It is certain that he who travels in the remoter parts must put aside all preconceived notions of degree and appearances. Close by is seated a group of young men who are discussing the opera in Montevideo with critical fervour. After a while the conversation, as is inevitable, turns upon politics, and the arguments and views are bandied to and fro with the eloquence common to the race.
But there is original philosophy here, whether sound or otherwise. Schemes for alleviating the lot of the humble worker follow hard upon the heels of topics of municipal reform, parliamentary procedure, and the vexed and intricate question of where the Uruguayan-Argentine frontier floats in the broad dividing river. The phrases are wonderfully apt, the proposals astonishingly daring. During a pause in the political discussion one of the debaters explains his own walk in life. He is a jeweller's assistant. Another is head waiter in a Montevidean hotel. These products of the land are undoubtedly bewildering. Each has been talking like a prime minister.
[CHAPTER XV]
FROM MONTEVIDEO TO THE NORTHERN FRONTIER
—continued
A remarkable transformation in Nature—The Valley of Eden—The gateway of the garden—An abrupt descent—From bare plain to sub-tropical forest—Picturesque scenery—Eden station—Some curiosities of nomenclature—Beggary as a profession—The charity of the Latin lands—The cliffs of the valley—Varied aspects of the vegetation—The everlasting sweet pea—Some characteristics of the mountains—A land of tobacco—Negro cultivators—Appearance and dwellings of the colonial population—Some ethics of climate and customs—Tacuarembo—A centre of importance—A picturesque town—Scenes at the station—Some specimens of local humanity—A dandy of the Campo—The northern landscape—The African population—Nature and the hut—The tunnel of Bañada de Rocha—Paso del Cerro—On the Brazilian border—Rivera—A frontier town—Santa Ana—The Brazilian sister township—A comparison between the two—View from a neighbouring hill—The rival claims to beauty of the Uruguayan and Brazilian towns.
Tambores has been left behind, and the train is speeding once again through the undulations and table-lands of the pastures. Although the new-comer is unaware of the fact, the climax of the journey is drawing near, and one of the most remarkable transformations in Nature is about to reveal itself with the suddenness of a pantomimic stage-shifting.
That the stranger to the land should remain unaware of what lies before him is not surprising. The rolling downs have encompassed him in unbroken sequence from the moment that the outermost suburb of Montevideo was left behind. They are about him now, sinking and rising until their smooth green sweeps upwards in long waves against the blue horizon. Never was a fresher, blowier country, with its every inch open and bare to the sunlight and breeze. It is difficult to imagine such a land rubbing shoulders with a landscape less frank and guileless. Its only fitting boundaries are white cliffs, and, beyond them, the wide ocean.