Then towards the end of November the sun begins his yearly revel and till the end of March Buenos Ayres swelters in the most oppressive heat imaginable. Not that the barometer ever attains a greater height than it frequently registers in New York City, but New York rarely experiences such long-sustained periods of heat, and the humidity—due to the mighty volume of the River Plate—makes the life of man and beast a burden. The nights bring no surcease. Horses die in the streets by the score every day, and you will see their carcasses in all parts of the town, awaiting removal. Lucky are the inhabitants who can escape to Mar del Plata, to Montevideo or to the Hills of Córdoba, but they are few compared with the myriads who must remain in the monstrous stew-pot. “Long drinks” and two or three cold shower baths are now the order of the day. But even the cold douche has its snares. I was once severely scalded by taking one, as the cistern was exposed to the sun and the water had been brought near to boiling point without the aid of a “geyser”! There is nobody in Buenos Ayres during the summer who attaches much importance to the scientific wiseacres who tell us the heat of the sun is diminishing.
There was no doubt about it—we had found the sunshine at last. And like so many of the quests on which mankind sets out, our find was no better than Dead Sea apples. What could we do with it? Why, we shut it out of our rooms by every means in our power; we wore smoked glasses so that we should not see it. We thought of the Kentucky nigger who was knocked down by an autumnal blast and got up and shook his fist at the invisible force, saying: “Wind, wheah wuz you dis time las’ July?”
The New Courts of Justice.
The “Tribunales” photographed just before the completion of the cement work on the top storey. In the foreground, the fine monument to General Lavalle, standing in the plaza named after him.
It will be gathered from what I have said that the Argentine has no lack of “weather,” wherein it resembles England, which Mark Twain alleged had only “samples” of climate. It has all the essentials of the finest climate in the world, but no wise Providence has blended these with any discretion. In the course of one short day you will pass through all the seasons of the year, and though it never snows, I have experienced cold in Buenos Ayres equal to a sharp frost in New York. Nay, I will roundly assert that no wind that sweeps across New York has a tooth so keen as the pampero. One has to be out in Buenos Ayres when the wind from the boundless pampas strikes the town to know how cold can rake through to the marrow. Over the thousands of leagues of plains it blows, direct from the snowy Andes, and stirring up the clammy effluvia of the River Plate it breathes rheumatism, bronchitis, consumption over the city—the hateful pampero!
Nor have the people learned how to combat their changeful weather. All their houses are built for summer. They are excellent for four months of the year, and uncomfortable for the best part of eight. The ceilings of the rooms are usually five feet or more higher than the American standard, which gives one a sporting chance of a breath of fresh air in the torrid season, but when the wind blows and the rain pours, such lofty rooms, tenanted by a myriad draughts, are veritable haunts of misery. For they have neither fireplaces like English houses, nor stoves like American, while steam heating is in its infancy. There are actually modern houses in which “dummy” fireplaces have been built for show, but a real genuine fireplace is a thing which most Argentines have only seen on a visit to Europe. A well-known steam-heating expert from New York, who was sent on a special mission of study to Buenos Ayres, told me that in many of the new departamento buildings which offer the attraction of calefacción central the steam heating installation is no more than make-believe for selling or letting purposes, but never calculated to supply the tenants with warmth. No, the Argentine either goes to bed earlier or puts on extra clothing in the cold weather, lounges about his house with an overcoat or a shawl above his winter suit, and tries to warm his toes at an oil stove. The ironmongers make great display of these stinking abominations at the first cold-snap, and the papers carry many advertisements of their merits, their “odourless” quality being insisted upon in every case. Electric stoves are largely and successfully used, and as electric current is cheap they form the best substitute for a coal fire—although the English believe there is no substitute in all the world for a fine glowing fire of coal.
“Weather” is indeed a staple of talk in the Argentine, just as at home. Indeed, to a greater degree does one hear people discussing the weather in Buenos Ayres even than in London, and with very good reason. The fortunes of all hinge on the state of the climate. Too much rain and the harvests are spoiled; too much heat and horses, cattle and sheep perish in their tens of thousands. And year after year the Argentine suffers either way. Tell an estanciero that you have seen two or three locusts flying about in the street and his face will blanch, his lip quiver, for already in imagination he sees the dreaded plague of these insects devastating his crops. He is ever in a state of nervous fear as to whether there is going to be too little rain or too much, and, poor man, he will tell you with glee when he meets you on the beastliest of rainy days that “it’s raining dollars.” If you meet him a fortnight later and it is still raining, there will be no smile on his face, for he fears it is to be the old, old story. “Last year and the year before the crops were nearly in the bags for putting on the rail and yet we lost them through the rain.” Raining dollars, forsooth! For a day or two that may be so, for a week, perhaps; but later on it rains bankruptcy. Que lindo país, as a dear old self-deluded lady used to say when telling me the most atrocious untruths about her adopted country. What a lovely country!
The uncertainty of the Argentine weather is really incredible to any one who has been fed on the pap of interested hack-writers. In the year 1911 the great national horse race at Palermo was three times postponed on account of the course being dangerously heavy from excessive rain, and in 1912 it was postponed once for the same reason, being run on the succeeding Sunday on a course that was still sloppy. Was the Derby ever postponed because of rain? I have no Derby lore, but I should be surprised to learn that such a thing had ever happened in rainy England.
It had been represented to me before I went to Buenos Ayres that, so reliable was the climate, one could make engagements for outdoor sports months ahead, with the certainty of weather conditions being favourable. During my stay there, numerous lawn tennis, golfing, boating and picnic engagements were postponed from time to time because of the rain.