But here, at all events, comes a group of riders of another kind, whose purpose is clear. Half a dozen small boys and bareheaded girls, mounted upon disproportionately tall ponies, are jogging along on their way to school. Uruguay prides itself, with no little reason, upon the efficiency of its system of education, and the humblest hut now sends forth its human mites to absorb the three R's and to be instilled with patriotically optimistic versions of their country's past. These rudiments mastered, they need not necessarily halt in their scholastic career, since, according to the laws of the land, a professorship is open eventually to the most lowly student who persists for sufficient time. And Uruguay is undoubtedly a nest of opportunities. An embryo statesman or learned doctor may be represented by each of the urchins who are now plodding onwards with serious intent through the dust!
In the meanwhile the car has won its way fairly out into the open country, always green, smiling, and thickly shot with the pink of peach-blossoms. The rails have now drawn well away from the centre of the road, and are separated from the actual highway by a grassy space. Stirred by the importance of possessing a track all to itself, the car is undoubtedly aspiring to the rank of a railway train, and goes rushing at a really formidable pace upon its verdure-embedded lines. Swaying over the shoulders of the land, past plantations, lanes, and hedges, it plunges onwards in grim earnest to the terminus of the line at Colón itself.
The actual village of Colón gives little indication of the nature of the district. The railway-station, shops, and houses are all pleasantly situated, it is true, and the restaurants and pleasure-gardens are unusually numerous. The attractions of the place, however, lie well outside the central nucleus of buildings. From this some remarkably imposing eucalyptus avenues lead outwards into the favourite haunts of the Montevidean when on pleasure bent.
Undoubtedly the most salient feature of Colón is the eucalyptus. Indeed, the place primarily consists of mile upon mile of these stately avenues, fringed by blue gums of an immense size. Bordering these magnificent highways, that cross each other at right angles, are country houses here and there that are reproductions of those in the suburbs of Montevideo. In between the avenues, again, are clumps and small forests of eucalyptus, whose tops soar high up in tremendously lofty waves, that enclose vineyards, peach-orchards, and olive-tree plantations.
Here and there are lanes walled in by mounting hedges of honeysuckle and rose, while many of the private grounds are guarded by the impassable lines of aloe. Add to this basis all the other trees, shrubs, and flowers that have already been passed on the outward journey, and you have the main attributes of Colón.
EUCALYPTUS AVENUE: COLÓN.
To face p. 166.
Since the topic of the inner man appeals at least as much to the Uruguayan as to any other mortal, there are some very pleasant restaurants set in the midst of this land of eucalyptus. Perhaps the best and prettiest of these is one known by the very English name of the Tea Garden Restaurant. One of the chief peculiarities of the place is that tea is actually partaken of there from time to time, as the modern Oriental is beginning to accord this cosmopolitan beverage a recognised place by the side of coffee and his own native Yerba Maté.