with downcast eyes, and then suddenly with a discreet titter
she produced a large _pomito_ from under her apron and, secure in the
license of Carnival time, she thrust it into Sir Edward's collar, and
proceeded to squirt half a pint of cold water down his back, retiring
swiftly with elderly coyness amid an explosion of giggles. I think
that I have seldom seen a man in such a furious rage. I will not
attempt to reproduce Sir Edward's language, for the printer would
have exhausted his entire stock of "blanks" before I had got halfway
through. The Minister, when he had eased his mind sufficiently,
snapped out, "It is obvious that with all {253} this condemned (that
was not quite the word he used) foolery going on, it is impossible to
do any serious work to-day. Where ... where ... can one buy the
infernal squirts these condemned idiots vise?" "Anywhere in the
streets. Shall I buy you some, Sir Edward?" "Yes, get me a lot of
them, and the biggest you can find." So we parted.
Returning home after a moist but enjoyable afternoon, I saw a great
crowd gathered at the junction of two streets, engaged in a furious
water-fight. The central figure was a most disreputable-looking
individual with a sodden wisp of linen where his collar should have
been; remnants of a tie trailed dankly down, his soaked garments were
shapeless, and his head was crowned with a sort of dripping poultice.
He was spouting water in all directions like the Crystal Palace
fountains in their heyday, with shouts of "Take that, you foolish
female; and that, you fat feminine Argentine!" With grief I
recognised in this damp reveller her Britannic Majesty's Minister
Plenipotentiary.
Upon returning home, we found that our two English servants had been
having the time of their lives. They had stood all day on the roof
of the house, dashing pails of water over passers-by until they had
completely emptied the cistern. There was not one drop of water in
the house, and we had to borrow three pailfuls from a complaisant
neighbour.
A few years later the police prohibited water-throwing altogether, so
this feature of a Buenos {254} Ayres Carnival is now a thing of the
past.
As time went on I grew very fond of Sir Edward. His temper may have
flared up quickly, but it died down just as rapidly. He was a man
with an extraordinarily varied fund of information, and possessed a
very original and subtle sense of humour. He was also a great
stylist in writing English, and the drafts I wrote for despatches
were but seldom fortunate enough to meet with his approval. A split
infinitive brought him to the verge of tears. The Argentine
authorities were by no means easy to deal with, and Sir Edward
handled them in a masterly fashion. His quiet persistence usually
achieved its object. It was a real joy to see him dealing with
anyone rash enough to attempt to bully or browbeat him. His tongue
could sting like a lash on occasions, whilst he preserved an outward
air of imperturbable calm. Sir Edward both spoke and wrote the most
beautifully finished Spanish.
A ball in a private house at Buenos Ayres had its peculiar features
in the "'eighties." In the first place, none of the furniture was
removed from the rooms, and so far from taking up carpets, carpets
were actually laid down, should the rooms be unprovided with them.
This rendered dancing somewhat difficult; in fact a ball resolved
itself into a leisurely arm-in-arm promenade to music through the
rooms, steering an erratic course between the articles of furniture,
"drawing the port," as a Scottish curler would put it. Occasionally
a {255} space behind a sofa could be found sufficiently large to
attempt a few mild gyrations, but that was all. The golden youth of
Buenos Ayres, in the place of the conventional white evening tie, all
affected the most deplorable bows of pale pink or pale green satin.
A wedding, too, differed from the European routine. The parents of
the bride gave a ball. At twelve o'clock dancing, or promenading
amidst the furniture, ceased. A portable altar was brought into the
room; a priest made his unexpected entry, and the young couple were
married at breakneck speed. At the conclusion of the ceremony, all
the young men darted at the bride and tore her marriage-veil to
shreds. Priest, altar, and the newly-married couple then
disappeared; the band struck up again, and dancing, or rather a
leisurely progress round the sofas and ottomans, recommenced.
A form of entertainment that appeals immensely to people of Spanish
blood is a masked ball. In Buenos Ayres the ladies only were masked,
which gave them a distinct advantage over the men. To enjoy a
masquerade a good knowledge of Spanish is necessary. All masked
women are addressed indiscriminately as "mascarita" and can be
"tutoyée'd." Convention permits, too, anything within reasonable
limits to be said by a man to "mascaritas," who one and all assume a
little high-pitched head-voice to conceal their identities. I fancy
that the real attractions masquerades had for most women lay in the
opportunity they afforded every {256} "mascarita" of saying with
impunity abominably rude things to some other woman whom she
detested. I remember one "mascarita," an acquaintance of mine, whose
identity I pierced at once, giving another veiled form accurate
details not only as to the date when the pearly range of teeth she
was exhibiting to the world had come into her possession, but also
the exact price she had paid for them.
It takes a stranger from the North some little time to accustom
himself to the inversion of seasons and of the points of the compass
in the southern hemisphere. For instance, "a lovely spring day in
_October_," or "a chilly autumn evening in _May_," rings curiously to
our ears; as it does to hear of a room with a cool _southern_ aspect,
or to hear complaints about the hot _north_ wind. Personally I did
not dislike the north wind; it was certainly moist and warm, but it
smelt deliciously fragrant with a faint spicy odour after its journey
over the great Brazilian forests on its way from the Equator. All
Argentines seemed to feel the north wind terribly; it gave them
headaches, and appeared to dislocate their entire nervous system. In
the Law Courts it was held to be a mitigating circumstance should it
be proved that a murder, or other crime of violence, had been
committed after a long spell of north wind. Many women went about
during a north wind with split beans on their temples to soothe their
headaches, a comical sight till one grew accustomed to it. The old
German {257} housekeeper of the Chancery, Frau Bauer, invariably had
split beans adhering to her temples when the north wind blew.
The icy _pampero_, the south wind direct from the Pole, was the great
doctor of Buenos Ayres. Darwin used to consider the River Plate the
electrical centre of the world. Nowhere have I experienced such
terrific thunderstorms as in the Argentine. Sometimes on a stifling
summer night, with the thermometer standing at nearly a hundred
degrees, one of these stupendous storms would break over the city
with floods of rain. Following on the storm would come the
_pampero_, gently at first, but increasing in violence until a
blustering, ice-cold gale went roaring through the sweltering city,
bringing the temperature down in four hours with a run from 100
degrees to 60 degrees. Extremely pleasant for those like myself with
sound lungs; very dangerous to those with delicate chests.
The old-fashioned Argentine house had no protection over the _patio_.
In bad weather the occupants had to make their way through the rain
from one room to another. Some of the newer houses were built in a
style which I have seen nowhere else except on the stage. Everyone
is familiar with those airy dwellings composed principally of open
colonnades one sees on stage back-cloths. These houses were very
similar in design, with open halls of columns and arches, and
open-air staircases. On the stage it rains but seldom, and the style
may be suited to the climatic conditions prevailing there. {258} In
real life it must be horribly inconvenient. The Italian Minister at
Buenos Ayres lived in a house of this description. In fine weather
it looked extremely picturesque, but I imagine that his Excellency's
progress to bed must have been attended with some difficulties when,
during a thunderstorm, the rain poured in cataracts down his open-air
staircase, and the _pampero_ howled through his open arcades and
galleries.
The theatres at Buenos Ayres were quite excellent. At the Opera all
the celebrated singers of Europe could be heard, although one could
almost have purchased a nice little freehold property near London for
the price asked for a seat. There were two French theatres, one
devoted to light opera, the other to Palais Royal farces, both
admirably given; and, astonishingly enough, during part of my stay,
there was actually an English theatre with an English stock company.
A peculiarly Spanish form of entertainment is the "Zarzuela," a sort
of musical farce. It requires a fairly intimate knowledge of the
language to follow these pieces with their many topical allusions.
The Spanish-American temperament seems to dislike instinctively any
gloomy or morbid dramas, differing widely from the Russians in this
respect. At Petrograd, on the Russian stage, the plays, in addition
to the usual marital difficulties, were brightened up by allusions to
such cheerful topics as inherited tendencies to kleptomania or
suicide, or an intense desire for self-mutilation. What {259}
appeals to the morbid frost-bound North apparently fails to attract
the light-hearted sons of the southern hemisphere.
Buenos Ayres was also a city of admirable restaurants. In the
fashionable places, resplendent with mirrors, coloured marbles and
gilding, the cooking rivals Paris, and the bill, when tendered, makes
one inclined to rush to the telegraph office to cable for further and
largely increased remittances from Europe. There were a number,
however, of unpretending French restaurants of the most meritorious
description. Never shall I forget Sir Edward's face when, in answer
to his questions as to a light supper, the waiter suggested a cold
armadillo; a most excellent dish, by the way, though after seeing the
creature in the Zoological Gardens one would hardly credit it with
gastronomic possibilities. The soil of the Argentine is marvellously
fertile, and some day it will become a great wine-growing country.
In the meantime vast quantities of inferior wine are imported from
Europe. After sampling a thin Spanish red wine, and a heavy sweet
black wine known as Priorato, and having tested their effects on his
digestion, Sir Edward christened them "The red wine of Our Lady of
Pain" and "The black wine of Death."
When the President of the Republic appeared in public on great
occasions, he was always preceded by a man carrying a large blue
velvet bolster embroidered with the Argentine arms. This was {260}
clearly an emblem of national sovereignty, but what this blue bolster
was intended to typify I never could find out. Did it indicate that
it was the duty of the President to bolster up the Republic, or did
it signify that the Republic was always ready to bolster up its
President? None of my Argentine friends could throw any light upon
the subject further than by saying that this bolster was always
carried in front of the President; a sufficiently self-evident fact.
It will always remain an enigma to me. A bolster seems a curiously
soporific emblem for a young, enterprising, and progressive Republic
to select as its symbol.
It would be ungallant to pass over without remark the wonderful
beauty of the Argentine girls. This beauty is very shortlived
indeed, and owing to their obstinate refusal to take any exercise
whatever, feminine outlines increase in bulk at an absurdly early
age, but between seventeen and twenty-one many of them are really
lovely. Lolling in hammocks and perpetual chocolate-eating bring
about their own penalties, and sad to say, bring them about very
quickly. I must add that the attractiveness of these girls is rather
physical than intellectual.
The house Sir Edward and I rented had been originally built for a
stage favourite by one of her many warm-hearted admirers. It had
been furnished according to the lady's own markedly florid tastes. I
reposed nightly in a room entirely draped in sky-blue satin. The
house had a charming garden, {261} and Sir Edward and I expended a
great deal of trouble and a considerable amount of money on it. That
garden was the pride of our hearts, but we had reckoned without the
leaf-cutting ant, the great foe of the horticulturist in South
America. At Rio, and in other places in Brazil, they had a special
apparatus for pumping the fumes of burning sulphur into the
ant-holes, and so were enabled to keep these pests in check. In
private gardens in Brazil every single specially cherished plant had
to have its stem surrounded with unsightly circular troughs of
paraffin and water. In front of our windows we had a large bed of
gardenias backed by a splendid border of many-hued cannas which were
the apple of Sir Edward's eye, He gazed daily on them with an air not
only of pride, but of quasi-paternity. The leaf-cutting ants found
their way into our garden, and in four days nothing remained of our
beautiful gardenias and cannas but some black, leafless stalks.
These abominable insects swept our garden as bare of every green
thing as a flight of locusts would have done; they even killed the
grass where their serried processions had passed.
For me, the great charm of the Argentine lay in the endless expanses
of the "Camp," far away from the noisy city. The show _estancia_ of
the Argentine was in those days "Negrete," the property of Mr. David
Shennan, kindest and most hospitable of Scotsmen. Most English
residents and visitors out in the Plate cherish grateful {262}
recollections of that pleasant spot, encircled by peach orchards,
where the genial proprietor, like a patriarch of old, welcomed his
guests, surrounded by his vast herds and flocks. I happen to know
the exact number of head of cattle Mr. Shennan had on his estancia on
January 1, 1884, for I was one of the counters at the stocktaking on
the last day of the year. The number was 18,731 head.
Counting cattle is rather laborious work, and needs close
concentration. Six of us were in the saddle from daybreak to dusk,
with short intervals for meals, and December 31 is at the height of
the summer in the southern hemisphere, so the heat was considerable.
This is the method employed in a "count." The cattle are driven into
"mobs" of some eight hundred ("Rodeo" is the Spanish term for mob) by
the "peons." Some twenty tame bullocks are driven a quarter of a
mile from the "mob," and the counters line up on their horses between
the two, with their pockets full of beans. The "peons" use their
whips, and one or two of the cattle break away from the herd to the
tame bullocks. They are followed by more and more at an
ever-increasing pace. Each one is counted, and when one hundred is
reached, a bean is silently transferred from the left pocket to the
right. So the process is continued until the entire herd has passed
by. Should the numbers given by the six counters tally within
reason, the count is accepted. Should it differ materially, there is
a recount; then the {263} counters pass on to another "mob" some two
miles away. Under a very hot sun, the strain of continual attention
is exhausting, and those six counters found their beds unusually
welcome that night.
The dwelling-house of Negrete, which was to become very familiar to
me, was over a hundred years old, and stretched itself one-storied
round a large _patio_, blue and white tiled, with an elaborate
well-head in the centre decorated with good iron-work. The _patio_
was fragrant with orange and lemon trees, and great bushes of the
lovely sky-blue Paraguayan jasmine. I can never understand why this
shrub, the "Jasmin del Paraguay," with its deliciously sweet perfume
and showy blue flowers, has never been introduced into England. It
would have to be grown under glass, but only requires sufficient heat
to keep the frost out.
I had never felt the _joie de vivre_--the sheer joy at being
alive--thrill through one's veins so exultantly as when riding over
the "Camp" in early morning. I have had the same feeling on the High
Veldt in South Africa, where there is the same marvellous air, and,
in spite of the undulations of the ground, the same sense of vast
space. The glorious air, the sunlight, the limitless, treeless
expanse of neutral-tinted grass stretching endlessly to the horizon,
and the vast hemisphere of blue sky above had something absolutely
intoxicating in them. It may have been the delight of forgetting
that there were such things as towns, and streets, {264} and
tramways. And then the teeming bird-life of the camp! Ibis and
egrets flashed bronze-green or snowy-white through the sunlight; the
beautiful pink spoon-bills flapped noisily overhead in single file, a
lengthy rosy trail of long legs and necks and brilliant colour; the
quaint little ground owls blinked from the entrances of their
burrows, and dozens of spurred plovers wheeled in incessant
gyrations, keeping up their endless, wearying scream of "téro-téro."
I always wanted to shout and sing from sheer delight at being part of
it all.
The tinamou, the South American partridge, surprisingly stupid birds,
rose almost under the horses' feet, and dozens of cheery little
sandpipers darted about in all directions. Birds, birds everywhere!
Should one pass near one of the great shallow lagoons, which are such
a feature of the country, its surface would be black with ducks, with
perhaps a regiment of flamingoes in the centre of it, a dazzling
patch of sunlit scarlet, against the turquoise blue the water
reflected from the sky.
In springtime the "Camp" is covered with the trailing verbena which
in my young days was such a favourite bedding-out plant in England,
its flowers making a brilliant league-long carpet of scarlet or
purple.
There are endless opportunities for shooting on the "Camp" in the
Province of Buenos Ayres, only limited by the difficulties in
obtaining cartridges, and the fact that in places where it is
impossible to dispose of the game the amount shot must depend {265}
on what can be eaten locally. Otherwise it is not sport, but becomes
wanton slaughter.
The foolish tinamou are easily shot, but are exceedingly difficult to
retrieve out of the knee-high grass, and if only winged, they can run
like hares. There is also a large black and white migratory bird of
the snipe family, the "batitou," which appears from the frozen
regions of the Far South, as winter comes on, and is immensely prized
for the table. He is unquestionably a delicious bird to eat, but is
very hard to approach owing to his wariness. The duck-shooting was
absolutely unequalled. I had never before known that there were so
many ducks in the world, nor were there the same complicated
preliminaries, as with us; no keepers, no beaters, no dogs were
required. One simply put twenty cartridges in a bandolier, took
one's gun, jumped on a horse, and rode six miles or so to a selected
lagoon. Here the horse was tied up to the nearest fence, and one
just walked into the lagoon. So warm was the water in these lagoons
that I have stood waist-high in it for hours without feeling the
least chilly, or suffering from any ill effects whatever. With the
first step came a mighty and stupendous roar of wings, and a
prodigious quacking, then the air became black with countless
thousands of ducks. Mallards, shovellers, and speckled ducks; black
ducks with crimson feet and bills; the great black and white birds
Argentines call "Royal" ducks, and we "Muscovy" ducks, though with us
they are uninteresting inhabitants of a {266} farm-yard. Ducks,
ducks everywhere! As these confiding fowl never thought of flying
away, but kept circling over the lagoon again and again, I am sure
that anyone, given sufficient cartridges, and the inclination to do
so, could easily have killed five hundred of them to his own gun in
one day. We limited ourselves to ten apiece. Splashing about in the
lagoon, it was easy to pick up the dead birds without a dog, but no
one who has not carried them can have any idea of the weight of eight
ducks in a gamebag pressing on one's back, or can conceive how
difficult it is to get into the saddle on a half-broken horse with
this weight dragging you backwards. In any other country but the
Argentine, to canter home six miles dripping wet would have resulted
in a severe chill. No one ever seemed the worse for it out there.
At times I went into the lagoons without a gun, just to observe at
close quarters the teeming water-life there. The raucous screams of
the vigilant "téro-téros" warned the water-birds of a hostile
approach, but it was easy to sit down in the shallow warm water
amongst the reeds until the alarm had died down, and one was amply
repaid for it, though the enforced lengthy abstention from tobacco
was trying.
The "Camp" is a great educator. One learnt there to recap empty
cartridge-cases with a machine, and to reload them. One learnt too
to clean guns and saddlery. When a thing remains undone, unless you
take it in hand yourself, you begin wondering {267} why you should
ever have left these things to be done for you by others. The novice
finds out that a bridle and bit are surprisingly difficult objects to
clean, even given unlimited oil and sandpaper. The "Camp" certainly
educates, and teaches the neophyte independence.
I shot several pink spoonbills, one of which in a glass case is not
far from me as I write, but I simply longed to get a scarlet
flamingo. Owing to the spoonbills' habit of flitting from lagoon to
lagoon, they are not difficult to shoot, but a flamingo is a very
wary bird. Perched on one leg, they stand in the very middle of a
lagoon, and allow no one within gunshot. The officious "téro-téros"
effectually notify them of the approach of man, and possibly the
flamingoes have learnt from "Alice in Wonderland" that the Queen of
Hearts is in the habit of utilising them as croquet-mallets. The
natural anxiety to escape so ignominious a fate would tend to make
them additionally cautious. Anyhow, I found it impossible to
approach them. The idea occurred to me of trying to shoot one with a
rifle. So I crawled prostrate on my anatomy up to the lagoon. I
failed at least six times, but finally succeeded in killing a
flamingo. Wading into the lagoon, I triumphantly retrieved my
scarlet victim, and took him by train to Buenos Ayres, intending to
hand him over to a taxidermist next day. When I awoke next morning,
the blue satin bower in which I slept (originally fitted up, as I
have explained, as the bedroom of a minor light of {268} the operatic
stage) was filled with a pestilential smell of decayed fish. I
inquired the reason of my English servant, who informed me that the
cook was afraid that there was something wrong about "the queer duck"
I had brought home last night, as its odour was not agreeable. (The
real expression he used was "smelling something cruel.") Full of
horrible forebodings, I jumped out of bed and ran down to the
kitchen, to find a little heap of brilliant scarlet feathers reposing
on the table, and Paquita, our fat Andalusian cook, regarding with
doubtful eyes a carcase slowly roasting before the fire, and filling
the place with unbelievably poisonous effluvia. And that was the end
of the only flamingo I ever succeeded in shooting.
A London financial house had, by foreclosing a mortgage, come into
possession of a great tract of land in the unsurveyed and uncharted
Indian Reserve, the Gran Chaco. Anxious to ascertain whether their
newly-acquired property was suited for white settlers, the financial
house sent out two representatives to Buenos Ayres with orders to fit
out a little expedition to survey and explore it. I was invited to
join this expedition, and as work was slack at the time, Sir Edward
did not require my services and gave me leave to go. I had been
warned that conditions would be very rough indeed, but the
opportunity seemed one of those that only occur once in a lifetime,
and too good to be lost. I do not think the invitation was quite a
disinterested one. The leaders of the expedition probably {269}
thought that the presence of a member of the British Legation might
be useful in case of difficulties with the Argentine authorities. I
travelled by steamer six hundred miles up the mighty Paraná, and
joined the other members of the expedition at the Alexandra Colony, a
little English settlement belonging to the London firm hundreds of
miles from anywhere, and surrounded by vast swamps. The Alexandra
Colony was a most prosperous little community, but was unfortunately
infested with snakes and every imaginable noxious stinging insect.
As we should have to cross deep swamps perpetually, we took no wagons
with us, but our baggage was loaded on pack-horses. For provisions
we took jerked sun-dried beef (very similar to the South African
"biltong"), hard biscuit, flour, coffee, sugar, and salt, as well as
several bottles of rum, guns, rifles, plenty of ammunition, and two
blankets apiece. We had some thirty horses in all; the loose horses
trotting obediently behind a bell-mare, according to their convenient
Argentine custom. In Argentina mares are never ridden, and a
bell-mare serves the same purpose in keeping the "tropilla" of horses
together as does a bellwether in keeping sheep together with us. At
night only the bell-mare need be securely picketed; the horses will
not stray far from the sound of her tinkling bell. Should the
bell-mare break loose, there is the very devil to pay; all the others
will follow her. It will thus be seen that the bell-mare plays a
very important part. In French families the {270} _belle-mère_ fills
an equally important position. We were four Englishmen in all; the
two leaders, the doctor, and myself. The doctor was quite a
youngster, taking a final outing before settling down to serious
practice in Bristol. A nice, cheery youth! The first night I
discovered how very hard the ground is to sleep upon, but our
troubles did not begin till the second day. We were close up to the
tropics, and got into great swamps where millions and millions of
mosquitoes attacked us day and night, giving us no rest. Our hands
got so swollen with bites that we could hardly hold our reins, and
sleep outside our blankets was impossible with these humming, buzzing
tormentors devouring us. If one attempted to baffle them by putting
one's head under the blanket, the stifling heat made sleep equally
difficult. In four days we reached a waterless land; that is to say,
there were clear streams in abundance, but they were all of salt,
bitter, alkaline water, undrinkable by man or beast. Oddly enough,
all the clear streams were of bitter water, whereas the few muddy
ones were of excellent drinking water. I think these alkaline
streams are peculiar to the interior of South America. Our horses
suffered terribly; so did we. We had three Argentine gauchos with
us, to look after the horses and baggage, besides two pure Indians.
One of these Indians, known by the pretty name of Chinche, or "The
Bug," could usually find water-holes by watching the flight of the
birds. The water in these holes was often black and fetid, {271} yet
we drank it greedily. Chinche could also get a little water out of
some kinds of aloes by cutting the heart out of the plant. In the
resulting cavity about half a glassful of water, very bitter to the
taste, but acceptable all the same, collected in time. Prolonged
thirst under a hot sun is very difficult to bear. We nearly murdered
the doctor, for he insisted on recalling the memories of great cool
tankards of shandy-gaff in Thames-side hostelries, and at our worst
times of drought had a maddening trick of imitating (exceedingly well
too) the tinkling of ice against the sides of a long tumbler.
In spite of thirst and the accursed mosquitoes it was an interesting
trip. We were where few, if any, white men had been before us; the
scenery was pretty; and game was very plentiful. The open rolling,
down-like country, with its little copses and single trees, was like
a gigantic edition of some English park in the southern counties. In
the early morning certain trees, belonging to the cactus family, I
imagine, were covered with brilliant clusters of flowers, crimson,
pink, and white. As the sun increased in heat all these flowers
closed up like sea anemones, to reopen again after sunset. The place
crawled with deer, and so tame and unsophisticated were they that it
seemed cruel to take advantage of them and to shoot them. We had to
do so for food, for we lived almost entirely on venison, and venison
is a meat I absolutely detest. When food is unpalatable, one is
surprised to find how very little is necessary to sustain life; an
{272} experience most of us have repeated during these last two
years, not entirely voluntarily. Chinche, the Indian, could see the
tracks of any beasts in the dew at dawn, where my eyes could detect
nothing whatever. In this way I was enabled to shoot a fine jaguar,
whose skin has reposed for thirty years in my dining-room. One
night, too, an ant-eater blundered into our camp, and by some
extraordinary fluke I shot him in the dark. His skin now keeps his
compatriot company. An ant-eating bear is a very shy and wary
animal, and as he is nocturnal in his habits, he is but rarely met
with, so this was a wonderful bit of luck. We encountered large
herds of peccaries, the South American wild boar. These little
beasts are very fierce and extremely pugnacious, and the horses
seemed frightened of them. The flesh of the peccary is excellent and
formed a most welcome variation to the eternal venison. I never
could learn to shoot from the saddle as Argentines do, but had to
slip off my horse to fire. I was told afterwards that it was very
dangerous to do this with these savage little peccaries.
There are always compensations to be found everywhere. Had not the
abominable mosquitoes prevented sleep, one would not have gazed up
for hours at the glorious constellations of the Southern sky,
including that arch-impostor the Southern Cross, glittering in the
dark-blue bowl of the clear tropical night sky. Had we not suffered
so from thirst, we should have appreciated less the unlimited {273}
foaming beer we found awaiting us on our return to the Alexandra
Colony. By the way, all South Americans believe firmly in
moon-strokes, and will never let the moon's rays fall on their faces
whilst sleeping.
I judged the country we traversed quite unfitted for white settlers,
owing to the lack of good water, and the evil-smelling swamps that
cut the land up so. That exploring trip was doubtless pleasanter in
retrospect than in actual experience. I would not have missed it,
though, for anything, for it gave one an idea of stern realities.
On returning to the Alexandra Colony, both I and the doctor, a
remarkably fair-skinned young man, found, after copious ablutions,
that our faces and hands had been burnt so black by the sun that we
could easily have taken our places with the now defunct Moore and
Burgess minstrels in the vanished St. James's Hall in Piccadilly
without having to use any burnt-cork whatever.
On the evening of our arrival at Alexandra, I was reading in the
sitting-room in an armchair against the wall. The doctor called out
to me to keep perfectly still, and not to move on any account until
he returned. He came back with a pickle-jar and a bottle. I smelt
the unmistakable odour of chloroform, and next minute the doctor
triumphantly exhibited an immense tarantula spider in the pickle-jar.
He had cleverly chloroformed the venomous insect within half an inch
of my head, otherwise I should certainly have been bitten. The {274}
bite of these great spiders, though not necessarily fatal, is
intensely painful.
The doctor had brought out with him a complete anti-snake-bite
equipment, and was always longing for an occasion to use it. He was
constantly imploring us to go and get bitten by some highly venomous
snake, in order to give him an opportunity of testing the efficacy of
his drugs, hypodermic syringes, and lancets. At Alexandra a dog did
get bitten by a dangerous snake, and was at once brought to the
doctor, who injected his snake-bite antidote, with the result that
the dog died on the spot.
A river ran through Alexandra which was simply alive with fish, also
with alligators. In the upper reaches of the Paraná and its
tributaries, bathing is dangerous not only because of the alligators,
but on account of an abominable little biting-fish. These
biting-fish, which go about in shoals, are not unlike a flounder in
appearance and size. They have very sharp teeth and attack
voraciously everything that ventures into the water. In that climate
their bites are very liable to bring on lockjaw. The doctor and I
spent most of our time along this river with fishing lines and
rifles, for alligators had still the charm of novelty to us both, and
we both delighted in shooting these revolting saurians. I advise no
one to try to skin a dead alligator. There are thousands of sinews
to be cut through, and the pestilential smell of the brute would
sicken a Chinaman. We caught some extraordinary-looking {275} fish
on hand lines, including a great golden carp of over 50 lb. ("dorado"
in Spanish). It took us nearly an hour to land this big fellow, who
proved truly excellent when cooked.
When I first reached the Argentine, travel was complicated by the
fact that each province issued its own notes, which were only current
within the province itself except at a heavy discount. The value of
the dollar fluctuated enormously in the different provinces. In
Buenos Ayres the dollar was depreciated to four cents, or twopence,
and was treated as such, the ordinary tram fare being one depreciated
dollar. In other provinces the dollar stood as high as three
shillings. In passing from one province to another all paper money
had to be changed, and this entailed the most intricate calculations.
It is unnecessary to add that the stranger was fleeced quite
mercilessly. The currency has since been placed on a more rational
basis. National notes, issued against a gold reserve, have
superseded the provincial currency, and pass from one end of the
Republic to the other.
Upon returning to Buenos Ayres, my blue-satin bedroom looked
strangely artificial and effeminate, after sleeping on the ground
under the stars for so long.
{276}