448 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



with loftier and more sumptuous houses, no longer modelled on the old Andalusian 

 type. 



But since Buenos Ayres has fallen into the hands of the contractors and 

 builders, it has begun to assume more and more the composite and commonplace 

 aspect of most other modern capitals. Except brick and sand, the soil of the 

 district yields none of the materials employed in the construction and embellish- 

 ment of its buildings. The banks vie with each other in the display of imported 

 marbles and metals, and the two English banks are really fine structures, which 

 would be an ornament to any city. Granite and mica schists come from the 

 island of Martin Garcia ; the marbles from Italy ; the flagstones of the side-paths 

 and courts are brought b}^ Euglish A'essels; the lime is prepared on the banks of 

 Uruguay and Parana rivers ; the ordinary timber is felled in Norway and Canada» 

 while Brazil and Paraguay forward the costly cabinet woods, and France most of 

 the furniture, bronzes and mirrors. 



The chief monuments are concentrated near the shore on the spot where 

 Juan de Garay erected his first humble habitations. The Casa Rosada, now the 

 Government palace, near the custom house, was the old viceregal fort, often 

 restored and entirely rebuilt towards the close of the sixteenth century. Close 

 by the Mayo or Victoria Square is lined by the palace of Congress, the Town 

 Hall, Exchange, Colon Theatre and the Cathedral, with its ambitious peristyle 

 of Corinthian columns. At this central quarter begins the still unfinished 

 Boulevard de Mayo, a spacious thoroughfare which is to intersect the Callao 

 Boulevard in the ceutre of the city. ISeax the Mayo Square is also situated the 

 great terminal station, whence radiate most of the lines of the Argentine railway 

 system. 



All nationalities have their representatives in Buenos Ayres, the great 

 " crucible " in which the Argentine nation is being ground and amalgamated. 

 In this Babel of races and languages the natives are not even in a majority, and 

 in 1892 they constituted no more than a fifth of all the citizens. At that time 

 the Italians were twice as numerous, and in some quarters little is heard except 

 the Genoese, Neapolitan, or other Italian dialects. 



Buenos Ayres cannot be called a healthy city, and although the birth-rate 

 exceeds that of some large European capitals, the mortality is also very high, over 

 24 per thousand in 1891. The new drainage sj'stem had not been begun before 

 the two great epidemics of cholera in 18Û7 and yellow fever in 1871, the former 

 of which carried off 15,000, the latter as many as 26,000 victims. The works, 

 which have already cost £6,000,000, are still far from complete, four-fifths of 

 the bouses not having yet been connected with the main sewer 16 miles long, 

 which discharges into the estuar}" near Quiimes, east of the city. The water 

 supply is obtained about a mile above Belgrano from a part of the estuary which, 

 though quite fresh, is charged with sediment. The water is conveyed by a tunnel 

 nearly four miles long to the reservoirs of La Recoleta, just north of the city. 

 But the daily supply, about 15,000,000 gallons, is inadequate, and in 1893 as 

 many as 10,000 out of 40,000 houses were still without water from this source. 



