OF BUENOS AYRES.

33

collection of them, called La Lira Argentina, was printed in 1823, which is well worth the notice of all lovers of Spanish verse. But the men have more advantages as respects education than the ladies : in their schools and universities they are now very fairly grounded in most branches of general knowledge, and of late years it has been much the custom amongst the better families to send their sons to Europe to complete their studies.

I should say of them in general that they are observing and intelligent, and extremely desirous to improve themselves.

Their ordinary habits are certainly a good deal influenced by climate: I cannot speak of them as an industrious people, and yet it is rare to see a man who has not some nominal occupation.

From the number of doctores, a stranger might suppose that all the upper classes were lawyers or physicians. This is not exactly the case; but, as that degree serves to mark the man who has received a liberal education, it is generally taken by those who pass through the schools, without particular reference to their future calling. Thus I have known doctores in all pursuits-ministers of state, employés of all sorts, clerks in public offices, military officers, and merchants; all attaching to it the same importance as we do, perhaps with less right, to the ordinary title of esquire as the designation of a gentle

man.

Law and physic, however, do give employment to

D

a great number of people. The military and government employés are also a very numerous class, and of no small pretensions : human nature, under a “little brief authority," is much the same, I believe, in all parts of the world. The clergy have diminished greatly in numbers and importance, and the revolution in this, as in other Catholic countries, has put an end to the unconstitutional influence exercised by them in old times, and under different circumstances: the Government having taken possession of the ecclesiastical property, the officiating priests are left to depend upon a stipend, in general barely sufficient for their decent maintenance, so that there is but small inducement left for men to devote themselves to a life of celibacy.

But it is the trade and commerce of Buenos Ayres which is the great source of occupation for its extensive population; since, though the importing and exporting part of the business may be chiefly carried on by the foreign merchants, the details are for the most part left to the natives: they collect, and prepare, and bring in for sale, all the produce of the country, and retail the goods imported from foreign countries: nor is it thought at all degrading for young men of the best connexions to stand behind a counter there they gossip with their fair customers upon a perfect equality, and in dandyism a Buenos Ayrean shopkeeper may be backed against the smartest man-milliner of London or Paris.

The mechanics and artisans, form also a large

OF BUENOS AYRES.

35

class, as may be supposed, in a country where everything is wanted, and no man feels inclined to do much; it is in this line that the European has so decided an advantage over the native from his more industrious habits; for he requires no siesta, and works whilst the natives of all classes, high and low, are asleep he cannot fail to prosper if he will but avoid the drinking-shops; but he must be resolute on that point, for it is a temptation which he finds at the corner of every street: no less than 600 pulperias are open in the city alone, as appears by the list of licenses annually taken out at the police*.

For every one who will work there is employment, and as to real want, it can hardly exist in a country where beef is dear at a halfpenny a-pound, and where the generality of the lower orders eat nothing else.

* The same list will give some idea of the general distribution of the trades for 1836; it was as follows:

358 Wholesale stores.

348 Retail shops.

323 Shops of tailors, shoemakers, milliners, and all handicrafts. 6 Booksellers.

598 Pulperias, or drinking shops.

26 Billiard-tables.

44 Hotels, taverns, and eating-houses.

48 Confectioners and liqueur-shops.

29 Chemists and apothecaries.

76 Flour-shops and bakeries.

44 Baracas, or hide-warehouses.

33 Timber-yards.

13 Livery-stables.

6 Coachmakers.

874 Carts and carriages paid duties.

CHAPTER V.

CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.

Great extent of the City. Public Buildings. Inconvenient Arrangement and want of Comfort in the Dwellings of the Natives a few years ago. Prejudice against Chimneys. Subsequent Improvements introduced by Foreigners. Iron gratings at the windows necessary. Water scarce and dear. That of the River Plata excellent, and capable of being kept a very long time. Pavement of Buenos Ayres.

BUENOS AYRES, like all other cities in Spanish America, is built upon the uniform plan* prescribed I believe by the Council of the Indies, consisting of straight streets, intersecting each other at right angles every 150 yards; and, from the peculiar construction of the houses, covers at least twice the ground which would be required for any European city of the same population.

With the exception of the churches, which, though unfinished externally, exhibit in their interior all the gaudy richness of the religion to which they belong, and will be lasting memorials of the pious zeal of the Jesuits, who built the greater part of them, there is nothing remarkable in the style of the public buildings. The old government considered money laid out in beautifying the city as so much

* Mr. Scarlet has given the best possible description of this plan, in comparing it to a chess-board:-the relative proportions are as nearly as possible four English acres to each square.

CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.

37

thrown away upon the colonists, and the new government has been as yet too poor to do more than has been absolutely necessary; what has been done, however, has been well done, and does credit to the republican authorities.

In their private dwellings there was a wretched want of every comfort, when I first went to the country. With but few exceptions, they were confined to a ground floor; the apartments built en suite, without passages, round two or three successive quadrangular courts, called patios, opening into each other; and the whole distribution about as primitive and inconvenient as can be imagined.

The floors of the best rooms were of bricks or tiles, the rafters of the roof seldom hid by a ceiling, the walls as cold as whitewash could make them; whilst the furniture was of the most gaudy, tawdry, North American manufacture: a few highly-coloured French prints, serving, perhaps, to mark the state of the fine arts in South America.

Nothing could be more anti-comfortable to English eyes. In cold weather these cold-looking rooms were heated by braziers, at the risk of choking the inmates with the fumes of charcoal ; chimneys, so far from being looked upon as wholesome ventilators, were regarded as certain conductors of wet and cold; and it was not till long after the introduction of them by the European residents had practically proved their safety and superiority over the old Spanish warming-pans, that the natives could be in