Although the Grand Hotel Lanata cannot be called first-class in any respect, excepting the restaurant which is the best in the city, it is far better for the unaccompanied male visitor to stop there than at the Parque, on account of its central location. It takes twenty minutes by electric car to reach the Parque from the Plaza Independencia. It costs $1.20 to reach it by taxicab. The Grand Hotel Lanata of Ximines and Santamarina is in the central part of the city on the Plaza Constitucion (formerly called the Plaza Matriz) and is convenient for shoppers and sightseers. The Oriental near the docks is a good hotel, but the glass-roofed parlor and lobby is malodorous from poor ventilation. Other good hotels are the Colon, Barcelona, and Florida Palace. Regarding the last-mentioned place, I must state that its proprietor is a Brazilian who does not draw the color line as to his clientele.
Worthy of interest are the cathedral, the Solis theatre, the central market, the colonnaded buildings on the Plaza Independencia, the new university, the central cemetery, and the Uruguaya brewery.
The cathedral is a twin-towered and domed majestic structure on the Plaza Constitucion with an elaborately decorated chapel. Four golden suns (the sun is the emblem of Uruguay) are painted on an azure background on the wall beneath the dome. The rays of the natural sun above, penetrating the yellow and blue skylights of the dome, cast weird and ghostly lights in the interior.
The Uruguaya brewery is on the Calle Yatai, to the west of the center of the city, but nearly two miles from the downtown business section. It is best reached by electric tramcar. The reason for a visit to it is the large beer hall like the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, and whose replica is to be found nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere. There are large bare tables, with chairs and benches. The visitor sits at one of these. He need not give an order for no sooner is he seated than a full schuper of foaming elixir is placed in front of him. When he has had enough, he turns his empty mug bottom up, otherwise it is a sign that his thirst has not been quenched and that he is in line for another one, which is immediately set in front of him.
The specialties of Montevideo are the polished agates and stones common to Uruguay. These are found in abundance in the department of Minas, and although expensive are fine souvenirs. No tourist should visit the city without taking some away as they make admirable gifts to friends at home. They are made into paper weights, paper cutters, stamp holders, buttons, etc. The best ones are dark blue; next come the smoky gray. Also beautiful, but cheaper, are the brick red ones, and those that are a combination of black and white.
A beautiful pink lily graces the lawns of the Avenida Agraciada. In shape it is like our common orange red milk lily but unlike the milk lily which grows in racemose clusters on a single stalk this Uruguayan lily has but one blossom. It is hardy and should thrive in the United States.
A gastronomic delicacy of Montevideo is the lobster which is caught on the Uruguayan littoral, and which is seldom to be procured in Buenos Aires restaurants.
Montevideo vies with Rio de Janeiro as being one of the cleanest cities in the Western Hemisphere; like Rio de Janeiro, its taxicabs and public automobiles for hire are the best in the Western Hemisphere. The Montevideano drivers are reckless, and one day while out driving in the suburbs in a hired motor car, the chauffeur tried to drive his machine through a narrow place with the result that he drove into a five-mule-power wagon and smashed the left headlight and dented the hood for his pains. Returning by the same road shortly afterwards, he met the same wagon, and angered drove into the mules for revenge. This caused much annoyance as the mule driver, not knowing that the automobile was a public vehicle; believed that it belonged to me and that I had set the chauffeur up to this nefarious trick. The latter, being a cur, stood safely to one side while I and the teamster had the altercation. Although we nearly came to blows on account of the chauffeur's scurvy stunt, the latter never opened his mouth to help me out of the difficulty.
The Uruguayan metropolis is the congregating place of desperadoes, ruffians, and other gentry of similar character from Argentina, and other nations. They loiter about the entrances of the disreputable saloons and sailors' dives and by their drunken actions and foul speech make it impossible for a respectable woman to pass down any of the streets near the docks without an escort. Argentina, glad to be ridden of this class of social outcast, makes no effort to extradite them unless they have committed some major crime. Here in Montevideo, they "raise hell" and scarcely a day goes by without the newspapers mentioning some murder, assault, or burglary that has taken place.
One of these gentry, a Cockney, evidently mistaking me for one of his kind, approached me one day as I sat in front of a café under the colonnades in the Plaza Independencia, and asked me for a job. He said: