W. H. Koebel

Leaving Montevideo—General aspects of the Campo—The Rio Negro as a line of demarcation—Growing exuberance of the scenery—Flor morala—Blue lupin—Camp flowers—A sparsely populated countryside—Absence of homesteads—A soft landscape—Humble ranchos—Cattle and horses—Iguanas and ostriches—Deer—Cardoso—Influence of climate and marriage upon the colonists—A cheese-making centre—A country of table-lands—A Campo load—Some characteristics of the way—A group of riders—Some contrasts—A country of rocks—Stone walls—Crude homesteads—Kerosene tins as building material—"Camp" stations—The carpets of blossom—Piedra Sola—Tambores—Landscape and nomenclature—Increase in the height of the table-lands—Scenes at a country station—Aspects of the inhabitants—Some matters of complexion—The train and its transformation—Influence of the country upon the carriages—Northern passengers—Metropolitan and local costume—Some questions of clothes and figure—Relations between mistresses and maids—Democratic households—A patriarchal atmosphere—Things as they seem, and as they are—Conversation no guide to profession.

A journey from south to north through the heart of Uruguay reveals an infinitely greater variety of landscape and humanity than is suspected by the dwellers in the better known littoral districts of the land. It is true that for the purpose the employment of the homely and convenient railway train is essential. Although it has been my good fortune to drive for day after day and for league upon league through lesser areas of the Uruguayan Campo, to cover such a lengthy stretch as this by means of coach and horses is only possible for him who can afford the supreme luxury of ignoring time.

The first portion of the journey, moreover, although far from wearisome in the circumstances, is effected across a landscape almost every league of which presents the exact replica of its neighbours. Once clear of the woods, fields, vineyards, orchards, and flowers that lie so pleasantly to the landward side of Montevideo, the rolling grass waves of the Campo come to stretch themselves from horizon to horizon, rising and dipping with a ceaseless regularity of sweep until it becomes difficult to believe that the entire world itself is not composed of these smiling folds of land.

It is not until nearly three hundred kilometres have been traversed, and the train has rumbled over the long bridge that spans the Rio Negro that the first symptoms of a changing scenery become evident. The undulations have become less regular, and the hill-tops are soaring higher into the sky-line. Indeed, the tendency throughout is towards an exuberance that has been hitherto lacking. Thus not only the outbreaks of stone that scar the hill-faces at intervals are bolder in character now, but the wealth of field flowers, too, has grown in extent and brilliance.

A broad, glowing bank of the purple flor morala lines the railway track on either hand, pricking across the landscape in twin unbroken bands of colour. Where the loftier flower ceases, the red, white, and mauve of the verbena clings closely to the turf. At longer intervals sprout clumps of blue lupin blossom, while the white mallows, harebells, and tobacco flowers lurk thickly in between the groves of thistle, and large yellow marguerites and daisies mingle with a variegated host of blooms.

The countryside is as sparsely populated as elsewhere. League upon league of the great rolling sweeps of the land spread their panorama unflecked by a single homestead. So far as the mere picturesque is concerned, the result is admirable. The soft, dreamy landscape is at its very best when unburdened by human habitation. Yet in such cases the picturesque becomes a luxury won at the expense of the practical. Undoubtedly from the green background of the pastures should shine out the white walls of estancia-houses and ranchos. The time is now probably near enough when such will actually be the case; but in the meanwhile the land waits in complacent patience, sprouting out its grassy covering with contemptuous ease.

Yet it must not be imagined that the landscape, however lonely, is altogether deserted. Now and then may be discerned the clump of trees that stand out like islands from the sea to shelter the dwellings of the owners of these great areas of soil. At long intervals, too, springs up a hedge of tall cactus that flanks the humble rancho, whose tin roof, as often as not, is held down in its place by means of small boulders—a feature of architecture that recalls the chÂlets of Switzerland, although it is certain enough that the respective buildings have nothing else in common.

Here and there graze the dumb supporters of the homesteads—herds of cattle, troops of horses, and flocks of sheep. These districts of the centre have not yet attained to the standard of breeding that characterises the lands that fringe the great rivers to the south and west. Thus, the cattle, although sufficiently fat and sleek, lack the finish of the more aristocratic Hereford. Shaggy of coat, long of horn, and exhibiting an utter lack of restraint in the strangely varied colour scheme of their bodies, they are essentially of the criollo, or native, order.

In the neighbourhood of these licensed occupiers of the pastures are others whose existence is more precarious. These are hares who race away at the advent of a train, and iguanas whose long tails stream behind them as they depart in a flurry. As for the ostriches, they have obviously come to the conclusion that their life is too short and their neck too long for any excitement of the kind. They are plainly bored by the advent of this noisy invention of man, and regard it languidly from the height of the two long legs that repose in a supercilious attitude.

On through the undulating Campo, where the rain pools lie like dew ponds upon an English South Down, and where the banks of the intermittent streams of the caÑadas thread in and out of the green grass for all the world like the bodies of black snakes. A company of deer are feeding peacefully in the distance, intermingled with the bulky members of a herd of cattle with whom the wild creatures have condescended to associate for the time being.

The train has pulled up at Cardoso now, the centre of a district that is considerably more populous than the majority. The place was once the site of a German colony, and indeed the sole reasons why it does not remain so to this day must be laid at the doors of climate, surroundings, intermarriage, and the influence of all three. As it is, chastened by the all-powerful atmosphere of the spot, Teutonic features, customs, and language have already become modified almost to the extinction of the original type.

The phenomenon affords only one more of the innumerable instances of the tremendous power of absorption that is latent in the South American continent. In contrast to the mutability of all things intrinsically human, the industry of the community remains the same as when the first colonists, strangers and foreigners, introduced it to the spot. Cheese-making is still the staple trade of Cardoso, and the district is not a little famed for the art.

This particular neighbourhood, however, is to be noted for something of more enduring importance than cheese. It is here, indeed, that the soil of the land, after many tentative swellings, each more ambitious than the last, takes upon itself to change its outline in a determined and conclusive fashion. The universal, gentle swell of the undulations has given way to steeper walls of green surmounted by curiously level, flat surfaces. Thus the face of the Campo is now dotted, so far as the eye can reach, with a collection of table-lands, each separate and differing slightly from the rest in the details of its pattern, but each marvellously distinct and clearly cut. The feature is characteristic of central northern Uruguay, and is continued well beyond the frontier into Brazil.

Obeying the sociable instinct that so frequently links the railway line with the highway in these parts of the world, the main road runs close alongside the locomotive track. Where it goes the dark, rich soil gleams moistly in every dip, and each cup in the land holds its pool, for heavy rains have preceded the brilliant sunshine of the day.

For many leagues the broad surface of the way has been broken by nothing beyond the inevitable attributes of such thoroughfares—the occasional pathetic heap that stands for the dead body of a horse or cow, or the bleaching framework of bones that gleam out sharply after the vultures' and caranchos' feast. But here at length comes a body of riders, half a dozen Gauchos, enveloped in ponchos of various patterns, who are pricking onwards at the easy canter that renders the conquest of any space whatever a question of mere time.

Thudding over the hill-tops, splashing through the mud-holes below, the progress of the grim, silent centaurs is as inevitable and certain as the presence of the knives at their belts or the matÉ-bowl slung by the saddles. Then the train has sped ahead, dragging after it a world of its own as remote from the atmosphere that surrounds the six diminishing horsemen as is the clank of the engine from the light jingling of the silvered bridles.

The crop of stone upon the land has become more prolific. The rock has come to adorn the sides of the table-lands more especially, breaking out with precision at the spot where each slope of the green eminences starts out abruptly from the level, after which it continues, unbroken, to the summit. The material, however, has been made to serve for purposes of utility, and here and there are corrals and walls of loosely piled stones, a novel sight to one who is working his way upwards from the south.

The scarce ranchos, however, continue on much the same pattern that has characterised them throughout the journey. The crudeness of many of these is scarcely to be excelled in any part of the world. To imagine an edifice composed of the lids and sides of kerosene tins, roofed and finished off at the odd corners by straggling tufts of reed, is to picture the abode of by no means the most humble settler.

One or two are embellished, it is true, by a rough trellis work from which the vine-leaves hang thickly, while others are decorated by nothing beyond a variety of multi-coloured garments that hang out in the sunshine to dry. Clustered together, the modest homesteads would appear sordid and mean. As it is, the open solitudes of which each stands as the human centre lend it a certain dignity that is not in the least concerned with the pattern of the structure itself.

The train has halted at a couple of small "Camp" stations, and has puffed onwards again, leaving the respective brick buildings, with their scatter of outhouses, to sink back into the lethargy that the passenger train disturbs but for a few minutes every other day. In the neighbourhood of Achar, the latter of these halts, the surrounding country has broken out into an exceptional blaze of flower. The purple of the flor morala stains hillsides entire; the scarlet verbena glows in spreading patches that from a distance might well be mistaken for poppy-fields, while all about are other flower carpets of yellow, blue, and white.

The wealth of blossom continues unbroken as far as Piedra Sola, or Solitary Stone—a spot aptly named from a curious square block of rock that reposes upon the top of a mound in so monumental a fashion that it is difficult to believe that it is the work of Nature rather than of human beings—and beyond it, adorning a country that grows ever bolder until Tambores is reached.

All the attributes in these primitive parts savour of Nature and of its simplicity. The very nomenclature is affected by this influence. Thus no historical significance is to be looked for in the name of Tambores—drums. The origin of the word lies in the surrounding table-lands that have grown loftier and more accentuated here than their brethren to the south, and whose shape resembles not a little the instruments of war.

Tambores is a place of comparative importance. It is true that no architectural beauties are to be looked for at the spot, since the quaint collection of edifices that are scattered in the neighbourhood of the station are almost without exception the tin and reed structures common to the district. Such rare exceptions as exist, moreover, hold out merely minor claims to aristocracy in the shape of an entire sheet or two of corrugated iron. Yet these modest precincts guard a really important cattle and wool centre, and even now many hundreds of bales are lying in readiness in their wagons, while cattle stamp impatiently in the trucks that will bear them southwards to Montevideo.

Passing to and fro by the honeysuckle hedge that flanks the platform is a motley collection of folk. The majority of the men are in sad-coloured ponchos, and in bombachos that frequent staining has imbued with an earthy hue. In addition to the railway officials, beshawled women, children, dogs, and hens complete the gathering. A feature that is especially noticeable here is the number of dusky complexions that have come to assert themselves in the midst of the fresh-coloured Uruguayan faces. Quite distinct from the swarthiness of the Indian, the tint here savours undoubtedly of the African. It becomes, moreover, steadily more marked as the Brazilian frontier is approached.

Indeed, the evidence of variety is everywhere. Even the conventional aspect of the train itself and of its passengers has undergone no little alteration since the start. As it pulled out from Montevideo the train was undoubtedly a model of its kind that took no little pride in its well-ordered level line of day coaches, and sleeping and restaurant cars.

Once well out into the country, however, the democratic influence of the land has overcome its patrician make-up. A passenger coach or two has dropped away at one station; some trucks and goods-vans have been added at another, until its appearance has become as heterogeneous as that of a Uruguayan volunteer soldier in a revolution. In fact, the farther from the capital it gets and the nearer to its destination, the more nÉgligÉ and doubtless practical does its appearance become. Like to a man who starts out for a walk on a hot summer's day, it is metaphorically trudging along bareheaded, with its coat slung over its shoulder.

In the case of the passengers the same may be said without the apology of metaphor. It is in the occupants of the first-class coaches that the transformation is most evident. Many of the men remain in at least portions of the same clothes of metropolitan cut that served them in Montevideo. But ponchos have now been brought out and donned to hide what lies beneath—ponchos of fine texture, these, that stand quite apart from the meaner drapings of the peon, but nevertheless essentially national and of the land.

As for the women, the few who have remained constant to the train since the beginning of the journey remain in much the same trim as when they first entered the carriage. The persistence may be due to the vanity that is alleged by man to be inherent in woman, or merely to the laudable desire of giving the country cousin an object-lesson in costume.

It must be admitted that the garments of these latter tend to comfort somewhat at the expense of appearances. The loosest of blouses, wraps, and skirts are wont to make up a figure in which a waist may at times be suspected, and even occasionally hoped for, but is never seen. Decidedly the procedure savours of rigid honesty on the part of the country cousin. For frankly to promise nothing is surely more admirable than the transient advertisement achieved by the manufacture of merely temporary space in the position rightfully sought for by superfluous material.

Many of these country ladies with the honest and unaccentuated figures are accompanied by their maids, these latter for the most part negresses. The bond between mistress and maid is very close here. Indeed, in Northern Uruguay such episodes as a "month's warning," a demand for an extra "night out," the right to "followers," and all other similar bones of contention that arise in more populous centres between employer and employed are unknown.

Here the maid, whether she be negress, mottled, or white, obtains an assured, if minor, footing in the family circle. Not only her love affairs but her appetite will call forth the ready sympathy of her mistress. Seated together, their meals will be shared in common, as indeed is occurring in the case of sandwiches and wine in the railway carriage even now. To complete the patriarchial atmosphere, the railway guard has joined one of the groups in question in order to assist, purely platonically, at the impromptu meal, and his manner is equally courteous towards seÑora and maid.

It is certain that he who travels in the remoter parts must put aside all preconceived notions of degree and appearances. Close by is seated a group of young men who are discussing the opera in Montevideo with critical fervour. After a while the conversation, as is inevitable, turns upon politics, and the arguments and views are bandied to and fro with the eloquence common to the race.

But there is original philosophy here, whether sound or otherwise. Schemes for alleviating the lot of the humble worker follow hard upon the heels of topics of municipal reform, parliamentary procedure, and the vexed and intricate question of where the Uruguayan-Argentine frontier floats in the broad dividing river. The phrases are wonderfully apt, the proposals astonishingly daring. During a pause in the political discussion one of the debaters explains his own walk in life. He is a jeweller's assistant. Another is head waiter in a Montevidean hotel. These products of the land are undoubtedly bewildering. Each has been talking like a prime minister.