Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/208



178 A GLANCE AT BUENOS AIRES.

It was proposed to abolish this mean and semi-barbarous monument in favour of a handsome modern fountain ; the authorities and the people rejected the idea, as though it had been a studied insult â€” a profanity.

On the northern side of the Plaza is the reformed cathe- dral, which comprises in itself a dozen absurdities, wanting only its former belfries. The fa9ade is classical, with pedi- ment, alt- reliefs, and portico distinguished by peculiar vile- ness of intercolumniation. The dome over the high altar is mediaeval, pepper-castor, and Dutch-tiled like a dairy turned inside out. The highly finished front is at best '* un faux temple antique /* and the general aspect is rather that of a Bourse, of a home of Mammon than of a place of prayer. The rear is unfinished and bald, with bricks which await the plasterer. Inside there is nothing to admire save the size, 270 feet by 70, and the stern republican plainness of the sepulchral white walls. From the dome base, if you do not object to ladders with iron rungs, there is a good bird^s-eye view of the city, not equal however to that seen from the summit of the Colon Theatre, or from the steeple of S. Miguel. As at Monte Video, a bit of decent pave- ment, cut stone from Martin Garcia, fronts the cathedral; it was proposed as a model for the rest of the streets, but the tremendous efi'ort exhausted the projectors.

On the east of the tall pile is a neat palazzo of Palladian pretensions, the Archiepiscopal. Instead of leaving such matters to private selection, the Federal Governments of 1853 and 1861 unhappily adopted a national religion, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Holy Roman. Hence the Keve- rcndissimo, an evil shoot from the Old World grafted upon a NeV World tree. By the palace side is the eyesore usual in this country, and many others, the ugly contrast of a hovel with a mean, weed-grown, dingy-tiled roof. This specimen, perhaps the oldest of the last century's ground-