Life in La Plata 225 



employ the services of a cochero to drive me out through 

 the city and its immediate suburbs, setting me down at a 

 given point, to which he received instructions to return 

 several hours afterwards, and from which he brought 

 me back to the Observatory. Once I went to Ensenada, 

 cutting across the fields ; once I took a long stroll north- 

 ward in the direction of Buenos Aires, and a number of 

 times I walked out to the south and the west of the city. 

 It was a pleasure to escape from paved streets, to feel 

 under foot the green sod of the country roads, to observe 

 the growing things, in which the pulses of springtime 

 were asserting themselves, to listen to the voices of 

 nature, overhead the sky, ' that shameless blue sky, ' 

 which Signer Negri said he loathed, but which always 

 seemed beautiful to me, and which did not always 

 retain its blue tint, being sometimes overcast with the 

 clouds of an approaching storm or sometimes in the 

 evening just before sunset breaking into a veritable 

 riot of color. 



In my rambles about La Plata I was struck by the 

 fact that many of the plants by the roadsides and in 

 the fields were old acquaintances. The same process 

 which has gone on in the United States is going on here. 

 As European weeds have taken possession of the whole 

 Atlantic seaboard in North America, so they are taking 

 possession of the littoral of Argentina. Seventy-five 

 years ago Charles Darwin called attention to the fact 

 that the European fennel had escaped from cultivation, 

 and noted that 'in great profusion' it covered "the 

 ditch-banks in the neighborhood of Buenos Aires, 

 Montevideo, and other towns.' 1 It certainly has not 

 ceased to propagate itself since his day and is every- 

 where in evidence. Darwin also called attention to the 

 abundance of the cardoon (Cynara cardnnculus) and 

 15 



