Municipal bands, good operatic and dramatic companies are added lures for holiday-makers of the wealthier class from neighbouring Republics; while Montevideo sustains the ancient custom of keeping carnival, masked and with illuminations, flower-throwing and costumed corsos, in a fashion which entirely throws into the shade the now moribund carnival of Buenos Aires.
THE PLAZA LIBERTAD, MONTEVIDEO
At Montevideo, all is done to please and nothing to annoy, so that the throwing of water which was a leading feature of the old-time carnival is now strictly prohibited by authority enforced by the police; as is also the case in Buenos Aires.
Thousands of people cross each year from Buenos Aires for the Montevideo carnival, the whole available fleet of the company which runs luxurious boats between the two cities are pressed into the service of this occasion and become floating hotels; the normal hotel accommodation of Montevideo being insufficient to meet such an influx of visitors during these few days.
By the way, the origin of this fine steamboat service is an interesting example of the progress made by the two countries and the fortunes which have been amassed in them during existing lifetimes.
Before the building of the present dock system of Buenos Aires, one of the boatmen who used to land and embark passengers from or on the ocean-going ships was a man named Nicolas Mihanovich; evidently a very level-headed and at that time at least, a very frugal and saving person indeed.
With his row-boat he gained sufficient to enable him to purchase a sailing vessel which he used for regular traffic to and fro across the broad mouth of the River Plate. So, his enterprise grew; and only a very few years ago he turned his own private company into a public one with larger aims, in which latter company he nevertheless retains a very large interest. The one-time boatman is now a multi-millionaire. The present service leaves Buenos Aires, or Montevideo as the case may be, at about ten o’clock each evening and lands its passengers, after a good sleep in comfortable beds, on the other side at about seven o’clock the following morning.
Many are the true tales of fortunes amassed, sometimes one may almost say won, in Argentina, especially, within living memory.
Señor Santamarina, now deceased, left on his huge estate at Tandíl, one of his many properties, the original two-wheeled high cart which was his only fortune when he commenced life as what in other countries would be called a transport rider. This cart is, or till recently was, preserved in a glass house erected specially by him to house and exhibit it to all visitors to the estancia.