The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

The Avenida Alvear is wide and well paved with wooden sets. In the afternoons there is a continuous stream of vehicles, and on Sundays a more animated thoroughfare could not be imagined. Motor-cars innumerable go scudding along without a thought of speed limit, tinkling coches, splendid carriages and pairs, and the scrubbiest Victorias and the mangiest teams you ever set eyes on. Mounted police are stationed at different points, not so much to “direct” the traffic as to act as living landmarks for the drivers, all of whom seem bent on getting somewhere first, though there is not the least occasion for hurry, unless they are bound for the race-course, as in half an hour they will have gone the whole distance that can be covered in comfort. We two Gringos used to spend many pleasant hours sitting in the little green garden by the Palais de Glace, near Recoleta station, watching the varied throng go by, but that was not “the thing to do,” bless you, as our only companions were nursemaids and rough labouring men. On the south side of the Avenida, however, are other and much larger gardens, where those who are not ambitious to lucirse (or “show off”) at Palermo, are wont to sit or promenade. And very attractive are these gardens, with their winding walks, their lakelets, and shrubberies. Those at the Plaza Francia are particularly favoured by the toilers on Sunday afternoon, though the view across the Avenida to the waterworks is somewhat of an eyesore. In the Plaza Francia the French “colony” have erected a fine monument to the Argentine Republic, as a recuerdo of the centenary in 1910. At the back of the plaza is a long and substantial-looking balustrade. We thought this must lead to “somewhere beyond”—full of groves and tinkling fountains! We ascended one hot day, to find that it led nowhere, and was made of bricks and stucco, and although still unfinished it had already fallen into decay.

So we continue our paseo, be it in coche or afoot, along Alvear, passing, as we near Palermo, many shanty-like structures which must soon disappear and many unsightly remains of the Centennial Exhibition. This last was opened and closed in the year 1910, but at the end of 1912 numerous ruined pavilions still cumbered the ground. One place near here used to amuse me. It was a shabby pleasure resort named “Harmenonville.” Memories of that delightful bower in the Bois de Bologne always came back to me when I looked at this, “with laughter of gods in the background.” And now, we find ourselves at a great dusty meeting of wide roads. On the left is the entrance to the Zoological Gardens, to the right the woods of Palermo, with their pines and eucalyptus trees, suggestive of unfathomed forest within, while ahead the broad road continues, now noisy with tram-cars coming and going from the race-course and by the Avenida Sarmiento that runs southwest to the Plaza Italia.

The woods on the right invite us by their coolness and apparent depth. They prove, however, a mere strip of trees, and we seldom encounter decent-looking people among them. But there is no lack of promenade ground in the direction of the lakes, whither every vehicle of every kind is heading. And there, beyond the great tea-room, the Pabellón de los lagos, the real paseo begins. Along the driveway by the margin of the lakes there is, on Sunday afternoons especially, an extraordinary crowd of vehicles. All have to move at a snail’s pace, directed by many mounted police, who, posted in the middle of the roadway, keep the traffic into two orderly streams, one going, the other returning, while alongside the footpath stands a row of carriages, whose owners or hirers may either be seated within, staring at every other carriage that passes, or, greatly daring, may be venturing a few paces on foot beside the lakes, where sundry low Italians are enjoying themselves rowdily in the gondolas, and dreaming themselves back in Venice—if, perchance, they are strong in dreams.

This is Palermo. For this all the monstrous noise of motor “cut-outs” and every devilish variety of “hooter” along Alvear, all the brutal lashing of perspiring horses. For this! The dresses of the ladies in the carriages are la ultima palabra and their wearers sit as stiff and expressionless as the wax mannequins in the windows of the Florida modistas. They recognise their friends with a slight inclination of the neck, but show no sign of pleasure. The gilded youths in groups of threes or fours, with their boots polished to solar brilliancy, go by in hired motors or in coches (the latter have the merit of showing off the boots to advantage) and stare at the lindas muchachas whom they do not know, and doff their hats with profoundest bows to those they do know. And so it goes on for an hour or two, then towards five or half-past five, the throng begins to lessen, the returning vehicles continue townward at increased speed when they have come back for the last time to the beginning of the carriage-drive, and by six o’clock the fashionable throng has melted away, leaving Palermo to the prowlers and the stragglers once again. What strikes the spectator is the appalling respectability of it all, the gravity of the paseantes, the lack of vulgarity and gladness. It is all a pose, for I have seen these same charmingly dressed ladies who look so frightfully formal on Sunday afternoons, all smiles and merriment on the evenings of the Corso de flores, or the Battle of Flowers, which takes place at Palermo in aid of public charities in the month of November. It is “the thing” to be seen taking a paseo at Palermo and as there is nothing so serious in this strange life of ours than our social obligations, we must needs discharge them with due gravity. But what a comedy it all is for the spectator who has no obligations to local Society!

The paseo by the ponds (it is gross flattery to call them lagos, but estanque, which signifies “pond,” is not so pretty a word as lago) is by no means the end of Palermo’s possibilities to the wanderer in Buenos Ayres, though it is so to the residents. Near by is the Zoological Garden, which extends from the Avenida Alvear to the Plaza Italia, on the great highway of Santa Fé. But one does not visit this often. It contains a large and interesting collection of wild animals and is well laid out, but badly kept. In the summer months it is disagreeably dusty and on Sundays it is so crowded by low class Italians and the unwashed of all nations, that one feels all the wild animals are not in cages. I noticed many of the lions, tigers and larger beasts had ugly sores, the result of insect trouble, I was told, and one of the most abominable sights I have ever seen was witnessed here. In a large pound was a troup of poor worn old horses and ponies, wandering aimlessly about. A more ghastly collection of living creatures could not be conceived. These were the food for the lions and the tigers. Faugh!

Separated from the Zoological Garden by a spacious avenida—General Las Heras, if I remember correctly—and occupying a small triangular plot of ground extending townwards from the Plaza Italia is the Botanical Garden. It contains many specimens of American flora and has a few hothouses full of tropical plants; but it is of no real account botanically and is more useful as a place of grateful greenness and shade, retired a little from the dust and noise of the streets, where one may idle an hour away with pipe and book.

A Contrast in Public Buildings.

The upper illustration depicts the tawdry old exhibition pavilion which Buenos Ayres is content to use as an Art Gallery, and the lower the splendid offices of the Public Waterworks.

Then, of course, there is the great race-course or Hipódromo Argentino, only a little way beyond the Parque 3 de Febrero, as the whole park, of which Palermo proper is only a part, is named. The race-course is, I opine, one of the largest in the world. It is very pleasantly situated and maintained in admirable condition; but it has the defect of being so large, or so designed, that the race as a whole cannot be followed uninterruptedly from any of the “grandstands” or tribunas. These are well built and extremely commodious. There is a particularly gorgeous erection for the distinguished persons associated with the Jockey Club, and this is naturally alongside of the paddock. Next to it is a larger stand for the public who pay seven pesos a head, and beyond are the tribunas populares for the mob. As the Paris mutuel system, or “totalisator” is used for regulating the betting, the “bookie” is unknown here. There are many ticket offices, each bearing a number, and you merely go to the one that has the number of the horse you wish to “back,” buy as many tickets “for a win and a place” as your fancy or your pocket dictates, return to the stand, and await results! These offices are in different series: one series only issues tickets of ten pesos, another of five, and a third of two. After a race, if your horse has won or been “placed,” you go to a paying-out office, present your tickets and there receive your winnings at the rate which was announced on the large notice board near the grand-stand after the money on that particular race had been apportioned, which, being done by mechanical calculation, occupies very little time. You will almost certainly have a few hot words with the man at the box-office, as he will try to swindle you out of a portion of your gains, trusting to the confusion of the moment to cover up his fraud. On the whole, the system is about as good a way for losing one’s money as our Stock Exchange, and it does possess an element of “sport” which the latter seems to me to lack.