Through Five Republics on Horseback | Page 6

There smaller tugs awaited us and we were again
transhipped. Sailing once more toward the land, we soon caught sight
of the Argentine capital, but before we could sail nearer the tugs
grounded. There we were crowded into flat-bottomed, lug-sailed boats
for a third stage of our landward journey. These boats conveyed us to
within a mile of the city, when carts, drawn by five horses, met us in
the surf and drew us on to the wet, shingly beach. There about twenty
men stood, ready to carry the females on their backs on to the dry,
sandy shore, where was the customs house. The population of the city
we then entered was about six hundred thousand souls.
After changing the little gold I carried for the greasy paper currency of
the country, I started out in search of something to eat. Eventually I
found myself before a substantial meal. At a table in front of me sat a
Scotsman from the same vessel. He had arrived before me (Scotsmen
say they are always before the Englishmen) and was devouring part of
a leg of mutton. This, he told me, he had procured, to the great
amusement of Boniface, by going down on all fours and _baa-ing_ like
the sheep of his native hills. Had he waited until I arrived he might
have feasted on lamb, for my voice was not so gruff as his. He had
unconsciously asked for an old sheep. I think the Highlander in that
instance regretted that he had preceded the Englishman.
How shall I describe the metropolis of the Argentine, with its one-
storied, flat-roofed houses, each with grated windows and centre
_patio_? Some of the poorer inhabitants raise fowls on the roof, which
gives the house a barnyard appearance, while the iron-barred windows
below strongly suggest a prison. Strange yet attractive dwellings they
are, lime-washed in various colors, the favorite shades seeming to be

pink and bottle green. Fires are not used except for cooking purposes,
and the little smoke they give out is quickly dispersed by the breezes
from the sixty-mile-wide river on which the city stands.
The Buenos Ayres of 1889 was a strange place, with its long, narrow
streets, its peculiar stores and many-tongued inhabitants. There is the
dark-skinned policeman at the corner of each block sitting silently on
his horse, or galloping down the cobbled street at the sound of some
revolver, which generally tells of a life gone out. Arriving on the scene
he often finds the culprit flown. If he succeeds in riding him down (an
action he scruples not to do), he, with great show, and at the sword's
point, conducts him to the nearest police station. Unfortunately he often
chooses the quiet side streets, where his prisoner may have a chance to
buy his freedom. If he pays a few dollars, the poor vigilante is perfectly
willing to lose him, after making sometimes the pretence of a struggle
to blind the lookers-on, if there be any curious enough to interest
themselves. This man in khaki is often "the terror of the innocent, the
laughing-stock of the guilty." The poor man or the foreign sailor, if he
stagger ever so little, is sure to be "run in." The Argentine law-keeper
(?) is provided with both sword and revolver, but receives small
remuneration, and as his salary is often tardily paid him, he augments it
in this way when he cannot see a good opportunity of turning burglar or
something worse on his own account. When he is low in funds he will
accost the stranger, begging a cigarette, or inviting himself at your
expense to the nearest _cafe_, as "the day is so unusually hot." After all,
we must not blame him too much--his superiors are far from guiltless,
and he knows it. When Minister Toso took charge of the Provincial
portfolio of Finance, he exclaimed, "_C-o! Todos van robando menos
yo!_" ("Everybody is robbing here except I.") It is public news that
President Celman carried away to his private residence in the country a
most beautiful and expensive bronze fountain presented by the
inhabitants of the city to adorn the principal plaza. [Footnote: Public
square.] The president is elected by the people for a term of three years,
and invariably retires a rich man, however poor he may have been
when entering on his office. The laws of the country may be described
as model and Christian, but the carrying out of them is a very different
matter.
Some of the laws are excellent and worthy of our imitation, such as, for

example, the one which decrees that bachelors shall be taxed. Civil
elections are held on Sundays, the voting places being Roman Catholic
churches.
Both postmen and telegraph boys deliver on horseback, but such is the