We knew as much about the horses running at Palermo as our maiden aunt, but we stuck to our lucky number and always “got home.” A sporting gentleman who was with us on one occasion and knew the history of every horse for generations back, lost so heavily that on one race he joined my wife and me on our lucky number! The horse arrived last; but—will you believe me?—by some strange error of the judge, it was given a place and we drew so substantial a dividend on it that the sporting gentleman—who “plunged” all he had left on it—squared his losses! There was a great how-d’ye-do in the papers about the mistake, but it shows you the value of having a lucky number, rather than being versed in the “form” of the horses! Talking of the matter with a member of the Jockey Club, he told me that on one occasion he was present when the winning horse passed so much ahead of the others and so close under the judge’s box that the judge didn’t see it! The Jockey Club conducts the races and the betting, paying a certain percentage of its enormous gains to charities. As for the public, although present at the races in their thousands, they seemed to have no healthy interest in the horses, but were there with solemn, hard, joyless faces to make money. Yet we are told horse-racing is the national “sport” of the Argentine. The liveliest scene is when the last race is over and the multitude fight for seats on tram-cars, while the lucky ones swagger back to town in their hired vehicles. Very few women are to be seen; certainly not five per cent. of the crowd. A few of the mundo elegante may be noted in the Jockey Club enclosure, but the demi-mondaine, so eminent and attractive at Longchamps, is rigorously debarred. Indeed, you will search in vain at the Palermo races for any real signs of gaiety or sport.
Beyond the Hipódromo lies the golf-course. The club has been specially favoured by the generosity of Señor Tornquist, a great local landowner, and is patronised by natives and foreigners alike, the Argentine being very emulative of the English in all their national sports and at heart he is “a good sport.” The course, though only containing nine holes, is well laid out and is most interesting. I recall with pleasure the few rounds I made there and also the ample hospitality of one of the finest club-houses I have ever visited.
Between the race-course and the golf, there is a fine riding track, and near the station named “Golf” are some spacious tennis courts, where energetic natives, as well as Britishers and Americans, practise that vigorous pastime. Football, too, and cricket are played near here and at Belgrano, and it is a common sight at Palermo to witness some of the military aviators practising; so that, on the whole, the sportively inclined need not be unoccupied in Buenos Ayres, and if there is little that invites the visitor to a paseo in the town, Palermo has always something to offer on Sundays at least.
CHAPTER IX
MORE “PASEOS” IN BUENOS AYRES
Recoleta I have only mentioned in passing; but that offers a very interesting paseo to the visitor. My wife specialised on Recoleta and piloted many another lonely soul to that strange city of tombs! As they say in Scottish villages, “Let’s take a bit daunder in the kirk yaird.” Recoleta is certainly worthy of a “daunder.” This famous cemetery combines some features of Pere Lachaise with certain of the Campo Santo at Genoa. But it is really not like either. It is peculiarly Argentine. You can trace in it the progress of the national prosperity. It is essentially the creation of a people newly rich. Here and there we see in its crowded lines of tombs some mouldering memorial of the last generation, simple, unpretentious. But most of those that bear dates within the last twenty years or so are the last word in necrological “swank” or mortuary pomp. Not for nothing are funerals styled pompas fúnebres in the Argentine. They do well by their dead. Millions of money have gone to the making of these splendid homes of the dead at Recoleta. For they are not buried in our “earth to earth” fashion. The bodies are merely encased in leaden shells, within gorgeous coffins of carved wood, and are laid on shelves within the mausoleums, so that for years to come the survivors may visit the tomb and mourn with no more than the thickness of the coffin between them and the departed. It is a horribly unsanitary system of burial and the smell in Recoleta on a hot summer’s day is distinctly “high.” How could it be else, with all these thousands of decaying corpses enclosed in boxes which, you may be sure, are not all air-tight? So intolerable is the savour of the dead, that the custodians—the cemetery pululates with uniformed custodians—have to “air” the tombs by opening the doors for several hours daily. When I went wandering in Recoleta, I used to think that Jacques’ words—
“And so, from hour to hour we ripe and ripe
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot”—
would make a good motto for the place. How Shakespeare has a tag for everything, old and new!
But I must describe a typical tomb. It is built entirely of beautiful Carrara marble, and better built than most houses in Buenos Ayres. No “sham” here. It towers nearly twenty feet above the ground level, and its lower floor is eight or ten feet underground. It is beautifully designed, with delicately carved pilasters, and surmounted by a graceful cupola, bearing a decorative cross. The spacious entrance is fitted with a noble iron-work gate, lined on the inner side with plate glass, and bearing on a gilded boss in the centre the Christ-mark ☧ so familiar in all Latin cemeteries. In a word, save for the cross and the Christ-mark, it is outwardly such a monument as the wealthy Roman reared by the Appian Way, and surely there must be in Recoleta as many of these vanities as made that highway one of the great sights of Imperial Rome.