Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/137



MONTE VIDEO. 107

make the champagne drinkable : the only really cold thing is your plate. As in the English inn, there is no saloon â€” no public apartment ; you must turn, on wet days, your bedroom into a drawing-room. The offices, abominably foul, reminded me of Abbeville during the days when the waiter exclaimed, " Mais, monsieur, vous avez des bottes." The Oriental is certainly more airy and less unpleasant. Why did the owners turn from their doors that charming woman ?

After some difficulty in finding room even to stow away a few trunks, we will walk ^^ up town^^ and prospect. The lower part is Thames Bank, a succession of doggeries and groggeries yclept " Free and Easy,^' " Cafe de la Alcanze,^^ aspect of a seaport, and swarming with pertinacious flies. Drainage is everywhere unknown, and the pavement is especially vile : in the rain muddy, under the sun dusty, and the thoroughfares are less like streets than " channels worn by the after currents of the deluge." This may be said of all the city, except a single dwarf bit subtending the cathedral fi'ont. The place is large, but practically it is bounded for foreigners by the Bay west, east by the main square and the Calle del Rincon â€” the neighbour of " 25 de Mayo,^' its Regent Street. The northern limit is the Calle de Misiones, where is the Gran Hotel Americano, and to the south Solis Street contains the Hotel Oriental. Within these limits is the Calle de Zabala, where, in 1854, was opened the new Bolsa or Exchange, and its adjoining American saloon for drinks. Thus are epitomized long drawn out ways of abominable weariness.
 * ' First and Last Wine and Spirit Store," with the usual

Some of the old Spanish houses still remain, especially in the Calle Misiones and the " 25 de Augusto." Near and parallel with the water most of the hovels have been pulled down to make place for huge stores, and others have