32 



TOWN OF BUENOS AIRES. 



The town is furnished with provisions by the 

 Gauchos in a manner that shews a great want of 

 attention to those arrangements which are generally 

 met with in civilized communities. Milk, eggs, 

 fruit, vegetables, and beef are brought into the town 

 by individuals at a gallop and they are only to be 

 had when they choose to bring them. The articles 

 of life are brought together without due arrange- 

 ment, and the consequence is, that (excepting beef) 

 they are dearer than in London, and sometimes 

 are not to be had at all. I happened to leave 

 Buenos Aires just as the fig-season was over, and 

 though it was the middle of summer, no fruit was 

 to be had : the towns-people seemed to be quite satis- 



* One of the most striking pictures in and near Buenos Aires 

 is the young Gaucho who brings milk. The milk is carried in 

 six or eight large earthen bottles, which hang on each side of 

 the saddle. There is seldom room for the boy's legs, and he 

 therefore generally turns his feet up behind him on the saddle, 

 and sits like a frog. One meets these boys in squads of four or 

 five, and the manner in which they gallop in their red cloth 

 caps, with their scarlet ponchos flying behind them, has a singu- 

 lar appearance. The butchers' shops are covered carts, which 

 are not very agreeable objects. The beef, mangled in a most 

 shocking manner, is swinging about; and I have constantly seen 

 a large piece tied by a strip of hide to the tail of the carl, and 

 dragged along the ground, with a dog trying to tear it. 



