Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/111



FROM RIO BE JANEIRO TO MONTE VIDEO. SI

and au epicurean zest to leave those old familiar scenes and faces, whose many charms had begun to pall upon the traveller's palate, I descended for the last time the tre- mendous inclined planes of the Santos and Jundiahy railway, and still shuddering, bade farewell to a three years' home. We embarked for the last of so many times at Santos, that Weston-super-mud of the Far West, peculiarly fatal to the genus European, species Consul, and with ses triplex about the cardiac region, we affronted the risks of fire and water on board a Brazilian steamer, northward bound to the capital.

After a rapid fortnight amongst the hospitalities of Rio de Janeiro, which our countrymen will call " Rye -oh," you delivered me (August 6, 1868), duly labelled, "Monte Video â€” this side up â€” fragile â€” with care,^' on board the R.M.S.S. Arno, Captain Bruce. You preferred for me the " Slow-coach line," as it was called by a testy editor who, holding himself aggrieved, planted his little sting in the tenderest part â€” when will English take example from Anglo- American Companies, and learn how much may be made, or how much may not be lost, by a little timely expenditure of " dead-heading ? " The choice of steamers had for object, personal comfort and a zoological study of the pas- sengers ; upon which I cumulated observation of the mani- fold and manifest antediluvianisms of the Great Company. Why should the outward-bound public be delayed four or five days at Rio, awaiting the arrival of the " inter-colonial" Arno ? Why treat " the River " to an " inter- colonial " at all, when the big steamer should make it her terminus? Why retain the Arno of 757 tons register, which daily con- sumes from /thirty to thirty-two tons of coal, when the improved engines of the new Pacific steamer Magellan make twenty-five do the work of 3500 tons ? Again, why should the Buenos Aires mails, and the homeward- bounds

6