OUR SUMMER IN MONTEVIDEO
No matter how little we may love a place, we shall surely feel some
sentiment of regret at leaving. If I had been told after my first few
weeks in Buenos Ayres that I might come to entertain a kindly feeling
towards that stony-hearted city, I doubt not that I should have scouted
the suggestion. And yet when it came to saying good-bye to the friends
we had made, taking a farewell look at the scenes amidst which for
eight months it had been our lot to live, and setting our faces towards
another town, a different country, and new conditions of life, Buenos
Ayres did appear almost friendly. The long, low line of flickering lights
stretching for many miles by the riverside, and inland a myriad others
picking out the topography of the great city, seemed more picturesque
than I had hitherto thought, as we looked upon them that sultry December
night when we steamed away from the Dársena Sud on our night journey to
Montevideo.
During our stay in the Argentine, I had had occasion to make various
journeys to and from Montevideo, nor was this to be our last sight of
Buenos Ayres; yet the occasion was different from all others in so far
as it betokened the completion of one stage of our life in South America
and the beginning of another, to which we had long looked forward with
the pleasantest anticipation, for Montevideo had left on us both a very
favourable first impression when we spent a day there on our outward
journey.
The dreaded summer heat, which makes life a burden in Buenos Ayres from
the Christmas season until the end of March, was just beginning, but good
fortune had decreed that we should spend our first South American summer
in the airier city of Montevideo. It is surprising how greatly the towns
with only some 125 miles of river between them may differ, not only in
climatic conditions, but in general character. The peculiar position of
Montevideo has given to the place its benigner climate, for it is in the
same zone as Buenos Ayres, and the visitor might expect little difference
in the climatic conditions of the two cities. Lying on the north bank of
the River Plate estuary, at a point where it is difficult to tell, except
by the tinge of the water, whether it is river or ocean that laves its
shores, the older part of the town is built upon a little tongue of land
that thrusts itself into the water, forming westward a very beautiful
bay, with a picturesque cone-shaped hill at the western extremity, while
seaward a smaller bay indents the rocky coast, and on another tongue of
land the more modern suburbs of Ramírez and Pocitos have been built. The
old town is thus a little peninsula, and in many of its streets one may
look east and west to water. Hence there is hardly a day of the year when
refreshing sea breezes do not send their draughts of ozone through the
streets. The modern city has far outgrown its original site and extends
now in many fine avenues of handsome suburbs for miles around the bay and
inland.
The first impression of the Uruguayan capital is that of an essentially
European city, clean and well built. Stone is employed to a greater
degree in its architecture than in that of Buenos Ayres, though most of
the modern structures are of the steel frame and cement variety. The
older part is still regarded as “the centre,” chiefly for its nearness
to the harbour, and because it contains most of the popular shopping
streets, but in reality it is now the fringe, and with the future
expansion of the city the centre of social gravity will surely shift a
mile or more inland. Here are congregated all the banking establishments,
the _Bolsa de comercio_, the shipping offices, and the warehouses of the
large importing firms. Here, too, in the Plaza Constitucion, we find
the handsome, if somewhat modest, Cathedral, and the historic House
of Representatives, an unimpressive, two-story building occupying the
opposite corner of the plaza, its lower story being utilised by the
police authorities as prison and court of justice. The Uruguay Club
has an attractive building—far finer in every respect than that of the
_Cámaras_—in this plaza, while the friendly English Club looks across at
it from its humbler but very cosy quarters on the opposite side of the
square, hard by the offices of _El Siglo_ and _La Razon_.
The streets in this neighbourhood are all of the narrow, colonial kind,
and being chiefly paved with stone, the noise of the traffic, together
with the continuous passing of electric trams, which run in almost every
street and maintain a nerve-racking ringing of bells, is out of all
proportion to the amount of business represented. “We are fast asleep
here,” is a frequent saying of the self-depreciative natives, and if it
be true, I can only suppose they are abnormally sound sleepers, as the
noise of the streets, chiefly due to the tramways, might at times waken a
cemetery.
When we two Gringos began our summer stay in the city, we chose what
seemed to be extremely comfortable quarters in the best-known hotel,
occupying an ideal position in the Plaza Constitucion, or Plaza Matriz
(after the Cathedral or “mother church”), as it is indifferently
called. There on the third story we had a spacious room with balconies
overlooking the animated square, and a little writing-room set in a
turret, whence the pleasantest glimpses could be obtained in many
directions. The food of the hotel (as we knew from previous experience)
was incomparably better than anything to be had in Buenos Ayres. Indeed,
it is renowned throughout the River Plate district for its excellent
_cuisine_, for which, by the way, its charges rival those of quite
expensive New York restaurants, and that is saying a good deal.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE PARQUE URBANO OF MONTEVIDEO.]
[Illustration: A RURAL GLIMPSE IN THE PRADO, MONTEVIDEO.]
Thus it might have been supposed we were in for an agreeable change
from our experiences on the other side of the river. Resembling a quiet
backwater to the great turbulent main stream in comparison with its
mighty commercial neighbour, one might have expected here in Montevideo
to find quiet. Certainly, in some of its suburban districts, such a
search would not be fruitless, but the restfulness once secured would
only coexist with dulness, and after all it were thus a choice of
evils. In any case, it better suited my affairs that we should live in
the centre of the town, where, indeed, dwellings of all kinds mingle
familiarly with shops and warehouses. How we fared at our hotel may be
gathered from the following passages, with which I find I began an essay
on a literary subject while living in the town:
I have left my room with the turret window that overlooked
the pleasant Plaza Matriz. It was perfectly planned for the
meditative life, and but for the vileness of man and the
supineness of the municipal authorities one could have passed
some months tolerably there, looking out upon the panorama
of Montevidean life and setting one’s thoughts on paper when
the mood came. But the men who drive motor cars in this far
land are the vilest of the breed. The plaza is filled with
gorgeous cars that ply for hire, each handled by a rascal who
is no better than a highway-robber by day and a beast of prey
by night. The law of the town prohibits the use of the “cut
out,” or opening of the exhaust pipe of the motor, but no one
respects the law, and it is the custom for the demons who
drive these cars to keep one foot all the time on the pedal
which opens the exhaust! The consequent noise is so appalling
that the main streets of Montevideo have become a veritable
pandemonium.
Thus bad begins, but worse continues when the hour has passed
midnight. The endless stream of electric “trams” with hideous
clanging of superfluously clamorous bells goes on till two,
mingled with every variety of motor noises; then between two
and four the motorists delight to “test” their engines, running
round the plaza with open exhausts! Sleep is impossible,
especially when you add a temperature anywhere between 80 and
90, and mosquitoes buzzing through your room athirst for your
blood.
So we are no longer tenants of “the room with a view.” After
some weeks of suffering bravely borne, we have fled the hotel
and are now living seaward in the Calle Sarandí, where there is
no view by day and few motors by night, and where the noise of
the _electricos_ only keeps one awake until two in the morning.
How soon one becomes thankful for small mercies in lands of
little comfort!
But after all we were lucky in Montevideo, for by some providential
arrangement it was decided to remake the principal streets of the city,
relaying them with asphalt, and this involved the upsetting of the whole
elaborate tramway system, whereby certain streets were for several
months debarred the privilege of the electricos. Sarandí, where we had
settled ourselves very comfortably in the home of a foreign consul, was
thus, after our first few weeks, deprived of its tram-cars, and except
during the time of Carnival, our surroundings there were as quiet as in
a country village. Not until within a few days of the end of our stay of
nearly five months did the cars begin again.
Montevideo, like most of the South American cities in which it has been
my lot to linger for a time, seems to me to be greatly “over-trammed.”
There is hardly a street along which tram-cars do not rattle at all hours
of the day and night, and how they pay is to me something of a mystery,
for they may be seen in streams going their noisy rounds, empty or with
a mere handful of passengers. Many a time have I seen a half-dozen pass
along at intervals of fifty yards, and the total passengers carried would
be two or three negroes and a sleeping Italian. One street in particular,
the Calle Rincón, where we narrowly escaped the calamity of renting
rooms, is probably, for its length, without an equal in any city for the
quantity of cars that pass through it per hour. It is a short and narrow
street, and I doubt if at any moment of the day, from four or five
in the morning till two the next morning, while the electric cars are
running, Rincón can be seen without one. At times I have counted fifteen
or sixteen, with only a few yards between each, and yet foot passengers
in this street, as in most of the highways and byways of the city, are
few.
The tramway system is curiously arranged, and while grossly oversupplying
the business part of the town, undersupplies the farther suburbs. Imagine
the aforesaid peninsula on which the older part of the city stands,
as the handle of a fan, and all the outspread part of the fan as the
remainder of the city, every rib extending from the handle as a tramline,
and there you have very roughly a map of the Montevideo system. Picture,
then, how congested the handle becomes as the cars rattle inward from
all parts of the fan, turn round in the handle, and set forth once more
to the outer parts! All the same, I am far from complaining about the
service, for once the system is clearly understood, it is found to work
admirably, and enables one to reach all parts of the wide-spreading town
with comparative ease and at little expense, the regulation fare for a
journey of a few hundred yards or two miles being 4 cts.
As I have indicated, there is no lack of public motor cars for hire,
but the rate is so excessive that, except for those on holiday bent, it
is prohibitive. Personally, I made occasional use of them, though the
necessity of paying something like $4 or $5 for a journey of some three
or four miles from the Plaza Matriz and back, with a comparatively short
wait, added to the reckless manner in which the car would be driven,
did not commend them to me for frequent use, while the stony streets
made a journey in a coche extremely unpleasant. The native newspapers
were continually agitating against the iniquitous charges of the hired
motor cars, whose tariff was based upon the cupidity of the highwayman in
charge, and what he deemed the limit he might bleed from his victim, the
fare. I remember one evening being attracted to a large crowd assembled
around one of these cars, and found an Irish porteño from Buenos Ayres in
the hands of the police, while his wife and sister-in-law were in a state
of great excitement at the possibility of losing that night’s steamer.
It appeared that the driver of the car he had hired to take him and
the ladies to the landing stage had marked up on the taximeter certain
charges warranted by his tariff, but so grossly excessive even to Buenos
Ayres ideas, that the porteño immediately protested and would not proceed
in the car. He also refused to accept my advice to pay up and catch his
boat. I did not linger to see the final issue of the dispute, but the
cause of it was typical of many little differences one was to discover
which made life in Montevideo considerably more expensive than in Buenos
Ayres.
Mention of the police, by the way, reminds me that they are one of the
most engaging features of the town to the Gringo. If the authorities had
advertised for the most undersized, debilitated and ignorant members
of the community that could be found, they could not possibly have
excelled the extraordinary collection of miserable humanity, clothed in
ill-fitting uniforms, used as sentinels at every other street corner.
Many of these police are Indian half-castes or Negro-Indian _meztísos_.
They are wretchedly paid, and seem incapable of all responsibility, as
their efforts to direct the traffic are ignored, and were they followed
would lead to more confusion than order. Hardly any of them—with helmets
two or three sizes too large, their trousers so long that they bag
about their boots, over which, by the way, they wear white spats, their
ill-fitting coats of blue caught at the waist with a belt, from which
depends a sword—is sufficiently educated to write his name.
There are two classes in the service, however, the superior policeman,
with sufficient education to write a report of any occurrence and
exercise authority, being mounted, and when anything happens, the
mannikin at the corner blows his whistle (which he uses to the
disturbance of the town at frequent intervals through the day and night,
merely to advertise that he is still at his corner) and presently,
answering the call, along clatters on horseback one of the superior
class, presumably competent to deal with the case. On the whole, the
police service struck me as inferior to that of Buenos Ayres, and I
imagine that, shameful though the wages of the Buenos Ayres police may
be, those of the lower class in Montevideo must be still less. Yet these
policemen are regarded as so much fighting material for the Government,
and it used to be the practice, on the outbreak of a revolution, to send
forward the police as the first objects (objects, indeed, they are!) to
be fired at by the revolutionaries. The organisation is a quasi-military
one, and so fond do some of the agentes appear to be of saluting, that
every time I crossed the Plaza Zabala, I had to undergo the ordeal of
receiving a full military salute from the elderly policeman at the corner
of one of the streets converging on that square, so that to avoid this
attention I frequently chose another route.
The people that pass in the street present certain points of
contrast with the passers-by in Buenos Ayres. Clearly the writer in
a North-American encyclopædia who stated that Montevideo was “one of
the most cosmopolitan towns in South America” was scarcely entitled to
the editorial description of “authority on Latin America.” I remember
also that the same writer alleged there were no fewer than sixteen
public squares in the city, which assertion, together with that already
mentioned, leads me to suspect he never saw it with his own eyes.
Cosmopolitanism is precisely the last impression one is likely to carry
away from Montevideo. Italians are to be seen in considerable numbers,
but the appearance of the people as a whole is essentially Spanish.
The Iberian type has been better preserved here than on the other side
of the river; Spanish character informs the life of the people to a
larger extent. French and German residents there are, but in numbers
so inconsiderable that, even together with the English and American
population, they represent a very small percentage of the whole. After
the Italians and Spaniards, the largest foreign element is probably
Brazilian, which in the general population of the country exceeds the
French and all other nationalities combined, exclusive of the Argentines.
In fact, there is little similarity in the composition of the populations
that exist on the opposing banks of the River Plate.
Such foreign element as one sees in the streets is chiefly representative
of the casual visitors brought to the town for a few hours, a day or so,
by the numerous steamers that make it a port of call on their way to or
from Buenos Ayres or, by the Straits of Magellan, to or from the Pacific
Coast. Groups of fair-headed Germans and fresh-complexioned Britons are
thus frequently to be met wandering about from plaza to plaza during
the brief stay of their ships in the roadstead. Australian vessels also
touch at Montevideo, and then one will notice groups of twenty or thirty
odd-looking people straying somewhat timorously along the unfamiliar
streets, their garb leaving one in doubt as to whence they hail, though
the usually dowdy appearance of their womenkind permits no possible doubt
of their Anglo-Saxon origin.
The women of Montevideo are celebrated throughout South America for their
beauty and elegance of manners. In this regard, the town enjoys something
of the European fame of Buda-Pesth, and certainly no Oriental (the
Uruguayan, by the way, likes to be known as an Oriental, the proper style
of the republic being _República Oriental del Uruguay_) ever talks to a
Gringo about his capital city without mentioning that it is celebrated
for its _lindas mujeres_. True enough, it deserves its reputation as
a town of beautiful women, for most of the Montevidean ladies have
a beauty that is curiously in keeping with the official name of the
Republic,—oriental! They are of the languorous, dark-eyed type—beauty
that has a touch of the Jewish in it—and they are far more naturally
graceful than the ladies of Buenos Ayres, whom they make no effort to
imitate in the matter of elaborate dress, their tastes running on simpler
lines, with the exception, perhaps, of a notable fondness for elaborate
coiffures. I was told by my Spanish lady secretary, who had lived for
some years in Buenos Ayres before coming to Montevideo (and to whom I
owed a good deal of my information on the domestic habits of the people),
that those charming ladies of Montevideo completely outdid the Argentines
in the matter of _postizos_, as many as seven or eight different pieces
of made-up hair being added to their natural tresses. The sign POSTIZOS
(false hair) was one of the most familiar in the streets of Montevideo,
where _coiffeurs_ abound.
[Illustration: CATTLE ASSEMBLED ON “LA TABLADA,” NEAR MONTEVIDEO, FOR
CONVERSION INTO “EXTRACT OF BEEF.”]
Fresh from Buenos Ayres, it was particularly pleasing to us to observe
the marked respect which the women of Montevideo received from the male
population. Nothing that I observed during my wanderings about South
America seemed to me to present a greater contrast in manners than this.
Across the river, a few hours’ journey, it has been made possible for
women to walk about the streets in the daylight only by passing and
strictly enforcing an Act against _falto de respeto á la mujer_. Within
recent years this instrument has materially improved the liberty of women
in Buenos Ayres, as all that a lady has to do, who is molested in the
street by a man, is to call a policeman, give the man in charge, and
walk away. The molester is then marched to the police station, fined
substantially, and his name and address published in all the journals
next morning, the lady suffering no further inconvenience than the
momentary trouble of telling the policeman the man has annoyed her. No
such law has ever been necessary in Montevideo, where one was reminded
of home by noting how women unaccompanied, and young girls, could freely
go about the streets at all hours of the day, even until midnight, it
being not uncommon to see mothers with their children sitting in the
plazas enjoying the cool sea-borne breeze as late as eleven or twelve
o’clock at night. In this alone I think there is evidence of a subtle
difference of character between the peoples of the two cities.
We do not see the same bustling crowds, nothing remotely suggestive of
the great business interests at stake across the river. 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. As I purpose
showing in my next chapter, politics are undoubtedly the great passion of
the Orientals, but nothing could be more misleading than this conception
of bitter enmity between ordinary citizens of different politics, for I
personally became acquainted with many natives of the opposing camps, and
among them found the most intimate friends who differed radically. Two
of the twelve or thirteen daily papers published in the city are printed
in the same offices and on the same presses, though they represent
antagonistic political parties.
The whole atmosphere of the town in its social life was to me infinitely
more pleasing than that of Buenos Ayres. It is a friendly town. It is
more—a town of homes. The ambition of the Montevidean is to secure a
comfortable berth in the Government as quickly as he can, and build for
his family a comfortable home in which he will take a genuine pride
and where a real home feeling will exist. There are, of course, many
natives engaged in flourishing commercial enterprises, and these are
probably among the wealthiest, but this ambition to get something out
of the Government is universal, and while it may lead to very pleasant
conditions of life for the successful ones, it is extremely bad from the
point of view of national progress. That, however, is a subject which
properly belongs to the following chapter. Remains the fact that there
is an air of comfort, of leisure, and of life being pleasantly lived in
Montevideo.
The city itself, far more than Buenos Ayres, is entitled to be described
as “the Paris of South America.” From the ample Plaza Independencia, the
Avenida 18 de Julio extends eastward for miles in a vista essentially
Parisian. Around the arcaded plaza are many cafés, with their chairs and
tables streaming over the wide pavements, while along the avenida, at the
beautiful Plaza Libertad (or Cagancha), and still farther east, following
the course of this splendid avenue, with its theatres and bright little
cafés, the scene is one entirely reminiscent of the Paris boulevards.
There is also an air of substantiality about the buildings, which seldom
rise higher than two or three stories, and more often are content with
one, due, I think, to a larger employment of stone, though the country
still lacks enterprise to make the fullest use of its natural riches in
building-stone. These are bound to be developed in due time, and will
greatly add to the endurance of its cities.
Some day, perhaps, the Plaza Independencia of Montevideo will be one of
the finest public squares in any great city. I have seen many projected
designs for its reformation, and there is no doubt that every building
at present surrounding it, including the Government House, is bound to
disappear. They are all unworthy of the plaza, and must some day make
way for structures of greater dignity and beauty. The design for the new
Government House is so ambitious in comparison with the common little
stucco erection which at present very inadequately serves that purpose,
that I doubt if it is ever destined to be realised in its entirety.
Builders are now busy, however, on the new Legislative Palace, which will
supersede the present little building in the Plaza Matriz. In accordance
with the modern development of the town already mentioned, the site of
the new Palacio Legislativo lies away to the northeast of the present
national building, a distance, I should judge, of nearly two miles. Work
on this magnificent new pile was progressing steadily, and before long I
expect to hear of its inauguration. With its completion, the political
centre will change entirely, and a new importance will be given to the
vicinity of the Legislative Palace, which is at the junction of the
great Avenidas Agraciada and Sierra, at present chiefly occupied by
private residences and small dwellings of the colonial type.
The Uruguayan methods of dealing with these great public works are not
precisely ours, for it was originally intended to erect the new home of
the Cámaras on the Avenida 18 de Julio, where that bifurcates with the
Avenida Constituyente, and the foundations of the great building, and
indeed a considerable portion of the first story, were erected. Then
there was a change of opinion—the imperious President Batlle was, I
think, responsible for that—and the whole work was stopped. There stand
to-day these temporary memorials of national extravagance, while the
new building is being erected a mile away to the north. Some day the
foundations of the unfinished masonry on the Avenida 18 de Julio are to
be taken away and the site laid out as another great square, to be known
as the Plaza de Armas—a warrior race must needs have its Plaza de Armas!
Everywhere one is impressed by the energy that is going to the
beautifying and enlarging of the city. The extensive Boulevard Artigas,
which on the eastern extremity runs north and south for several miles,
and to the north, forming a right angle with itself, runs westward nearly
to the bay, in its present half-finished state, is one of the finest
thoroughfares in the whole continent. But the city is so well supplied
with wide and far-reaching boulevards that its population is not dense
enough to give to these an appearance of animation, except for a mile or
so to the east of the Plaza Independencia, and seaward for some little
distance beyond the Plaza Constitucion.
The town boasts many theatres—more proportionately than any other South
American city—several of these, such as the Solis, the Politeama, and
the Urquiza being commodious and well built. The dramatic instinct is
pronounced in the natives, and there is quite a considerable band of
literary enthusiasts in Montevideo working to create a body of national
dramatic literature—surely a remarkable ambition for a nation, whose
total population is 1,100,000 people! The late Florencio Sanchez and
the late Samuel Blixen, both Montevidean dramatists of distinction
(the former died at an early age a few years ago after winning an
international reputation), were two of the chief forces in this modern
movement which has resulted in so keen an interest in the drama that
a local publisher has been able to issue quite a long series of plays
written by Uruguayan authors.
Noteworthy among the public edifices of the city are the handsome
buildings of the University, where the faculties of medicine,
mathematics, law, and commerce are all splendidly housed. During our
stay, a further extension of the university accommodation was made in
the shape of a plain, modest, two-story building,—_la Universidad de
Mujeres_, or Women’s University, which began its career under the most
promising auspices. Other branches of public education, such as the fine
School of Agriculture, splendidly equipped, and the great Veterinary
School, where the very latest appliances of veterinary surgery are at
the disposal of the students, would be worthy of detailed description,
did the limits of my space permit. The Uruguayans are enthusiasts for
public education, and relatively to the Argentines stand much as the
Scots to the English. One might write at great length of the excellent
educational facilities that exist in Montevideo, but perhaps the best
proof of their efficiency is the fact that we find so many Uruguayans
occupying positions of importance in the Argentine, especially among the
learned professions. Uruguayans swarm in Argentine journalism, just as
Scots in that of England. These beautiful buildings of the University,
and that devoted to the Faculty of Secondary Education (_Facultad de
Enseñanza Secundaria_) are no mere vanities, but centres of most active
educational life.
There is little to interest us in the churches of the town, though the
Cathedral, with its ever-open door, and the absence of that tawdriness
which one is apt to associate with the material evidences of religion in
South America, always seemed to me in harmony with the sane and orderly
character of the city. The English Church, which stands on a rocky
eminence at the south end of the Calle Treinta y Tres, with the waves
of the estuary splashing at its base, is probably as historical as any
other in the city. For more than half a century it has existed much as
it is to-day, a neat little building of the basilica type—which in Roman
Catholic countries usually distinguishes Protestant churches from Roman
Catholic. In the course of that time, however, the character of the
surrounding neighbourhood has greatly changed, and it is now the lowest
quarter of the town, chiefly occupied by licensed brothels and the low
resorts of the mariners whom the winds of chance blow into the port of
Montevideo. In the same locality I found the old British Hospital, an
establishment entirely inadequate for its purposes, but then in the last
days of its long existence, as a commodious new hospital was being built
on the Boulevard Artigas, and, if I am not mistaken, was inaugurated
before we left.
Near to the latter, another fine new hospital had just been erected
by the Italian community. This occupies a very extensive site, the
buildings exceeding those of the British Hospital by several times, to
meet the needs of the large Italian Colony. But in the care of the sick
the city as a whole is well provided, the great Hospital de Caridad,
which occupies an entire square in the Calle Maciel, in the very heart
of the poorer districts whence come most of the patients, being largely
supported from the proceeds of the frequent public lotteries held on its
behalf. There is also a service of Asistencia Pública, organised on the
same method as that which plays so notable a part in the life of Buenos
Ayres.
Scattered among the different public buildings, the city possesses a
few paintings of historic value, but, on the whole, it may be said to
be destitute of art treasures, while the little museum that occupies a
wing of the Solis Theatre is scarcely worthy of even a little nation.
The National Library and various other libraries associated with the
different faculties of the University, and that of the Cámaras, as well
as the excellent institution known as the Ateneo, which occupies an
attractive building in the Plaza Libertad, are all evidences of the
remarkable literary culture of the Republic, probably superior to that
of any other modern people so small in numbers; but of sculpture and
the graphic arts there is very little indeed to be discovered in the
city. Perhaps, after all, these are more often evidences of commercial
prosperity, for art flourishes best where there is ample money to
purchase its products. And for reasons which I shall endeavour to explain
in my next chapter, the time of commercial expansion and the enrichment
of the people in Uruguay is not yet.
This the observer will also note by contrasting the private residences of
the wealthier classes with those of the Argentine. Montevideo contains
many beautiful homes, but few of those grandiose palaces which are so
familiar a feature of Buenos Ayres. At the bathing suburb of Pocitos, and
on the road thither, especially along the Avenida Brasil, many charming
_quintas_ are to be seen, but most of them are of modest size and quite
unpretentious, although occasionally some successful Italian has had
his suburban villa decorated in the loud style of an ice-cream saloon
exterior with elaborate iron-work railings and balconies designed in
the most debased style of the _art nouveau_, and painted a vivid blue.
The house of the late President Williman at Pocitos is merely a pretty
little suburban villa, with no undue ostentation; in fine, one discovers
in the domestic architecture of Montevideo something of that essentially
democratic spirit which informs the character of the people.
In the older part of the town, the pleasant old custom, which used to be
universal throughout Europe, of the merchant or tradesman residing on
the premises where he plied his business, still lingers. The successful
lawyer lives right in the heart of the business district, and has his
office in his house. So, too, the doctor, while the printer, bookseller,
and the importer often have their private residences on the floors above
their business premises. One of the wealthiest families of bankers thus
live over their bank, not far from the docks, in a street so noisy that
the unceasing rattle of its traffic still sounds disturbing in my memory
of the busy days I spent there. But this old custom is rapidly giving way
before the attractions of the beautiful suburbs that have opened up along
the sandy shores of Pocitos and inland as far as the charming little town
of Villa Colón, with its great avenues of trees, its rippling streams,
and leafy, undulating landscapes.
There are strange tastes to be noted, for one of the most imposing
private residences in the city, indeed the most remarkable of all, worthy
to be used as the Government House, has been built within recent years
by a successful Italian in the Plaza Zabala, almost within hail of the
docks, and in the very centre of that fan handle which I have already
described as the turning point of the multitudinous trams. The frequent
visitors who leave their ships for a short ramble round the town are
always arrested by the imposing appearance of this building, and often
little groups of them are to be seen discussing what it may be. Never by
any chance did I notice visitors pausing before the plain little colonial
residence a few paces westward in the same street, where a tablet records
the interesting fact that it was the lodging of the great Garibaldi
when, during the final struggle between Rivera and Oribe (1843-1851), the
hero of Italy for a time commanded the Brazilian regiment, which, with
the Italian and French legions, defended Montevideo against the leader of
the Blancos.
So far as fresh air is concerned, there is certainly no reason for
preferring one part of Montevideo over another, as the whole town is so
accessible to the sea breezes that even in the height of summer, when the
population of Buenos Ayres is gasping for breath, there is always fresh
air in Montevideo—infinitely more than the Argentine capital is it the
city of _buenos aires_ (good airs). As for _paseos_, there is no lack.
Many a pleasant evening did we lonely Gringos pass at one or other of
the _playas_, as the waterside resorts are termed. Thanks to a public
commission, which takes in hand the organisation of the summer fêtes,
there is always something going on at one or other of these resorts,
and half an hour in the tramway suffices to transport one to Remírez,
Pocitos, or Capurro, as the occasion serves. Each has its respective
_noches de moda_, when the promenade pier is illuminated with the usual
prodigality of electricity, and a band plays for some hours, during which
the _paseantes_ wander up and down to the strains of the music, and after
the last number has been played, hasten to the homeward trams—the mildest
and most innocent form of pleasure imaginable, and entirely at variance
with European notions of South American life.
Of Pocitos, I retain the most agreeable memories, for many was the night
we lingered on its gaily lighted pier, listening to the band, watching
the throng of idlers, or “looking lazy at the sea,” where the light-house
on the Isla de Lobos (the island of sea-lions, where many thousands of
these animals are killed every year for the oil they yield, and for their
skins) was throwing its beams across the dark waters of the estuary—a
signal post to the broad Atlantic and to Home! The water front at Pocitos
has been turned into a splendid promenade, comparable almost with the
Marina at Rio de Janeiro, and among the little rocky prominences are many
charming glimpses to remind the exile of the shores of his homeland.
Often we rambled, too, on foot along the coast to Ramírez, over fields
and rocks and patches of sandy shore, catching sight at times of the big
ocean liners slowly creeping up the river on their way to the great city
of the southern shore.
Ramírez is not so fashionable as Pocitos, being rather the resort of the
multitude. At the latter playa during the season, when the fine hotel is
thronged with visitors, one may see the latest Parisian modes, exhibited
chiefly by Argentine lady visitors, who are nearly always distinguishable
from the quieter and slimmer belles of Montevideo, but at Ramírez we
have a miniature Blackpool, with open-air theatres, merry-go-rounds,
shooting galleries, and such-like diversions of the mob. Here, too, is
the fine Parque Urbano, beautifully laid out on bosky, undulating ground,
with devious little waterways, where pleasure boats, shaped like swans,
ply for hire. Hard by the pier, stands the great Parque Hotel where the
chief attractions are the gambling tables, mainly patronised by wealthy
Argentines.
At both places there is bathing throughout the summer, after the
water has been duly blessed by the Bishop, on (I think) the eighth of
December—for the native does not venture to dip himself until that
ceremony has been performed. Long rows of bathing boxes line the beach
at Pocitos, but the local authorities are curiously indifferent to the
interests of the bathers in choosing a little promontory about half a
mile from the pier for burning the refuse of the city and throwing it
into the water, so that the whole of the little cove shows along high
water mark a thick line of dirt washed up after the ill-advised sanitary
efforts at the point! It is thus customary for the bathers, on emerging
from the salty waves, to wash themselves from pails of clean water, in
order to remove the traces of burnt refuse from their bodies. This is a
little touch that is quaintly South American.
Capurro, the third of the suburban resorts, is prettily situated on the
bay, about midway between the city and the Cerro. It serves the western
part of the city, which stretches out along the bay, and did not seem
to be much frequented by the summer visitors, though on a noche de
moda we used to see its numerous electric lights blazing like a little
constellation as we looked westward from our windows in the plaza.
Finest of all the paseos is the Prado. This splendid public park lies in
the same direction as Capurro, and through its undulating grounds runs
the little river Miguelete. It is the pride of the Montevideans, and
fully merits the charming adjectives they apply to it, for it abounds
in fine avenues of century-old trees, and winding walks among rich and
varied vegetation, while its _rosarium_ is very extensive and contains an
infinite variety of roses. Well kept, provided with a good restaurant,
and seats for the weary, with boating on the Miguelete among the swans,
the Prado is certainly a great possession for any town, and will compare
with most North American or European resorts of the kind. It is favoured
by the residents more than by the visitors, and on Sundays is the scene
of innumerable picnic parties.
Nor must I forget, in recalling the scenes among which we spent our
summer at Montevideo, the curious little Zoo at Villa Dolores, some
little distance from Pocitos. Here again, we encounter one of the many
evidences of difference in the Uruguayan and Argentine characters.
This institution, originally a portion of a large private estate, and
established entirely as a private collection by the owner, has recently
been made over to the Government, who are continuing its maintenance in
a praiseworthy manner. It is the outcome, not merely of the educational
side of zoology, by which I mean the illustrating of animal life by
living specimens, but of a desire to promote a friendly interest in the
animals. Among the many curiosities it contains is a little cemetery,
with monuments to departed pets. Some of these are quite elaborate
affairs, with inscriptions full of naïve tenderness, though it is
difficult to suppress a smile at a memorial to a pet serpent! Dogs, cats,
monkeys, donkeys, parrots, and I think even a lion are among the departed
whose memories are here preserved.
The collection of wild animals is not so large as that at Buenos Ayres,
but their houses are of the cleanest and most varied character, imitating
in cement all sorts of quaint dwellings, such as caves, kraals, beehives,
and the most fanciful structures in which animals ever were housed. Great
artificial grottoes and craggy peaks of cement decorate the grounds,
while the water-fowls have all manner of queer little islands, with
strange figures of gnomes dotted about them, in the lakelets and canals.
The whole place is inspired with the feeling of kindness to animals, but
I was never quite able to understand why it contained such large numbers
of valuable dogs penned up in great airy cages, unless they were for
sale. One of the apes was so well trained, that he used to wander about
the grounds free from his keeper and make friends with visitors, often to
their discomfiture. On holidays he would go a-cycling, to the delight of
the children, and was an expert on roller skates, being in every sense
as clever and intelligent as the famous Max and Moritz. The admission
to this most interesting public exhibition is only a few pence, and its
refining influence on the public cannot be overestimated.
It will be seen from this rough and haphazard sketch of the attractions
of Montevideo that we two Gringos had good reason to congratulate
ourselves on being able to spend our summer there, rather than in Buenos
Ayres. I am free to confess, however, that during the period of Carnival,
which lasted for the greater part of February, there were times when we
were inclined to think that we had almost too much of a good thing. All
those pleasure resorts figure more or less prominently in the long list
of festivities arranged by the Carnival Committee, and the town itself
becomes one vast exhibition of illuminations. The three principal plazas
are decorated with the most elaborate designs in arches of electric
lamps. The avenida is festooned from side to side, and all the way from
the Plaza Libertad to the Plaza Independencia, with lamps innumerable,
while Venetian masts, carrying huge comic faces that are illumined by
night, line the pavements.
The Carnival proper, with its processions of decorated coaches and
symbolical cars, its battles of flowers, and its _comparsas_, or
companies of masqueraders, lasts only throughout the first week of
February, but for a fortnight or more in advance and for a good fortnight
afterwards, every boy in the town possesses himself of a tin can and a
stick, and as single spies or in battalions, they make night hideous. A
passion for causing a noise by any means seems to seize the lower orders,
and the whole month of February is practically wasted so far as business
and serious affairs are concerned. The newspapers teem with announcements
from the secretaries of the different clubs that have been organised to
take part in the competition of the comparsas, as prizes are offered for
the company making the bravest show as courtiers of Louis XIV, mounted
gauchos, warriors of the Cannibal islands, or whatever guise they may
determine upon. Albanians, Montenegrins, Rumanians, and other foreign
residents who boast a picturesque national costume, don it for the
Carnival; girls of the populace, dress up as boys, and boys as girls;
false faces of every conceivable kind are worn by merry-makers, who, so
disguised, may “chivy” the staider passers-by to their hearts’ content.
There are great masque balls in the Solis Theatre, balls for children,
and dances innumerable in private houses, into which masqueraders often
enter and take part in the fun uninvited and unknown.
The real old spirit of Carnival is abroad, and the whole thing is
conducted with so much good taste and with so little rowdyism that it is
easy to see why it attracts such large numbers from Buenos Ayres, where
the low class element so abused the liberties of Carnival in past years
that it was prohibited, and is observed only to a small extent in some of
the suburbs. The use of paper confetti and _serpentinas_, of which tons
must be sold during the festivities, litters the streets and festoons
lamp-posts, telephone wires, and window railings with streamers which,
in the less accessible places, hang for months afterwards as mournful
reminders of the merry time that was; but the municipal authorities show
a remarkable celerity in clearing away all their temporary provisions
for the festivities. By the beginning of March, Montevideo was its
own staid self again, and by the end of that month the short holiday
season had utterly passed, the bands at the playas had played their last
tunes, the Hotel Pocitos and the Parque Hotel had closed their doors, no
gaily-dressed throngs were to be seen on the promenades, and people were
beginning to think of their social engagements for the coming winter; for
it is in the autumn and winter season that the Montevideans themselves
enjoy most their social round, when their theatres are occupied by
numerous dramatic and operatic companies from Italy, Spain, and France,
when political enthusiasts harangue their audiences, and lecturers give
their _conferencias_ on literary and scientific subjects.
On the whole, you will see we had not so bad a time in the capital of
Uruguay. Memories of our pleasant days and nights there crowd so thickly
on me as I write that it is difficult to set them down, and I feel that
the most I can do is to touch in the briefest way upon those that come
uppermost, leaving it to the reader to imagine how our time was passed.
We never seemed to tire of wandering the streets, as the avenida and the
two central plazas retained an air of brightness and friendliness to a
late hour, and often a military band would be playing between nine and
eleven o’clock at night. Until a late hour, the town never assumed the
extraordinary nightly dulness of Buenos Ayres, and very pleasant it was,
night after night, to see the little family groups meet and gossip with
the familiarity of a village. The Bohemian element, represented here,
as elsewhere, by wide-awake hats and pendulous locks, had its habitat
at the Café Giralda, at the corner of the Plaza Independencia, where
most evenings the local poets—it rivals Paisley as a nest of singing
birds—journalists, and “coming men” in politics, looked in for a coffee
and a chat.
Surely there never was such a town for journalists. I believe you could
not throw a stone down any street without hitting a journalist. An
American city of the same size would probably possess not more than
five or six daily newspapers; Montevideo has a dozen or more! Many of
the journalists do not limit their activities to that profession, but
are also engaged as lawyers, accountants, and in other businesses, as
it is very common to combine several occupations; the warehouse clerk
may possibly play in an orchestra in the evenings, and make up some
tradesman’s accounts on the Sundays. Which reminds me that every place of
business is closed on Sunday, only the restaurants, cafés, and theatres
being open.
The shops, of course, do not compare favourably with those of the great
metropolis further up the river, for there is not the wealth in the
country to justify anything approaching the luxury and plenitude of the
Buenos Ayres shopping marts. The largest establishment of the drapery
kind is owned by an English firm, and there are several fine warehouses
run by French and Italian firms, as well as some of considerable size
under native proprietorship. But for the most part, the shops, among
which jewellers’ abound, have a provincial rather than a metropolitan
touch, though the newer establishments along the Avenida 18 de Julio are
coming into line with the most modern ideas of shopkeeping. The habit
of the tradesman living on his premises is probably one of the reasons
why the early closing, so remarkable in Buenos Ayres, is not observed in
Montevideo, to the consequent brightness of the streets. I remember how
we used to be misled in our window gazing by the prices of the wares,
soon after our arrival, as everything appeared so much cheaper than
in Buenos Ayres, until we had become accustomed to the fact that the
Uruguayan peso is worth exactly 62 cts. more than the Argentine, being
equal to $1.02 United States money. Then we discovered that most things
were somewhat more expensive!
[Illustration: TYPES OF THE FANTASTIC DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF
MONTEVIDEO.]
While we suffered from no lack of noise, as the reader will have
discovered, during our stay, I do not remember ever to have heard the
whistle of a railway train. Trains come and go at the station of the
Central Railway, which is some considerable distance from the older part
of the city, but although our wanderings took us several times to that
model of a railway station, we never even heard the hiss of steam, nor
saw any sign of life therein. It possesses an excellent restaurant, and
its exterior is decorated with large stucco statues of George Stephenson
and James Watt and two foreign celebrities whose names have escaped my
memory, but as railways are still in their infancy in Uruguay, and trains
go only every second day to the principal provincial cities, and not
always so frequently as that, it will be understood why the Montevideo
station is more often as quiet as a museum than animated as a railway
terminus. It is quicker, for instance, to reach Paysandu, the important
commercial city of the northwestern Uruguayan province of that name, by
taking the boat to Buenos Ayres and thence by train and boat, than by
travelling all the way on Uruguayan railways.
This lack of speedy train service prevented me from becoming acquainted
with the provinces of Uruguay, as none of my plains could accommodate
themselves to the leisurely methods of travel, and so my excursions were
confined to the immediate surroundings of the city. My favourite outing
was a trip across the bay in a little steam launch, which in less than
twenty minutes landed me on the rickety old wooden pier near the Villa
de Cerro and thence a long exhilarating ramble uphill took me to the old
Spanish fortress on the top of the Cerro, still used as a fortification
by the Uruguayans. From the walls of this, splendid prospects seaward and
landward may be had, while the fortress itself—with its rather slatternly
garrison, the officer on duty looking heroically seaward while he sips
his _mate_, and the horses cropping the grass on the slopes below—is by
no means uninteresting. What pleased me most was to look landward over
the rolling plains, grassy and undulating, as far as eye could reach, and
at no great distance from the fort, alive with herds of cattle on the
part known as _la Tablada_, so important to the life and prosperity of
Montevideo. For in these herds, brought here chiefly to be converted into
extract of meat for a great English firm, is the principal wealth of the
country, and its history that is not concerned with wars and revolutions
is bound up with the herding of cattle. Such as we see the country from
the Cerro, it is, I am told, throughout its length and breadth—a land
of ideal pasturage, full of gentle valleys, and with no hill that rises
more than 2,000 feet above sea level. A pleasant land, with endless
possibilities for the agriculturist. Yes, all my memories of Montevideo
seem to be agreeable, for even its cemetery, beautifully situated on high
ground by the sea, was in keeping with the general impression and had an
air of peacefulness and rest which Recoleta so much lacked.