The next halt is at a place of importance, one of the chief features, in fact, of the Far North. Tacuarembo numbers a population of almost eight thousand, which, although the figure may not impress the outer world, renders the spot something of an urban giant in the neighbourhood. As though to compensate for its lack of imposing buildings, Tacuarembo is exceedingly picturesque. With its avenues of tall trees, and its houses peering everywhere from beneath the shade of an unusual richness of vegetation, the place is sufficiently delightful and striking in its own fashion.
The station itself gives the keynote to the aspects of the place. Within half a dozen yards of where the white steam goes hissing upwards from the engine the green young peaches hang in thick clusters from their branches. To their side is a hedge of blossoming roses that continues until the flowery architecture changes abruptly to a wall of golden honeysuckle. At the rear of this, surrounding the outer yard of the place, are poplars and eucalyptus, while the heavy scent of the purple paraiso-tree overpowers the fainter colours of the mimosa.
A dozen or so of the local "coches" are waiting in the shade of all these and in that of the vines that clamber upwards by their side. They are crude affairs, whose lack of paint and polish is more than counteracted by the dictatorial attitudes of the brigand-like drivers who lounge at ease upon the boxes. It must be admitted that the manners of these latter are far less formidable than their appearance. Indeed, they smile far more graciously than the corresponding metropolitan tyrants of South America as they drive off one by one, bearing away their patrons beneath the shady avenues.
The majority of folk, however, remain for some while to chat together, since in these parts the railway station is an accepted centre of sociability. The queer medley of the crowd possesses its own charm. A group of officers in dark uniforms and red kepis rub shoulders with Gauchos and peones in dark clothes and black or blue _bombachos_. Beyond is a knot of women in the homely and loose costume of the district, bare-headed, and with hair drawn tightly back to be wound into a plain knot at the back of the head. An elaborate dandy, dressed ostentatiously in the favourite black from head to foot, is extracting a few centavos from the pockets of his shining velvet waistcoat with which to endow a couple of dissolute-looking beggars who have drawn near.
