The bell of the old church was clang-clanging. Peasants in their Sunday clothes—the women squat and short-skirted and with highly coloured kerchiefs over their heads, the men in baggy velvet trousers and slouch hats, their faces polished with soap and their hair reeking with scented oil—were slowly climbing to worship. The walls of the church, and the buildings where the monks formerly lived, suggested a fortress prepared to resist attack rather than a haven of peace. There were long slits in the stonework through which the nose of a musket could be stuck. For in the old days the monks had to fight as well as pray. Alta Gracia was very lonely centuries ago, and always liable to attack. But now all that is far in the background. The church was crowded. The priest at the candled altar was chanting. The air was pungent with incense. There was not room for all the worshippers to sit so many stood, and when they knelt they spread their handkerchiefs on the floor. There was nothing which could be described as distinctively Argentine. Better-to-do folk were dressed just like better-to-do folk are dressed in Europe. It was just the usual Sunday morning scene you can witness in Spain and Italy—countries six thousand miles away.
One blinked on coming from the shadows of the church into the sunshine. The holiday-makers from Cordoba had arrived, and were scattering to find suitable haunts for picnicking. We tramped up the heavy, dusty road, panting and perspiring, but encouraged by the sight of the spreading, low-roofed hotel. Ah! at last we were on the broad balcony, twice as wide as the promenade deck of our greatest liner. A touch of the bell, and we were having our favourite beverages, much iced. Through the shimmering heat the eye could wander over the endless brown plains. Solemn Argentines, inclined to portliness, sat in big basket-chairs, surrounded by their sedate families, doing nothing at all. There were invalids who had come here for the high, dry air. There were noisy English youths, in gorgeous blazers, arranging a tennis match. A party of heavy-shoed golfers were setting out.
Alta Gracia is renowned throughout Argentina as a health resort. In the hot months—and it can be very hot around January—many families come here, for there is always a refreshing breeze. There are hundreds of rooms in the hotel. Bathrooms are innumerable. There are suites and single chambers. The furniture is tasteful but not luxurious. The dining-room is in white. There is a ball-room. There is a resident orchestra. I know most of the big hotels in the mountains of Switzerland, but no one is comparable in conveniences to this.
Across the gardens, a hundred yards away, is the casino, quite apart from the hotel, but provided for those who want to gamble—and where is the Argentine who does not like to gamble? There are large public rooms; there are small rooms, decorated in a variety of styles, for private gaming parties; there is a refreshment and reading-room, German in appearance; there is a beautiful little theatre. No, I am receiving no fee to advertise Alta Gracia. With the exception of my companion, I am quite sure there was not a soul in the place who knew what my name was, or bothered their heads what was the business of a tourist-looking fellow like myself.
We lunched, we had our coffee, and then we hired one of the hotel motor-cars and went for a forty or fifty mile spin. Roads—there were no roads. There were passable tracks and a considerable amount of bouncing which tested the springs of the car. Like all Latin chauffeurs the driver had a mania for speed. The way serpentined amongst the rocks and through scraggy woods, so we had often to make a sudden duck to avoid getting whipped in the face by a branch. We banged and swerved, but even the awful threat of not giving the driver a tip did not hold him in for more than a hundred yards at a stretch from letting that car tear along at its maddest. He took us to see a gurgling little river, the Bolsa, tripping through a sylvan glade which caused me to exclaim, "Why, it is just like a bit of Dovedale!"
Off again at a furious pace, heaving, diving, skirting hills. "If there is a smash you will be the first killed." But the chauffeur only laughed over his shoulder. We struck up a defile, and the hills rose high on either side. Mountain ponies scampered about; goats hailed us from rocky heights. Gauchos, swarthy and handsome, with their women perched behind, were overtaken on stallions which were restive and inclined to bolt at the approach of the automobile. A bend in the narrow way, and we nearly ran into a funeral procession; the coffin on a cart and covered with a dingy pall, and the friends of the dead man in many and varied vehicles following, in no garb of mourning, but non-chalantly smoking cigarettes. There was backing of the car till it could be run on a piece of grass. The horses hauling the dead man laid their ears well forward and then well back, but were led past the thing they were afraid of without accident. We exchanged the greetings of the day with the friends of the dead man. He was going to be buried twelve miles away, and it would be well into the night before they got back. The motor-car snorted and jumped on its way. It was a beautiful afternoon.
| THE HOTEL AT ALTA GRACIA. |