W. H. Koebel

The surroundings of the capital—Pleasant resorts—The Prado—A well-endowed park—ColÓn—Aspects of the suburbs—Some charming quintas—A wealth of flowers and vegetation—European and tropical blossoms side by side—Orchards and their fruits—The cottages of the peasants—An itinerant merchant—School-children—Methods of education in Uruguay—The choice of a career—Equestrian pupils—The tramway route—Aspect of the village of ColÓn—Imposing eucalyptus avenues—A country of blue gum—Some characteristics of the place—Flowers and trees—Country houses—The Tea Garden Restaurant—Meals amidst pleasant surrounding—An enterprising establishment—Lunch and its reward—PoÇitos and Ramirez—Bathing-places of the Atlantic—Blue waters compared with yellow—Sand and rock—Villa del Cerro—The steam ferry across the bay—A town of mixed buildings—Dwelling-places and their materials—The ubiquitous football—Aspects of the Cerro—Turf and rock—A picturesque fort—Panorama from the summit of the hill—The guardian of the river mouth—The last and the first of the mountains.

The Uruguayan's appreciation of pleasant Nature is made abundantly clear in the surroundings of the capital. The city, as a matter of fact, is set about with quite an exceptional number of pleasant resorts both inland and upon the shore. Of the former the Prado park and the pleasure suburb of ColÓn are the best known. The Prado is reached within half an hour from the centre of the city by means of tramway-car. Situated on the outskirts of the town, the park is very large and genuinely beautiful. Groves of trees shading grassy slopes, beds of flowers glowing by the sides of ponds and small lakes, walks, drives, and sheltered seats—the place possesses all these commendable attributes, and many beyond.

The Montevidean is very proud of the Prado, and he has sufficient reason for his pride. He has taken a portion of the rolling country, and has made of the mounds and hills the fairest garden imaginable. The place would be remarkable if for nothing more than the great variety and number of its trees, both Northern and subtropical. But here this fine collection forms merely the background for the less lofty palms, bamboos, and all the host of the quainter growths, to say nothing of the flowering shrubs and the land and water blossoms. One may roam for miles in and out of the Prado vegetation, only to find that it continues to present fresh aspects and beauties all the while.

The expedition to ColÓn is a slightly more serious one, since, the spot being situated some eight miles from the centre of the town, the journey by tramcar occupies an hour or so. As much that is typical of the outskirts of Montevideo is revealed by the excursion, it may be as well to describe it with some detail.

It is only when once fairly launched upon a journey of the kind that the true extent of Montevideo and the length of its plane-shaded avenues proper become evident. Nevertheless, as the car mounts and dips with the undulation of the land, the unbroken streets of houses come to an end at length, giving way to the first quintas—the villas set within their own grounds. The aspect of these alone would suffice to convince the passing stranger of the real wealth of the capital. Of all styles of architecture, from that of the bungalow to the more intricate structure of many pinnacles and eaves, many of them are extremely imposing in size and luxurious to a degree. A moral to the new-comer in Montevideo should certainly be: Own a quinta in the suburbs; or, if you cannot, get to know the owner of a quinta in the suburbs, and stay with him!

But if you would see these surroundings of Montevideo at their very best, it is necessary to journey there in October—the October of the Southern hemisphere, when the sap of the plants is rising to counterbalance its fall in the North. The quintas then are positive haunts of delight—nothing less. Their frontiers are frequently marked by blossoming may, honeysuckle, and rose-hedges, while bougainvillÆa, wistaria, and countless other creepers blaze from the walls of the houses themselves.

As for the gardens, they have overflowed into an ordered riot of flower. The most favoured nooks of Madeira, the Midi of France, and Portugal would find it hard to hold their own in the matter of blossoms with this far Southern land. Undoubtedly, one of the most fascinating features here is the mingling of the hardy and homely plants with the exotic. Thus great banks of sweet-scented stock will spread themselves beneath the broad-leaved palms, while the bamboo spears will prick up lightly by the ivy-covered trunk of a Northern tree—a tree whose parasite is to be marked and cherished, for ivy is, in general, as rare in South America as holly, to say nothing of plum-pudding, though it is abundant here. Spreading bushes of lilac mingle their scent with the magnolia, orange, myrtle, and mimosa, until the crowded air seems almost to throb beneath the simultaneous weight of the odours. Then down upon the ground, again, are periwinkles, pansies, and marigolds, rubbing petals with arum-lilies, carnations, hedges of pink geranium, clumps of tree-marguerites, and wide borders of cineraria. From time to time the suggestions of the North are strangely compelling. Thus, when the heavy flower-cones of the horse-chestnut stand out boldly next to the snow-white circles of the elder-tree, with a grove of oaks as a background, it is with something akin to a shock that the succeeding clumps of paraiso and eucalyptus-trees, and the fleshy leaves of the aloe and prickly-pear bring the traveller back to reality and the land of warm sunshine.

But it is time to make an end to this long list of mere growths and blossoms. The others must be left to the imagination, from the green fig-bulbs to the peach-blossom and guelder-roses. Let it suffice to say that a number of these gardens are many acres in extent, and that you may distribute all these flowers—and the far larger number that remain unchronicled—in any order that you will.

As the open country appears in the wider gaps left between the remoter quintas, and the space between the halting-places of the tram is correspondingly lengthened, the speed of a car becomes accelerated to a marked degree. The cottages that now appear at intervals at the side of the road are trim and spotlessly white. They are, almost without exception, shaded by the native ombÚ-tree, and are surrounded with trelliswork of vines and with fig-trees, while near by are fields of broad beans and the extensive vineyards of commerce.

Along the road a rider is proceeding leisurely, a large wooden pannier jutting out from either side of his saddle. This bulky gear, that lends such a swollen appearance to the advancing combination of man and horse, denotes a travelling merchant of humble status. What he carries within the pair of boxes there is no outward evidence to tell. Their contents may be anything from vegetables or chickens to scissors, knives, or sweetstuffs. Since, however, he has now drawn rein by the side of one of the white cottages, his wares almost certainly do not comprise the first two, for the market for such lies within Montevideo proper. By the time, however, that the lids of the panniers have been raised and the bargaining has commenced the car has sped far onwards, and has dropped him from sight. Thus the business of the travelling merchant—like that of the majority of passers-by—remains but half understood.

But here, at all events, comes a group of riders of another kind, whose purpose is clear. Half a dozen small boys and bareheaded girls, mounted upon disproportionately tall ponies, are jogging along on their way to school. Uruguay prides itself, with no little reason, upon the efficiency of its system of education, and the humblest hut now sends forth its human mites to absorb the three R's and to be instilled with patriotically optimistic versions of their country's past. These rudiments mastered, they need not necessarily halt in their scholastic career, since, according to the laws of the land, a professorship is open eventually to the most lowly student who persists for sufficient time. And Uruguay is undoubtedly a nest of opportunities. An embryo statesman or learned doctor may be represented by each of the urchins who are now plodding onwards with serious intent through the dust!

In the meanwhile the car has won its way fairly out into the open country, always green, smiling, and thickly shot with the pink of peach-blossoms. The rails have now drawn well away from the centre of the road, and are separated from the actual highway by a grassy space. Stirred by the importance of possessing a track all to itself, the car is undoubtedly aspiring to the rank of a railway train, and goes rushing at a really formidable pace upon its verdure-embedded lines. Swaying over the shoulders of the land, past plantations, lanes, and hedges, it plunges onwards in grim earnest to the terminus of the line at ColÓn itself.

The actual village of ColÓn gives little indication of the nature of the district. The railway-station, shops, and houses are all pleasantly situated, it is true, and the restaurants and pleasure-gardens are unusually numerous. The attractions of the place, however, lie well outside the central nucleus of buildings. From this some remarkably imposing eucalyptus avenues lead outwards into the favourite haunts of the Montevidean when on pleasure bent.

Undoubtedly the most salient feature of ColÓn is the eucalyptus. Indeed, the place primarily consists of mile upon mile of these stately avenues, fringed by blue gums of an immense size. Bordering these magnificent highways, that cross each other at right angles, are country houses here and there that are reproductions of those in the suburbs of Montevideo. In between the avenues, again, are clumps and small forests of eucalyptus, whose tops soar high up in tremendously lofty waves, that enclose vineyards, peach-orchards, and olive-tree plantations.

Here and there are lanes walled in by mounting hedges of honeysuckle and rose, while many of the private grounds are guarded by the impassable lines of aloe. Add to this basis all the other trees, shrubs, and flowers that have already been passed on the outward journey, and you have the main attributes of ColÓn.

EUCALYPTUS AVENUE: COLÓN.

To face p. 166.