Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/189



A DAY AT BUENOS AIRES. 159

number of rooms suiting a city with treble the population which he allows to it.^

We step upon the Paseo de Julio, a mixture of Marine Parade and Wapping, badly paved and poorly lighted ; this is the city front, now backed by a couple of handsome houses, but mostly by low inns, foundries, cafes, and es- taminets, shops, stores, and sailors^ haunts, where those amiable beings love to growl, grumble, and knag one another, as only the uneducated classes of England can do ; to drink, curse, and fight, occasionally sallying out with foot or fist â€” foreign Jack prefers the knife â€” upon the sober, whose sobriety outrages their sensitive feelings. At one time here was an Alameda, which Dictator Rosas proposed prolonging as far as his country palace Palermo ; the break- water and railing, however, were swept away by a gale in 1861, and unfortunately there is now no Rosas to rebuild them.

Sunday is here a crowded day, and the length of your purse determines which of three ways you choose for passing it. Lack-coin discontentedly lounges about the Paseo and the Muelle. Little-money rides the tailor's ride on a hack horse to Palermo or Belgrano. Dives sleeps the Saturday night at his Quinta out of town, or runs down by the Northern Railway to S. Fernando, S. Isidro (summer quarters), or the Tigre. He then idles away the day, visits, perhaps boats, and returns home plenus Bacchi.

the capital of Tucuman, and the old Jesuit novitiate and university. The census of 1858 gave 55,000 natives. The following is the statistic census of the city taken till 1869 :â€”
 * In 1717 Buenos Aires had only 400 houses, the same as Cordoba,

Cuadras, 658 (447 corresponding to 329 manzanas or blocks) ; houses, 13,116; rooms, 64,670; inhabitants, 72,972; annual rental, 1,333,517Z. Results: each cuadra averages 40 houses, 197 rooms, 222 souls ; the annual rent is 4000Z. ; it must, however, be observed that in making this calculation houses occupied by their owners, and forming a large proportion of the city, are not included.