This matter of change of car may have been overlooked by the Municipality when the concession was granted to the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company, of which concession the universal 10 cent fare was a sine qua non condition; perhaps, on the other hand, the Company stuck out on that point. Anyhow, if one wishes to get full value for his 10 cents on a Buenos Aires tramline he must stick to the car in which he has begun his ride. By doing so, he can often take a long round trip and come back to his point of departure. This observation also applies to the Tramways in Montevideo, but there, with due knowledge and careful selection, one can practically get all over the place, without changing; owing to the more erratic routes taken by the lines.
For a variety of reasons, the Buenos Aires Tramway system is considered by authorities on such matters to be the best in the world. It is mostly in the hands of the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company.
Another company is the Lacroze, a private company largely interested also in the Buenos Aires Central Railway. Its trams run through the Capital and to the Western suburban districts.
A third company runs trams out of the Capital to the Southern Suburban districts.
It may here be said that a good supply of taxi-cabs is to be found both in Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
One advantage, suggested by the mention of taxi-cabs, of visiting Montevideo before Buenos Aires, is that that way one feels richer after the journey between the two than one would if the itinerary had been reversed.
THE AVENIDA DE MAYO, BUENOS AIRES
Living is not cheap in Buenos Aires, but its cost is a relief after a sojourn in the Uruguayan Capital; though expense there is again as nothing if one has experienced that of Rio de Janeiro, the dearest place, probably, in the whole world, and the one in which, scenery apart, one gets as little satisfaction for one’s money as anywhere.
In Montevideo one has, it is true, plenty of satisfaction of a quiet, pleasant kind, but those (actually, although founded on a firm gold basis) paper dollars—only four of them and 70 cents worth of mixed change for a British Sovereign—melt quickly into inappreciable small silver and nickel; none of which seems to be worth much, though a 50-cent bit is really worth more than a British florin. For exchange purposes that is; in its native land its purchasing power is strikingly small. After Montevideo, there is some satisfaction about the feel of the bundle of Argentine paper dollars one gets for one’s Uruguayan money. And in Buenos Aires several quite useful things can be got for $1, National (paper) money. Although the purchasing power of this last (its exchange value is 1s. 8¾d.) is not that of one shilling in England.