Through Five Republics on Horseback | Page 7

to term their city, has a beautiful climate. For perhaps three hundred days out of every year there is a sky above as blue as was ever seen in Naples.
The natives eat only twice a day--at 10.30 a.m., and at 7 p.m.--the common edibles costing but little. I could write much of Buenos Ayres, with its _carnicerias_, where a leg of mutton may be bought for 20 cts., or a brace of turkeys for 40 cts.; its _almacenes_, where one may buy a pound of sugar or a yard of cotton, a measure of charcoal (coal is there unknown) or a large _sombrero_, a package of tobacco (leaves over two feet long) or a pair of white hemp-soled shoes for your feet--all at the same counter. The customer may further obtain a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer (the latter costing four times the price of the former) from the same assistant, who sells at different prices to different customers.
There the value of money is constantly changing, and almost every day prices vary. What to-day costs $20 to-morrow may be $15, or, more likely, $30. Although one hundred and seventy tons of sugar are annually grown in the country, that luxury is decidedly expensive. I have paid from 12 cts. to 30 cts. a pound. Oatmeal, the Scotsman's dish, has cost me up to 50 cts. a pound.
Coming again on to the street you hear the deafening noises of the cow horns blown by the streetcar drivers, or the pescador shrilly inviting housekeepers to buy the repulsive-looking red fish, carried over his shoulder, slung on a thick bamboo. Perhaps you meet a beggar on horseback (for there wishes are horses, and beggars do ride), who piteously whines for help. This steed-riding fraternity all use invariably the same words: _"Por el amor de Dios dame un centavo!"_ ("For the love of God give me a cent.") If you bestow it, he will call on his patron saint to bless you. If you fail to assist him, the curses of all the saints in heaven will fall on your impious head. This often causes such a shudder in the recipient that I have known him to turn back to appease the wrath of the mendicant, and receive instead--a blessing.
It is not an uncommon sight to see a black-robed priest with his hand on a boy's head giving him a benediction that he may be enabled to sell his newspapers or lottery tickets with more celerity.
The National Lottery is a great institution, and hundreds keep themselves poor buying tickets. In one year the lottery has realized the sum of $3,409,143.57. The Government takes forty per cent. of this, and divides the rest between a number of charitable and religious organizations, all, needless to say, being Roman Catholic. Amongst the names appear the following: Poor Sisters of St. Joseph, Workshop of Our Lady, Sisters of St. Anthony, etc.
Little booths for the sale of lottery tickets are erected in the vestibules of some of the churches, and the Government, in this way, repays the church.
The gambling passion is one of Argentina's greatest curses. Tickets are bought by all, from the Senator down to the newsboy who ventures his only dollar.
You meet the water-seller passing down the street with his barrel cart, drawn by three or four horses with tinkling bells, dispensing water to customers at five cents a pail. The poorer classes have no other means of procuring this precious liquid. The water is kept in a corner of the house in large sun-baked jars. A peculiarity of these pots is that they are not made to stand alone, but have to be held up by something.
At early morning and evening the milkman goes his rounds on horseback. The milk he carries in six long, narrow cans, like inverted sugar-loaves, three on each side of his raw-hide saddle, he himself being perched between them on a sheepskin. In some cans he carries pure cream, which the jolting of his horse soon converts into butter. This he lifts out with his hands to any who care to buy. After the addition of a little salt, and the subtraction of a little buttermilk, this manteca is excellent. After serving you he will again mount his horse, but not until his hands have been well wiped on its tail, which almost touches the ground. The other cans of the lechero contain a mixture known to him alone. I never analyzed it, but have remarked a chalky substance in the bottom of my glass. He does not profess to sell pure milk; that you can buy, but, of course, at a higher price, from the pure milk seller. In the cool of the afternoon he will bring round his cows, with bells on their necks and calves