The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise. Fraser John Foster

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СКАЧАТЬ cars jingling along them, vehicles are allowed to journey only one way. To reach a shop by carriage it is sometimes necessary to drive along three and a half sides of a block of buildings. Funny little policemen, brown faced, blue clad, and with white gaiters and white wands, direct the traffic. In the Florida – the Bond Street of "B.A." – all wheeled traffic is prohibited between the hours of four and seven in the afternoon, so that shoppers may have an easier way.

      Most of the streets are called after Argentine provinces, or neighbouring republics, or national heroes, or some politician or rich man who can influence the authorities. When a popular man has lost his popularity the remnant of his fame is obliterated by the street called after him being named after someone else. It is as though the Government at home decided to change Victoria Street, Westminster, into the Avenida Asquith, with the prospect of its being altered later on to the Calle Bonar Law.

      Wide plazas decorate the city. Vegetation is luxuriant, and statues are numerous. The Plaza Mayo is not called after an Irish peer, but after the month of May, 1810. The shops are as big as those in London. Argentina manufactures practically nothing, and all the lovely things have to be imported from Europe. The hotels are imitations of those in Paris. The restaurants are on a par with the best we have in London. A Viennese band plays whilst you have Russian caviare and the waiter is asking your choice in champagne. But everything is expensive. A man needs three times the salary in Buenos Aires to live the same way he would live in London. If you calculate exchange rates you go mad. It is best to count the peso (1s. 8d.) as a shilling, and then remember that you are spending your shilling in South America, where things are dear. You can get a modest luncheon for 10s.; but you will pay 2s. for a bottle of beer, and 3s. 6d. for a cigar worth smoking.

      Yet nobody minds. Immense sums are being spent on improving the city. It is built on the American T-square plan. But it is to be subjected to the plan of Haussmann, with great tree-girt avenues radiating diagonally from the Plaza Mayo. An underground railway, honeycombing beneath the town, is in rapid construction. The railways have a great suburban traffic, and are being electrified. There are British colonies at Belgrano and Hurlingham, and you have a choice of three golf courses. In the summer months – December, January, and February – there is river life on the Tigre, the Thames of the Argentine. A charming spot is Palermo, a combination of Hyde Park and the Bois de Boulogne – open sweeps and charming trees, a double boulevard with statues and commemorative marbles in the middle, well-cared-for gardens, radiant flowers and the band playing.

      A drive through Palermo at the fashionable hour causes one to gasp at the thought that one is six thousand miles from Europe. Nowhere in the world have I seen such a display of expensive motor-cars, thousands of them. Ostentation is one of the stars of life in the Argentine. Appearances count for everything. You must have a motor-car, even though you have not the money to pay for it, and you owe the landlord of your flat a year's rent. The ladies are exquisitely gowned, but they have not the vivacity of the French women nor their daring in dress. There is a demureness, a restraint which reminds one that the atmosphere of far-away Castile is still upon them.

      On Sundays and Thursdays there are races at Palermo. The price Argentines pay for horseflesh has become a proverb. It is a good race-course. We have nothing in England, neither at Epsom, Ascot, nor Goodwood, so magnificent as the grand stand. It is a glorified royal box. The restaurant is like the Ritz dining-room. Everybody dresses as they would at Ascot. There are no bookmakers. The totalisator is used. Betting is officially conducted by the Jockey Club, and there is constant announcement of the amount of money put on the horses. Those who have backed the winners share the spoil, less ten per cent. As this ten per cent. is deducted from the total amount put on each race, the income of the Jockey Club runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. So the Club maintains a good race-course, offers capital prizes, has a house in "B.A." – undoubtedly the most palatial club-house in the southern world – and distributes the remainder amongst the hospitals. The income of the Jockey Club is so large it is really embarrassing. The members are proceeding to build an Aladdin's palace of super-gorgeousness.

      But at the races at Palermo I noticed that no ladies attended, except in the members' enclosure. Even there they did not mingle with the men-folk. There was no mirth, such as we are used to in Europe. They kept themselves to little groups. Moving from wonder to wonder, I was present at a gala performance at the Colon Theatre. I have seen all the great theatres in the world, and this is the loveliest – a harmony of rose and gold. The audience was as fashionably dressed as at the opera in London, though I missed the dazzling display of diamonds which had been promised. Most of the audience were ladies; there were boxes of them, and most of the men were in the stalls. There was one gallery reserved for women.

      I began to discern a strange Orientalism in the relations between the sexes. The Argentine women are amongst the best mothers in the world. But there is practically none of the good fellowship between young fellows and young girls which is so happy a feature of our English life. For a man and a woman to take a walk together would shock the proprieties. There are brilliant receptions, but dinner parties, as we know them, are rare. An Argentine seldom introduces a friend to his wife. Except amongst the poorest a woman scarcely ever goes into the streets alone. If she does she runs risk of being insulted. There are Argentines, who would be offended if refused the name of gentlemen, who think it excellent sport to walk in the Florida in the evening and mutter obscenities to every unprotected woman who passes. Buenos Aires is the most immoral city in the world. So the Argentine guards his women-folk from contact with other men. His attitude is a relic of the days when the Moors had possession of Spain.

      I have called Buenos Aires a pagan city. So it is. The men are frankly irreligious. In conversation I have been told of the tolerance to all religions. What is really meant is indifference to any religion.

      Money-making and flamboyant display – these are the gods which are worshipped. The houses in the wealthier districts are exotic in architecture. I remember driving along the Avenida Alvear, a street of palaces, reminiscent of the Grand Canal at Venice if it were a roadway. But the fine stone blocks are nothing but stucco. The ornamentation, the floral decorations, are not carved stone; they are stucco. Imitation, pretence, showiness, the flaunting of wealth, are everywhere.

      Yet this city, which has grown in a generation on the muddy flats by the side of the muddy Parana River, has something that is weird in its fascination.

      CHAPTER III

      ROUND AND ABOUT THE CAPITAL

      The way not to see a city is to be trotted round and shown all the "sights." I have an idea I may have missed some of the "sights" of Buenos Aires. I did not "do" the churches. Acquaintances who knew I went to South America to pursue my trade of writer sometimes asked me what I was going to write about, and the reply was, "I do not know." But I was not believed.

      Anyway, I may say that I drifted about "B.A." I presented my letters of introduction, made friends, lunched out and dined out, had motor trips, went here and there as suggestion provided the inclination; maybe to a theatre, or to smoke a cigar in one of the clubs with men who are of account in Argentina or no account at all, or to spend a Sunday with an Argentine family; maybe to idle an hour in one of the cafés; maybe to have a serious talk with a Minister; maybe do nothing but idle round. That is no scientific way to study a city. But it just happens to be my way.

      The conclusions I draw may be wrong, for I may have met the wrong people and seen the wrong things, especially as I had no system. Yet out of the confused jumble of impressions and experiences something coherent evolves, and that is the substance of my remarks when I am asked, "Well, what do you think about Buenos Aires?"

      It is not my wish to accentuate the point, but open-handed extravagance is one of the traits of the people. It is a fault of democratic countries that, having no aristocracy of birth, they proceed to create one of wealth. Argentina has fine old Spanish families; but, though esteemed, they are in the background. In the wrangle-jangle of frenzied progress they are not to be counted amongst the moderns. So garish is the СКАЧАТЬ