OXEN DRAWING RAILWAY COACH.
BEFORE THE FAIR: TACUAREMBÓ.
To face p. 186.
But an attempt to describe the various growths would be the task of a botanist. One alone must be described for its striking propensities if for nothing beyond. In all directions are bushes of glowing mauve flower—or, at least, so they appear at the first glimpse to the eye. The sight is not a little amazing, since many of the shrubs, a dozen feet in height, are covered from top to bottom with an unbroken coat of petals. A nearer inspection solves the mystery some while after. The flower itself is a parasite, an everlasting sweet pea, that goes the length of concealing from sight the bush on which it depends.
In the meanwhile the valley has widened until the well-defined cliffs that hemmed in its beginning have disappeared altogether. But the country remains entirely distinct from the open Campo that preceded the gate of Eden. There is pasture here, it is true, but it is pasture broken and intersected by woodland, river courses, ravines, and mountains. It is curious to remark that among the latter, although many are bold and lofty, there is not a peak to be met with. In obedience to what appears to be a hard-and-fast law of the hills, the top of each is shorn evenly across, leaving a flat and level summit.
The country is one of tobacco now as well as of maize, and the aspect of the cultivators coincides to a great extent with the popular notions of the mise en scène of the tobacco-fields. The population of the tiny mud huts that decorate the land is almost entirely negro, and the inevitable piccaninny is much in evidence, having apparently escaped in shoals from the London music-hall stage. The costume of the younger boys, however, would scarcely pass muster in a more conventional neighbourhood. The sole garment of many of the younger ones consists of a shirt, and a very frayed one at that—a costume that is eminently suitable to the palm-tree, but criminal beneath the oak.
The next halt is at a place of importance, one of the chief features, in fact, of the Far North. Tacuarembo numbers a population of almost eight thousand, which, although the figure may not impress the outer world, renders the spot something of an urban giant in the neighbourhood. As though to compensate for its lack of imposing buildings, Tacuarembo is exceedingly picturesque. With its avenues of tall trees, and its houses peering everywhere from beneath the shade of an unusual richness of vegetation, the place is sufficiently delightful and striking in its own fashion.
The station itself gives the keynote to the aspects of the place. Within half a dozen yards of where the white steam goes hissing upwards from the engine the green young peaches hang in thick clusters from their branches. To their side is a hedge of blossoming roses that continues until the flowery architecture changes abruptly to a wall of golden honeysuckle. At the rear of this, surrounding the outer yard of the place, are poplars and eucalyptus, while the heavy scent of the purple paraiso-tree overpowers the fainter colours of the mimosa.