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

by J. A. Hammerton

Some day, perhaps, the Plaza Independencia of Montevideo will be one of the finest public squares in any great city. I have seen many projected designs for its reformation, and there is no doubt that every building at present surrounding it, including the Government House, is bound to disappear. They are all unworthy of the plaza, and must some day make way for structures of greater dignity and beauty. The design for the new Government House is so ambitious in comparison with the common little stucco erection which at present very inadequately serves that purpose, that I doubt if it is ever destined to be realised in its entirety. Builders are now busy, however, on the new Legislative Palace, which will supersede the present little building in the Plaza Matriz. In accordance with the modern development of the town already mentioned, the site of the new Palacio Legislativo lies away to the northeast of the present national building, a distance, I should judge, of nearly two miles. Work on this magnificent new pile was progressing steadily, and before long I expect to hear of its inauguration. With its completion, the political centre will change entirely, and a new importance will be given to the vicinity of the Legislative Palace, which is at the junction of the great Avenidas Agraciada and Sierra, at present chiefly occupied by private residences and small dwellings of the colonial type.

The Uruguayan methods of dealing with these great public works are not precisely ours, for it was originally intended to erect the new home of the Cámaras on the Avenida 18 de Julio, where that bifurcates with the Avenida Constituyente, and the foundations of the great building, and indeed a considerable portion of the first story, were erected. Then there was a change of opinion—the imperious President Batlle was, I think, responsible for that—and the whole work was stopped. There stand to-day these temporary memorials of national extravagance, while the new building is being erected a mile away to the north. Some day the foundations of the unfinished masonry on the Avenida 18 de Julio are to be taken away and the site laid out as another great square, to be known as the Plaza de Armas—a warrior race must needs have its Plaza de Armas!

Everywhere one is impressed by the energy that is going to the beautifying and enlarging of the city. The extensive Boulevard Artigas, which on the eastern extremity runs north and south for several miles, and to the north, forming a right angle with itself, runs westward nearly to the bay, in its present half-finished state, is one of the finest thoroughfares in the whole continent. But the city is so well supplied with wide and far-reaching boulevards that its population is not dense enough to give to these an appearance of animation, except for a mile or so to the east of the Plaza Independencia, and seaward for some little distance beyond the Plaza Constitucion.

The town boasts many theatres—more proportionately than any other South American city—several of these, such as the Solis, the Politeama, and the Urquiza being commodious and well built. The dramatic instinct is pronounced in the natives, and there is quite a considerable band of literary enthusiasts in Montevideo working to create a body of national dramatic literature—surely a remarkable ambition for a nation, whose total population is 1,100,000 people! The late Florencio Sanchez and the late Samuel Blixen, both Montevidean dramatists of distinction (the former died at an early age a few years ago after winning an international reputation), were two of the chief forces in this modern movement which has resulted in so keen an interest in the drama that a local publisher has been able to issue quite a long series of plays written by Uruguayan authors.

Noteworthy among the public edifices of the city are the handsome buildings of the University, where the faculties of medicine, mathematics, law, and commerce are all splendidly housed. During our stay, a further extension of the university accommodation was made in the shape of a plain, modest, two-story building,—la Universidad de Mujeres, or Women’s University, which began its career under the most promising auspices. Other branches of public education, such as the fine School of Agriculture, splendidly equipped, and the great Veterinary School, where the very latest appliances of veterinary surgery are at the disposal of the students, would be worthy of detailed description, did the limits of my space permit. The Uruguayans are enthusiasts for public education, and relatively to the Argentines stand much as the Scots to the English. One might write at great length of the excellent educational facilities that exist in Montevideo, but perhaps the best proof of their efficiency is the fact that we find so many Uruguayans occupying positions of importance in the Argentine, especially among the learned professions. Uruguayans swarm in Argentine journalism, just as Scots in that of England. These beautiful buildings of the University, and that devoted to the Faculty of Secondary Education (Facultad de Enseñanza Secundaria) are no mere vanities, but centres of most active educational life.

There is little to interest us in the churches of the town, though the Cathedral, with its ever-open door, and the absence of that tawdriness which one is apt to associate with the material evidences of religion in South America, always seemed to me in harmony with the sane and orderly character of the city. The English Church, which stands on a rocky eminence at the south end of the Calle Treinta y Tres, with the waves of the estuary splashing at its base, is probably as historical as any other in the city. For more than half a century it has existed much as it is to-day, a neat little building of the basilica type—which in Roman Catholic countries usually distinguishes Protestant churches from Roman Catholic. In the course of that time, however, the character of the surrounding neighbourhood has greatly changed, and it is now the lowest quarter of the town, chiefly occupied by licensed brothels and the low resorts of the mariners whom the winds of chance blow into the port of Montevideo. In the same locality I found the old British Hospital, an establishment entirely inadequate for its purposes, but then in the last days of its long existence, as a commodious new hospital was being built on the Boulevard Artigas, and, if I am not mistaken, was inaugurated before we left.

Near to the latter, another fine new hospital had just been erected by the Italian community. This occupies a very extensive site, the buildings exceeding those of the British Hospital by several times, to meet the needs of the large Italian Colony. But in the care of the sick the city as a whole is well provided, the great Hospital de Caridad, which occupies an entire square in the Calle Maciel, in the very heart of the poorer districts whence come most of the patients, being largely supported from the proceeds of the frequent public lotteries held on its behalf. There is also a service of Asistencia Pública, organised on the same method as that which plays so notable a part in the life of Buenos Ayres.

Scattered among the different public buildings, the city possesses a few paintings of historic value, but, on the whole, it may be said to be destitute of art treasures, while the little museum that occupies a wing of the Solis Theatre is scarcely worthy of even a little nation. The National Library and various other libraries associated with the different faculties of the University, and that of the Cámaras, as well as the excellent institution known as the Ateneo, which occupies an attractive building in the Plaza Libertad, are all evidences of the remarkable literary culture of the Republic, probably superior to that of any other modern people so small in numbers; but of sculpture and the graphic arts there is very little indeed to be discovered in the city. Perhaps, after all, these are more often evidences of commercial prosperity, for art flourishes best where there is ample money to purchase its products. And for reasons which I shall endeavour to explain in my next chapter, the time of commercial expansion and the enrichment of the people in Uruguay is not yet.

This the observer will also note by contrasting the private residences of the wealthier classes with those of the Argentine. Montevideo contains many beautiful homes, but few of those grandiose palaces which are so familiar a feature of Buenos Ayres. At the bathing suburb of Pocitos, and on the road thither, especially along the Avenida Brasil, many charming quintas are to be seen, but most of them are of modest size and quite unpretentious, although occasionally some successful Italian has had his suburban villa decorated in the loud style of an ice-cream saloon exterior with elaborate iron-work railings and balconies designed in the most debased style of the art nouveau, and painted a vivid blue. The house of the late President Williman at Pocitos is merely a pretty little suburban villa, with no undue ostentation; in fine, one discovers in the domestic architecture of Montevideo something of that essentially democratic spirit which informs the character of the people.

In the older part of the town, the pleasant old custom, which used to be universal throughout Europe, of the merchant or tradesman residing on the premises where he plied his business, still lingers. The successful lawyer lives right in the heart of the business district, and has his office in his house. So, too, the doctor, while the printer, bookseller, and the importer often have their private residences on the floors above their business premises. One of the wealthiest families of bankers thus live over their bank, not far from the docks, in a street so noisy that the unceasing rattle of its traffic still sounds disturbing in my memory of the busy days I spent there. But this old custom is rapidly giving way before the attractions of the beautiful suburbs that have opened up along the sandy shores of Pocitos and inland as far as the charming little town of Villa Colón, with its great avenues of trees, its rippling streams, and leafy, undulating landscapes.