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

by J. A. Hammerton

The people that pass in the street present certain points of contrast with the passers-by in Buenos Ayres. Clearly the writer in a North-American encyclopædia who stated that Montevideo was “one of the most cosmopolitan towns in South America” was scarcely entitled to the editorial description of “authority on Latin America.” I remember also that the same writer alleged there were no fewer than sixteen public squares in the city, which assertion, together with that already mentioned, leads me to suspect he never saw it with his own eyes. Cosmopolitanism is precisely the last impression one is likely to carry away from Montevideo. Italians are to be seen in considerable numbers, but the appearance of the people as a whole is essentially Spanish. The Iberian type has been better preserved here than on the other side of the river; Spanish character informs the life of the people to a larger extent. French and German residents there are, but in numbers so inconsiderable that, even together with the English and American population, they represent a very small percentage of the whole. After the Italians and Spaniards, the largest foreign element is probably Brazilian, which in the general population of the country exceeds the French and all other nationalities combined, exclusive of the Argentines. In fact, there is little similarity in the composition of the populations that exist on the opposing banks of the River Plate.

Such foreign element as one sees in the streets is chiefly representative of the casual visitors brought to the town for a few hours, a day or so, by the numerous steamers that make it a port of call on their way to or from Buenos Ayres or, by the Straits of Magellan, to or from the Pacific Coast. Groups of fair-headed Germans and fresh-complexioned Britons are thus frequently to be met wandering about from plaza to plaza during the brief stay of their ships in the roadstead. Australian vessels also touch at Montevideo, and then one will notice groups of twenty or thirty odd-looking people straying somewhat timorously along the unfamiliar streets, their garb leaving one in doubt as to whence they hail, though the usually dowdy appearance of their womenkind permits no possible doubt of their Anglo-Saxon origin.

The women of Montevideo are celebrated throughout South America for their beauty and elegance of manners. In this regard, the town enjoys something of the European fame of Buda-Pesth, and certainly no Oriental (the Uruguayan, by the way, likes to be known as an Oriental, the proper style of the republic being República Oriental del Uruguay) ever talks to a Gringo about his capital city without mentioning that it is celebrated for its lindas mujeres. True enough, it deserves its reputation as a town of beautiful women, for most of the Montevidean ladies have a beauty that is curiously in keeping with the official name of the Republic,—oriental! They are of the languorous, dark-eyed type—beauty that has a touch of the Jewish in it—and they are far more naturally graceful than the ladies of Buenos Ayres, whom they make no effort to imitate in the matter of elaborate dress, their tastes running on simpler lines, with the exception, perhaps, of a notable fondness for elaborate coiffures. I was told by my Spanish lady secretary, who had lived for some years in Buenos Ayres before coming to Montevideo (and to whom I owed a good deal of my information on the domestic habits of the people), that those charming ladies of Montevideo completely outdid the Argentines in the matter of postizos, as many as seven or eight different pieces of made-up hair being added to their natural tresses. The sign postizos (false hair) was one of the most familiar in the streets of Montevideo, where coiffeurs abound.

Cattle assembled on “La Tablada,” near Montevideo, for conversion into “Extract of Beef.”

Fresh from Buenos Ayres, it was particularly pleasing to us to observe the marked respect which the women of Montevideo received from the male population. Nothing that I observed during my wanderings about South America seemed to me to present a greater contrast in manners than this. Across the river, a few hours’ journey, it has been made possible for women to walk about the streets in the daylight only by passing and strictly enforcing an Act against falto de respeto á la mujer. Within recent years this instrument has materially improved the liberty of women in Buenos Ayres, as all that a lady has to do, who is molested in the street by a man, is to call a policeman, give the man in charge, and walk away. The molester is then marched to the police station, fined substantially, and his name and address published in all the journals next morning, the lady suffering no further inconvenience than the momentary trouble of telling the policeman the man has annoyed her. No such law has ever been necessary in Montevideo, where one was reminded of home by noting how women unaccompanied, and young girls, could freely go about the streets at all hours of the day, even until midnight, it being not uncommon to see mothers with their children sitting in the plazas enjoying the cool sea-borne breeze as late as eleven or twelve o’clock at night. In this alone I think there is evidence of a subtle difference of character between the peoples of the two cities.

We do not see the same bustling crowds, nothing remotely suggestive of the great business interests at stake across the river. The atmosphere of Montevideo is essentially that of leisure, of a people engaged in affairs that do not imply any particular hurry. “Spanish to-morrows” are familiar here—mañana is a potent word! The total population being only some four hundred thousand, signifies localism, especially as there is no great influx of foreign immigration, and most people of any position in the town know everybody “who is anybody.” I have read in “authoritative” works that the population exists in a continual state of vendetta between the two political parties, the Blancos and the Colorados. As I purpose showing in my next chapter, politics are undoubtedly the great passion of the Orientals, but nothing could be more misleading than this conception of bitter enmity between ordinary citizens of different politics, for I personally became acquainted with many natives of the opposing camps, and among them found the most intimate friends who differed radically. Two of the twelve or thirteen daily papers published in the city are printed in the same offices and on the same presses, though they represent antagonistic political parties.

The whole atmosphere of the town in its social life was to me infinitely more pleasing than that of Buenos Ayres. It is a friendly town. It is more—a town of homes. The ambition of the Montevidean is to secure a comfortable berth in the Government as quickly as he can, and build for his family a comfortable home in which he will take a genuine pride and where a real home feeling will exist. There are, of course, many natives engaged in flourishing commercial enterprises, and these are probably among the wealthiest, but this ambition to get something out of the Government is universal, and while it may lead to very pleasant conditions of life for the successful ones, it is extremely bad from the point of view of national progress. That, however, is a subject which properly belongs to the following chapter. Remains the fact that there is an air of comfort, of leisure, and of life being pleasantly lived in Montevideo.

The city itself, far more than Buenos Ayres, is entitled to be described as “the Paris of South America.” From the ample Plaza Independencia, the Avenida 18 de Julio extends eastward for miles in a vista essentially Parisian. Around the arcaded plaza are many cafés, with their chairs and tables streaming over the wide pavements, while along the avenida, at the beautiful Plaza Libertad (or Cagancha), and still farther east, following the course of this splendid avenue, with its theatres and bright little cafés, the scene is one entirely reminiscent of the Paris boulevards. There is also an air of substantiality about the buildings, which seldom rise higher than two or three stories, and more often are content with one, due, I think, to a larger employment of stone, though the country still lacks enterprise to make the fullest use of its natural riches in building-stone. These are bound to be developed in due time, and will greatly add to the endurance of its cities.