The enormous quantity of water of this great fluvial system, pouring into the Plate, give that estuary a greater volume than the great Mississippi. At its mouth the Plate is 138 miles wide, and opposite Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, its bosom is still 57 miles broad, whilst, narrowing, it is 25 miles across at the confluence of the Paraná and Uruguay.
The port of Buenos Ayres, however, is not favoured by Nature as regards the depth of its harbour, which is only kept open for ocean steamers by constant dredging. This commercial and maritime navel of South America thus suffers from a considerable disadvantage. An outlay amounting to over £12,000,000 has been necessary to render the docks of the great entrepôt always accessible to the numerous ocean steamers which make it their haven. Before the artificial channels were dredged, such vessels as drew over fifteen feet of water could not approach within twelve miles of the port, and unloading was laboriously performed from launches.
It cannot be said that the shores of the estuary of the Plate River, as we approach Buenos Ayres, impress themselves upon the mind by reason of their beauty. The city stands on a flat plain, without background of hills or other pleasing topographical feature, and its surroundings are, in consequence, low and monotonous. The main objects to break the skyline are the unhandsome forms of giant grain elevators—those structures more familiar to the traveller from the United States, where they abound. Other outstanding objects are the huge slaughter-houses, like those of Chicago. The aspect of the place is, in fact, strictly utilitarian. When, moreover, we read the enthusiastic descriptions of the city, of its wealth, its public buildings, its boulevards, we must recollect that these features lie beyond the poor, clustered dwellings near the water-front, of folk who, largely necessitous immigrants, have been unable or unwilling to proceed into the interior, whether by reason of disillusion or from the abuses they fear will be practised upon them. The Argentine Government has done much towards the settlement of the Republic, but the economic conditions and humane direction of immigrants is one which no Government has yet been able sufficiently to compass. These considerations, however, may be left for further remark elsewhere in these pages. Buenos Ayres is a handsome city, a source of pride to Argentina, and an instance of the civic possibilities of the Spanish American race.
Before reaching Buenos Ayres we shall have entered Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, the smallest of the South American States, a seaport and city more beautifully situated, extending around the shore of its bay, with a rocky headland jutting out in the west. Here the Atlantic breezes blow freely over the city—situated on its rolling lands, a city one of the cleanest in the world and one of the most pleasing in South America.
MAR DEL PLATA.
Vol. II. To face p. 166.
The sky of Montevideo seems unfailingly blue, the sun shines constantly, the temperature is that of summer, rarely falling below 50° even in winter. The handsome harbour has been rendered safe for vessels, and docks were built under large expenditure: work carried out by national funds, without the need of a foreign loan—that inevitable Spanish American method of performing a public work. Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Ayres have their advantages, æsthetic or commercial, but Montevideo, in point of climate and other amenities, is their leader.
On the opposite shore of the estuary stands the Argentine city of La Plata, capital of Argentina, a few miles inland from the port of Ensenada, a provincial capital founded in 1882. The model taken in its town-planning was Washington, but the streets are of a width so considerable as to give an air of disproportion, in conjunction with the low brick buildings. Here we may visit the most important museum in South America, ethnographical and archæological.
But to return to Uruguay.