The construction of a mole to extend beyond the sands is entirely practicable, and would be of immense importance, and a great saving of expense in the trade of the place. So essential a work should have been accomplished a century ago. Had the amount lavished by Rosas in redeeming the marshes of Palermo, and in rearing upon them his country palace, been thus appropriated, it would long since have secured a convenient and safe landing both for goods and passengers, and have been a lasting and honorable monument of his public spirit and patriotism. A day or two since a detachment of the troops of Urquiza embarked from this landing on their return to Entre-Rios. It is the winter season; the weather was wet, cold, and piercing, and the whole number, amounting to some hundreds, were kept for hours, shivering in the exposure incident to the slow means of getting off to the transports in which they were to sail; first in squads of eight or ten in a cart, and then in equal numbers in small boats.
The lecheros and panderos—the milkmen and bakers—form striking features in the scenes of the street in the early morning. Both grades are invariably mounted on shabby, rough-coated little horses or mules. They seat themselves very longitudinally on the shoulder-blades of the beasts, their legs being stretched out almost at full length; while the supplies they carry for distribution are balanced on either side from neck to tail—the milk in long tin cans of different sizes, stowed in different compartments of leather fixtures, something in the form of old-fashioned saddle-bags. The bread is distributed from immense panniers of ox-hide, cured with the hair on, made oval, in bandbox form, burying the animal beneath their ponderous shapes, and half blocking up the street as they pass. There is nothing especially peculiar in the dress of the bakers, they being, dwellers in the city, and generally French, German, or Spanish by birth and in costume; but the milkmen from the country, at distances from five to fifteen miles, furnish illustrations of the grotesque and comical worthy of the pencil of a Cruikshank or Wilkie. None but an artist could do justice to their slouched hats of every form, the cotton handkerchief of divers figures and colors in which their necks and faces are bundled up, their ponchos of every hue—their cheripas of various materials from scarlet broadcloth and gayly-figured merinos, to horse-blankets, and fire-rugs; while half-yard wide pantalets of white cotton tamboured and fringed and worn over heavy boots or leggings of calfskin, make up the sketch.
On entering the plaza about seven o’clock a few mornings ago, I saw some hundreds or more of these figures, with their horses and milk-cans, grouped before the police office at the Cabildo or town hall. The spectacle was one of the most singular I have met, and led to an inquiry as to the cause of the unusual gathering. In answer, I learned that the extent to which the watering of the milk had been carried had led to the interference of the police. On that morning, every milkman as he entered the city found himself unexpectedly under arrest, and was hurried to the office of the chief, to have the product of his cows put to a test. All were now busy lugging their cans into the town hall to be thus cleared from the imputation of defrauding their customers, or, if found guilty, to pay the fine imposed by the laws of the municipality. I did not wait to learn the result, but believe few escaped the penalty.
To one informed of the extent of vexation and labor required in securing the milk, it is scarcely a wonder that it should be well watered before being brought to market. The cows of the native breed are impracticable to all domestic training or discipline. They not only require to be lassoed every time they are milked, but must be also tied head and foot, and during the operation have their calves by their sides. These must be permitted to draw the milk alternately with the use of the hand by the milkman, or nothing can be obtained from the animal. Much time is thus taken up in the operation; and the result is only about a quart of milk a day from each cow, and a pound of butter a week. The consequence is that milk commands from twelve to fifteen cents a quart; and butter from sixty-two to seventy-five cents a pound. The supply is furnished chiefly by the German and Basque settlers. The natives are for the most part too indolent to take so much trouble for the returns made, either for their own use or for sale.
Rio de Janeiro.
September 20th.—We returned to this port on the 13th inst.: bringing passengers with us, Mr. Schenck, Chargé d’Affaires at the Court of Brazil, and a nephew, his private secretary. In addition to the diplomatic office he holds here, he was recently appointed by our government Envoy Extraordinary to the Republics of the Plata, for the purpose of negotiating, in conjunction with Mr. Pendleton, treaties of friendship and commerce. The unsettled state of affairs in the Argentine Provinces, however, interfered with the completion of this mission, and he has returned for a time to Rio de Janeiro.
Mr. Pendleton accompanied him as far as Montevideo; and during a brief sojourn there, the two diplomatists, with the aid of Mr. Glover as interpreter and secretary, formed a treaty with the Republic of Uruguay, by which the United States are placed here upon a footing with the most favored nations. The promptitude, industry, and despatch of the ambassadors in the negotiation quite astonished the ceremonious, indolent, and procrastinating ministers of Spanish-American blood. After it was once initiated, they allowed themselves scarcely the relaxation of an hour till the parchments were engrossed; and the ink in their signatures was not well dry before the Chief Envoy was on his way with us to this place.
I will let an incident occurring at Buenos Ayres speak his general character. While last there, I occupied furnished rooms in the establishment of a shrewd, sharp-eyed, talkative Englishwoman. The window of her private apartment commanded the well-guarded portal, opening from the street into the pateo or quadrangle of the house; and from it she kept a watchful lookout on the movements of her lodgers and their visitors. A short time after I had taken up my quarters there, Mr. Schenck called upon me. My landlady soon became informed, by some means, of his name and position; and with the notions of rank common among those in humble life in her own country, was quite excited by the distinction conferred upon her lodger, and seizing the first chance afterwards of waylaying me, gave vent to her feelings on the subject by the exclamation—“And indeed, sir! so you have had the honor of a visit from your minister, the new ambassador! La me! I said to myself as I saw him come in, ‘Why who can that very genteel, delicate-looking, strange gentleman be?’ But I knew him at once for a diplomat. I can always tell them. I have had a great deal to do with them—Sir Charles Hotham, Sir William Ousely—and I know them at once, they are so clever—so very, very clever! Oh! rely upon it, sir! your ambassador is a very clever man: I could see it in his eye, sir! and then it was so kind in him to call. I knew him for a diplomat—so very genteel, and so clever,” adding, “Clever, sir, clever—very, very clever!” as she bowed herself backwards into her little room, as if retreating after a presentation at court. And clever, indeed, Mr. Schenck is, both in the English and American use of the term. In regard to the last, he has given very decided proof in his great kindness to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, seamen’s chaplain here, who with Mrs. Fletcher arrived from the United States shortly after the Congress left, eight months ago. They early became settled in a hired cottage, but when Mr. Schenck received the diplomatic appointment to the Plata, he constrained them to leave it, and with their family to take possession during his absence, of the embassy and all its appointments, in furniture, servants, carriages and horses; and as it will be necessary for him to return to Buenos Ayres at the end of two or three months, wrote to them before leaving the river, that he came now only to be their guest till he should be recalled there by duty for an indefinite time. They are thus permanently at home with him.
Mr. Fletcher on his arrival, entered at once zealously upon the discharge of the duties of his position; and, while the yellow fever has again raged for months as an epidemic among the shipping and on shore, has been indefatigable in preaching the Gospel to the well, in nursing and comforting the sick and dying, and in consoling the afflicted, of whom there have been many among American and English shipmasters, who have had members of their families in greater or less numbers on board their ships with them, some of whom have died under very affecting circumstances.
The Rev. Mr. Graham, rector of the English Episcopal Church, has service in a neat chapel in the city on the morning of the Sabbath; Mr. Fletcher at the same time preaches to the seamen in port, on board some ship in the harbor, and in the afternoon holds worship in the drawing-room of the American Consulate. I have assisted him in this service since our arrival, and have felt it a privilege and a blessing to join the “two or three,” who assemble there for praise and prayer, and to hear the preached word. The music is led by Mrs. Fletcher at the piano; and she is assisted vocally by Mrs. K——. This excellent person is a good representative abroad of her fellow-countrywomen of New England at home—sensible, intelligent, practical: ever decided in her expression of moral principle, and ever constant in the exhibition of her religious character. She has been greatly afflicted by the bereavements which have befallen her here in a strange land; but resigned in spirit, seems by them to be the better fitted for the duties of a Christian in this life, as well as for the inheritance which is to be the reward of such in the life to come. Mrs. F—— is not less strikingly the type of her class in Europe. She is a daughter of the distinguished and apostolic minister of Geneva, Cæsar Malan; and highly educated and accomplished, seems fitted alike