Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/214



184 A GLANCE AT BUENOS AIRES.

the Betlilemite Convent^ which after the extinction of its community was turned^ in 1827, to some nse. Being far too crowded, plans for enlarging it start up in crops, the Protestants would willingly have a " finger in the pie/^ but the Reformed house is divided against itself, English and Anglo-Americans, and in short too many interests are in- volved in the matter. The ground is crushed by heavy tasteless masses of masonry, tents, sentry boxes, naval columns, truncated pillars, crosses, crucifixes, groups of statuary, and the normal paraphernalia of Christian piety. The poorly cleaned surface abounds in hemlock (cicuta) and rank grasses : after a few years the bones are exhumed and thrown into a corner hole. These young peoples should be innovators â€” why do they not try first of all things pronounced it, I believe, too expensive for England, but here surely a large blast furnace constructed on the most modern scientific principles would be economical enough. During the present war attempts were made to burn the dead in piles from 50 to 100, disposed in layers alter- nately with wood. The burly Brazilian Negro com- plained that the Paraguayan enemy was too lean to catch fire.
 * ^ cremation ?" A Committee of the House of Commons

We have now done the city : we have dined at the Cafe de Paris, we have seen the Grand Opera, remain only the Alcazar, and the humours of a Progreso Ball.

The former is the great resource for bachelors who do not admire the private concert, the tertulia, the teafight, the quiet rubber. There are neither lecture rooms nor literary meetings in the self-styled '^ Athens of South America.^^ Let us remember that we have at home a city which, with equal impudence, claims a title which none should dare to bear. At the same time the proportion of libraries to billiard-rooms is 1 to 100, and of libraries to