Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/199



A DAY AT BUENOS AIRKS. 109

thickset, bilioso-nervous, with beetle brows and high nar- rowing forehead, evidently the man of observation ; the latter, nervous-bilious, thin, delicate, and highly developed in the coronal region, is the man of reflection. This will often think without facts : that will not reflect upon what he perceives and learns. President Sarmiento is essentially matter-of-fact, studious, and prosaic; he is the male tem- perament pure and simple. President Mitre is imaginative, instinctive, and of markedly poetic nature â€” in fact, the feminine blended with the masculine type. The former is a heaven-born Democrat par excellence, a sturdy popular magistrate, fond of work, careless of enjoyment, whose enemies deride him as a ^^ Gaucho -" the latter, fond of pleasure, play, and women, is by nature an aristocrat whom Fate has made a republican, and whose foes declare him to be an intriguer. Both speak with tolerable fluency, as all the neo- Spaniards do, but their oratory is at once known by their physique.

We dined the dinner of 1860 at the Cafe de Paris, Calle San Martin, where the " best people" feed. Such esta- blishments are more or less common in the Argentine Confederation^ and on the Pacific coast, but this is the only one which has the least claim to respect. It has upper story " particular cabinets" for private dinners ; the public eating-room, with its eight looking-glasses and never a window, is cleaner than any of the clubs. It produces some dishes which might please in Europe : the Peje-rey fish, boiled for breakfast, is more delicate than the Goujon, and enjoyable as whitebait at a later hour. On the other hand, the prices are treble those of the Parisian Cafe Anglais, the

others the Argentine Confederation. The latter word has a grim and dolorous sound in the ears of the Unitarian party, who yet are thorough votaries of States' rights.
 * Addressing President Sarmiento I call it the Argentine Eepublic, to