Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/149

 NATIVES AND FOREIGNERS. 119

videana is allowed to walk the town alone, a civilized sight as yet impossible in the Brazil. All understand the word " pretty/' but from unwelcome lips it will sometimes elicit a " Que bestia V These ladies are extreme politicians. I was shown near the Matriz a Confiteria y Cafe, underneath whose balcony the Brazilian officers used to congregate, and whence they were once driven, ejaculating " Diabo do Diabo V^ by some " Blanco^' girls, who maltreated them more than ever New Orleans did the hated " Yank."

The upper class here is the best looking that 1 have seen in South America, excepting only the Limena and her sister of Guayaquil ; we shall not fare better in the Argen- tine Republic as we go further from the sea. The cause is partly that which operates in the familiar capitals of Europe â€” the handsomest of both sexes meet, and thus there is selection of species. Partly it is the effect of climate. The Creole or country-born daughters of British parents â€” Lan- cashire carpenters or Cheshire farmers â€” remind me of what I remarked at Salt Lake City, and was duly derided for recording my remark. This pure, clean, hot, '^ Orientar' air, burning away adipose tissue, refines form and feature, and fines down hands and feet. The outlines become more regular and the colours wax tenderer. Here for the mechanic's family â€” unless it be murdered â€” there is physical and moral improvement : it suffers from none of the penury which chilled the parents' blood, it is not frozen by the cold shade of its own bourgeois aristocracy ; the produce, there- fore, already born more delicate, gracieuses, and " ladylike,'"' because of a more nervous temperament, have their tempers better in hand and become more susceptible of civilization.

You easily learn after a few days the peculiar aspect of the " camp" man. He is not military, but from the country ; " camp" being one of the many curious Anglicisms for campo, the pampa or prairie, opposed to the city. Similarly