Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/207



A GLANCE AT BUENOS AIRES. 177

parade^ but I never saw more than two companies at a time. Here also " pronouncements '^ are prepared. On Sunday, Marcli 28_, 1869, it was proposed at an indignation meeting to pull down the office of the Tribuna, the Thun- derer of Argentine land having taken, or having been sup- posed to take, undue license in the matter of Provincial elections. The guard was called away from the police- office, all the prisoners at once broke jail, and thus the affair terminated to general satisfaction.

The centre of the square sustains an obelisk some forty feet high, of plastered brick, waiting to be made marble. On the top, in Masaniello cap, stands Republican Liberty, spear in hand, the point of attraction for a system of gas- cocks, whose tubes running up the angles become useful when the National Anniversary calls for illumination. At that epoch also the monument is whitewashed till glaring as a bride-cake ; but the coating does not endure for a year ; many a rent discloses the petticoat, and the aspect is distinctly shabby. The inscription is ^' 25 de Mayo, 1810 /' this, I have said, is the date of the Revolution, and the birthday of Argentine independence. Each face bears the blazon of the Republic, two bare arms shaking hands as if before a prize-fight, under the shadow of a (red) foolscap which takes a pole to carry it, the sun looking on compla- cently from above as though he were bottleholder. Around the monument are mustered four statues strongly suggestive of New Road art. This obelisk is the most ridiculous of obe- lisks save one, I mean that in the Phaynix Park, Dublin, concerning which a malignant wrote, â€”

" 'Tis a polylithic obelisk that monolith should be, A needle insignificant of silly masonry :

You upclimb its steps with toil, you descend them with a will, With Sifacilis descensus that men briefly call a * spill :'

Scatter'd o'er its faces four Arthur's victories you view, And the only one omitted from the list is Waterloo."

12