Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/218



188 A GLANCE AT BUENOS AIRES.

attache shows his inevitable liveliness, or when some model Britisher shuffles off his usually inevitable phlegm.

If I have written in this letter anything to offend Buenos Aires or the Buenos Aireans, you will, I am sure, allow me to withdraw it and to beg pardon. Amongst the thousand places which store my cabinet of memory there is none that stands more favourably than the Platine capital. The peculiar heartiness with which all, Argentines as well as foreigners, receive the traveller ; the friendliness with which he is admitted to their homes and made free of their insti- tutions ; and their anxiety to gratify his wishes; to cicerone him ; to forward his pursuits ; in fact, to make him happy as well as comfortable, are not to be equalled in any city that I have yet visited. We are apt to take these things at the time as matters of course. Perhaps we are often vain enough to assume them the tribute paid to our remarkable merits. But all this falls away when we have leisure to reflect â€” to look back â€” and modestly to recognise the real benevolence and politeness which prompt the gratifying reception. The weeks that I passed at Buenos Aires will ever be remembered by me with that pleasure with which on a wintry day we recall to mind the sweet savour of perfumed spring. Con que â€” Adios.