Through Five Republics on Horseback | Page 7

lax custom that everything will do to-morrow. That fatal word is the
first the stranger learns--_mañana_.
Comparatively few people walk the streets. "No city in the world of
equal size and population can compare with Buenos Ayres for the
number and extent of its tramways." [Footnote: Turner's "Argentina."]
A writer in the Financial News says: "The proportion of the population
who daily use street-cars is _sixty-six times greater in Buenos Ayres
than in the United Kingdom_."
This _Modern Athens_, as the Argentines love 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