SOME “PASEOS” IN AND ABOUT BUENOS AYRES
A paseo signifies no more than a stroll, a walk, a promenade. But the
modern Argentine usually goes a-strolling in a coche or a motor-car. He
has an ingrain horror of exercising his legs. The British resident soon
falls into this modern manner, either out of a frank desire to ruffle
it with the best of them or merely because one must eventually follow
the line of least resistance. It demands a certain amount of will-power
to walk when all the world’s on wheels. Thus, as there is but a single
paseo where one can display one’s gorgeous motor-car, or hired carriage,
all the world makes for that and stares at everybody else. Palermo! Oh,
potent word to local minds! Palermo is the one paseo known to all. In
that one word is summed up most of what the citizens of Buenos Ayres
know of outdoor enjoyment. There are other paseos that do not call for a
coche; where you don’t go merely to look at the crowd and be looked at;
consequently these are left to the stray visitor or the Gringo, who knows
no better.
But first let us talk of Palermo. It is as Hyde Park to London, as the
Bois to Paris. And it is an infinitely greater source of pride to the
Buenos-Ayrian than Hyde Park to the Londoner or the Bois to the Parisian.
I met a young English lady who had been brought to the River Plate as
a child and after growing to womanhood had returned to England for a
year or two, but had now come back to Buenos Ayres again. “I just love
Palermo,” she said ecstatically. “It is unique; there is nothing like it
in all London.” I received the information with due humility.
Palermo consists of a mile or so of carriage driveway which is level
and tarred (differing in these respects from every other bit of road
in the Argentine), a pond or two, and some trees. Materially, that is
all. But it is in the spirit of Palermo that lies its fascination, and
it may truly be said of it that “for those who like this sort of thing
it is just the sort of thing they will like,” as will presently appear
when I endeavour to describe that spirit. No, outwardly there is nothing
quite like it in London, nor in New York: the driveways in Hyde Park or
in Central Park are immensely smoother, the lawns are incomparably more
velvety, the trees more umbrageous, while a dozen or more Palermos could
be cut out of a corner of the Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, without
noticing the loss! But all that is by the way. Palermo is not to be
sneered at as the lung of a stifling city. There are instances of people
going along quite well with but one lung. The man with one lung, however,
has scant reason for crowing over his normal fellow-creatures.
Palermo, taken at what it is and eschewing comparisons, is very fine and
reflects the highest credit on the municipal authorities of Buenos Ayres.
They have done wonders with the most unpromising material. Yet as it
stands to-day it is nothing, I believe, to what it is likely to become.
To reach this haunt of River Plate fashion you will hire a coche (taking
care to select one of the minority that are cleanly upholstered and
well-horsed) or you may engage a motor-car, for there is an abundance
of splendid automobiles to be hired by the hour, with nothing but the
tell-tale taximeter to show that it is not a luxurious private car. Or
you may take either train or trolley car. Nor is it any great distance
to walk thither from the centre of the town. I have gone every way, for
after a time it becomes “the only thing to do,” and when you have reached
that stage you almost invariably take a coche. The favourite route is by
way of the Plaza San Martín and the Avenida Alvear, the Fifth Avenue of
Buenos Ayres. The district lying between the Plaza and Recoleta is the
most fashionable residential quarter, and along the fine Avenida Alvear
stand many of the most beautiful private mansions in Buenos Ayres. Here
for the first time in wandering about the town one notes hardly any
intermingling of the ostentatious and the mean. Everywhere else that
strikes the observer most forcibly—the extraordinary way in which the
palace is placed alongside the hovel, so that, separated only by a matter
of two or three feet of distance and the thickness of a wall, may be a
group of thieves discussing their affairs over drinks in an evil-smelling
“dive” and a perfumed gathering of _distinguidos_. Time, of course, will
cure this in the older quarters of the town, but the indifference to the
nature of one’s neighbours is evidently deep-rooted, as in the Avenida
Alvear itself there is at least one very common drinking saloon in the
lower part of a handsome new building, and further out toward Palermo
a fine new block of flats is disfigured by a noisy bar on the street
level. On the whole, however, this district is so free from the lower
class of trades people and the meaner sort of building that in this
respect it reminds one of the aristocratic quarter of any great European
town.
The Plaza San Martín is a noble square, plentifully studded with trees,
flowering shrubs and flower beds. The grass is coarse and scraggy, the
close-cropped, velvety lawn being here impossible of attainment owing
to natural difficulties of soil and weather. In the centre of the plaza
stands a splendid monument to the national hero. It is of the familiar
equestrian type, showing San Martín, astride the usual prancing steed,
pointing with his right hand to the path that leads to glory or the
grave. The statue, a very spirited work, stands on a high pedestal of
granite, in front of which a fine figure of a Roman warrior is seated
holding aloft an oak branch, while four other bronze groups typifying
military prowess and victory, each in itself a considerable monument,
occupy granite pedestals at the extreme corners of the wide-spreading
sculptured base. Inset in the main pedestal are battle groups in high
relief and the lower parts of the stone-work are also enriched with many
similar panels of smaller size, in which the stirring events of South
America’s struggle for independence, so little known in North America or
in Europe, are vigorously depicted. Withal, a very handsome and worthy
memorial, of enduring stone and bronze. In art and craft it is French,
having been transported from France with much ceremony and at no small
cost. It is a noteworthy ornament of the city; a legitimate source of
pride to the patriotic.
The sculpture mania has Buenos Ayres in its grip. The Latin peoples
have ever been more partial to that art than the Anglo-Saxon, but the
Argentines are in danger of touching an extreme that borders on the
foolish. Here in the Plaza San Martín there are two more groups—in
marble these—one being a very striking work indeed, entitled _La Doute_.
It stands near the southeast corner of the plaza and is so shadowed by
trees that it baffled all my efforts to secure a really good photograph
of it. A little reminiscent of the Rodin manner—Rodin is one of the gods
of the Buenos Ayrians—this work represents a great muscular young man,
semi-nude, with perplexed brow, pondering a book, to which an old wizened
figure points with skinny finger while he peers into the face of the
young man. “Doubt” is writ large thereon; but whether the old man seeks
to dispel the doubt or is the cause thereof I am myself in doubt. His old
face always reminded me of the bust of Voltaire in the Louvre. Perhaps
there’s a clue in that. The other group is called _Los primeros fríos_
(The first cold winds) and represents a naked old man seated with a naked
child at his knee. It always impressed me as a peculiarly stupid work,
though technically good, and beyond reminding perspiring humanity in the
suffocating summer time that there are occasions when the cold winds
blow, I can imagine no good purpose that it serves.
Another feature of the plaza is an artificial rockery which, with another
of the same, though somewhat higher, in the Plaza Constitucion, is the
only thing in the shape of a mountain for scores of miles round about
Buenos Ayres!
[Illustration: BEDROOM OF DISTINGUISHED VISITORS’ SUITE IN “PRENSA”
OFFICE.]
[Illustration: THE GORGEOUSLY DECORATED SALON IN THE “PRENSA” OFFICE.]
Such is the Plaza San Martín—as handsome a public square as you will
find in any great city. The pity is that it is frequented chiefly by
riff-raff, and the footways being laid with tiny pebbles, one would
fain don his golf-shoes to walk thereon. It is surrounded by a series
of private palaces, notably those of Mihanovich, a millionaire whose
life-story is a romance, and that of the Paz family, already mentioned.
We continue towards Palermo by the Avenida Alvear, noting the many
mansions on the way in which good taste and vulgar ostentation often
stand side by side, though, on the whole, good taste prevails. These
gorgeous homes are frequently left to the care of a few servants for
twelve months on end, as the wealthy Argentine says to his native town,
“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Paris more!” And while
he does homage to his homeland by adorning the Avenida Alvear with a
palatial residence, he spends most of his time in Paris—and I don’t blame
him. The late Dr. Paz lived for twenty years on the Riviera and there he
died. Good Americans, ’tis said, go to Paris when they die. Wealthy South
Americans go to Paris when they live and are brought back to Buenos Ayres
when they die!
The Avenida Alvear is wide and well paved with wooden sets. In the
afternoons there is a continuous stream of vehicles, and on Sundays a
more animated thoroughfare could not be imagined. Motor-cars innumerable
go scudding along without a thought of speed limit, tinkling coches,
splendid carriages and pairs, and the scrubbiest Victorias and the
mangiest teams you ever set eyes on. Mounted police are stationed at
different points, not so much to “direct” the traffic as to act as living
landmarks for the drivers, all of whom seem bent on getting somewhere
first, though there is not the least occasion for hurry, unless they
are bound for the race-course, as in half an hour they will have gone
the whole distance that can be covered in comfort. We two Gringos used
to spend many pleasant hours sitting in the little green garden by the
Palais de Glace, near Recoleta station, watching the varied throng go by,
but that was not “the thing to do,” bless you, as our only companions
were nursemaids and rough labouring men. On the south side of the
Avenida, however, are other and much larger gardens, where those who are
not ambitious to _lucirse_ (or “show off”) at Palermo, are wont to sit
or promenade. And very attractive are these gardens, with their winding
walks, their lakelets, and shrubberies. Those at the Plaza Francia are
particularly favoured by the toilers on Sunday afternoon, though the
view across the Avenida to the waterworks is somewhat of an eyesore. In
the Plaza Francia the French “colony” have erected a fine monument to
the Argentine Republic, as a _recuerdo_ of the centenary in 1910. At
the back of the plaza is a long and substantial-looking balustrade. We
thought this must lead to “somewhere beyond”—full of groves and tinkling
fountains! We ascended one hot day, to find that it led nowhere, and was
made of bricks and stucco, and although still unfinished it had already
fallen into decay.
So we continue our paseo, be it in coche or afoot, along Alvear,
passing, as we near Palermo, many shanty-like structures which must
soon disappear and many unsightly remains of the Centennial Exhibition.
This last was opened and closed in the year 1910, but at the end of 1912
numerous ruined pavilions still cumbered the ground. One place near here
used to amuse me. It was a shabby pleasure resort named “Harmenonville.”
Memories of that delightful bower in the Bois de Bologne always came back
to me when I looked at this, “with laughter of gods in the background.”
And now, we find ourselves at a great dusty meeting of wide roads. On
the left is the entrance to the Zoological Gardens, to the right the
woods of Palermo, with their pines and eucalyptus trees, suggestive of
unfathomed forest within, while ahead the broad road continues, now noisy
with tram-cars coming and going from the race-course and by the Avenida
Sarmiento that runs southwest to the Plaza Italia.
The woods on the right invite us by their coolness and apparent depth.
They prove, however, a mere strip of trees, and we seldom encounter
decent-looking people among them. But there is no lack of promenade
ground in the direction of the lakes, whither every vehicle of every kind
is heading. And there, beyond the great tea-room, the _Pabellón de los
lagos_, the real paseo begins. Along the driveway by the margin of the
lakes there is, on Sunday afternoons especially, an extraordinary crowd
of vehicles. All have to move at a snail’s pace, directed by many mounted
police, who, posted in the middle of the roadway, keep the traffic into
two orderly streams, one going, the other returning, while alongside the
footpath stands a row of carriages, whose owners or hirers may either be
seated within, staring at every other carriage that passes, or, greatly
daring, may be venturing a few paces on foot beside the lakes, where
sundry low Italians are enjoying themselves rowdily in the gondolas, and
dreaming themselves back in Venice—if, perchance, they are strong in
dreams.
This is Palermo. For this all the monstrous noise of motor “cut-outs”
and every devilish variety of “hooter” along Alvear, all the brutal
lashing of perspiring horses. For this! The dresses of the ladies in
the carriages are _la ultima palabra_ and their wearers sit as stiff
and expressionless as the wax mannequins in the windows of the Florida
modistas. They recognise their friends with a slight inclination of
the neck, but show no sign of pleasure. The gilded youths in groups
of threes or fours, with their boots polished to solar brilliancy, go
by in hired motors or in coches (the latter have the merit of showing
off the boots to advantage) and stare at the _lindas muchachas_ whom
they do not know, and doff their hats with profoundest bows to those
they do know. And so it goes on for an hour or two, then towards five
or half-past five, the throng begins to lessen, the returning vehicles
continue townward at increased speed when they have come back for the
last time to the beginning of the carriage-drive, and by six o’clock the
fashionable throng has melted away, leaving Palermo to the prowlers and
the stragglers once again. What strikes the spectator is the appalling
respectability of it all, the gravity of the _paseantes_, the lack of
vulgarity and gladness. It is all a pose, for I have seen these same
charmingly dressed ladies who look so frightfully formal on Sunday
afternoons, all smiles and merriment on the evenings of the _Corso de
flores_, or the Battle of Flowers, which takes place at Palermo in aid
of public charities in the month of November. It is “the thing” to be
seen taking a paseo at Palermo and as there is nothing so serious in this
strange life of ours than our social obligations, we must needs discharge
them with due gravity. But what a comedy it all is for the spectator who
has no obligations to local Society!
The paseo by the ponds (it is gross flattery to call them _lagos_, but
_estanque_, which signifies “pond,” is not so pretty a word as _lago_)
is by no means the end of Palermo’s possibilities to the wanderer in
Buenos Ayres, though it is so to the residents. Near by is the Zoological
Garden, which extends from the Avenida Alvear to the Plaza Italia, on the
great highway of Santa Fé. But one does not visit this often. It contains
a large and interesting collection of wild animals and is well laid out,
but badly kept. In the summer months it is disagreeably dusty and on
Sundays it is so crowded by low class Italians and the unwashed of all
nations, that one feels all the wild animals are not in cages. I noticed
many of the lions, tigers and larger beasts had ugly sores, the result
of insect trouble, I was told, and one of the most abominable sights I
have ever seen was witnessed here. In a large pound was a troup of poor
worn old horses and ponies, wandering aimlessly about. A more ghastly
collection of living creatures could not be conceived. These were the
food for the lions and the tigers. Faugh!
Separated from the Zoological Garden by a spacious avenida—General Las
Heras, if I remember correctly—and occupying a small triangular plot of
ground extending townwards from the Plaza Italia is the Botanical Garden.
It contains many specimens of American flora and has a few hothouses full
of tropical plants; but it is of no real account botanically and is more
useful as a place of grateful greenness and shade, retired a little from
the dust and noise of the streets, where one may idle an hour away with
pipe and book.
[Illustration: A CONTRAST IN PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
The upper illustration depicts the tawdry old exhibition pavilion which
Buenos Ayres is content to use as an Art Gallery, and the lower the
splendid offices of the Public Waterworks.]
Then, of course, there is the great race-course or _Hipódromo Argentino_,
only a little way beyond the _Parque 3 de Febrero_, as the whole park,
of which Palermo proper is only a part, is named. The race-course is, I
opine, one of the largest in the world. It is very pleasantly situated
and maintained in admirable condition; but it has the defect of being
so large, or so designed, that the race as a whole cannot be followed
uninterruptedly from any of the “grandstands” or _tribunas_. These are
well built and extremely commodious. There is a particularly gorgeous
erection for the distinguished persons associated with the Jockey Club,
and this is naturally alongside of the paddock. Next to it is a larger
stand for the public who pay seven pesos a head, and beyond are the
_tribunas populares_ for the mob. As the _Paris mutuel_ system, or
“totalisator” is used for regulating the betting, the “bookie” is unknown
here. There are many ticket offices, each bearing a number, and you
merely go to the one that has the number of the horse you wish to “back,”
buy as many tickets “for a win and a place” as your fancy or your pocket
dictates, return to the stand, and await results! These offices are in
different series: one series only issues tickets of ten pesos, another
of five, and a third of two. After a race, if your horse has won or been
“placed,” you go to a paying-out office, present your tickets and there
receive your winnings at the rate which was announced on the large notice
board near the grand-stand after the money on that particular race had
been apportioned, which, being done by mechanical calculation, occupies
very little time. You will almost certainly have a few hot words with the
man at the box-office, as he will try to swindle you out of a portion
of your gains, trusting to the confusion of the moment to cover up his
fraud. On the whole, the system is about as good a way for losing one’s
money as our Stock Exchange, and it does possess an element of “sport”
which the latter seems to me to lack.
We knew as much about the horses running at Palermo as our maiden aunt,
but we stuck to our lucky number and always “got home.” A sporting
gentleman who was with us on one occasion and knew the history of every
horse for generations back, lost so heavily that on one race he joined
my wife and me on our lucky number! The horse arrived last; but—will you
believe me?—by some strange error of the judge, it was given a place and
we drew so substantial a dividend on it that the sporting gentleman—who
“plunged” all he had left on it—squared his losses! There was a great
how-d’ye-do in the papers about the mistake, but it shows you the value
of having a lucky number, rather than being versed in the “form” of the
horses! Talking of the matter with a member of the Jockey Club, he told
me that on one occasion he was present when the winning horse passed so
much ahead of the others and so close under the judge’s box that the
judge didn’t see it! The Jockey Club conducts the races and the betting,
paying a certain percentage of its enormous gains to charities. As for
the public, although present at the races in their thousands, they seemed
to have no healthy interest in the horses, but were there with solemn,
hard, joyless faces to make money. Yet we are told horse-racing is the
national “sport” of the Argentine. The liveliest scene is when the last
race is over and the multitude fight for seats on tram-cars, while the
lucky ones swagger back to town in their hired vehicles. Very few women
are to be seen; certainly not five per cent. of the crowd. A few of the
_mundo elegante_ may be noted in the Jockey Club enclosure, but the
_demi-mondaine_, so eminent and attractive at Longchamps, is rigorously
debarred. Indeed, you will search in vain at the Palermo races for any
real signs of gaiety or sport.
Beyond the Hipódromo lies the golf-course. The club has been specially
favoured by the generosity of Señor Tornquist, a great local landowner,
and is patronised by natives and foreigners alike, the Argentine being
very emulative of the English in all their national sports and at heart
he is “a good sport.” The course, though only containing nine holes, is
well laid out and is most interesting. I recall with pleasure the few
rounds I made there and also the ample hospitality of one of the finest
club-houses I have ever visited.
Between the race-course and the golf, there is a fine riding track, and
near the station named “Golf” are some spacious tennis courts, where
energetic natives, as well as Britishers and Americans, practise that
vigorous pastime. Football, too, and cricket are played near here and
at Belgrano, and it is a common sight at Palermo to witness some of the
military aviators practising; so that, on the whole, the sportively
inclined need not be unoccupied in Buenos Ayres, and if there is little
that invites the visitor to a paseo in the town, Palermo has always
something to offer on Sundays at least.