In Monte Video, accommodation for travellers is naturally very limited, principally owing to the disorganized state of the city for so many years. Still, there are some tolerably good hotels, and a fair number of cafés and restaurants. At Buenos Ayres hotels are numerous, and so far as my experience extended, the charges are by no means extravagant, as will be sufficiently proved by a perusal of my bill of costs presented to me on leaving the Hotel de Paris, where I remained some ten days, retaining my apartments, though absent up the river nearly half the time:—
Bedroom and sitting-room 210 Breakfasts 20 Dinners and wine 130 Lights 11 ---- 370 Waiters and chambermaid 50 ---- 420 ---- Or about 5 guineas.
There are also plenty of good lodging and boarding-houses, several of them kept by English and other foreign residents; and the increase to this kind of accommodation appears to be only limited by the demand.
Departure from Monte Video.—Moonlight on the La Plata.—Deficiency of landing accommodation at Buenos Ayres.—Streets and buildings of the Argentine capital.—The climate and the people.—Prohibition of the slave trade.—General Whitelock, the Calle de Defensa, and Colonel Thompson.—Expedition against Monte Video.—Palermo, the country residence of General Rosas.—Characters of the dictator and his successor, Urquiza.—Donna Manueleta.—Argentine confederation.—Government of General Rosas.—War on the Plata and the Parana.—Foreign intervention and capture of Rosas’ fleet.—Blockade of Buenos Ayres and ascent of the Parana.—The pass of Obligado.—Intervention of Brazil, and passage of the Uruguay by Urquiza.—Capitulation of General Oribe.—Battle of Moron, and fall of Rosas.—Fluvial obstructions to trade and navigation.—Buenos Ayrean washerwomen.—English residents, their churches and newspaper, hotels and boarding-houses.—Anglo intermarriages.—Railway projects.—A word on the Buenos Ayrean constitution.—A South American debate.—Society in Buenos Ayres.—The Opera-house, and its galaxy of beauty.—Foreign shopkeepers and Irish servants.—General Paz.
[Illustration: BUENOS AYRES FROM THE AÇOTEA OR, TERRACE OF THE QUINTA.]