Household removals on the Uruguayan campo are not necessarily matters of weighty thought, whose occurrence is to be anticipated with dread for many months beforehand. When the family who owns one of these mud ranches decides to move, the procedure is very simple. The roof, doors, and windows of the home are taken down and collected. After which it is merely necessary for the party to pack these along with them on horseback, until a suitable site is lit upon for a new erection of turf into which the portable finishing touches may be inserted. That effected, the owners are once more at home. As for the discarded dwelling, it remains much as before, save that it is minus roof, door, and windows.
Many of these skeleton huts are to be met with on the rolling face of the country. They possess this in common with birds' nests, that from a distance it is difficult to ascertain whether they are occupied or to let. If deserted, there is no reason why any chance family on the move should not take possession by no more formal means than that of affixing roof, door, and windows in the gaps that await them. Many of these ranchos, by the way, are surrounded by very pretty gardens, and hedged in by tall hedges of geranium and rose.
Once arrived at the Swiss Colony, however, the aspect of the dwellings becomes altogether changed. The houses here resemble strongly the châlets of the Swiss mountains, for, like the remaining colonies of the kind throughout the River Plate republics, the immigrants have introduced their own ways and fashions of living. Indeed, the existence of such bodies provides an ample testimonial of the conditions of freedom under which life is conducted in these countries.
RIO NEGRO BRIDGE.
ON THE RIO NEGRO.
To face p. 212.